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
#37451
Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland
#37463
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Prince Carl Philip of Sweden, Duke of Värmland is the only son and the second of three children of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia. , Prince Carl Philip is fourth in the line of succession, after his older sister, Crown Princess Victoria, his niece and goddaughter Princess Estelle, and his nephew Prince Oscar. He lives with his wife, Princess Sofia, and three sons, Prince Alexander, Prince Gabriel and Prince Julian in Villa Solbacken in Djurgården, Stockholm.
Go to Profile#37452
Hans Stoll
#37464
Overall Influence
1939 - 2020 (81 years)
Hans Reiner Stoll was the Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker, Jr. Professor of Finance and Director of the Financial Markets Research Center at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. He was a Public Director of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc.
Go to Profile#37453
Sucharit Sarkar
#37465
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Sucharit Sarkar is an Indian topologist and professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles who works in low-dimensional topology. Education and career Sarkar attended secondary school at South Point High School in his hometown, Calcutta, India. In the International Mathematical Olympiads in 2001 and 2002, he received gold and silver medals respectively. He completed his Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore in 2005.
Go to Profile#37454
Richard Longenecker
#37466
Overall Influence
1930 - 2021 (91 years)
Richard N. Longenecker was a New Testament scholar. He held teaching positions at Wheaton College and Graduate School ; Trinity Evangelical Divinity School ; Wycliffe College ; University of St. Michael’s College ; and McMaster Divinity College . His education included B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wheaton College, and a Ph.D. from New College in the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#37455
Brian Garfield
#37467
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Brian Francis Wynne Garfield was an Edgar Award-winning American novelist, historian and screenwriter. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, he wrote his first published book at the age of eighteen. Garfield went on to author more than seventy books across a variety of genres, selling more than twenty million copies worldwide. Nineteen were made into films or TV shows. He is best known for Death Wish , which launched a lucrative franchise when it was adapted into the 1974 film of the same title.
Go to Profile#37456
Sevvandi Jayakody
#37468
Overall Influence
Sevvandi Jayakody is a conservationist and echinodermologist from Sri Lanka, who is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Aquaculture & Fisheries at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. Career Jayakody has a BSc in Zoology from the University of Kelaniya and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen. She also has a diploma in Wildlife Management and Conservation from the Wildlife Institute of India. She joined the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation as an Assistant Director in 1997, followed post-doctoral research at institutions in Scotland, Canada and Australia. She joined the Department of Aquaculture & Fisheries at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka in 2001.
Go to Profile#37457
Raymond Hide
#37469
Overall Influence
1929 - 2016 (87 years)
Raymond Hide CBE FRS was a British physicist, who was a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and, since 2000, senior research investigator at Imperial College, London. Life Hide was educated at Percy Jackson Grammar School, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire and the University of Manchester, where he obtained a first-class degree in physics in 1950. He then went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and was awarded a doctorate in 1953.
Go to Profile#37458
Ruth Schwartz Cowan
#37470
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ruth Schwartz Cowan is an American historian of science, technology and medicine noted for her research on the history of human and medical genetics, as well as on the history of household technologies. She is also the author of a widely used textbook on the social history of American technology.
Go to Profile#37459
Bjørnar Olsen
#37471
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Bjørnar Julius Olsen is professor at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway. He is a Norwegian archaeologist who specializes in archaeological theory, material culture, museology, northern/Arctic archaeology, and contemporary archaeology. Olsen is a prominent figure in the turn to things in humanities and social sciences, including symmetrical archaeology.
Go to Profile#37460
David T. Hon
#37472
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
David T. Hon is a Hong Kong-born American physicist, inventor and entrepreneur. He is best known as the inventor and founder of Dahon folding bicycles. Dahon has since grown to become the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of folding bikes with Hon still CEO to this day.
Go to Profile#37462
Michael Dobson
#37474
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Michael S. Dobson is an American author in the fields of business , alternate history novels and role-playing game adventures . Early life Dobson's family moved from North Carolina to Germany when he was a child; his father had spent the latter part of World War II in a POW camp and had grown adjusted to German hospitality. The Dobson family returned to the United States five years later in 1960. Dobson later lived in Decatur, Alabama, but he felt that he did not fit in well in the South. "I still can't play a Civil War game to this day." Having trouble in school, and having had enough of the Deep South, he moved back to Charlotte for college.
