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
#36101
Leni Robredo
#36113
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Maria Leonor "Leni" Santo Tomas Gerona-Robredo is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 14th vice president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. She was the wife of the late Jesse Robredo, who was interior secretary from 2010 until his death in 2012. A long-time human rights lawyer and social activist, she eventually ran for public office and was elected in 2013 as the 3rd district representative of Camarines Sur, her home province. She served in this position for three years, writing legislation on agrarian reform, people empowerment, and anti-corruption. She then assumed the vice presidency in 2016, after winning that year's election.
Go to Profile#36102
James F. Allen
#36114
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
James Frederick Allen is a computational linguist recognized for his contributions to temporal logic, in particular Allen's interval algebra. He is interested in knowledge representation, commonsense reasoning, and natural language understanding, believing that "deep language understanding can only currently be achieved by significant hand-engineering of semantically-rich formalisms coupled with statistical preferences". He is the John H. Dessaurer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Rochester
Go to Profile#36103
Thomas Sakmar
#36115
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Thomas P. Sakmar is an American physician-scientist and the former acting president of The Rockefeller University. Prior to becoming acting president he was associate dean for graduate studies in the Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program.
Go to Profile#36104
Jameer Nelson
#36116
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Jameer Lamar Nelson Sr. is an American former professional basketball player who serves as general manager for the Delaware Blue Coats of the NBA G League. He played college basketball for the Saint Joseph's Hawks, where he was named national college player of the year in 2004. Drafted 20th overall in the 2004 NBA draft, Nelson spent the first ten years of his NBA career with the Orlando Magic. In 2009, he was named an All-Star and made an appearance in the NBA Finals with the Magic. He has also played for the Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, New Orleans Pelicans and Detroit ...
Go to Profile#36105
Susan Fuhrman
#36117
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Susan Harriet Fuhrman is an American education policy scholar and served from 2006 as the first female president of Teachers College, Columbia University. Fuhrman earned her doctorate in Political Science and Education from Columbia University. She became very engaged in issues of educational equity and emerged as an authority on school reform. Fuhrman is known for her early and ongoing critical analysis of the standards movement and for her efforts to foster research that provides a scientific basis for effective teaching.
Go to Profile#36106
Eloisa James
#36118
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Eloisa James is the pen name of Mary Bly . She is a tenured Shakespeare professor at Fordham University who also writes best-selling Regency and Georgian romance novels under her pen name. Her novels are published in 30 countries and have sold approximately 7 million copies worldwide. She also wrote a bestselling memoir about the year her family spent in France, Paris in Love.
Go to Profile#36107
Laxmi Parida
#36119
Overall Influence
Laxmi Parida is an IBM Master Inventor and group leader in computational genomics at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York. Education Parida was educated at New York University where she was awarded a PhD in 1998 for research on algorithms for computational genomics supervised by Bud Mishra.
Go to Profile#36108
Archie Shepp
#36120
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Archie Shepp is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing banjo with his father, then studied piano and saxophone while attending high school in Germantown. He studied drama at Goddard College from 1955 to 1959.
Go to Profile#36109
Christopher Dyer
#36121
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Christopher Charles Dyer is Leverhulme Emeritus Professor of Regional and Local History and director of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester, England. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
Go to Profile#36110
Catherine D. DeAngelis
#36122
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Catherine D. DeAngelis is the first woman and the first pediatrician to become editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association . She has also edited several additional medical journals. Before assuming the editor's position at JAMA in 2000, DeAngelis was a professor and Vice Dean of Faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#36111
Vidya Dehejia
#36123
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Vidya Dehejia is a retired academic and the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor Emerita of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University. She has published 24 books and numerous academic papers on the art of South Asia, and has curated many exhibitions on the same theme.
Go to Profile#36112
Warren Zapol
#36124
Overall Influence
1942 - 2021 (79 years)
Warren M. Zapol was the emeritus Anesthetist-in-Chief at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Reginald Jenney Distinguished Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School. From 1994 to 2008, Zapol served as anesthetist-in-chief at MGH and was the director of the MGH Anesthesia Center for Critical Care Research until his death.
Go to Profile#36113
Ned Wingreen
#36125
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Ned S. Wingreen is a theoretical physicist and the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences at Princeton University. He is a member of the Department of Molecular Biology and of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, where he is currently director of graduate studies. He is the associate director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, and is also associated faculty in the department of physics. Working with Yigal Meir, Wingreen formulated the Meir-Wingreen Formula which describes the electric current through an arbitrary mesoscopic system.
