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
#39951
Stephen Leatherman
#39964
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Stephen Parker Leatherman, also known as Dr. Beach, is an American geoscientist, coastal ecologist, and author. He was the first director of the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University , from 1997 to 2009. He then became professor and co-director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at FIU. Leatherman often discuss his research on beach quality evaluations, beach erosion, coastal storm and sea level rise impacts and rip currents.
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Patrick H. O'Farrell
#39965
Overall Influence
Patrick H. O'Farrell is a molecular biologist who made crucial contribution to the development of 2-dimensional protein electrophoresis and Drosophila genetics. He is now a professor of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco and has a h-index of 67.
Go to Profile#39953
Dan Jones
#39966
Overall Influence
Dan Jones is a professor emeritus who taught a variety of technical communication courses in the Department of English at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, Florida from 1983 to 2018. He retired in 2018. He is also a Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication. He earned his B.A., M.A. and PhD degrees from Florida State University in 1974, 1976 and 1979, respectively.
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Richard S. Williamson
#39967
Overall Influence
1949 - 2013 (64 years)
Richard Salisbury Williamson was an American lawyer, diplomat and political advisor. He previously served as Special Envoy to Sudan under George W. Bush. Williamson was a partner at Winston & Strawn and was also Thomas J. Sharkey Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Seton Hall's Whitehead School of Diplomacy.
Go to Profile#39955
Krishna Chatterjee
#39968
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Vengalil Krishna Kumar Chatterjee is a British endocrinologist. He is a professor of endocrinology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge. He is also the director of the Cambridge Clinical Research Centre, part of the National Institute for Health Research .
Go to Profile#39956
Roman Krznaric
#39969
Overall Influence
Roman Krznaric is an Australian-born social philosopher, whose books focus on the power of ideas to create change and have been published in over 25 languages. His latest book is the international bestseller The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World. He is a senior research fellow at the Centre for Eudaimonia and Human Flourishing at Linacre College, University of Oxford and the founder of the world's first Empathy Museum. He is also a Research Fellow of the Long Now Foundation and member of the Club of Rome. He was named by The Observer as one of Britain's leading popula...
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Zvezdelina Stankova
#39970
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Zvezdelina Entcheva Stankova is an American mathematician who is a professor of mathematics at Mills College and a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the founder of the Berkeley Math Circle, and an expert in the combinatorial enumeration of permutations with forbidden patterns.
Go to Profile#39958
Joseph Abiodun Balogun
#39971
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Joseph Abiodun Balogun, , is a Nigerian-American academic, he is a distinguished professor in the College of Health Sciences at Chicago State University, Illinois and emeritus professor of physiotherapy at University of Medical Sciences, Ondo, Nigeria. He served from 1999 to 2013 as Dean of the College of Health Sciences at Chicago State University . While at CSU as Dean, Balogun established the HIV/AIDS Research and Policy Institute to address the disproportionate incidence and complex burdens of HIV/AIDS in minority populations.
Go to Profile#39959
Ronald A. Hites
#39972
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ronald A. Hites is an American chemist, currently a distinguished professor at Indiana University, and also a published author. He is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and also founded the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry.
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Pascal Van Hentenryck
#39973
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Pascal Van Hentenryck is the A. Russell Chandler III Chair and Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech. He is credited with pioneering advances in constraint programming and stochastic optimization, bridging theory and practice to solve real-world problems across a range of domains including sports scheduling, protein folding, kidney matching, disaster relief, power systems, recommender systems, and transportation. He has developed several optimization technologies including CHIP, Numerica, the Optimization Programming Language , and Comet. He has also published severa...
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Maurice Dongier
#39974
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
Maurice Dongier was a Canadian neuropsychiatrist at the Douglas Hospital Research Centre in Montreal, Quebec. He is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour as well as a connoisseur of wine and fine cooking. Dongier is a founding member of the Société française de Psycho-oncologie .
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James Hunt
#39975
Overall Influence
1947 - 1993 (46 years)
James Simon Wallis Hunt was a British racing driver who won the Formula One World Championship in . After retiring from racing in 1979, Hunt became a media commentator and businessman. Beginning his racing career in touring car racing, Hunt progressed into Formula Three, where he attracted the attention of the Hesketh Racing team and soon came under their wing. Hunt's often reckless and action-packed exploits on track earned him the nickname "Hunt the Shunt" . Hunt entered Formula One in , driving a March 731 entered by the Hesketh Racing team. He went on to win for Hesketh, driving their own...
