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
#41701
Stephen Turnbull
#41714
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Stephen Richard Turnbull is a British historian concentrating on Japanese military history, especially the samurai period, and has published numerous books. He provides information and advice to media organizations about Japan.
Go to Profile#41702
Darrick E. Antell
#41715
Overall Influence
Darrick E. Antell, MD, F.A.C.S. is an American scientist, researcher, educator and plastic and reconstructive surgeon. As of 2023, he is Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He was the first in his field to use twins to document how faces can be affected by environmental factors like sun, stress, and smoking.
Go to Profile#41703
Nils Petter Gleditsch
#41716
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Nils Petter Gleditsch is a Norwegian sociologist and political scientist. He is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo . In 2009, Nils Petter Gleditsch was awarded the annual Award for Outstanding Research by the Research Council of Norway. He won the Norwegian Sociological Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
Go to Profile#41704
Osmar R. Zaiane
#41717
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Osmar R. Zaiane is a researcher, computer scientist, professor at the University of Alberta specializing in data mining and machine learning. He was the secretary treasurer of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining from 2009 to 2012 and treasurer of the ACM Special Interest Group on Health Informatics. He served as the editor-in-chief of the SIGKDD Explorations publication from 2008 to 2010. He was also the associate editor of the same publication from 2004 to 2007.
Go to Profile#41705
Ronald W. Schafer
#41718
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Ronald W. Schafer is an American electrical engineer notable for his contributions to digital signal processing. After receiving his Ph.D. degree at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968, he joined the Acoustics Research Department at Bell Laboratories, where he did research on digital signal processing and digital speech coding. In 1974 he joined the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he became a professor in electrical engineering, until leaving to join Hewlett-Packard in March 2005.
Go to Profile#41706
Tamara Dembo
#41719
Overall Influence
1902 - 1993 (91 years)
Tamara Dembo , was a Russian Empire-born American psychologist. She was one of the pioneers of psychological field theory and rehabilitation psychology. Life Tamara Dembo was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Russian Empire on 28 May 1902 to Russian Jewish parents. She worked with Kurt Lewin where she earned her Ph.D at the University of Berlin in 1930. That same year she came to the United States to study with Kurt Koffka at Smith College as a research assistant in experimental psychology and decided to remain in the United States as the political situation in Germany deteriorated with the rise of the Nazi Party.
Go to Profile#41707
Clèmerson Merlin Clève
#41720
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Clèmerson Merlin Clève is a Brazilian jurist, Law school professor, and lawyer. One of the most respected constitutionalists in Brazil, he is a full professor of constitutional law at the Federal University of Paraná . Clève is also a full professor of constitutional law and president at the Autonomous University Center of Brazil , and a visiting professor at Universidad Pablo de Olavide – Máster Universitario en Derechos Humanos, Interculturalidad y Desarrollo and Doctorado en Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas . Clève also works as the institutional leader of the UFPR's 'Center of Constituti...
Go to Profile#41708
Christine Langenfeld
#41721
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Christine Langenfeld is a German jurist who is currently serving as a judge in the Federal Constitutional Court in the second senate. Early life and education Langenfeld was born in Luxembourg to late Carl-Ludwig Wagner. From 1980 to 1986, she studied each for a 2-year term, Jurisprudence at the University of Trier, University of Burgundy and University of Mainz. In 1986, she finished her first Staatsexam in Mainz. Langenfeld became a Research assistant for Public law and European Union law at the University of Mainz for Dr. Eckart Klein from 1986 to 1987. She finished her second Staatsexam i...
Go to Profile#41709
Kōryō Miura
#41722
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Kōryō Miura is a Japanese astrophysicist, inventor, and origamist known for the Miura fold. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo and at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
Go to Profile#41710
Dona Bailey
#41723
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Dona Bailey is an American video game programmer and educator. Bailey, along with Ed Logg in 1981, developed Atari, Inc.'s arcade video game Centipede. Early life and education Dona Bailey was born in 1955 in Little Rock, Arkansas. She graduated high school early and started attending the University of Arkansas at Little Rock at the age of 16. She accelerated her education by taking classes year-round and in the summer, and by the age of 19, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in Psychology with three minors in English, Math and Biology. She continued her education further by earning a mas...
