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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people
#37351
Philip Yampolsky
#37363
Overall Influence
1920 - 1996 (76 years)
Philip Boas Yampolsky was an eminent translator and scholar of Zen Buddhism and a former Director of the C. V. Starr East Asian Library of Columbia University. A scholar of Chinese and Japanese religious traditions and a specialist in Zen studies, Yampolsky was known for his translations of canonical Zen writings, which were used as textbooks in both graduate and undergraduate Asian studies courses in American universities. His style was regarded as highly analytical.
Go to Profile#37352
Jan Hogendijk
#37364
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jan Pieter Hogendijk is a Dutch mathematician and historian of science. Since 2005, he is professor of history of mathematics at the University of Utrecht. Hogendijk became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.
Go to Profile#37353
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
#37365
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is an American author. Masson is best known for his conclusions about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. In his The Assault on Truth , Masson argues that Freud may have abandoned his seduction theory because he feared that granting the truth of his female patients' claims would hinder the acceptance of his psychoanalytic methods. Masson is a veganism advocate and has written about animal rights.
Go to Profile#37354
Paul M. Lisnek
#37366
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Paul M. Lisnek was born on June 19, 1958, and is an attorney, legal consultant, political analyst, public speaker, television and radio talk show host, and interviewer, and author. He has consulted on and analyzed numerous nationally recognized legal cases. He currently resides in Chicago.
Go to Profile#37355
Carlo D'Este
#37367
Overall Influence
1936 - 2020 (84 years)
Carlo D'Este was an American military historian and biographer, author of several books, especially on World War II. He was a decorated U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. In 2011, he was awarded the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.
Go to Profile#37356
Kenneth W. Harl
#37368
Overall Influence
Kenneth W. Harl is an American scholar, author, and classicist. He received his B.A. in Classics and History at Trinity College, and his M.A. and PhD at Yale University. He was a Professor of History at Tulane University in New Orleans until his retirement in 2022.
Go to Profile#37357
Daniel Geschwind
#37369
Overall Influence
Daniel H. Geschwind is the Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics, Neurology and Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles . He also directs the UCLA Neurogenetics Program and the UCLA Center for Autism Research and Treatment , and holds the Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Chair of Human Genetics there. Since March 1, 2016, he has served as the Senior Associate Dean and Associate Vice Chancellor for Precision Medicine at UCLA. His brother, Michael Geschwind, is also a professor of neurology, and b...
Go to Profile#37358
Shelley Duvall
#37370
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Shelley Alexis Duvall is an American actress and producer widely known for her portrayal of distinctive, often eccentric characters. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Cannes Film Festival Award and a Peabody Award and nominations for a British Academy Film Award and two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Go to Profile#37359
Gerd Jüttemann
#37371
Overall Influence
1933 - 2023 (90 years)
Gerd Jüttemann was a German psychologist. He was the originator of the "Komparative Kasuistik" , a method widely applied in qualitative psychological research and in other social sciences within Europe.
Go to Profile#37360
Paul Butler
#37372
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Paul Delano Butler is an American lawyer, former prosecutor, and current law professor of Georgetown University Law Center. He is a leading criminal law scholar, particularly in the area of race and jury nullification.
Go to Profile#37361
Janet Benshoof
#37373
Overall Influence
1947 - 2017 (70 years)
Janet Benshoof was an American human rights lawyer and President and Founder of the Global Justice Center. She founded the Center for Reproductive Rights, the world's first international human rights organization focused on reproductive choice and equality.
Go to Profile#37362
Roger Cook
#37374
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Roger Cook is a New Zealand-born British investigative journalist and television broadcaster. In 1997, he won a British Academy of Film & Television Arts special award "for 25 years of outstanding quality investigative reporting", for his show The Cook Report.
Go to Profile#37363
Alison Goate
#37375
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Alison Mary Goate is a professor of neuroscience and Director of the Loeb Center for Alzheimer's Disease at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York City. She was previously professor of genetics in psychiatry, professor of genetics, and professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#37364
Richard Kaczynski
#37376
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Richard Kaczynski is an American writer and lecturer in the fields of social psychology, metaphysical beliefs and new religious movements. He is known for his biography of the occultist Aleister Crowley, Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley, described by The Times Literary Supplement as "the major biography to date", and by Didrik Søderlind in the Norwegian daily Aftenposten as the best biography of Crowley.
Go to Profile#37365
Timothy Hutton
#37377
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Timothy Hutton is an American actor and film director. He is the youngest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at age 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . Hutton has since appeared regularly in feature films and on television, with featured roles in the drama Taps , the spy film The Falcon and the Snowman , and the horror film The Dark Half , among others.
