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,
#1951
Wylie Burke
#64004
Overall Influence
Wylie Burke is a Professor Emerita and former Chair of the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington and a founding co-director of the Northwest-Alaska Pharmacogenomics Research Network, which partners with underserved populations in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Go to Profile#1952
Zbigniew Herman
#109751
Overall Influence
1935 - 2010 (75 years)
Zbigniew Stanisław Herman was a Polish physician and pharmacologist, rector of Silesian Medical Academy in years 1980–1982. He was decorated with an Officer's Cross and with a Commander's Cross with Star of Polonia Restituta.
Go to Profile#1953
Richard David Semba
#124222
Overall Influence
#1954
Jay M. Bernhardt
#43139
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Jay M. Bernhardt is a health communication scholar, public health leader, professor and college administrator. Bernhardt has served as the president of Emerson College since June, 2023. Before that, he served as the dean of the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin from 2016 to 2023. At UT Austin, he was the founding director of the Center for Health Communication in 2015. He serves on multiple boards of directors and is the founder of national nonprofit organizations including the Alliance of Schools and Colleges of Communication and Journalism and the Society f...
Go to Profile#1955
Beate R. Ritz
#124261
Overall Influence
#1956
Gerard Fenton Anderson
#124305
Overall Influence
#1957
S. I. Godfrey
#124313
Overall Influence
#1958
C. W. M. Wilson
#123277
Overall Influence
1923 - 1993 (70 years)
Cedric William Malcolm Wilson FRSE was a 20th-century Scottish pharmacologist and medical historian. In authorship he appears as C. W. M. Wilson. He was founder of the Scottish Society of the History of Medicine.
Go to Profile#1959
Chuang Yin-ching
#92522
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Kenneth Chuang Yin-ching is a Taiwanese epidemiologist. As of January 2020, he leads the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control Communicable Disease Control Medical Network. Career Chuang earned a degree in medicine at Kaohsiung Medical University, and completed his residency at Taipei Veterans General Hospital. He specialized in epidemiology and infectious diseases while teaching at National Cheng Kung University. Chuang was the superintendent of , Liouying branch.
Go to Profile#1960
Bengt O. H. Vessby
#124379
Overall Influence
#1961
Antonio Gasparrini
#124389
Overall Influence
#1962
Jean‐louis Montastruc
#124394
Overall Influence
#1963
Lionel Naccache
#28115
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Lionel Naccache is a French neurologist and specialist in cognitive neuroscience.
Go to Profile#1964
Matthew K. Wynia
#95883
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Matthew K. Wynia is an American physician and bioethicist who has been the director of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Colorado's Anschutz Medical Campus since 2015. He also oversees an art gallery and forum there. He previously directed the American Medical Association's Institute on Ethics for 15 years. He also previously served as an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, as the president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and as the director of patient and physician engagement at the American Medical Association in Chi...
Go to Profile#1965
Dr David G. Poplack
#124466
Overall Influence
#1966
Caroline Buckee
#95023
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (46 years)
Caroline O'Flaherty Buckee is an epidemiologist. She is an associate professor of Epidemiology and is the associate director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, both at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Buckee is known for her work in digital epidemiology, where mathematical models track mobile and satellite data to understand the transmission of infectious diseases through populations in an effort to understand the spatial dynamics of disease transmission. Her work examines the implications of conducting surveillance and implementing control programs as a way to und...
