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
#38351
Fred Spiess
#38363
Overall Influence
1919 - 2006 (87 years)
Dr. Fred Noel Spiess was a naval officer, oceanographer and marine explorer. His work created new advances in marine technology including the FLIP Floating Instrument Platform, the Deep Tow vehicle for study of the seafloor, and the use of acoustics for underwater navigation and geodetic positioning.
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Liam Payne
#38364
Overall Influence
1993 - Present (33 years)
Liam James Payne is an English singer. He rose to fame as a member of the boy band One Direction. Payne made his debut as a singer in 2008 when he auditioned for the British television series The X Factor. After being eliminated in the competition, he auditioned again in 2010 and was put into a group with four other contestants to form One Direction, which went on to become one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. Payne worked with other producers under the monikers "Big Payno" and "Payno" creating remixes for songs by his group and Cheryl.
Go to Profile#38353
Frederick Plum
#38365
Overall Influence
#38354
Henry Mayr-Harting
#38366
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting is a British medieval ecclesiastical historian. From 1997 to 2003, he was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford and a lay canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
Go to Profile#38355
Michelle Williams
#38367
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michelle Ingrid Williams is an American actress. Known primarily for starring in small-scale independent films with dark or tragic themes, she has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for five Academy Awards and a Tony Award.
Go to Profile#38356
Hans-Georg Betz
#38368
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Hans-Georg Betz is an academic at the University of Zurich. He is the author of several books on right-wing populism including Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe and The New Politics of the Right: Neo-Populist Parties and Movements in Established Democracies.
Go to Profile#38357
Hamish Scott
#38369
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Hamish Marshall Scott, was a Scottish historian and academic. He was Professor of International History then Wardlaw Professor of International History at the University of St Andrews. Having studied at the University of Edinburgh and the London School of Economics, he began his career lecturing at the University of Birmingham.
Go to Profile#38358
Michael Zuckert
#38370
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Michael P. Zuckert is an American political philosopher and Reeves Dreux Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Zuckert earned a bachelor's degree in Cornell University in 1964, and completed his master's degree and doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1967 and 1974, respectively.
Go to Profile#38359
Ehsan Zaffar
#38371
Overall Influence
Ehsan Zaffar is a civil rights advocate, educator and policymaker and the founder of the Los Angeles Mobile Legal Aid Clinic , which helped to pioneer the delivery of mobile legal care to vulnerable populations in California and across the nation.
Go to Profile#38360
Margaret Stock
#38372
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Margaret D. Stock is an American politician, immigration attorney, and retired Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Reserve. She is a recognized expert on immigration law as it applies to U.S. military personnel and veterans.
Go to Profile#38361
Susan Neville
#38373
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Susan Neville is a short story writer, essayist and professor, known for her work exploring Indiana and the Midwest. Life She graduated from DePauw University in 1973. In 1976, she graduated from Bowling Green State University with an M.F.A. She taught at St. Petersburg Junior College, Ball State University, and Indiana University East. She teaches at Butler University and the Warren Wilson Program for Writers in North Caroline.
Go to Profile#38362
Elizabeth Willis
#38374
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Elizabeth Willis is an American poet and literary critic. She currently serves as Professor of Poetry at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Willis has won several awards for her poetry including the National Poetry Series and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Susan Howe has called Elizabeth Willis "an exceptional poet, one of the most outstanding of her generation."
Go to Profile#38363
Diane Massam
#38375
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Diane Massam is a Canadian linguist, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. Education and research She earned her PhD in linguistics under Noam Chomsky in 1985 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She held a position in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Toronto from 1989 until her retirement in 2017, when she became professor emeritus.
Go to Profile#38364
Fouad Siniora
#38376
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Fouad Siniora is a Lebanese politician, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, a position he held from 19 July 2005 to 25 May 2008. He stepped down on 9 November 2009 in favor of Saad Hariri, the late Rafik Hariri's son. He is the leader of the parliamentary group of the Future Movement.
Go to Profile#38365
Mark Leckey
#38377
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Mark Leckey is a British contemporary artist. His found object art and video pieces, which incorporate themes of nostalgia and anxiety, and draw on elements of pop culture, span several works and exhibitions. In particular, he is known for Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore and Industrial Light and Magic , for which he won the 2008 Turner Prize.
Go to Profile#38366
Raymond Desjardins
#38378
Overall Influence
Raymond L. Desjardins is a senior research scientist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in the Agrienvironment Division of the Ottawa Research and Development Centre. His areas of expertise include agricultural meteorology, micrometeorology, air quality, and climate change. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, and in 2018 was appointed as Member of the Order of Canada for his research in agrometeorology and for his innovative devices to quantify greenhouse gas emissions.
