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
#36751
E. M. Broner
#36763
Overall Influence
1927 - 2011 (84 years)
Esther M. Broner, best known as E.M. Broner, was a Jewish American feminist author. Personal life Broner attended Wayne State University and received a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in creative writing. She received her PhD in religion at what is now the Union Institute & University. Broner returned to Wayne State to teach English and also taught at Sarah Lawrence College.
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George Tinker
#36764
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
George E. "Tink" Tinker is an American Indian scholar of the Osage Nation who taught for more than three decades at the Iliff School of Theology, a United Methodist Church theological school, where he focused his scholarship on the decolonization of American Indian Peoples. The Tinker family name is deeply embedded among the Osage.
Go to Profile#36753
Victoria Bateman
#36765
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Victoria N. Bateman is a British feminist economist and academic, specialising in economic history. She is a fellow in economics at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. She is Director of Studies for the Economics Tripos at Gonville and Caius College.
Go to Profile#36754
Laura Miller
#36766
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Laura Miller is an American anthropologist and the Ei'ichi Shibusawa-Seigo Arai Endowed Professor of Japanese Studies and Professor of History at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. She held various academic positions and jobs in both the United States and Japan before accepting this named chair in 2010.
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Andre Miller
#36767
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Andre Lloyd Miller is an American former professional basketball player and the current head coach for the Grand Rapids Gold. Miller has played professional basketball for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Los Angeles Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, Washington Wizards, Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs. Currently, he ranks eleventh all-time in NBA career assists and only missed three games to injury in his 17-year career. He is the only player in NBA history to have at least 16,000 career points, 8,000 assists and 1,500 steals without ...
Go to Profile#36756
Leon Gouré
#36768
Overall Influence
1922 - 2007 (85 years)
Leon Gouré was a Soviet Union-born American political scientist and analyst. His studies for the RAND Corporation in the 1960s and 1970s helped influence civil defense preparedness in the United States and U.S. strategy in the Vietnam War.
Go to Profile#36757
Akhilesh Yadav
#36769
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Akhilesh Yadav is an Indian politician and national president of the Samajwadi Party who served as the 20th Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Having assumed the chief minister's office on 15 March 2012 at the age of 38, he is the youngest person to have held the office to date. Yadav is the Leader of Opposition in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly since March 2022, an elected Member of Parliament for Azamgarh in the 17th Lok Sabha, and the incumbent Member of Legislative Assembly for Karhal in the 18th Vidhan Sabha.
Go to Profile#36758
Michael R. Ayers
#36770
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Michael Richard Ayers is a British philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He studied at St John's College, Cambridge, and was a fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1965 until 2002. Among his students are Colin McGinn and William Child.
Go to Profile#36759
Ipke Wachsmuth
#36771
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ipke Wachsmuth was born 1950. He is a German computer scientist within the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. Wachsmuth is a professor for artificial intelligence at Bielefeld University and teaches computer science and artificial intelligence since 1989. From 2002 until 2009 he was the managing director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Bielefeld. His research mainly focuses on human-machine interaction and virtual reality.
Go to Profile#36760
Angus Young
#36772
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Angus McKinnon Young is an Australian musician, best known as the co-founder, lead guitarist, songwriter, and the only remaining founding member of the hard rock band AC/DC. He is known for his energetic performances, schoolboy-uniform stage outfits and his own version of Chuck Berry's duckwalk. Young was ranked 38th in the 2023 edition of Rolling Stones 250 greatest guitarists of all-time list. In 2003, Young and the other members of AC/DC were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#36761
Judy Illes
#36773
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Judy Illes, , PHD, FRSC, FCAHS, is Professor of Neurology and Distinguished University Scholar in Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia. She is Director of Neuroethics Canada at UBC, and faculty in the Brain Research Centre at UBC and at the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute. She also holds affiliate appointments in the School of Population and Public Health and the School of Journalism at UBC, and in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. USA. She was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2017.
Go to Profile#36762
Edie Falco
#36774
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Edith Falco is an American actress. She is best known for portraying Carmela Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos , and Nurse Jackie Peyton on the Showtime series Nurse Jackie . She also portrayed Diane Whittlesey in HBO's prison drama Oz .
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Gianni Riotta
#36775
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Gianni Riotta is an Italian journalist, a regular contributor for the daily newspaper La Stampa and a former editor-in-chief of the financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Rai 3 and the news bulletin TG1. He has contributed to the Washington Post, Le Monde, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times. Riotta also has U.S. citizenship.
Go to Profile#36764
Gaspar Noé
#36776
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Gaspar Noé is an Argentine filmmaker based in Paris, France. He is the son of Argentine painter, writer, and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé. In the early 1990s, Noé co-founded the production company Les Cinémas de la Zone with his wife, Lucile Hadžihalilović. He has directed seven feature films: I Stand Alone , Irréversible , Enter the Void , Love , Climax , Lux Æterna , and Vortex .
