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
#36251
Cadel Evans
#36263
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Cadel Lee Evans is an Australian former professional racing cyclist who competed professionally in both mountain biking and road bicycle racing. A four-time Olympian, Evans is one of three non-Europeans – along with Greg LeMond and Egan Bernal – to have won the Tour de France, winning the race in 2011.
Go to Profile#36252
Jack Garrick
#36264
Overall Influence
1928 - 2018 (90 years)
John Andrew Frank "Jack" Garrick was a New Zealand ichthyologist. He specialized in elasmobranchs and published many books and articles about shark and ray biology. In 1982, he published a thorough taxonomy on sharks of the genus Carcharhinus, where he identified the smoothtooth blacktip shark as a new species. He is the species authority for several types of sharks, including the New Zealand lanternshark. Garrick was a zoology professor at Victoria University of Wellington, appointed to a personal chair in 1971.
Go to Profile#36253
Brian Klug
#36265
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Brian Klug is Honorary Fellow in Social Philosophy at Campion Hall, Oxford and an emeritus member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University. He is also an honorary fellow of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton and fellow of the College, Saint Xavier University, Chicago.
Go to Profile#36254
Osonye Tess Onwueme
#36266
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Osonye Tess Onwueme, also known as T. Akaeke Onwueme is a Nigerian playwright, scholar and poet, who rose to prominence writing plays with themes of social justice, culture, and the environment. In 2010, she became the university Professor of Global Letters, following her exceptional service as Distinguished Professor of Cultural Diversity and English at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Through her plays, she is able to use the theatre as a medium to showcase historically silenced views such as African women, and shedding more light on African life. She sustains her advocacy for the gl...
Go to Profile#36255
Bruce Boudreau
#36267
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Bruce Allan Boudreau is a Canadian professional ice hockey coach and former player. He previously served as head coach of the Washington Capitals, Anaheim Ducks, Minnesota Wild, and Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League . As a player, Boudreau played professionally for 20 seasons, and was a third round pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft. He played 141 games in the NHL with the Maple Leafs and Chicago Black Hawks, and 30 games in the World Hockey Association with the Minnesota Fighting Saints. Boudreau played most of his career in the American Hockey Leag...
Go to Profile#36256
Sankar Kumar Pal
#36268
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sankar Kumar Pal is a computer scientist and president of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He is a computer scientist with an international reputation on pattern recognition, image processing, fuzzy neural network, soft computing, granular mining, and machine intelligence. He founded the Machine Intelligence Unit in 1993, and the Center for Soft Computing Research: A National Facility in 2004, both at the ISI. He is the founder president of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Kolkata Chapter.
Go to Profile#36257
Qi Lu
#36269
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Lu Qi is a Chinese-American software executive and engineer who is the head of MiraclePlus, a startup incubator in China. Previously, Lu was the head of Y Combinator's China until it was shut down. He was formerly the chief operating officer of Baidu until he stepped down in May, 2018. He has served as the executive vice president of Microsoft, leading development of Bing, Skype, and Microsoft Office, and software engineer and manager for Yahoo!'s search technology division.
Go to Profile#36258
David Penny
#36270
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Edward David Penny CNZM FRSNZ is a theoretical and evolutionary biologist from New Zealand. He has researched the nature of evolutionary transformations, and is widely published in the fields of phylogenetic tree, genetics and evolutionary biology. Penny's contributions to science have been recognised with several awards and honours, and acceptance into the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#36259
Rudolf Kingslake
#36271
Overall Influence
1903 - 2003 (100 years)
Rudolf Kingslake was an English academic, lens designer, and engineer. Kingslake was born in London, England in 1903 as Rudolf Klickmann. The latter is in all probability a re-transcription from Cyrillic of the traditional German-Jewish "Glückmann" meaning "lucky man". Kingslake studied optical design at the Imperial College of Science and Technology, under the eminent optical designer and theoretician Alexander Eugen Conrady, earning a master's degree, subsequently marrying Professor Conrady's daughter, Hilda Conrady Kingslake, a prominent English-American researcher in the field of optics.
