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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Clear Form

List of the most influential people in Medical,

#901

Donald Redelmeier

#52905
Overall Influence
Donald Redelmeier, M.D., M.S., FRCPC, FACP is a Canadian internist, the Canada Research Chair in Medical Decision Sciences and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is most well known for a seminal New England Journal of Medicine paper in 1997 connecting cellphone use and motor vehicle accidents, which has led to laws banning the use of cellphones while driving across the world. He is also known for his work on the peak–end rule and duration neglect. A recent publication showing an increased rate of motor vehicle accidents in patients who refuse vaccination was featured on m...
Go to Profile
#902

Elaine L. Larson

#84376
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
Elaine Lucille Larson is an American infectious disease specialist. As a Professor of Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, she has published four books and more than four hundred articles on the subjects of infection prevention and control, disease epidemiology, and related issues. In 2017, Larson was named a "Living Legend" by the American Academy of Nursing, the Academy's highest honor.
Go to Profile
#903

Jean Delaire

#47284
Overall Influence
1923 - 2022 (99 years)
Jean Guy Eugene Raymond Delaire was a French orthodontist known for developing the Delair Facemask or reverse headgear. This facemask is used to treat children who have maxillary retrognathism and mandibular prognathism.
Go to Profile
#904

Jean Bennett

#63485
Overall Influence
Jean Bennett is the F. M. Kirby Professor of Ophthalmology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on gene therapy for retinal diseases. Her laboratory developed the first FDA approved gene therapy for use in humans, which treats a rare form of blindness. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Go to Profile
#905

John Francis Fowler

#88577
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#906

Sophie Postel-Vinay

#28725
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Sophie Postel-Vinay is a French physician and scientist at the Institut Gustave Roussy where she has led an ATIP-Avenir team since 2018. She works on oncology and the development of new drugs and is an expert in early clinical trials. She was the 2019 winner of the Irène Joliot-Curie Prize in the “young woman scientist” category.
Go to Profile
#907

Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti

#82363
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Pier Cristoforo Giulianotti is an Italian surgeon. He is a Professor of Surgery and Chief of The Division of General, Minimally Invasive, and Robotic Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago. As of 2020 he has performed about 2,100 robotic-assisted surgeries and trained about 2,000 surgeons to perform the same.
Go to Profile
#908

John C. Marshall

#88718
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#909

Pascal J. Goldschmidt

Pascal J. Goldschmidt
#52897
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Pascal J. Goldschmidt-Clermont is a Belgian-American cardiologist and cardiovascular researcher, and former dean of the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. Until January 2016 he also served as chief executive officer of the University of Miami Health System , which includes six hospitals and outpatient facilities in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Monroe and Collier counties.
Go to Profile
#910

Arnold Monto

#86966
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (92 years)
Arnold Monto is an American physician and epidemiologist. At the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Monto is the Thomas Francis, Jr. Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Public Health, professor emeritus of both epidemiology and global public health, and co-director of the Michigan Center for Respiratory Virus Research & Response. His research focuses on the occurrence, prevention, and treatment of viral respiratory infections in industrialized and developing countries' populations.
Go to Profile
#911

Asrat Woldeyes

#35790
Overall Influence
1928 - 1999 (71 years)
Asrat Woldeyes was an Ethiopian surgeon, a professor of medicine at Addis Ababa University, and the founder and leader of the All-Amhara People's Organization . He was jailed by the Derg and later by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front . After his death, The Guardian described him as "successively Ethiopia's most distinguished surgeon, physician and university dean, most controversial political party leader and best known political prisoner".
Go to Profile
#912

Michael N. Pollak

#88966
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#913

John Spengler

#66565
Overall Influence
John Daniel Spengler is an American health scholar currently serving as the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and a faculty member in the Harvard Department of Environmental Science and Public Policy and Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile
#914

Lewis Rowland

#52032
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Lewis Phillip Rowland was an American neurologist. He served as president of the American Neurological Association and the American Academy of Neurology , and was editor of the journal Neurology from 1977 to 1987. He authored over 500 scientific articles, with a research emphasis on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , and muscular dystrophy. He was chair of the neurology department at Columbia University for 25 years, where he established the H. Houston Merritt Clinical Research Center for Muscular Dystrophy and Related Diseases as well as the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center.
Go to Profile
#915

Denis Parsons Burkitt

#89127
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#916

Kumud Dhital

#73022
Overall Influence
Kumud Dhital is a Nepalese cardiothoracic specialist and Heart & Lung Transplant Surgeon at Yashoda Hospitals, Hyderabad, India. Dhital's prior work experience was at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney and, Australia.
Go to Profile
#917

Gerald Gartlehner

#84514
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Gerald Gartlehner is an Austrian physician, health scientist and clinical epidemiologist. Considered a pioneer in the field of evidence-based medicine in Austria, Gartlehner has dedicated much of his career to establishing and promoting the use of evidence syntheses to make sound clinical and health policy decisions. Gartlehner was ranked in the top 1% of highly cited researchers in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Go to Profile
#918