Go to Profile#36765
Elliott Abrams
#36777
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Elliott Abrams is an American politician and lawyer, who has served in foreign policy positions for presidents Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. Abrams is considered to be a neoconservative. He is currently a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as the U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela from 2019 to 2021 and as the U.S. Special Representative for Iran from 2020 to 2021.
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Tina Weymouth
#36778
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Martina Michèle Weymouth is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and a founding member and bassist of the new wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club, which she co-founded with her husband, Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz. In 2002, Weymouth was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads.
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E. C. Pielou
#36779
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Evelyn Chrystalla "E.C." Pielou was a Canadian statistical ecologist. Biography Pielou studied at the University of London, where she obtained her bachelor's degree in botany in 1951 and her PhD in 1962. From 1963 to 1964, she worked as a researcher for the Canadian Department of Forestry, followed by the Canadian Department of Agriculture between 1964 and 1967. Later she was professor of biology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and then Oil Sands Environmental Research Professor working out of the University of Lethbridge, Alberta...
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David Manker Abshire
#36780
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
David Manker Abshire served as a Special Counselor to President Ronald Reagan and was the United States Permanent Representative to NATO from 1983 to 1987. Abshire presided over the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.
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Edgar Winter
#36781
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Edgar Holland Winter is an American multi-instrumentalist, working as a vocalist along with playing keyboards, saxophone, and percussion. His success peaked in the 1970s with his band the Edgar Winter Group and their popular songs "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride". He is the brother of late blues singer and guitarist Johnny Winter.
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Jo Stafford
#36782
Overall Influence
1917 - 2008 (91 years)
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American traditional pop music singer, whose career spanned five decades from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. Admired for the purity of her voice, she originally underwent classical training to become an opera singer before following a career in popular music, and by 1955 had achieved more worldwide record sales than any other female artist. Her 1952 song "You Belong to Me" topped the charts in the United States and United Kingdom, becoming the second single to top the UK Singles Chart, and the first by a female artist to do so.
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Rashida Jones
#36783
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Rashida Leah Jones is an American actress, writer, producer, and director. She appeared as Louisa Fenn on the Fox drama series Boston Public , as Karen Filippelli on the NBC comedy series The Office , and as Ann Perkins on the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation . From 2016 to 2019, Jones starred as the eponymous lead role in the TBS comedy series Angie Tribeca, and in 2020, Jones starred as Joya Barris in the Netflix series #blackAF.
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Biman Bagchi
#36784
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Biman Bagchi is an Indian scientist currently serving as a SERB-DST National Science Chair Professor and Honorary Professor at the Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit of the Indian Institute of Science. He is a theoretical physical chemist and biophysicist known for his research in the area of statistical mechanics; particularly in the study of phase transition and nucleation, solvation dynamics, mode-coupling theory of electrolyte transport, dynamics of biological macromolecules , protein folding, enzyme kinetics, supercooled liquids and protein hydration layer. He is an elected fellow...
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Suri Ratnapala
#36785
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Suri Ratnapala is an Australian academic. He is Emeritus Professor of Public Law of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Biography Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Suri Ratnapala attended the Royal College, Colombo and the University of Colombo, where he gained his first law degree. His father Amaradasa Ratnapala was a medical doctor and politician. His mother, Ancy Samarasinha, was member of a prominent family in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka. Ratnapala is married to Rusri, née Gunasekera. Their son, Dr Adrian Ratnapala, is a scientist working Germany.
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Olga Oleinik
#36786
Overall Influence
1925 - 2001 (76 years)
Olga Arsenievna Oleinik HFRSE was a Soviet mathematician who conducted pioneering work on the theory of partial differential equations, the theory of strongly inhomogeneous elastic media, and the mathematical theory of boundary layers. She was a student of Ivan Petrovsky. She studied and worked at the Moscow State University.
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Wang Ling
#36787
Overall Influence
1917 - 1994 (77 years)
Wang Ling , 1917 or 1918–1994 Biography Wang Ling was born in Nantong, China, and graduated in history from National Central University , which had moved from Nanjing to Chongqing during the Sino-Japanese war. In 1943, while working as a junior researcher at the Academia Sinica's Institute of History and Philology in Lizhuang, Wang met Needham, a British biochemist who had been sent by the Royal Society and British Government to head the Sino-British Science Cooperation Office, whose mission was to assist the universities of China.
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Christy Moore
#36788
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore is an Irish folk singer, songwriter and guitarist. In addition to his significant success as an individual, he is one of the founding members of Planxty and Moving Hearts. His first album, Paddy on the Road was recorded with Dominic Behan in 1969. In 2007, he was named as Ireland's greatest living musician in RTÉ's People of the Year Awards.
