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
#42401
Kenneth Wade
#42414
Overall Influence
1932 - 2014 (82 years)
Kenneth Wade, was a British chemist and professor emeritus at Durham University. Early life and education Kenneth Wade was born in Sleaford on 13 October 1932, the second son of Harry Kennington Wade and his wife, Anna Elizabeth Wade. He was educated at Carre's Grammar School, and graduated from the University of Nottingham as the first PhD student of Norman Greenwood, and Cornell University.
Go to Profile#42402
Boris Korenblum
#42415
Overall Influence
1923 - 2011 (88 years)
Boris Isaac Korenblum was a Soviet-Israeli-American mathematician, specializing in mathematical analysis. Boris Korenblum was a child prodigy in music, languages, and mathematics. He started as a violinist at the famous School of Stolyarsky in Odessa. After he won a young mathematicians competition, the family was given an apartment in Kiev, an extraordinary event. Boris was given a mentor, a local mathematics professor, who would peremptorily supervise his course of self study. To the great chagrin of his mother, Boris decided against pursuing a music career. In June 1941, when the war began, he volunteered, not yet having reached the draft age, for the Soviet Army.
Go to Profile#42403
Glenn Shuck
#42416
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Glenn W. Shuck was an assistant professor in the Religion Department at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He received his Ph.D. from Rice University, and is best known as a scholar of North American evangelicalism.
Go to Profile#42404
Peter Leahy
#42417
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Lieutenant General Peter Francis Leahy, is a retired senior officer of the Australian Army, whose military career culminated with his appointment as Chief of the Army from 2002 until 2008. He has been director of the National Security Institute, University of Canberra, since October 2008.
Go to Profile#42405
Charles Brenner
#42418
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Charles Hallam Brenner is an American mathematician who is the originator of forensic mathematics. His father Joel Lee Brenner was a professor of mathematics and his mother Frances Hallam Brenner was a city councilor and briefly mayor of Palo Alto, California. His uncle Charles Brenner, MD was a psychiatrist.
Go to Profile#42406
Luz María Umpierre
#42419
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Luz María "Luzma" Umpierre-Herrera is a Puerto Rican human rights advocate, New-Humanist educator, poet, and scholar. Umpierre works on the topics of activism and social equality, the immigrant experience, bilingualism in the United States, and LGBT issues. Umpierre has published six poetry books and two books of literary criticism and has had numerous essays published in academic journals.
Go to Profile#42407
Aki Kaurismäki
#42420
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Aki Olavi Kaurismäki is a Finnish film director and screenwriter. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds , The Man Without a Past , Le Havre and The Other Side of Hope , as well as for the mockumentary Leningrad Cowboys Go America . He has been described as Finland's best-known film director.
Go to Profile#42408
Martin Summerfield
#42421
Overall Influence
1916 - 1996 (80 years)
Martin Summerfield was an American physicist and rocket scientist, a co-founder of Aerojet, head of Princeton University propulsion and combustion laboratory. Life and career Summerfield received B.S. degree in physics from Brooklyn College. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at California Institute of Technology in 1937 and 1941, respectively. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1979.
Go to Profile#42409
Joseph Addai
#42422
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Joseph Kwaku Duah Addai Jr. is an American former professional football player who was a running back in the National Football League . He was selected in the first round of the 2006 NFL Draft out of Louisiana State University by the Indianapolis Colts and played for the team for six seasons. He won Super Bowl XLI with the Colts, defeating the Chicago Bears.
Go to Profile#42410
Miyata Noboru
#42423
Overall Influence
1936 - 2000 (64 years)
Miyata Noboru was a Japanese folklorist, and a close collaborator and friend of the historian Amino Yoshihiko. Biography He graduated from the department of literature at Tokyo University of Education in 1960. He was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer at the Tokyo Gakugei University in 1970, and became full-time professor at the University of Tsukuba in 1980. On his official retirement he took up a professorship at Kanagawa University.
Go to Profile#42411
Ed McCaffrey
#42424
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Ed McCaffrey is a former wide receiver who played 13 seasons in the National Football League for the New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers, and Denver Broncos. Regarded as one of the best blocking wide receivers of all time, he is a three-time Super Bowl Champion , one-time Pro Bowl selection, one-time All-Pro selection, two-time All-Madden selection, and member of the Denver Broncos 50th Anniversary Team. His nicknames include "Easy," “Eddie Mac,” “White Lightning,” and “The Bruise.”
