The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people
#35501
Don Miguel Ruiz
#35513
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Miguel Ángel Ruiz Macías , better known as Don Miguel Ruiz, is a Mexican author of Toltec spiritual and neoshamanistic texts. His work is best-received among members of the New Thought movement that focuses on ancient teachings as a means to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Ruiz is listed as one of the Watkins 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People in 2018. Some have associated Ruiz's work with Carlos Castaneda, author of The Teachings of Don Juan.
Go to Profile#35502
Makoto Fukami
#35514
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Makoto Fukami is a Japanese manga artist, novelist, and screenwriter. He started writing manga in 1999 and since has had multiple of his series adapted into other media. In addition to manga, he also did screenwriting for Psycho-Pass and its first film Psycho-Pass: The Movie in 2012 and 2015 respectively, both of which have been well received.
Go to Profile#35503
Henry Cohn
#35515
Overall Influence
Henry Cohn is an American mathematician. He is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and an adjunct professor at MIT. In collaboration with Abhinav Kumar, Stephen D. Miller, Danylo Radchenko, and Maryna Viazovska, he solved the sphere packing problem in 24 dimensions.
Go to Profile#35504
Eli Vakil
#35516
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Eli Vakil is an Israeli clinical neuropsychologist. He is a professor emeritus and former departmental chairman of the Department of Psychology, and the head of the Memory and Amnesia Lab at the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar Ilan University. He is also director of the Rehabilitation Center for Veterans after Traumatic Brain-Injury in Jaffa, Israel.
Go to Profile#35505
Federica Mogherini
#35517
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Federica Mogherini is an Italian politician who served as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission from 2014 to 2019. She previously served as Italy's Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation from February 2014 to October 2014, in the centre-left Renzi Cabinet. She was a Member of the Chamber of Deputies from 2008 to 2014. In 2020 she was appointed rector of the College of Europe, a post-graduate university for European studies in Bruges and Natolin .
Go to Profile#35506
Lansana Conté
#35518
Overall Influence
1934 - 2008 (74 years)
Lansana Conté was a Guinean politician and military official who served as the second president of Guinea, from 3 April 1984 until his death on 22 December 2008. Conté came to power in the 1984 Guinean coup d'état.
Go to Profile#35507
Stella Adler
#35519
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Stella Adler was an American actress and acting teacher. A member of Yiddish Theater's Adler dynasty, Adler began acting at a young age. She shifted to producing, directing, and teaching, founding the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City in 1949. Later in life she taught part time in Los Angeles, with the assistance of her protégée, actress Joanne Linville, who continued to teach Adler's technique.
Go to Profile#35508
Edwin T. Mertz
#35520
Overall Influence
1909 - 1999 (90 years)
Edwin Theodore Mertz was an American chemist and biochemist. Mertz was noted for co-discovery of high-lysine corn which significantly increased protein levels in corn and beans. Life and career 1909 born in Missoula, Montana1931 B.A with a double major in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Montana1933 M.S. from the University of Illinois, Urbana1935 Ph.D. from the University of Illinois1935-1937 a research biochemist at Armour and Company in Chicago1937-1938 an instructor in biochemistry at the University of Illinois1937 married Mary Ellen Ruskamp1938-1940 a research associate...
Go to Profile#35509
Rodrigo Medellín
#35521
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Rodrigo A. Medellín is a Mexican ecologist and Senior Professor of Ecology at the Institute of Ecology, University of Mexico . Known for his work in bat, jaguar, bighorn sheep and other species conservation, his research has always been designed and conducted to advice conservation policy and conservation decision-making processes in Mexico and 16 other countries for over 40 years.
Go to Profile#35510
Kenny Omega
#35522
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Tyson Smith , better known by the ring name Kenny Omega, is a Canadian-born professional wrestler. He performs in All Elite Wrestling , where he is also an executive vice president. Before joining AEW in 2019, Omega was known for his tenure in New Japan Pro-Wrestling from 2014 to 2019, during which he held the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship, as well as other titles. A member and one-time leader of the Bullet Club stable, he incorporates elements from video games in his persona. Throughout his career, Omega has also performed as part of independent p...
Go to Profile#35511
Paul-André Crépeau
#35523
Overall Influence
1926 - 2011 (85 years)
Paul-André Crépeau, was a Canadian legal academic who led the reforms of the Civil Code of Quebec and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. Born in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan, he studied philosophy at the University of Ottawa. He received his legal education from the Université de Montréal. He attended University College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1950. In 1955 he received a Doctor of Law from the University of Paris. From 1974 to 1984, he was the director of the Institute of Comparative Law at McGill University. In 1975, he founded the Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law, and served as its Director until 1996.