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Denny McLain
#36789
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Dennis Dale McLain is an American former professional baseball player. He played for ten seasons in Major League Baseball as a right-handed pitcher, most prominently as a member of the Detroit Tigers. In 1968, McLain became the last Major League Baseball pitcher to win 30 or more games during a season — a feat accomplished by only 11 players in the 20th century.
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Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas
#36790
Overall Influence
1906 - 1994 (88 years)
Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas , also known as Nikos Ghika, was a leading Greek painter, sculptor, engraver, writer and academic. He was a founding member of the Association of Greek Art Critics, AICA-Hellas, International Association of Art Critics.
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Henry Felix Kaiser
#36791
Overall Influence
1927 - 1992 (65 years)
Henry Felix Kaiser was an American psychologist and educator who worked in the fields of psychometrics and statistical psychology. He developed the Varimax rotation method and the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin test for factor analysis in the late 1950s.
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Robert B. Semple Jr.
#36792
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Robert B. Semple Jr. is the associate editor of The New York Times editorial page, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. Semple was raised in Michigan and educated at Andover, and Yale University, where he was Chairman of the Yale Daily News and was elected to Elihu, a senior society. Semple subsequently received an M.A. in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1961.
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Øystein Gullvåg Holter
#36793
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Øystein Gullvåg Holter is a Norwegian sociologist and expert on men's studies. Son of Harriet Holter. He is Professor of men's studies at the University of Oslo, the first to be appointed to such a chair in Norway. He worked as a researcher at the Work Research Institute from 1980 to 2006, and at the Nordic Gender Institute from 2006 to 2008. His fields of research are work and family, gender equality and historical sociology. He was a member of the Equality Commission, established by a Royal Decree of 12 February 2010 in order to report on Norway’s equality policies.
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George B. Hutchinson
#36794
Overall Influence
George B. Hutchinson is a noted American scholar, Professor of Literatures in English and Newton C. Farr Professor of American Culture at Cornell University, where he is also Director of the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines. He is well known for his transformative work on 19th- and 20th-century American and African American literature and culture, focusing especially on the racial mores, materialistic addictions, and ecological errors of the United States. A recipient of both the NEH and Guggenheim Fellowships, he is the author of several foundational books.
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William H. Oldendorf
#36795
Overall Influence
1925 - 1992 (67 years)
William Henry Oldendorf was an American neurologist, physician, researcher, medical pioneer, founding member of the American Society for Neuroimaging , and originator of the technique of computed tomography.
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Takeshi Okada
#36796
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
is a Japanese former football player and manager. He last played for and managed the Japan national team. He currently chairman of FC Imabari. Club career Okada was born in Osaka on August 25, 1956. After graduating from Waseda University, he joined Japan Soccer League club Furukawa Electric in 1980. In 1982, the club won 1982 JSL Cup. In 1986, the club won JSL and JSL Cup and he was selected Best Eleven. The club also won 1986 Asian Club Championship. This is the first Asian champions as Japanese club. He retired in 1990. He played 189 games and scored 9 goals in the league.
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Chris Wilder
#36797
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Christopher John Wilder is an English professional football manager who formerly played as a right-back. He was most recently the manager of EFL Championship club Watford. Wilder's extensive professional playing career saw spells at Sheffield United , Rotherham United, Notts County, Bradford City, Brighton & Hove Albion and Halifax Town. He also had loan spells at five clubs.
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Chinelo Okparanta
#36798
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Chinelo Okparanta is a Nigerian-American novelist and short-story writer. She was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where she was raised until the age of 10, when she emigrated to the United States with her family.
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Jim Propp
#36799
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
James Gary Propp is a professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Education and career In high school, Propp was one of the national winners of the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad , and an alumnus of the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics. Propp obtained his AB in mathematics in 1982 at Harvard. After advanced study at Cambridge, he obtained his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He has held professorships at seven universities, including Harvard, MIT, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
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Jack McKeon
#36800
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Jack Aloysius McKeon , nicknamed "Trader Jack," is an American former Major League Baseball manager and front-office executive. In , at age 72, he won a World Series as manager of the Florida Marlins. Two full seasons removed from his previous managing job, McKeon had begun the season in retirement, but on May 11, he was induced to return to uniform to replace Jeff Torborg as the Marlins' skipper. The team was 16–22 and in next-to-last place in the National League East Division. Described upon his hiring by Marlins' general manager Larry Beinfest as a "resurrection specialist," McKeon led t...
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Win McMurry
#36801
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Win McMurry is an American sportscaster. Until October 2013, she anchored Golf Channel's "PGA Tour Primetime" and reported for Golf Central, Morning Drive and other programming features and specials. She is also the host of a series of travel shows on GolfChannel.com titled “Gone With the Win”, and McMurry is also the resident fantasy golf expert, as well as the network's authority on golf fashion.