Go to Profile#41711
Sulochana Gadgil
#41724
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sulochana Gadgil is an Indian meteorologist who retired as Professor from the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences in Bangalore, India. She has studied the how and why of monsoon, including farming strategies to cope with rainfall variability and modeling ecological and evolutionary phenomena. Her research led to the discovery of a basic feature of the sub-seasonal variation in the monsoon cloud bands. She demonstrated that the monsoon is not a gigantic land-sea breeze but instead is a manifestation of the seasonal migration of a planetary scale system which is seen over non-monsoonal regions as well.
Go to Profile#41712
Mike Gatting
#41725
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Michael William Gatting is an English former cricketer, who played first-class cricket for Middlesex and for England from 1977 to 1995, captaining the national side in twenty-three Test matcheses between 1986 and 1988. He toured South Africa as captain of the rebel tour party in 1990.
Go to Profile#41713
Steve Miller
#41726
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Steven Haworth Miller is an American musician. He is the founder and only remaining original member of the Steve Miller Band, which he founded in 1966, and is the principal songwriter, lead singer, harmonicist, keyboardist, and one of the guitarists. He began his career in blues and blues rock and evolved to a more pop-oriented arena rock genre during the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, releasing popular singles and albums. Miller was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.
Go to Profile#41714
Jerry Koosman
#41727
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Jerome Martin Koosman is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball for the New York Mets, Minnesota Twins, Chicago White Sox, and Philadelphia Phillies between and . Koosman is best known as a member of the Miracle Mets team that won the 1969 World Series.
Go to Profile#41715
Brian Coppola
#41728
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Brian P. Coppola is a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan. Raised in Methuen, Massachusetts, and Derry, New Hampshire, Coppola is the eldest of four children of Frank and Shirley Coppola. He graduated from Pinkerton Academy in 1974. In 1978, he received a B.S. from the University of New Hampshire, then was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1984, having carried out research under the supervision of Barry M. Trost. In 1982, he joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. He was hired at the University of Michigan in 1986 as a Visiting Assistant Professor, and then as a Lecturer .
Go to Profile#41716
Richard A. Parker
#41729
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Richard A. Parker is a mathematician and freelance computer programmer in Cambridge, England. He invented many of the algorithms for computing the modular character tables of finite simple groups. He discovered the relation between Niemeier lattices and deep holes of the Leech lattice, and constructed Parker's Moufang loop of order 213 .
Go to Profile#41717
Buck Martinez
#41730
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John Albert "Buck" Martinez is an American former professional baseball catcher and manager, and is currently the television colour commentator for the Toronto Blue Jays. He played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball with the Kansas City Royals, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Toronto Blue Jays. Since the end of his playing career, he has been a broadcaster, working on the Blue Jays and Baltimore Orioles radio and television broadcasts, and nationally for TBS and MLB Network. Martinez managed the Toronto Blue Jays from 2001 to May 2002 and Team USA at the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2...
Go to Profile#41718
Aidy Boothroyd
#41731
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Adrian Neil Boothroyd is an English former footballer who is currently the manager of Indian Super League club Jamshedpur. At club level, he was manager of Watford from 2005 to 2008. During his time with Watford, he was regarded as one of the best young managers in England. At the time of his departure, he was the youngest and the second longest serving manager in the division. He is known for his direct long-ball approach, and is often referred to by fans and the media as "Aidy Hoofroyd".
Go to Profile#41719
Levon Abrahamian
#41732
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Levon H. Abrahamian is an Armenian anthropologist and historian. Biography and career Abrahamian was born in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia on January 2, 1947. He graduated from Yerevan State University with M.S. in biophysics in 1970 and from the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1978 as Candidate of Sciences in Cultural and Social Anthropology. He joined the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography at the Academy of Sciences of Soviet Armenia in 1978, initially working as a junior researcher until 1988 and then as senior researcher. In 2005 he headed t...
