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
#40751
Ryback
#40764
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Ryback Reeves is an American professional wrestler and YouTuber. He is best known for his tenure with WWE, where he performed under the ring name Ryback. One of the eight finalists on Tough Enough 4, Reeves later signed a developmental contract with WWE and performed under the ring names Ryback and Skip Sheffield in its developmental territories Deep South Wrestling , Ohio Valley Wrestling , and Florida Championship Wrestling . In 2010, as Skip Sheffield, he participated in the first season of NXT, joined WWE's main roster as a member of The Nexus, and headlined SummerSlam before being sidelined by an injury.
Go to Profile#40752
Ben Shepherd
#40765
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Hunter Benedict Shepherd is an American musician best known as the bassist of rock band Soundgarden. Shepherd has won two Grammy Awards as a member of Soundgarden. Born in Okinawa, Shepherd grew up in Washington and developed an interest in music after watching Johnny Cash on TV. He played in various punk-rock bands and eventually joined Soundgarden as a bassist in 1990. Shepherd contributed to the band's musical evolution and played a significant role in songwriting. In 1993, he formed a side project, Hater, with Matt Cameron and John McBain. Soundgarden broke up in 1997, leading Shepherd to struggle with addiction and personal issues.
Go to Profile#40753
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer
#40766
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer , sometimes referred to by her initials of AKK, is a retired German politician who served as Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2021 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union from 2018 to 2021.
Go to Profile#40754
Anya Hurlbert
#40767
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Anya Christine Hurlbert, also known as Viscountess Ridley , is a British academic who is Professor of Visual Neuroscience and Dean of Advancement at Newcastle University. Her research involves the study of the interaction between colour and light, and how these are interpreted by the human brain.
Go to Profile#40755
Eli Schwartz
#40768
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Eliezer Schwartz MD, DTMH is an Israeli physician, known for his speciality in tropical diseases and travel medicine. He is a founding member of the International Society of Travel Medicine and served as chair of its Professional Education Committee. Schwartz is currently president of the Asia Pacific Travel Health Society as well as the Israel Society for Parasitology, Protozoology and Tropical Diseases . At clinical practice, he is head of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases at the Sheba Medical Center. He is also a professor at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv ...
Go to Profile#40756
Igor Sokolov
#40769
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Igor Sokolov is a Russian scientist, Dr. Sc., Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences professor at the MSU CMC and Moscow Technological University , director of the Institute for Informatics Problems. Acting Dean of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics at Moscow State University .
Go to Profile#40757
John F. Hawley
#40770
Overall Influence
1958 - 2021 (63 years)
John Frederick Hawley was an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia. In 2013, he shared the Shaw Prize for Astronomy with Steven Balbus. Early life John Hawley was born in 1958 in Annapolis, Maryland. He was the younger brother of former astronaut Steven A. Hawley. The family moved to Salina, Kansas when he was young. He graduated from Salina Central High School in 1976.
Go to Profile#40758
Chief Keef
#40771
Overall Influence
1995 - Present (31 years)
Keith Farrelle Cozart , better known by his stage name Chief Keef, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. Born and raised in Chicago's South Side, he began his recording career as a teenager and first garnered regional attention and praise for his mixtapes in the early 2010s. His first local hit, "I Don't Like" was released in March 2012 and soon became his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100, spawning a remixed version from high-profile hometown native Kanye West. A bidding war between major labels resulted in Cozart signing with Interscope Records. A follow-up sing...
Go to Profile#40759
Bobby Whitlock
#40772
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Robert Stanley Whitlock is an American singer, songwriter and musician. He is best known as a member of the blues-rock band Derek and the Dominos, with Eric Clapton, in 1970–71. Whitlock's musical career began with Memphis soul acts such as Sam & Dave and Booker T. & the M.G.'s before he joined Delaney & Bonnie and Friends in 1968. His association with Delaney & Bonnie bandmate Clapton led to Whitlock's participation in sessions for George Harrison's 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass, in London, and the formation of Derek and the Dominos that year. On the band's sole studio album, the cr...
Go to Profile#40760
Trevor Ariza
#40773
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (41 years)
Trevor Anthony Ariza is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association . He won an NBA championship in his first stint with the Lakers in 2009. He played college basketball for one season with the UCLA Bruins before being selected in the second round of the 2004 NBA draft by the New York Knicks. He also played for the Orlando Magic, Houston Rockets, New Orleans Hornets, Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Miami Heat.
Go to Profile#40761
Chris Pine
#40774
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Christopher Whitelaw Pine is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as James T. Kirk in the Star Trek reboot film series and Steve Trevor in the DC Extended Universe films Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984 .
