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
#39451
George B. Arfken
#39463
Overall Influence
1922 - 2020 (98 years)
George Brown Arfken was an American theoretical physicist and the author of several mathematical physics texts. He was a physics professor at Miami University from 1952 to 1983 and the chair of the Miami University physics department 1956–1972. He was an emeritus professor at Miami University. Arfken was also an authority on Canadian philately.
Go to Profile#39452
Wang Anyi
#39464
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Wang Anyi is a Chinese writer, vice-chair of the China Writers Association since 2006, and professor in Chinese Literature at Fudan University since 2004. Wang widely write novels, novellas, short stories and essays with diverse themes and topics. The majority of her works are set in Shanghai, where she lived and worked for the majority of her life. Wang also regularly writes about the countryside in Anhui, where she was "sent down" during the Cultural Revolution. Her works have been translated into English, German and French, and studied as zhiqing , xungen , Haipai , and dushi literature.
Go to Profile#39453
Phil Woods
#39465
Overall Influence
1931 - 2015 (84 years)
Philip Wells Woods was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer. Biography Woods was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began taking lessons at a local music shop. His heroes on the alto saxophone included Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges. He studied music with Lennie Tristano at the Manhattan School of Music and at the Juilliard School. His friend, Joe Lopes, coached him on clarinet as there was no saxophone major at Juilliard at the time and received a bachelor’s degree in 1952. Although he did not copy Charlie Parker...
Go to Profile#39454
Richard G. Compton
#39466
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Richard Guy Compton FRSC MAE is Professor of Chemistry and Aldrichian Praelector at Oxford University, United Kingdom. He is a Tutorial Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford and has a large research group based at the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford University. Compton has broad interests in both fundamental and applied electrochemistry and electro-analysis including nano-chemical aspects. He has published more than 1600 papers with more than 44,000 citations, excluding self-cites, as of March 2020; Reuters-Thomson ‘Highly Cited Researcher’ 2014, 2015 and 2016see list ...
Go to Profile#39455
Marina Semyonova
#39467
Overall Influence
1908 - 2010 (102 years)
Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova was the first Soviet-trained prima ballerina. She was born in Saint-Petersburg. She was named a People's Artist of the USSR in 1975. Early life The first great dancer formed by Agrippina Vaganova, she graduated from the Vaganova School in 1925, which "is registered in the annals of Soviet ballet as the year of the unprecedented triumph of Marina Semyonova".
Go to Profile#39456
Marilyn E. Jacox
#39468
Overall Influence
1929 - 2013 (84 years)
Marilyn Esther Jacox was an American physical chemist. She was a National Institute of Standards and Technology Fellow and Scientist Emeritus in the Sensor Science Division. Education Jacox was born in Utica, New York, the daughter of Grant and Mary Jacox.
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Sherwin Carlquist
#39469
Overall Influence
1930 - 2021 (91 years)
Sherwin John Carlquist FMLS was an American botanist and photographer. Education He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952 and a Ph.D. in botany in 1956, also at Berkeley. During his graduate studies, Marion Elizabeth Stilwell Cave instructed him in the nuances of plant microphotography and embryology. Carlquist did a postdoctoral study at Harvard University from 1955 to 1956.
Go to Profile#39458
Anthony Catanese
#39470
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Anthony James Catanese is an American university administrator, author, and a former President and CEO of the Florida Institute of Technology. Prior to his position at the Florida Institute of Technology, Catanese was President of Florida Atlantic University. Catanese previously served as President and Chairman of the President's council of the Sunshine State Conference.
Go to Profile#39459
Paul Jackson Jr.
#39471
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Paul Milton Jackson Jr. is an American fusion/urban jazz composer, arranger, producer and guitarist. In addition to being a recording artist in his own right, Jackson is also a session player, with a career spanning multiple decades. He has supported artists ranging from Michael Jackson to the Temptations, Whitney Houston, Alexander O'Neal, Five Star , Howard Hewett, Thomas Anders, Patti LaBelle and Luis Miguel, to rockers such as Chicago and Elton John, to jazz-oriented players such as George Duke, George Benson, Dave Koz, Al Jarreau, David Benoit, Marcus Miller and Kirk Whalum, and to Ch...