Go to Profile#38367
Friedemann Mattern
#38379
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Friedemann Mattern is a German scientist. After studying computer science with a minor in communication sciences at the University of Bonn, Mattern became a VLSI design and parallelism researcher at Kaiserslautern University of Technology. He got his doctorate degree in 1989 after writing a dissertation on distributed algorithms. In 1991 Mattern was offered a teaching position at Saarland University in Saarbrücken; in 1994 he moved to the Department of Computer Science of the Technische Universität Darmstadt. In 1999 Mattern responded to ETH Zurich's call for the establishment of a Ubiquitous Computing research group.
Go to Profile#38368
Duilio Arigoni
#38380
Overall Influence
1928 - 2020 (92 years)
Duilio Arigoni was a Swiss chemist and Emeritus Professor at ETH Zurich. He worked on the biosynthetic pathways of many organic natural substances. Birth and education Born in Lugano, Switzerland, Arigoni completed his undergraduate studies in chemistry at the ETH Zürich in 1951. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the ETH Zurich in 1955. His doctoral thesis was “Über konfigurative Beziehungen Steroid- und Terpenverbindungen”.
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Thomas Henning
#38381
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Thomas K. Henning is a German astrophysicist. Since 2001, he is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Henning is an expert in the field of star and planet formation. Education and career Henning studied physics and mathematics at the University of Greifswald, specializing in plasma physics. He continued his studies at the University of Jena, specializing in astronomy and astrophysics and obtaining his PhD in 1984. After joining Charles University in Prague as a postdoc , Henning returned to Jena where he served as an assistant at Jena Observatory, completing his habilitation in 1989.
Go to Profile#38370
Harlan K. Ullman
#38382
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Harlan Kenneth Ullman , is Chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and business; Chairman of CNIGuard Ltd and CNIGuard Inc, engaged in protection of critical infrastructure; Senior Advisor of the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC; and active on a number of private boards. A former naval officer, he has commanded destroyers as well as Swift Boats in Vietnam in over 150 combat patrols and actions. He was the principal author of the "shock and awe" doctrine.
Go to Profile#38371
Yadvinder Malhi
#38383
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Yadvinder Singh Malhi is professor of Ecosystem Science at the University of Oxford and a Jackson Senior Research Fellow at Oriel College, Oxford. Education Malhi was educated at Southend High School for Boys and Queens' College, Cambridge where he graduated with a Master of Arts degree in natural sciences in 1990. He completed postgraduate study at the University of Reading where he was awarded a PhD in meteorology in 1993 for research on the earth's energy budget and heat fluxes supervised by Alan Ibbetson and George Dugdale.
Go to Profile#38372
Gilbert Meilaender
#38384
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gilbert Meilaender is a prominent American Lutheran bioethicist and theologian. He is Senior Research Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University, and served on the President's Council on Bioethics from its founding in 2002 until its dissolution in 2009.
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Samuel Kassow
#38385
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Samuel D. Kassow is an American historian of the history of Ashkenazi Jewry. Early life Kassow was born in a displaced persons' camp in Stuttgart, Germany. His mother survived because a classmate hid her and her sister in a dug-out underneath the barn on his family's farm; his father was arrested by the Russians and spent the duration of the war in a Soviet prison camp. Kassow grew up in New Haven, Connecticut.
Go to Profile#38374
Magdalena Środa
#38386
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Magdalena Środa is a Polish feminist politician and philosopher, extraordinary professor of ethics at the University of Warsaw, and a feminist author. She is also a columnist for the Gazeta Wyborcza. She was government's Plenipotentiary for the Equal Status of Women and Men in the cabinet of Marek Belka between August 16, 2004 and November 4, 2005.
Go to Profile#38375
Andreas Suchanek
#38387
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Andreas Suchanek is a German economy and business ethicist and one of the best-known students of Karl Homann, an expert in business ethics. He is an economist as well as an expert in business and economy ethics. As academic disciple of Karl Homann he contributed substantially to Homanns teaching regarding the approach of institutional economics toward business ethics, which not only plays an important part at Universities and international business schools but also in the economy, politics and the society.
Go to Profile#38376
Daniel Bertaux
#38388
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Daniel Bertaux is a French sociologist. He uses biographies in the study of sociology, and studies social mobility and life histories. He has been active in the International Sociological Association, European Sociological Association and French Sociological Association . He edited Biography and Society , texts presented in the World Congress of Sociology in Uppsala 1978. After the fall of the Soviet Union he collected and analysed life stories in Russia.
Go to Profile#38377
Christine L. Clouser
#38389
Overall Influence
Christine Clouser is an American virologist. During her graduate studies she discovered an interest in retro viruses and has since published scientific articles on the feline leukemia virus and HIV virus.
