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
#40651
Richard Stites
#40664
Overall Influence
1931 - 2010 (79 years)
Richard Stites was a historian of Russian culture and professor of history at Georgetown University, famed for "landmark work on the Russian women’s movement and in numerous articles and books on Russian and Soviet mass culture."
Go to Profile#40652
Ralph C. Hancock
#40665
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Ralph Cornel Hancock is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University . Biography Hancock holds a BA from BYU and an MA and PhD from Harvard University, all in political science. Before joining BYU's faculty Hancock was on the faculty at Hillsdale College and then at the University of Idaho. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Rennes.
Go to Profile#40653
Prakash Raj
#40666
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Prakash Raj is an Indian actor, film director, producer, television presenter, and politician. Known for his works in Tamil, English, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi-language films, he is the recipient of several accolades, including five National Film Awards, eight Nandi Awards, eight Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, five Filmfare Awards South, four SIIMA Awards, three CineMAA Awards, and three Vijay Awards. Apart from his mother tongue Kannada, Raj's fluency in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, English, Tulu and Marathi has placed him among the most sought after actors in Indian cinema.
Go to Profile#40654
Gillo Pontecorvo
#40667
Overall Influence
1919 - 2006 (87 years)
Gilberto Pontecorvo was an Italian filmmaker associated with the political cinema movement of the 1960s and 1970s. He is best known for directing the landmark war docudrama The Battle of Algiers , which won the Golden Lion at the 21st Venice Film Festival, and earned him Oscar nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Go to Profile#40655
Mike Mularkey
#40668
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Michael Rene Mularkey is a former American football coach and tight end in the National Football League . He played college football for the University of Florida, and was drafted in the ninth round of the 1983 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers and lasted until the final round of cuts. Mularkey then signed with the Minnesota Vikings with whom he played for six seasons before playing another three with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Go to Profile#40656
Joseph Zeira
#40669
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Joseph Zeira is an Israeli economist. His main work is in macroeconomics, in economic growth and in the economy of Israel. He is the Aaron and Michael Chilewich Professor of Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#40657
Michelle McCool
#40670
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michelle Leigh Calaway is an American professional wrestler. She is best known for her career in WWE, where she is a former two-time WWE Divas Champion and a two-time WWE Women's Champion. McCool originally worked as a middle school teacher in Palatka, Florida. She joined WWE in 2004 after participating in the WWE Diva Search. In her initial on-screen appearances, she utilized the character of a personal trainer, before changing it to that of a teacher. At The Great American Bash in 2008, McCool became the inaugural WWE Divas Champion, holding the title for approximately five months. She then...
Go to Profile#40658
Yossi Beilin
#40671
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Yosef "Yossi" Beilin is an Israeli politician who has served in multiple ministerial and leadership positions in the Israeli government. Much of his political career was in the Labour Party. He also served as chairman of the Meretz-Yachad political party. After retiring from political life, Beilin founded 'Beilink', a business consultancy company. He also writes opinion pieces in Israeli papers Haaretz and Israel Hayom.
Go to Profile#40659
L.D. Britt
#40672
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Lunzy Delano "L. D." Britt FACS, FCCM is an American physician and is the Brickhouse Professor of Surgery at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, former President of the American College of Surgeons, and former President of the Southern Surgical Association. Britt was the first African American in the United States to receive an endowed chair in surgery at a major American medical school.
Go to Profile#40660
Jeffery W. Kelly
#40673
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jeffery W. Kelly is an American businessman and chemist who is on the faculty of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. Biography Kelly received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and performed post-doctoral research at The Rockefeller University .
Go to Profile#40661
Simon S. Lam
#40674
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Simon S. Lam is an American computer scientist. He retired in 2018 from The University of Texas at Austin as Professor Emeritus and Regents' Chair Emeritus in Computer Science #1. He made seminal and important contributions to transport layer security, packet network verification, as well as network protocol design, verification, and performance analysis.
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Elena Korosteleva
#40675
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Elena Korosteleva is a dissident academic researcher and principal investigator focusing on governance, democratisation, complexity and resilience. She is Professor of Politics and Global Sustainable Development and Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick and is visiting professor at the Oxford Belarus Observatory at the Oxford University.
Go to Profile#40663
Ronald Sanders
#40676
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Sir Ronald Michael Sanders is an Antiguan Barbudan diplomat, academic former broadcast-journalist, and the current Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States and to the Organization of American States since 2015. He is also the non-resident High Commissioner to Canada since 2017. He served twice as Antigua's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom as well as ambassador and negotiator to the World Trade Organization . He was a member and Rapporteur of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group that produced a seminal report entitled, A Commonwealth of the People: Time for Urgent Reform that laid out a plan of action to make the Commonwealth effective and relevant.