Go to Profile#39460
John D. Winters
#39472
Overall Influence
1916 - 1997 (81 years)
John David Winters was an American historian at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana. He is known for his monograph The Civil War in Louisiana, which was published in 1963, released in paperback in 1991, and is still in print. When published, it was the first and only single volume history covering events in Louisiana from 1861 to 1865.
Go to Profile#39461
Samy El-Shall
#39473
Overall Influence
Samy El-Shall is an Egyptian-American physical chemist and a researcher in nanoscience, heterogeneous catalysis, molecular clusters and cluster ions, nucleation and ion mobility. He is the Mary Eugenia Kapp Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Commonwealth Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University .
Go to Profile#39462
Roland Scholten
#39474
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Roland Scholten is a Dutch former professional darts player who played in events of the Professional Darts Corporation and British Darts Organisation . Nicknamed The Tripod and The Flying Dutchman, Scholten turned full-time professional in 2001 having previously worked as a publican. Despite his Dutch nationality, Scholten speaks with a strong English accent having lived in Peterborough for several years. His considerable height and throwing technique means his darts hit the board at a considerably narrow angle.
Go to Profile#39463
David B. Wilkins
#39475
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is a senior research fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Harvard Law School's vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession, and a faculty associate of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
Go to Profile#39464
Cheddi Jagan
#39476
Overall Influence
1918 - 1997 (79 years)
Cheddi Berret Jagan was a Guyanese politician and dentist who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964. He later served as President of Guyana from 1992 to his death in 1997. In 1953, he became the first person of Indian descent to be a head of government outside of the Indian subcontinent.
Go to Profile#39465
Annette Zippelius
#39477
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Annette Zippelius is a German physicist at the University of Göttingen. In 1998 she became a Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winner. Her research focuses on complex fluids and soft matter – materials that are intermediate between conventional liquids and solids. Examples are glasses, polymeric melts or solutions, gels and foams, but also granular matter. With her research group she aims at elucidating the underlying principles of self-organization that govern their behavior.
Go to Profile#39466
David Boreanaz
#39478
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
David Paul Boreanaz is an American actor, television producer, and director known for playing the roles of vampire-turned-private investigator Angel on The WB/UPN Buffy the Vampire Slayer supernatural drama and its spinoff Angel ; FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, a homicide investigator, on the Fox television crime procedural comedy-drama series Bones ; and United States Navy SEAL Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes in the CBS/Paramount+ military drama series SEAL Team .
Go to Profile#39467
Lynn Anderson
#39479
Overall Influence
1947 - 2015 (68 years)
Lynn René Anderson was an American country singer and television personality. Her crossover signature recording, "Rose Garden," was a number one hit internationally. She also charted five number one and 18 top-ten singles on the Billboard country songs chart. Anderson is regarded as one of country music's most significant performers.
Go to Profile#39468
Chen-Yuan Lee
#39480
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Chen-Yuan Lee , was a Taiwanese pharmacologist and political activist. He is famous for his research on snake venom. He was a recipient of the prestigious Redi Award from the International Society on Toxinology , and was also a former president of the society. He was a former dean of the National Taiwan University College of Medicine. After his retirement from researching, he focused on participating in the Taiwan independence movement and many democratic movement. Lee had founded many political organizations such as the "100 Action Union" , Foundation of Medical Professionals Alliance in Taiwan.
Go to Profile#39469
William McKeen
#39481
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
William McKeen is an American author and educator. He is professor and former chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University. Biography McKeen was born in Indianapolis September 16, 1954, he was raised in England, Germany, Nebraska, Florida and Texas. His father was an Air Force flight surgeon who retired to private practice in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1968.
Go to Profile#39470
Yoko Matsuoka McClain
#39482
Overall Influence
1924 - 2011 (87 years)
Yoko Matsuoka McClain was a Japanese-born American professor of Japanese language and literature at the University of Oregon. She was the granddaughter of Japanese novelist, Natsume Sōseki, from her maternal lineage.