Go to Profile#41720
Loren D. Walensky
#41733
Overall Influence
Loren David Walensky is an American physician-scientist and pediatric oncologist at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute since 2003 and a professor of pediatrics at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. He researches peptides and oncogenic pathways. In 2013, Walensky became director of the joint MD/PhD program at Harvard Medical School. He is the husband of Rochelle Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Go to Profile#41721
Barbara Jatta
#41734
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Barbara Jatta is an Italian art historian who has been the director of the Vatican Museums since June 2016. Early life and education Jatta has joked that she was born among the smell of solvents. Her mother was a painter and conservator, and her sister a conservator.
Go to Profile#41722
Miodrag Simović
#41735
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Miodrag Simović is a Bosnian judge and academic, member of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He declared ethnic affiliation as a Bosnian Serb. Biography Simović graduated with honours from the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Law. In 1981, he obtained his master's degree in criminal law in Novi Sad, and defended his PhD dissertation at the same faculty in 1985. After completing his law studies he worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and in the Ministry of Justice and Administration of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 30 January 1991 until 25 Octo...
Go to Profile#41723
Won-Sik Yang
#41736
Overall Influence
1936 - 2014 (78 years)
Won-Sik Yang is a South Korean orthodontist who is known for his contributions in establishing the Korean Association of Orthodontists . He served as the first editor-in-chief for the Korean Journal of Orthodontics in 1970.
Go to Profile#41724
Josephine Flood
#41737
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Josephine Mary Flood, is an English-born Australian archaeologist, mountaineer, and author. Early life and education Josephine Flood was born Josephine Scarr in Yorkshire, England. She took a BA in Classics at Girton College, Cambridge, in 1959, later receiving an MA and a PhD from the Australian National University. Her PhD thesis was published as: The Moth Hunters: Aboriginal prehistory of the Australian Alps in 1980.
Go to Profile#41725
Matthew Nock
#41738
Overall Influence
Matthew K. Nock is an American clinical psychologist, the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, and the Director of the Laboratory for Clinical and Developmental Research at Harvard University . He was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow.
Go to Profile#41726
Eva Vecsei
#41739
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Eva Hollo Vecsei is a Hungarian-Canadian architect. She began her career in Budapest and emigrated to Montreal in 1957, where she established Vecsei Architects with her husband in 1984. Biography Vecsei was born Eva Hollo in 1930 in Vienna. She completed a Bachelor of Architecture at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, graduating in 1952. After graduating, she taught at the university's architectural school until 1953 as an assistant professor. In 1954 she designed housing for miners in Tatabánya and during 1955–1956 she worked on a school and housing projects.
Go to Profile#41727
Ole Fogh Kirkeby
#41740
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ole Fogh Kirkeby is a Danish philosopher and a professor at Copenhagen Business School in the Philosophy of Leadership. Education He is a Doctor of Philosophy from Aarhus University, graduated with honours, 1994, with the dissertation "Event and Body-mind. A phenomenological-hermeneutic Analysis". He has an MA in the History of Ideas from Aarhus University.
Go to Profile#41728
Viggo Hagstrøm
#41741
Overall Influence
1954 - 2013 (59 years)
Viggo Hagstrøm was a Norwegian legal scholar, and professor of law at the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. He obtained the cand.jur. degree in 1979, and was appointed lecturer in law at the University of Oslo in 1980. In 1985, he obtained the dr.juris degree and was appointed as associate professor. He became professor of law, particularly property law, in 1988. He was head of department for the Department of Private Law 1992–2000. He was a member of the Study Group on a European Civil Code. He was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and held an honorary doctorate at the University of Copenhagen.
Go to Profile#41729
Steven Hahn
#41742
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Steven Howard Hahn is Professor of History at New York University. Life Hahn was born on July 18, 1951, in New York City. Educated at the University of Rochester, where he worked with Eugene Genovese and Herbert Gutman, Hahn received his PhD degree from Yale University. His dissertation was overseen by C. Vann Woodward, and later Howard R. Lamar.
Go to Profile#41730
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya
#41743
Overall Influence
1918 - 1993 (75 years)
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya was an Indian Marxist philosopher. He made contributions to the exploration of the materialist current in ancient Indian philosophy. He is known for Lokayata: A Study in Ancient Indian Materialism, which is his exposition of the philosophy of Lokayata. He is also known for work on history of science and scientific method in ancient India, especially his 1977 book Science and Society in Ancient India on the ancient physicians Charaka and Sushruta. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian honour, posthumously, in 1998.
Go to Profile#41731
Todd Endelman
#41744
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Todd M. Endelman is the William Haber Professor of Modern Jewish History at the University of Michigan. He specializes in the social history of Jews in Western Europe and in Anglo-Jewish history. He is the author of The Jews of Georgian England, 1714-1830: Tradition and Change in a Liberal Society , Radical Assimilation in Anglo-Jewish History, 1656-1945 , and The Jews of Britain, 1656-2000 .
Go to Profile#41732
Takashi Miike
#41745
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
is a Japanese film director, film producer and screenwriter. He has directed over one hundred theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. His films run through a variety of different genres, and range from violent and bizarre to dramatic and family-friendly movies. He is a controversial figure in the contemporary Japanese cinema industry, with several of his films being criticised for their extreme graphic violence. Some of his best known films are Audition, Ichi the Killer, Gozu, the Dead or Alive trilogy, and various remakes: Graveyard of Honor, Hara-kiri and 13 As...
Go to Profile#41733
Stephen O'Rahilly
#41746
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Sir Stephen Patrick O'Rahilly is an Irish-British physician and scientist known for his research into the molecular pathogenesis of human obesity, insulin resistance and related metabolic and endocrine disorders.
Go to Profile#41734
Renford Bambrough
#41747
Overall Influence
1926 - 1999 (73 years)
John Renford Bambrough was a British philosopher. He was fellow of St John's College, Cambridge from 1950-1999, where he held the positions of Dean and President . Life John Renford Bambrough was born in Silksworth, Sunderland, England on 29 April 1926. He was born into a mining background, his father having been an electrician at Silksworth Colliery. And he himself worked, as part of his national service, in a coalmine at Wearmouth Colliery from 1944 to 1945 as a Bevin Boy.
Go to Profile#41735
Rebecca Goss
#41748
Overall Influence
Rebecca Jane Miriam Goss is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of St. Andrews who won the 2006 Royal Society of Chemistry Meldola Medal. She is known for combining synthetic biology and chemistry for medicinal purposes.
Go to Profile#41736
Norman Rasmussen
#41749
Overall Influence
1927 - 2003 (76 years)
Norman C. Rasmussen was an American physicist. Biography Rasmussen was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He grew up on a dairy farm as the fifth of six brothers. He attended public school in Hershey, Pennsylvania. His father died when he was in eighth grade, and his family moved to Gettysburg, where his grandparents helped to care for the family. Rasmussen graduated from high school in June, 1945 and enlisted in the United States Navy. He was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training school, where he became an electronics technician. He served on active duty until August, 1946, when he was honor...
Go to Profile#41737
Frank Macchiarola
#41750
Overall Influence
1941 - 2012 (71 years)
Frank J. Macchiarola , was an American academic. His interests and expertise spanned the legal, academic, executive management and public service areas. From 2008 until his death, Macchiarola was the Chancellor of St. Francis College, after having been the college's president from 1996 to 2008.
Go to Profile#41738
Hedvig Hricak
#41751
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Hedvig Hricak was born in 1946, in Zagreb, SR Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia and earned her MD degree from the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb in 1970. She was Chairman of the Department of Radiology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center from November 1999 to January 2023. She is professor of radiology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Go to Profile#41739
Sakura Schafer-Nameki
#41752
Overall Influence
Sakura Schafer-Nameki is a German mathematical physicist working in string theory and supersymmetric gauge theory. She works at the University of Oxford as a Professor of Mathematical Physics in the Mathematical Institute and as a senior research fellow of Wadham College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#41740
Mark W. Bennett
#41753
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mark Warren Bennett is a former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa and a professor at Drake University Law School. Education Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Bennett grew up in the Twin Cities and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and urban studies from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1972 and a Juris Doctor from Drake University Law School in 1975.
