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
#38501
Simon Swain
#38513
Overall Influence
Simon Charles Robert Swain, FBA, is a classicist and academic. Since 2000, he has been Professor of Classics at the University of Warwick, where he has also been Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Arts and Social Sciences since 2014.
Go to Profile#38502
Philip Seeman
#38514
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
Philip Seeman, was a Canadian schizophrenia researcher and neuropharmacologist, known for his research on dopamine receptors. Career Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Seeman was raised in Montreal. He received a Bachelor of Science degree, honours physics & physiology , a Master of Science degree, physiology of transport & secretion , and a Doctor of Medicine from McGill University. In 1966, he received a Ph.D. in life sciences from Rockefeller University.
Go to Profile#38503
Lê Phổ
#38515
Overall Influence
1907 - 2001 (94 years)
Lê Phổ was a Vietnamese painter. From 1925 until 1930, Le Pho studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Hanoi. At this point, he earned a scholarship to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and he studied there for the next two years under the instruction of Victor Tardieu, a friend and companion of Henri Matisse. Upon returning to Vietnam he taught at the École Supérieure des Beaux Arts de l'Indochine in Hanoi.
Go to Profile#38504
Stephen Marley
#38516
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Stephen Marley is a British author, voice director and video game designer. He was born in Derby of Irish parents and was educated in Bemrose School in Derby and at Nottingham. He graduated in Social Anthropology in 1971 in London, gained an M.Sc in the Sociology of Science in 1973 and worked on his Ph.D on ancient Chinese science while lecturing in Manchester. He gave up an academic career and took up writing full-time in 1985. From 1995 onwards he has also followed a parallel career in video games. In one game he designed on PlayStation, Martian Gothic, he voice directed, among others, Fenel...
Go to Profile#38505
E. Mavis Hetherington
#38517
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
E. Mavis Hetherington was a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Virginia. She was a leading researcher on the impacts of divorce, family as units, and child development. She published more than 200 articles and edited 13 books. Hetherington also introduced a new method of analyzing observational research.
Go to Profile#38506
Stephen Lichtenbaum
#38518
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Stephen Lichtenbaum is an American mathematician who is working in the fields of algebraic geometry, algebraic number theory and algebraic K-theory. Lichtenbaum was an undergraduate at Harvard University , where he also obtained his Ph.D. in 1964 . After that, he was a lecturer at the Princeton University, in 1960 he was assistant professor at Cornell University, where he became associate professor in 1969 and professor in 1973. From 1979 to 1982 he was a member of the Faculty Board. Since 1990 he is professor at Brown University, where he was chairman from 1994 to 1997. He was also a visitin...
Go to Profile#38507
Jaideep Prabhu
#38519
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jaideep Prabhu is the Jawaharlal Nehru professor of business and enterprise at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, England. The Professorship was established by the Government of India with an endowment of £3.2 million. Prabhu is also the director of the Centre for India & Global Business . He is the co-author of Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth, described by The Economist as "the most comprehensive book" on the subject of frugal innovation.
Go to Profile#38508
Bob Mould
#38520
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Robert Arthur Mould is an American musician, principally known for his work as guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for alternative rock bands Hüsker Dü in the 1980s and Sugar in the 1990s. Early years Born in Malone, New York, Mould lived in several places, including the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where he attended Simley High School in Inver Grove Heights and Macalester College. There, he formed Hüsker Dü in the late 1970s with drummer/singer Grant Hart and bass guitarist Greg Norton. Mould and Hart were the principal songwriters for Hüsker Dü, with Hart's higher-pitched vocals and Mould's b...
Go to Profile#38509
Michael Collins
#38521
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Michael J. Collins is a researcher in the field of computational linguistics. He is the Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. His research interests are in natural language processing as well as machine learning and he has made important contributions in statistical parsing and in statistical machine learning. In his studies Collins covers a wide range of topics such as parse re-ranking, tree kernels, semi-supervised learning, machine translation and exponentiated gradient algorithms with a general focus on discriminative models and structured prediction. One notable contribution is a state-of-the-art parser for the Penn Wall Street Journal corpus.
Go to Profile#38510
Tim Heald
#38522
Overall Influence
1944 - 2016 (72 years)
Tim Villiers Heald FRSL was a British author, biographer, journalist and public speaker. Life and writings Heald was born in Dorchester, Dorset, England, and educated at Sherborne School, Dorset, and Balliol College, Oxford, gaining an MA in Modern History in 1965.
Go to Profile#38511
Robert J. Glushko
#38523
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert J. Glushko is an adjunct professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Information. He has written a number of books including Document Engineering and The Discipline of Organizing .
