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,
#2201
Peter Farnum Wright
#131736
Overall Influence
#2202
Jens Waerhaug
#131759
Overall Influence
#2203
Jacques Marescaux
#131808
Overall Influence
#2204
Robyn Norton
#121005
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Robyn Ngaire Norton is a New Zealand health researcher who is James Martin Fellow and Professor of Public Health at the University of New South Wales. Her research considers women and girls' health. She is the Founder of the George Institute for Global Health.
Go to Profile#2205
Mitchell P. Goldman
#131833
Overall Influence
#2206
Morten H. Christiansen
#40444
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Morten H. Christiansen is a Danish cognitive scientist known for his work on the evolution of language, and connectionist modeling of human language acquisition. He is Professor in the Department of Psychology and Co-Director of the Cognitive Science Program at Cornell University as well Senior Scientist at the Haskins Labs and Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University. His research has produced evidence for considering language to be a cultural system that is shaped by general-purpose cognitive and learning mechanisms, rather than from innate language-specific ...
Go to Profile#2207
Michael Forsting
#131851
Overall Influence
#2208
Dominick Angiolillo
#101964
Overall Influence
Dominick J. Angiolillo is an Italian cardiologist. Angiolillo attended Catholic University of the Sacred Heart Medical School, where he met Attilio Maseri. Angiolillo specialized in cardiology at the Complutense University of Madrid, and completed further training with Carlos Macaya. Angiolillo joined the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville in 2004. He is an ISI highly cited researcher.
Go to Profile#2209
Mark R. Denison
#96352
Overall Influence
Mark R. Denison is the Stahlman Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology and director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Denison has been researching the replication, pathogenesis and evolution of coronaviruses for over 30 years, and has published his research on SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and the current SARS-CoV-2.
Go to Profile#2210
Shlomo Shinnar
#131915
Overall Influence
#2211
Sonja A. Rasmussen
#131939
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
#2212
Thomas Mcculloch Mack
#131961
Overall Influence
#2213
Jozef Vermylen
#131983
Overall Influence
#2214
Dennis Thomas Mangano
#132006
Overall Influence
#2215
Sue Ziebland
#132017
Overall Influence
#2216
John Newsom-Davis
#111938
Overall Influence
1932 - 2007 (75 years)
John Michael Newsom-Davis was a neurologist who played an important role in the discovery of the causes of, and treatments for, Myasthenia gravis, and of other diseases of the nerve-muscle junction, notably Lambert–Eaton myasthenic syndrome and acquired neuromyotonia. Regarded as "one of the most distinguished clinical neurologists and medical scientists of his generation," he died in a car accident in Adjud, Romania, having visited a neurological clinic in Bucharest earlier the same day.
Go to Profile#2217
Hugh D. Tunstall-pedoe
#132048
Overall Influence
#2218
Pawel Tabakow
#129696
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (50 years)
Paweł Tabakow is a Polish neurosurgeon who is known for prepared and performing the operation that allowed Darek Fidyka to recover sensory and motor function after the complete severing of his spinal cord. Tabakow has claimed that an Indian ambassador and other people from round the world have contacted him about performing similar treatments.
Go to Profile#2219
Lori L. Heise
#132082
Overall Influence
#2220
Dr. David B. Sachar
#132100
Overall Influence
#2221
Peter Hanrath
#132139
Overall Influence
#2222
Fang-Fang Yin
#132140
Overall Influence
Fang-Fang Yin is a Chinese-born radiologist. Yin earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Zhejiang University in 1982. He subsequently moved to the United States, completing a Master of Science degree at Bowling Green State University in 1987, followed by a doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1992. Yin teaches at Duke University, where he is affiliated with the Duke Cancer Institute, and was appointed the Gustavo S. Montana Professor of Radiation Oncology in 2021.
