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
#36201
Virginia Sapiro
#36213
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Virginia Sapiro is an American political scientist and political psychologist. A native of East Orange, New Jersey, Sapiro graduated from Clark University in 1972, and obtained her doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1976, after which she began teaching at University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was appointed Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Professor of Political Science and Women's Studies there in 1995, and served through 2007, when she joined the Boston University faculty. Sapiro has served the American Political Science Association as secretary, vice president, and president of the APSA ...
Go to Profile#36202
Jonna Mazet
#36214
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jonna Ann Keener Mazet is an American epidemiologist and Executive Director of the University of California, Davis One Health Institute. Recognized for her innovative and holistic approach to emerging environmental and global health threats, she is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mazet is a professor of Epidemiology and Disease Ecology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, where she focuses on global health problem solving, especially for emerging infectious disease and conservation challen...
Go to Profile#36203
Melvin Spencer Newman
#36215
Overall Influence
1908 - 1993 (85 years)
Melvin Spencer Newman was an American chemist, Ohio State University professor, best known for inventing the Newman projection. Newman was born in New York City in a Jewish family, the youngest of Mae and Jacob K. Newman's four children. His paternal grandfather was the New Orleans German-born investment banker and philanthropist Isidore Newman.
Go to Profile#36204
Susan Hough
#36216
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Susan Elizabeth Hough is a seismologist at the United States Geological Survey in Pasadena, California, and scientist in charge of the office. She has served as an editor and contributor for many journals and is a contributing editor to Geotimes Magazine. She is the author of five books, including Earthshaking Science .
Go to Profile#36205
Alexander Brudno
#36217
Overall Influence
1918 - 2009 (91 years)
Alexander L'vovich Brudno was a Russian computer scientist, best known for fully describing the alpha-beta pruning algorithm. From 1991 until his death he lived in Israel. Biography Brudno developed the "mathematics/machine interface" for the M-2 computer constructed in 1952 at the Krzhizhanovskii laboratory of the Institute of Energy of the Russian Academy of Sciences in the Soviet Union. He was a great friend of Alexander Kronrod.
Go to Profile#36206
Giovanni Prodi
#36218
Overall Influence
1925 - 2010 (85 years)
Giovanni Prodi was an Italian mathematician, also known for many activities concerning the teaching of mathematics. There is a professorship of mathematics at the University of Würzburg named in his honour, created in 2006.
Go to Profile#36207
Susan Wittig Albert
#36219
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Susan Wittig Albert, also known by the pen names Robin Paige and Carolyn Keene, is an American mystery writer from Vermilion County, Illinois, United States. Albert was an academic and the first female vice president of Southwest Texas State University before retiring to become a fulltime writer.
Go to Profile#36208
Vojteh Ravnikar
#36220
Overall Influence
1943 - 2010 (67 years)
Vojteh Ravnikar was a Slovenian architect. Early life Ravnikar was born in Ljubljana, in what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but spent most of his childhood years in the town of Nova Gorica in western Slovenia. After graduating from the Nova Gorica Grammar School, he attended the University of Ljubljana, graduating with a degree in architecture.
Go to Profile#36209
Juice Newton
#36221
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Judith Kay "Juice" Newton is an American pop and country singer, songwriter, and musician. Newton has received five Grammy Award nominations in the Pop and Country Best Female Vocalist categorieswinning once in 1983as well as an ACM Award for Top New Female Artist and two consecutive Billboard Female Album Artist of the Year awards. Newton's other awards include a People's Choice Award for "Best Female Vocalist" and the Australian Music Media's "Number One International Country Artist".
Go to Profile#36210
Rudolf Makkreel
#36222
Overall Influence
1939 - 2021 (82 years)
Rudolf Adam Makkreel was an American philosopher and Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Emory University. Early life Rudolf Makkreel was born in 1939 in Antwerp, Belgium and grew up in The Hague in the Netherlands. He immigrated to the US in 1951 and received his BA and PhD from Columbia University.