Go to Profile#38512
Michael Moorer
#38524
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Michael Lee Moorer is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2008. He won a world championship on four occasions in two weight classes, having held the WBO light heavyweight title from 1988 to 1991; compiling 22 straight KOs in 22 fights and the WBO heavyweight title from 1992 to 1993; the unified WBA, IBF and lineal heavyweight titles in 1994; and regained the IBF heavyweight title again from 1996 to 1997 becoming a three-time heavyweight world champion.
Go to Profile#38513
Meigu Guan
#38525
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Meigu Guan is a Chinese mathematician and one of the country's leading experts on mathematical programming. He is known for his research on the route inspection problem, and served as president of Shandong Normal University.
Go to Profile#38514
Peter Iden
#38526
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Peter Iden is a German theater critic and art critic. Biography Iden was born in Meseritz, now Międzyrzecz, Poland. His family fled the Red Army to the British-occupied area and settled in Lauenburg on the Elbe. There, Iden grew up and attended the humanist branch of the Johanneum high school in Lüneburg. From 1955, he spent two years in California. After moving to Frankfurt am Main and graduating from the Helmholtz School in Frankfurt in 1958, Iden studied philosophy, history and theater at Goethe University in Frankfurt. He studied with Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Afterwards he continued his studies at the University of Vienna.
Go to Profile#38515
Eric Charles Milner
#38527
Overall Influence
1928 - 1997 (69 years)
Eric Charles Milner, FRSC was a mathematician who worked mainly in combinatorial set theory. Biography Born into a South East London working-class family, Milner was sent to a Reading boarding school for the war but, hating it, ran away and roamed the streets of London. Eventually, another school was found for him; Milner attended King's College London starting in 1946, where he competed as a featherweight boxer. He graduated in 1949 as the best mathematics student in his year, and received a master's degree in 1950 under the supervision of Richard Rado and Charles Coulson. Partial deafness p...
Go to Profile#38516
India Walton
#38528
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
India B. Walton is an American political activist and nurse. She defeated incumbent Mayor Byron Brown in the Democratic Party primary for the 2021 election for mayor of Buffalo, New York, before losing to Brown in the general election, where he ran as a write-in candidate.
Go to Profile#38517
Steve Wozniak
#38529
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Stephen Gary Wozniak , also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American technology entrepreneur, electrical engineer, computer scientist, computer programmer, philanthropist, and inventor. In 1976, he co-founded Apple Computer with his business partner Steve Jobs, which later became the world's largest technology company by revenue and the largest company in the world by market capitalization. Through his work at Apple in the 1970s and 1980s, he is widely recognized as one of the most prominent pioneers of the personal computer revolution.
Go to Profile#38518
Tatjana Maria
#38530
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Tatjana Maria is a German professional tennis player. In November 2017 and again in August 2023, she reached her best singles ranking of world No. 46, and in June 2016, she peaked at No. 54 in the doubles rankings.
Go to Profile#38519
Brooke Benjamin
#38531
Overall Influence
1929 - 1995 (66 years)
Thomas Brooke Benjamin, FRS was an English mathematical physicist and mathematician, best known for his work in mathematical analysis and fluid mechanics, especially in applications of nonlinear differential equations.
Go to Profile#38520
Jim Calhoun
#38532
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
James A. Calhoun is a retired college basketball coach. He is best known for his tenure as head coach of the University of Connecticut men's basketball team. His teams won three NCAA national championships , played in four Final Fours, won the 1988 NIT title, and won seven Big East tournament championships . With his team's 2011 NCAA title win, the 68-year-old Calhoun became the oldest coach to win a Division I men's basketball title. He won his 800th game in 2009 and finished his NCAA Division I career with 873 victories, ranking 11th all time as of February 2019. From 2018–21, he served as head coach of the University of Saint Joseph men's basketball team.
Go to Profile#38521
Fabiano Caruana
#38533
Overall Influence
1992 - Present (34 years)
Fabiano Luigi Caruana is an Italian and American chess grandmaster who is the reigning three-time United States Chess Champion. With a peak rating of 2844, Caruana is the third-highest-rated player in history.
Go to Profile#38522
David M. Wilson
#38534
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, FBA is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. From 1977 until 1992 he served as the Director of the British Museum, where he had previously worked, from 1955 to 1964, as an assistant keeper. In his role as director of the museum, he became embroiled in the controversy over the ownership of the Elgin Marbles with the Greek government, engaging with a "disastrous" televised debate with Greek Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri.
Go to Profile#38523
Carol Romano
#38535
Overall Influence
Carol Romano is an American public health nurse who is a former Assistant Surgeon General and Chief Nursing Officer for the United States Public Health Service . Romano holds the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. In 2011, she became associate dean of Academic Affairs for the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Graduate School of Nursing.