Go to Profile#36260
Peter Jenniskens
#36272
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Petrus Matheus Marie Jenniskens is a Dutch-American astronomer and a senior research scientist at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute and at NASA Ames Research Center. He is an expert on meteor showers, and wrote the book Meteor Showers and their Parent Comets, published in 2006 and Atlas of Earth’s Meteor Showers, published in 2023. He is past president of Commission 22 of the International Astronomical Union and was chair of the Working Group on Meteor Shower Nomenclature after it was first established. Asteroid 42981 Jenniskens is named in his honor.
Go to Profile#36261
Claire F. Gmachl
#36273
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Claire F. Gmachl is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton University. She is best known for her work in the development of quantum cascade lasers. Education and honors Gmachl earned her M.Sc. in physics from the University of Innsbruck in 1991. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Vienna in 1995, graduating sub auspiciis Praesidentis . Her studies focused on integrated optical modulators and tunable surface-emitting lasers in the near infrared. From 1996 to 1998, she was a postdoctoral member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories.
Go to Profile#36262
Brady Quinn
#36274
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Brayden Tyler "Brady" Quinn is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League for seven seasons. He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, winning the Maxwell Award. Quinn was selected by the Cleveland Browns in the first round of the 2007 NFL Draft. Following three seasons in Cleveland, he was traded to Denver, where he was a Bronco for two seasons. Quinn spent his last three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, and St. Louis Rams for one year each.
Go to Profile#36263
Kathleen Wynne
#36275
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Kathleen O'Day Wynne is a Canadian former politician who served as the 25th premier of Ontario and leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from 2013 to 2018. She was member of provincial parliament for Don Valley West from 2003 to 2022. Wynne is the first female premier of Ontario and the first openly gay premier in Canada.
Go to Profile#36264
Gurpreet Singh Lehal
#36276
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Gurpreet Singh Lehal is a professor in the Computer Science Department, Punjabi University, Patiala and Director of the Advanced Centre for Technical Development of Punjabi Language Literature and Culture. He is noted for his work in the application of computer technology in the use of the Punjabi language both in the Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi script.
Go to Profile#36265
Juan J. de Pablo
#36277
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Juan J. de Pablo is a chemical engineer, Liew Family professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago and senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. In 2018, he was appointed Vice President for National Laboratories at the University of Chicago, a title which later expanded to include Science Strategy, Innovation and Global Initiatives in 2020. As of 2021, he is Executive Vice President for Science, Innovation, National Laboratories and Global Initiatives at the University of Chicago. He is known for his research on the thermophysical properties of soft materials.
Go to Profile#36266
Ewa Ziarek
#36278
Overall Influence
Ewa Ziarek is the Julian Park Professor of Comparative Literature at The State University of New York at Buffalo . She has a major interest in engaging with other scholars on their own terms, and believes that a model of dissensus in philosophy, rather than the traditional consensus model, may produce highly valuable results.
Go to Profile#36267
H. W. F. Saggs
#36279
Overall Influence
1920 - 2005 (85 years)
Henry William Frederick Saggs was an English classicist and orientalist. Early life and education Saggs was born in East Anglia on 2 December 1920. He attended Clacton County High School, following which he went to King's College London where he studied theology, graduating in 1942.
Go to Profile#36268
Andrea Rusnock
#36280
Overall Influence
Andrea Rusnock is a professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. She has published two books and numerous articles on science and medicine in the Enlightenment, quantification, public health and the environment, and the history of vaccination. Her work has been reviewed in Medical History: An International Journal for the History of Medicine and Related Sciences, EH.net of the Economic History Association, and The American Historical Review.
Go to Profile#36269
David Latchman
#36281
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
David Seymour Latchman CBE is a British geneticist and university administrator. Since 2003 he has been Vice-Chancellor of Birkbeck, University of London, and since 1999 professor of genetics at University College London.