Go to Profile#38378
Jane Alexander
#38390
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Jane Alexander is an American-Canadian actress and author. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. From 1993 to 1997, Alexander served as the chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Go to Profile#38379
Han Hsiang-ning
#38391
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Han Hsiang-ning is a Taiwanese-American artist. He emigrated to New York from Taiwan in 1967. He joined the O.K. Harris Works of Art from 1971 until 1984. Han has participated in many prominent museum exhibitions. He often uses spray painting and paints photo-realistic street scenes.
Go to Profile#38380
Dean Stockwell
#38392
Overall Influence
1936 - 2021 (85 years)
Robert Dean Stockwell was an American actor with a career spanning seven decades. As a child actor under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he first came to the public's attention in films including Anchors Aweigh , Song of the Thin Man , The Green Years , Gentleman's Agreement , The Boy with Green Hair , and Kim . As a young adult, he had a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and 1959 screen adaptation of Compulsion; and in 1962 he played Edmund Tyrone in the film version of Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he won two Best Actor Awards at the Cannes Film Festival. He was nominated for a Gol...
Go to Profile#38381
Robert W. Brodersen
#38393
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Robert W. Brodersen is a professor of electrical engineering, now emeritus, and a founder of the Berkeley Wireless Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Brodersen received his B.S. in electrical engineering and mathematics from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, in 1966, his M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT in 1968, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT in 1972. After working with Texas Instruments, he joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at Berkeley in 1976, where his research focused on low-pow...
Go to Profile#38382
Bonnie Burstow
#38394
Overall Influence
1945 - 2020 (75 years)
Bonnie Burstow was a Canadian psychotherapist, author, and anti-psychiatry scholar. She was a professor in the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Burstow argued that conditions that the medical profession described as mental illnesses are in fact rational reactions to social, economic and political conditions and that psychiatry is rooted in patriarchy with a tendency to view troubled women as “hysterical” and to overdiagnose their conditions and overmedicate them. Burstow said that in psychiatry's view: “Women are disordered if they acted like women; wo...
Go to Profile#38383
Charlotte Erickson
#38395
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Charlotte J. Erickson was an American historian. Life Erickson was born in Oak Park, Illinois a suburb of Chicago, where her father was a Swedish Lutheran minister. She graduated from Augustana College at Rock Island, Illinois in 1945, and from Cornell University with a MA and a PhD.
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Brendon McCullum
#38396
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Brendon Barrie McCullum is a former New Zealand cricketer and the current head coach of the England Cricket Test team. Representing New Zealand, he played all formats, including as captain. McCullum was renowned for his quick scoring, notably recording the fastest test century of all time. He is considered one of the most successful batsmen and captains of New Zealand cricket. As captain, he led New Zealand to the finals of the 2015 Cricket World Cup,
Go to Profile#38385
Robert J. Gorlin
#38397
Overall Influence
1923 - 2006 (83 years)
Robert James Gorlin was an American oral pathologist, human geneticist and academic at the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry. Biography Robert Gorlin was born on January 11, 1923 in Hudson, New York. Raised in Newark, New Jersey, Gorlin graduated from Weequahic High School in 1940. After receiving an A.B. degree in 1943 from Columbia University, Gorlin volunteered for the Army, where he was instructed to apply to dental school. He graduated in 1947 from Washington University School of Dental Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, and then completed a master's degree in oral pathology fro...
Go to Profile#38386
Vladimir Shlapentokh
#38398
Overall Influence
1926 - 2015 (89 years)
Vladimir Emmanuilovich Shlapentokh was a Soviet and American sociologist, historian, political scientist, and university professor, notable for his work on Soviet and Russian society and politics as well as theoretical work in sociology.
Go to Profile#38387
Chris Philo
#38399
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Chris Philo FAcSS is Professor of Geography at the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, the University of Glasgow. Philo graduated from the Sidney Sussex College of Cambridge University and became a Research Fellow there. In 1989 he joined the Department of Geography at the University of Wales, Lampeter, holding that post for six years, until 1995. He then joined the University of Glasgow as a Professor, becoming head of the department in 2002. In 2006 Chris was replaced as Head of Department by Professor Trevor Hoey and was enlisted on the Geography and Environmental Studies RAE S...
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Sharon Begley
#38400
Overall Influence
1956 - 2021 (65 years)
Sharon Begley was an American journalist who was the senior science writer for Stat, a publication from The Boston Globe that covers stories related to the life sciences. She regularly contributed articles to the Yale Scientific Magazine while at University. She published recurring columns and feature articles in several mainstream publications on a wide variety of scientific topics. Begley was also an author and spoke at professional and community organizations. Her topics included the neuroplasticity of the brain, issues affecting science journalism, and education. She appeared on radio and television to discuss topics covered in her articles and books.