Go to Profile#37463
Giuseppe Tornatore
#37475
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Giuseppe Tornatore is an Italian film director and screenwriter. He is considered one of the directors who brought critical acclaim back to Italian cinema. In a career spanning over 30 years he is best known for directing and writing drama films such as Everybody's Fine, The Legend of 1900, Malèna, Baarìa and The Best Offer. His most noted film is Cinema Paradiso, for which Tornatore won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. He has also directed several advertising campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana.
Go to Profile#37464
Samah Selim
#37476
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Samah Selim is an Egyptian scholar and translator of Arabic literature. She studied English literature at Barnard College, and obtained her PhD from Columbia University in 1997. At present she is an associate professor at the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She has also taught at Columbia, Princeton and Aix-en-Provence universities.
Go to Profile#37465
Keiko McDonald
#37477
Overall Influence
1940 - 2008 (68 years)
Keiko McDonald was an American orientalist. Biography Keiko McDonald was born in Nara, Japan, on January 1, 1940. In 1963, McDonald graduated from Osaka University of Foreign Studies with a degree in English. She received an MA in English from the State University of California-Sacramento in 1966. Later attending the University of Oregon where she received her Doctor of Arts in 1971 and a PhD in 1974.
Go to Profile#37466
Inez Smith Reid
#37478
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Inez Smith Reid is a former judge of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and former Corporation Counsel of the District of Columbia. Reid was born in New Orleans and raised in Washington, D.C., where she graduated from Dunbar High School. She began college at Howard University before graduating from Tufts University. After college, she joined her twin brother, George Bundy Smith, also a future judge, at Yale Law School, where they were the only two black students in their class. At Yale, Reid roomed with future delegate from D.C. Eleanor Holmes Norton and befriended Marian Wright Edelma...
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Tom Berenger
#37479
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Tom Berenger is an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in Platoon . He is also known for playing Jake Taylor in the Major League films and Thomas Beckett in the Sniper films. Other films he appeared in include Looking for Mr. Goodbar , The Dogs of War , The Big Chill , Eddie and the Cruisers , Someone to Watch Over Me , Betrayed , The Field , Sniper , Gettysburg , The Substitute , Training Day , and Inception .
Go to Profile#37468
Narain Karthikeyan
#37480
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Kumar Ram Narain Karthikeyan is an Indian racing driver. He was the first Indian driver to compete in Formula One. He has previously competed in A1GP, and the Le Mans Series. He has won multiple races in A1GP, British F3, World series by Nissan, AutoGP, Formula Asia, British Formula Ford & Opel series in his single-seater career. He won the British Formula Ford Winter Series in 1994 & Formula Asia Championship in 1996. He also finished fourth overall in British F3 in 2000 & the World Nissan series in 2003. He made his Formula One debut in with the Jordan team, and was a Williams F1 test driver in and .
Go to Profile#37469
Julia Yeomans
#37481
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Julia Mary Yeomans is a British theoretical physicist active in the fields of soft condensed matter and biological physics. She has served as Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford since 2002.
Go to Profile#37470
Victor Golla
#37482
Overall Influence
1939 - 2021 (82 years)
Victor Golla was a linguist and a leading expert on the indigenous languages of California and Oregon, especially the Pacific Coast Athabaskan subgroup of the Athabaskan language family and the languages of the region that belong to the Penutian phylum. He was emeritus professor of anthropology at Humboldt State University and lived in Trinidad, California.
Go to Profile#37471
José Ángel Valente
#37483
Overall Influence
1929 - 2000 (71 years)
José Ángel Valente Docasar was a Spanish poet of the Generation of '50, an essayist, and a translator, who wrote in Spanish and Galician. He studied at the Faculty of Law at the University of Santiago de Compostela, at the Faculty of Romance Philology at the University Complutense, taught Spanish philology at Oxford. From 1958 he lived in Switzerland, after 1980 he divided his time between Spain, Switzerland and France. In 1972, in 1972, he was accused by the Franco government of insulting the honor of the Spanish army.
