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
#38901
Gayle Conelly Manchin
#38913
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Gayle Conelly Manchin is an American educator and government official who was the First Lady of West Virginia from 2005 to 2010 and is the current Federal Co-Chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission. Manchin previously served as the president of the West Virginia Board of Education from 2013 to 2014 and West Virginia Secretary of Education and the Arts from 2017 until her termination in March 2018. She is the wife of former governor and current U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Go to Profile#38902
Andreas Winter
#38914
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Andreas J. Winter is a German mathematician and mathematical physicist at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain. He received his Ph.D. in 1999 under Rudolf Ahlswede and Friedrich Götze at the Universität Bielefeld in Germany before moving to the University of Bristol and then to the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. In 2013 he was appointed ICREA Research Professor at UAB.
Go to Profile#38903
Don Brash
#38915
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Donald Thomas Brash is a former New Zealand politician who was Leader of the Opposition and leader of the New Zealand National Party from October 2003 to November 2006, and leader of the ACT New Zealand party for seven months from April to November 2011.
Go to Profile#38904
Gustavo Scuseria
#38916
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Gustavo E. Scuseria is the Robert A. Welch Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Physics & Astronomy and Professor of Materials Science & NanoEngineering at Rice University, Houston, TX. He is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation. Scuseria earned his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires in 1983 and conducted post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Georgia prior to joining the chemistry faculty at Rice University in 1989.
Go to Profile#38905
Jane Byrne
#38917
Overall Influence
1934 - 2014 (80 years)
Jane Margaret Byrne was an American politician who served as the 50th mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April 29, 1983. Prior to her tenure as mayor, Byrne served as Chicago's commissioner of consumer sales from 1969 until 1977, the only female in the mayoral cabinet.
Go to Profile#38906
Seth Jones
#38918
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Seth G. Jones is an academic, political scientist and author. Jones is most renowned for his work on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism; much of his published material and media presence relates to US strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in confronting al-Qāʿida. He is currently a senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, director of the International Security Program, and director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Go to Profile#38907
Victoria Clarke
#38919
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Victoria "Torie" Clarke is an American communications consultant who has served in several private sector positions and in three Republican presidential administrations, most notably as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under Donald Rumsfeld.
Go to Profile#38908
Brian Anderson
#38920
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Brian Anderson is an American sportscaster. Since 2007, he has called play-by-play for the Milwaukee Brewers' telecasts on Bally Sports Wisconsin. As a part of his work on the 2007 Brewers Preview Show, Anderson and the Bally Sports team were awarded a regional Emmy Award.
Go to Profile#38909
Lewis Black
#38921
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Lewis Niles Black is an American stand-up comedian and actor. His comedy routines often escalate into angry rants about history, politics, religion, and cultural trends. He hosted the Comedy Central series Lewis Black's Root of All Evil and makes regular appearances on The Daily Show delivering his "Back in Black" commentary segment, which he has been doing since The Daily Show was hosted by Craig Kilborn. He was voted 51st of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time by Comedy Central in 2004; and was voted 5th in Comedy Central's Stand Up Showdown in 2008 and 11th in 2010. In 2015, he...
Go to Profile#38910
John J. Collins
#38922
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
John J. Collins is the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. He is noted for his research in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the apocryphal works of the Second Temple period including the sectarian works found in Dead Sea Scrolls and their relation to Christian origins. Collins has published and edited over 300 scholarly works, and a number of popular level articles and books. Among his best known works are the Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora ; Daniel in the Hermeneia commentary series ; The Scepter and the Star.
Go to Profile#38911
Bill Schneider
#38923
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
William Schneider is an American journalist. From 1990 to 2009, he served as CNN's senior political analyst. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow & Resident Scholar at Third Way, a Washington think tank. Schneider is also serving as the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor at George Mason University's School of Public Policy, and teaching at George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He has also been a contributing editor to the Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times.