Go to Profile#36270
Charles Burson
#36282
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Charles Wainman Burson is a former legal counsel and Chief of Staff to the Vice President of the United States under Al Gore. He assumed the position of legal counsel from Kumiki Gibson in February 1997 after serving almost a decade as Tennessee Attorney General. In 1999 Charles Burson became Gore's Chief of Staff, replacing Ron Klain who resigned in August of that year.
Go to Profile#36271
Gaston Diehl
#36283
Overall Influence
1912 - 1999 (87 years)
Gaston Diehl was a French professor of art history and an art critic. Biography Diehl graduated from the Institut d'Art et d'Archéologie in 1934 and the Ecole du Louvre in 1936. In October 1935, Diel and his classmates formed a student group called 'Regain', where they conducted a weekly review of the same name dedicated to discuss once or twice a month of contemporary creativity with different artists in the basement of the Capoulade Quartier. Beginning 1938, Diehl participated in the weekly magazine Marianne and kept for a year a chronicle of art called "The rostrum of Youth." In 1939, he ...
Go to Profile#36272
Boris Grebenshchikov
#36284
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Boris Borisovich Grebenshchikov is a prominent member of the generation which is widely considered to be the "founding fathers" of Russian rock music. He is the founder and lead singer of the band Aquarium which has been active since 1972. Grebenshchikov is frequently referred to as BG , after his initials.
Go to Profile#36273
Deborah Schiffrin
#36285
Overall Influence
1951 - 2017 (66 years)
Deborah Sue Schiffrin was an American linguist who researched areas of discourse analysis and sociolinguistics, producing seminal work on the topic of English discourse markers. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she earned a B.A. in sociology from Temple University , an MA in sociology also from Temple University , and her PhD in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania under the supervision of William Labov. Schiffrin taught at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and at the University of California in Berkeley California.
Go to Profile#36274
John Ssebuwufu
#36286
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
John Pancras Mukasa Lubowa Ssebuwufu, commonly known as John Ssebuwufu is a Ugandan chemist, academic and administrator. He is a former chancellor of Kyambogo University, Uganda's second-largest public university serving between 2014-2022 having served for 2 terms. He was installed as chancellor on 19 February 2014, replacing Eric Tiyo Adriko, who had completed his two term tenure. The correct spelling of his last name is Ssebuwufu. However the literature contains many instances where the name is spelled with a single "s".
Go to Profile#36275
Peter Coyote
#36287
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Peter Coyote is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , Cross Creek , Jagged Edge , Bitter Moon , Kika , Patch Adams , Erin Brockovich , A Walk to Remember , and Femme Fatale .
Go to Profile#36276
Östen Mäkitalo
#36288
Overall Influence
1938 - 2011 (73 years)
Östen Mäkitalo was a Swedish electrical engineer. He is considered to be the one of the most important developers in modern times together with Laila Ohlgren, both engineers at Telia. Together they developed the Nordic Mobile Telephone system and were the leading figures, representing Telia and Sweden, in the meetings with the other Nordic countries to find a common standard. Later they developed GSM and led the meetings to find a European and later world standard for mobile communication. They are many times considered the developer of the cellular phone and mobile telephony.
Go to Profile#36277
Alfred P. Thorne
#36289
Overall Influence
1913 - 2012 (99 years)
Alfred Palmerston Thorne was a development economist, international consultant and educator. He was a featured university lecturer at a number of international campuses including Oxford University. Authoring many articles on the economic development experience of developing countries, his scholarly works were published by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford Economic Papers, University of Puerto Rico, and University of the West Indies. Among other works, Dr. Thorne authored the Size, Structure and Growth of the Economy of Jamaica: A National Economic Accounts Study.
Go to Profile#36278
Paula Krebs
#36290
Overall Influence
Paula Krebs is the Executive Director of the Modern Language Association of America , the largest organization of scholars of languages and literature in the United States. She was previously a professor of English at Wheaton College. From 2012 to 2017, she served as the dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bridgewater State University.