Go to Profile#36211
Ian Roderick Macneil
#36223
Overall Influence
1929 - 2010 (81 years)
Ian Roderick Macneil of Barra , The Macneil of Barra, Chief of Clan MacNeil, also known as Clan Niall and 26th of Barra, also Baron of Barra Early life and education Macneil was the son of Robert Lister Macneil. He was educated at the University of Vermont, USA and Harvard where he studied contracts under the noted theorist Lon L. Fuller. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as an infantry Lieutenant in the US Army from 1951 to 1953 and remained in the reserve until 1969, when he was honourably discharged with the rank of Major. He married Nancy and they h...
Go to Profile#36212
Aner Shalev
#36224
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Aner Shalev is a professor at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a writer. Biography Shalev was born in Kibbutz Kinneret and grew up in Beit Berl. He moved to Jerusalem at 18 to study mathematics and philosophy at the Hebrew University, and since then, excluding some years abroad, he has been living mainly in Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#36213
Sérgio Mendes
#36225
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Sérgio Santos Mendes is a Brazilian musician. His career took off with worldwide hits by his band Brasil '66. He has over 55 releases and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song in 2012 as co-writer of the song "Real in Rio" from the animated film Rio.
Go to Profile#36214
Michael Bergmann
#36226
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Michael Abram Bergmann is an American analytic philosopher teaching in the department of philosophy at Purdue University. His primary interests are epistemology and philosophy of religion. In epistemology, he writes mostly on externalism and, in philosophy of religion, he mostly writes on the epistemology of religious belief and the problem of evil.
Go to Profile#36215
Frank Sedgman
#36227
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Francis "Frank" Arthur Sedgman is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. Over the course of a three-decade career, Sedgman won five Grand Slam singles tournaments as an amateur as well as 22 Grand Slam doubles tournaments. He is one of only five tennis players all-time to win multiple career Grand Slams in two disciplines, alongside Margaret Court, Roy Emerson, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams. In 1951, he and Ken McGregor won the Grand Slam in men's doubles. Sedgman turned professional in 1953, and won the Wembley World Professional Indoor singles title in 1953 and 1958. He ...
Go to Profile#36216
Douglas Wilder
#36228
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Lawrence Douglas Wilder is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 66th governor of Virginia from 1990 to 1994. He was the first African American to serve as governor of a U.S. state since the Reconstruction era, and the first African American ever elected as governor. He is currently a professor at the eponymous Wilder School at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Go to Profile#36217
Azim Surani
#36229
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Azim Surani is a Kenyan-British developmental biologist who has been Marshall–Walton Professor at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge since 1992, and Director of Germline and Epigenomics Research since 2013.
Go to Profile#36218
Olivier Rochus
#36230
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Olivier Rochus is a retired Belgian tennis player. He is the younger brother of Christophe Rochus, also a former top-40 tennis player. Rochus won two singles titles in his career and in 2004 won the French Open doubles title, partnering fellow Belgian Xavier Malisse. His career-high singles ranking is world No. 24.
Go to Profile#36219
Helen S. Mayberg
#36231
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Helen S. Mayberg was born in 1956 in California. She is an American neurologist. Mayberg is known in particular for her work delineating abnormal brain function in patients with major depression using functional neuroimaging. This work led to the first pilot study of deep brain stimulation , a reversible method of selective modulation of a specific brain circuit, for patients with treatment-resistant depression. As of August 2019, she has published 211 original peer-reviewed articles, 31 books and book chapters, and acted as principal investigator on 24 research grants. Mayberg is coinventor...
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André Vauchez
#36232
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
André Vauchez FBA is a French medievalist specialising in the history of Christian spirituality. He has studied at the École normale supérieure and the École française de Rome. His thesis, defended in 1978, was published in English as Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages in 1987 and has become a standard reference work.
Go to Profile#36221
Roland Gareis
#36233
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Roland Gareis is an Austrian economist, former Professor of Project Management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and consultant. He is known for his work on the theory and practice of project management, and is considered co-founder of the "Management by projects" approach.
Go to Profile#36222
Alexander Welsh
#36234
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Alexander Welsh was an American philologist, the author of books including Freud's Wishful Dream Book . Born on April 29, 1933, Welsh served in the United States Army. He earned a doctorate from Harvard University, then taught at Yale University between 1960 and 1967. Welsh subsequently joined the University of Pittsburgh faculty and later the University of California Los Angeles, before returning to Yale in 1991, where he was named the Emily Sanford Professor of English. Welsh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1969, and served as editor of Nineteenth-Century Literature between 1975 and 1981.
