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
Kellyanne Conway
#2224
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway is an American political consultant and pollster, who served as Senior Counselor to the President in the administration of Donald Trump from 2017 to 2020. She was previously Trump's campaign manager, having been appointed in August 2016; Conway is the first woman to have run a successful U.S. presidential campaign. She has previously held roles as campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party, and was formerly president and CEO of the Polling Company/WomanTrend.
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Nancy Pelosi
#4454
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Nancy Patricia Pelosi is an American politician who served as the 52nd speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 and again from 2019 to 2023. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the first woman elected as U.S. House Speaker and the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress, leading the House Democrats from 2003 to 2023. A member of the House since 1987, Pelosi currently represents , which includes most of San Francisco.
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Maggie Williams
#17052
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Margaret Ann Williams is a former director of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University and is a partner in Griffin Williams, a management-consulting firm. She was the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. Following Clinton's win in the New Hampshire primary in January 2008, Williams was brought onto the Clinton campaign staff as a senior adviser. On February 10, 2008, she replaced Patti Solis Doyle as the campaign's manager.
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Jane Dammen McAuliffe
#20351
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Jane Dammen McAuliffe is an American educator, scholar of Islam and the inaugural director of national and international outreach at the Library of Congress. She is a president emeritus of Bryn Mawr College and former dean of Georgetown College at Georgetown University. As a specialist in the Qur'an and its interpretation, McAuliffe has edited the six-volume Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān and continues to lead the editorial team for the online edition of the work.
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Rosemary M. Collyer
#26541
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Rosemary Mayers Collyer is an inactive Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and a former judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
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Kathleen Sebelius
#29508
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Kathleen Sebelius is an American politician who served as the 21st United States Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2009 until 2014. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, Sebelius was instrumental in overseeing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Before becoming secretary, she served as the 44th governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the second woman to hold that office. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Sebelius was the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address and is chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors Association . She is CEO of Sebel...
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Noris Salazar Allen
#39588
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Noris Salazar Allen is a bryologist from Panama, who is Professor of Botany at the University of Panama and an associate researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Salazar Allen was the first Panamanian to research bryophytes, and was instrumental in expanding the University of Panama's bryological collection to 10,000 specimens. In 2013 she received the Riclef Grolle Award for Excellence in Bryodiversity Research from the International Association of Bryologists.
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Tina Darragh
#49778
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Tina Darragh is an American poet who was one of the original members of the Language group of poets. Biography Darragh was born in Pittsburgh and grew up in the south suburb of McDonald, Pennsylvania. She began writing in 1968 and studied poetry in Washington, D.C. at Trinity University from 1970 to 1972. Between 1974 and 1976, she worked with Some of Us Press and at the Mass Transit community bookstore and writing workshop.
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Claire Eagan
#50766
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Claire Veronica Eagan is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma and a former Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Effective February 12, 2020, Chief Justice John G. Roberts appointed Judge Eagan as the chair of the Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference.
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Joan Frances Gormley
#55504
Overall Influence
1937 - 2007 (70 years)
Joan Frances Gormley , a consecrated virgin in the Catholic Church, was an American scholar in the fields of classical literature and of biblical studies. She was a professor in the Department of Sacred Scripture at Mount St. Mary's Seminary. She translated and produced a number of works by leading Catholic mystics, such as Edith Stein and John of Avila.
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Teresia Teaiwa
#61542
Overall Influence
1968 - 2017 (49 years)
Teresia Teaiwa was a distinguished award winning I-Kiribati and African-American scholar, poet, activist and mentor. Teaiwa was well-regarded for her ground-breaking work in Pacific Studies. Her research interests in this area embraced her artistic and political nature, and included contemporary issues in Fiji, feminism and women's activism in the Pacific, contemporary Pacific culture and arts, and pedagogy in Pacific Studies. An "anti-nuclear activist, defender of West Papuan independence, and a critic of militarism", Teaiwa solidified many connections across the Pacific Ocean and was a hug...
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Lilli Hornig
#66552
Overall Influence
1921 - 2017 (96 years)
Lilli Hornig was a Czech-American scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project, as well as a feminist activist. Early life Hornig was born in Ústí nad Labem in 1921 to Erwin Schwenk, an organic chemist, and the former Rascha Shapiro, a pediatrician.
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Cynthia Eagle Russett
#67764
Overall Influence
1937 - 2013 (76 years)
Cynthia Eagle Russett was an American historian, noted for her studies of 19th century American intellectual history, and women and gender. Russett was born Cynthia Eagle in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on February 1, 1937. She studied history as an undergraduate at Trinity College in Washington, D.C., earning a bachelor's degree, and then did graduate work at Yale University, earning a Master's from Yale in 1959 and a Ph.D. from Yale in 1964. Her dissertation was awarded Yale's highest honor for American history dissertations, the George Washington Eggleston Prize.
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Tasha Inniss
#69691
Overall Influence
Tasha Rose Inniss is an American mathematician and the director of education and industry outreach for the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences . Early life and education Inniss was born in New Orleans and grew up without a father. She became interested in mathematics in fourth grade, and decided she would study it as a freshman in high school. She studied mathematics at Xavier University of Louisiana, graduating summa cum laude. In 1992 she was listed in the Who's Who Among Colleges and Universities for her academic achievements. She earned a master's degree in applie...
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M. Patricia Smith
#149014
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
M. Patricia Smith was the Solicitor of the United States Department of Labor, the department's chief law interpreter-enforcer and third-ranking official from 2009 to 2017. She was nominated by President Barack Obama to be the Solicitor of Labor on April 20, 2009. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 4, 2010, assumed her duties on March 1, 2010, had her swearing-in ceremony on April 23, 2010, and remained in office until January 19, 2017. As Solicitor of Labor, Smith oversaw over 450 attorneys across the country and more than 180 Federal labor laws and implementing regulations t...
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Cathie Black
#166968
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Cathleen Prunty "Cathie" Black is a former New York City Schools Chancellor. On April 7, 2011, Black stepped down from her position after 95 days on the job. Her appointment to replace longtime Chancellor Joel Klein was announced on November 9, 2010 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and became effective on January 3, 2011. Black required a waiver to replace Klein, as she did not possess the education administration experience required by New York State's Education Department. She was replaced by New York City Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott.
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Kate Moira Ryan
#171225
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Kate Moira Ryan is an American playwright. Among the plays Ryan has worked on are Leaving Queens; The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, an adaptation of three books by Ann Bannon; Caveweller; and Bass for Picasso.
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