Go to Profile#36114
Meic Stephens
#36126
Overall Influence
1938 - 2018 (80 years)
Meic Stephens, FLSW was a Welsh literary editor, journalist, translator, and poet. Birth and education Meic Stephens was born on 23 July 1938 in the village of Treforest, near Pontypridd, Glamorgan. He was educated at Pontypridd Boys' Grammar School and then studied at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, graduating in 1961, at the University of Rennes, Brittany, and the University College of North Wales, Bangor, Gwynedd.
Go to Profile#36115
Gregory S. Aldrete
#36127
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Gregory S. Aldrete is a Professor Emeritus of history and humanistic studies at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay. He was the Frankenthal Professor of History and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, where he had been teaching since 1995. His emphasis is on rhetoric and oratory, floods in Rome, ancient Greek and Roman history, and daily life in the Roman world. He earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in ancient history from the University of Michigan. Aldrete speaks Latin, ancient Greek, Spanish, and can read texts in Italian, French, and...
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Colin Aikman
#36128
Overall Influence
1919 - 2002 (83 years)
Colin Campbell Aikman was a New Zealand public servant, lawyer and diplomat. He was professor of jurisprudence and constitutional law at Victoria University of Wellington between 1955 and 1968; first Vice Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji; and New Zealand's High Commissioner to India and Bangladesh and Ambassador to Nepal between 1975 and 1978.
Go to Profile#36117
Wilhelm Schneemelcher
#36129
Overall Influence
1914 - 2003 (89 years)
Wilhelm Schneemelcher was a German Protestant theologian and expert on the New Testament Apocrypha. Career He obtained through Hans Lietzmann a post researching Latin and Greek manuscripts at the Church Fathers Commission, however this came under the Prussian Academy of Sciences so in 1938 Schneemelcher was removed by the Nazi authorities due to being "politically unreliable", due to sympathies with the Confessing Church, and was forced to turn to making a living as a bookseller's assistant.
Go to Profile#36118
Kári Stefánsson
#36130
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Kári Stefánsson is an Icelandic neurologist and founder and CEO of Reykjavik-based biopharmaceutical company deCODE genetics. In Iceland he has pioneered the use of population-scale genetics to understand variation in the sequence of the human genome. His work has focused on how genomic diversity is generated and on the discovery of sequence variants impacting susceptibility to common diseases. This population approach has served as a model for national genome projects around the world and contributed to the realization of several aspects of precision medicine.
Go to Profile#36119
Kiyoshi Inoue
#36131
Overall Influence
1913 - 2001 (88 years)
Kiyoshi Inoue was a Japanese academic, historian, author and professor emeritus of the Kyoto University. He was considered a specialist in modern Japanese history. He was also known as a "progressive historian" and a "Marxist historian."
Go to Profile#36120
Ismith Khan
#36132
Overall Influence
1925 - 2002 (77 years)
Mohamed Ismith Khan , better known as Ismith Khan, was a Trinidad and Tobago-born American author and educator. He is best known for his novel The Jumbie Bird, a semi-autobiographical work which blends Indian and Afro-Caribbean mythology and experience to explore the creation of a new Indo-Caribbean identity.
Go to Profile#36121
Bear Grylls
#36133
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Edward Michael "Bear" Grylls is a British adventurer and television presenter. He first drew attention after embarking on a number of adventures, and then became widely known for his television series Man vs. Wild . He is also involved in a number of wilderness survival television series in the UK and US, such as Running Wild with Bear Grylls and The Island with Bear Grylls. In July 2009, Grylls was appointed as The Scout Association’s youngest-ever Chief Scout of the United Kingdom and Overseas Territories at age 35, a post he has held for a second term since 2015.
Go to Profile#36122
Jonathan Westphal
#36134
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jonathan Westphal is an academic philosopher working on the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of science, logic and philosophy of language and aesthetics. More recently he has become interested in issues in the philosophy of time, and in the understanding of human freedom. In the history of philosophy, he has worked mostly on Wittgenstein and Leibniz. He lives in Hamden, Connecticut, and works as a private tutor in philosophy.
Go to Profile#36123
Ronald Ferguson
#36135
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ronald F. Ferguson in Cleveland, Ohio is an economist who researches factors that affect educational achievement. Major themes in his work include the race-related achievement gap in the United States and how to improve schools and identify effective teachers.
Go to Profile#36124
Thomas J. Healey
#36136
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Thomas J. Healey is an American businessman and educator. He was a partner at Goldman, Sachs & Co., and is Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He served in the 1980s as Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury and in the 1990s on the U.S. Department of Labor's Employee Benefits Security Administration Advisory Council Working Group on the Impact of Alternative Tax Proposals on ERISA Employer-Sponsored Plans.
