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
Mike Pence
#5510
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Michael Richard Pence is an American politician who served as the 48th vice president of the United States from 2017 to 2021 under Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 50th governor of Indiana from 2013 to 2017, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013.
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Walter LaFeber
#8576
Overall Influence
1933 - 2021 (88 years)
Walter Fredrick LaFeber was an American academic who served as the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. Previous to that he served as the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell.
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Carol Shields
#11047
Overall Influence
1935 - 2003 (68 years)
Carol Ann Shields, was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.
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Woody Harrelson
#12463
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Woodrow Tracy Harrelson is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, in addition to nominations for three Academy Awards and four Golden Globe Awards.
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Monica Sone
#34323
Overall Influence
1919 - 2011 (92 years)
Monica Sone , born Kazuko Itoi, was a Japanese American writer, best known for her 1953 autobiographical memoir Nisei Daughter, which tells of the Japanese American experience in Seattle during the 1920s and 1930s and in the World War II internment camps, and is an important text in Asian American and Women's Studies courses.
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David L. Armstrong
#49784
Overall Influence
1941 - 2017 (76 years)
David Lawrence Armstrong was an American politician. He served as the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky from 1999 to 2003. He was the city's last mayor before its merger with Jefferson County to form Louisville Metro.
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Richard Lesh
#53668
Overall Influence
Richard Arthur Lesh, Jr. is a professor of learning sciences, cognitive science, and mathematics education at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. He retired from the IU system in 2012. He graduated from Indiana University in 1971 with a Ph.D. in mathematics, cognitive psychology, and statistics for research in the social sciences. He is also a graduate of Hanover College, where he received a B.A. in mathematics and physics.
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Chris Culver
#59372
Overall Influence
Chris Culver is the pen name of an American author of crime fiction and thrillers. His books are set in and around the Midwestern United States. He is well known for his works featuring IMPD Detective Ashraf Rashid. His debut novel, The Abbey, was on The New York Times bestseller list for 16 weeks. He has since gone on to write several stand alone books and is currently working on a new series set in St. Louis.
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Eric Holcomb
#59527
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (57 years)
Eric Joseph Holcomb is an American politician who has served since 2017 as the 51st governor of Indiana. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 51st lieutenant governor of Indiana from 2016 to 2017 under Governor Mike Pence, who left the governorship in 2017 to become the vice president of the United States. Holcomb was nominated to fill the remainder of Lieutenant Governor Sue Ellspermann's term after she resigned on March 2, 2016, to become president of Ivy Tech Community College. He won the 2016 election for governor of Indiana over Democratic nominee John R. Gregg. Holcomb was...
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Ginnifer Goodwin
#67219
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (47 years)
Jennifer Michelle "Ginnifer" Goodwin is an American actress. She starred as Margene Heffman in the HBO drama series Big Love , Snow White / Mary Margaret Blanchard in the ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time , Judy Hopps in Zootopia and Beth Ann Stanton in Why Women Kill .
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Philip Hedrick
#72999
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Philip W. Hedrick is an American emeritus professor at Arizona State University . From 1992 until his retirement, Hedrick was Ullman Professor of Conservation Biology at ASU. Hedrick has published over 200 articles on the topics of population genetics and conservation biology. Among other organisms, he has published extensively on wolves and bighorn sheep.
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Bertha Lewis
#73606
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Bertha Lewis is the founder and president of the Black Institute, an 'action tank' whose mission is 'to shape intellectual discourse and dialogue and impact public policy uniquely from a Black perspective .' She was the CEO and Chief Organizer of the nonprofit social justice organization ACORN until it disbanded in 2010. In early 2014, she was a member of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's Transition Team.
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William S. Harris
#77225
Overall Influence
William S. Harris, PhD FAHA FASN is an American professor and researcher focusing on human nutrition. His work has focused on the role of Omega-3 fatty acids as they relate to cardiovascular disease and neuropsychiatric disease.
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William B. Rossow
#86013
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
William B. Rossow is an American atmospheric scientist, who was for many years the head of the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project. He is currently a distinguished professor at City University of New York, and also a published author. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and American Mathematical Society.
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Joan Leitzel
#97322
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
Joan Ruth Leitzel is an American mathematician and university administrator. She was the president of the University of New Hampshire from 1996 to 2002. She received the Charles Holmes Pettee Medal in 2002 for her contributions to the University of New Hampshire. She attended Hanover College , Brown University , and Indiana University .