Go to Profile#38912
John Palms
#38924
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
John Michael Palms is an American military officer, nuclear physicist and college professor who also served as president of the University of South Carolina and Georgia State University. Palms and his family left the Netherlands shortly after Germany invaded Poland, returned after the war, and then permanently immigrated to the United States in 1951, and became a naturalized citizen in 1957. Palms is married to Norma Cannon Palms, LHD University of South Carolina . They have three children.
Go to Profile#38913
Lisa Raphals
#38925
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Lisa Ann Raphals is an American professor of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of California, Riverside , and of philosophy at the National University of Singapore. She compares early China and ancient Greece. She is the author of a number of books, including Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece and Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China, as well as a collection of poems and translations entitled What Country.
Go to Profile#38914
Harry R. Allcock
#38926
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Harry R. Allcock is Evan Pugh Professor of chemistry at Pennsylvania State University. Allcock obtained his B.Sc. in 1953 and his Ph.D. in 1956, both at the University of London. He is notable for his work on the "inorganic rubbers" with a phosphorus-nitrogen backbone . With James E. Mark and Robert West, Allcock co-authored the book Inorganic Polymers . He also wrote Introduction to Materials Chemistry , Chemistry and Applications of Polyphosphazenes
Go to Profile#38915
Stephen Juan
#38927
Overall Influence
1949 - 2018 (69 years)
Stephen Juan was an Australian-U.S. scientist, educator, journalist, author, and media personality. He has written thirteen books, including The Odd Body and The Odd Brain. Background Juan was born in Napa County, California, later attending the University of California at Berkeley, where he received a B.A. in Anthropology, an M.A. in Education, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Education. He moved to Australia in 1978 and began teaching at the University of Sydney in what is now the Faculty of Education and Social Work. He taught for more than 30 years before retiring in 2009 while remaining the Ashley Montagu Fellow for the Public Understanding of Human Sciences.
Go to Profile#38916
Sharon Nazarian
#38928
Overall Influence
Sharon Nazarian is an Iranian-born American social activist, academic and philanthropist. She is currently the Senior Vice President, International Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. Early life Sharon Nazarian was born in Tehran, Iran. Her father, Younes Nazarian, was a businessman, philanthropist, and an early investor in the satellite technology company Qualcomm. Her mother, Soraya Nazarian, is a sculptor. She has two brothers, Sam Nazarian, David Nazarian, and a sister, Shulamit Nazarian. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, she immigrated to the United States, settling in Beverly Hi...
Go to Profile#38917
Tim Benton
#38929
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Tim Benton is Professor Emeritus in the History of Art at the Open University in the UK as well as a writer and broadcaster. He has also taught at Columbia University, Williams College, and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. He has written extensively on the modernist architect Le Corbusier. A large collection of photographs by Tim Benton is held in the Courtauld Institute of Art's Conway Library archive, which is currently undergoing a digitisation project.
Go to Profile#38918
Peter P. Silvester
#38930
Overall Influence
1935 - 1996 (61 years)
Peter Peet Silvester was an electrical engineer who contributed to understanding of numerical analysis of electromagnetic fields and authored a standard textbook on the subject. Silvester was born in Tallinn, Estonia. He graduated from the Camegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1956. After a period of industrial practice, he continued his studies at the University of Toronto, obtaining the MASc in 1958, and then at McGill University , where he was awarded the PhD in electrical engineering, in 1964. He initially joined the department of electrical engineering at McGill as lecturer, then as assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor.
Go to Profile#38919
Margaret Hedstrom
#38931
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Margaret L. Hedstrom is an American archivist who is the Robert M. Warner Collegiate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information. She has contributed to the field of digital preservation, archives, and electronic records management and holds a doctorate in history from the University of Wisconsin.