Go to Profile#36279
Bob Allen
#36291
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#36280
Ilse Schwidetzky
#36292
Overall Influence
1907 - 1997 (90 years)
Ilse Schwidetzky was a German anthropologist. Biography She was the daughter of Georg and Susanne Schwidetzky. Susanne Schwidetzky, who studied math at the University of Berlin around 1900, died in 1911 of tuberculosis. Georg Schwidetzky studied law and had a successful political career which ended with World War I. The family moved to Leipzig, where Georg Schwidetzky worked for Die Deutsche Bücherei, roughly equivalent to the Library of Congress. Ilse Schwidetzky had three siblings, Eva , Walter , and Georg . She is related to Oscar Schwidetzky, who invented the ace bandage and was the fi...
Go to Profile#36281
Carson Daly
#36293
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Carson Jones Daly is an American television host, radio personality, producer, and television personality. From 1998 to 2003, Daly was a VJ on MTV's Total Request Live , and a DJ for the Southern California-based radio station 106.7 KROQ-FM. In 2002, Daly joined NBC, where he began hosting and producing the late night talk show Last Call with Carson Daly, and occasionally hosting special event programming for NBC, such as the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks show, and executive producing New Year's Eve with Carson Daly from Times Square beginning in 2003.
Go to Profile#36282
Abul Barkat
#36294
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Abul Barkat is a Bangladeshi economist and a professor in the Department of Economics, University of Dhaka. In addition to his teaching, from 2009 to 2014 he was the former chairman of Janata Bank Ltd. He is the present elected president of the Bangladesh Economic Association. He is a freedom fighter.
Go to Profile#36283
Antonio Cassano
#36295
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Antonio Cassano is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a forward. A talented and technically gifted player, he was usually deployed as a supporting forward, but could also play as an attacking midfielder, winger, or as a striker. Nicknamed Il Gioiello di Bari Vecchia , and Fantantonio , he was known for his short temper as much as his skill and ability on the pitch. Cassano won an Italian and Spanish league title each throughout his career as major honours.
Go to Profile#36284
Thomas D. Wilson
#36296
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Dr. Thomas D. Wilson is a researcher in information science and has been contributing to the field since 1961, when he received his Fellowship from the British Library Association. His research has focused on information management and information seeking behaviour.
Go to Profile#36285
H. S. Shivaprakash
#36297
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Hulkuntemath Shivamurthy Sastri Shivaprakash is a leading poet and playwright writing in Kannada. He is professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He heads the Cultural Centre at Berlin, known as the Tagore Centre, as Director run by Indian Council for Cultural Relations . He has seven anthologies of poems, twelve plays, and several other books to his credit. His works have been widely translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Polish, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. His plays have been performed in Kannada, Hindi, Meitei, Rabha, Assamese, Bodo, Tamil and Malayalam.
Go to Profile#36286
Michael Lynch
#36298
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael E. Lynch , is an emeritus professor at the department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. His works are particularly concerned with ethnomethodological approaches in science studies. Much of his research has addressed the role of visual representation in scientific practice.
Go to Profile#36287
Lawrence H. Aller
#36299
Overall Influence
1913 - 2003 (90 years)
Lawrence Hugh Aller was an American astronomer. He was born in Tacoma, Washington. He never finished high school and worked for a time as a gold miner. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1936 and went to graduate school at Harvard in 1937. There he obtained his master's degree in 1938 and his PhD in 1943. From 1943 to 1945 he worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of California Radiation Laboratory. He was an assistant professor at Indiana University from 1945 to 1948 and then an associate professor and professor at the University of Michigan until 1962.
Go to Profile#36288
Joseph Glannon
#36300
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Joseph Glannon, J.D. is a professor at Suffolk University Law School and author of several legal guides. He has taught courses in civil procedure, conflict of laws, and torts at Suffolk since 1980. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Arts in Teaching and Juris Doctor from Harvard University. Before attending law school, Glannon served as an assistant dean of men and coordinator of student activities at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. After graduating from Harvard Law, Glannon was a clerk for the Massachusetts Appeals Court.
Go to Profile#36289
Frank Westheimer
#36301
Overall Influence
1912 - 2007 (95 years)
Frank Henry Westheimer was an American chemist. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1954, and at Harvard University from 1953 to 1983, becoming the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry in 1960, and Professor Emeritus in 1983. The Westheimer medal was established in his honor in 2002.