Go to Profile#37366
Thom Bell
#37378
Overall Influence
1943 - 2022 (79 years)
Thomas Randolph Bell was an American record producer, arranger and songwriter known as one of the creators of Philadelphia soul in the 1970s. He found success as a producer and songwriter for the Delfonics, Stylistics, and Spinners. In June 2006, Bell was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2016, Bell was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum.
Go to Profile#37367
Alan Wagner
#37379
Overall Influence
1931 - 2007 (76 years)
Alan Cyril Wagner was an American television executive, radio personality, writer, and opera historian and critic. He served as the East Coast vice president of programming at CBS from 1976 to 1982. After he left CBS, he became the first president of Disney Channel, but only presiding the role for a year.
Go to Profile#37368
Emil Schumacher
#37380
Overall Influence
1912 - 1999 (87 years)
Emil Schumacher was a German painter. He was an important representative of abstract expressionism in post-war Germany. In 2009 the Kunstquartier Hagen was inaugurated combining the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum Hagen as well as the newly built Emil Schumacher Museum in one Museum complex.
Go to Profile#37369
Richard Schwartz
#37381
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Richard Evan Schwartz is an American mathematician notable for his contributions to geometric group theory and to an area of mathematics known as billiards. Geometric group theory is a relatively new area of mathematics beginning around the late 1980s which explores finitely generated groups, and seeks connections between their algebraic properties and the geometric spaces on which these groups act. He has worked on what mathematicians refer to as billiards, which are dynamical systems based on a convex shape in a plane. He has explored geometric iterations involving polygons, and he has been credited for developing the mathematical concept known as the pentagram map.
Go to Profile#37370
J. Kevin O'Regan
#37382
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John Kevin O'Regan is an English psychologist. He is ex-director of the "Laboratoire de Psychologie de la Perception" at the Université René Descartes, Paris 5 . He was the last director of the "Laboratoire de Psychologie Expérimentale" before its dissolution in 2006.
Go to Profile#37371
Wolff-Michael Roth
#37383
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Wolff-Michael Roth is a learning scientist at the University of Victoria conducting research on how people across the life span know and learn mathematics and science. He has contributed to numerous fields of research: learning science in learning communities, coteaching, authentic school science education, cultural-historical activity theory, social studies of science, gesture studies, qualitative research methods, embodied cognition, situated cognition, and the role of language in learning science and mathematics.
Go to Profile#37372
Chris Atton
#37384
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Dr Christopher Frank Atton is the retired Professor of Media and Culture in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University. His work focuses on Alternative Media where his contribution has concentrated on the notion of alternative media not as an essentialised political position but as a set of socio-cultural processes that redraw the boundaries of expert culture and media power. His research interests include popular music, the creative economy, infoshops, and teaching and learning in higher education. Atton has also written on censorship and media ethics.
Go to Profile#37373
George Provopoulos
#37385
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
George Provopoulos was the Governor of the Bank of Greece from 2008 to 2014, and was a member of the European Central Bank's Governing Council. Prior to his appointment as Central Bank Head, he was a professor at the University of Athens.
Go to Profile#37374
Davor Solter
#37386
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Davor Solter is a Yugoslavian-born developmental biologist, particularly known for his pioneering work on mammalian genomic imprinting. He is Emeritus Member and Director, Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics; Visiting International Professor, Siriraj Center for Excellence in Stem Cell Research, Mahidol University, Thailand; and Visiting Professor, University of Zagreb Medical School.
Go to Profile#37375
Swami Tyagananda
#37387
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Swami Tyagananda is a Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order and presently the head of the Vedanta Society in Boston. Currently, he is also the Hindu chaplain at MIT and Harvard. He has presented papers at academic conferences, and he gives lectures and classes at the Vedanta Society, MIT, Harvard, and other colleges in and around Boston.
Go to Profile#37376
Bill Griswold
#37388
Overall Influence
William G. Griswold is a professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. His research is in software engineering; he is best known for his works on aspect-oriented programming using AspectJ and on finding invariants of programs to support software evolution.
Go to Profile#37377
Rashard Lewis
#37389
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Rashard Quovon Lewis is an American former professional basketball player. Lewis entered the NBA directly from Alief Elsik High School. He rose to prominence in the NBA as a scorer with the Seattle SuperSonics, and was later a member of the Orlando Magic, Washington Wizards and Miami Heat. He garnered two NBA All-Star selections, one with Seattle and another with Orlando. Lewis reached the NBA Finals three times, winning an NBA championship in 2013 as a member of the Heat.
Go to Profile#37378
Frank Lentricchia
#37390
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Frank Lentricchia is an American literary critic, novelist, and film teacher. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Duke University in 1966 and 1963 respectively after receiving a B.A. from Utica College in 1962. Lentricchia retired from Duke University, where he was a professor in the Program in Literature.
