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
#38451
Antonio Gates
#38463
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Antonio Ethan Gates Sr. is an American former professional football tight end for the San Diego / Los Angeles Chargers during his entire career in the National Football League . He was named to the Pro Bowl eight times and was a six-time All-Pro selection. He retired on January 14, 2020, after 16 years with the Chargers.
Go to Profile#38452
Åke Sundborg
#38464
Overall Influence
1921 - 2007 (86 years)
Åke Sundborg was a Swedish geographer and geomorphologist known for his contributions to the hydrology and geomorphological dynamics of rivers. He was active at Uppsala University where he studied under the supervision of Filip Hjulström eventually succeeding him on the chair of physical geography. Besides his studies of rivers Sundborg made contributions on the climate of cities, the distribution of loess and the sedimentation of reservoirs and lakes. He studied rivers in Sweden as well as various large rivers in Africa and Asia.
Go to Profile#38453
James Penton
#38465
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
James Penton is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada and the author of three books on the history of Jehovah's Witnesses. Although raised in the religion, he was expelled in 1981 on the grounds of apostasy after criticizing some of the teachings and conduct of the religion's leadership. His expulsion gained national media attention.
Go to Profile#38454
Alessandro Piperno
#38466
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Alessandro Piperno is an Italian writer and literary critic of Jewish descent, having a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. He graduated in French Literature at the University of Rome, where he currently teaches and researches. In 2000, he published the controversial critical essay on Marcel Proust, inflammatorily entitled "Proust antiebreo ".
Go to Profile#38455
Cecilia Nembou
#38467
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Cecilia Nembou is an educator and women's rights advocate from Papua New Guinea. Background Nembou trained as a mathematician, receiving a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Papua New Guinea , MSc in Operations Research from the University of Sussex , and PGDip in Statistics from Canberra College of Advanced Education . In 1992 she received her PhD in Operations Research from the University of New South Wales.
Go to Profile#38456
Sean Dorrance Kelly
#38468
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sean Dorrance Kelly is an American philosopher, currently the Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, where he also serves as Faculty Dean of Dunster House. He is an expert on phenomenology and philosophy of mind.
Go to Profile#38457
Karen Vousden
#38469
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Karen Heather Vousden, CBE, FRS, FRSE, FMedSci is a British medical researcher. She is known for her work on the tumour suppressor protein, p53, and in particular her discovery of the important regulatory role of Mdm2, an attractive target for anti-cancer agents. From 2003 to 2016, she was the director of the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute in Glasgow, UK, moving back to London in 2016 to take up the role of Chief Scientist at CRUK and Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute.
Go to Profile#38458
Gordon H. Sato
#38470
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Gordon Hisashi Sato was an American cell biologist who first attained prominence for his discovery that polypeptide factors required for the culture of mammalian cells outside the body are also important regulators of differentiated cell functions and of utility in culture of new types of cells for use in research and biotechnology. For this work he was elected in 1984 to the United States National Academy of Sciences. In the mid-1980s he established the Manzanar Project aimed at attacking the planet's most critical problems as poverty, hunger, environmental pollution, and global warming thro...
Go to Profile#38459
Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh
#38471
Overall Influence
1933 - 2000 (67 years)
Lochlainn O'Raifeartaigh was an Irish physicist in the field of theoretical particle physics. He is best known for the O'Raifeartaigh Theorem, a result in unification theory, and the O'Raifeartaigh Model of supersymmetry breaking.
Go to Profile#38460
Sugizo
#38472
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Yūne Sugihara, born Yasuhiro Sugihara and better known by his stage name Sugizo, is a Japanese musician, songwriter, composer and record producer. He is best known as the lead guitarist and violinist of the rock band Luna Sea since 1989.
Go to Profile#38461
George Alleyne
#38473
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Sir George Allanmore Ogarren Alleyne served as United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean region 2003–2010. He was appointed to the position by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in February 2003.
Go to Profile#38462
Tim Walz
#38474
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Timothy James Walz is an American politician, former U.S. Army non-commissioned officer, and retired educator who has served as the 41st governor of Minnesota since 2019. A member of the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party , he was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing from 2007 to 2019.
Go to Profile#38463
Slade Gorton
#38475
Overall Influence
1928 - 2020 (92 years)
Thomas Slade Gorton III was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Washington from 1981 to 1987 and again from 1989 until 2001. A member of the Republican Party, he held both of the state's U.S. Senate seats in his career and was narrowly defeated for reelection twice, first in 1986 by Brock Adams and again in 2000 by Maria Cantwell following a recount, becoming the last Republican senator to date for each seat.