Go to Profile#38524
L. Randolph Lowry III
#38536
Overall Influence
L. Randolph Lowry III, also known as Randy Lowry, is an American academic administrator. He was the President of Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee from 2005 to 2021. Early life Lowry was born in Oregon and grew up in Long Beach, California. He graduated with a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in public administration from Pepperdine University. He obtained his J.D. from Hamline University.
Go to Profile#38525
Corine Schleif
#38537
Overall Influence
Corine Schleif is a professor and art historian who researches, teaches and writes about Medieval art, Renaissance art, feminist art theory, and the motivations behind the creating and destroying of art. She is faculty at Arizona State University's School of Art.
Go to Profile#38526
Roxie Collie Laybourne
#38538
Overall Influence
1910 - 2003 (93 years)
Roxie Collie Simpson Laybourne was an American ornithologist born in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She pioneered the study of forensic ornithology while at the National Museum of Natural History; these forensic techniques for identifying species of birds involved in bird strikes led to aircraft safety improvements.
Go to Profile#38527
Jan Grabowski
#38539
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Jan Zbigniew Grabowski is a Polish-Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa, specializing in Jewish–Polish relations in German-occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust in Poland.
Go to Profile#38528
David Kinderlehrer
#38540
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
David Samuel Kinderlehrer is an American mathematician, who works on partial differential equations and related mathematics applied to materials in biology and physics. Kinderlehrer received in 1963 his bachelor's degree from MIT and in 1968 his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley under Hans Lewy with thesis Minimal surfaces whose boundaries contain spikes. He became in 1968 an instructor and in 1975 a full professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. For the academic year 1971–1972 he was a visiting professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. In 2003 he beca...
Go to Profile#38529
Joe Ybarra
#38541
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Joseph Ybarra is an American producer and designer of video games. He left Apple Computer in 1982 to work at the new Electronic Arts that was founded by his fellow ex-employee Trip Hawkins. He was the original producer of the first Madden NFL.
Go to Profile#38530
Pat Dye
#38542
Overall Influence
1939 - 2020 (81 years)
Patrick Fain Dye was an American football player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at East Carolina University , the University of Wyoming , and Auburn University compiling a career college football record of 153–62–5. While the head coach at Auburn, he led the team to 4 SEC championships and was named the SEC Coach of the Year 3 times. He served as the Athletic Director at Auburn from 1981 to 1991 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2005. On November 19, 2005, the playing field in the stadium at Auburn Univer...
Go to Profile#38531
John Nkemngong Nkengasong
#38543
Overall Influence
1959 - 2023 (64 years)
John Ngosong Nkemngong Nkengasong was a Cameroonian playwright, novelist, poet and scholar. He was often referred to as a "radical visionary" of Anglophone Cameroon and an “ardent upholder of innovative creativity and crusader for the truth” as is demonstrated by his novels, poetry, short stories but most notably his plays.
Go to Profile#38532
Derrick Brooks
#38544
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Derrick Dewan Brooks is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for his entire 14-year career in the National Football League with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Brooks played college football for the Florida State Seminoles, earning consensus All-American honors twice. He was selected by the Buccaneers in the first round of the 1995 NFL Draft. An 11-time Pro Bowl selection and five-time first-team All-Pro, Brooks was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 2002 en route to winning the franchise's first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XXXVII. Following his retirement, ...
Go to Profile#38533
Nancy Felson
#38545
Overall Influence
Nancy Felson is a Professor of Classics at the University of Georgia. She is the author of Regarding Penelope: From Character to Poetics . She is the author of nearly three dozen scholarly articles discussing Greek and Latin literature.
Go to Profile#38534
Timothy T. O'Donnell
#38546
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Timothy Terrance O'Donnell is an academic and Catholic theologian and the current president of Christendom College, located in Front Royal, Virginia. Biography O'Donnell received a Doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome, Italy, in 1981 with a dissertation entitled A study in the relationship between doctrine and spirituality : the contemporary and perennial value of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He is the first layman to receive a licentiate and a doctorate in Ascetical and Mystical Theology from the Angelicum.
Go to Profile#38535
Tissa Balasuriya
#38547
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
Tissa Balasuriya was a Sri Lankan Roman Catholic priest and theologian. He was educated at St Patrick's College, Jaffna. Theological work In 1971 Balasuriya founded the Center for Society and Religion; four years later he founded the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians. In 1990, Balasuriya published the book Mary and Human Liberation. In 1994, the Sri Lankan bishops warned that the book included heretical content because it misrepresented the doctrine of original sin and cast serious doubts on the divinity of Christ. Balasuriya submitted a 55-page theological defense to the Con...
Go to Profile#38536
Otto Ludwig Lange
#38548
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Otto Ludwig Lange was a German botanist and lichenologist. The focus of his scientific work was on the ecophysiology of wild and cultivated plants as well as lichens. He investigated heat, frost and drought resistance of lichens, bryophytes and vascular plants growing under extreme environmental conditions.