Go to Profile#37379
Judy Yung
#37391
Overall Influence
1946 - 2020 (74 years)
Judy Yung was professor emerita in American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specialized in oral history, women's history, and Asian American history. She died on December 14, 2020 in San Francisco, where she had returned in retirement.
Go to Profile#37380
Petr Šnapka
#37392
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Petr Šnapka is a Czech economist and university professor. Life Šnapka graduated 1967 from the Technical University of Ostrava at Faculty of Mining and Geology in the field of Economics and Organization in the mining industry. 1967/1968 he works as system analyst at OKD computer center in Ostrava. 1969 he became Assistant Professor for research at VŠB-TUO , from 1971 to 1976 as Assistant Professor for economics . 1972 he earned his Ph.D. in the field of economics of industrial sectors at the VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava.
Go to Profile#37381
Jean-Yves Lacoste
#37393
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jean-Yves Lacoste is a French philosopher. Lacoste is associated with what Dominique Janicaud called the "theological turn in phenomenology", along with other influential French phenomenologists like Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion and Jean-Louis Chrétien. Lacoste's work straddles philosophy and theology, and displays an interest in what might be called postmodern themes. He works in Paris and Cambridge and has a life membership at Clare Hall, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#37382
Daphne Hampson
#37394
Overall Influence
1944 - 2021 (77 years)
Margaret Daphne Hampson is an English theologian. Educated at Oxford and at Harvard, she held a personal Chair in "Post-Christian Thought" at the University of St Andrews. Hampson's distinctive theological position has both gained her notoriety and been widely influential. Holding that Christianity is neither true nor moral , she believes the overcoming of patriarchal religion to be fundamental to human emancipation. As a theologian Hampson has always held to a "realist" position, in which the understanding of "that which is God" is based in human religious experience.
Go to Profile#37383
Joel S. Demski
#37395
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Joel S. Demski is an American accounting researcher and educator, and Frederick E. Fisher Eminent Scholar at University of Florida, inducted to the Accounting Hall of Fame in 2000. Life and work Born in Sturgis, Michigan to George and Athalia Demski, Demski moved with his family to Pinconning, Michigan, where he grew up and his father had his own machine shop. He received a BSE in industrial engineering in 1962 from the University of Michigan, and MBA degree with high distinction in 1963. In this MBA program he encountered William A. Paton and took courses from Stephen A. Zeff and Samuel R. Hepworth.
Go to Profile#37384
Hans-Georg Münzberg
#37396
Overall Influence
1916 - 2000 (84 years)
Hans-Georg Münzberg was a German engineer who specialized in airplane turbines and space flight. He taught at the TU Berlin, the TH Munich, and wrote textbooks. Life Münzberg was born in Tetschen , the son of the industrialist Rudolf Münzberg. He studied mechanical engineering at the in Prague from 1934, graduating with the diploma in 1939. He then worked for the BMW-Flugmotorenwerke in Berlin-Spandau, focused on air foil turbines . He earned his Ph.D. in June 1942 with a dissertation on "Das Gasturbinentriebwerk als Antriebsaggregat für Hochgeschwindigkeitsflugzeuge" .
Go to Profile#37385
K. K. N. Kurup
#37397
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
K. K. N. Kurup is an historian of India and a former vice-chancellor of the University of Calicut. He has specialised in the history of the Malabar region of South India. Kurup obtained a B.A. from the University of Delhi and then studied for his M.A. and PhD at the University of Calicut. He was awarded the latter in 1976. He had been teaching at Calicut since 1972 and continued in various positions there. In 1983, he was a professor and the head of the history department at the University of Mangalore and was also awarded a professorship at Calicut. He was appointed head of the history depar...
Go to Profile#37386
Aryeh Kasher
#37398
Overall Influence
1935 - 2011 (76 years)
Aryeh Kasher was an Israeli academic and writer. He was a professor at Tel Aviv University and winner of the 1990 Bialik Prize for Hebrew literature. His life and his research activity Kasher grew up in Kfar Vitkin, where he graduated from elementary school and high school. In his youth he wrote the radio feuilleton "Hilik Haviv" with his childhood friends and classmates Gad Yaacobi and Micha Gisser . In the Israeli army, he served at the Nahal.
Go to Profile#37387
Jonathan Rée
#37399
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Jonathan Rée is a British freelance historian and philosopher from Bradford. Educated at Sussex University and then at Oxford, Rée was previously a professor of philosophy at Middlesex University, but gave up a teaching career in order to "have more time to think".
Go to Profile#37388
Harold Solomon
#37400
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Harold Solomon is an American former professional tennis player who played during the 1970s and 1980s. He achieved a career-high world ranking of No. 5 in singles in 1980, and of No. 4 in doubles in 1976. Over the course of his career, he won 22 singles titles.