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Wilson Jeremiah Moses
#36802
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Wilson Jeremiah Moses is an African-American historian. He is Professor of American History at Pennsylvania State University. Career Wilson J. Moses obtained his A.B. and M.A. in British Literature at Wayne State University, and his Ph.D. in American Civilization at Brown University. He held the Walter L. Ferree professorship in the middle period of American History at Pennsylvania State University before that, and he currently is Professor Emeritus at Penn State. He has in the past held a series of posts at other American Universities:Assistant Professor of History at the University of Iowa;...
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Minor J. Coon
#36803
Overall Influence
1921 - 2018 (97 years)
Minor Jesser Coon was an American biochemist and Victor V Vaughan Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is best known for his research on cytochrome P-450 and as the co-discoverer of HMG-CoA, along with Bimal Kumar Bachhawat. He died on September 5, 2018, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
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Eli Mandel
#36804
Overall Influence
1922 - 1992 (70 years)
Eli Mandel was a Canadian poet, editor of many Canadian anthologies, and literary academic. Biography Eli Mandel died in relative obscurity. A series of strokes had left him unable to write and, as a result, Mandel had receded from public view long before his death.
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Ron Larson
#36805
Overall Influence
Ron Larson is an art director, album cover designer and graphic artist. He has won two Grammys for his designs. He has worked closely with John Kosh and also done many various projects for Disney. He was also responsible for helping with the design of the original Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope logo as well as designing the logo for The Empire Strikes Back. He rendered the logo for Spinal Tap LP Break Like the Wind and the movie poster for Prince's Under The Cherry Moon. Besides working in both the movie industry and recording industry he was also involved in the art used on video game covers.
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María Félix
#36806
Overall Influence
1914 - 2002 (88 years)
María de los Ángeles Félix Güereña was a Mexican actress and singer. Along with Pedro Armendáriz and Dolores del Río, she was one of the most successful figures of Latin American cinema in the 1940s and 1950s. Considered one of the most beautiful actresses of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, her strong personality and taste for finesse garnered her the title of diva early in her career. She was known as La Doña, a name derived from her character in Doña Bárbara , and María Bonita, thanks to the anthem composed exclusively for her as a wedding gift by Félix's second husband, Agustín Lara. Her...
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Cito Gaston
#36807
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Clarence Edwin "Cito" Gaston is an American former Major League Baseball outfielder, coach and manager. His major league career as a player lasted from 1967 to 1978, most notably with the San Diego Padres and Atlanta Braves. He spent his entire managerial career with the Toronto Blue Jays, becoming the first African-American manager in Major League Baseball history to win a World Series title.
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Boris A. Novak
#36808
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Boris A. Novak is a Slovene poet, dramaturge and editor. Novak was born in 1953 in Belgrade where he also spent his early childhood. He completed secondary schooling in Ljubljana and studied Comparative literature and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana and worked as a dramaturge at the Slovene National Theatre and as a lecturer at the University. He has also been involved in humanitarian work and was in 2002 elected vice-president of International PEN.
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Liam Cosgrave
#36809
Overall Influence
1920 - 2017 (97 years)
Liam Cosgrave was an Irish Fine Gael politician who served as Taoiseach from 1973 to 1977, Leader of Fine Gael from 1965 to 1977, Leader of the Opposition from 1965 to 1973, Minister for External Affairs from 1954 to 1957, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and Government Chief Whip from 1948 to 1951. He served as a Teachta Dála from 1943 to 1981.
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John Rayner
#36810
Overall Influence
1924 - 2005 (81 years)
Rabbi John Desmond Rayner was a British Liberal Jewish rabbi. He was born in Berlin as Hans Sigismund Rahmer. He left Berlin in 1939 on one of the last Kindertransports. The Kindertransport programme brought around 10,000 children to the UK. Both his parents, Ferdinand Rahmer and Charlotte Landshut, were murdered in the Holocaust.
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George Tchobanoglous
#36811
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
George Tchobanoglous is an American civil and environmental engineer, writer and professor. Biography George Tchobanoglous was born in the United States to Greek immigrant parents. He received a BS in civil engineering from the University of the Pacific, an MS in sanitary engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in environmental engineering from Stanford University. Rolf Eliassen was his PhD adviser at Stanford.
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Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe
#36812
Overall Influence
1913 - 1998 (85 years)
Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe , was a noted French urban sociologist. He was strongly influenced by the Chicago school and was an early advocate of participatory planning. Biography In the 1930s, Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe studied sculpture and philosophy at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he also became interested in ethnology and sociology. After graduating in philosophy, he first worked in Cameroun, but in 1937 returned to France to absolve the compulsory military service. After the defeat of the French army in 1940, he first fled to North Africa but returned to France after the armistice, where he cooperated with the Resistance.
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