Go to Profile#38537
Latifa Ben Mansour
#38549
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Latifa Ben Mansour is an Algerian writer, psychoanalyst, and linguist. Her work deals with issues such as the role of women in Algerian society, Islamic extremism, storytelling, trauma, and memory.
Go to Profile#38538
Ronald Ernest Aitchison
#38550
Overall Influence
1921 - 1996 (75 years)
Ronald Ernest Aitchison was an Australian physicist and electronics engineer who contributed to a range of fields and technologies from solid-state devices to satellite imaging. He was born in Hurstville, New South Wales, Australia on 29 December 1921.
Go to Profile#38539
Robert Stern
#38551
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Robert Arthur Stern is a British philosopher who serves as professor of philosophy at the University of Sheffield. He is known for his work on the history of philosophy, particularly G. W. F. Hegel and Immanuel Kant. His current research is focused on the Danish ethicist Knud Ejler Løgstrup.
Go to Profile#38540
Fernando Meirelles
#38552
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Fernando Ferreira Meirelles is a Brazilian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for co-directing the film City of God, released in 2002 in Brazil and in 2003 in the U.S. by Miramax Films, which received international critical acclaim. For his work in the film, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director in 2005 for The Constant Gardener, which garnered the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Rachel Weisz. He also directed the 2008 adaptation of José Saramago's novel Blindness, and the 2011 film 360.
Go to Profile#38541
Tom Vilsack
#38553
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Thomas James Vilsack is an American politician serving as the 32nd United States secretary of agriculture in the Biden administration. He previously served in the role from 2009 to 2017 during the Obama administration. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 40th governor of Iowa from 1999 to 2007.
Go to Profile#38542
Manuel Antonio Garretón
#38554
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Manuel Antonio Garretón is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist and essayist. He received the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences in 2007 for his lifetime contribution to the field.
Go to Profile#38543
Bob Galliers
#38555
Overall Influence
Robert D. Galliers is Bentley University's Distinguished Professor Emeritus having previously served as Provost 2002-2009. Previously, he held professorships at the London School of Economics , Warwick Business School , and Curtin University, Western Australia . He has been an Associate Director/Senior Advisor for EFMD Quality Services, Belgium since 2018. He has held a number of visiting professorships internationally. He serves on various university advisory boards . He is the founding editor-in-chief of The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, which he led from 1991 to December 2018. ...
Go to Profile#38544
Wendy Turnbull
#38556
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Wendy Turnbull, is an Australian retired tennis player. During her career, she won nine Grand Slam titles, four of them in women's doubles and five of them in mixed doubles. She also was a three-time Grand Slam runner-up in singles and won 11 singles titles and 55 doubles titles.
Go to Profile#38545
Brendan Maher
#38557
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
Brendan Arnold Maher was a psychology professor at Harvard University who pioneered the scientific study of psychology in the laboratory, and laid the groundwork for the study of psychology and its relationship to genetics. Maher was most interested in human psychopathology, especially schizophrenia. One of his major contributions was to introduce laboratory experimentation strategies to research of this mental illness. Maher also mentored many students through their own research projects at Harvard, Ohio State University, Northwestern University, Louisiana State University, University of Wi...
Go to Profile#38546
Catherine McDermott
#38558
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Catherine McDermott is a Professor of Design at Kingston University in London, England. In 2001, McDermott set up a masters programme titled "Curating Contemporary Design" with Paul Thompson, then director of the Design Museum in London and now director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York. Much of McDermott's personal research has focused on curating British design identity. She is the author of books and articles on design history.
Go to Profile#38547
Harold Troper
#38559
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Harold Troper is a Canadian writer, historian and academic. He specializes in Jewish Canadian history. Together with Irving Abella, he authored None Is Too Many, the story of the Canadian government's refusal to allow Jewish immigration from Europe during the Holocaust. This book was selected as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever written, chosen by a panel of experts for the Literary Review of Canada.
Go to Profile#38548
Darius Rucker
#38560
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Darius Rucker is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with Rucker as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members of the band.
Go to Profile#38549
David Salesin
#38561
Overall Influence
David Salesin is an American computer scientist. He has worked in computer graphics, three-dimensional and four-dimensional mathematics, and photorealistic rendering. Until 2019, he was the Director of Snap Inc. Research Team, an affiliate professor in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering of the University of Washington in Seattle, and previously director of the Adobe Creative Technologies Lab. He is currently a Principal Scientist at Google.
Go to Profile#38550
Mark Kirk
#38562
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Mark Steven Kirk is a retired American politician and attorney who served as a United States senator from Illinois from 2010 to 2017, and as the United States representative for Illinois's 10th congressional district from 2001 to 2010. A member of the Republican Party, Kirk describes himself as socially liberal and fiscally conservative.
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