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Carl K. Benhase
#188527
Overall Influence
1929 - 2018 (89 years)
Carl Kenneth "Benny" Benhase was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana in 1963, compiling a record of 0–9. Benhase played college football at Miami University under head coach Woody Hayes. As a high school football coach in Ohio, he was an early pioneer of the no-huddle offense.
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John M. Bloss
1839 - 1905 (66 years)
John McKnight Bloss was an American Civil War soldier who had an influence on the Battle of Antietam and was later President of Oregon Agricultural College from 1892 until 1896. Early life and education He was born in New Philadelphia, Indiana in 1839.
Go to Profile#18
William Abbott Oldfather
1880 - 1945 (65 years)
William Abbott Oldfather was an American classical scholar. He was influential for building strong academic traditions in classical studies at the University of Illinois and for his studies of ancient Locris in Greece.
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Daniel Kirkwood
1814 - 1895 (81 years)
Daniel Kirkwood was an American astronomer. Kirkwood was born in Harford County, Maryland, to John and Agnes Kirkwood. He graduated in mathematics from the York County Academy in York, Pennsylvania, in 1838. After teaching there for five years, he became Principal of the Lancaster High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and after another five years he moved on to become Principal of the Pottsville Academy in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. In 1851, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. The same year he became Professor of Mathematics at Delaware College and in 1856 Prof...
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Thomas A. Hendricks
1819 - 1885 (66 years)
Thomas Andrews Hendricks was an American politician and lawyer from Indiana who served as the 16th governor of Indiana from 1873 to 1877 and the 21st vice president of the United States from March until his death in November 1885. Hendricks represented Indiana in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate . He also represented Shelby County, Indiana, in the Indiana General Assembly and as a delegate to the 1851 Indiana constitutional convention. In addition, Hendricks served as commissioner of the General Land Office . Hendricks, a popular member of the Democratic Party, was a fiscal conservative.
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Temple Rice Hollcroft
1889 - 1967 (78 years)
Temple Rice Hollcroft, Sr. was an American mathematician and local historian. Hollcroft received B.S. in 1912 and A.B. in 1914 from Hanover College and then A.M. in 1915 from the University of Kentucky. He received in 1917 his Ph.D. from Cornell University under Virgil Snyder and during WW I served in France as a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery. Hollcroft was a mathematics professor at Wells College from 1918 to 1954, when he retired as professor emeritus. He served for 14 years as associate secretary of the American Mathematical Society. In 1932 in Zurich he was an Invited Speaker o...
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Charles Reid Barnes
1858 - 1910 (52 years)
Charles Reid Barnes was an American botanist specializing in bryophytes . He was co-editor of the Botanical Gazette for over 25 years. Barnes was born at Madison, Indiana, September 7, 1858. He graduated from Hanover College in 1877, and afterward studied at Harvard University, where he became friends with Asa Gray. After teaching in public schools for a few years, he became professor of botany at Purdue University in 1882. In 1887 he was called to the University of Wisconsin, and for eleven years developed and maintained a vigorous department of botany in that institution. In 1898 he bec...
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John Merle Coulter
1851 - 1928 (77 years)
John Merle Coulter, Ph. D. was an American botanist and educator. In his career in education administration, Coulter is notable for serving as the president of Indiana University and Lake Forest College and the head of the Department of Botany at the University of Chicago.
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John Finley Crowe
1787 - 1860 (73 years)
John Finley Crowe was a Presbyterian minister and the founder of Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana. His residence from 1824 to 1860, the Crowe-Garritt House, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
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Harvey Washington Wiley
1844 - 1930 (86 years)
Harvey Washington Wiley was an American chemist who advocated successfully for the passage of the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and subsequently worked at the Good Housekeeping Institute laboratories. He was the first commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration.
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Maria Mitchell
1818 - 1889 (71 years)
Maria Mitchell was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator. In 1847, she discovered a comet named 1847 VI that was later known as "Miss Mitchell's Comet" in her honor. She won a gold medal prize for her discovery, which was presented to her by King Christian VIII of Denmark in 1848. Mitchell was the first internationally known woman to work as both a professional astronomer and a professor of astronomy after accepting a position at Vassar College in 1865. She was also the first woman elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association ...
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Erasmus D. McMaster
1806 - 1866 (60 years)
Erasmus Darwin McMaster, D.D. was a nineteenth-century American Presbyterian pastor, academic and theologian who served as president of Hanover College and Miami University. Along with Henry Ward Beecher, McMaster was one of the most vocal Presbyterian anti-slavery advocates in Indiana.
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