Go to Profile#40664
Margaret Martonosi
#40677
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Margaret Martonosi is an American computer scientist who is currently the Hugh Trumbull Adams '35 Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University. Martonosi is noted for her research in computer architecture and mobile computing with a particular focus on power-efficiency.
Go to Profile#40665
Antonio M. Echavarren
#40678
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Antonio M. Echavarren Pablos is a Spanish chemist who has contributed to the recent advances in gold and palladium chemistry. He obtained his PhD at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in 1982. Since 1992 he is a full professor at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, where he heads the Research Group on Organometallic Chemistry Directed Towards Organic Synthesis. Since 2004 he is working as Group Leader at the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia .
Go to Profile#40666
Mike Lowell
#40679
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Michael Averett Lowell is an American former Major League Baseball third baseman. During a 13-year career, Lowell played for the New York Yankees , Florida Marlins , and the Boston Red Sox . With the Red Sox, he was named MVP of the World Series.
Go to Profile#40667
Ben Gibbard
#40680
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Benjamin Gibbard is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the indie rock band Death Cab for Cutie, with whom he has recorded ten studio albums, and as a member of the supergroup The Postal Service. Gibbard released his debut solo album, Former Lives, in 2012, and a collaborative studio album, One Fast Move or I'm Gone with Jay Farrar.
Go to Profile#40668
Nick Jennings
#40681
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nicholas Robert Jennings is an American director, artist, writer, and producer best known for his work on the Nickelodeon shows Rocko's Modern Life and SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. He has also worked as a background artist for many animated television series.
Go to Profile#40669
George-Marios Angeletos
#40682
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
George-Marios Angeletos is a Greek economist who is a professor of Economics at Northwestern University. He was previously a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Early life and education Angeletos was born in Athens, Greece. He earned his B.A. degree in economics from Athens University of Economics and Business in 1996, and received his M.Sc. in Economics in 1997 from the same university. Angeletos earned his Ph.D in Economics in 2001 from Harvard. Angeletos received a scholarship from the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation to complete his doctorate.
Go to Profile#40670
Larissa Lai
#40683
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Larissa Lai is an American-born Canadian novelist and literary critic. She is a recipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and Lambda Literary Foundation's 2020 Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize.
Go to Profile#40671
Kent Conrad
#40684
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Gaylord Kent Conrad is a former American politician who was a United States Senator from North Dakota. He is a member of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, the North Dakota affiliate of the Democratic Party. First elected to the Senate in 1986, he served as chairman or Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee for 12 years.
Go to Profile#40672
Elena Marchisotto
#40685
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Elena Anne Corie Marchisotto is a mathematician, mathematics educator, and historian of mathematics. She is a professor emeritus of mathematics at California State University, Northridge. Education and career Marchisotto graduated from Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in 1967 and earned a master's degree from California State University, Northridge in 1977. She completed a Ph.D. in 1990 from New York University. Her dissertation, The contributions of Mario Pieri to mathematics and mathematics education, was jointly supervised by Kenneth P. Goldberg and Anneli Cahn Lax.
Go to Profile#40673
David Platt
#40686
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
David Joseph Platt is an American evangelical Baptist pastor. He was senior pastor at the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, from 2006 to 2014. At the time he was the youngest megachurch pastor in the United States. From 2014 to 2017, Platt was president of the International Mission Board. He became pastor-teacher at McLean Bible Church in 2017. He is the author of the 2010 New York Times Best Seller Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream.
Go to Profile#40674
Jensen Ackles
#40687
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Jensen Ross Ackles is an American actor and musician. He is best known for his portrayal of Dean Winchester in The WB/CW dark fantasy drama series Supernatural and appearing in television series such as NBC's Days of Our Lives as Eric Brady , super soldiers Ben/X5-493 and Alec/X5-494 in Fox's Dark Angel, Jason Teague in The WB/CW's Smallville, and Ben/Soldier Boy in Amazon Prime Video's The Boys. He also starred as the lead in the box office success My Bloody Valentine 3D, and provided the voices of Jason Todd in the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood, and Bruce Wayne/Batman in the ani...