Go to Profile#37389
Lee Young-hoon
#37401
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Lee Young-hoon , Lee Yong-hoon, Rhee Yong-hoon, or Yi Yŏnghun is a former professor of economics at Seoul National University and the president of the Naksungdae Institute of Economic Research . He is a member and co-representative of the Textbook Forum of the New Right Party. He is known for undertaking new positivistic research on the Economy of Joseon.
Go to Profile#37390
Carolyn Gomes
#37402
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
The Honourable Carolyn Gomes, O.J. is a Jamaican human rights activist. She is also the co-founder and now the past executive director of Jamaicans for Justice. Gomes resigned as the executive director of Jamaicans for Justice due to controversy surrounding the JFJ introducing sex education material into a number of private children's homes in Jamaica that was deemed inappropriate. Since 2014 Carolyn Gomes has been serving as the executive director of Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition .
Go to Profile#37391
Melvin Goodman
#37403
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Melvin Allan "Mel" Goodman is a national security and intelligence expert. He has worked as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department, taught at the National War College and Johns Hopkins University, and is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.
Go to Profile#37392
Steven Berkoff
#37404
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Steven Berkoff is an English actor, author, playwright, theatre practitioner and theatre director. As a theatre maker he is recognised for staging work with a heightened performance style eponymously known as "Berkovian theatre", which combines elements of physical theatre, total theatre and expressionism. His work has sometimes been viewed as an example of in-yer-face theatre, due to the intense presentation and taboo-breaking material in a number of his plays.
Go to Profile#37393
John Gilmore
#37405
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
John "Jonathan" Gilmore was an American author and gonzo journalist known for iconoclastic Hollywood memoirs, true crime literature and hard-boiled fiction. A motion picture, television and stage actor in Los Angeles and New York in the 1950s, Gilmore has also written about his encounter with Elizabeth Short a.k.a. "The Black Dahlia" during his youth. Gilmore emerged as a writer from the Beat Generation in the '60s, influenced by Jack Kerouac and befriended by author William S. Burroughs. The publication of his true crime book "Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia," ushered in a cult following for the author.
Go to Profile#37394
Georg Nöbeling
#37406
Overall Influence
1907 - 2008 (101 years)
Georg August Nöbeling was a German mathematician. Education and career Born and raised in Lüdenscheid, Nöbeling studied mathematics and physics at University of Göttingen between 1927 and 1929 and University of Vienna, where he was a student of Karl Menger and received his PhD in 1931 on a generalization of the embedding theorem, which for one special case can be visualized by the Menger sponge. Nöbeling worked and researched in Menger's Mathematical Colloquium with Kurt Gödel, Franz Alt, Abraham Wald, Olga Taussky-Todd and others.
Go to Profile#37395
Hans Herrmann
#37407
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Hans Herrmann is a retired Formula One and sports car racing driver from Stuttgart, Germany. In F1, he participated in 19 World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 2 August 1953. He achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 10 championship points.
Go to Profile#37396
Elman Rustamov
#37408
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Elman Rustamov is an Azerbaijani politician. He was the chairman of Azerbaijan Central Bank from January 1995 until April 2022. Biography Rustamov was born 29 June 1952 in Jabrail district of Azerbaijan.
Go to Profile#37397
Randhir Sud
#37409
Overall Influence
Randhir Sud, an Indian gastroenterologist and the Chairman of the Medanta Institute of Digestive and Hepatobiliary Sciences, is known to be one of the pioneers of Gastro Intestinal oncology in India. He is a former co-chairman of the department of gastroenterology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi.
Go to Profile#37398
Norman Routledge
#37410
Overall Influence
1928 - 2013 (85 years)
Norman Arthur Routledge was a British mathematician and schoolteacher. He was a personal friend of fellow mathematician Alan Turing . Life and career Norman Routledge was born near Alexandra Park, north London, England. He was about to begin secondary education at Glendale County School, Wood Green, in 1939, when the outbreak of World War II intervened. He was evacuated with his mother, going to live in Letchworth with an aunt, and attending Letchworth Grammar School, where he was taught mathematics by George Braithwaite.
Go to Profile#37399
Rosaly Lopes
#37411
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Rosaly M. C. Lopes is a planetary geologist, volcanologist, an author of numerous scientific papers and several books, as well as a proponent of education. Her major research interests are in planetary and terrestrial surface processes with an emphasis on volcanology.
Go to Profile#37400
Yoshinori Imaizumi
#37412
Overall Influence
1914 - 2007 (93 years)
Yoshinori Imaizumi was a Japanese zoologist. He is known for describing the Iriomote cat in 1967. He was the director of the zoological department of the National Museum of Nature and Science.
Go to Profile