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
#36051
Karen Dawisha
#36063
Overall Influence
1949 - 2018 (69 years)
Karen Dawisha was an American political scientist and writer. She was a professor in the Department of Political Science at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and the director of The Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.
Go to Profile#36052
Kali Charan Bahl
#36064
Overall Influence
Kali Charan Bahl is an associate professor emeritus in two departments: South Asian Languages and Civilizations and Linguistics at the University of Chicago. He specialized in Hindi and related languages or dialects.
Go to Profile#36053
Jim Bouton
#36065
Overall Influence
1939 - 2019 (80 years)
James Alan Bouton was an American professional baseball player. Bouton played in Major League Baseball as a pitcher for the New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros, and Atlanta Braves between 1962 and 1978. He was also a best-selling author, actor, activist, sportscaster and one of the creators of Big League Chew.
Go to Profile#36054
Carlo Bellieni
#36066
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Carlo V. Bellieni is an Italian neonatologist and a bioethicist. He served as Secretary of the Bioethics Committee of the Italian Pediatrics Society. He is a member of the ethical board of the Siena Biotech research facility and the Ethical Board of the Siena University Hospital where he directs the neonatal intensive therapy unit. He follows the empirical approach in bioethics, which emphasizes realism, reason, and empathy. Bellieni authored numerous clinical research papers in international scientific journals, and several books on neonatal pain and bioethics.
Go to Profile#36055
John Laurinaitis
#36067
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
John Hodger Laurinaitis , also known by his former ring name Johnny Ace, is an American retired professional wrestler and business executive. He has wrestled for such promotions as World Championship Wrestling , All Japan Pro Wrestling and WWE. He is the brother of Joe and Marcus, and is also the uncle of former National Football League player James Laurinaitis. In WWE, Laurinaitis worked in the talent relations office for eight years, and as occasional professional wrestler from 2011 until 2012. After his on screen firing, he stepped down from his corporate backstage role to being a producer.
Go to Profile#36056
Steve Brown
#36068
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Steve Brown is an American Christian author, a radio broadcaster, and a former seminary professor at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He describes himself as a Calvinist, and is ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America.
Go to Profile#36057
J. David Irwin
#36069
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
J. David Irwin is an American engineering educator and author of popular textbooks in electrical engineering and related areas. He is the Earle C. Williams Eminent Scholar and former Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Head at Auburn University. Irwin is one of the longest serving Department Heads of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the world, having been appointed to lead the Department at Auburn in 1973. He had also served as President of the ECE honor society Eta Kappa Nu; President of the US National Electrical Engineering Department Head Association; and President ...
Go to Profile#36058
Gerald Frug
#36070
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Gerald E. Frug was an American legal scholar. He was the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law emeritus at Harvard Law School, and a leading academic authority on local government law. He was married to feminist law professor Mary Joe Frug, who was murdered in 1991.
Go to Profile#36059
Jenny Wormald
#36071
Overall Influence
1942 - 2015 (73 years)
Jennifer "Jenny" Wormald HonFSA Scot was a Scottish historian who studied late medieval and early modern Scotland. Life Jennifer was born in Glasgow on 18 January 1942, and was adopted by Margaret and Dr Thomas Tannahill, a general practitioner, and was then known as Jenny Tannahill.
Go to Profile#36060
Robin Bell
#36072
Overall Influence
Robin Elizabeth Bell is Palisades Geophysical Institute Lamont Research Professor at Columbia University's Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and a past President of the American Geophysical Union , 2019–2021. Dr. Bell was influential in co-ordinating the 2007 International Polar Year and was the first woman to chair the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board. She has made numerous important discoveries with regard to subglacial lakes and ice sheet dynamics, and has a ridge, called Bell Buttress, in Antarctica named after her.
Go to Profile#36061
Martin Atkins
#36073
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Martin Clive Atkins is an English drummer, best known for his work in post-punk and industrial groups including Public Image Ltd, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Pigface, and Killing Joke. He also works as a consultant, has written multiple books on the music industry, and is the music industry studies coordinator at Millikin University in Decatur, IL. Atkins is the owner and operator of the Museum of Post Punk and Industrial Music in Chicago, is an honorary board member of the Chicago-based nonprofit organization Rock For Kids, and a fellow of In Place of War.
Go to Profile#36062
Ernst Peter Fischer
#36074
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ernst Peter Fischer is a German Historian of Science and Publicist. Life and work Ernst Peter Fischer studied mathematics, physics, and biology and graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1977. In 1987, he qualified as a university lecturer in the history of science, and taught as a professor at the University of Konstanz. Between 1989 and 1999 he was the publisher of the Mannheimer Forum. This position was previously held by Hoimar von Ditfurth.