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Alison Miller
#39976
Overall Influence
Alison Beth Miller is an American mathematician who was the first American female gold medalist at the International Mathematical Olympiad. She also holds the distinction of placing in the top 16 of the Putnam Competition four times, the last three of which were recognized by the Elizabeth Lowell Putnam award for outstanding performance by a woman on the contest.
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Vernon Reid
#39977
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Vernon Alphonsus Reid is an English-born American guitarist and songwriter best known as the founder of the rock band Living Colour. Reid was named No. 66 on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
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Lisa Lopes
#39978
Overall Influence
1971 - 2002 (31 years)
Lisa Nicole Lopes , better known by her stage name Left Eye, was an American rapper and singer. She was a member of the R&B girl group TLC, alongside Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas. Besides rapping and singing backing vocals on TLC recordings, Lopes was the creative force behind the group, receiving more co-writing credits than the other members. She also designed some of their outfits and the stage for their FanMail Tour and contributed to the group's image, album titles, artworks, and music videos. Through her work with TLC, Lopes won four Grammy Awards.
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Cora Sadosky
#39979
Overall Influence
1940 - 2010 (70 years)
Cora Susana Sadosky de Goldstein was a mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at Howard University. Early life and education Sadosky was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the daughter of mathematicians Manuel Sadosky and Corina Eloísa "Cora" Ratto de Sadosky. At the age of 6, she moved with her parents to France and Italy.
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Nancy E. Dunlap
#39980
Overall Influence
Nancy E. Dunlap is a physician, researcher and business administrator focused in the area of pulmonary and critical care medicine. She is now an emeritus professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.
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Galsan Tschinag
#39981
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Galsan Tschinag , is a Mongolian writer of novels, poems, and essays in the German language, though he hails from a Tuvan background. He is also often described as a Shaman, and is also a teacher and an actor.
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Jay Park
#39982
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Jay Park is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and entrepreneur based in South Korea. He is a member of the Seattle-based b-boy crew Art of Movement , and founder and former CEO of the independent hip hop record labels AOMG and H1ghr Music, as well as the founder of the record label More Vision. Park returned to South Korea in June 2010 for the filming of Hype Nation, and in July, Park signed a contract with SidusHQ, one of the largest entertainment agencies in South Korea. Rebranding and re-debuting as both a solo singer and a rapper, Park's musical identity woul...
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Patricia Broadfoot
#39983
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Patricia M. Broadfoot, CBE, FRSA, FAcSS was vice-chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire from 2006 to 2010. She served as Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol from 2002 to 2006. Interests Dr Broadfoot's main academic interests are in sociology and educational assessment. Her studies began at the University of Leeds, graduating in 1971 with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. She spent the following year obtaining a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at the University of London, before beginning her career in education by teaching in Wolmer's Boys High School, Jamaica . Sh...
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Pierre Toubert
#39984
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Pierre Toubert is a French historian. He is a professor of medieval history at the University of Paris and the Collège de France. Focusing on medieval history, his most monumental work is Les structures du Latium médiéval : Le Latium méridional et la Sabine du IXe siècle à la fin du XIIe siècle , in which he outlines an influential, in-depth study of incastellamento in the Lazio region of Italy.
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Johnny Rivers
#39985
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Johnny Rivers is an American musician. His repertoire includes pop, folk, blues and old-time rock 'n' roll. Rivers charted during the 1960s and 1970s but remains best known for a string of hit singles between 1964 and 1968, among them "Memphis" , "Mountain of Love" , "The Seventh Son" , "Secret Agent Man", "Poor Side of Town" , "Baby I Need Your Lovin'" and "Summer Rain".
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Howard Devoto
#39986
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Howard Devoto is an English singer and songwriter, who began his career as the frontman for punk rock band Buzzcocks, but then left to form Magazine, an early post-punk band. After Magazine, he went solo and later formed indie band Luxuria.
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Stephen Salter
#39987
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Stephen Hugh Salter, is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh and inventor of the eponymous Salter duck wave energy device. Salter is also a proponent of geoengineering and is responsible for creating the concept of the mechanical enhancement of clouds to achieve cloud reflectivity enhancement.
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Olin J. Eggen
#39988
Overall Influence
1919 - 1998 (79 years)
Olin Jeuck Eggen was an American astronomer. Biography Olin Jeuck Eggen was born to Olin Eggen and Bertha Clare Jeuck in the village of Orfordville located in Rock County, Wisconsin. Both of his parents were of Norwegian extraction. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1940. After serving in World War II in the OSS, he returned to the university and received his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1948.
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Jane Ward
#39989
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jane Ward is an American scholar, feminist, and author. Life Ward is Professor and Chair of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ward received her PhD in sociology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003.