Go to Profile#38920
Robert C. Gunning
#38932
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Robert Clifford Gunning is a professor of mathematics at Princeton University specializing in complex analysis, who introduced indigenous bundles. Gunning was born in Longmont, Colorado, and attended to high school in his hometown. In 1947 he was admitted into the University of Colorado, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1952. For his graduate studies he went to Princeton University, where he earned his Ph.D in 1955 under Salomon Bochner with thesis A classification of factors of automorphy. He then taught at the University of Chicago and in 1956 as Higgins-Lecturer at Princeton University.
Go to Profile#38921
Judith M. Brown
#38933
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Judith Margaret Brown is a British historian, academic and Anglican priest, who specialises in the study of modern South Asia. From 1990 to 2011, she was the Beit Professor of Commonwealth History and a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. Earlier she taught at the University of Manchester and completed her Ph.D. at Girton College, Cambridge. Brown was born in India but educated in Britain. She retired from teaching in 2011.
Go to Profile#38922
Rory Collins
#38934
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Sir Rory Edwards Collins FMedSci FRS is a British physician who is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Clinical Trial Service Unit within the University of Oxford, the head of the Nuffield Department of Population Health and a Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford. His work has been in the establishment of large-scale epidemiological studies of the causes, prevention and treatment of heart attacks, other vascular disease, and cancer, while also being closely involved in developing approaches to the combination of results from related studies . Since September 2005, he has been ...
Go to Profile#38923
Colin H. Williams
#38935
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Colin H. Williams FLSW is a senior research associate at the VHI, l St Edmund's College, the University of Cambridge, UK. He was formerly a research professor in sociolinguistics, and later an honorary professor in the School of Welsh at Cardiff University.
Go to Profile#38924
Ewa Mazierska
#38936
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Ewa Mazierska is a reader in Contemporary Cinema, in the Department of Humanities of the University of Central Lancashire. Her publications include various articles in Polish and English and a number of monographs. She also co-edited Relocating Britishness .
Go to Profile#38925
Askar Dzhumadildayev
#38937
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Askar Dzhumadildayev is a Kazakh mathematician, doctor of physics and mathematics, professor, Full Member of the Kazakhstan National Academy of Science. He was also member Supreme Council of Kazakh SSR and Republic of Kazakhstan.
Go to Profile#38926
Hicham El Guerrouj
#38938
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Hicham El Guerrouj is a retired Moroccan middle-distance runner. El Guerrouj is the current world record holder for the 1500 metres and mile events, and the former world record holder in the 2000 metres. He is the only man since Paavo Nurmi to win a gold medal in both the 1500 m and 5000 metres at the same Olympic Games.
Go to Profile#38927
Vilhelm Helander
#38939
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Arne Anders Vilhem Helander , is a Finnish architect and was Professor of Architecture History at Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland from 1986 until 2005, when he became professor emeritus.
Go to Profile#38928
Laura Miller
#38940
Overall Influence
Laura A. Miller is an American mathematical biologist, known for her research in biomechanical applications of fluid dynamics including insect flight, jellyfish propulsion, and blood flow in embryonic hearts. She works at the University of Arizona as a professor of mathematics.
Go to Profile#38929
Anthony Reid
#38941
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Anthony Reid is a New Zealand-born historian of Southeast Asia. His doctoral work at Cambridge University examined the contest for power in northern Sumatra, Indonesia in the late 19th century, and he extended this study into a book The Blood of the People on the national and social revolutions in that region 1945–49. He is most well known for his two volume book "Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce", developed during his time at the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University in Canberra. His later work includes a return to Sumatra where he explored the historical...
Go to Profile#38930
Udonis Haslem
#38942
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Udonis Johneal Haslem is an American former professional basketball player. He is currently the vice president of basketball development for the Miami Heat, where he spent his entire 20-year career in the National Basketball Association . He played college basketball for the Florida Gators, where he was a key member of four NCAA tournament teams. Haslem began his professional career in France with Chalon-sur-Saône and then signed with his hometown Miami Heat in 2003 and became the longest-tenured Heat player in franchise history. He also won three NBA championships with the Heat .