Go to Profile#36063
Mark Cane
#36075
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Mark A. Cane is an American climate scientist. He obtained his PhD at MIT in 1975. He is currently the G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences at Columbia University and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. He actively pursues several research and teaching initiatives, and supports the Columbia climate kids corner . As of November 11, 2015, his publications have been cited over 22,600 times, and he has an h-index of 75.
Go to Profile#36064
Norman Macrae
#36076
Overall Influence
1923 - 2010 (87 years)
Norman Alastair Duncan Macrae was a British economist, journalist and author, considered by some to have been one of the world's best forecasters when it came to economics and society. Career Macrae joined The Economist in 1949 and retired as its deputy chief editor in 1988. He foresaw the Pacific century, the reversal of nationalization of enterprises, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the spread of the internet, which were all published in the newspaper during his time there. He contributed to the books The Third World War: August 1985 and The Third World War: The Untold Story , both attrib...
Go to Profile#36065
Elizabeth Price Foley
#36077
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Elizabeth Price Foley is a conservative American legal theorist who writes and comments in the fields of constitutional law, bioethics, and health care law. She is a Professor of Law at Florida International University College of Law, a public law school located in Miami, Florida. She also serves as Counsel to the Washington, D.C. office of BakerHostetler, LLP, where she practices constitutional, appellate, and food and drug law.
Go to Profile#36066
T. A. Goudge
#36078
Overall Influence
1910 - 1999 (89 years)
Thomas Anderson Goudge was a Canadian philosopher and university professor. Career He was born on January 19, 1910, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, son of Thomas Norman and Effie Goudge. He graduated from the Halifax Academy in 1927, and studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1931 and a Master of Arts degree in 1932 from Dalhousie University. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Toronto in 1937 after having briefly studied from 1936 to 1937 at Harvard University. He married Helen Beryl Christilaw in Blind River, Ontario, on June 23, 1936, and had one son, the jurist Stephen T.
Go to Profile#36067
Peter Erlinder
#36079
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
C. Peter Erlinder is an American lawyer, originally from Chicago, who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. He was Lead Defence Counsel for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and has represented several clients internationally, most notably several Rwandan opposition leaders, including Rwandan Presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire.
Go to Profile#36068
Keith Lloyd
#36080
Overall Influence
Keith Lloyd FRCPsych FLSW is the Dean and Head of Swansea University Medical School. He is the Chair of the Welsh Psychiatric Society and of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales and Vice President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Professor Lloyd is also the trustee for Wales of the charity Samaritans UK.
Go to Profile#36069
Kenneth Hare
#36081
Overall Influence
1919 - 2002 (83 years)
Fredrick Kenneth Hare, was a Canadian climatologist and academic, who researched atmospheric carbon dioxide, climate change, drought, and arid zone climates and was a strong advocate for preserving the natural environment.
Go to Profile#36070
Galina Lukashenko
#36082
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#36071
Khan Sarwar Murshid
#36083
Overall Influence
1924 - 2012 (88 years)
Khan Sarwar Murshid was a Bangladeshi educationist, diplomat and intellectual. Early life and education Sarwar Murshid was born on 1 July 1924 in his maternal home, the Munsef Bari of Comilla in Tipperah District, Bengal Province. He belonged to a Bengali Muslim family of Khans hailing from the village of Nasirabad in Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria. His father, Ali Ahmed Khan, was an advocate and All-India Muslim League politician, and served as a member in both the Bengal Legislative Assembly and the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly.
Go to Profile#36072
John Adair
#36084
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
John Eric Adair is a British academic who is a leadership theorist and author of more than forty books on business, military and other leadership. Life Adair was born in Luton and educated at St Paul's School before undertaking his national service as a second lieutenant in the Scots Guards from 1953 to 1955. Unusually, he served as adjutant of a Bedouin regiment in the Arab Legion and was briefly in command of the garrison of Jerusalem in the front line. He also studied at Hull Nautical College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959. He later obtained ...
Go to Profile#36073
Daryle Lamonica
#36085
Overall Influence
1941 - 2022 (81 years)
Daryle Pasquale Lamonica was an American professional football quarterback who played in the American Football League and the National Football League for 12 seasons, primarily with the Oakland Raiders. He spent his first four seasons mostly as a backup for the Buffalo Bills, who selected him in the 24th round of the 1963 AFL Draft. Lamonica played his next eight seasons as the primary starter of the Raiders, including after they joined the NFL through the AFL–NFL merger.
Go to Profile#36074
Bani Basu
#36086
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Bani Basu is a prolific Bengali Indian author, essayist, critic, poet, translator and professor. Life She received her formal education from the well-known Lady Brabourne College, Scottish Church College and at the University of Calcutta where she received M.A. in English.
Go to Profile#36075
Ronald Weitzer
#36087
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Ronald Weitzer is an American sociologist specializing in criminology and a professor at George Washington University, known for his publications on police-minority relations and on the sex industry.
