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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people
#40451
Robert F. Almeder
#40464
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Robert F. Almeder is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Georgia State University. He is known in particular for his work on the philosophy of science, and has also written on the philosophy of mind, epistemology and ethics. He is the author of 24 books, including The Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce , Death and Personal Survival , Harmless Naturalism: The Limits of Science and the Nature of Philosophy , Human Happiness and Morality , and Truth and Skepticism .
Go to Profile#40452
Rusty Staub
#40465
Overall Influence
1944 - 2018 (74 years)
Daniel Joseph "Rusty" Staub was an American professional baseball player and television color commentator. He played in Major League Baseball for 23 seasons as a right fielder, designated hitter, and first baseman. A six-time All-Star known for his hitting prowess, Staub produced 2,716 hits over his playing career, just 284 hits shy of the 3,000 hit plateau. He was an original member of the Montreal Expos and the team's first star, “le Grand Orange’”. Although he played just 518 of his 2,951 games as an Expo, his enduring popularity led them to retire his number in 1993, while the Mets induc...
Go to Profile#40453
Christopher Smout
#40466
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Thomas Christopher Smout CBE, FBA, FRSE, FSA Scot, FRSGS is a Scottish academic, historian, author and Historiographer Royal in Scotland. Early life One of the five sons of Arthur Smout, Christopher Smout was educated at The Leys School and Clare College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#40454
Philip Cashian
#40467
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Philip Cashian is an English composer. He is the head of composition at the Royal Academy of Music. Biography Philip Cashian was born in Manchester in 1963 and studied at Cardiff University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Oliver Knussen and Simon Bainbridge. In 1990 he was the Benjamin Britten fellow at Tanglewood where he studied with Lukas Foss. He was awarded the Britten Prize in 1991, the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1992 and the PRS Composition Prize in 1994. His fast-paced style of music has been described as "an uncompromising reflection of the modern world".
Go to Profile#40455
David Lynch
#40468
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, painter, visual artist, musician and actor. Lynch has received critical acclaim for his films, which are often distinguished by their surrealist and neo-noir qualities. He has received numerous accolades, including the Golden Lion in 2006 and an Honorary Academy Award in 2019. In 2007, a panel of critics convened by The Guardian announced that "after all the discussion, no one could fault the conclusion that David Lynch is the most important film-maker of the current era."
Go to Profile#40456
Arye L. Hillman
#40469
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Arye L. Hillman is an Israeli economist whose career has been at Bar Ilan University in Israel where he has been William Gittes Chair and Professor of Economics. His main research focus is on political economy, or the study of public policy as the interface between economic and political decisions. From 1994 to 2014 he was an editor of the European Journal of Political Economy for which he remained editorial advisor and editor of various special issues.
Go to Profile#40457
Margaret Cruikshank
#40470
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Margaret Louise Cruikshank is an American lesbian feminist writer and academic. She was one of the first American academics to be out during a time when gay rights were an unfamiliar concept. Cruikshank played a central role in establishing the importance of lesbian studies within both women's studies and the academy through the publication of her edited anthologies.
Go to Profile#40458
Desmond Shawe-Taylor
#40471
Overall Influence
1907 - 1995 (88 years)
Desmond Christopher Shawe-Taylor, , was a British writer, co-writer of The Record Guide, music critic of the New Statesman, The New Yorker and The Sunday Times and a regular and long-standing contributor to The Gramophone.
Go to Profile#40459
Charles W. Mooney Jr.
#40472
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Charles W. Mooney Jr. is the Charles A. Heimbold, Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, as well as the former interim Dean of the law school. Education and law practice Mooney was born in Shawnee, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Oklahoma, where he obtained his BA in 1969, and Harvard Law School, where he earned his JD in 1972. He was admitted to the bar in Oklahoma in 1972, in New York in 1982, and in Pennsylvania in 1988. From 1976 to 1979, he was an adjunct professor at Oklahoma City University.
Go to Profile#40460
Reinhard Stock
#40473
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Reinhard Stock is a German experimental physicist, specializing in heavy-ion physics. Education and career Stock studied at Heidelberg University, where he received his doctorate with thesis advisor Rudolf Bock. Stock was a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked on biophysics. From 1985 until his retirement in 2004, he was a professor at the Institute for Nuclear Physics at the Goethe University Frankfurt, where he was head of the institute for a time. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies since 2007.
Go to Profile#40461
Martin Garrix
#40474
Overall Influence
1996 - Present (30 years)
Martijn Gerard Garritsen , known professionally as Martin Garrix and also as Ytram and GRX, is a Dutch DJ and record producer who was ranked number one on DJ Mags Top 100 DJs list for three consecutive years—2016, 2017, and 2018. He is best known for his singles "Animals", "In the Name of Love", and "Scared to Be Lonely".