Go to Profile#39471
Henrik Edoyan
#39483
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Henrik Edoyan is an Armenian poet, translator, university professor and academician. Biography Henrik Edoyan was born in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia to the family of Anton and Atlas Yedoyans as the 5th out of 6 children that survived to adulthood. Anton was originally from Erzerum, Ottoman Empire and had moved to Russian Armenia after losing the first wife and children to the Armenian genocide.
Go to Profile#39472
Thomas Joseph King
#39484
Overall Influence
1921 - 2000 (79 years)
Thomas J. King was an American biologist. Biography With Robert William Briggs, he worked on transplantation of somatic cell nuclei from adult frogs into enucleated oocytes this leading to the first clone of an animal in 1952. He was a scientist at the Institute for Cancer Research of the Lankenau Hospital Research Institute when the work was conducted. King and Briggs were awarded in 1972 the highest honor of the French Academy: the Grand Prix Charles-Leopold Mayer of the Académie des Sciences, Institut de France and were the first Americans to be so honored.
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Richard A. Long
#39485
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
Richard A. Long was an American cultural historian and author, who has been called "one of the great pillars of African-American arts and culture". As an academic, he taught at University of Pennsylvania, University of Paris, University of Poitiers, Atlanta University, Emory University, Morgan State College and West Virginia State College, and had worked as a visiting lecturer at universities in Africa and India.
Go to Profile#39474
Meredith Vieira
#39486
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Meredith Louise Vieira is an American broadcast journalist and television personality. She is best known as the original moderator of the daytime talk show The View , the original host of the syndicated daytime version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire , and as co-host of the NBC morning news program Today . , she hosts the syndicated weekday game show 25 Words or Less.
Go to Profile#39475
Alexandru Dimca
#39487
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Alexandru Dimca is a Romanian mathematician, who works in algebraic geometry at University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. Education and career Dimca competed in the International Mathematical Olympiad in 1970, 1971, and 1972, earning two bronze medals and one silver medal. He obtained his PhD in 1981 from the University of Bucharest; his thesis "Stable mappings and singularities", was written under the direction of Gheorghe Galbură. His Google Scholar h-index is 24.
Go to Profile#39476
Murry Salby
#39488
Overall Influence
Murry Lewis Salby was an American atmospheric scientist who focused on upper atmospheric wave propagation for most of his early career, and who more recently argued against aspects of the scientific consensus that human activity contributes to climate change. He has written two textbooks, Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics , and Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate . The latter textbook, building on his first book, offers an overview of the processes controlling the atmosphere of Earth, weather, energetics, and climate physics.
Go to Profile#39477
Stephen Strasburg
#39489
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Stephen James Strasburg is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Washington Nationals of Major League Baseball . Strasburg was selected by Washington with the first overall pick in the 2009 Major League Baseball draft. He made his major league debut in 2010 and is a three-time All-Star.
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Joseph Koterski
#39490
Overall Influence
1953 - 2021 (68 years)
Joseph Koterski, S.J. was an American Jesuit priest, philosopher, author, and professor at Fordham University in the Bronx, New York. Biography In 1976, Koterski graduated with a H.A.B. degree in Classics from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1980, he earned a M.A. from Saint Louis University with a thesis titled Aristotle's Ethics and Reflective Equilibrium, and then two years later a Ph.D. from the same school, while there on a Danforth Fellowship. His dissertation, mentored by James Collins, was titled Truth and Freedom in Karl Jasper’s Philosophy of Science.
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José Onuchic
#39491
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
José Nelson Onuchic is a Brazilian and American physicist, the Harry C & Olga K Wiess Professor of Physics at Rice University. He does research in molecular biophysics, condensed matter chemistry, and genetic networks, and is known for the folding funnel hypothesis stating that the native state of a protein is a deep minimum of free energy for the protein's natural conditions among its possible configurations. He was the college master for Lovett College at Rice University from 2014 to 2019.
Go to Profile#39480
Riadh Sidaoui
#39492
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Riadh Sidaoui is a Swiss-Tunisian thinker, writer, journalist and political scientist. He is the director of the Geneva-based Arab Centre for Political and Social Research and Analysis, and the editor-in-chief of the news website Taqadoumiya since 2010. He published articles in London-based newspapers such as Al-Hayat and Al-Quds Al-Arabi. He regularly appears on international television news channels such as France 24, RT, BBC and Voice of America, as well as on radio stations such as Radio Television Suisse, Deutsche Welle and Monte Carlo Doualiya.