Go to Profile#35512
Tory Lanez
#35524
Overall Influence
1992 - Present (34 years)
Daystar Shemuel Shua Peterson , known professionally as Tory Lanez, is a Canadian rapper, singer, and songwriter. He received initial recognition from the mixtape Conflicts of My Soul: The 416 Story, released in August 2013. In 2015, Tory Lanez signed to record producer Benny Blanco's Mad Love Records, an imprint of Interscope Records.
Go to Profile#35513
Roy Williams
#35525
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Roy Samuel Williams is a British playwright. Early life Williams was born in Fulham, London, and brought up in Notting Hill, the youngest of four siblings in a single-parent home, with his mother working as a nurse after his father moved to the United States. Williams decided to work in theatre after being tutored by the writer Don Kinch when he was failing in school and attended some rehearsals in a black theatrical company that Kinch ran. After leaving school at the age of 18, Williams did various jobs, including working in McDonald's and in a props warehouse. In 1992, he took a theatre-wri...
Go to Profile#35514
Liesbeth Zegveld
#35526
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Liesbeth Zegveld is a Dutch lawyer, legal expert and professor. Education and career Zegveld was born in Ridderkerk and grew up on the island of Goeree-Overflakkee in South Holland, the Netherlands. After her law studies at Utrecht University she obtained a doctoral degree cum laude in 2000. She received several awards for her doctoral thesis Accountability of Armed Opposition Groups in International Law.
Go to Profile#35515
Richard Hadlee
#35527
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Sir Richard John Hadlee is a New Zealand former cricketer. Hadlee is widely regarded as one of the greatest all-rounders in cricket history, and amongst the very finest fast bowlers. Hadlee was appointed an MBE in the 1980 Queen's Birthday Honours List and knighted in the 1990 Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to cricket. He is a former chairman of the New Zealand board of selectors. In December 2002, he was chosen by Wisden as the second greatest Test bowler of all time. In March 2009, Hadlee was commemorated as one of the Twelve Local Heroes, and a bronze bust of him was unveiled...
Go to Profile#35516
Walter McAfee
#35528
Overall Influence
1914 - 1995 (81 years)
Walter Samuel McAfee was an American scientist and astronomer, notable for participating in the world's first lunar radar echo experiments with Project Diana. Personal life McAfee was born in Ore City, Texas to African-American parents Luther F. McAfee and Susie A. Johnson; he was the second of their nine children. At three months old, the family moved to Marshall, Texas, where McAfee would grow up and attend undergraduate school. He graduated high school in Marshall in 1930, and later noted that his high school physics and chemistry teacher, Freeman Prince Hodge, was a great influence of his.
Go to Profile#35517
Bette Korber
#35529
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bette Korber is an American computational biologist focusing on the molecular biology and population genetics of the HIV virus that causes infection and eventually AIDS. She has contributed heavily to efforts to obtain an effective HIV vaccine. She created a database at Los Alamos National Laboratory that has enabled her to design novel mosaic HIV vaccines, one of which is currently in human testing in Africa. The database contains thousands of HIV genome sequences and related data.
Go to Profile#35518
Nicanor Tiongson
#35530
Overall Influence
Nicanor G. Tiongson is a critic, creative writer and academic from the Philippines. He holds a Bachelor of Humanities degree from the Ateneo de Manila University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines. A founding member of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, Tiongson is currently Professor Emeritus of Film and Audio-visual Communication at the College of Mass Communication in U.P. Diliman.
Go to Profile#35519
Boris Podrecca
#35531
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Boris Podrecca is a Slovene-Italian architect and urban designer living in Vienna, Austria. Podrecca is considered by some critics a pioneer of postmodernism. With some of his early works, such as the neuro-physiological institute at Stahremberg Palace , he took a new, more tolerant attitude towards historical architectural forms.
Go to Profile#35520
Mick Mulvaney
#35532
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
John Michael "Mick" Mulvaney is an American politician who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget from February 2017 until March 2020, and as acting White House Chief of Staff from January 2019 until March 2020. Prior to his appointments to the Trump administration, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Go to Profile#35521
Warren Gish
#35533
Overall Influence
Warren Richard Gish is the owner of Advanced Biocomputing LLC. He joined Washington University in St. Louis as a junior faculty member in 1994, and was a Research Associate Professor of Genetics from 2002 to 2007.
Go to Profile#35522
Tomio Kubota
#35534
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Tomio Kubota was a Japanese mathematician working in number theory. His contributions include works on p-adic L functions and real-analytic automorphic forms. His work on p-adic L-functions, later recognised as an aspect of Iwasawa theory, was done jointly with Leopoldt.
Go to Profile#35523
Doug Stokes
#35535
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Doug Stokes is a British academic who is Professor in International Security and Strategy in the Department of Politics at the University of Exeter. He was born in 1972 in Hackney, East London. His father was a gardener and sign writer and his mother was a cleaner and secretary. He was educated in London inner city state schools and left home at 17, and Hackney when 25.