Go to Profile#40675
Christopher Field
#40688
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Christopher B. Field is an American scientist and researcher, who has contributed to the field of climate change. The author of more than 200 scientific publications, Field's research emphasizes impacts of climate change, from the molecular to the global scale. His work includes major field experiments on responses of California grassland to multi-factor global change, integrative studies on the global carbon cycle, and assessments of impacts of climate change on agriculture. Field's work with models includes studies on the global distribution of carbon sources and sinks, and studies on enviro...
Go to Profile#40676
Mark Tremonti
#40689
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Mark Thomas Tremonti is an American guitarist and singer, best known for his tenures with the rock bands Creed and Alter Bridge. He is a founding member of both bands, and has also collaborated with many other artists over the years. He formed his own band Tremonti in 2011 and has released five albums with them, including A Dying Machine, which was adapted by Tremonti and science fiction novelist John Shirley.
Go to Profile#40677
Jon Claerbout
#40690
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Jon F. Claerbout is an American geophysicist and seismologist. He is the Cecil Green Professor Emeritus of Geophysics at Stanford University. Since the later half of the 20th century, he has been a leading researcher and pioneered the use of computers in processing and filtering seismic exploration data, eventually developing the field of time series analysis and seismic interferometry, modelling the propagation of seismic waves.
Go to Profile#40678
Joan Latchman
#40691
Overall Influence
Joan L. Latchman is a seismologist from Trinidad and Tobago who was the first woman to lead the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Centre. She was awarded the 2019 Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency Council Award.
Go to Profile#40679
Steven McKnight
#40692
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Steven Lanier McKnight is a professor and former chair of the department of biochemistry at UT Southwestern. His research is in the area of transcriptional regulation. McKnight received his bachelor's degree from University of Texas in 1974 and his PhD from University of Virginia in 1977. He was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 1988 to 1992.
Go to Profile#40680
Jeremy Shockey
#40693
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Jeremy Charles Shockey is an American former professional football player who was a tight end in the National Football League . He played college football at the University of Miami and was selected by the New York Giants in the first round of the 2002 NFL Draft as the 14th pick.
Go to Profile#40681
Kevin J. Manning
#40694
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Kevin J. Manning is the former president of Stevenson University, the former Villa Julie College and the third largest independent university in Maryland. He was inaugurated as the fourth president of Villa Julie College on October 28, 2000, succeeding Carolyn Manuszak. He resigned from Stevenson University on November 29, 2016.
Go to Profile#40682
Tony Greig
#40695
Overall Influence
1946 - 2012 (66 years)
Anthony William Greig was a South African-born cricketer and commentator. Greig qualified to play for the England cricket team by virtue of his Scottish father. He was a tall all-rounder who bowled both medium pace and off spin. Greig was captain of England from 1975 to 1977, and captained Sussex. His younger brother, Ian, also played Test cricket, while several other members of his extended family played at first-class level.
Go to Profile#40683
Jennifer Miller
#40696
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Jennifer Miller is an American circus entertainer, writer, and professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She has lived with a beard for most of her life. She is a juggler and fire eater. Miller lives in New York City.
Go to Profile#40684
Giovanni Pettinato
#40697
Overall Influence
1934 - 2011 (77 years)
Giovanni Pettinato was an Assyriologist and paleographer of writings from the ancient Near East, specializing in the Eblaite language, His major contributions to the field include the deciphering of the Eblaite script, discovered by Paolo Matthiae in 1974–75.
Go to Profile#40685
Chris J. Leaver
#40698
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Christopher John Leaver is an Emeritus Professorial Fellow of St John's College, Oxford who served as Sibthorpian Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford from 1990 to 2007.
Go to Profile#40686
Randy Savage
#40699
Overall Influence
1952 - 2011 (59 years)
Randy Mario Poffo , better known by his ring name "Macho Man" Randy Savage, was an American professional wrestler best known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling .
Go to Profile#40687
Kari Alitalo
#40700
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Kari Kustaa Alitalo is a Finnish MD and a medical researcher. He is a foreign associated member of the National Academy of Sciences of the US. He became famous for his discoveries of several receptor tyrosine kinases and the first growth factor capable of inducing lymphangiogenesis: vascular endothelial growth factor C . In the years 1996–2007 he was Europe's second most cited author in the field of cell biology. Alitalo is currently serving as an Academy Professor for the Academy of Finland.
Go to Profile#40688
Caroline Weber
#40701
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Caroline Elizabeth Weber is an American author and fashion historian. She is a professor of French and comparative literature at Barnard College within Columbia University. Her book Proust's Duchess was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.
