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 in Medical,
#1551
Sherene Loi
#104095
Overall Influence
Sherene Loi is an Australian oncologist. She is the 2021 winner of the Australian Prime Ministers Prize for Science, in the category of Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year. Loi is Head of Translational Breast Cancer Research, within the Peter Macallum Cancer Centre. Loi's research has advanced understanding into breast cancer, developing and implementing an immune system biomarker. This biomarker will enable improved management for people with advanced cancer. This biomarker is now part of routine pathology reporting across many countries and also is included in the World Health ...
Go to Profile#1552
Karen Canfell
#90525
Overall Influence
Karen Canfell is an Australian epidemiologist and cancer researcher. After being awarded a D.Phil. from Oxford in 2004 with a thesis entitled Use of hormone replacement therapy as a potential co-factor in the neoplastic progression of HPV-related cervical disease, Canfell returned to Australia to work for the Cancer Council in Sydney where she continued to work on cervical cancer in particular and all its ramifications, as well as the epidemiology of breast, and other cancers.
Go to Profile#1553
Debasis Bagchi
#112797
Overall Influence
#1554
Jean‐pierre Benhamou
#112829
Overall Influence
#1555
Keiichi Sasaki
#112834
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
#1556
Patricia Priest
#72011
Overall Influence
Patricia Priest is a New Zealand public health scientist and epidemiologist who is Professor of Public Health in Medicine at the University of Otago. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Priest served as an advisor to the New Zealand Ministry of Health. She was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2010.
Go to Profile#1557
Alex Karczmar
#102173
Overall Influence
1917 - 2017 (100 years)
Alexander George Karczmar , was a Polish-American neuroscientist and academic. He was tenured for 30 years as professor and chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Loyola University of Chicago Medical Center, and director of its Institute for Mind, Drugs and Behavior.
Go to Profile#1558
Fred R. Hirsch
#112971
Overall Influence
#1559
Hani N. Sabbah
#112986
Overall Influence
#1560
Gabriel G. Nahas
#112988
Overall Influence
#1561
Dimitri Alexander Christakis
#108996
Overall Influence
Dimitri Alexander Christakis is an American pediatrician, researcher, and author from Seattle, Washington. Education Christakis received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Yale University, a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Public Health Degree from the University of Washington.
Go to Profile#1562
David M. Lovinger
#113013
Overall Influence
#1563
Giampiero Girolomoni
#113034
Overall Influence
#1564
Adukwei Hesse
#62855
Overall Influence
Ian Frederick Adukwei Hesse, is a Ghanaian academic, physician and a Presbyterian minister. He was on the faculty at the Department of Physiology at the University of Ghana Medical School, a consultant physician as well as a co-founder and the Vice President of Accra College of Medicine. He was formerly assistant secretary and later vice-president of the Ghana Medical Association. He is an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. He is involved in prison reform and ministry in Ghana.
Go to Profile#1565
Murray Enkin
#100842
Overall Influence
Murray W. Enkin was a Canadian physician and writer. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, and studied medicine at the University of Toronto and later specialized as an obstetrician and gynaecologist at Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn. He was a professor, philosopher, activist, public speaker and author, who contributed to the fields of maternal care and childbirth, and evidence-based medicine.
Go to Profile#1566
Christina Annunziata
#95199
Overall Influence
Christina Messineo Annunziata is an American medical oncologist researching molecular signal transduction in ovarian cancer. She is an investigator in the National Cancer Institute's women's malignancies branch and head of the translational genomics section.
Go to Profile#1567
Frank Z. Stanczyk
#113078
Overall Influence
#1568
Steven S. Coughlin
#74493
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Steven Coughlin is an American epidemiologist and author who received international attention for his Congressional testimony in support of U.S. veterans. At the time of this entry, he is a tenured Professor of Epidemiology at Augusta University in Augusta, GA. Coughlin has published over 366 scientific articles and was the lead author of the first and second editions of Case Studies in Public Health Ethics, and lead editor of the first, second, and third editions of Ethics and Epidemiology. In addition, Coughlin was the author of The Principle of Equal Abundance, The Nature of Principles, ...
Go to Profile#1569
Edward H. Lambert
#113094
Overall Influence
#1570
Donna M. Mancini
#113125
Overall Influence
#1571
Ravindra Laxman Thatte
#99366
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Dr. Ravin Laxman Thatte is a doyen a professor in the field of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, a teacher to most plastic surgeons in India, an Indian philosopher and an active environmentalist. Early life and education Thatte's father Laxman was a surgeon in the Indian Medical Service and his mother, Kusum Maydeo, was a social worker and short story writer. He studied in several schools in the state of Maharashtra, passed his intermediate science examination from the Willingdon College, Sangli and completed M.B.B.S, and M.S. from Topiwala National Medical College, Mumbai.