Go to Profile#38931
Tanya Khovanova
#38943
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Tanya Khovanova is a Soviet-American mathematician who became the second female gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiads. She is a lecturer in mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#38932
Malcolm Renfrew
#38944
Overall Influence
1910 - 2013 (103 years)
Malcolm MacKenzie Renfrew was an American polymer chemist, inventor, and professor emeritus at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. Renfrew Hall, the university's chemistry building, was named for him in 1985.
Go to Profile#38933
Julie E. Cohen
#38945
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Julie E. Cohen is an American legal scholar. Since 1999, she has been a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, teaching and writing about copyright, intellectual property, and privacy. She is also currently a member of the advisory board for public interest organizations Electronic Privacy Information Center and Public Knowledge. Along with academic articles, Cohen is the author of Configuring the Networked Self: Law, Code, and the Play of Everyday Practice and a co-author of casebook Copyright in a Global Information Economy.
Go to Profile#38934
Idun Reiten
#38946
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Idun Reiten is a Norwegian professor of mathematics. She is considered to be one of Norway's greatest mathematicians today. Career She took her PhD degree at the University of Illinois in 1971. She was appointed as a professor at the University of Trondheim in 1982, now named the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Go to Profile#38935
Kim Hyesoon
#38947
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Kim Hyesoon is a South Korean poet. Life Kim Hyesoon was born in Uljin County, North Gyeongsang Province. She was raised by her grandmother and had tuberculous pleurisy as a child. She received her Ph.D. in Korean literature from Konkuk University and began her career as a poet in 1979 with the publication of the poem "Dead body Smoking a Cigarette" along with four other of her poems in the literary magazine Literature and Intellect . Kim Hyesoon is Poet, essayist, and critic. She is one of the most prominent and influential contemporary poets of South Korea. She has published fourteen poetry books and four books on poetics.
Go to Profile#38936
Richard H. Solomon
#38948
Overall Influence
1937 - 2017 (80 years)
Richard Harvey Solomon was an American diplomat and academic who served as Director of Policy Planning from 1986 to 1989, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 1989 to 1992, and U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines from 1992 to 1993. In September 1993, he became president of the United States Institute of Peace, a position he held until September 2012. He subsequently joined the RAND Corporation as a Senior Fellow.
Go to Profile#38937
Kent Hance
#38949
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Kent Ronald Hance is an American politician and lawyer who is the former Chancellor of the Texas Tech University System. In his role, he oversaw Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas. He is also a lobbyist and lawyer. Hance is the only person to defeat future President George W. Bush and became a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from West Texas, having served from 1979 to 1985. After his congressional service, he switched to the Republican Party and in both 1986 and 1990 ran for gov...
Go to Profile#38938
Adam Driver
#38950
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Adam Douglas Driver is an American actor. Recognized for his collaborations with auteur filmmakers, he is the recipient of various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award.
Go to Profile#38939
Monroe H. Freedman
#38951
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Monroe Henry Freedman was a professor of law and the former dean at Hofstra Law School. He lectured at Harvard Law School annually for 30 years, and was a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School from 2007 to 2012. He has been described as "a pioneer in the field of legal ethics" and "one of the nation's leading experts on legal ethics."
Go to Profile#38940
Anna Chakvetadze
#38952
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Anna Djambuliovna Chakvetadze is a Russian professional tennis player. In her career, Chakvetadze won eight WTA Tour singles titles. She booked her highest singles ranking of world No. 5 in September 2007, after reaching the US Open semifinals. She also made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and French Open that same year. She announced her retirement on 11 September 2013, due to a persisting back injury. She is currently a commentator on the Eurosport channel.
Go to Profile#38941
Tina Beattie
#38953
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Tina Beattie is a British Christian theologian, writer and broadcaster. Until August 2020, she was the Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton in London and Director of the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Religion, Society and Human Flourishing at the same university. In retirement, she is remaining Director of Catherine of Siena College at the University of Roehampton and is writing fiction.