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Russell Ingall
#39990
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Russell Ingall is a former full-time Australian V8 Supercar driver. He won his V8 Supercars title in 2005, and finished second in 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2004. Ingall has also won the Bathurst 1000, in 1995 and 1997. His particular driving style earned him the nickname "Enforcer".
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Hans-Jürgen Treder
#39991
Overall Influence
1928 - 2006 (78 years)
Hans-Jürgen Treder was a German theoretical physicist and in the GDR, specializing in general relativity , astrophysics, and cosmology. He also had an interest in the history of science and philosophy.
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Christopher Shinn
#39992
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Christopher Shinn is an American playwright. His play Dying City was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Where Do We Live won the 2005 Obie Award, Playwriting. Early life Shinn was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1975 and lives in New York. He earned a BFA, Dramatic Writing, from New York University.
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Violet Showers Johnson
#39993
Overall Influence
Violet Showers Johnson is professor of history and director of Africana studies at Texas A&M University. She was born in Lagos, Nigeria to Sierra Leone Creole parents , and grew up in Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
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Richard England
#39994
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Richard England is a Maltese architect, writer, artist, podcaster and academic. Biography Son of Edwin England Sant Fournier and Ina Desain, Richard studied at St. Edward's College, and later graduated in Architecture at the University of Malta. He then continued his studies in Italy at the Polytechnic University of Milan and also worked as a student-architect in the studio of the Italian architect-designer in Gio Ponti in 1960-62.
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Chris Jackson
#39995
Overall Influence
Chris Jackson is an American publisher and editor-in-chief of the One World imprint of Random House. Early life Jackson grew up in Harlem, New York, and attended Hunter College High School and Columbia University.
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Ron Miller
#39996
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ron Miller is an illustrator and writer who lives and works in South Boston, Virginia. He now specializes in astronomical, astronautical and science fiction books for adults and young adults. Miller was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He holds a BFA from Columbus, Ohio, College of Art and Design. He worked as a commercial artist and designer for six years, before taking a position as art director for the National Air and Space Museum's Albert Einstein Planetarium. He left there in 1977 to become a freelance illustrator and author; to date he has nearly sixty book titles to his credit, and his...
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Andrew Sachs
#39997
Overall Influence
1930 - 2016 (86 years)
Andreas Siegfried Sachs , known professionally as Andrew Sachs, was a German-born British actor. He made his name on British television and found his greatest fame for his portrayal of the comical Spanish waiter Manuel in Fawlty Towers.
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David S. Guzick
#39998
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
David S. Guzick an American reproductive endocrinologist and economist. He served as Senior Vice President of Health Affairs and President of UF Health at the University of Florida from 2009 to 2018, and is Emeritus Dean of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
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Walid Jumblatt
#39999
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Walid Kamal Jumblatt is a Lebanese Druze politician and former militia commander who led the Progressive Socialist Party from 1977 until 2023. While leading the Lebanese National Resistance Front and allying with the Amal Movement during the Lebanese Civil War, he worked closely with Suleiman Frangieh to oppose Amine Gemayel's rule as president in 1983. After the civil war, he initially supported Syria but later led an anti-Assad stance during the start of the Syrian Civil War. He is still active in politics, most recently leading his party, the Progressive Socialist Party in the 2022 Lebane...
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Max Cresswell
#40000
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Maxwell John Cresswell is a New Zealand philosopher and logician, known for his work in modal logic. Education and career Cresswell received his B.A. in 1960 and M.A. in 1961 from the University of New Zealand and then with the support of a Commonwealth Scholarship attended the Victoria University of Manchester, where he received in 1964 his PhD under the supervision of A. N. Prior. Cresswell's thesis was titled General and Specific Logics of Functions of Propositions. After returning to New Zealand, Cresswell was at the Victoria University of Wellington, from 1963 to 1967 as a lecturer, from...
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Lee Konstantinou
#40001
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Lee Konstantinou is an associate professor of English Literature at University of Maryland, College Park. Biography Lee Konstantinou was born in New York City. Konstantinou received his Bachelor of Arts in English, Psychology, and College Scholar from Cornell University. His bachelors thesis was titled “Comics and the Holocaust: A graphical Analysis of Art Spiegelman’s Maus,” about Art Spiegelman's Maus. Konstantinou then went on to receive his MA and PhD from Stanford University in 2009 with a dissertation titled “Wipe That Smirk off Your Face: Postironic Literature and the Politics of Chara...