Go to Profile#37472
Rod Strickland
#37484
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Rodney Strickland is an American basketball coach and former professional basketball player. He is currently the head coach at Long Island University. Prior to LIU, he served as the program manager for the NBA G League's professional path. Strickland played college basketball at DePaul University, where he was awarded All-American honors. He then enjoyed a long career in the National Basketball Association , playing from 1988 to 2005. Strickland was an assistant coach for the South Florida Bulls, under Orlando Antigua from 2014 to 2017. He formerly served in an administrative role for the Uni...
Go to Profile#37473
Rob Magnuson Smith
#37485
Overall Influence
Rob Magnuson Smith is a novelist, short story writer, journalist, and university lecturer. A dual citizen of the United States and the United Kingdom, Smith currently resides in Cornwall. He has a BA in philosophy and a BA in psychology from Pitzer College, an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia, where he won the David Higham Award, and a PhD in creative writing from Bath Spa University. Since September 2013, he has taught English and Creative Writing for the University of Exeter.
Go to Profile#37474
Dean Roemmich
#37486
Overall Influence
Dean Roemmich is a contemporary American physical oceanographer. Roemmich was the early leader behind the sensors array Argo which continuously and globally measures vertical profiles of oceanic conditions, chiefly temperature and salinity.
Go to Profile#37475
Tom Wilkinson
#37487
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson is a British actor of film, television, and stage. He has received various awards throughout his career, including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe, a Primetime Emmy Award and nominations for two Academy Awards.
Go to Profile#37476
Héctor Cúper
#37488
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Héctor Raúl Cúper is an Argentine football manager and former player who is currently head coach of the Syria national team. As a player, he was a defender who spent most of his career at Club Ferro Carril Oeste, where played 463 games. His nickname was "Cabezón" .
Go to Profile#37477
David Boren
#37489
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
David Lyle Boren is a retired American lawyer and politician from Oklahoma. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as 21st governor of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1979 and three terms in the United States Senate from 1979 to 1994. A conservative Democrat, to date, he is the last in his party to have served as U.S. Senator from Oklahoma. He was the 13th and second-longest serving president of the University of Oklahoma from 1994 to 2018. He was the longest serving chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. On September 20, 2017, Boren officially announced his retirement as preside...
Go to Profile#37478
John McCafferty
#37490
Overall Influence
John McCafferty is a British scientist, one of the founders of Cambridge Antibody Technology alongside Sir Gregory Winter and David Chiswell. He is well known as one of the inventors of scFv antibody fragment phage display, a technology that revolutionised the monoclonal antibody drug discovery. McCafferty and his team developed this process following failures previously generating antibodies by immunizing mice. Later improvements of antibody phage display technology enables the display of millions of different antibody fragments on the surface of filamentous phage and subsequent selection of highly specific recombinant antibodies to any given target.
Go to Profile#37479
Ailsa Land
#37491
Overall Influence
1927 - 2021 (94 years)
Ailsa Horton Land was a Professor of Operational Research in the Department of Management at the London School of Economics and was the first woman professor of Operational Research in Britain. She is most well-known for co-defining the branch and bound algorithm along with Alison Doig whilst carrying out research at the London School of Economics in 1960. She was married to Frank Land, who is an Emeritus Professor at the LSE.
Go to Profile#37480
Tomris Bakır
#37492
Overall Influence
1941 - 2020 (79 years)
Tomris Bakır was a classical archaeologist from Turkey, who specialised in ceramics, and was the Director of Excavations at Daskyleion. Biography Tomris Akbaşoğlu was born on 5 November 1941. She studied at Ankara University, where she obtained her undergraduate degree. She was awarded a doctoral degree at the Archaeological Institute of Heidelberg University, doctoral advisor was Roland Hampe. She was married to the archaeologist Güven Bakır .