Go to Profile#36076
Jack Klugman
#36088
Overall Influence
1922 - 2012 (90 years)
Jack Klugman was an American actor of stage, film, and television. He began his career in 1950 and started television and film work with roles in 12 Angry Men and Cry Terror! . During the 1960s, he guest-starred on numerous television series. Klugman won his first Primetime Emmy Award for his guest-starring role on The Defenders in 1964. He also made a total of four appearances on The Twilight Zone from 1960 to 1963. In 1965, Klugman replaced Walter Matthau as Oscar Madison in the Broadway play The Odd Couple. Five years later, he reprised that role in the television adaptation of The Odd Couple opposite Tony Randall.
Go to Profile#36077
Jean-Jacques Burnel
#36089
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Jean-Jacques Burnel is an English musician, producer and songwriter, best known as the bass guitarist and co-lead vocalist with the English rock band The Stranglers. He is the last founding member to remain in the band.
Go to Profile#36079
Antonio Santosuosso
#36091
Overall Influence
1936 - 2014 (78 years)
Antonio Santosuosso was a Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Assessment of the Battle of Tours In Barbarians, Marauders, and Infidels, Santosuosso, considered an expert historian of the Carolingian era, makes a case that the defeats of invading Muslim armies by Charles Martel, including the famous defeat at Tours, were important as in their defense of Western Christianity and the preservation of those Christian monasteries and centres of learning which ultimately led Europe out of the Dark Ages. He also makes a case that while Tours was cons...
Go to Profile#36080
Ward Jones
#36092
Overall Influence
Ward E. Jones is a scholar at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, where he is a professor of philosophy. He joined the department in 1999. His DPhil. thesis, entitled The View from Here: A First-person Constraint on Believing was completed in 1998 at Oxford University. While finishing his thesis, Jones spent three years teaching philosophy at various colleges in Oxford.
Go to Profile#36081
Sigrid Weigel
#36093
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sigrid Weigel is a German scholar of literary studies, critical theory, a specialist of cross-disciplinary research, and a leading scholar of Walter Benjamin, Aby Warburg, and the cultural science around 1900. She held professorships at Hamburg, Zürich, and Berlin and established the internationally noted Advanced Studies “Center for Literary and Cultural Research” in Berlin. In 2016, she received the renowned Aby Warburg Prize of the City of Hamburg.
Go to Profile#36082
Alan Schom
#36094
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Alan Morris Cedric Strauss-Schom , known as Alan Schom and legally Alan Strauss-Schom is an American historian and biographer. Specialising in French History, his work on Napoleon saw him receive Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations.
Go to Profile#36083
David Wright
#36095
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
David Allen Wright is an American former professional baseball third baseman who played his entire 14-year Major League Baseball career for the New York Mets. He was drafted by the Mets in 2001 MLB draft and made his MLB debut on July 21, 2004 at Shea Stadium. Wright was nicknamed "Captain America" after his performance in the 2013 World Baseball Classic where he led the tournament with 10 RBI and a .438 batting average.
Go to Profile#36084
Bernard R. Goldstein
#36096
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Bernard Raphael Goldstein is a historian of science and professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. Goldstein published on the history of astronomy in medieval Islamic and Jewish civilization and early modern times.
Go to Profile#36085
Thomas W. Merrill
#36097
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Thomas W. Merrill, a legal scholar, is the Charles Evans Hughes professor at Columbia Law School. He has also taught at Yale Law School and Northwestern University School of Law. He is a leader in three fields: property, administrative, and environmental law. He received a B.A. from Grinnell College in 1971 and a B.A. with first-class honors in philosophy, politics and economics in 1973 from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He received his JD from the University of Chicago Law School in 1977 and went on to clerk for Judge David L. Bazelon of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and then United States Supreme Court Justice Harry A.
Go to Profile#36086
Maithree Wickremesinghe
#36098
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Maithree Wickremesinghe is the current First Lady of Sri Lanka as the wife of President Ranil Wickremesinghe. She is a Sri Lankan academic, writer, and professor of English at the University of Kelaniya. She specializes in gender and women's studies.
Go to Profile#36087
Julie Bishop
#36099
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Julie Isabel Bishop is an Australian former politician who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2018 and deputy leader of the Liberal Party from 2007 to 2018. She was the Member of Parliament for Curtin from 1998 to 2019. She has been the chancellor of the Australian National University since January 2020.
Go to Profile#36088
Jacqueline Bishop
#36100
Overall Influence
Jacqueline Bishop is a writer, visual artist and photographer from Jamaica, who now lives in New York City, where she is a professor at the School of Liberal Studies at New York University . She is the founder of Calabash, an online journal of Caribbean art and letters, housed at NYU, and also writes for the Huffington Post and the Jamaica Observer Arts Magazine. In 2016 her book The Gymnast and Other Positions won the nonfiction category of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.