Go to Profile#1967
Jonine Figueroa
#49438
Overall Influence
Jonine Figueroa is an American epidemiologist specializing in breast cancer epidemiology. She is a senior investigator and distinguished scholar in the integrative tumor epidemiology branch at the National Cancer Institute. She was previously a tenured professor and chair of molecular epidemiology and global cancer prevention at the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#1968
Masamitsu Nakazato
#124551
Overall Influence
#1969
Stephen Westaby
#124566
Overall Influence
#1970
Vittoria Colizza
#104396
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (47 years)
Vittoria Colizza is an Italian scientist, research director at INSERM and a specialist in mathematical modeling of infectious disease and computational epidemiology. In particular, she has carried out research on the modeling of seasonal and pandemic flu, Ebola and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to Profile#1971
Alasdair Muir Breckenridge
#124669
Overall Influence
#1972
Ninet Sinaii
#93123
Overall Influence
Ninet Sinaii is an American epidemiologist of Armenian descent. She is a staff epidemiologist at the Biostatistics and Clinical Epidemiology Service at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
Go to Profile#1973
Ulf Müller–ladner
#124770
Overall Influence
#1974
Gary. E. Raskob
#124799
Overall Influence
#1975
Antonio L’abbate
#124800
Overall Influence
#1976
Milton Irwin Roemer
#124830
Overall Influence
#1977
Michael Komajda
#124901
Overall Influence
#1978
Ettore Novellino
#124909
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
#1979
Egbert Frederik Smit
#124938
Overall Influence
#1980
John C. Morris
#124946
Overall Influence
#1981
I. Isabelle Romieu
#124973
Overall Influence
#1982
Christine Menias
#108793
Overall Influence
Christine O. "Cooky" Menias is an American radiologist, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science professor, and editor designate of RadioGraphics, one of the leading educational journals in radiology.
Go to Profile#1983
Michael Schachter
#125014
Overall Influence
#1984
Julie Louise Gerberding
#125061
Overall Influence
#1985
Penny Gordon-Larsen
#124143
Overall Influence
Penny Gordon-Larsen is an internationally recognized obesity researcher. In July 2023, she was named Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after serving as Interim Vice Chancellor for Research from March 2022. She is the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she served as associate dean for research from 2018 to 2022. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center. Dr. Gordon-Larsen's NIH-funded research portfolio focuses on individual-, household-, an...
Go to Profile#1986
Joseph Anthony Carcillo
#125143
Overall Influence
#1987
Anca Grosu
#123916
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Anca-Ligia Grosu is a Romanian-German radiation oncologist and professor with a research focus on the development of personalized therapy in radiation oncology. She is chair of the Radiation Oncology Department at the University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany, and member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
Go to Profile#1988
William J. Weiner
#125272
Overall Influence
#1989
Robert P. Elde
#125278
Overall Influence
#1990
Alexander Gavrilenko
#125331
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Alexander Vasilievich Gavrilenko is a Russian cardiac surgeon. He has been a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences since 2004, and a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2016. He was honored the medals, such as, Order of Friendship of Peoples, Medal "In Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow", Russian Federation Presidential Certificate of Honour and the Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation. In 2017, Gavrilenko was awarded the Order of Nikolai Pirogov by the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Go to Profile#1991
Roelof Willemze
#125341
Overall Influence
#1992
Patricia M. Mcnamara
#125380
Overall Influence
#1993
Bennett A. Shaywitz
#125433
Overall Influence
#1994
Johanna M. Seddon
#125466
Overall Influence
#1995
Frank Dudbridge
#123997
Overall Influence
Frank Dudbridge is Professor of Statistical Genetics in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Leicester, where he has worked since 2016. His research focuses on the fields of statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology as they relate to common human diseases. Before joining the University of Leicester, he served first as a senior statistician at the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge, then as Reader and Professor of Statistical Genetics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Go to Profile#1996
Karen S. Marder
#125535
Overall Influence
#1997
Thanos Athanasiou
#125541
Overall Influence
#1998
Muthiah Vaduganathan
#125552
Overall Influence
#1999
Anna Maria Siega-Riz
#121154
Overall Influence
Anna Maria Siega-Riz is an American nutrition, maternal and child health scientist and academic administrator. She is dean of the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Siega-Riz was previously associate dean for research and the Jeanette Lancaster Alumni Professor of Nursing at University of Virginia School of Nursing.
Go to Profile#2000
Sheldon L. Kaplan
#125582
Overall Influence