Go to Profile#35524
Norman Johnson
#35536
Overall Influence
1930 - 2017 (87 years)
Norman Woodason Johnson was a mathematician at Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts. Early life and education Norman Johnson was born on in Chicago. His father had a bookstore and published a local newspaper.
Go to Profile#35525
Claudio Reyna
#35537
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Claudio Alejandro Reyna is an American former professional soccer player and former executive. He most recently served as sporting director of Austin FC. A former midfielder, he spent most of his professional career in Europe, playing in the Bundesliga for Bayer Leverkusen and VfL Wolfsburg, the Premier League for Sunderland and Manchester City, and in the Scottish Premier League for Rangers. He finished his career in 2008 for New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer, where he was team captain.
Go to Profile#35526
Brad Keselowski
#35538
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Bradley Aaron Keselowski is an American professional stock car racing driver, team owner, and entrepreneur. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 6 Ford Mustang Dark Horse for RFK Racing, a team he also co-owns. He was the owner of Brad Keselowski Racing, which fielded two full-time trucks in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.
Go to Profile#35527
Anna Lembke
#35539
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Anna Lembke is an American psychiatrist who is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University. She is a specialist in the opioid epidemic in the United States, and the author of Drug Dealer, MD, How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop. Her latest book, a New York Times bestseller, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, was released in August 2021.
Go to Profile#35528
Desmond G. Higgins
#35540
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Desmond Gerard Higgins is a Professor of Bioinformatics at University College Dublin, widely known for CLUSTAL, a series of computer programs for performing multiple sequence alignment. According to Nature, Higgins' papers describing CLUSTAL are among the top ten most highly cited scientific papers of all time.
Go to Profile#35529
Daisuke Matsuzaka
#35541
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Daisuke Matsuzaka is a Japanese former professional baseball pitcher, who pitched professionally for 23 seasons, 16 of them in NPB, 7 in MLB. He is currently a baseball color commentator, critic, reporter, and YouTuber. Daisuke is nicknamed "the Monster of the Heisei Era" in Japan and "Dice-K" in the United States by The Boston Globe and USA Today. He played for the Boston Red Sox and New York Mets of Major League Baseball and the Saitama Seibu Lions, Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks and Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball .
Go to Profile#35530
Ronald J. Bacigal
#35542
Overall Influence
Ronald J. Bacigal is an American legal scholar and professor of law at the University of Richmond School of Law. He is "nationally recognized as one of the leading scholars of Fourth Amendment Law." Bacigal graduated from Concord University and Washington and Lee University School of Law. In addition, he spent time at The Hague as a Fulbright Scholar. Professor Bacigal has taught at Richmond since 1971 and has been a professor since 1973. He is the reporter for criminal law decisions of the Court of Appeals of Virginia.
Go to Profile#35531
Giulia Sissa
#35543
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Giulia Sissa is an Italian classical scholar and historian of philosophy. She is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Classics at UCLA. The majority of her works deal specifically with the role of women in the Ancient Mediterranean.
Go to Profile#35532
Mauro Carbone
#35544
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Mauro Carbone is an Italian philosopher. Since 2009, he has been a full professor at the Faculté de Philosophie of the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in Lyon, France. From 2012 to 2017, he has been a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.
Go to Profile#35533
Randy Quaid
#35545
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Randy Randall Rudy Quaid is an American actor known for his roles in both serious drama and light comedy. He was nominated for an Academy Award, BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award for his role in The Last Detail in 1973. In 1978 he co-starred as a prisoner in Midnight Express. Quaid also won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in LBJ: The Early Years .
Go to Profile#35534
Steve Cotterill
#35546
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Stephen John Cotterill is an English former footballer who played as a striker. He was most recently the manager of EFL League One side Shrewsbury Town. Cotterill had a nine-year career as a footballer playing for Burton Albion, Wimbledon, Brighton & Hove Albion and AFC Bournemouth before deciding to take up football management. He began with Irish side Sligo Rovers and after a year he returned to England and took over at his home town club, Cheltenham Town. He did well at Whaddon Road guiding the club from the sixth tier to the third in five years. His success at Cheltenham led to Stoke Cit...
Go to Profile#35535
Ennio Candotti
#35547
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ennio Candotti is a Brazilian physicist and scientific leader. He studied physics at the University of São Paulo, in São Paulo, from 1960 to 1964, and also at the University of Naples, in Naples, Italy . From 1966 to 1968 he specialized in theoretical physics at the University of Pisa , in mathematical physics at the University of Munich, in Munich, Germany and in dynamic systems at the University of Naples again.
Go to Profile#35536
Mengchu Zhou
#35548
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Mengchu Zhou is a Chinese Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Helen and John C. Hartmann Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology and at Macau University of Science and Technology. He is the Chairman of IKAS Industries of Shenzhen in China and a Board Member of OneSmart Education Group headquartered in China.