Go to Profile#36223
Mick Avory
#36235
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael Charles Avory is an English musician, best known as the longtime drummer and percussionist for the English rock band the Kinks. He joined them shortly after their formation in 1964 and remained with them until 1984, when he left amid creative friction with guitarist Dave Davies. He is the longest-serving member of the band, apart from the Davies brothers. He is also the most prolific member, again apart from the Davies brothers, who has played on twenty studio albums or nearly all of the band's creative output.
Go to Profile#36224
Axel Kaiser
#36236
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Axel Phillip Kaiser Barents-Von Hohenhagen is a Chilean writer, lawyer and political scientist. A Mont Pelerin Society member, he has collaborated as a columnist for El Mercurio, El Líbero and Diario Financiero. In 2013 and 2014 he published two articles in Forbes: "Is this the end of the Chilean economic miracle?" and "Michelle Bachelet is destroying Chile's free market institutions". Some critics argued about the latter that Kaiser was overstating the impact of Michelle Bachelet's reforms.
Go to Profile#36225
Dorothea Jameson
#36237
Overall Influence
1920 - 1998 (78 years)
Dorothea Jameson was an American cognitive psychologist who greatly contributed to the field of color and vision. Biography Jameson was born in Newton, Massachusetts. She went to Wellesley College. She elected psychology as her major in her first year because she was "intrigued that freshmen required special permission to enroll". She graduated in 1942. While at Welleseley she volunteered as a research assistant at Harvard, where she met her future husband, Leo Hurvich. They married in 1948.
Go to Profile#36226
Jan Kmenta
#36238
Overall Influence
1928 - 2016 (88 years)
Jan Kmenta was a Czech-American economist. He was the Professor Emeritus of Economics and Statistics at the University of Michigan and Visiting Professor at CERGE-EI in Prague, until summer 2016. Academic positions and awards After earning his PhD in Economics with a minor in Statistics from Stanford under Kenneth Arrow in 1964, Kmenta held academic positions at the University of Wisconsin 1964–65, Michigan State University 1965–73, and the University of Michigan 1973-93 and was a visiting faculty member at universities in five countries. Kmenta received 24 academic honors, awards, and prize...
Go to Profile#36227
Pierre L. van den Berghe
#36239
Overall Influence
1933 - 2019 (86 years)
Pierre L. van den Berghe was a Congolese-born American professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at the University of Washington, where he had worked since 1965. Born in the Belgian Congo to Belgian parents, and spending World War II in occupied Belgium, he was an early witness to ethnic conflict and racism, which eventually led him to become a leading authority on ethnic relations. He conducted field work in South Africa, Mexico, Guatemala, Iran, Lebanon, Nigeria, Peru, and Israel. Early in his career, he lectured at the University of Natal alongside Leo Kuper and Fatima Meer. A stude...
Go to Profile#36228
Graig Nettles
#36240
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Graig Nettles , nicknamed "Puff", is an American former Major League Baseball third baseman. During a 22-year baseball career, he played for the Minnesota Twins , Cleveland Indians , New York Yankees , San Diego Padres , Atlanta Braves , and Montreal Expos .
Go to Profile#36229
Ronnie Spector
#36241
Overall Influence
1943 - 2022 (79 years)
Veronica Yvette Greenfield was an American singer who co-founded and fronted the girl group the Ronettes. She is sometimes referred to as the original "bad girl of rock and roll". Ronnie formed the singing group with her older sister, Estelle Bennett, and their cousin, Nedra Talley, in the late 1950s. They were signed to Phil Spector's Philles label in 1963 and he produced the majority of their recording output. The Ronettes had a string of hits in the 1960s, including "Be My Baby" , "Baby, I Love You" , " Breakin' Up" , "Do I Love You?" , and "Walking in the Rain" . Ronnie married Phil in 1968.
Go to Profile#36230
Raymond van Barneveld
#36242
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Raymond van Barneveld is a Dutch professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation events. Nicknamed Barney, although originally known as The Man, he is one of the most successful darts players in history. Van Barneveld is a five-time World Darts Champion , a two-time UK Open Champion and a former winner of the Las Vegas Desert Classic, the Grand Slam of Darts and the Premier League. He is also a twice-winner of the World Masters and the World Darts Trophy, and a three-time winner of the International Darts League, the Dutch Open and the WDF World Cup Singles event.