Go to Profile#40762
Douglas W. Owsley
#40775
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Douglas W. Owsley is an American anthropologist who is head of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History . He is regarded as one of the most prominent and influential archaeologists and forensic anthropologists in the world in some popular media. In September 2001, he provided scientific analysis at the military mortuary located at Dover Air Force Base, following the 9/11 attack in Washington, D.C. The following year, the US Department of Defense honored him with the Commander's Award for Civilian Service for helping in the identification of 60 federal and ...
Go to Profile#40763
David Crocker
#40776
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
David A. Crocker , is Research Professor in the School of Public Policy, at the University of Maryland, he is also the founder and former president of the International Development Ethics Association . His work has been cited by the United Nations Human Development Report.
Go to Profile#40764
Nafeez Ahmed
#40777
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a British investigative journalist, author and academic. He is editor of the crowdfunded investigative journalism platform INSURGE intelligence. He is a former environment blogger for The Guardian from March 2013 to July 2014. From 2014 to 2017, Ahmed was a weekly columnist for Middle East Eye, the London-based news portal founded by ex-Guardian writer David Hearst. He is 'System Shift' columnist at VICE covering issues around global systems crises and solutions. Ahmed is now Special Investigations Reporter at Byline Times.
Go to Profile#40765
Matthias Steinmetz
#40778
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Matthias Steinmetz is a German astronomer and astrophysicist. He is director of the Astrophysical Institute Potsdam and professor at the University of Potsdam. Steinmetz is a specialist in the areas of cosmology, the formation and evolution of galaxies and computational astrophysics. Steinmetz has a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from the Saarland University and a M.S. in Physics from the Technical University of Munich . He received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1993 at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching. For his thesis "On the formation and evolution of galaxies" he was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society.
Go to Profile#40766
Oyeronke Oyewumi
#40779
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí is a Nigerian gender scholar and full professor of sociology at Stony Brook University. She acquired her bachelor's degree in political science at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria and went on to pursue her graduate degree in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Oyěwùmí is the winner of the African Studies Association's 2021 Distinguished Africanist Award, which recognizes and honours individuals who have contributed a lifetime of outstanding scholarship in African studies combined with service to the Africanist community.
Go to Profile#40767
Masaru Kitsuregawa
#40780
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Masaru Kitsuregawa is a Japanese computer scientist. Currently he is a professor at the University of Tokyo. Biography Education 1978: Graduated from the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Tokyo1983: Received the degree of Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science, University of Tokyo
Go to Profile#40768
John Ugelstad
#40781
Overall Influence
1921 - 1997 (76 years)
John Ugelstad was a Norwegian chemical engineer and inventor, known for discovering a process to manufacture monodisperse micropellets or microbeads and dynabeads. He was a professor at the Norwegian Institute of Technology and consultant for DuPont.
Go to Profile#40769
John Haiman
#40782
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
John Michael Haiman is an American linguist and professor at Macalester College. He has done fieldwork on the Hua language of Papua New-Guinea and has published on Khmer, Rhaeto-Romance and Germanic linguistics. In 1989 he received a Guggenheim fellowship for the study of sarcasm.
Go to Profile#40770
Iryna Gurevych
#40783
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Iryna Gurevych is a German computer scientist. She is Professor at the Department of Computer Science of the Technical University of Darmstadt and Director of Ubiquitous Knowledge Processing Lab. Life Gurevych received her diploma in English and German Linguistics from the Vinnytsia State Pedagogical University in 1998. In 2001, she received her Ph.D. in Computational Linguistics from University of Duisburg-Essen.
Go to Profile#40771
Kathleen Howell
#40784
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Kathleen Connor Howell is an American scientist and aerospace engineer known for her contributions to dynamical systems theory applied to spacecraft trajectory design which led to the use of halo orbit in multiple NASA space missions. She is currently the Hsu Lo Distinguished Professor at Purdue University in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In acknowledgment of her many achievements, Discover magazine recognized her in 2002 as one of the 50 most important women in science.
Go to Profile#40772
Peter MacKay
#40785
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Peter Gordon MacKay is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He was a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2015 and has served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General , Minister of National Defence , and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet of Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. MacKay was the final leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada , and he agreed to merge the party with Stephen Harper's Canadian Alliance in 2003, forming the Conservative Party of Canada and making MacKay one of the co-founders of the current conservative wing of Canadian politics.
Go to Profile#40773
Joel Lee Brenner
#40786
Overall Influence
1912 - 1997 (85 years)
Joel Lee Brenner was an American mathematician who specialized in matrix theory, linear algebra, and group theory. He is known as the translator of several popular Russian texts. He was a teaching professor at some dozen colleges and universities and was a Senior Mathematician at Stanford Research Institute from 1956 to 1968. He published over one hundred scholarly papers, 35 with coauthors, and wrote book reviews.
