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,
#1751
Miriam J. Alter
#118658
Overall Influence
#1752
Filippo Drago
#116259
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
Filippo Drago is an Italian pharmacologist, neurologist and psychiatrist. He is a professor of pharmacology at the University of Catania, Italy. Filippo Drago has several patents in the field of pharmacology and is author of more than 500 papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
Go to Profile#1753
Michel P. Ducreux
#118675
Overall Influence
#1754
Igor Klatzo
#118680
Overall Influence
#1755
Massimo Piepoli
#118716
Overall Influence
#1756
Stuart S. Sherman
#118719
Overall Influence
#1757
Takanori Fukushima
#99628
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
is a Japanese neurosurgeon, a prominent world authority in the treatment of brain tumors. He graduated from Tokyo University and is currently performing surgeries at WakeMed Raleigh and Duke University Hospital, North Carolina, USA.
Go to Profile#1758
Aldo R. Castañeda
#118797
Overall Influence
#1759
Shamil Omarov
#108597
Overall Influence
1936 - 2020 (84 years)
Shamil Magomedovich Omarov was a Russian pharmacologist, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Distinguished Professor of the Dagestan State Medical University , Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Dagestan, Chairman of the Society of Pharmacologists of the Dagestan, Member of the Russian Union of Writers. Honored Scientist of the Dagestan . In 2016, in the Dagestankaya Pravda named him "The Leader of Dagestan pharmacology and apitherapy".
Go to Profile#1760
Donald Patrick Mcdonnell
#118828
Overall Influence
#1761
Bernard W. Agranoff
#118848
Overall Influence
#1762
José Angel Obeso
#118892
Overall Influence
#1763
Míchael Landthaler
#118905
Overall Influence
#1764
Marcia G. Ory
#106620
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Marcia G. Ory is an American gerontologist with a background in Social Sciences, Public Health and Aging. She is a Regents and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Texas A&M School of Public Health. Ory also serves as the director of the Texas A&M Board of Regents Center for Population Health and Aging.
Go to Profile#1765
Daniel M. Albert
#100194
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (89 years)
Daniel M. Albert is an American ophthalmologist, ocular cancer researcher, medical historian, and collector of rare books and ocular equipment. As of 2018, he is Professor of Ophthalmology at the Casey Eye Institute, Oregon Health & Science University.
Go to Profile#1766
Petros I. Nihoyannopoulos
#118918
Overall Influence
#1767
R. Howard Mole
#118960
Overall Influence
#1768
Sharon Goldfeld
#114113
Overall Influence
Sharon Goldfeld is a paediatrician and public health physician, who is Director of the Centre for Community and Child Health at the Royal Children's Hospital, Co-Group Leader of the Policy and Equity Research Group, and Theme Director, Population Health, at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.
Go to Profile#1769
Olanike Adeyemo
#101549
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (55 years)
Olanike Kudirat Adeyemo is a Nigerian professor of veterinary public health and preventive medicine at the University of Ibadan. Olanike was appointed by the Oyo State Government Under Engr. Seyi Makinde as the Secretary to the State Government on 25 July 2023.
Go to Profile#1770
Kenneth Dickstein
#119024
Overall Influence
#1771
David F. Penson
#119090
Overall Influence
#1772
Edward L. Schneider
#31311
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (85 years)
Edward L. Schneider is a Professor of Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Professor of Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, with a joint appointment in biological sciences and molecular biology at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#1773
James A. Richardson
#119104
Overall Influence
#1774
Christobel Saunders
#110348
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Christobel Mary Saunders is a British-Australian oncologist and breast cancer specialist, who holds the position of Winthrop Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Western Australia. Education and career Saunders completed her medical training at the University of London, taking her Bachelor of Science with Distinction in 1986. In 1987, she won a Royal Society of Medicine Travelling Scholarship, before becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1991. Her early career was spent at hospitals in London and south east England, including Newham and Whipps Cross Hospitals....
Go to Profile#1775
Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp
#65523
Overall Influence
Marshalyn Yeargin-Allsopp is a medical epidemiologist and chief of the developmental disabilities branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she has worked since 1981. She is also an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory University. She is the great-niece of Benjamin Mays, former president of Morehouse College.
Go to Profile#1776
Rafael Rodríguez Mercado
#106301
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Rafael Rodríguez Mercado is a Puerto Rican neurosurgeon and military officer. He was the Secretary of Health of Puerto Rico from 2017 until his resignation in 2020. Rodríguez Mercado previously served as chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus.