Go to Profile#40462
Margaret R. Fox
#40475
Overall Influence
1916 - 2006 (90 years)
Margaret R. Fox was an American electronics engineer and computer scientist. She was the Chief of the Office of Computer Information, part of the Institute for Computer Science and Technology of the National Bureau of Standards from 1966 to 1975 and was the first secretary of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies.
Go to Profile#40463
Jon Manchip White
#40476
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
Jon Ewbank Manchip White was the Welsh American author of more than thirty books of non-fiction and fiction, including The Last Race, Nightclimber, Death By Dreaming, Solo Goya, and his final novel, Rawlins White: Patriot to Heaven, published in 2011. White was also the author of a number of plays, teleplays, screenplays and volumes of short stories and poetry.
Go to Profile#40464
Al Rosen
#40477
Overall Influence
1924 - 2015 (91 years)
Albert Leonard Rosen , nicknamed "Flip" and "the Hebrew Hammer", was an American baseball third baseman and right-handed slugger for the Cleveland Indians of Major League Baseball for ten seasons in the 1940s and 1950s.
Go to Profile#40465
Valerio Magrelli
#40478
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Valerio Magrelli is an Italian poet. He graduated in philosophy at the University of Rome and is an expert in French literature which he has taught and teaches at the University of Pisa and University of Cassino. He debuted as an author at age twenty-three with a collection of poems entitled Ora serrata retinae. He Won the Viareggio Prize in 1987. In 2020 he adheres at the Empathic Movement arose in the same year in the South of Italy. He won Cilento Poetry Prize in 2022.
Go to Profile#40466
Alan Hall
#40479
Overall Influence
1952 - 2015 (63 years)
Alan Hall FRS was a British cell biologist and a biology professor at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, where he was chair of the Cell Biology program. Hall was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999.
Go to Profile#40467
Félix Hernández
#40480
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Félix Abraham Hernández García , nicknamed "King Félix", is a Venezuelan former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball for the Seattle Mariners from 2005 through 2019.
Go to Profile#40468
Joseph G. Ponterotto
#40481
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#40469
Robert Burgess
#40482
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Sir Robert George Burgess DL, FAcSS was a British sociologist and academic. He was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester in 1999, succeeding Ken Edwards. He was President of the British Sociological Association 1989–1991 and chair of the board of GSM London.
Go to Profile#40470
Jack McBride Ryder
#40483
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Jack McBride Ryder was the second president of Saginaw Valley State College. Ryder was born December 2, 1928, in Newport, Kentucky. He graduated in 1947 from Bellevue High School . He served 24 months in the United States Army, and upon discharge enrolled at Michigan State University. He graduated in 1952 with a bachelor of science degree. After graduation he served as a teacher and principal of the Anglo-American Schools, Athens Greece. In 1954 he returned to MSU for graduate work, earning his master of administration in 1962. He graduated with high honors with membership in Phi Kappa Phi, Kappa Delta, and Phi Delta Kappa.
Go to Profile#40471
Gannit Ankori
#40484
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Gannit Ankori is an Israeli art historian. She is Professor of Fine Arts and Chair in Israeli Art at the Department of Fine Arts at Brandeis University. She was previously chair of the Department of Art History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#40472
Brice Dickson
#40485
Overall Influence
Brice Dickson is a barrister from Northern Ireland and Emeritus Professor of International and Comparative Law at the School of Law, Queen's University Belfast. Formerly Professor of Law at the University of Ulster, he became the first Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission on its establishment in 1999, serving two three-year terms. He was a key figure related to the Holy Cross dispute in which Loyalists sought to blockade a Catholic primary school in the Ardoyne area of North Belfast. After his time on the Commission Dickson worked as a Professor of International...
Go to Profile#40473
Bernhard Keimer
#40486
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Bernhard Keimer is a German physicist and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research. His research group uses spectroscopic methods to explore quantum many-body phenomena in correlated-electron materials and metal-oxide heterostructures.
Go to Profile#40474
Jerry Reed
#40487
Overall Influence
1937 - 2008 (71 years)
Jerry Reed Hubbard , known professionally as Jerry Reed, was an American singer, guitarist, composer, songwriter and actor who appeared in more than a dozen films. His signature songs included "Guitar Man", "U.S. Male", "A Thing Called Love", "Alabama Wild Man", "Amos Moses", "When You're Hot, You're Hot" , "Ko-Ko Joe", "Lord, Mr. Ford", "East Bound and Down" , "The Bird", and "She Got the Goldmine ".
