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,
#1901
Martin C. Gulliford
#122820
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
#1902
Anton Sculean
#122835
Overall Influence
#1903
Gordon B. Jr. Cutler
#122849
Overall Influence
#1904
Dirk Dressler
#117395
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Konrad Karl Erich Bodo Wilhelm Dirk Dressler is a German neurologist and psychiatrist. He is Full Professor of Neurology at Hannover Medical School. His research focus is neurological movement disorders and the development and introduction of the botulinum toxin therapy.
Go to Profile#1905
Laurent Lantieri
#80834
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Laurent Lantieri is a French plastic surgeon who is a pioneer in the field of face transplantation. He performed the first second and third full face transplants. He was the first person to do a second face transplant on the same patient in 2018.
Go to Profile#1906
Harvey R. Colten.
#122962
Overall Influence
#1907
Frans M. J. Debruyne
#122974
Overall Influence
#1908
Kaumudi Joshipura
#110444
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Kaumudi Jinraj Joshipura is an Indian American Epidemiologist, Biostatistician, Dentist & Scientist. She is Adjunct Full Professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University and NIH Endowed Chair and Director of the Center for Clinical Research and Health Promotion and a Full Professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus. Her research work has been covered by global media including CNN, ABC, NBC, NHS, Newsweek, Nature, Telegraph, Japanese Journals and Japanese TV etc.
Go to Profile#1909
Isabelle Rapin
#123116
Overall Influence
#1910
Diana. B. Petitti
#123160
Overall Influence
#1911
John W. Ayers
#42534
Overall Influence
John W. Ayers is an adjunct associate professor and epidemiologist at University of California, San Diego, affiliated both with the university's School of Medicine and its Qualcomm Institute. He researches in the field of public health informatics and the use of social media data in detecting behavioral health trends. His public health research expertise is in studying the circulation of information online. Trained in both political science and data science, he has published in medical journals including Journal of the American Medical Association, JAMA Internal Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, and American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Go to Profile#1912
Kenneth R. Kenyon
#123249
Overall Influence
#1913
Corinna Hawkes
#38176
Overall Influence
Corinna Hawkes is a specialist in food systems. She is Director, Division of Food Systems and Food Safety for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations . Between 2016 and 2023 she was Director, Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London. She is also Co-Founder of the Next Generation Leadership Collective.
Go to Profile#1914
Mark O. M. Tso
#123254
Overall Influence
#1915
Antony Galione
#95916
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Antony Giuseppe Galione is a British pharmacologist. He is a professor and Wellcome Trust senior investigator in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Antony Giuseppe Galione was born on 13 September 1963 in Chelmsford, England, to Angelo and Margaret Galione. He was educated at Felsted School in Essex and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1985 followed by a PhD in 1989 for research on calcium signalling in the salivary gland of the blowfly, supervised by Michael Berridge.
Go to Profile#1916
Wendy S. Post
#118496
Overall Influence
Wendy Susan Post is an American cardiologist. She is the Director of Cardiovascular Research for the Division of Cardiology and Director of Research for the Hopkins Cardiovascular Fellowship Training Program.
Go to Profile#1917
Folke Sjöqvist
#123353
Overall Influence
#1918
Osamu Yokosuka
#123363
Overall Influence
#1919
Bruce Perrin Lanphear
#123367
Overall Influence
#1920
Sérgio Henrique Ferreira
#123394
Overall Influence
#1921
Lloyd M. Nyhus
#123402
Overall Influence
#1922
Peter Smith
#96738
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Peter George Smith CBE BSc DSc HonMFPHM FMedSci, is an eminent epidemiologist and Professor of Tropical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine . Background Peter Smith graduated in mathematics from City University, London and joined the Medical Research Council's Statistical Research Unit in 1965. He went on to work on various aspects of epidemiological and statistical research including: MRC Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Research Unit, Edinburgh ; Makerere University Medical School, Uganda ; International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France and Uganda ; Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Oxford .
Go to Profile#1923
Brian M. Mercer
#123433
Overall Influence
#1924
Petar Alaupovic
#123439
Overall Influence
#1925
Mahmut Gazi Yașargil
#123457
Overall Influence
#1926
Branimir Ivan Sikic
#107093
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Branimir Ivan "Brandy" Sikic is an American medical doctor and scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is an oncologist and cancer pharmacologist, and has served as a faculty member at Stanford University since 1979. His research spans basic, translational, and clinical research and investigates the mechanisms of drug resistance and the development of new anticancer therapies.