Philip O. Alderson

#66399
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
Philip O. Alderson, M.D. served as Dean of Saint Louis University School of Medicine from 2008 through 2016 and as vice-president for Medical Affairs from 2009 through 2016. He was succeeded in both of these roles by Kevin Behrns, M.D. on January 1, 2017. He was formerly James Picker Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Radiologist-in-Chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center and President of the Medical Board at New York-Presbyterian. Alderson currently is chair of the Board of Di...
Go to Profile
#919

Liebe Sokol Diamond

#70084
Overall Influence
1931 - 2017 (86 years)
Liebe Sokol Diamond was an American pediatric orthopedic surgeon and an inductee of the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame. Biography Diamond was born in 1931 at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, the only child of Max Sokol, a lawyer, and Anne Hirschhorn Sokol, a Hebrew Teacher. She was born with constriction ring syndrome, a congenital abnormality causing the loss of several of her fingers and toes before birth. She underwent more than 25 surgical procedures before reaching the age of 13. In addition to traditional surgical methods, she also visited “Emerson’s farm”, where young calves sucke...
Go to Profile
#920

Jonathan Samet

#81684
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (79 years)
Jonathan Michael Samet is an American pulmonary physician and epidemiologist who serves as dean of the Colorado School of Public Health. He is also the chair of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee of the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration.
Go to Profile
#921

Nelson M. Oyesiku

#35388
Overall Influence
Nelson M. Oyesiku is a Nigerian-American professor of neurosurgery and endocrinology. With a specialty in pituitary medicine and surgery, currently, he is the chair of the department of Neurological Surgery and Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. he has been editor-in-chief of Neurosurgery, Operative Neurosurgery, and Neurosurgery Open. He was previously chair of the American Board of Neurological Surgery, among other organizations.
Go to Profile
#922

Julia Buckingham

#13085
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Julia Clare Buckingham is a British pharmacologist, academic and academic administrator. She is the former Vice Chancellor of Brunel University London, UK. Early life Buckingham was born on 18 October 1950. She attended St Mary's School, Calne from 1960 to 1968. She then studied zoology at the University of Sheffield from 1968 - 1971. She received her PhD degree in pharmacology at the University of London, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine. In 1987, she received her DSc degree from the same university.
Go to Profile
#923

Helen Danesh-Meyer

#35277
Overall Influence
Helen Victoria Danesh-Meyer is a New Zealand ophthalmology academic, and as of 2018 is a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After an undergraduate at the University of Otago followed by a 2004 MD titled 'The evaluation of diagnostic procedures, visual outcome and optic nerve morphology in giant cell arteritis' and a 2013 PhD titled 'Evaluation of optic nerve morphology in non-glaucomatous optic neuropathies with quantitative optic nerve imaging modalities' at the University of Auckland, Danesh-Meyer joined the staff at Auckland, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile
#924

Doris Calloway

#50940
Overall Influence
1923 - 2001 (78 years)
Doris Calloway, née Howes was an American nutritionist noted for her studies of human metabolism, role in public health, and food preservation and safety. Early life and education Born Doris Howes in Canton, Ohio, to Earl Howes and Lillian Roberts, both private investigators, she went to high school in East Canton and graduated as valedictorian. Though she wanted to study medicine, her family could not afford it and she studied dietetics at Ohio State University, graduating in 1943 with a bachelor's degree. She attended the University of Chicago for her doctoral studies and earned her Ph.D. i...
Go to Profile
#925

Emeran A Mayer

#89604
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#926

Yoshio Yazaki

#89649
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#927

Gunther Hartmann

Gunther Hartmann
#37211
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Gunther Hartmann is a German immunologist and clinical pharmacologist. Since 2007 he has been the Director of the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital of the University of Bonn.
Go to Profile
#928

Charlotte Watts

Charlotte Watts
#56778
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Charlotte Helen Watts, is a British mathematician, epidemiologist, and academic. Since 2006, she has been Professor of Social and Mathematical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She was also the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department for International Development from 2015 to 2020. Her research interests include HIV and gender-based violence.
Go to Profile
#929

Donald Burke

#78377
Overall Influence
Donald S. Burke is an expert on the prevention, diagnosis, and control of infectious diseases of global concern. He is a distinguished University Professor of Health Science and Policy at the University of Pittsburgh.
Go to Profile
#930

Krzysztof Palczewski

#89931
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#931

David A. Prince

#89967
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (93 years)
Go to Profile
#932