Go to Profile#41741
Tommy Chong
#41754
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Thomas B. Kin Chong is a Canadian-American comedian, actor, musician and activist. He is known for his role/inspiration in the marijuana industry, his marijuana-themed Cheech & Chong comedy albums and movies with Cheech Marin, and playing the character Leo on Fox's That '70s Show. He became a naturalized United States citizen in the late 1980s.
Go to Profile#41742
Aletta Norval
#41755
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Aletta Norval is a South African born political theorist. she is Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Anglia Ruskin University. A prominent member of the Essex School of discourse analysis, she is mainly known for her deconstructionist analysis of Apartheid discourse, for her methodological contributions to discourse analysis and for her work on decentred, democratic and poststructuralist political theory. Her other research interests include feminist theory, South-African politics, ethnicity and the politics of race. More recently, she has worked on biometrics, focussing on issues of citizen consent t...
Go to Profile#41743
Linton Kwesi Johnson
#41756
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Linton Kwesi Johnson , also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His performance poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican patois over dub-reggae, usually written in collaboration with reggae producer/artist Dennis Bovell.
Go to Profile#41744
Piper Laurie
#41757
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Piper Laurie was an American actress. She is known for her roles in the films The Hustler , Carrie , and Children of a Lesser God , and the miniseries The Thorn Birds . She is also known for her performances as Kirsten Arnesen in the original TV production of "Days of Wine and Roses", and as Catherine Martell in the television series Twin Peaks.
Go to Profile#41745
Richard Blanco
#41758
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Go to Profile#41746
John Algeo
#41759
Overall Influence
1930 - 2019 (89 years)
John Algeo was an American academic, trained as a linguist, and the author of one of the standard American textbooks on the history of the English language. He was also a Theosophist and a Freemason. He was the Vice President of the Theosophical Society Adyar and, was a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Georgia.
Go to Profile#41747
Frank E. Speizer
#41760
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Frank Erwin Speizer is an American physician and epidemiologist, currently Professor of Environmental Health and Environmental Science at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Edward H. Kass Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his work on two major epidemiological cohort studies: the Nurses' Health Study, which explored women's illnesses and health risk factors, and the Harvard Six Cities study, which definitively linked air pollution to higher death rates in urban areas.
Go to Profile#41748
Heinz-Otto Kreiss
#41761
Overall Influence
1930 - 2015 (85 years)
Heinz-Otto Kreiss was a German mathematician in the fields of numerical analysis, applied mathematics, and what was the new area of computing in the early 1960s. Born in Hamburg, Germany, he earned his Ph.D. at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan in 1959. Over the course of his long career, Kreiss wrote a number of books in addition to the purely academic journal articles he authored across several disciplines. He was professor at Uppsala University, California Institute of Technology and University of California, Los Angeles . He was also a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. At the time of his death, Kreiss was a Swedish citizen, living in Stockholm.
Go to Profile#41749
Kilien Stengel
#41762
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Kilien Stengel is a French gastronomic author, restaurateur, and cookbook writer. He has worked at Gidleigh Park, Nikko Hotels, Georges V Hotel in Paris, and in a number of Relais & Châteaux restaurants .
Go to Profile#41750
Jake Plummer
#41763
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Jason Steven "Jake" Plummer is an American retired professional football quarterback who played ten seasons in the National Football League . He was selected by the Arizona Cardinals in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft, spending six seasons with the Cardinals and then four with the Denver Broncos. Plummer played college football at Arizona State University. Since retiring from the field, he launched Umbo, a functional mushroom supplement company alongside former UFC Champion Rashad Evans. He subsequently founded MyCOLove Farm in Fort Lupton, Colorado to better understand mushrooms and m...
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