Go to Profile#42412
Geraint Thomas
#42425
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Geraint Howell Thomas, is a Welsh professional racing cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam , Wales and Great Britain. He is one of the few riders in the modern era to achieve significant elite success as both a track and road rider, with notable victories in the velodrome, in one-day racing and in stage racing. On the track, he has won three World Championships , and two Olympic gold medals , while on the road he won the 2018 Tour de France becoming the first Welshman and third British rider to win it.
Go to Profile#42413
Jussi Parikka
#42426
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Jussi Ville Tuomas Parikka is a Finnish new media theorist and Professor in Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is also Professor in Technological Culture & Aesthetics at Winchester School of Art as well as Visiting Professor at FAMU at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. In Finland, he is Docent of digital culture theory at the University of Turku. Until May 2011 Parikka was the Director of the Cultures of the Digital Economy research institute at Anglia Ruskin University and the founding Co-Director of the Anglia Research Centre for Digital Culture. Wit...
Go to Profile#42414
Aristides Patrinos
#42427
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Dr. Aristides Patrinos is an expert in synthetic biology, and a former leader of the Human Genome Project. Biography Patrinos was born in 1947 to parents of Greek ancestry in Alexandria, Egypt. After attending and graduating Greek and British schools, in 1965 he left Cairo and moved to Athens, Greece. He studied engineering, both electrical and mechanical, at the National Technical University of Athens. Upon receiving his degree in 1970, he moved to the U.S. and studied in Chicago, Illinois at Northwestern University. In 1975, after receiving his Ph.D, he moved to New York State and taught at the University of Rochester.
Go to Profile#42415
Matthew Vaughn
#42428
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Matthew Allard de Vere Drummond , known professionally as Matthew Vaughn, is an English filmmaker. He has produced films including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch , and directed Layer Cake , Stardust , Kick-Ass , X-Men: First Class , Kingsman: The Secret Service and its sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle , and produced, co-wrote, and directed its prequel The King's Man .
Go to Profile#42416
Alexander Fetter
#42429
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Alexander L. Fetter is an American physicist and Professor Emeritus of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University in California. His research interests include theoretical condensed matter and superconductivity.
Go to Profile#42417
Yvette Kosmann-Schwarzbach
#42430
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Yvette Kosmann-Schwarzbach is a French mathematician and professor. Education and career Kosmann-Schwarzbach obtained her doctoral degree in 1970 at the University of Paris under supervision of André Lichnerowicz on a dissertation titled Dérivées de Lie des spineurs .
Go to Profile#42418
George Wendt
#42431
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
George Robert Wendt Jr. is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing Norm Peterson on the television sitcom Cheers , which earned him six consecutive nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. After Cheers, he starred in his own sitcom, The George Wendt Show, but it was cancelled after only a few episodes. His numerous film roles include Fletch, Gung Ho, Dreamscape, House, Forever Young, Hostage for a Day, Man of the House, and Lakeboat.
Go to Profile#42419
Richard H. Stern
#42432
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Richard Harvey Stern is an American attorney and law professor. Biography Born in New York City, Stern received an A.B. cum laude from Columbia College in 1953 and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Columbia University School of Engineering in 1954. He served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1956, and then returned to civilian life and earned an LL.B. at Yale Law School, studying under and acting as teaching assistant for Professor Friedrich Kessler and graduating cum laude and Order of the Coif, in 1959.
Go to Profile#42420
Larry Fink
#42433
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Laurence Bruce Fink was an American photographer and educator, best known for his black-and-white images of people at parties and in other social situations. Early life and education Laurence Bruce Fink was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York, on March 11, 1941. The family moved to West Hempstead, New York when Fink was thirteen. His father, Bernard Fink, was a lawyer, and his mother, Sylvia Caplan Fink, was an anti-nuclear weapons activist and an elder rights activist for the Gray Panthers. He had a younger sister, Elizabeth Fink. He grew up in a politically conscious household and...
Go to Profile#42421
Fedor Nazarov
#42434
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Fedor L'vovich Nazarov is a Russian mathematician working in the United States. He has done research in mathematical analysis and its applications, in particular in functional analysis and classical analysis .
Go to Profile#42422
Cheng Hong
#42435
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Cheng Hong is a Chinese literary scholar and translator. She is a professor at the Capital University of Economics and Business and the widow of the former Chinese premier Li Keqiang. Biography Cheng was born in Zhengzhou, Henan, in 1957. She secondary studied at Zhengzhou No.7 Middle School. During the Cultural Revolution, she became a sent-down youth in Guangkuo Tiandi Township, Jia County, Henan. After the resumption of college entrance examination in 1977, she was accepted to the PLA College of Foreign Languages . After graduation, she engaged in advanced studies at Tsinghua University, w...
Go to Profile#42423
Myhailo Yadrenko
#42436
Overall Influence
1932 - 2004 (72 years)
Myhailo Yosypovych Yadrenko was born April 16, 1932, in the village of Drimailivka and died September 28, 2004, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yadrenko was a prominent Ukrainian mathematician and pedagogue, Corresponding Member of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences, and head of the Department of Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics at Kiev State University of Ukraine.
Go to Profile#42424
Jas Pal Badyal
#42437
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Jas Pal Singh Badyal is a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Durham University. He has been Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales in the Welsh Government since February 2023. Education Badyal was educated at the University of Cambridge where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1985 followed by a PhD in 1988 on the surface science of ruthenium-titania heterogeneous catalysts.
Go to Profile#42425
Mihir Desai
#42438
Overall Influence
Mihir Desai is a human rights lawyer in cases of mass murders & riots, fake encounter & custodial deaths by the police, police brutality, freedom of speech & journalists, political activists & prisoners of conscience, excesses by the state, mass disappearances & deaths and genocide probes. A senior counsel, he has been practicing criminal matters in Bombay High Court, Mumbai and the Supreme Court of India.
Go to Profile#42426
Bruce Avolio
#42439
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Bruce J. Avolio is an American academic in the field of leadership studies. He is the Professor of Management, Mark Pigott Chair in Business Strategic Leadership, and executive director of the Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking in the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Society, the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Gerontological Society of America.
Go to Profile#42427
Sue Goldie
#42440
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Sue J. Goldie is the Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health, the Director of the Center for Health Decision Science , Director of the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University, and founding Faculty Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute . Goldie has a secondary appointment as Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine . Her professional agenda includes improving women's health in all parts of the world, using evidence-based policy to reduce global health inequities, building bridges between disciplines to tackle critical public health challenges...
Go to Profile#42428
Quan Barry
#42441
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Amy Quan Barry is a Vietnamese American poet, novelist, and playwright. She is a recipient of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Barry is a Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Go to Profile#42429
Mark Robins
#42442
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Mark Gordon Robins is an English football manager and former player, who is the current manager of Coventry City in the EFL Championship. As a player, he was a striker and is best known for his time in the Premier League with Norwich City and Leicester City.
Go to Profile#42430
Edward Jarvis
#42443
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Edward Jarvis FRAS FRHistS is a British author of religious history, politics and theology, and an Anglican clergyman. His books address previously underresearched topics, namely the Independent Sacramental Movement and the introduction of Christianity in Southeast Asia, particularly in Vietnam, Myanmar , and Malaysia.
Go to Profile#42431
Peter Schmidt
#42444
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Peter Schmidt is an American economist and econometrician. He holds a University Distinguished Professor position at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Schmidt is considered a foundational scholar in econometrics, having authored an early textbook in the field as well as over 150 peer-reviewed articles. In addition, Schmidt has been recognized for his excellence in teaching, with one economist stating that "a top twenty economics department could be started up from" the students he has mentored.
Go to Profile#42432
Trent Dilfer
#42445
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Trent Farris Dilfer is an American football coach and former quarterback who is the head football coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham . Dilfer previously played in the National Football League for 14 seasons. He achieved his greatest professional success as the starting quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens during their Super Bowl-winning season in 2000.
Go to Profile#42433
A. L. J. Van Der Spek
#42446
Overall Influence
#42434
Mike Weir
#42447
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Michael Richard Weir, is a Canadian professional golfer. He currently plays on the PGA Tour Champions. He spent over 110 weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Ranking between 2001 and 2005. He plays golf left-handed and is best known for winning the Masters Tournament in 2003, making him the only Canadian man to ever win a major championship.
Go to Profile#42435
Miriani Griselda Pastoriza
#42448
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Miriani Griselda Pastoriza is an Argentine-born Brazilian astronomer, tenured professor in the Department of Astronomy of the Institute of Physics, at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, and is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#42436
Dave Holland
#42449
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
David “Dave” Holland is an English double bassist, bass guitarist, cellist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States since the early 1970s.
Go to Profile#42437
Philip Tew
#42450
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Philip Tew is the author of works on the contemporary British novel. His first novel Afterlives was published in February 2019. A second fiction book, Fragmentary Lives: Three Novellas, was published in October 2019.
Go to Profile#42438
Eric Coleman
#42451
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Eric Coleman is an American geriatrician and academic. He was a professor at the University of Colorado. His research focuses on improving care transitions. Coleman was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2012.
Go to Profile#42439
Rafael Domingo Osle
#42452
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Rafael Domingo Oslé is a Spanish legal historian and professor of law. Education Domingo received his bachelor's and doctorate degrees in law from the University of Navarra. He conducted legal research as a Humboldt research fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany starting in 1989, and as a visiting scholar at the Columbia Law School in New York City.
Go to Profile#42440
Yuri Lowenthal
#42453
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Yuri Lowenthal is an American voice actor, producer, and screenwriter known for his work in cartoons, anime, and video games. Some of his prominent roles in animations and anime include Sasuke Uchiha in Naruto, teenage Ben Tennyson in Ben 10, Neil in Camp Camp, Jinnosuke in Afro Samurai, Simon in Gurren Lagann and Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass. In video games, he voices Lorath Nahr in Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo III, The Prince in Ubisoft's Prince of Persia, Hayate/Ein in Dead or Alive, Matt Miller in Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV, and Peter Parker / Spider-Man in various video...
Go to Profile#42441
Jonathan Quick
#42454
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Jonathan Douglas Quick is an American professional ice hockey goaltender for the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League . Quick was selected in the third round, 72nd overall, by the Los Angeles Kings at the 2005 NHL Entry Draft.
Go to Profile#42442
Nicholas Hughes
#42455
Overall Influence
1962 - 2009 (47 years)
Nicholas Farrar Hughes was a British and American fisheries biologist known as an expert in stream salmonid ecology. Hughes was the son of the American poet Sylvia Plath and English poet Ted Hughes, and the younger brother of artist and poet Frieda Hughes. He and his sister were public figures as small children due to the circumstances of their mother's widely publicized suicide.
Go to Profile#42443
Yosef Blau
#42456
Overall Influence
Yosef Blau is an American Orthodox rabbi. He currently serves as the mashgiach ruchani at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary since 1977. He is also the former president of the Religious Zionists of America.
Go to Profile#42444
S. Joshua Swamidass
#42457
Overall Influence
S. Joshua Swamidass is an American computational biologist, physician, academic, and author. He is an associate professor of Laboratory and Genomic Medicine, and a Faculty Lead of Translational Bioinformatics in the Institute for Informatics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Go to Profile#42445
Gopal Gaonkar
#42458
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Gopal H. Gaonkar is a professor of engineering at Florida Atlantic University, Florida. His research interest is in Helicopter dynamics, Floquet theory and Large-Scale and parallel computing. Gaonkar is a recipient of American Helicopter Society's Fellow Award in 2005, was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Helicopter Society, and a member of the AHS Technical Council.
Go to Profile#42446
Roy A. Clouser
#42459
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Roy A. Clouser is professor emeritus of the College of New Jersey. He has served as professor of philosophy, religion, and logic at the college since 1968. He serves as the resident philosopher of Christian Leaders Institute.
Go to Profile#42447
Kenny Anderson
#42460
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Kenneth Anderson, known as Kenny Anderson, is an American former professional basketball player. After a college career at Georgia Tech, he played point guard professionally from 1991 to 2006, mostly in the National Basketball Association.
Go to Profile#42448
Peter Fenwick
#42461
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Peter Brooke Cadogan Fenwick is a neuropsychiatrist and neurophysiologist who is known for his studies of epilepsy and end-of-life phenomena. Education Fenwick is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Natural Science. He obtained his clinical experience at St Thomas' Hospital.
Go to Profile#42449
Leif Stenberg
#42462
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Leif Stenberg has been the Dean of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at the Aga Khan University in London since April 2017. Media Appearances Stenberg provided commentary during the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. He also appeared on live television to comment on the roots and developments of the Arab Spring.
Go to Profile#42450
Randall J. LeVeque
#42463
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Randall J. LeVeque is a Professor of Applied Mathematics at University of Washington who works in many fields including numerical analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and mathematical theory of conservation laws. Among other contributions, he is lead developer of the open source software project Clawpack for solving hyperbolic partial differential equations using the finite volume method. With Zhilin Li, he has also devised a numerical technique called the immersed interface method for solving problems with elastic boundaries or surface tension.
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