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Farish Jenkins
#40002
Overall Influence
1940 - 2012 (72 years)
Farish Alston Jenkins was a professor at Harvard University who studied and taught paleontology. His discoveries included a transitional creature with characteristics of both fish and land animals — Tiktaalik roseae —and one of the earliest known frogs, Prosalirus bitis.
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W. R. Alford
#40003
Overall Influence
1937 - 2003 (66 years)
William Robert "Red" Alford, Ph.D, J.D. was an American mathematician and lawyer, who was best known for his work in the fields of topology and number theory. Personal life Alford was born in Canton, Mississippi, to parents Clayton and Pennington Alford. After graduating high school, Alford became a member of the United States Air Force, and earned his Bachelor of Science in mathematics and physics from The Citadel . Subsequently, he earned his Ph.D in mathematics from Tulane University , and his J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law . After earning his J.D., he practiced law in Athens, Georgia, before returning to the mathematics faculty at the University of Georgia.
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Kenneth Francis Ripple
#40004
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Kenneth Francis Ripple is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Education and career Ripple was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received an Artium Baccalaureus degree from Fordham University in 1965. He received a Juris Doctor from University of Virginia School of Law in 1968. He received a Master of Laws from George Washington University Law School in 1972. He was in the United States Navy from 1968 to 1972. He was in the United States Naval Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps since 1972. He was an attorney for IBM's Office of the General Counsel in 1968.
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Thein Sein
#40005
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Thein Sein is a Burmese former politician and retired general in the Myanmar Army who served as the eighth President of Myanmar from 2011 to 2016. He previously served as Prime Minister from 2007 to 2011, and was considered by many in and outside Myanmar as a reformist leader in the post-junta government.
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Tadahiko Mizuno
#40006
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
is a Japanese nuclear-chemist known for his work on cold fusion. He was a former assistant professor teaching the Atomic Power Environmental Materials program at Hokkaido University. He was also a member of Energy Environmental Institute of Engineering at Hokkaido University until 2009.
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I. Michael Leitman
#40007
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
I. Michael Leitman is an American surgeon and medical educator. He is Professor of Surgery and Medical Education and Dean for Graduate Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He previously held the position of Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City.
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Jean-Louis Chrétien
#40008
Overall Influence
1952 - 2019 (67 years)
Jean-Louis Chrétien was a French philosopher in the tradition of phenomenology as well as a poet and religious thinker. Author of over thirty books, he was the 2012 winner of the Cardinal Lustiger Prize for his life’s work in philosophy. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at the Sorbonne at the end of his career. The study of Chrétien increased widely after his death, a posthumous recognition that contrasts with his modest and solitary attitude.
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Linda Evans
#40009
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Linda Ellen Evans is an American science fiction writer currently residing in Archer, Florida. She is an author of ten novels and four anthologies, as well as of several other co-authored novels. In 1996 her published novels had sold more than 100,000 copies. She has been published in English, German, and Russian, as well as hardback, paperback, and book-club editions.
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Yehuda Liebes
#40010
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Yehuda Liebes is an Israeli academic and scholar. He is the Gershom Scholem Professor Emeritus of Kabbalah at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is considered a leading scholar of Kabbalah; his other research interests include Jewish myth, Sabbateanism, and the links between Judaism and ancient Greek religion, Christianity, and Islam. He is the recipient of the 1997 Bialik Prize, the 1999 Gershom Scholem Prize for Kabbalah Research, the 2006 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture, and the 2017 Israel Prize in Jewish thought.
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Jeremiah Stamler
#40011
Overall Influence
1919 - 2022 (103 years)
Jeremiah Stamler was an American scientist specializing in preventive cardiology and the study of the influence of various risk factors on coronary heart disease and other cardiovascular diseases, and the role of salt and other nutrients in the etiology of hypertension and coronary heart disease. Stamler is credited with introducing the term "risk factors" into the field of cardiology. In 1988, he was awarded the Donald Reid Medal given by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for his contributions to epidemiology. He was professor emeritus of preventive medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois.
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Wayne Rainey
#40012
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Wayne Wesley Rainey is an American former Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he won the 500cc World Championship three times and the Daytona 200 once. He was characterized by his smooth, calculating riding style, and for his intense rivalry with compatriot Kevin Schwantz, between 1987 and 1993.
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Estian Calitz
#40013
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Estian Calitz is the executive director of finance and professor of economics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa since 2003. Calitz was born and grew up in the Western Cape Province town of George, South Africa. After completing his master's degree in economics at Stellenbosch University, he first joined the South African Reserve Bank, then the University of Pretoria and Rand Afrikaans University.
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