Go to Profile#40475
Jose Ramon Villarin
#40488
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jose Ramon Tizon Villarin, S.J., known as "Fr. Jett" to his students and colleagues, is a Filipino Jesuit priest and scientist who served as the 30th president of the Ateneo de Manila University. On June 29, 2010, he was elected to succeed Bienvenido Nebres as president, and later elected for two more terms before stepping down on July 31, 2020. Prior to his Ateneo De Manila presidency, he was succeeded as President of Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan by Roberto Yap.
Go to Profile#40476
Hartmut Kaelble
#40489
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Hartmut Kaelble is a German historian. From 1971 to 1991, he taught Economic and Social history as a professor at the Free University of Berlin and from 1991 to 2008, he taught social history as a professor at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Kaelble is well known amongst social historians of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Go to Profile#40477
Larry Swanson
#40490
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Larry W. Swanson is an American neuroscientist who has held positions at Washington University School of Medicine, The Salk Institute of Biological Studies and the University of Southern California, focusing on how the nervous system functions. Swanson is best known for his complex studies in how neurons control different aspects of motivation and emotional behavior.
Go to Profile#40478
Alfredo López Austin
#40491
Overall Influence
1936 - 2021 (85 years)
Alfredo Federico López Austin was a Mexican historian who wrote extensively on the Aztec worldview and on Mesoamerican religion. As an academic teacher, he inspired generations of students, but his influence extends beyond the boundaries of academic life. His sons are Alfredo Xallápil López Luján, well known biologist and informatic and the renowned archaeologist, Leonardo Náuhmitl López Luján.
Go to Profile#40479
P. N. Rangarajan
#40492
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Pundi Narasimhan Rangarajan is an Indian biochemist, virologist and a professor at the department of biochemistry of the Indian Institute of Science. Prof Rangarajan is currently the Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Indian Institute of Science. Known for his research on eukaryotic gene expression, Rangarajan is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian Academy of Sciences and Indian National Science Academy. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for sci...
Go to Profile#40480
Ian Grojnowski
#40493
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Ian Grojnowski is a mathematician working at the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge. Awards and honours Grojnowski was the first recipient of the Fröhlich Prize of the London Mathematical Society in 2004 for his work in representation theory and algebraic geometry. The citation reads
Go to Profile#40481
Lou Saban
#40494
Overall Influence
1921 - 2009 (88 years)
Louis Henry Saban was an American football player and coach. He played for Indiana University in college and as a professional for the Cleveland Browns of the All-America Football Conference between 1946 and 1949. Saban then began a long coaching career. After numerous jobs at the college level, he became the first coach of the Boston Patriots in the American Football League in 1960. He joined the Buffalo Bills two years later, and led the team to consecutive AFL championships in 1964 and 1965. Saban was the first head coach to win multiple AFL championships, with only Hank Stram passing him.
Go to Profile#40482
Robert M. Hauser
#40495
Overall Influence
Robert Mason Hauser is an American sociologist. He is the Vilas Research and Samuel F. Stouffer professor of sociology emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as director of the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Center for Demography of Health and Aging.
Go to Profile#40483
Wayne Nicholson
#40496
Overall Influence
Wayne Nicholson was an American biologist. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987 and served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Connecticut from 1987-1990. He taught in the department of microbiology and cell biology at the University of Florida, and also held the title of Distinguished Professor.
Go to Profile#40484
Marlee Matlin
#40497
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Marlee Matlin is an American actress, author, and activist. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, in addition to nominations for a BAFTA Award, and four Primetime Emmy Awards.
Go to Profile#40485
Jawwad S. Khawaja
#40498
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jawwad S. Khawaja is a Pakistani jurist, and former professor of law at the Lahore University of Management Sciences, who served as the 23rd Chief Justice of Pakistan. He was nominated for the position by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on 17 August 2015, and approved to take office by President Mamnoon Hussain on the same day.
Go to Profile#40486
Fabio Mercurio
#40499
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Fabio Mercurio is an Italian mathematician, internationally known for a number of results in mathematical finance. Main results Mercurio worked during his Ph.D. on incomplete markets theory using dynamic mean-variance hedging techniques. With Damiano Brigo , he has shown how to construct stochastic differential equations consistent with mixture models, applying this to volatility smile modeling in the context of local volatility models. He is also one of the main authors in inflation modeling. Mercurio has also authored several publications in top journals and co-authored the book Interest ra...
Go to Profile#40487
Peter Laufer
#40500
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Peter David Laufer is an independent American journalist, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker working in traditional and new media. He is the James Wallace Chair in Journalism at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication.