Go to Profile#38464
Ram Nath
#38476
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Ram Nath is an Indian historian who specializes in Mughal architecture. He obtained a doctorate from the Agra University, and later taught at the University of Rajasthan. He is regarded as one of India's leading art historians.
Go to Profile#38465
Sueli Carneiro
#38477
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Aparecida Sueli Carneiro Jacoel, best known as Sueli Carneiro is a Brazilian philosopher, writer and anti-racism activist. Carneiro is the founder and current director of Geledés — Instituto da Mulher Negra and a leading author on black feminism in Brazil.
Go to Profile#38466
Richard Condie
#38478
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Richard Condie, is a Canadian animator, filmmaker, musician and voice actor. Condie is best known for his 1985 animated short The Big Snit at the National Film Board of Canada and has won six international awards for Getting Started in 1979. Condie lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Go to Profile#38467
Milan Kučan
#38479
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Milan Kučan is a Slovenian former politician who served as the first President of Slovenia from 1991 to 2002. Before being president of Slovenia, he was the 13th President of the Presidency of SR Slovenia from 1990 to 1991.
Go to Profile#38468
Gilby Clarke
#38480
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Gilbert J.Clarke is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and record producer. He had a three-year tenure as the rhythm guitarist of Guns N' Roses, replacing Izzy Stradlin in 1991 during the Use Your Illusion Tour, and also featured on "The Spaghetti Incident?" . Following this, Clarke went on to forge a solo career as well playing guitar with Slash's Snakepit, Kat Men, Heart, Nancy Sinatra, Kathy Valentine , MC5 and forming his own group Rock Star Supernova with members of Metallica and Mötley Crüe.
Go to Profile#38469
Marina Joubert
#38481
Overall Influence
Marina Joubert is a senior science communication researcher at The Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and Technology at Stellenbosch University. Previously, she was the communication manager for the National Research Foundation and managed her own independent science communication consultancy for a decade. Her consultancy presented the first online course in science communication in Africa.
Go to Profile#38470
Michael Creutz
#38482
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael John Creutz is an American theoretical physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory specializing in lattice gauge theory and computational physics. Background Creutz was born in 1944 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. His father, Edward Creutz, was also a physicist and was working on the Manhattan Project to help build the atomic bomb at the time of Michael's birth.
Go to Profile#38471
Takamitsu Muraoka
#38483
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
is a Japanese Orientalist. He was Chair of Hebrew, Israelite Antiquities and Ugaritic at Leiden University in the Netherlands from 1991 till 2003 and is most notable for his studies of Hebrew and Aramaic linguistics and the ancient translations of the Bible, notably of the Septuagint.
Go to Profile#38472
Errol Friedberg
#38484
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Errol Clive Friedberg was a biologist and historian of science in the Department of Pathology at Stanford University and subsequently the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Education He studied medicine at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and subsequently received postdoctoral training in biochemistry and pathology at Case Western Reserve University before joining the faculty at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#38473
Britta Nestler
#38485
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Britta Nestler is a German materials scientist at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Her research involves the development of software to simulate the formation of microstructures in advanced materials for which experimental studies would be too expensive or difficult.
Go to Profile#38474
Michael Johnson
#38486
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Michael Duane Johnson is an American retired sprinter who won four Olympic gold medals and eight World Championships gold medals in the span of his career. He held the world and Olympic records in the 200 m and 400 m, as well as the world record in the indoor 400 m. He also once held the world's best time in the 300 m. Johnson is generally considered one of the greatest and most consistent sprinters in the history of track and field.
Go to Profile#38475
Timir Datta
#38487
Overall Influence
Timir Datta is an Indian-American physicist specializing in high transition temperature superconductors and a professor of physics in the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, South Carolina.
Go to Profile#38476
Peter Alexander
#38488
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Peter Marvin Alexander is an American journalist and television presenter who currently works for NBC News. He obtained the title of NBC News White House correspondent covering the White House and the President of the United States in December 2012.
Go to Profile#38477
Mario Cuomo
#38489
Overall Influence
1932 - 2015 (83 years)
Mario Matthew Cuomo was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 52nd governor of New York for three terms, from 1983 to 1994. A member of the Democratic Party, Cuomo previously served as the lieutenant governor of New York from 1979 to 1982 and the secretary of State of New York from 1975 to 1978. He was the father of former New York governor Andrew Cuomo and NewsNation anchor Christopher Cuomo.
Go to Profile#38478
Arthur Kantrowitz
#38490
Overall Influence
1913 - 2008 (95 years)
Arthur Robert Kantrowitz was an American scientist, engineer, and educator. Kantrowitz grew up in The Bronx and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. He earned his B.S., M.A. and, in 1947, his Ph.D. degrees in physics from Columbia University.