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Andrew S Gibbons
#40787
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Andrew S. Gibbons is an American practitioner and theorist in the field of instructional design and technology. He has proposed an architectural theory of instructional design influenced by the structural principles of artifact modularization drawn from a number of design disciplines, as exemplified by the work of Carliss Baldwin and Kim B. Clark.
Go to Profile#40775
Malcolm Ross
#40788
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Malcolm Ross is a Scottish guitarist. His career started when he played guitar in the Scottish band Josef K. They released a string of singles and an album, The Only Fun in Town, on Postcard Records in the early 1980s.
Go to Profile#40776
Justin Tranter
#40789
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Justin Drew Tranter is an American songwriter, singer, and activist. Frequently co-writing with Julia Michaels, Tranter has written songs for artists such as Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Linkin Park, Kelly Clarkson, Sara Bareilles, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, DNCE, Citizen Queen, Kesha, Imagine Dragons, The Knocks, Fifth Harmony, 5 Seconds of Summer, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, RAYE, Bea Miller, Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Måneskin, and Fall Out Boy. From 2004 to 2014, Tranter was the lead singer of Semi Precious Weapons, a rock band based in New York. Since February 2017, they have been a board m...
Go to Profile#40777
Chris Frantz
#40790
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Charton Christopher Frantz is an American musician and record producer. He is the drummer for both Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, both of which he co-founded with wife and Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth. In 2002, Frantz was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Talking Heads.
Go to Profile#40778
Karin Lasthuizen
#40791
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Karin Marjolein Lasthuizen is a Dutch-New Zealand academic. As of 2022, she holds the Brian Picot Chair in Ethical Leadership at the Victoria University of Wellington. Academic career After an undergraduate at Radboud University Nijmegen, Lasthuizen did a 2008 PhD at VU University Amsterdam titled 'Leading to integrity : empirical research into the effects of leadership on ethics and integrity.' She then lectured at VU University Amsterdam and was a city councilor for the Labour Party before moving to Wellington, New Zealand in 2016 to take up the Brian Picot Chair in Ethical Leadership a...
Go to Profile#40779
Luminița Vese
#40792
Overall Influence
Luminița Aura Vese is a Romanian professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles, known for her research in image processing, including work on active contour models, level-set methods, image segmentation, and inpainting.
Go to Profile#40780
Martin Bott
#40793
Overall Influence
1926 - 2018 (92 years)
Martin Harold Phillips Bott was a British geologist and Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Durham, England. Education Bott was educated at Clayesmore School in Dorset and Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Master of Arts degree and PhD.
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Darren Tanke
#40794
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Darren H. Tanke is a Canadian fossil preparation technician of the Dinosaur Research Program at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta. Born in Calgary, Tanke became interested in natural history at an early age. In 1979, Tanke began working for Philip J. Currie in the paleontology department of the Provincial Museum of Alberta, originally as a volunteer. From 1979 until 2005 Tanke worked as a lab and field technician, a job he still holds today.
Go to Profile#40782
George Zinkhan
#40795
Overall Influence
1952 - 2009 (57 years)
George Martin Zinkhan, III was an American academic and poet. Zinkhan was a professor of marketing at the University of Georgia from 1994 until April 26, 2009. He was named as the prime suspect in a triple homicide before authorities announced on May 9, 2009 that they had found and identified Zinkhan's body.
Go to Profile#40783
John Joannopoulos
#40796
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
John D. Joannopoulos is an American physicist, focused in condensed matter theory. He is currently the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an Elected Member of the National Academy of Sciences , an Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Physical Society .
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Jason Lezak
#40797
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Jason Edward Lezak is an American former competitive swimmer and swimming executive. As a swimmer, Lezak specialized in the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle races. His pro career lasted for nearly fifteen years, spanning four Olympic games and eight Olympic medals.
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Jocelyn Elise Crowley
#40798
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jocelyn Elise Crowley is a Professor of Public Policy at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, where she specializes in family law in the United States. Early life Crowley was born on September 5, 1970, in Englewood, New Jersey. She grew up in Warren Township, New Jersey with her sister Monica Crowley.
Go to Profile#40786
Daniel Heath Justice
#40799
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Daniel Heath Justice is an American-born Canadian academic and citizen of the Cherokee Nation. He is professor of First Nations and Indigenous Studies and English at the University of British Columbia. He started his studies at University of Northern Colorado and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He began his career at the University of Toronto, where he taught English and worked in association with the Aboriginal Studies Program. Why Indigenous Literatures Matter (2018) is the winner of the NAISA (Native American and Indigenous Studies Association) Award for Subsequent Book published in 2018.
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Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu
#40800
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu is a Turkish diplomat and politician who is currently a member of the Grand National Assembly. He also served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey from August 2014 to August 2015, and again from 24 November 2015 to 6 June 2023.