Go to Profile#38942
Neve Campbell
#38954
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Neve Adrianne Campbell is a Canadian actress. She is known for her work in the drama and horror genres, the latter of which earned her recognition as a scream queen. Following a series of minor appearances, Campbell had a starring role in the drama series Catwalk and the television film The Canterville Ghost . She subsequently relocated to the United States to star as Julia Salinger in the Fox teen drama series Party of Five , which became her breakthrough role, earning her recognition as a teen idol and a nomination for the Teen Choice Award for Choice TV Actress. While on the series, she s...
Go to Profile#38943
Achilles Papapetrou
#38955
Overall Influence
1907 - 1997 (90 years)
Achille Papapetrou was a Greek theoretical physicist, who contributed to the general theory of relativity. He is known for the Mathisson–Papapetrou–Dixon equations, the Majumdar–Papapetrou solution, and the Weyl−Lewis−Papapetrou coordinates of gravity theory.
Go to Profile#38944
Samuel Katz
#38956
Overall Influence
1927 - 2022 (95 years)
Samuel Lawrence Katz was an American pediatrician and virologist whose career has been devoted to infectious disease research, focusing principally on vaccine research and development. Katz was the Wilburt Cornell Davison Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics at Duke University.
Go to Profile#38945
Daniel Dale
#38957
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Daniel Dale is a Canadian journalist known for rebutting a large number of false claims made by United States President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign and presidency. Dale credits an encounter with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford while covering the mayor and his brother Doug for the Toronto Star as the inspiration for developing his brand of adversarial journalism.
Go to Profile#38946
Jean Pradel
#38958
Overall Influence
1933 - 2021 (88 years)
Jean Pradel was a French jurist, magistrate, and professor. He specialized in criminal law. Biography Pradel studied at the Faculty of Law at the University of Poitiers from 1951 to 1957 and subsequently passed the entrance exam for the French National School for the Judiciary. He briefly served as a deputy judge at the of Brest before serving in the Algerian War from 1958 to 1960. In 1962, he became a Deputy and a military prosecutor in Nemours.
Go to Profile#38947
Amy Berrington de González
#38959
Overall Influence
Amy Berrington de González is a scientist. She is a senior investigator and radiation epidemiology branch chief at the National Cancer Institute. Education Berrington de González received a D.Phil. in Cancer Epidemiology from the University of Oxford. Her 2001 dissertation was titled Epidemiological evidence for the risk of cancer from diagnostic X-rays. Her university supervisors were Sarah Darby and David Cox.
Go to Profile#38948
Seth M. Holmes
#38960
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Seth M. Holmes is Chancellor's Professor of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and Medical Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley. He also serves as founder and co-chair of the Berkeley Center for Social Medicine, co-director of the MD/Ph.D. Track in Medical Anthropology coordinated between UC Berkeley and UCSF. A cultural anthropologist and physician, Holmes focuses on social inequalities, immigration, ethnic hierarchies, health and health care. His work has provided a particularly strong ethnographic critique of behaviorism in medicine.
Go to Profile#38949
Phillip Gibbons
#38961
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Phillip Gibbons, formerly of Intel Labs Pittsburgh, is a professor in the Computer Science Department and the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Gibbons was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for his contributions to parallel computing and databases.
Go to Profile#38950
Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard
#38962
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard is a Danish astronomer at Aarhus University in Denmark. He specializes in asteroseismology and helioseismology. He has made significant contributions to both fields, including predicting the oscillation of Sun-like stars in 1983. He is the head of "Rumudvalget" and the Stellar Astrophysics Centre supported by the Danish National Research Foundation. He is co-investigator on the Kepler mission and, with Hans Kjeldsen in Aarhus, leads the 500+ researchers in the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium . KASC is responsible for the asteroseismology component of the Kepler mission.
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