Go to Profile#38479
Jon Peters
#38491
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John H. Peters is an American film producer and former hairdresser. Early life Peters was born on June 2, 1945, in Van Nuys, California. Peters is of Cherokee and Italian descent. While growing up in a rough neighborhood, Peters' father died when he was eight years old and his mother later remarried; Peters was later expelled from school and sent to reform school for a year when he was 12.
Go to Profile#38480
Brad Miller
#38492
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Bradley Alan Miller is an American former professional basketball player. The two-time NBA All-Star played for six National Basketball Association teams. College career After playing prep school basketball for a season in Maine at MCI Maine Central Institute, Miller returned to his home state to attend Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he played under head coach Gene Keady and assistant coaches Bruce Weber and Frank Kendrick. During his freshman season, along with senior Cuonzo Martin, he led the Boilermakers to a 25–7 record. Along the way, he was part of a Big Ten Conference Title and an NCAA Second Round appearance.
Go to Profile#38481
Astrud Gilberto
#38493
Overall Influence
1940 - 2023 (83 years)
Astrud Gilberto was a Brazilian samba and bossa nova singer and songwriter. She gained international attention in the mid-1960s following her recording of the song "The Girl from Ipanema". Biography Astrud Gilberto was born Astrud Evangelina Weinert, the daughter of a Brazilian mother and a German father, in Salvador in the Brazilian state of Bahia, on March 29, 1940. She was raised in Rio de Janeiro. Her father was a language professor, and she became fluent in several languages.
Go to Profile#38482
Govind Purushottam Deshpande
#38494
Overall Influence
1938 - 2013 (75 years)
Govind Purushottam Deshpande was a Marathi playwright and academic from Maharashtra, India. Biography Education and career Born in Nashik, Deshpande grew up in Rahimatpur, where he went to school. He completed an MA in Ancient Indian History from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, and enrolled for a Ph.D. at the School of International Affairs, New Delhi. This school subsequently became part of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Deshpande completed his Ph.D. and later taught at the Centre for East Asian Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He lived in Pune after retirement.
Go to Profile#38483
Hiranya Peiris
#38495
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Hiranya Vajramani Peiris is a British astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, University College London, and Stockholm University, best known for her work on the cosmic microwave background radiation. She was one of 27 scientists who received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018 for their "detailed maps of the early universe."
Go to Profile#38484
John S. Meyer
#38496
Overall Influence
1924 - 2011 (87 years)
John Stirling Meyer, M.D. was an American doctor, known internationally for his work in neurology. He served in the United States Navy at the Naval Hospital Yokosuka Japan, where he conducted research on head injuries on veterans of World War II and the Korean War. In 1954, he became an instructor at Harvard University, and in 1957, he became the founding professor and Chairman of Neurology at Wayne State University School of Medicine. In 1969, he went to Baylor College of Medicine to serve as the Director of the Neurological Institute. He later became the Chairman of Neurology.
Go to Profile#38485
Elvin Jones
#38497
Overall Influence
1927 - 2004 (77 years)
Elvin Ray Jones was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane's quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such albums as My Favorite Things, A Love Supreme, Ascension and Live at Birdland. After 1966, Jones led his own trio, and later larger groups under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank and Thad were also celebrated jazz musicians with whom he occasionally recorded. Elvin was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1995. In his The History of Jazz, jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia calls Jones "one of the most influential drummers in the history of jazz".
Go to Profile#38486
Lada Adamic
#38498
Overall Influence
Lada Adamic is an American network scientist, who researches information dynamics in networks. She studies how network structure influences the flow of information, how information influences the evolution of networks, and crowdsourced knowledge sharing.
Go to Profile#38487
Carl Palmer
#38499
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Carl Frederick Kendall Palmer is an English drummer best known as a founding member of the supergroups Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Asia. He has toured with his own bands since 2001, including Palmer, the Carl Palmer Band, and currently, Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy. He previously was a touring drummer for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and a founding member of Atomic Rooster.
Go to Profile#38488
Botond Roska
#38500
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Botond Roska is a Hungarian medical doctor and biomedical researcher. Much of his research is on the pathways of visual perception and how to treat diseases that cause blindness. Early life and education Botond Roska was born in 1969 in Budapest, Hungary. His mother was a musician and his father, , was a computer scientist. He learned to play the cello and studied at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music from 1985 to 1989. After a hand injury ended his cello career, he decided to study medicine and mathematics instead. He studied mathematics at Eötvös Loránd University from 1991 to 1995. He receiv...
Go to Profile#38489
Ronald M. Berkman
#38501
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ronald M. Berkman was the president of Cleveland State University , a position he assumed July 1, 2009. Berkman has been a peripatetic academic, working at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, the University of California, Berkeley, Brooklyn College, New York University, and the University of Puerto Rico.