Go to Profile#1572
Jolyon H. Hendry
#113235
Overall Influence
#1573
Henrica. C. W. De Vet
#113237
Overall Influence
#1574
John D. Reveille
#113242
Overall Influence
#1575
Stephen J. Peroutka
#113280
Overall Influence
#1576
Claudio Fiocchi
#113448
Overall Influence
#1577
Simon Nicholas Cousens
#113459
Overall Influence
#1578
George V. Mann
#113476
Overall Influence
#1579
Lynne D. Richardson
#102599
Overall Influence
Lynne Doreen Richardson is an American emergency physician and health services researcher. She is a professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Richardson is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#1580
Olle Hagnell
#80138
Overall Influence
1924 - 2011 (87 years)
Eric Olof "Olle" Hagnell was a Swedish psychiatrist and epidemiologist. Hagnell was born in Halmstad, Sweden on July 29, 1924 to Eric Hagnell, an editor-in-chief, and Ruth Hagnell. During his doctoral studies, he worked as an assistant physician in Lund and as a research assistant at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Cornell University in New York. In 1966, he received a doctoral degree in psychiatry from Lund University. After completing his doctoral program, Hagnell became a docent and worked as a visiting professor at Columbia University in New York. In 1974, he was promoted ...
Go to Profile#1581
Edward J. Mills
#113541
Overall Influence
#1582
Edward W. Gregg
#113567
Overall Influence
#1583
Karel G. M. Moons
#113618
Overall Influence
#1584
John Dent,
#113620
Overall Influence
#1585
Alan Brash
#102791
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Alan Richard Brash is a professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. He is a leading authority on the biosynthesis of prostoglandins and eicosanoids. Biography Education Brash was educated at Strathallan School near Perth, Scotland and Downing College, Cambridge, where he was elected a scholar. He graduated with a BA in medical sciences in 1970 and proceeded to the University of Edinburgh to study for his PhD, graduating in 1976. Brash was then appointed a research fellow in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. Thereafter, he ...
Go to Profile#1586
Carlos del Rio
#97386
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (66 years)
Carlos del Rio is a distinguished professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. He is also a professor of global health and epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, executive associate dean of Emory University School of Medicine at Grady Health System and co-director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and was elected as its foreign secretary in 2020. In 2022, del Rio became president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
Go to Profile#1587
Khoo Boo-chai
#113670
Overall Influence
#1588
Susan Bewley
#57118
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Susan Jane Bewley is a British consultant obstetrician, and Emeritus Professor of Obstetric and Women's Health at King's College London. Born in Ireland and qualified from London, she specialised in complicated births and severe maternal morbidity. Her main research areas have been on severe maternal diseases and violence in pregnancy, with other work in fertility and intrapartum guidance with the National Institute of Clinical Excellence . In addition, she has been involved with several charities.
Go to Profile#1589
Mark Groudine
#113754
Overall Influence
Mark Groudine is an American radiation oncologist currently at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also served on the Life Sciences jury for the Infosys Prize in 2015.
Go to Profile#1590
Robert Clarke
#95968
Overall Influence
Robert Clarke is a Northern Irish oncology researcher and academic administrator. He is the executive director of The Hormel Institute, a professor of biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at the University of Minnesota, and an adjunct professor of oncology at Georgetown University.
Go to Profile#1591
I. Glenn Sipes
#113810
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
#1592
Marjorie G. Horning
#50571
Overall Influence
1917 - 2020 (103 years)
Marjorie Janice Groothuis Horning was an American biochemist and pharmacologist. She was considered to be a pioneer of chromatography for her work in developing new techniques and applying them to the study of drug metabolism. She demonstrated that drugs and their metabolites can be transferred from a pregnant woman to her developing child, and later through breast milk, from a mother to a baby. Horning's work made possible the prevention of birth defects, as doctors began to warn of the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and smoking during pregnancy.
Go to Profile#1593
William Z. Potter
#113824
Overall Influence
#1594
Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu
#64756
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (51 years)
Etheldreda Nakimuli-Mpungu is a professor, researcher, epidemiologist and psychiatrist at the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine, Makerere University in Uganda. Her research is particularly focused on supportive group psychotherapy as a first-line treatment for depression in people with HIV. She is one of only five recipients of the Elsevier Foundation Award for Early Career Women Scientists in the Developing World in Biological Sciences, as well as listed at one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2020.
Go to Profile#1595
R. Rajalakshmi
#48154
Overall Influence
1926 - 2007 (81 years)
R. Rajalakshmi was an Indian biochemist and nutritionist. She developed nutritious, economical diets for Indian families. Biography Lakshmi Ramaswami Iyer was born in 1926 in Quilon, Kerala to Meenakshi and G.S. Ramaswami Iyer. She added Raja to her given name at the age of five and grew up in Madras, where her father was employed as a postal audit officer.
Go to Profile#1596
Howard Judd
#75109
Overall Influence
1935 - 2007 (72 years)
Howard Lund Judd was an American physician and medical researcher. He specialized in obstetrics and gynaecology, and contributed significant research to the field of women's health, in particular about menopause and hormone replacement therapy.
Go to Profile#1597
Steven Whitman
#75269
Overall Influence
1943 - 2014 (71 years)
Steven "Steve" Whitman was an American social epidemiologist and public health researcher. Early life and education Whitman grew up in a poor household in Brooklyn, New York. He received his master's degree in biometrics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964, followed by a master's degree in biostatistics from Yale University in 1968. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in biostatistics from Yale in 1969.
Go to Profile#1598
William A. Rutala
#113868
Overall Influence
#1599
Jay L. Grosfeld
#113883
Overall Influence
#1600
Theodore Locke Phillips
#114061
Overall Influence