Go to Profile#2223
Shaomeng Wang
#95230
Overall Influence
Shaomeng Wang is a Chinese-American chemist currently the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor in Medicine at University of Michigan and a former Co-Editor-in-Chief at American Chemical Society's Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. A cited expert in his field, his interests are synthesis and design of moleculars, neurological diseases and computational and informatics. He was Elected as Fellow at the National Academy of Inventors in 2014. Dr. Wang was named to the AAAS Fellows Section on Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2019, and is the recipient of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award 2020 Ameri...
Go to Profile#2224
Yves C. Alarie
#132162
Overall Influence
#2225
Richard John Leigh
#132215
Overall Influence
#2226
Dirk Michael Elston
#132221
Overall Influence
#2227
Michael Brainin
#68552
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
Michael Brainin is an Austrian neurologist and emeritus professor at the Danube University Krems. He is widely known as a pioneer in stroke research and prevention as well as a leading figure in the development of stroke units. Brainin was president of the Austrian Stroke Society, the European Stroke Organisation and the World Stroke Organization.
Go to Profile#2228
Normann H. Silverman
#132277
Overall Influence
#2229
Jonathan D. Quick
#98679
Overall Influence
Jonathan D. Quick , is a family physician and public health management specialist that focuses on global health security. He is adjunct professor of global health at Duke University in North Carolina. His book The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It was published in 2018.
Go to Profile#2230
Ingrid Ursula Scott
#132305
Overall Influence
#2231
Donald W. Paty
#132310
Overall Influence
#2232
Daniel Grossman
#99287
Overall Influence
Daniel Grossman is an American obstetrician, gynecologist, and medical researcher. He is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is also the director of the collaborative research group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health . He is also an investigator for the Texas Policy Evaluation Project and a senior advisor at Ibis Reproductive Health. In 2013, he received the Felicia Stewart Advocacy Award from the American Public Health Association.
Go to Profile#2233
Nancy K. Janz
#132394
Overall Influence
#2234
Sheryl F. Kelsey
#124655
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Sheryl F. Kelsey is an American biostatistician and epidemiologist who became the first woman to earn a doctorate in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. She made significant contributions to how heart disease is treated by studying the outcomes of coronary angioplasty.
Go to Profile#2235
Stein Emil Vollset
#132513
Overall Influence
#2236
John Douglas Swales
#132552
Overall Influence
#2237
Kenneth J. Koval
#132598
Overall Influence
#2238
Waldemar A. Carlo
#132606
Overall Influence
#2239
Graham Nichol
#132623
Overall Influence
#2240
Peter G. J. Burney
#132636
Overall Influence
#2241
Megan B. Murray
#82314
Overall Influence
Megan Blanche Murray is an American epidemiologist and an infectious disease physician. She is the Ronda Stryker and William Johnston Professor of Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Go to Profile#2242
Patricia Happ Buffler
#115755
Overall Influence
1938 - 2013 (75 years)
Patricia Happ Buffler was an American epidemiologist and cancer researcher, known for her work on childhood leukemia and environmental health. She was dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, and was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.
Go to Profile#2243
Arnold G. Coran
#132675
Overall Influence
#2244
Joyce Boye
#51162
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Joyce Boye is a former federal food research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with a specialty in value-added food processing, food safety and food quality. She has expertise on plant proteins and their importance in helping to improve human health and nutrition. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations appointed Boye to be a Special Ambassador for North America for the 2016 International Year of Pulses.
Go to Profile#2245
Christopher J. Baylis
#132757
Overall Influence
#2246
Iain M. Murray‐lyon
#132787
Overall Influence
#2247
Fre D. Ederer
#132788
Overall Influence
#2248
Solko W. Schalm
#132796
Overall Influence
#2249
Deborah Axelrod
#98587
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Deborah M. Axelrod is an American surgeon who specializes in breast cancer. Education Axelrod earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry at University of Pennsylvania, then earned her MD at Tel Aviv University in 1982, then did residencies at Mount Sinai Beth Israel and a fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She worked at Mount Sinai and Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center before joining NYU in 2004.
Go to Profile#2250
Adolfo Miguel Bronstein
#132826
Overall Influence