Go to Profile#36089
Mika
#36101
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr. , known professionally as Mika , is a singer-songwriter born in Beirut, Lebanon, and raised in Paris and London. After recording his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday, Mika was predicted to be the number-one breakthrough act of 2007 in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2007. Mika released his first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, on Island Records in 2007, which has sold more than 8.3 million copies worldwide and helped Mika win a Brit Award—Best British Breakthrough act—and receive a Grammy Award nomination. He topped the UK Singles...
Go to Profile#36090
Martin Felsen
#36102
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Martin Felsen is an American architect and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects . He directs UrbanLab, a Chicago-based architecture and urban design firm. Felsen's projects range in scale from houses such as the Hennepin, Illinois Residence, mixed-use residential and commercial buildings such as Upton's Naturals Headquarters, public open spaces such as the Smart Museum of Art Courtyard at the University of Chicago, and large scale, urban design projects such as Growing Water in Chicago and a masterplan for the Yangming Lake region of Changde, China. Felsen was awarded the 2009 Lat...
Go to Profile#36091
Gilles Müller
#36103
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Gilles Müller is a Luxembourgish former professional tennis player. He is a two-time major singles quarterfinalist, making him by far the most successful male tennis player in Luxembourgish history. Müller won two titles on the ATP Tour and achieved a career-high ATP singles ranking of world No. 21 on 31 July 2017. He was known for his powerful left-handed serve and net skills. Following his retirement, Müller was appointed as Luxembourg's Davis Cup team captain.
Go to Profile#36092
Abiy Ahmed
#36104
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Abiy Ahmed Ali is an Ethiopian politician serving as the third Prime Minister of Ethiopia since 2018, and as a leader of the Prosperity Party since 2019. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea". Abiy served as the third chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front that governed Ethiopia for 28 years and the first person of Oromo descent to hold that position. Abiy is a member of the Ethiopian parliament...
Go to Profile#36093
Shlomo Benartzi
#36105
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Shlomo Benartzi is an American behavioral economist, known for his research on retirement savings and the Save More Tomorrow nudge. Benartzi is currently a Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management in Los Angeles, California.
Go to Profile#36094
Dan Evans
#36106
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
Daniel Evans is a British professional tennis player from England. He has been ranked as high as world No. 21 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals , which he achieved on 7 August 2023, and is the current British No. 2 in singles. He reached a career-high ranking of world No. 52 in doubles on 26 April 2021. In 2015, he formed part of the winning British Davis Cup team.
Go to Profile#36095
Marc Trestman
#36107
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Marc Marlyn Trestman is a Canadian football and American football coach. He led the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League to back-to-back Grey Cup victories in 2009 and 2010, and another as head coach of the Toronto Argonauts in 2017. He was also named CFL Coach of the Year in 2009 and 2017.
Go to Profile#36096
James E. Muller
#36108
Overall Influence
James E. Muller is an American cardiologist and medical device executive. He was a member of the faculty of Harvard Medical School for over 25 years, where he studied triggers of coronary artery plaque rupture and sudden cardiac death. He is believed to have coined the term “vulnerable plaque” to denote the plaques at high likelihood of rupture and causation of coronary thrombosis.
Go to Profile#36097
Richard Woodcock
#36109
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Richard Wesley Woodcock is an American psychometrician. He is known for his work on the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory of human intelligence and for his work in the development of several cognitive tests, including the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Dean–Woodcock Neuropsychological Assessment System. He is also credited with introducing the Rasch model into psychometric research. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of School Psychology, as well as a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. In 1993, he receive...
Go to Profile#36098
Peter Weller
#36110
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Peter Frederick Weller is an American actor and television director. He has appeared in more than 70 films and television series, including RoboCop and its sequel RoboCop 2 , in which he played the titular character; The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension ; and Star Trek Into Darkness . He appeared in such films as Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite , the Oliver Stone-produced The New Age , and David Cronenberg's adaptation of William Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch .
Go to Profile#36099
Marcus Banks
#36111
Overall Influence
1960 - 2020 (60 years)
Marcus John Banks was an English visual anthropologist, who did fieldwork among the Jains in Leicester, England and Jamnagar, Gujarat, India. He was a prominent figure in the development of visual anthropology in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries.
Go to Profile#36100
Cliff Lee
#36112
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Clifton Phifer Lee is an American former professional baseball starting pitcher who played for 13 seasons in Major League Baseball . Between 2002 and 2014 he played for the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Seattle Mariners, and Texas Rangers. During his career, Lee was a member of four All-Star teams, won the Cy Young Award, and had consecutive World Series appearances in 2009 and 2010 with the Phillies and Rangers.
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