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
William Thurston
#551
Overall Influence
1946 - 2012 (66 years)
William Paul Thurston was an American mathematician. He was a pioneer in the field of low-dimensional topology and was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982 for his contributions to the study of 3-manifolds.
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Mark Weiser
#3730
Overall Influence
1952 - 1999 (47 years)
Mark D. Weiser was a computer scientist and chief technology officer at Xerox PARC. Weiser is widely considered to be the father of ubiquitous computing, a term he coined in 1988. Within Silicon Valley, Weiser was broadly viewed as a visionary and computer pioneer, and his ideas have influenced many of the world's leading computer scientists.
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Rick Doblin
#7548
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Richard Elliot Doblin is an American drug activist and executive who is the founder and former executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies . Life and career Born in 1953, Doblin grew up in a Conservative Jewish family in suburban Chicago. He is the first of four children to pediatrician Morton Doblin and schoolteacher Arline Doblin. He has three younger siblings, Bruce, Sharon, and Stuart Doblin.
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Marcello Truzzi
#8123
Overall Influence
1935 - 2003 (68 years)
Marcello Truzzi was a professor of sociology at New College of Florida and later at Eastern Michigan University, founding co-chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal , a founder of the Society for Scientific Exploration, and director for the Center for Scientific Anomalies Research.
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William C. Dudley
#11372
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
William C. Dudley is an American economist who served as the president of Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2009 to 2018 and as vice-chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee. He was appointed to the position on January 27, 2009, following the confirmation of his predecessor, Timothy F. Geithner, as United States Secretary of the Treasury.
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Robert D. Atkinson
#13180
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Robert David Atkinson is a Canadian-American economist. He is president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation , a public policy think tank based in Washington, D.C., that promotes policies based on innovation economics. He was previously Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute.
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David M. Smolin
#16453
Overall Influence
David Mark Smolin is a professor of law at Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama where he is the Harwell G. Davis Chair in Constitutional Law, director for The Center for Children, Law, and Ethics, former director of the Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics, and faculty advisor for the Law, Science and Technology Society.
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Anita L. Allen
#17090
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
#9
Margee Ensign
#20034
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Margee M. Ensign is the former President of the American University of Nigeria. Life President Ensign was born in Los Angeles, California. She earned her BA in Peace Studies and International Relations from New College of Florida, and her PhD in International Political Economy from the University of Maryland. She began her academic and administrative career at Columbia University in New York City as Assistant Professor of Politics and Economy and Director of the International Political Economy Program, 1984-89.
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Donal O'Shea
#20435
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Donal O'Shea is a Canadian mathematician, who is also noted for his bestselling books. He served as the fifth president of New College of Florida in Sarasota, from July 1, 2012, until June 30, 2021. He was succeeded by Patricia Okker on July 1, 2021. Before coming to New College, he served in various roles at Mount Holyoke College, including professor of mathematics, dean of faculty, and vice president for academic affairs.
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David Allen
#22014
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
David Allen is an American productivity consultant best known for the creation of a time management method called "Getting Things Done". Careers Allen grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana where he acted and won a state championship in debate. He went to college at New College, now New College of Florida, in Sarasota, Florida, and completed graduate work in American history at University of California, Berkeley.
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Jennifer Granick
#23351
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Jennifer Stisa Granick is an American attorney and educator. Senator Ron Wyden has called Granick an "NBA all-star of surveillance law." She is well known for her work with intellectual property law, free speech, privacy law, and other things relating to computer security, and has represented several high-profile hackers.
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Victoria Kolakowski
#23790
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Victoria Kolakowski is an American lawyer who serves as a judge of the Alameda County Superior Court since January 2011. Kolakowski is the first openly transgender person to serve as a trial court judge of general jurisdiction in the United States, the first elected to a judgeship, and the first to serve as any type of judge in California. .
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Melissa Cristina Márquez
#37786
Overall Influence
Melissa Cristina Márquez is a Puerto Rican marine biologist and science communicator. She studies chondrichthyan fishes, including great white sharks. Early life and education Márquez was inspired to study sharks when she first saw a great white shark on the Discovery Channel program Shark Week when she moved from Mexico to the United States. She completed her undergraduate degree at the New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida, and a master's degree from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
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Nancy McEldowney
#48419
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Nancy Eileen McEldowney is an American academic and diplomat who served as the national security advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris from January 20, 2021 to March 21, 2022. She was previously a career Foreign Service officer, served as United States ambassador to Bulgaria , and was director of the Foreign Service Institute from February 2013 until June 2017.
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Margaret D. Lowman
#48639
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Margaret D. Lowman, Ph.D. a.k.a. Canopy Meg is an American biologist, educator, ecologist, writer, explorer, and public speaker. Her expertise involves canopy ecology, canopy plant-insect relationships, and constructing canopy walkways.
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Eric Schickler
#65949
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Eric Schickler is an American political scientist, currently the Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Endowed Chair at University of California, Berkeley and an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Go to Profile#18
Sung-Yoon Lee
#73105
Overall Influence
Sung-Yoon Lee is a scholar of Korean and East Asian studies, and specialist on North Korea. He is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is the former Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor in Korean Studies and assistant professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He was also an associate in research at the Korea Institute, Harvard University. and a research fellow at the National Asia Research Program.
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Scott Baker
#75885
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
C. Scott Baker is an American molecular biologist and cetacean specialist. He is Associate Director of the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University. He is also Adjunct Professor of Molecular Ecology and Evolution at the University of Auckland, and Editor of the Journal of Heredity.
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Karen Volkman
#135479
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Karen Volkman is an American poet. Life She was educated at New College of Florida, Syracuse University, and the University of Houston. Her poems have appeared in anthologies including The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize XXVII.
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Paul T. Jaeger
#152688
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
#22
Jeff Chanton
#172143
Overall Influence
Jeffrey Paul "Jeff" Chanton is the 2017-2018 Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor and John Widmer Winchester professor of oceanography at Florida State University. His research interests include Arctic methane release from the thawing of permafrost. Chanton co-created the Master of Science in aquatic environmental sciences at FSU with Nancy Marcus.
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Ramón Mujica Pinilla
#192193
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Ramon Elias Mujica Pinilla is a Peruvian anthropologist and served under three Presidents as Director of the National Library of Peru. Early life Ramon Mujica Pinilla is the son of Peruvian diplomat, founding publisher of Expreso de Lima and collector Manuel Mujica Gallo and museum docent Marisa Pinilla Sánchez Concha, daughter of Antonio Pinilla Rambaud a Spanish Consul of Spain in Peru. He graduated from New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida. He did his postgraduate work at the National University of San Marcos.
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Deborah Rabinowitz
1947 - 1987 (40 years)
Deborah Rabinowitz was an ecologist who coined the seven meanings of rarity in the field of plant ecology,. She was a professor in the Section of Ecology and Systematics at Cornell University. Early life and education Rabinowitz was born and raised in Willimantic, Connecticut, to Louis and Margaret Rabinowitz. She attended public schools and later received her undergraduate degree in biology from New College of Florida in Sarasota. In 1975, she received her Ph.D. in theoretical population biology from the University of Chicago.
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