Go to Profile#35537
William H. T. Bush
#35549
Overall Influence
1938 - 2018 (80 years)
William Henry Trotter Bush, CStJ was an American banker and businessman. A scion of the Bush family, he was the youngest son of US Senator Prescott Sheldon Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush, the youngest brother of former President George H. W. Bush, and an uncle of former President George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
Go to Profile#35538
Rosa von Praunheim
#35550
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky , known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films . His works influenced the development of LGBTQ+ rights movements worldwide.
Go to Profile#35539
Chuck Knox
#35551
Overall Influence
1932 - 2018 (86 years)
Charles Robert Knox was an American football coach at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. He served as head coach of three National Football League teams, the Los Angeles Rams , Buffalo Bills , and Seattle Seahawks . He was a three-time AP NFL Coach of the Year and is a member of the Seahawks Ring of Honor.
Go to Profile#35540
Jon Stewart
#35552
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Jon Bartley Stewart is an American philosopher and historian of philosophy. He specializes in 19th century Continental philosophy with an emphasis on the thought of Kierkegaard and Hegel. Stewart works as a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#35541
Mark Price
#35553
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
William Mark Price is an American former basketball player and coach. He was most recently the head coach of the Charlotte 49ers. As a player, he played for 12 seasons in the National Basketball Association , from 1986 to 1998. Spending the majority of his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers, his last three years consisted of one season each with the Washington Bullets, Golden State Warriors, and Orlando Magic.
Go to Profile#35542
Andrew Bruce Holmes
#35554
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Andrew Bruce Holmes is an Australian and British senior research chemist and professor at the Bio21 Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and the past President of the Australian Academy of Science. His research interests lie in the synthesis of biologically-active natural products and optoelectronic polymers .
Go to Profile#35543
Antonio María Javierre Ortas
#35555
Overall Influence
1921 - 2007 (86 years)
Antonio María Javierre Ortas S.D.B. was a cardinal of the Catholic Church, and former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the Vatican. Javierre Ortas was born in Siétamo, Spain. He was ordained in 1949 and took his doctorate in theology in Louvain. For many years he lectured in fundamental theology and dogmatics in places such as Turin, Rome, Peru, Guatemala and Poland. During the Second Vatican Council he was a spokesman for the Spanish bishops in ecumenical questions.
Go to Profile#35544
A. K. Shiva Kumar
#35556
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
A. K. Shiva Kumar , is a development economist, policy advisor, and evaluator, who has over the past 40 years, taught economics, undertaken evaluations, conducted research and policy analysis, worked closely with governments, international agencies, and civil society organisations to advocate for changes in public policy and legislation. He teaches various courses at Harvard University, Indian School of Business, BITS School of Management, Young India Fellowship, S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research and Ashoka University. He is a board member of the Global Partnership to End Violenc...
Go to Profile#35545
Son Heung-min
#35557
Overall Influence
1993 - Present (33 years)
Son Heung-min is a South Korean professional footballer who plays as a forward for and captains both Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the South Korea national team. Considered one of the best players in the world and widely regarded as the greatest Asian footballer of all time, he is known for his explosive speed, finishing, two-footedness and ability to link play.
Go to Profile#35546
Michael Drew
#35558
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Michael Drew is a professor emeritus of chemistry at the University of Reading. He used to hold the position of head of physical chemistry. His main area of study centres on computational chemistry. External links
Go to Profile#35547
R. V. Young
#35559
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Robert V. Young, Jr. is a professor of Renaissance Literature and Literary Criticism in the English Department of North Carolina State University, co-founder and co-editor of the John Donne Journal, and author of multiple books and articles primarily related to the study of literature. He became the editor of the conservative quarterly Modern Age in 2007.
Go to Profile#35548
Igor Mel'čuk
#35560
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Igor Aleksandrovič Mel'čuk, sometimes Melchuk is a Soviet and Canadian linguist, a retired professor at the Department of Linguistics and Translation, Université de Montréal. Biography He graduated from the Moscow State University's Philological department and worked from 1956 till 1976 for the Institute of Linguistics in Moscow. He is known as one of the developers of Meaning–text theory with the seminal book published in 1974. He is also the author of Cours de morphologie générale in 5 volumes.
Go to Profile#35549
Immortal Technique
#35561
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Felipe Andres Coronel , better known by the stage name Immortal Technique, is an American rapper and activist. Most of his lyrics focus on controversial issues in global politics, from a radical left-wing perspective.
Go to Profile#35550
Brian Leetch
#35562
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Brian Joseph Leetch is an American former professional ice hockey defenseman who played 18 National Hockey League seasonss with the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Boston Bruins. He has been called one of the top defensemen in NHL history.
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