Kenneth R. Chien

#77255
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Kenneth R. Chien is an American doctor and medical scientist who has been a research director at Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, since 2013. Chien has several papers with over 1,000 citations and a h-index of 132. His area of expertise is cardiovascular science. His research into regenerative cardiovascular medicine, specifically while director of the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, led to his co-founding, in 2010, of ModeRNA Therapeutics. In 2018, the company re-branded as Moderna, Inc. Chien is a recipient of the Walter Bradford Cannon Award of the American Physiology Society and the Pasarow Award.
Go to Profile
#933

David Smith

#90083
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#934

Elizabeth Ofili

#42139
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Elizabeth Odilile Ofili is a Nigerian-American physician and cardiology researcher. She was the first woman to become president of the Association of Black Cardiologists. Early life and education Ofili was born and raised in Nigeria, and attended Ahmadu Bello University for medical school. She moved to the United States in 1982 and earned a master's of public health from Johns Hopkins University in 1983. She completed her postgraduate education in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Go to Profile
#935

Penny M. Kris-Etherton

#90025
Overall Influence
Penny Margaret Kris-Etherton is an American dietitian. She is the Evan Pugh University Professor of Nutritional Sciences and Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at Pennsylvania State University. Early life and education Kris-Etherton completed her Bachelor of Science degree at Rochester Institute of Technology before enrolling at Case Western Reserve University for her Master of Science degree. She concluded her post-secondary education at the University of Minnesota. In 1987, Kris-Etherton was recognized by Case Western as an Outstanding Alumni. In 2017, Kris-Etherton was recognized as a Dis...
Go to Profile
#936

Hans-Christoph Pape

#87332
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Hans-Christoph Pape is a German surgeon and trauma surgeon and was appointed full professor of traumatology at the Medical Faculty of the University of Zurich on 31 October 2016, effective 1 February 2017. He heads the Department of Traumatology at the University Hospital Zurich. In particular, his research on polytrauma, pelvic fractures and severe joint injuries helped him to achieve a high international profile. From 2005 to 2009, he was head of the trauma surgery department at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center , Pittsburgh, USA. From 2009 to 2016, he was head of the Department of Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery at the University Hospital RWTH Aachen.
Go to Profile
#937

Allan I. Levey

#90194
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#938

John D. Lantos

#43868
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
John D. Lantos is an American pediatrician and a leading expert in medical ethics. He is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine and Director of the Children's Mercy Bioethics Center at Children's Mercy Hospital.
Go to Profile
#939

Arnold M. Katz

#90258
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#940

Mohammed Aboul-Fotouh Hassab

#35600
Overall Influence
1913 - 2000 (87 years)
Mohammed Aboul-Fotouh Hassab was an Egyptian gastro-intestinal surgeon. He is known for the description of his operation Hassab's decongestion operation for the treatment of oesophageal varices as a result of portal hypertension. Hassab was one of the surgery professors in medical school at Alexandria University in Egypt.
Go to Profile
#941

Paul P. Carbone

#90270
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#942

Arthur H. Hayes Jr.

Arthur H. Hayes Jr.
#55939
Overall Influence
1933 - 2010 (77 years)
Arthur Hull Hayes Jr. was an American pharmacologist, medical educator and administrator who served as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration from 1981 to 1983. Early life Hayes was the son of Arthur Hayes Sr. and Florence Gruber Hayes. He has two sisters and one brother. His father was the president of CBS Radio.
Go to Profile
#943

Lee Guk-jong

#57976
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Lee Guk-jong is a South Korean doctor. As a surgeon specializing in trauma, he is South Korea's leading authority in the treatment of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, and gunshot wounds. He won "The Person Who Brightened the World" award in November 2017. Lee Guk-jong leads the trauma surgery team at Ajou University Hospital.
Go to Profile
#944

Thomas Unger

#90436
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#945

Elliot Vesell

#86313
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Elliot Saul Vesell was an American pharmacologist. A New York City native born on December 24, 1933, Vesell attended Horace Mann School and Philips Exeter Academy before enrolling at Harvard University, where he studied American literature and history. Vesell then earned a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed postdoctoral research at Rockefeller University. After a stint at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Vesell worked for the National Institutes of Health. George T. Harrell invited Vesell to join the faculty of Pennsylvania State University in 1968 as founding chair of the Department of Pharmacology.
Go to Profile
#946

Melvin D. Cheitlin

#90537
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#947

Bradley F. Boeve

#90560
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#948

David Gunnell

#87702
Overall Influence
David J. Gunnell is an English epidemiologist and suicidologist who is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Bristol. He was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2014 and received the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's Research Award in 2015. He is also an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.
Go to Profile
#949

Roderick j. Flower

#90644
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#950

Susan Jebb

#84528
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Susan Ann Jebb is Chair of the United Kingdom's Food Standards Agency and Professor of Diet and Population Health at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. Career In 2008, Jebb was awarded an OBE for services to public health. In 2015, she was criticised in an investigation by the British Medical Journal for her closeness to the sugar industry. In 2018, she was appointed Fellow of the Medical Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile