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
#1
Bob Bemer
#2561
Overall Influence
1920 - 2004 (84 years)
Robert William Bemer was a computer scientist best known for his work at IBM during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Early life and education Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Bemer graduated from Cranbrook Kingswood School in 1936 and took a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics at Albion College in 1940. He earned a certificate in aeronautical engineering at Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute in 1941.
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Bruce C. Berndt
#5926
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
#3
Paul R. Lawrence
#10824
Overall Influence
1922 - 2011 (89 years)
Paul Roger Lawrence was an American sociologist, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School, and consultant, known from his work with Jay W. Lorsch on "Differentiation and integration in complex organizations."
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Jon Scieszka
#12976
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Jon Scieszka is an American children's writer, best known for his picture books created with the illustrator Lane Smith. He is also a nationally recognized reading advocate, and the founder of Guys Read – a web-based literacy program for boys whose mission is "to help boys become self-motivated, lifelong readers."
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Richard Mills Smith
#18174
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Richard Mills Smith is an American editor and journalist who has served as Editor-in-Chief, CEO and Chairman of the Newsweek magazine. Education Smith graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Albion College in 1968, attended Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and received an M.S. from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1970.
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Barbara Ann Crancer
#23910
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Barbara Ann Crancer is an American retired lawyer and judge who was a St. Louis County, Missouri Associate Circuit Court Judge. She is the daughter of former Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa and Josephine Hoffa.
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Josh A. Cassada
#25195
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Josh Aaron Cassada is an American physicist, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. Prior to his selection to join NASA in 2013, Cassada served as a test pilot in the US Navy, and has over 3,500 hours in more than 40 aircraft, and 23 combat missions. In August 2018, Cassada was selected for CTS-1, the first operational mission of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner, but subsequently reassigned to SpaceX Crew-5.
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Bates Gill
#40174
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Bates Gill is an expert on Chinese foreign policy and politics and a former Director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute . Gill has a long record of research and publication on both international and regional security issues. These include arms control, non-proliferation, peacekeeping and military-technical development—and all mainly with regard to China and the Asia-Pacific region. His work has also encompassed other contemporary security-related issues including multilateral security organizations, the impact of domestic politics and development on the foreign policies of states, and the nexus of public health and security.
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Robert Bartlett
#47488
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Robert Bartlett is an American physician and medical researcher who is credited with developing a lifesaving heart-lung technology known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation . He is an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan Medical School.
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James Wilson
#51149
Overall Influence
James M. Wilson is a biomedical researcher with expertise in gene therapy. Wilson graduated from Albion College and the University of Michigan . He completed residency training in Internal Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute.
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Elizabeth Brumfiel
#59189
Overall Influence
1945 - 2012 (67 years)
Elizabeth M. Brumfiel was an American archaeologist who taught at Northwestern University and Albion College. She had been a president of the American Anthropological Association. Early life and education Brumfiel was born in Chicago, Illinois and attended Evanston Township High School. She participated as a Peace Corps volunteer in La Paz, Bolivia in 1966–1967. She got her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1965 and 1976 respectively and in 1969 got her M.A. in the same field from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Daniel Henney
#68878
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Daniel Philip Henney is an American actor and model. He first came into international prominence with his television debut as Dr. Henry Kim on the Korean drama My Lovely Sam Soon . He has gone on to star in films such as Seducing Mr. Perfect , My Father , X-Men Origins: Wolverine , Shanghai Calling , The Last Stand , One Night Surprise , and Big Hero 6 . In television, he has starred in the Korean Spring Waltz and as well as US television series Hawaii Five-0 and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. He joined the regular cast of Criminal Minds for its 13th, 14th and 15th seasons. He stars as Lan M...
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Shaun R. Harper
#76367
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Shaun R. Harper is an American scholar on racial equity in the United States. He is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education and the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
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Charles L. Shearer
#76400
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Charles L. Shearer is an American academic. He served as the 24th president of Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky ending his long tenure during the summer of 2010. Shearer is the longest-serving president in the university's 230-year history.
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Lawrence B. Schook
#78166
Overall Influence
Lawrence B. Schook is the vice president for research at the University of Illinois. He oversees the $1 billion research portfolio across all three campuses . A scholar in comparative genomics and the exploitation of genomic diversity to understand traits and disease, Dr. Schook focuses his research on genetic resistance to disease, regenerative medicine, and using genomics to create animal models for biomedical research. He led the international pig genome-sequencing project, which produced a draft of the pig genome allowing researchers to offer insights into diseases that afflict pigs and h...
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Timothy F. Sedgwick
#109407
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Timothy Foster Sedgwick is an American Episcopal ethicist. In addition to being the Clinton S. Quin Professor of Christian Ethics at Virginia Theological Seminary, he has served since 2007 as Vice President and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs.
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Julie Brigham-Grette
#118240
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Julie Brigham-Grette is a glacial geologist and a professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she co-directs the Joseph Hartshorn Quaternary Laboratory. Her research expertise is in glacial geology and paleoclimatology; she has made important contributions to Arctic marine and terrestrial paleoclimate records of late Cenozoic to recent, the evolution of the Arctic climate, especially in the Beringia/Bering Strait region, and was a leader of the international Lake El’gygytgyn Drilling Project in northeastern Russia.
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Doug Parker
#156272
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
William Douglas Parker is an American businessman who is the chairman of American Airlines Group, the parent company of American Airlines. Parker previously served as chief executive officer of the airline from 2001 to 2023.
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Martin Nesbitt
#160843
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Martin Hughes Nesbitt is an American businessman and public figure. Nesbit is co-CEO of the Vistria Group, a Chicago-based private equity firm. Nesbitt is on the boards of directors of publicly traded companies CenterPoint Energy, Norfolk Southern Corporation, and American Airlines Group. Nesbitt was the founder and former CEO of The Parking Spot, an airport parking company. He was on the board of the Chicago Housing Authority.
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Jessica Robyn Koehler
#162110
Overall Influence
#21
Joel Manby
#176347
Overall Influence
Joel Manby is the former CEO of SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment and former President and Chief Executive Officer of Herschend Family Entertainment, the largest family-owned theme park corporation in the United States. HFE creates, develops and operates entertainment, tourism and hospitality properties spanning 26 locations in ten states, including Stone Mountain Park, Dollywood and Silver Dollar City. He and his company were featured in the seventh episode of the first season of CBS's Undercover Boss. Manby also wrote Love Works about HFE's unique business culture, with all proceeds going towa...
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Harriet Gertrude Eddy
1876 - 1966 (90 years)
Harriet Gertrude Eddy was an American educator and librarian who influenced the management of libraries in the Soviet Union. She was inducted into the California Library Hall of Fame in 2014, for her work on organizing forty Californian library systems.
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Joyce C. Stearns
1893 - 1948 (55 years)
Joyce Clennam Stearns was an American physicist and an administrator on the Manhattan Project. Stearns resigned from the Manhattan Project in July 1945 to become dean of faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. Joyce also served as the director of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago from November 1944 through July 1945.
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William T. Bovie
1882 - 1958 (76 years)
William T. Bovie was an American scientist and inventor. He is credited with conceptualizing the field of biophysics and with inventing a modern medical device known as the Bovie electrosurgical generator. Bovie taught or conducted research at Harvard University, Northwestern University, Jackson Laboratory and Colby College.
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Leonard Peter Schultz
1901 - 1986 (85 years)
Leonard Peter Schultz was an American ichthyologist. Biography Schultz was born in 1901, at Albion, Michigan. He received education on ichthyology at Albion College, in which he got his bachelor's degree, in 1924. In 1926, he got his master's degree from the University of Michigan, and then in 1932 from the University of Washington. From 1928 till 1936, he taught at the College of Fisheries at University of Washington. He was appointed as an assistant curator at the Division of Fishes of the United States National Museum. During the same year he joined Smithsonian Institution, where he remained till retirement in 1968.
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Knute Nelson
1843 - 1923 (80 years)
Knute Nelson was a Norwegian-born American attorney and politician active in Wisconsin and Minnesota. A Republican, he served in state and national positions: he was elected to the Wisconsin and Minnesota legislatures and to the U.S. House of Representatives and the United States Senate from Minnesota, and served as the 12th governor of Minnesota from 1893 to 1895. Having served in the Senate for 28 years, 55 days, he is the longest-serving Senator in Minnesota's history.
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J Harlen Bretz
1882 - 1981 (99 years)
J Harlen Bretz was an American geologist, best known for his research that led to the acceptance of the Missoula Floods and for his work on caves. Early life and education Bretz was born on 2 September 1882, in the small town of Saranac in Ionia County, Michigan. He was the first of Oliver Joseph Bretz and Rhoda Maria Howlett's five children. His father was a farmer, and proud descendant of early German settler in Ohio, John Bretz.
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Jay L. Lee
1887 - 1970 (83 years)
Jay L. "Biffy" Lee was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Penn College—now known as William Penn University—in Oskaloosa, Iowa, in 1915 and again from 1917 to 1920 and at the University of Buffalo—now known as University at Buffalo—from 1929 to 1930, compiling a career college football record of 17–20–4.
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Arthur M. Chickering
1887 - 1974 (87 years)
Arthur Merton Chickering was a U.S. arachnologist. Biography He was born on March 23, 1887, in North Danville, Vermont. He studied in Yale University under Alexander Petrunkevitch until 1913. In 1916 he earned a Master of Science degree in cytology and in 1927 a Ph.D. for cytological studies on the spermatogenesis of insects. He taught at Beloit College from 1913 to 1918 and at Albion College from 1918 to 1957. From 1953 to 1971 he was Research Associate in Arachnology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.
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Anna Howard Shaw
1847 - 1919 (72 years)
Anna Howard Shaw was a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was also a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the United States. Early life
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Forest Ray Moulton
1872 - 1952 (80 years)
Forest Ray Moulton was an American astronomer. Biography He was born in Le Roy, Michigan, and was educated at Albion College. After graduating in 1894 , he performed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago and gained a Ph.D. in 1899. At the University of Chicago he was associate in astronomy , instructor , assistant professor , associate professor , and professor after 1912.
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