Go to Profile#36125
Dale Maharidge
#36137
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dale Maharidge is an American author, journalist and academic best known for his collaborations with photographer Michael Williamson. Maharidge and Williamson's book And Their Children After Them won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1990. It was conceived as a revisiting of the places and people depicted in Walker Evans's and James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Also with Williamson, Maharidge wrote Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, which singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen has credited as an influence for songs such as "Youngstown" and "The New Timer".
Go to Profile#36126
Sheldon Schuster
#36138
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Sheldon M. Schuster is an American biochemist, cancer researcher and academic. He is the current president of Keck Graduate Institute as of 2003. He has previously served as a professor at University of Nebraska–Lincoln and University of Florida. While at Florida, he was the director of research and the university's biotechnology program.
Go to Profile#36127
Peter Redgrove
#36139
Overall Influence
1932 - 2003 (71 years)
Peter William Redgrove was a British poet, who also wrote prose, novels and plays with his second wife Penelope Shuttle. Life and career Redgrove was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey. He was educated at Taunton School, and Queens' College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge he edited Delta magazine for several issues, and met the poets Ted Hughes and Harry Guest. He left in 1954 without taking a degree, married the sculptor Barbara Sherlock, and went into copywriting.
Go to Profile#36128
William B. Allen
#36140
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
William Barclay Allen is an author, professor, and political scientist from Fernandina Beach, Florida. He was a member of the National Council on the Humanities from 1984 to 1987 and chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights from 1988 to 1989. Allen has been described as a "conservative black leader in education."
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Jacques F. Benders
#36141
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Jacobus Franciscus Benders was a Dutch mathematician and Emeritus Professor of Operations Research at the Eindhoven University of Technology. He was the first Professor in the Netherlands in the field of Operations Research and is known for his contributions to mathematical programming.
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Richard Chavez
#36142
Overall Influence
1929 - 2011 (82 years)
#36131
Keith Olsen
#36143
Overall Influence
1945 - 2020 (75 years)
Keith Alan Olsen was an American record producer and sound engineer, who worked with Magnum, Rick Springfield, Fleetwood Mac, Ozzy Osbourne, the Grateful Dead, Whitesnake, Pat Benatar, Heart, Santana, Saga, Foreigner, Scorpions, Journey, The Babys, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Joe Walsh, 38 Special, and Eric Burdon & the Animals, among others.
Go to Profile#36132
Jon Lester
#36144
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Jonathan Tyler Lester is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball for the Boston Red Sox, Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals, and St. Louis Cardinals. Less than two years after being diagnosed with lymphoma, Lester started and won the final game of the 2007 World Series for the Red Sox and, in May 2008, pitched a no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals. He helped lead the Red Sox to another championship in 2013, and he won the 2016 World Series with the Cubs. Lester started the opening game of a playoff series 12 times, which wa...
Go to Profile#36133
Bettie Page
#36145
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Bettie Mae Page was an American model who gained notoriety in the 1950s for her pin-up photos. She was often referred to as the "Queen of Pinups": her long jet-black hair, blue eyes, and trademark bangs have influenced artists for generations. After her death, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner called her "a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society".
Go to Profile#36134
Gerald Crabtree
#36146
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gerald R. Crabtree is the David Korn Professor at Stanford University and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is known for defining the Ca2+-calcineurin-NFAT signaling pathway, pioneering the development of synthetic ligands for regulation of biologic processes and discovering chromatin regulatory mechanisms involved in cancer and brain development. He is a founder of Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, and Foghorn Therapeutics.
Go to Profile#36135
Stanley Robert Hart
#36147
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Stanley Robert Hart is an American geologist, geochemist, leading international expert on mantle isotope geochemistry, and pioneer of chemical geodynamics. Biography Hart graduated from MIT with a bachelor's degree in geology in 1956 and a master's degree in geochemistry in 1957 from Caltech. In 1960 he received his doctorate in geochemistry from MIT with thesis Mineral ages and metamorphism under the supervision of Patrick M. Hurley. After a year as a Carnegie Fellow, Hart was from 1961 to 1975 at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism. From 1...
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Adam Curle
#36148
Overall Influence
1916 - 2006 (90 years)
Charles Thomas William Curle , better known as Adam Curle, was a British academic, known for his work in social psychology, pedagogy, development studies and peace studies. After holding posts at the University of Oxford, University of Exeter, University of Ghana and Harvard University, in 1973 he became the inaugural Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, following the establishment of the University's Department of Peace Studies. Curle's works included several books on education, including Educational Strategy for Developing Societies , and a number of books on peace and peacemaking, including Making Peace .
Go to Profile#36137
Moustafa Bayoumi
#36149
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Moustafa Bayoumi is an American writer, journalist, and professor. Of Egyptian descent, Bayoumi is based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a professor of English at Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
Go to Profile#36138
Lester James Reed
#36150
Overall Influence
#36139
Alexandre Pato
#36151
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (37 years)
Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva , commonly known as Alexandre Pato or just Pato, is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a striker for São Paulo. Pato began his career as a youth player for Internacional in 2000, making his debut in 2006 at age 16. He went on to score 12 goals in 27 appearances and helped them win the 2006 FIFA Club World Cup. In August 2007, he signed for Italian side AC Milan. In 2009, he scored 18 goals in 42 matches in all competitions, which earned him both the Golden Boy and Serie A Young Footballer of the Year awards. During the 2010–11 season, he helped Milan win the Serie A, where he was the club's joint top scorer with 14 goals in 25 games.
Go to Profile#36140
Kalevi Holsti
#36152
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Kalevi Jaakko Holsti, is a Canadian political scientist. Kal Holsti and his elder brother Ole were born in Geneva, while their father Rudolf served as Finland's ambassador to the League of Nations. Following the outbreak of World War II, the Holsti family was unable to return to Finland, and instead settled in the United States, where Rudolf held a visiting professorship at Stanford University. Kal and Ole lived with the families of Rudolf's Stanford colleagues after he died, as Liisa, their mother, had been hospitalized since 1943 with tuberculosis.
Go to Profile#36141
Francis B. Hildebrand
#36153
Overall Influence
1915 - 2002 (87 years)
Francis Begnaud Hildebrand was an American mathematician. He was a Professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1940 until 1984. Hildebrand was known for his many influential textbooks in mathematics and numerical analysis.
Go to Profile#36142
Greg Sarris
#36154
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Gregory Michael Sarris is the Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and the current Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Until 2022, Sarris was the Graton Rancheria Endowed Chair in Creative Writing and Native American Studies at Sonoma State University, where he taught classes in Native American Literature, American Literature, and Creative Writing. He is also President of the Graton Economic Development Authority.
Go to Profile#36143
Jerry Kramer
#36155
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Gerald Louis Kramer is an American former professional football player, author and sports commentator. He played 11 years as a guard and kicker with the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League . He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018.
Go to Profile#36144
Abdulalim A. Shabazz
#36156
Overall Influence
1927 - 2014 (87 years)
Abdulalim Abdullah Shabazz was an African American Professor of Mathematics. He received the National Association of Mathematicians Distinguished Service Award for his years of mentoring and teaching excellence. President of the United States Bill Clinton awarded Shabazz a National Mentor award in September 2000.
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Syed Muhammed Abul Faiz
#36157
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Syed Muhammed Abul Faiz is a Bangladeshi academic. He served as the 26th vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka serving from September 2002 until January 2009. Though an academic and a scientific researcher by profession, Faiz was also the chairman of the Public Service Commission of Bangladesh before his tenure as the vice-chancellor.
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Anne F. Garréta
#36158
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Anne Françoise Garréta is a French novelist and a member of the experimental literary group Oulipo. She is the first member of Oulipo to be born after the group's founding. Her awards include the Prix Médicis.
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Alia Bhatt
#36159
Overall Influence
1993 - Present (33 years)
Alia Bhatt is a British actress of Indian descent who predominantly works in Hindi films. Known for her portrayals of women in troubling circumstances, she has received several accolades, including a National Film Award and five Filmfare Awards. One of India's highest-paid actresses, she has appeared in Forbes India Celebrity 100 list since 2014 and was awarded the Time100 Impact Award in 2022.
Go to Profile#36148
George McGinnis
#36160
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
George F. McGinnis is an American former professional basketball player who played 11 seasons in the American Basketball Association and National Basketball Association . He was drafted into the ABA from Indiana University in 1971.
Go to Profile#36149
Nalini Anantharaman
#36161
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Nalini Anantharaman is a French mathematician who has won major prizes including the Henri Poincaré Prize in 2012. Life Nalini Florence Anantharaman was born in Paris in 1976 to two mathematicians. Her father and her mother are Professors at the University of Orléans. She entered Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1994. She completed her PhD in Paris under the supervision of François Ledrappier in 2000 at Université Pierre et Marie Curie .
Go to Profile#36150
Santonio Holmes
#36162
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Santonio Holmes Jr. is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver in the National Football League . He was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft after playing college football at Ohio State University. In 2009, Holmes was named the most valuable player of Super Bowl XLIII as the Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals. In 2010, Holmes was traded to the New York Jets in exchange for the Jets' fifth round pick. Holmes also played a season for the Chicago Bears.
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