Go to Profile#39481
Matt Taylor
#39493
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Matthew Graham George Thaddeus Taylor is a British astrophysicist employed by the European Space Agency. He is best known to the public for his involvement in the landing on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko by the Rosetta mission 's Philae lander, which was the first spacecraft to land on a comet nucleus. He is Project Scientist of the Rosetta mission.
Go to Profile#39482
John H. Thomas
#39494
Overall Influence
The Rev. John H. Thomas was the General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ , a mainline Protestant Christian denomination. Elected in 1999, he served as one of five officers of the UCC who comprise the Collegium of Officers, which oversees national ministries. As General Minister and President, Thomas was the premier spokesperson for the United Church of Christ, officially representing the UCC in ecumenical and interfaith relations. His term ended in October 2009.
Go to Profile#39483
Md. Akhtaruzzaman
#39495
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Md. Akhtaruzzaman is a Bangladeshi academic who served as the 28th vice-chancellor of the University of Dhaka. Prior to this position, he served in different academic, administrative and co-curricular development activities at the University of Dhaka including the pro-vice chancellor , dean , chairman, Department of Islamic History & Culture, and provost of the Kabi Jashim Uddin Hall, University of Dhaka.
Go to Profile#39484
No I.D.
#39496
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Ernest Dion Wilson , professionally known as No I.D. , is an American hip hop and R&B producer from Chicago, Illinois. Wilson is also a disc jockey , music arranger and former rapper, having released an album Accept Your Own and Be Yourself , in 1997 under Relativity Records. He is perhaps best known for his early work with Chicago-based rapper Common. He has since become a heavily sought-out and high-profile producer, producing hit singles such as "Smile" by G-Unit, "Outta My System" and "Let Me Hold You" by Bow Wow, "Heartless" by Kanye West, "D.O.A." by Jay-Z, "My Last" by Big Sean, and "Ne...
Go to Profile#39485
Martha Siegel
#39497
Overall Influence
Martha Jochnowitz Siegel is an American applied mathematician, probability theorist and mathematics educator who served as the editor of Mathematics Magazine from 1991 to 1996. In 2017 she won the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service of the Mathematical Association of America for "her remarkable leadership in guiding the national conversation on undergraduate mathematics curriculum". She was a faculty member in the mathematics department of Towson University from 1971 until 2015, when she became a professor emerita.
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Huib Drion
#39498
Overall Influence
1917 - 2004 (87 years)
Huib Drion was a Dutch Supreme Court judge and professor of civil law who became famous for proposing a suicide pill, which was later called Drion's pill after him. Drion wrote that elderly people who were incurably sick should be able to visit their doctor and receive medication to end their lives. Known in the media as the "Last Wish Pill" or "Drion Pill," the doctor-prescribed drug would be available free of charge to people over the age of 70. Drion also suggested that patients receive a combination of two pills to be ingested in one- or two-day intervals so the patient would have enough ...
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Gordon Murray
#39499
Overall Influence
1921 - 2016 (95 years)
Gordon Murray was a British television producer and puppeteer. He created and wrote some of the most repeated children's television programmes ever seen in Britain. Camberwick Green, Trumpton, and Chigley, collectively known as the Trumptonshire Trilogy, were all made by the company he founded.
Go to Profile#39488
Scott Niedermayer
#39500
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Scott Niedermayer is a Canadian former ice hockey defenceman and current special assignment coach of the Anaheim Ducks. He played 18 seasons and over 1,000 games in the National Hockey League for the New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks. Niedermayer is a four-time Stanley Cup champion and played in five NHL All-Star Games. He won the James Norris Memorial Trophy in 2003–04 as the NHL's top defenceman and the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2007 as the most valuable player of the playoffs. In 2017, Niedermayer was named one of the 100 Greatest NHL Players in history.