Go to Profile#40788
Rickie Lee Jones
#40801
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Rickie Lee Jones is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and author. Over the course of a career that spans five decades and 15 studio albums, she has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz. A two-time Grammy Award winner , Jones was listed at No. 30 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock & Roll in 1999. AllMusic stated: "Few singer/songwriters are as individual and eclectic as Rickie Lee Jones."
Go to Profile#40789
David Punter
#40802
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
David Punter is Professor of English at the University of Bristol. He is the author of many critical studies, and has been internationally recognised as an expert on Gothic culture. Career Punter's academic career commenced as a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia. He left in 1986 to take up the post of Professor of English and Head of Department at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 1989 he was appointed Head of Department at the University of Stirling in Scotland. In 2000 he moved to the University of Bristol, where has been Graduate Dean and Research Director of the Facul...
Go to Profile#40790
Margaret M. Mitchell
#40803
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Margaret M. Mitchell is an American biblical scholar and professor of early Christianity. She is currently Shailer Mathews Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Mitchell received her doctorate at the same institution in 1989, under the supervision of Hans Dieter Betz and Robert McQueen Grant. She also served as dean of the Divinity School from 2010 to 2015.
Go to Profile#40791
Pushpak Bhattacharyya
#40804
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Pushpak Bhattacharyya is a computer scientist and a professor at Computer Science and Engineering Department, IIT Bombay. He served as the director of Indian Institute of Technology Patna from 2015 to 2021. He is a past president of Association for Computational Linguistics , and Ex-Vijay and Sita Vashee Chair Professor He currently heads the Natural language processing research group Center For Indian Language Technology lab at IIT Bombay.
Go to Profile#40792
Mark Rosenzweig
#40805
Overall Influence
1922 - 2009 (87 years)
Mark Richard Rosenzweig was an American research psychologist whose research on neuroplasticity in animals indicated that the adult brain remains capable of anatomical remodelling and reorganization based on life experiences, overturning the conventional wisdom that the brain reached full maturity in childhood.
Go to Profile#40793
Tim Matheson
#40806
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Tim Matheson is an American actor. Some of his best-known acting roles include the title character of the 1960s animated Jonny Quest TV series, Eric "Otter" Stratton in the 1978 comedy film National Lampoon's Animal House, and the recurring role of Vice President John Hoynes in the 2000s NBC drama The West Wing, which earned him two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series.
Go to Profile#40794
Philip J. Deloria
#40807
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Philip Joseph Deloria is a historian, author and member of the Dakota Nation who specializes in Native American, Western American, and environmental history. He is the son of scholar Vine Deloria, Jr., and the great nephew of ethnologist Ella Deloria. Deloria is the author of the award-winning books Playing Indian and Indians in Unexpected Places , among others. Deloria received his Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University and currently teaches in the Department of History at Harvard University. In 2021 he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Go to Profile#40795
Geoff Wilson
#40808
Overall Influence
1938 - 2020 (82 years)
Geoffrey Victor Herbert Wilson was an internationally distinguished nuclear physicist who made contributions to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and low temperature physics. His research team achieved the lowest temperature ever recorded in Australia. He was born in Mentone, Victoria.
Go to Profile#40796
Bill Adair
#40809
Overall Influence
Bill Adair is the founder of the Pulitzer Prize-winning website PolitiFact and Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy at Duke University, where he specializes in journalism and new media, with an emphasis on structured journalism and fact-checking. He is a former adjunct faculty member at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla. and a contributing editor at PolitiFact.
Go to Profile#40797
Alex Spiro
#40810
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Alexander Benjamin Spiro is an American attorney. He is a partner at the New York office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Early life and education Spiro was born in New York and grew up in Boston. He is the eldest of four children to a clinical psychologist mother and a dentist father.
Go to Profile#40798
Richard E. Flathman
#40811
Overall Influence
1934 - 2015 (81 years)
Richard E. Flathman was the George Armstrong Kelly Professor of Political Science, emeritus, at Johns Hopkins University. He is known for having pioneered, with Brian Barry, David Braybrooke, Felix Oppenheim, and Abraham Kaplan, the application of analytic philosophy to political science. He was a leading advocate of liberalism and a champion of individuality. He defended a conception of social freedom according to which it is "negative, situated, and elemental."
Go to Profile#40799
Jon Carin
#40812
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Jon Carin is an American musician, singer, songwriter and producer. He has collaborated with acts including Pink Floyd, the Who, Eddie Vedder, Kate Bush and Richard Butler. Biography As a teenager, Jon Carin started his professional musical career with the band Industry as their lead singer, keyboardist and songwriter. During his time with the band, they had a hit single with "State of the Nation" in 1984, being followed by the album Stranger to Stranger.
Go to Profile#40800
John Newsome Crossley
#40813
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
John Newsome Crossley is a British-Australian mathematician and logician who writes in the field of logic in computer science, history of mathematics and medieval history. He is involved in the field of mathematical logic in Australia and South East Asia.
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