Go to Profile#36231
Ahmed Okasha
#36243
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Ahmed Okasha is an Egyptian psychiatrist. He is a professor of psychiatry at Ain Shams University Faculty of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt. He wrote books and articles about psychiatry and mental disorders. He is the first Arab-Muslim to be president of World Psychiatric Association from 2002 to 2005.
Go to Profile#36232
Thies Gundlach
#36244
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Thies Gundlach is a retired German official of Protestant Church in Germany . From December 2010 to October 2021 he was vice-president of EKDs office. Life Thies Gundlach crew up in Lübeck. He said later that his family was not religious at all. He studied Protestant theology at the Universities of Hamburg and Tübingen. He completed his vicariate at St. Catherine's Church in Hamburg. From 1985 to 1988 he was a research associate at the University of Hamburg, in the theology department, dogmatics department, where he received his doctorate in 1991 with his dissertation on God's self-limitatio...
Go to Profile#36233
Moshe Kochavi
#36245
Overall Influence
1928 - 2008 (80 years)
Moshe Kochavi Biography Born in Bucharest, Romania, Kochavi immigrated to Palestine with his parents at the age of 5. Kochavi was drafted by the Palmach in 1947. He served in the Yiftach Brigade and was wounded during Operation Yoav.
Go to Profile#36234
Larry Abbott
#36246
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Laurence Frederick Abbott is an American theoretical neuroscientist, who is currently the William Bloor Professor of Theoretical Neuroscience at Columbia University, where he helped create the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. He is widely regarded as one of the leaders of theoretical neuroscience, and is coauthor, along with Peter Dayan, on the first comprehensive textbook on theoretical neuroscience, which is considered to be the standard text for students and researchers entering theoretical neuroscience. He helped invent the dynamic clamp method alongside Eve Marder.
Go to Profile#36235
Yen Chen-hsing
#36247
Overall Influence
1912 - 2005 (93 years)
Yen Chen-hsing was a Chinese-born engineer, educator, and politician based in Taiwan. Early life and education Yen graduated from National Tsing Hua University in Beijing and moved to the United States in 1937 to continue his education. He earned a master's degree and doctorate from the Department of Mechanics and Hydraulics at the University of Iowa in 1938 and 1941, respectively.
Go to Profile#36236
John Crook
#36248
Overall Influence
1930 - 2011 (81 years)
John Hurrell Crook was a British ethologist who filled a pivotal role in British primatology. As Reader in Ethology in the Psychology Department of University of Bristol, he led a research group studying social and reproductive behaviour in birds and primates throughout the 1970s–80s, turning to the socio-psychological anthropology of Himalayan peoples in the 1990s. In his later years he was the Teacher of the Western Chan Fellowship.
Go to Profile#36237
Deborah Nadoolman Landis
#36249
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Deborah Nadoolman Landis is an American costume designer, author, and professor. She has worked on notable films such as Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Three Amigos, all of which credited her as Deborah Nadoolman. Landis served two terms as president of the Costume Designers Guild of which she has been a member for more than thirty years. She is married to director John Landis; their son is screenwriter Max Landis.
Go to Profile#36238
R. William Field
#36250
Overall Influence
R. William Field is an academic scholar and Professor in the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health and Department of Epidemiology within the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa. He received a BS and MS degree in Biology from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Preventive Medicine from the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa in 1994. Field is currently an occupational and environmental epidemiologist as well as an internationally recognized expert on the measurement and health effects of radon gas.
Go to Profile#36239
Harold E. Brooks
#36251
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Harold Edward Brooks is an American meteorologist whose research is concentrated on severe convective storms and tornadoes, particularly severe weather climatology, as well as weather forecasting. Life and work Brooks began his higher education career at William Jewell College, studying physics and mathematics, achieving a B.A., summa cum laude, in 1982. While there he studied abroad at the University of Cambridge, passing Part 1 of the tripos in Archaeology and Anthropology in 1980. In 1985 he earned a M.A. and M.Phil. at Columbia University from the Atmospheric Sciences Program within the Department of Geological Sciences.