Go to Profile#40488
Mary Biddinger
#40501
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Mary Biddinger is an American poet, editor, and academic. Biography Mary Biddinger received an Honors B.A. in English with a Creative Writing Subconcentration from the University of Michigan. She also holds an MFA in Poetry from Bowling Green State University, and a Ph.D. in English with Creative Dissertation from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Go to Profile#40489
Lucy Orta
#40502
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Lucy Orta is an English contemporary visual artist living and working between London and Paris where she has resided since 1991. After graduating with an honours degree in fashion-knitwear design, Orta began practising as a visual artist in 1991. Her sculptural work investigates the boundaries between the body and architecture, exploring their common social factors such as communication and identity. Orta's most emblematic works include: Refuge Wear and Body Architecture , portable architecture, lightweight and autonomous structures representing issues of survival. Nexus Architecture are par...
Go to Profile#40490
Benjamin Ginsberg
#40503
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Benjamin Ginsberg is a libertarian political scientist and professor at Johns Hopkins University who is notable for his criticism of American politics, in which he says that citizens have become "marginalized as political actors" and political parties weakened while state power has grown. His assessment of the futility of voting, along with his notion that the public has an illusion of control over government, has caused controversy. He is a co-author, along with Matthew Crenson, of Downsizing Democracy, 2004, which received critical attention in mainstream newspapers.
Go to Profile#40491
Paul Light
#40504
Overall Influence
Paul Light is a British academic and psychologist. He was the first Vice-Chancellor of the University of Winchester. Early life Light was brought up in Weymouth in Dorset and studied Psychology from 1966 until c 1974 at St John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained an MA and also a doctorate.
Go to Profile#40492
Marie Åsberg
#40505
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Marie Åsberg is a Swedish psychiatrist. She was based at the Karolinska Institute until retirement in 2004. In a pioneering 1976 paper, Åsberg found a link between low serotonin and violent suicide.
Go to Profile#40493
J. Michael Steele
#40506
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John Michael Steele is C.F. Koo Professor of Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and he was previously affiliated with Stanford University, Columbia University and Princeton University.
Go to Profile#40494
BethAnn McLaughlin
#40507
Overall Influence
BethAnn McLaughlin is an American neuroscientist, activist, and hoaxer. She is a former assistant professor of neurology at Vanderbilt University. Her research at Vanderbilt focused on neural stress responses and brain injury. After being denied tenure in 2017, she sought to have the decision overturned. The decision to deny tenure was upheld, and her employment at Vanderbilt ended in July 2019.
Go to Profile#40495
Émile Poulat
#40508
Overall Influence
1920 - 2014 (94 years)
Émile Poulat , was until 1954 a Catholic priest, associated with the Prêtres Ouvriers movement, and thereafter a French historian and sociologist. Director of Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales, he was also director of research at CNRS and historian of the contemporary church. He was a founding member of the Group of Sociology of Religion, director and member of the editorial boards of several journals including Politica Hermetica. His research concentrated on the conflict between Catholic culture and modern culture in the history of contemporary Catholicism.
Go to Profile#40496
Aisha Tyler
#40509
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Aisha Nilaja Tyler is an American actress and talk show host. She is known for playing Andrea Marino in the first season of Ghost Whisperer, Dr. Tara Lewis in Criminal Minds, Mother Nature in the final two The Santa Clause films, and voicing Lana Kane in Archer. She also had recurring roles on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Talk Soup, and Friends.
Go to Profile#40497
James Merrell
#40510
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
James Hart Merrell is the Lucy Maynard Salmon Professor of History at Vassar College. Merrell is primarily a scholar of early American history, and has written extensively on Native American history during the colonial era. He is one of only five historians to be awarded the Bancroft Prize twice.
Go to Profile#40498
Michael J. Garanzini
#40511
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael J. Garanzini, S.J. is an American priest in the Society of Jesus of the Roman Catholic Church. He currently serves as President of both the International Association of Jesuit Universities and the US-based Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. From 2001 until 2015, Garanzini served as the twenty-third President of Loyola University Chicago in Chicago, Illinois, a member of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities.
Go to Profile#40499
John F. Forester
#40512
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John F. Forester is a planning theorist with a particular emphasis on participatory planning. His scholarship appeals moral philosophy, oral history and ethnographic social science, as well as planning and policy studies. He is the author of Critical Theory and Public Life , Planning in the Face of Power , The Deliberative Practitioner and "Dealing with Differences: Dramas of Mediating Public Disputes" .
Go to Profile#40500
Stephen Finney Mason
#40513
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
Stephen Finney Mason FRS FRSC was a British chemist and scientific historian. Biography Stephen Finney Mason was born in Leicestershire on 6 July 1923, the first child of Leonard Stephen Mason, a garage owner, and Chrissie Harriette . He won a scholarship to Wyggeston Grammar School from 1933 to 1941; from there he gained an open scholarship to Wadham College, Oxford. He graduated with a first-class degree in 1945 and, in 1947, was awarded a DPhil on the biological activity of antimalarials, supervised by Dalziel Hammick.
Go to Profile