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Martin Shaw
#40702
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Martin Shaw is an English stage, television, and film actor. He came to national recognition as Doyle in ITV crime-action television drama series The Professionals . Further notable television parts include the title roles in The Chief , Judge John Deed and Inspector George Gently . He has also acted on stage and in film, and has narrated numerous audiobooks and presented various television series.
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Irwin Freedberg
#40703
Overall Influence
1931 - 2005 (74 years)
Irwin Mark Freedberg was an American dermatologist. He taught dermatology at Harvard Medical School, was director of the department of dermatology at Johns Hopkins University, was the first chief of dermatology at Beth Israel Hospital, and was the George Miller MacKee Professor and chairman of the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at the New York University Medical Center. He studied the protein keratin and keratinocytes .
Go to Profile#40691
Hoàng Xuân Sính
#40704
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Hoàng Xuân Sính is a Vietnamese mathematician, a student of Grothendieck, the first female mathematics professor in Vietnam, the founder of , and a recipient of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques.
Go to Profile#40692
G. Dennis O'Brien
#40705
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
George Dennis O'Brien is an American philosopher who served as the eighth President of the University of Rochester. O'Brien was born in Chicago, Illinois to a medical doctor and a nurse. His father was also a medical examiner and the young O'Brien accompanied him to autopsies he performed at local funeral homes. He attended St. Philip Neri grammar school and Leo Catholic High School.
Go to Profile#40693
Wojciech Szczęsny
#40706
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
Wojciech Tomasz Szczęsny is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for club Juventus and the Poland national team. After starting his club career at Legia Warsaw, Szczęsny signed for Arsenal in January 2006, where he made his professional debut in 2009. After a spell on loan with Brentford the following season, he later became the capital club's first choice goalkeeper, winning two FA Cups and being the joint recipient of the 2013–14 Premier League Golden Glove with Petr Čech. He subsequently went on two consecutive season-long loans to Italian club Roma in 2015, where his performances earned him a move to reigning league champions Juventus in 2017.
Go to Profile#40694
Leslie Pedley
#40707
Overall Influence
1930 - 2018 (88 years)
Leslie Pedley was an Australian botanist who specialised in the genus Acacia. He is notable for bringing into use the generic name Racosperma, creating a split in the genus, which required some 900 Australian species to be renamed, because the type species of Acacia, Acacia nilotica, now Vachellia nilotica, had a different lineage from the Australian wattles. However, the International Botanical Congress , held in Melbourne in 2011, ratified its earlier decision to retain the name Acacia for the Australian species, but to rename the African species.
Go to Profile#40695
Marianne W. Lewis
#40708
Overall Influence
Marianne W. Lewis is an American academic and since 2019 the dean for Carl H. Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati. She was previously the dean of the Cass Business School in London, England.
Go to Profile#40696
Chip Lord
#40709
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Chip Lord is an American media artist and Professor Emeritus, UC Santa Cruz and residing in San Francisco. He is best known for his work with the alternative architecture and media collective known as Ant Farm, which he co-founded with Doug Michels in 1968. His work generally takes a satirical look at American myths and legends, they are often "nostalgic, but edged with an ironic detachment."
Go to Profile#40697
Jordi Pujol
#40710
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Jordi Pujol Soley is a Catalan politician who was the leader of the party Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya from 1974 to 2003, and President of the Generalitat de Catalunya from 1980 to 2003.
Go to Profile#40698
Paul Hoyningen-Huene
#40711
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Paul Hoyningen-Huene is a German philosopher who specializes in general philosophy of science and research ethics. He is best known for his Neo-Kantian interpretation of Thomas S. Kuhn's ideas. Hoyningen-Huene, until 2014, held the chair for theoretical philosophy, particularly philosophy of science at Leibniz Universität Hannover and was director of the Center for Philosophy and Ethics of Science.
Go to Profile#40699
Cathy J. Cohen
#40712
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Cathy J. Cohen is an American political scientist, author, feminist, and social activist, whose work has focused on the African-American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality. She is currently the David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago, and is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Race .
Go to Profile#40700
Martin A. Pomerantz
#40713
Overall Influence
1916 - 2008 (92 years)
Martin Arthur Pomerantz was an American physicist who served as director of the Bartol Research Institute and who had been a leader in developing Antarctic astronomy. When the astronomical observatory at the United States Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station was opened in 1995, it was named the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory in his honor. Pomerantz published his scientific autobiography, Astronomy on Ice, in 2004.
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