Go to Profile#38490
Nico Krisch
#38502
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Nico Krisch is a legal scholar, specializing in international law, constitutional theory, and global governance. He is professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Previously, he was research professor at the ICREA, Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals, and a Fellow at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He has also been a professor of international law at the Hertie School, a senior lecturer at the Law Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a research fellow at Merton College , New York University School of Law and the Max Planck Institute for International Law in Heidelberg.
Go to Profile#38491
Cecil O. Samuelson
#38503
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Cecil Osborn Samuelson Jr. is an American retired rheumatologist and professor of medicine who served as the 12th president of Brigham Young University from 2003 to 2014. Samuelson is an emeritus general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , a former dean of the school of medicine at the University of Utah, and a former senior vice president of Intermountain Health Care . While he was president at BYU, Samuelson pushed professors and students to raise their expectations and encouraged mentored learning. During his presidency, student enrollment limits stayed constant...
Go to Profile#38492
Kalu Ndukwe Kalu
#38504
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Kalu Ndukwe Kalu is a Nigerian-born American political scientist specializing in comparative institutional development, national security policy, and organizational systems. He is currently a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science and National Security Policy at Auburn University Montgomery.; and Docent Professor at the University of Tampere, Finland
Go to Profile#38493
Ramin Golestanian
#38505
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Ramin Golestanian is a professor at the Department of Physics and the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. He is a fellow of St Cross College and is affiliated with the Oxford Centre for Soft and Biological Matter. In 2014 he was awarded the Fernand Holweck Medal and Prize for his "pioneering contributions to the field of active soft matter, particularly microscopic swimmers and active colloids". In 2017 he was awarded the Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Lecture Prize. Ramin Golestanian is now director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in G...
Go to Profile#38494
Billy Ocean
#38506
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Leslie Sebastian Charles , known professionally as Billy Ocean, is a British singer and songwriter. Between 1976 and 1988, he had a series of hit songs in the UK and internationally. After releasing several recordings under other stage names, he achieved breakthrough success with the 1976 single "Love Really Hurts Without You". It was the second single released under the stage name Billy Ocean and peaked at no. 2 in the UK and no. 3 in Australia. Later that year, he achieved two additional top 20 singles in the UK. In 1977, his single "Red Light Spells Danger" also peaked at no. 2.
Go to Profile#38495
Paula Tallal
#38507
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Paula Tallal is a Rutgers Board of Governors Professor of Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. Tallal is a participant on scientific advisory boards and government committees for both learning disabilities and developmental language disorders.
Go to Profile#38496
Ian Falconer
#38508
Overall Influence
1959 - 2023 (64 years)
Ian Woodward Falconer was an American author and illustrator of children's books, and a designer of sets and costumes for the theater. He created 30 covers for The New Yorker as well as other publications. Falconer wrote and illustrated the Olivia series of children's books, chronicling the adventures of a young pig, a series initially conceived as a Christmas gift for his young niece.
Go to Profile#38497
Aynsley Dunbar
#38509
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Aynsley Thomas Dunbar is an English drummer. He has worked with John Mayall, Frank Zappa, Jeff Beck, Journey, Jefferson Starship, Nils Lofgren, Eric Burdon, Shuggie Otis, Ian Hunter, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Mick Ronson, Whitesnake, Pat Travers, Sammy Hagar, Michael Schenker, UFO, Michael Chapman, Jake E. Lee, Leslie West, Kathi McDonald, Keith Emerson, Mike Onesko, Herbie Mann and Flo & Eddie. Dunbar was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Journey in 2017.
Go to Profile#38498
Sarah Maddison
#38510
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sarah Maddison CF is an Australian author and political scientist. Education Maddison has a PhD in the Discipline of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Career She is a former Director of GetUp! and the 2018–19 president of the Australian Political Studies Association. She was awarded a very large grant from the SEROS Foundation which was withdrawn under unclear circumstances.
Go to Profile#38499
Aleksander Pełczyński
#38511
Overall Influence
1932 - 2012 (80 years)
Aleksander "Olek" Pełczyński was a Polish mathematician who worked in functional analysis. Career Pełczyński studied mathematics from 1950 to 1956 at the University of Warsaw and received there his doctorate in 1958 under Stanisław Mazur with dissertation Własności izomorficzne przestrzeni Banacha związane ze słabą zbieżnością bezwarunkową szeregów . From 1967 to 2002 he worked at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#38500
Richard Aquila
#38512
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Richard Aquila is an American philosopher, currently the co-editor of Kantian Review and formerly a Distinguished Humanities Professor at University of Tennessee.
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