Go to Profile#1927
Katherine A. McGlynn
#114657
Overall Influence
Katherine Ann McGlynn is an American cancer epidemiologist who researches testicular dysgenesis syndrome and hepatocellular carcinoma. She is a senior investigator in the metabolic epidemiology branch of the National Cancer Institute. She was previously a faculty member at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Go to Profile#1928
Alisa Erika Koch
#123618
Overall Influence
#1929
Jess Ghannam
#76531
Overall Influence
Jess Ghannam is a Palestinian-American psychologist and professor who is active in numerous non-governmental organizations and in carrying out humanitarian work, particularly in the Gaza Strip. He is a clinical professor and the Chief of Medical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, and also practices at the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Go to Profile#1930
Per Soelberg Sørensen
#123713
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (81 years)
#1931
Emilio Quaia
#41464
Overall Influence
Emilio Quaia is an Italian radiologist, academic, and author. He is a professor of Radiology and the Director of the Radiology Department at the University of Padova. Quaia is the editor of the book Contrast Media in Ultrasonography: Basic Principles and Clinical Applications , Radiological Imaging of the Kidney , and Imaging of the Liver and Intra-hepatic Biliary Tract . His research is focused in the field of Radiology, with a particular focus on contrast-enhanced ultrasound and liver, kidney and chest imaging.
Go to Profile#1932
Théophile Godfraind
#123738
Overall Influence
#1933
Thomas Gerald Beach
#123761
Overall Influence
#1934
Elizabeth C. Leroy
#123762
Overall Influence
#1935
Mahmoud ElSohly
#89783
Overall Influence
Mahmoud A. ElSohly is an Egyptian-born American pharmacologist known for his research into cannabis. He is a professor of pharmaceutics and research professor at the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Mississippi. He is also the director of the University of Mississippi's Marijuana Research Project, the only legal source of marijuana that can be used for medical research in the United States. He is also the president and laboratory director of ElSohly Laboratories, Incorporated.
Go to Profile#1936
Beatriz Luna
#99178
Overall Influence
Beatriz Luna is a developmental neuroscientist known for conducting neuroimaging research on the development of cognitive control, reward, and reinforcement learning from early childhood to adolescence.
Go to Profile#1937
Robert F. Breiman
#123820
Overall Influence
#1938
Franco Mandelli
#123843
Overall Influence
#1939
Hani Gabra
#108160
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Hani Gabra PhD FRCPE FRCP is a British oncologist and Professor Emeritus in Medical Oncology at Imperial College London. Career Hani Gabra is a British academic medial oncologist and drug developer. He is Founder, board member and Chief Scientific Officer of Papyrus Therapeutics Inc., an emerging biotech company focussed on extra-cellular tumour suppressor therapies for cancer. He is also Professor Emeritus in Medical Oncology at Imperial College London and adjunct professor at the Centre for Cancer Biomarkers at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Go to Profile#1940
Maarten Jacubos Postma
#123896
Overall Influence
#1941
Maurizio Raiteri
#123901
Overall Influence
#1942
Stuart T. Nichol
#123955
Overall Influence
#1943
Roy Oliver Weller
#123976
Overall Influence
#1944
Maura L. Gillison
#124041
Overall Influence
#1945
Rebecca Gottesman
#100246
Overall Influence
Rebecca Gottesman is Senior Investigator and Stroke Branch Chief at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health . Before joining NINDS, she was Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University. Gottesman completed a B.A. in Psychology at Columbia University , an M.D. at Columbia University , and a Ph.D. in Clinical Investigation at Johns Hopkins University . She is a Fellow of the American Neurological Association and a Fellow of the American Heart Association .
Go to Profile#1946
Felicity Goodyear-Smith
#98365
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Felicity Anne Goodyear-Smith is a medical doctor, academic, and public health advocate from New Zealand. She is Academic Head of Department & Goodfellow Postgraduate Chair of General Practice & Primary Health Care in the Faculty of Medical and Health Science at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Go to Profile#1947
John J. Orloff
#124109
Overall Influence
#1948
Liisa Ahtee
#110993
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (88 years)
Liisa Marjatta Ahtee was born on 2 October 1937 in Turku to Aaro Veli Vilho and Lyyli Iida Kyllikki Ahtee. She is an internationally esteemed Finnish pharmacologist and professor emeritus, who served as pharmacology and biological medicine standardization chair at the University of Helsinki from 1975 to 2002.
Go to Profile#1949
Robert William Rebar
#124121
Overall Influence
#1950
Christopher Tzourio
#124128
Overall Influence