Go to Profile#37481
Tarn Adams
#37493
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Tarn Adams is an American computer game programmer, best known for his work on Dwarf Fortress. He has been working on the game since 2002 together with his older brother Zach. He learned programming in his childhood, and took up designing computer games as a hobby. In 2006, he quit during his first year of a mathematics post doctorate at Texas A&M University to focus on game development.
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Adrian Desmond
#37494
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Adrian John Desmond is an English writer on the history of science and author of books about Charles Darwin. Life He studied physiology at London University and went on to study history of science and vertebrate palaeontology at University College London before researching the history of vertebrate palaeontology at Harvard University. He was awarded a PhD in the area of the Victorian-period context of Darwinian evolution.
Go to Profile#37483
Paul Hasluck
#37495
Overall Influence
1905 - 1993 (88 years)
Sir Paul Meernaa Caedwalla Hasluck, was an Australian statesman who served as the 17th Governor-General of Australia, in office from 1969 to 1974. Prior to that, he was a Liberal Party politician, holding ministerial office continuously from 1951 to 1969.
Go to Profile#37484
Vaughn Bishop
#37496
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Vaughn Frederick Bishop was an American intelligence officer and former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who served from August 1, 2018 to January 20, 2021 and was appointed by President Donald Trump. Bishop first joined the CIA in 1981, and retired in 2011. He returned to the CIA four years later to serve as CIA Ombudsman for Analytic Objectivity during the Agency's modernization effort. On March 27, 2023, CIA director [William J. Burns] said in a statement: "CIA mourns the passing of former Deputy Director Vaughn Bishop. Vaughn personified what it means to be a CIA officer during his long and storied career.
Go to Profile#37485
George Lopez
#37497
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
George Edward Lopez is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He is most known for starring in his self-produced ABC sitcom. His stand-up comedy examines race and ethnic relations, including Mexican American culture. Lopez has received several honors for his work and contributions to the Latino community, including the 2003 Imagen Vision Award, the 2003 Latino Spirit Award for Excellence in Television and the National Hispanic Media Coalition Impact Award. He was also named one of "The Top 25 Hispanics in America" by Time magazine in 2005.
Go to Profile#37486
Stephen White
#37498
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Stephen Leonard White is British political scientist and historian, emeritus professor at University of Glasgow, an author of many articles and books about politics of Soviet Union and Russia. Stephen White graduated from Trinity College, Dublin with degrees in history and political science, and then completed a PhD in Soviet studies at University of Glasgow and a DPhil in politics at Wolfson College, Oxford. White was awarded the Marshall Scholarship.
Go to Profile#37487
Michael Crabtree
#37499
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Michael Alex Crabtree Jr. is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for 11 seasons in the National Football League . He played college football for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, twice earning unanimous All-American honors. He was selected 10th overall by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2009 NFL Draft. Crabtree was a member of the 49ers for six seasons and spent the remainder of his career with the Oakland Raiders, Baltimore Ravens, and Arizona Cardinals.
Go to Profile#37488
Julio M. Fernandez
#37500
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Julio M. Fernandez is Professor at the Department of Biological Sciences Columbia University. Fernandez studied physics in Chile, then did his PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles. He did post-doctorate work in Los Angeles and Germany. In 1987 he became professor at the Department of Physiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Then, he moved to Rochester, Minnesota to the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Mayo Foundation. Since 2002 he is professor at the Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University.
Go to Profile#37489
Glenda Gilmore
#37501
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore is an American historian of the American South at Yale University. She is the author of many publications, including "These United States: A Nation in the Making 1890 to Present" , "Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920" , and "Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950" .
Go to Profile#37490
Chester Brown
#37502
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Chester William David Brown is a Canadian cartoonist. Brown has gone through several stylistic and thematic periods. He gained notice in alternative comics circles in the 1980s for the surreal, scatological Ed the Happy Clown serial. After bringing Ed to an abrupt end, he delved into confessional autobiographical comics in the early 1990s and was strongly associated with fellow Toronto-based cartoonists Joe Matt and Seth, and the autobiographical comics trend. Two graphic novels came from this period: The Playboy and I Never Liked You . Surprise mainstream success in the 2000s came with Louis Riel , a historical-biographical graphic novel about rebel Métis leader Louis Riel.
