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,

#1851

Brett Kissela

#120902
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Brett Mancos Kissela is an American vascular neurologist. He is the Senior Associate Dean of Clinical Research, Chief of Research Services for UC Health, and the Albert Barnes Voorheis Endowed Chair and Professor.
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#1852

Jung-Min Lee

#79492
Overall Influence
Jung-Min Lee is a South Korean-American medical oncologist and physician-scientist focused on the early clinical drug development and translational studies of targeted agents in BRCA mutation-associated breast or ovarian cancer, high-grade epithelial ovarian cancer, and triple-negative breast cancer. She is a NIH Lasker Clinical Research Scholar and principal investigator in the Women's Malignancies Branch at the National Cancer Institute.
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#1853

Levi Alexander Garraway

#121238
Overall Influence
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#1854

Jon M. Hanifin

#121263
Overall Influence
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#1855

Gary N. Holland

#121276
Overall Influence
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#1856

Randy D. Blakely

#121282
Overall Influence
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#1857

Yoshiki Tokura

#121291
Overall Influence
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#1858

Habibul Ahsan

#121328
Overall Influence
Habibul Ahsan is a Bangladeshi epidemiologist. Ahsan was born in Bangladesh. After earning his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Dhaka in 1989, Ahsan completed a master's in medical science at the University of Western Australia in 1992. He conducted postdoctoral research in molecular epidemiology at Columbia University from 1993 to 1995. In 2018, the University of Chicago appointed Ahsan to the Louis Block Distinguished Service Professorship within the Department of Public Health Sciences.
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#1859

Richard S. Crampton

#102540
Overall Influence
Richard Savington Crampton is a professor emeritus of cardiology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. He was involved in the development of coronary care ambulances. Crampton was born in Norwalk, Connecticut on September 29, 1931. He studied for three years as an undergraduate at Princeton University, but enrolled in medical school at the University of Virginia without finishing his bachelor's degree. He graduated with a MD in 1956. He trained in internal medicine after medical school and specialized in cardiology at St. Luke's Hospital in New York and St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London.
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#1860

Thomas Rea

#105294
Overall Influence
1929 - 2016 (87 years)
Thomas Herald Rea was an American dermatologist known for his research into treatments for leprosy. Early life Rea was born in 1929 in Three Rivers, Michigan. He graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor's medical school, where he also completed his dermatology residency.
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#1861

Ernest B. Hook

#121438
Overall Influence
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#1862

Kylie Ball

#121441
Overall Influence
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#1863

Dawn Edge

#100892
Overall Influence
Dawnette Ethilda Edge is a British medical researcher who is a Professor of Mental Health and Inclusivity at the University of Manchester. Her research investigates racial inequalities in mental health, including the origins of the overdiagnosis of schizophrenia in British African-Caribbean people.
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#1864

Geoffrey Gaddis Hallock

#121462
Overall Influence
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#1865

Virginia D. Steen

#121528
Overall Influence
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#1866

Jennifer Thorne

#107454
Overall Influence
Jennifer Elizabeth Thorne is an American ophthalmologist and epidemiologist. She is the Cross Family Professor of Ophthalmology and a professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. Education Thorne graduated in 1991 with a bachelor of science, magna cum laude, at College of William & Mary. She completed a doctor of medicine at University of Virginia School of Medicine in 1996. She was an intern in medicine at University of Maryland, Baltimore from 1996 to 1997. From 1997 to 2000, she was a resident at Scheie Eye Institute. She was the chief resident from 1999 to 2000. Thorne completed a doctor of philosophy in epidemiology in 2006 from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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#1867

J. Lawton Smith

#121575
Overall Influence
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#1868

Erling Falk

#121583
Overall Influence
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#1869

Pierre L. Lasjaunias

#121600
Overall Influence
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#1870

László Vécsei

László Vécsei
#121642
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
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#1871

Ossama Al‐mefty

#121662
Overall Influence
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#1872

Judith Jacobson

#88312
Overall Influence
Judith Jacobson is Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Education Jacobson is a 1964 graduate of Pembroke College in Brown University. She holds an MBA, MPH, and DrPH from Columbia University.
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#1873

Antonella Zanobetti

#121737
Overall Influence
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#1874

Harold S. Nelson

#121826
Overall Influence
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#1875

Heinz R. Reichmann

#121836
Overall Influence
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#1876

Stefan S. Blankenberg

#121884
Overall Influence
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#1877

Christopher A. Walsh

#121963
Overall Influence
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#1878

Robyn Leigh Tanguay

#83106
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
Robyn Leigh Tanguay is an American researcher, academic and educator. She is a distinguished professor in the department of environmental and molecular toxicology at Oregon State University. She is the director of Superfund Research Program, the director of Pacific Northwest Center for Translational Environmental Health Research and the director of Sinnhuber Aquatic Research Laboratory at OSU.
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#1879

Paul C. Gillette

#122040
Overall Influence
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#1880

Fares Sami Haddad

#122086
Overall Influence
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#1881

Jerry D. Gardner

#122093
Overall Influence
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#1882

Richard Brian Rothman

#122098
Overall Influence
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#1883

Brian Jarrett Mcmahon

#122107
Overall Influence
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#1884

Sagar Lonial

#122119
Overall Influence
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#1885

Charles Montague Fletcher

#122157
Overall Influence
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#1886

Cornelius Odarquaye Quarcoopome

#83369
Overall Influence
1924 - 2003 (79 years)
Cornelius Odarquaye Quarcoopome, was a Ghanaian physician and academic. He was an ophthalmologist and professor at the University of Ghana Medical School. He and others have been described as pioneers of the medical profession in Ghana.
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#1887

Robert V. Tauxe

#122319
Overall Influence
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#1888

Robert W. Jr. Beart

#122366
Overall Influence
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#1889

Stephen Boonen

#122369
Overall Influence
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#1890

Raymond R. Townsend

#122375
Overall Influence
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#1891

Nisreen Alwan

#111468
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Nisreen Ala-Din A. S. Alwan MBE is a British–Iraqi public health researcher who is a professor of Public Health at the University of Southampton. Her research considers maternal and child health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alwan used social media to communicate public health messages and to call for long covid to be counted and measured. In 2020, Alwan was selected as one of the BBC's top 100 Women.
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#1892

Curtis L. Meinert

#86379
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (91 years)
Curtis Lynea Meinert was an American clinical trialist. He was a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Life Meinert was born on June 30, 1934, on a farm outside Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. His parents were Mabel Eleanor Christensen and Arthur August Edward Meinert. He was raised in rural Minnesota. He completed a B.A. in psychology from the University of Minnesota in 1956. He earned a doctor of philosophy in statistics at University of Minnesota in 1964. His dissertation was titled Quantitation of the isotope displacement of immunoassay of insulin.
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#1893

Martha Clare Morris

#95821
Overall Influence
1955 - 2020 (65 years)
Martha Clare Morris was an American nutritional epidemiologist who studied the link between diet and Alzheimer's disease. She led a team of researchers at the Rush University Medical Center to develop the MIND diet.
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#1894

Morris Leider

#122469
Overall Influence
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#1895

Richard F. Hamman

#122548
Overall Influence
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#1896

Matthias Endres

#122632
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
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#1897

Stephen S. Burkhart

#122677
Overall Influence
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#1898

Arne May

#122738
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
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#1899

Robert R.m. Kliegman

#122751
Overall Influence
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#1900

Jonathan Golledge

#122761
Overall Influence
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