Go to Profile#36240
Tia DeNora
#36252
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Tia DeNora is Professor of Sociology of Music and Director of Research, in the Department of Sociology/Philosophy at the University of Exeter. Biography DeNora's undergraduate studies were in musicology and sociology. She completed her PhD in Sociology in 1989 at the University of California, San Diego. From then until 1992, she worked at University of Wales, Cardiff, where DeNora was a University of Wales Fellow from 1989-1991. DeNora moved to Exeter in 1992. DeNora was Chair of the European Sociological Association Network on Sociology of the Arts from 1999–2001 and is a Vice President of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Sociology of the Arts.
Go to Profile#36241
Dirk Brockmann
#36253
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Dirk Brockmann is a German physicist and Professor at the Institute for Biology at Humboldt University of Berlin and the Robert Koch Institute, Berlin. Brockmann is known for his work in complex systems, complex networks, computational epidemiology, human mobility and anomalous diffusion.
Go to Profile#36242
Roger De Vlaeminck
#36254
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Roger De Vlaeminck is a Belgian former professional racing cyclist. He was described by Rik Van Looy as "The most talented and the only real classics rider of his generation". Nicknamed "The Gypsy" because he was born into a family of traveling clothiers, he is known for exploits in the cobbled classic Paris–Roubaix race, but his performances in other "Monument" races gave him a record that few can match. His record in Paris–Roubaix earned him another nickname, "Monsieur Paris–Roubaix" .
Go to Profile#36243
Daniel L. Rubinfeld
#36255
Overall Influence
Daniel Lee Rubinfeld is an American economist specializing in public economics and law and economics. He is a professor of law at the New York University School of Law, as well as the Robert L. Bridges Professor Emeritus of Law and Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of two textbooks: Microeconomics and Econometric Models and Economic Forecasts.
Go to Profile#36244
Javier Clemente
#36256
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Javier Clemente Lázaro is a Spanish football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. Forced to retire from playing in his early 20s through injury, he embarked on a coaching career with his first managerial appointment coming in 1975. Over the next four decades, he took charge of several club and national teams, including Athletic Bilbao which he also represented as a player, as well as Espanyol and Spain. He won the La Liga championship in 1983 and 1984 with the former.
Go to Profile#36245
Iain Torrance
#36257
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Iain Richard Torrance, is a retired Church of Scotland minister, theologian and academic. He is Pro-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, Honorary Professor of Early Christian Doctrine and Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, President and Professor of Patristics Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary, and an Extra Chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland. He was formerly Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Dean of the Chapel Royal in Scotland, and Dean of the Order of the Thistle. He is married to Morag Ann , whom he met while they were stude...
Go to Profile#36246
Robin Room
#36258
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Robin Gerald Walden Room is an Australian sociologist and researcher who studies the health effects of alcohol and other drugs. From 2015 - 2017 he was the director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University, formerly at Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre in Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia, as well as the Professor of Alcohol Policy Research at the School of Population Health of the University of Melbourne, since March 2006. He is also a professor at the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs at Stockholm University.
Go to Profile#36247
Paul DePodesta
#36259
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Paul DePodesta is an American football executive and former baseball executive who is the chief strategy officer of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League . He previously served as a front-office assistant for the Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, and New York Mets. DePodesta was also general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is also known for his appearance in the book and movie Moneyball about his early career as an assistant with the Oakland Athletics.
Go to Profile#36248
Theodore J. St. Antoine
#36260
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Theodore J. St. Antoine is an American lawyer and legal scholar. He has served on the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School since 1965 and is currently the James E. and Sarah A. Degan Professor Emeritus of Law at the school. St. Antoine served as dean of the Law School from 1971 to 1978.
Go to Profile#36249
Philip Oreopoulos
#36261
Overall Influence
Philip Oreopoulos is an economist who currently serves as Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Oreopoulos's research focuses on the economics of education, labour economics, and public finance.
Go to Profile#36250
Richard Bird
#36262
Overall Influence
1943 - 2022 (79 years)
Richard Simpson Bird was an English computer scientist. Posts He was a Supernumerary Fellow of Computation at Lincoln College, University of Oxford, in Oxford England, and former director of the Oxford University Computing Laboratory . Formerly, Bird was at the University of Reading.
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