Go to Profile#37491
Raymond J. Carroll
#37503
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Raymond James Carroll is an American statistician, and Distinguished Professor of statistics, nutrition and toxicology at Texas A&M University. He is a recipient of 1988 COPSS Presidents' Award and 2002 R. A. Fisher Lectureship. He has made fundamental contributions to measurement error model, nonparametric and semiparametric modeling.
Go to Profile#37492
Noah Baumbach
#37504
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Noah Baumbach is an American film director and screenwriter. He is known for making comedies set in New York City, and his works are inspired by writer-directors such as Woody Allen and Whit Stillman. His frequent collaborators include Wes Anderson, Adam Driver, and Greta Gerwig.
Go to Profile#37493
John W. Pilley
#37505
Overall Influence
1928 - 2018 (90 years)
John W. Pilley was an American behavioral psychologist best known for his research into canine cognition and language learning with his Border collie, Chaser, who had the largest tested memory of any non-human animal. He was a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Wofford College and was an avid kayaker throughout his life. Pilley was awarded an honorary Doctor of Psychology from Wofford College in 2016.
Go to Profile#37494
Stuart Price
#37506
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Stuart David Price is an English electronic musician, DJ, songwriter, and record producer known for his work with artists including Madonna, Dua Lipa, The Killers, New Order, Kylie Minogue, DMA's, Example, Take That, Missy Elliott, Scissor Sisters, Pet Shop Boys, Brandon Flowers, Gwen Stefani, Seal, Keane, Jessie Ware, Frankmusik, Hard-Fi, Hurts, Everything Everything, Rina Sawayama, and Darin. His acts include his own band Zoot Woman , Les Rythmes Digitales , Paper Faces, Man with Guitar, Thin White Duke , and the parodic French moniker Jacques Lu Cont .
Go to Profile#37495
Bobby Richardson
#37507
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Robert Clinton Richardson, Jr. is an American former professional baseball second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees from 1955 through 1966. Batting and throwing right-handed, he formed a top double play combination with fellow Yankee infielders Clete Boyer and Tony Kubek. He became the only World Series Most Valuable Player to be selected from the losing team when he won the award for his play in the 1960 World Series. In 1962, he led the American League in hits with 209 and snared a line drive off the bat of Willie McCovey to win the 1962 World Series for...
Go to Profile#37496
Chester Starr
#37508
Overall Influence
1914 - 1999 (85 years)
Chester G. Starr was an American historian. An authority on ancient history, he specialized in the ancient art and archeology of the Greco-Roman civilization. According to the University of Michigan, he was "the acknowledged dean of ancient history in America."
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Jonathan Rapping
#37509
Overall Influence
Jonathan A. Rapping is an American criminal defense attorney, founder and president of Gideon's Promise, professor of law at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, and visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School. Rapping received the MacArthur "Genius" Award in 2014.
Go to Profile#37498
Trilochan Pradhan
#37510
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
Trilochan Pradhan was an Indian scientist. Career Pradhan obtained his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1956. He headed the Theoretical Nuclear Physics Division at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics from 1964 to 1974, was the founding director of the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar from 1974 to 1989 and served as the vice chancellor of Utkal University from 1989 to 1991.
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Eric Chu
#37511
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Eric Li-luan Chu is a Taiwanese politician who is currently the chairman of the Kuomintang . Born into a political family with strong ties to the Kuomintang, Chu served as a member of the Legislative Yuan from 1999 to 2001, and as the magistrate of Taoyuan County from 2001 to 2009. From 2009 to 2010, he served as the vice premier, under Premier Wu Den-yih. He was elected as the first mayor of the newly established city of New Taipei on 27 November 2010.
Go to Profile#37500
William Canby
#37512
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
William Cameron Canby Jr. is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting in Phoenix, Arizona. As both a professor at Arizona State University College of Law and a Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Canby has become known as an authority on American Indian law. He has authored law review articles, a major textbook, and the West Nutshell Series primer on the subject. While still a professor at ASU, Canby successfully argued the case of Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, in which the Supreme Court h...
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