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Peter C. Whybrow
#39501
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Peter C. Whybrow is an English psychiatrist and award-winning author whose primary research focus has been on understanding the metabolic role of thyroid hormones in the adult brain and how to apply this knowledge to the treatment of mood disorder, especially bipolar disorder. He is Judson Braun Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Go to Profile#39490
Betty Kitchener
#39502
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Betty Ann Kitchener is an Australian mental health educator who co-founded Mental health first aid training. Career Betty Kitchener trained as a teacher, counsellor and nurse. She is also a mental health consumer advocate, having experienced recurrent major depression. She has held academic appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Until the end of 2016, she was CEO of Mental Health First Aid Australia. She held an honorary Adjunct Professorship at Deakin University from 2013 to 2019.
Go to Profile#39491
Thomas Fingar
#39503
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Charles Thomas Fingar, is a professor at Stanford University. In 1986 Fingar left Stanford to join the State Department. In 2005, he moved to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as the deputy director of National Intelligence for Analysis and concurrently served as the chairman of the National Intelligence Council until December 2008. In January 2009, he rejoined Stanford as a Payne Distinguished Lecturer in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Go to Profile#39492
Barbara Taylor
#39504
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Barbara G. Taylor is a Canadian-born historian based in the United Kingdom, specialising in the Enlightenment, gender studies and the history of subjectivity. She is Professor of Humanities at Queen Mary, University of London.
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Lonnie Donegan
#39505
Overall Influence
1931 - 2002 (71 years)
Anthony James Donegan , known as Lonnie Donegan, was a Scottish skiffle singer, songwriter and musician, referred to as the "King of Skiffle", who influenced 1960s British pop and rock musicians. Born in Scotland and brought up in England, Donegan began his career in the British trad jazz revival but transitioned to skiffle in the mid-1950s, rising to prominence with a hit recording of the American folk song "Rock Island Line" which helped spur the broader UK skiffle movement.
Go to Profile#39494
Jonathan Simon
#39506
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Jonathan Simon is an American academic, the Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice Law, and the former Associate Dean of the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at the UC Berkeley School of Law. Simon’s scholarship concerns the role of crime and criminal justice in governing contemporary societies, risk and the law, and the history of the interdisciplinary study of law. His other interests include criminology; penology; sociology; insurance models of governing risk; governance; the origins and consequences of, and solutions to, the California prison "crisis"; parole; prisons; capital ...
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Hans Werner Ballmann
#39507
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Hans Werner Ballmann is a German mathematician. His area of research is differential geometry with focus on geodesic flows, spaces of negative curvature as well as spectral theory of Dirac operators
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Nawab Haider Naqvi
#39508
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi is a Pakistani economist and scholar. Early life and education Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi was born in Meerut, British India on 11 July 1935. He migrated to Karachi, Pakistan in 1950.
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David E. Evans
#39509
Overall Influence
David E. Evans FLSW was born in 1950 at Glanamman, Dyfed, Wales. He is a professor of mathematics at Cardiff University, specialising in knot theory. He has published a number of books, many in collaboration with Yasuyuki Kawahigashi.
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Bogusław Bobrański
#39510
Overall Influence
1904 - 1991 (87 years)
Bogusław Bobrański was a Polish chemist. He was the rector of Wrocław Medical University from 1957 - 1962. Biography Graduating in Chemistry from the Lviv Polytechnic, Bobrański received his engineering diploma in 1926. He worked in the Department of Organic Chemistry of his university under the supervision of Prof. Edward Sucharda.
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Catherine O'Brien
#39511
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Catherine O'Brien is a British academic, film scholar, linguist and writer. Her main fields are French cinema; the First World War in French and German cultures in relation to art and comparative literature and the intersections between cinema, theology and religion.
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Matthew Pearl
#39512
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Matthew Pearl is an American novelist and educator. His novels include The Dante Club, The Poe Shadow, The Last Dickens, The Technologists, and The Last Bookaneer. Biography Pearl was born in New York City and grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he graduated from the University School of Nova Southeastern University , a K-12 school. He earned degrees from Harvard College and Yale Law School. He currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1998, Pearl won the Dante Award from the Dante Society of America for his undergraduate essay, Dante in Transit: Emerson’s Lost Role as Dantean.
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