Go to Profile#36290
Anne Ancelin Schützenberger
#36302
Overall Influence
1919 - 2018 (99 years)
Anne Ancelin Schützenberger was a French psychologist and psychotherapist. During the Second World War she was a member of the French Resistance. She was born in Moscow, into a Jewish family, but grew up in Paris, where she received her education, leading eventually to doctorates in literature and psychology. As a result of her Resistance activities, she became regional secretary of the newly-formed Mouvement de libération nationale in 1944, and on 6 June of the same year her home was burned down by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich. Having gained experience working on the MLN's journal, ...
Go to Profile#36291
Mark Purnell
#36303
Overall Influence
Mark Andrew Purnell is a British palaeontologist, Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Leicester. Purnell is an expert in conodont biostratigraphy and conodont palaeobiology, focussing especially on attempts to uncover the function of conodont elements. Using conventional functional morphology, physical modelling and microwear analysis, Purnell uncovered unequivocal evidence that conodont elements had performed a mechanical tooth function in life, resolving a palaeobiological debate that had run for more than a century. His work has expanded in recent years to analysing feeding me...
Go to Profile#36292
Mario Ramón Beteta
#36304
Overall Influence
1925 - 2004 (79 years)
Mario Ramón Beteta Monsalve was a Mexican economist who served as the last Secretary of Finance in the cabinet of President Luis Echeverría , as director-general of Pemex and as governor of the State of México .
Go to Profile#36293
Kellen Winslow
#36305
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Kellen Boswell Winslow Sr. is an American former professional football tight end who played in the National Football League . A member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame , he is widely recognized as one of the greatest tight ends in the league's history. Winslow played his entire NFL career from 1979 to 1987 with the San Diego Chargers after being selected in the first round of the 1979 NFL Draft. He played college football for the University of Missouri, where he was a consensus All-American. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame .
Go to Profile#36294
Stanley Block
#36306
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Stanley Block, Ph.D., CFA, is an Emeritus Professor of Finance at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He is best known as coauthor with Geoffrey Hirt of numerous books in finance, including Foundations of Financial Management and Fundamentals of Investment Management. The first-mentioned text has sold over a million copies.
Go to Profile#36295
Blas Cabrera Navarro
#36307
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Blas Cabrera Navarro is a Stanley G. Wojcicki Professor of Physics at Stanford University best known for his experiment in search of magnetic monopoles. He is the son of Spanish physicist Nicolás Cabrera and the grandson of Blas Cabrera Felipe, also a Spanish physicist.
Go to Profile#36296
Clyde Lovellette
#36308
Overall Influence
1929 - 2016 (87 years)
Clyde Edward Lovellette was an American professional basketball player. Lovellette was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1988. He was the first basketball player in history to play on an NCAA championship team, Olympics gold medal basketball team, and NBA championship squad.
Go to Profile#36297
Susan Shurin
#36309
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Susan Shurin is a senior adviser at the National Cancer Institute. From 2006–2014, she served as Deputy and Acting Director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
Go to Profile#36298
Claude Le Pen
#36310
Overall Influence
1948 - 2020 (72 years)
Claude Le Pen was a French economist. He specialized in health economics. Biography Le Pen earned a doctorate in economics in 1980. He was a professor first at University of Rennes from 1981 to 1984, then at the Paris Dauphine University.
Go to Profile#36299
James J. White
#36311
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
James Justesen White is an American legal scholar working as the Robert A. Sullivan Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. He has published the most widely recognized treatise on commercial law, Uniform Commercial Code with Robert S. Summers.
Go to Profile#36300
David J. Anderson
#36312
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
David J. Anderson is an American neurobiologist. He is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. His lab is located at the California Institute of Technology, where he currently holds the position of Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair and Director, TianQiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience. Anderson is a founding adviser of the Allen Institute for Brain Research, a non-profit research institute funded by the late Paul G. Allen, and spearheaded the Institute's early effort to generate a comprehensive map of gene expression in the m...
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