Go to Profile#1777
Bernhard Maisch
#119206
Overall Influence
#1778
Gordon Stewart
#117796
Overall Influence
1919 - 2016 (97 years)
Gordon Thallon Stewart was a Scottish epidemiologist and public health physician who served as the Henry Mechan Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow from 1972 to 1984. Early life and education Stewart was born on 5 February 1919 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1939 with a BSc degree. He later received an MB, ChB, and MD from the University of Glasgow in 1942, 1942, and 1949, respectively; he also received a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene from the University of Liverpool in 1948.
Go to Profile#1779
Tom Inglesby
#83869
Overall Influence
Thomas Vincent Inglesby Jr. is an American epidemiologist. He is the Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Early life and education Inglesby earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Georgetown University in 1988 and his medical degree from Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1992. He then completed his residency and fellowship in infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#1780
Kenneth John O’byrne
#119234
Overall Influence
#1781
Julia Hippisley-Cox
#119246
Overall Influence
Usage Julia Hippisley-Cox is a British epidemiologist, and Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and General Practice at the University of Oxford. Hippisley-Cox earned a medical degree from Sheffield University Medical School in 1989.
Go to Profile#1782
Abdallah Daar
#73614
Overall Influence
Dr. Abdallah Daar is an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Public Health, Global Health, and Surgery at the University of Toronto. He has also been a Senior Scientist at the Research Institutes of University Health Network/Toronto General Hospital Research Institute, and the Hospital for SickKids. At the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, from 2001 to 2007, he was co-director of the Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health, and Director of the University of Toronto Program in Applied Ethics and Biotechnology. At the Sandra Rotman Centre, he was Director of Ethics and Commercia...
Go to Profile#1783
Patrick Forrest
#114809
Overall Influence
1923 - 2021 (98 years)
Sir Andrew Patrick McEwen Forrest was a Scottish surgeon. After qualifying in medicine from the University of St Andrews and completing a Fellowship at the Mayo in Rochester, Minnesota, he took up surgical posts first in Glasgow, then in Wales, followed by a position as Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#1784
Ciaran Patrick Kelly
#119383
Overall Influence
#1785
Ernst E. Van Der Wall
#119409
Overall Influence
#1786
Thomas Francis Burks
#119497
Overall Influence
#1787
Toshihiko Osawa
#119499
Overall Influence
#1788
Suzanne Marie Garland
#119506
Overall Influence
#1789
Ana Bedran-Russo
#81530
Overall Influence
Ana Bedran-Russo is Associate Dean for Research and Professor and Department Head of the Department of Oral Biology and at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Dentistry. Life Originally from Brazil, Bedran-Russo earned her DDS at the Araçatuba School of Dentistry in São Paulo; her MS in operative dentistry/clinical sciences at Piracicaba; and her PhD in dental material sciences at Piracicaba. She came to the United States in 2001 as a visiting research scholar to develop research in biomaterials at University of North Carolina.
Go to Profile#1790
Colleen A. Mchorney
#119524
Overall Influence
#1791
Michael Eddleston
#119601
Overall Influence
#1792
Kathryn North
#103375
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Kathryn Nance North is a paediatric physician, neurologist, and clinical geneticist. In 2013, she was appointed Director of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and was named the David Danks Professor of Child Health Research at the University of Melbourne. In 2012, North was appointed chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council Research Committee. In 2014, she was appointed vice chair of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health and co-chair of its Clinical Working Group.
Go to Profile#1793
Judith Clements
#106450
Overall Influence
Judith Ann Clements is an Australian academic and educator, specializing in Kallikrein proteases in prostate and ovarian cancers. Clements is the scientific director at the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre – Queensland and was head of the Cancer Research Program at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation of Queensland University of Technology at the Translational Research Institute from 1997–2014.
Go to Profile#1794
Eleni Aklillu
#46698
Overall Influence
Eleni Aklillu is an Ethiopian senior research scientist and research group leader at the Karolinska Institute. She is also a professor of tropical pharmacology at the same institute. She is a Fellow of The Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh , and a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and the laureate of the Donald Mackay Medal.
Go to Profile#1795
John E. Jr. Mayer
#119738
Overall Influence
#1796
Irene Cybulsky
#81111
Overall Influence
Irene Cybulsky is a Canadian lawyer and former cardiac surgeon. She was the first woman in Canada to be appointed head of a cardiac surgery division. After being dismissed from this position, she "represent[ed] herself in a human rights tribunal case against her former hospital", which was ultimately successful.
Go to Profile#1797
A. R. Richens
#119772
Overall Influence
#1798
Claudia Kawas
#94223
Overall Influence
Claudia H. Kawas is an American neurologist. As the Al and Trish Nichols Chair in clinical neurology at the University of California, Irvine, Kawas established the Leisure World Cohort Study to monitor the health and well-being of people 90 and older in Laguna Woods, California.
Go to Profile#1799
Douglas R. Galasko
#119821
Overall Influence
#1800
Mitsuhiro Osame
#119845
Overall Influence
