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
#35801
Caroline Kennedy
#35813
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is an American author, attorney, and diplomat serving as the United States ambassador to Australia since 2022. Kennedy previously served in the Obama administration as the United States ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017. She is a member of the Kennedy family as well as the only surviving child of US president John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Go to Profile#35802
Edward Dmytryk
#35814
Overall Influence
1908 - 1999 (91 years)
Edward Dmytryk was a Canadian-born American film director and editor. He was known for his 1940s noir films and received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for Crossfire . In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who refused to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee in their investigations during the McCarthy-era Red Scare. They all served time in prison for contempt of Congress. In 1951, however, Dmytryk testified to the HUAC and named individuals, including Arnold Manoff, whose careers were then destroyed for many years, to rehabilitate his own career.
Go to Profile#35803
Ralf J. Sommer
#35815
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ralf Josef Sommer is a German biologist specializing in evolutionary developmental biology. Scientific career Sommer studied biology at the RWTH Aachen University, at the University of Tübingen and at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich where he obtained his Diplom degree in 1989 and earned his Ph.D. in the lab of Diethard Tautz on a study of the evolution of segmentation genes in insects in 1992. His work was one of the first molecular studies in the field of evolutionary developmental biology , a discipline that started its revival in the late 1980s and early 1990s. From 1993-1995 he was a Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Go to Profile#35804
Jules Angst
#35816
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Jules Angst is a Swiss academic who is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Zurich University in Zurich, Switzerland, and Honorary Doctor of Heidelberg University in Heidelberg, Germany. Early life Angst was born in Zurich, where he also grew up. He completed his medical and psychiatric training in Zurich under his mentor, Professor Manfred Bleuler . From 1969 to 1994, Jules Angst was Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in the University of Zurich Medical School and Head of the Research Department of Zurich University Psychiatric Hospital .
Go to Profile#35805
Nathan H. Lents
#35817
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Nathan H. Lents is an American scientist, author, and university professor. He has been on the faculty of John Jay College since 2006 and is currently the director of the Cell and Molecular Biology program and the former head of the honors program and the campus Macaulay Honors College program. Lents is noted for his work in cell biology, genetics, and forensic science, as well as his popular science writing and blogging on the evolution of human biology and behavior. Lents is also a visiting faculty member at the University of Lincoln in the UK and a fellow with the Committee for Skeptical In...
Go to Profile#35806
Jerome Hall
#35818
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Jerome Hall was an American legal scholar and academic. He is best known for his pioneering work in interdisciplinary legal analysis. Through his work with the United States Department of State, he offered advice and insight to several countries across the globe as they rewrote some or all of their legal codes.
Go to Profile#35807
James Neuberger
#35819
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
James Max Neuberger is a consultant physician, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, part of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, and professor of medicine at the University of Birmingham. He is one of the editors of the journal Transplantation and is Associate Medical Director of NHS Blood and Transplant.
Go to Profile#35808
Claudia Wiesemann
#35820
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Claudia Wiesemann is a German medical ethicist and medical historian. She is full professor and head of the Department of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine at Göttingen University Medical Center. Being a member of the German Ethics Council since 2012, she was elected Deputy Chair in 2016.
Go to Profile#35809
Richard C. Mulligan
#35821
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Richard C. Mulligan is an American scientist who is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, the Director of the Harvard Gene Therapy Initiative and a visiting scientist at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also the head of SanaX at Sana Biotechnology.
Go to Profile#35810
George Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen
#35822
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
George Islay MacNeill Robertson, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, , is a British politician of the Labour Party who was the 10th Secretary General of NATO from 1999 to 2003; he succeeded Javier Solana. He was Secretary of State for Defence from 1997 to 1999, before becoming a life peer as Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, of Islay in Argyll and Bute, on 24 August 1999.
Go to Profile#35811
Courtney Milan
#35823
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Courtney Milan, a pseudonym for Heidi Bond, is a bestselling American author of historical and contemporary romance novels. After releasing her first few books under a traditional publishing contract, Milan has self-published more recent works.
Go to Profile#35812
Langdon Gilkey
#35824
Overall Influence
1919 - 2004 (85 years)
Langdon Brown Gilkey was an American Protestant ecumenical theologian. Early life and education A grandson of Clarence Talmadge Brown, the first Protestant minister to gather a congregation in Salt Lake City, Gilkey grew up in Hyde Park, Chicago. His father Charles Whitney Gilkey was a liberal theologian and the first Dean of the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel; his mother was Geraldine Gunsaulus Brown who was a well known feminist and leader of the YWCA.
Go to Profile#35813
Peter Brimblecombe
#35825
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Peter Brimblecombe is an Australian-born, British atmospheric chemist, currently emeritus professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of East Anglia and National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. In a five-decade research career, he has written or co-authored seven books and around 350 peer-reviewed papers on air pollution and its effects on human health and the environment, but is probably best known as the author of The Big Smoke, which has been described as a definitive history of air pollution.
Go to Profile#35814
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
#35826
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#35815
Robert Torricelli
#35827
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Robert Guy Torricelli is an American attorney and former politician. A Democrat, Torricelli served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey's 9th district from 1983 to 1997 and as a United States senator from New Jersey from 1997 to 2003.
Go to Profile#35816
Philip Majerus
#35828
Overall Influence
1936 - 2016 (80 years)
Philip Warren Majerus was an American biochemist who confirmed the cardiovascular benefits of aspirin. After graduating from medical school and completing a residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Majerus conducted research at the National Heart Institute before becoming a faculty member at the Washington University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#35817
Joseph A. McCahery
#35829
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Joseph Aloysius McCahery is an American academic researcher, corporate lawyer and institutional adviser. McCahery is most notable for his contribution in corporate finance and law, European business law, financial markets and banking regulations, the political economy of federalism and taxation.
Go to Profile#35818
Brendan Simms
#35830
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Brendan Peter Simms is a Professor of the history of international relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. Early life Brendan Simms is the son of Anngret and David Simms, a professor of mathematics. He is also a grand-nephew of Brian Goold-Verschoyle, a member of the Communist Party of Ireland, who became a Soviet spy and died in a Soviet gulag in 1942.
Go to Profile#35819
Walter A. McDougall
#35831
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Walter Allen McDougall is an American historian, currently a professor of history and the Alloy-Ansin Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania. McDougall graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College and fought in Vietnam before completing his Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 1974. He was a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution, and a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. He also received an Earhart Foundation Fellowship. He was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley for 13 years before moving to Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#35820
M. Shamsher Ali
#35832
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Muhammad Shamsher Ali is a former president of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences, former vice-chancellor of Southeast University and former founder vice-chancellor of Bangladesh Open University. Early life and education Shamsher Ali was born in Bheramara, Kushtia, Bangladesh, to parents from Shingia, Jessore.
Go to Profile#35821
Philippe Maurice
#35833
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Philippe Maurice was a French criminal sentenced to death by the French courts in 1980 and then pardoned. His death sentence was the last confirmed by the courts. While imprisoned he became a historian and now specialises in medieval history.
Go to Profile#35822
Curtis Doebbler
#35834
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Curtis F.J. Doebbler is an international human rights lawyer who since 1988 has been representing individuals before international human rights bodies in Africa, Europe, the Americas and before United Nations bodies. He is also an American lawyer authorized to practice before the courts of the District of Columbia. and in the State of Texas and several federal courts in the United States, including the Supreme Court of the United States.
Go to Profile#35823
Greg Hampikian
#35835
Overall Influence
Greg Hampikian is an American biologist and the founder and director of the Idaho Innocence Project. He is considered one of the foremost forensic DNA experts in the United States. Hampikian assisted in the establishment of various forensic evidence projects such as the Georgia Innocence Project, the Irish Innocence Project, and the Innocence Project France. He is currently a professor in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Criminal Justice at Boise State University. Hampikian is a DNA Expert on the Georgia Innocence Project Board. Hampikian is a New York Times contributing columnist w...
Go to Profile#35824
Shel Talmy
#35836
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Sheldon Talmy is an American record producer, songwriter and arranger, best known for his work in the UK in the 1960s with the Who, the Kinks and many others. Talmy arranged and produced hits such as "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, "My Generation" by the Who, and "Friday on My Mind" by the Easybeats. He also played guitar or percussion on some of his productions.
Go to Profile#35825
Maarja Kruusmaa
#35837
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Maarja Kruusmaa is an Estonian computer scientist, professor at Tallinn University of Technology, vice-rector for research and head of the biorobotics center at that university. Her main research area is bio-inspired underwater robotics to imitate the movements of fish and turtles.
Go to Profile#35826
Sheila Jeffreys
#35838
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Sheila Jeffreys is a former professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, born in England. A lesbian feminist scholar, she analyses the history and politics of human sexuality. Jeffreys' argument that the "sexual revolution" on men's terms contributed less to women's freedom than to their continued oppression has both commanded respect and attracted intense criticism. She argues that women suffering pain in pursuit of beauty is a form of submission to patriarchal sadism; that transgender people reproduce oppressive gender roles and mutilate their bodies through sex reassignme...
Go to Profile#35827
Kasey Kahne
#35839
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Kasey Kenneth Kahne is an American dirt track racing driver and former professional stock car racing driver. He last competed in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in 2018, driving the No. 95 Dumont Jets/Procore Technologies Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Leavine Family Racing. Currently, Kahne competes in the World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, driving the No. 9 sprint car for his own team, Kasey Kahne Racing.
Go to Profile#35828
Wei-Kan Chu
#35840
Overall Influence
Wei-Kan Chu is an American physicist, an expert in ion beam interaction with solid, currently the Cullen University Professor and distinguished university professor at the University of Houston and an Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Go to Profile#35829
Fariba Adelkhah
#35841
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Fariba Adelkhah is a French-Iranian anthropologist and academic at Sciences Po who was detained in Iran from 2019 until 2023. Early life and career Born in Tehran, Adelkhah studied in France, first at Université Strasbourg II and then at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. In 1990, she obtained a "very honourable" mention for her Ph.D. thesis on women in Iran, "an anthropological approach of post-revolutionary Iran: the case of Islamic women" , with Jean-Pierre Digard as her advisor. Since 2004, she has been a Research Director at the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques.
Go to Profile#35830
Susan Hirsch
#35842
Overall Influence
Susan F. Hirsch is a legal anthropologist whose work has specialized in the study of legal language. She is a professor of conflict resolution and anthropology at George Mason University, where she holds the Vernon M. and Minnie I. Lynch Chair in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution.
Go to Profile#35831
Humphrey Nwosu
#35843
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Professor Humphrey Nwosu . He was chairman of the National Electoral Commission appointed by President Ibrahim Babangida. An office he held from 1989 to 1993. Birth and early career Nwosu was born on 2 October 1941. He became a professor of political science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He served in the cabinet of Samson Omeruah, governor of the old Anambra State, where he helped traditional rulers to gain staffs of office, receive salaries and settled intra and inter community land disputes. He also served as chairman of a Federal Technical Committee on the application of Civil Service Reforms in the local government service.
Go to Profile#35832
Robert C. Lieberman
#35844
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Robert C. Lieberman is an American political scientist and the former provost of the Johns Hopkins University. A scholar of American political development, Lieberman focuses primarily on race and politics and the American welfare state.
Go to Profile#35833
Steven Reed
#35845
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Steven Robert Reed is a political scientist and Professor of Modern Government in the Faculty of Policy Studies at Chuo University in Tokyo. He has held positions at the University of Alabama and Harvard University, and he has served as a Visiting Professor at Stanford University, University of Washington, and Chiba University.
Go to Profile#35834
Terry Glenn
#35846
Overall Influence
1974 - 2017 (43 years)
Terry Tyree Glenn was an American professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League for the New England Patriots, Green Bay Packers, and Dallas Cowboys. He was drafted by the New England Patriots seventh overall in the 1996 NFL Draft. He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Go to Profile#35835
Kurt Raaflaub
#35847
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Kurt Arnold Raaflaub was a Swiss historian and Emeritus Professor of Classics and History at Brown University, where he taught Greek and Roman history. He was the brother of conductor Beat Raaflaub.
Go to Profile#35836
Stephen Park Turner
#35848
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Stephen Park Turner is a researcher in social practice, social and political theory, and the philosophy of the social sciences. He is Graduate Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy of the University of South Florida, where he also holds the title Distinguished University Professor. He has held a NEH Fellowship, was Simon Honorary Professor at Manchester University and has twice been the Advanced Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies
Go to Profile#35837
David Sabiston
#35849
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
David Coston Sabiston, Jr., M.D.,, F.A.C.S. was an early innovator in cardiac surgery. In 1962, he performed a seminal procedure that paved the way for modern coronary-bypass surgery, grafting a vein from a patient's leg to bypass a blocked coronary artery during open-heart surgery. The patient died from unrelated complications, but Sabiston's technique and other surgeons' improvements on it led to the development of surgical coronary revascularization as it exists today.
Go to Profile#35838
Matteo Berrettini
#35850
Overall Influence
1996 - Present (30 years)
Matteo Berrettini is an Italian professional tennis player. He has been ranked as high as world No. 6 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals , which he achieved in January 2022, and world No. 105 in doubles, attained in July 2019. Berrettini has won seven ATP Tour singles titles and two doubles titles, and produced his best major performance by reaching the singles final of the 2021 Wimbledon Championships. He also became the first man born in the 1990s and first Italian man to reach the quarterfinals or better at all four majors after earning his first Australian Open semifina...
Go to Profile#35839
Troy Polamalu
#35851
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Troy Aumua Polamalu is an American former professional football player who spent his entire 12-year career as a safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League . An eight-time Pro Bowl and six-time All-Pro selection, he was inducted into the Pro Football Hall Of Fame in 2020, his first year of eligibility.
Go to Profile#35840
Daniel Johnston
#35852
Overall Influence
1961 - 2019 (58 years)
Daniel Dale Johnston was an American singer, musician and artist regarded as a significant figure in outsider, lo-fi, and alternative music scenes. Most of his work consisted of cassettes recorded alone in his home, and his music was frequently cited for its "pure" and "childlike" qualities.
Go to Profile#35841
John Beebe
#35853
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
John Beebe is an American psychiatrist and Jungian analyst in practice in San Francisco. Beebe was born in Washington, D.C. He received degrees from Harvard College and the University of Chicago medical school. He is a past president of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, where he is currently on the teaching faculty. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
Go to Profile#35842
Barbara Thiering
#35854
Overall Influence
1930 - 2015 (85 years)
Barbara Elizabeth Thiering was an Australian historian, theologian, and biblical exegete specialising in the origins of the early Christian Church. In books and journal articles, she challenged Christian orthodoxy, espousing the view that new findings present alternative answers to its supernatural beliefs. Her analysis has been rejected by both New Testament scholars and scholars in Judaism.
Go to Profile#35843
Kai A. Konrad
#35855
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Kai A. Konrad is a German economist with his main research interest in public economics. Education Konrad got his university degrees at the University of Heidelberg and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich .
Go to Profile#35844
Gavriel Salomon
#35856
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Gavriel Salomon was an Israeli educational psychologist who conducted research on cognition and instruction. He was a Professor Emeritus in the department of education at the University of Haifa. Early life and education
Go to Profile#35845
Jordan Peele
#35857
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Jordan Haworth Peele is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known for his film and television work in the comedy and horror genres. Peele started his career in sketch comedy before transitioning his career as a writer and director of psychological horror and satirical films. In 2017, Peele was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
Go to Profile#35846
Christoph von Blumröder
#35858
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Christoph von Blumröder is a German musicologist. Career Born in Northeim, Blumröder studied musicology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg in Breisgau with Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, philosophy and history of the .
Go to Profile#35847
Brenda Shaffer
#35859
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Brenda Shaffer is an American scholar who holds positions as Fellow with the Atlantic Council and professor at University of Haifa . Shaffer was the former research director of the Caspian Studies Program at Harvard Kennedy School and past president of the Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. She specializes on energy in international relations and energy policy in the Caspian region and has written or edited several books of these topics, including "Energy Politics" and "Beyond the Resource Curse." Shaffer has also written a number of books on the topic of identity and culture in the Caucasus including explorations of Azeri literature and culture.
Go to Profile#35848
Tommy Aldridge
#35860
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Tommy Aldridge is an American heavy metal and hard rock drummer. He is noted for his work with numerous bands and artists since the 1970s, such as Black Oak Arkansas, Pat Travers Band, Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Moore, Whitesnake, Ted Nugent, Thin Lizzy, Vinnie Moore and Yngwie Malmsteen.
Go to Profile#35849
Francesco Gabrieli
#35861
Overall Influence
1904 - 1996 (92 years)
Francesco Gabrieli was counted among the most distinguished Italian Arabists together with Giorgio Levi Della Vida and Alessandro Bausani, of whom he was respectively a student and colleague at the Sapienza Università di Roma .
Go to Profile#35850
William W. Hagen
#35862
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
William W. Hagen is a historian and professor of history at the University of California-Davis. Hagen's focus is on modern European history, primarily in relation to Germany and Eastern Europe. He obtained his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Starting as assistant professor in 1970, he became associate professor of history in 1977 and professor of history in 1981. From 1992 to 1998, Hagen served as director of the UC Davis Center for History, Society, and Culture. In 1996, he served as president of the Conference Group for Central European H...
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