Go to Profile#38389
Kurt Masur
#38401
Overall Influence
1927 - 2015 (88 years)
Kurt Masur was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and also served as music director of the New York Philharmonic. He left many recordings of classical music played by major orchestras. Masur is also remembered for his actions to support peaceful demonstrations in the 1989 anti-government demonstrations in Leipzig; the protests were part of the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin wall.
Go to Profile#38390
Emrys Jones
#38402
Overall Influence
1920 - 2006 (86 years)
Emrys Jones, FBA, FRGS was a Welsh Professor of Geography at the London School of Economics and a renowned author and consultant in the fields of geography and urban planning.
Go to Profile#38391
Scott Barrett
#38403
Overall Influence
Scott Barrett is a professor of natural resource economics at Columbia University. There, he holds the title of Lenfest Professor of Natural Resource Economics at the School of International and Public Affairs and The Earth Institute.
Go to Profile#38392
Derrick Johnson
#38404
Overall Influence
Derrick Johnson is an American lawyer and humanitarian. He serves as the 19th President and CEO of the NAACP. He had previously served as president of its Mississippi state chapter, and vice chairman of its board of directors. Johnson is the founder of the Mississippi nonprofit group One Voice Inc., which aims to improve quality of life for African Americans through public engagement.
Go to Profile#38393
Marian Sigman
#38405
Overall Influence
1941 - 2012 (71 years)
Marian Diamond Sigman was a developmental and child clinical psychologist known for her research on autism spectrum disorder . At the time of her death, she was Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles .
Go to Profile#38394
Paul Stoller
#38406
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Paul Stoller is an American cultural anthropologist. He is a professor of anthropology at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Biography Stoller received his B.A. in political science at the University of Pittsburgh in 1969. He joined the Peace Corps after graduation. Placed in Niger, he taught English to the Songhay until he left in 1971. In 1974, he earned an MS in sociolinguistics at Georgetown University. In 1978, Stoller obtained his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin with his field research on religious practices among the Songhay in Tillaberi and Mehanna and Wanzerbe in the Republic of Niger and Mali.
Go to Profile#38395
Alexander Kusenko
#38407
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Alexander Kusenko is a theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, and cosmologist who is currently a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles . In addition, Kusenko holds an appointment of Senior Scientist at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe since February 2008. He has served as a general member of the board of Aspen Center for Physics 2004-2019. Kusenko was awarded the status of Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2008 for original and seminal contributions to particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. In 2021, Kusenko was awarded a Simons Fellowship in Theoretical Physics.
Go to Profile#38396
Nadežda Čačinovič
#38408
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Nadežda Čačinovič is a Croatian philosopher, sociologist and author. She was born to Slovene parents in Budapest in 1947 where her father Rudolf Čačinovič was serving as a military attache. She graduated in philosophy and comparative literature at the University of Ljubljana. She subsequently studied at the University of Bonn from 1968 to 1970 where her father was serving as ambassador of Yugoslavia to West Germany. She obtained a doctorate and became a professor at the Department of Philosophy of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb, being employed there ...
Go to Profile#38397
Kirby Puckett
#38409
Overall Influence
1960 - 2006 (46 years)
Kirby Puckett was an American professional baseball player. He played his entire 12-year Major League Baseball career as a center fielder for the Minnesota Twins . Puckett is the Twins' all-time leader in career hits, runs, and total bases. At the time of his retirement, his .318 career batting average was the highest by any right-handed American League batter since Joe DiMaggio.
Go to Profile#38398
Carla Dove
#38410
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Carla J. Dove is an American researcher who specializes in identifying birds that have gotten trapped in airplane engines, known as bird strikes. She is currently the Program Manager for Feather Identification Lab in the Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History. Her work helps promote wildlife safety, as well as pave the way for the development of preventative measures that will decrease the chance of wildlife impacting airplanes. She has published over 40 articles on her research so far.
Go to Profile#38399
Bill Condon
#38411
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
William Condon is an American director and screenwriter. Condon is known for writing and/or directing numerous successful and acclaimed films including Gods and Monsters, Chicago, Kinsey, Dreamgirls, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, and Beauty and the Beast. He has received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Gods and Monsters and Chicago, winning for the former.
Go to Profile#38400
A. Van Jordan
#38412
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
A. Van Jordan is an American poet. He is a professor at Stanford University and was previously a college professor in the Department of English Language & Literature at the University of Michigan and distinguished visiting professor at Ithaca College. He previously served as the first Henry Rutgers Presidential Professor at the Rutgers University-Newark. He is the author of four collections: Rise , M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A , Quantum Lyrics , and The Cineaste . Jordan's awards include a Whiting Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
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