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,
#3101
Marc G. Weisskopf
#157328
Overall Influence
#3102
Burton P. Drayer
#157353
Overall Influence
#3103
Giancarlo C. Viberti
#157358
Overall Influence
#3104
Alexander D. Wodak
#157375
Overall Influence
#3105
Elliot Mark Frohman
#157379
Overall Influence
#3106
James C. Reynolds
#157392
Overall Influence
#3107
Minnie Sarwal
#127806
Overall Influence
Minnie M. Sarwal is an adult and pediatric nephrologist, researcher of transplant immunology, and biotechnology entrepreneur in San Francisco. She has made significant contributions to the field of organ transplantation, including conducting the first successful complete steroid avoidance trial in the US and the first dosing safety trial for Rituximab in pediatric renal transplantation. She also spearheaded genomic and proteomics investigations into mechanisms of organ transplant injury and was the first to determine that there was substantive molecular heterogeneity in acute kidney transplant rejection.
Go to Profile#3108
Olaf Gjerlöw Aasland
#157483
Overall Influence
#3109
Patrick Vermersch
#157510
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
#3110
Jane M. Olson
#117723
Overall Influence
1952 - 2004 (52 years)
Jane M. Olson was an American genetic epidemiologist and biostatistician, "best known internationally for her contributions to advanced statistical methods in genetic epidemiology". Early life and education Olson was born on 6 December 1952 in Concord, New Hampshire in 1952, the sixth of seven children. Her father was one of three medical doctors in the town. In 1974, she was awarded a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of New Hampshire. After graduating she worked as a research assistant in the Biophysics Research Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. Although originally i...
Go to Profile#3111
Boris B. Vargaftig
#157638
Overall Influence
#3112
Shelli Avenevoli
#132052
Overall Influence
Shelli Avenevoli is an American epidemiologist working as deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health. She is a co-investigator on the National Comorbidity Study. Education Avenevoli received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Temple University. Her 1998 dissertation was titled The continuity of depression from childhood to adolescence. Avenevoli's doctoral advisor was Laurence Steinberg.
Go to Profile#3113
Padmini Murthy
#137453
Overall Influence
Padmini Murthy is a physician, Professor and Global Health Director at New York Medical College. In 2016 she was awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal by the American Medical Women's Association for her contribution to the field of women in medicine.
Go to Profile#3114
David Warburton
#157722
Overall Influence
#3115
Sa'ad Al-Faqih
#43663
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Saad Rashed Mohammad al-Faqih , also known as Saad Al-Fagih, is a Muslim Saudi national and former surgeon who heads the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia and lives in London. He was a key player in preparing the "Letter of Demands" of 1991 and the "Memorandum of Advice" the following year. Both documents were endorsed by a considerable number of prominent figures, including Sheikh Bin Baz, Al-Uthaymeen and Salman Al-Ouda, and were then presented to the king at the time, Fahd. In 1994, the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights was established and Al-Faqih was appointed as the head of its London office, with another Saudi dissident, Mohammad al-Massari as the spokesperson.
Go to Profile#3116
Elizabeth Anne Bukusi
#157263
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Anne Bukusi FAAS is a research professor working within the field of obstetrics and gynaecology, and global health. Bukusi's main areas of research focus around sexually transmitted infections, women's health, reproductive health, and HIV care, prevention and treatment. Bukusi is the Chief Research Officer at the Kenya Medical Research Institute and led a "landmark" study on the use of PrEP in Kenya.
Go to Profile#3117
Thomas Bardin
#157775
Overall Influence
#3118
Basil D. Roufogalis
#157801
Overall Influence
#3119
Petra Lewis
#149112
Overall Influence
Petra Lewis is a Professor of Radiology and Obstetrics at Dartmouth College. She is a leader in radiology education. Early life and education Lewis studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1987. After graduating, she was awarded a fellowship in nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
Go to Profile#3120
Christian Philipp Lengeler
#157846
Overall Influence
#3121
A. Miller J.l. Larson
#157872
Overall Influence
#3122
Agnès Buzyn
#81595
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Agnès Buzyn is a French hematologist, university professor, medical practitioner and politician who served as Minister of Solidarity and Health in the government of Prime Minister Édouard Philippe from May 2017 to February 2020. A member of La République En Marche! , she was its candidate for Mayor of Paris in the 2020 election but failed to reach the second round.
Go to Profile#3123
Monica Lakhanpaul
#106765
Overall Influence
Monica Lakhanpaul FRCPCH is a British Indian consultant paediatrician at Whittington Health NHS Trust, and professor of integrated community child health at University College London . She is deputy theme lead for Collaborations in Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care – North Thames, adjunct professor at Public Health Foundation India, and also Global Strategic Academic Advisor .
Go to Profile#3124
Wojciech Wojakowski
#157904
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
#3125
Manfred Steiner
#145614
Overall Influence
Manfred Steiner is an Austrian-born American hematologist and physicist who taught at Brown Medical School until 2000. He completed a Ph.D. in Physics at the age of 89 in September 2021. Life Steiner was born in Vienna in 1932. He earned a medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1955 and moved to Washington, D.C. to complete his initial training in internal medicine. Steiner studied hematology at Tufts University before earning a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967.
Go to Profile#3126
Dirk Rades
#157949
Overall Influence
#3127
Benjamin Lebwohl
#157984
Overall Influence
#3128
Pierre Coriat
#158013
Overall Influence
#3129
Mina K. Chung
#158023
Overall Influence
#3130
Ziyad Al-Aly
#155668
Overall Influence
Ziyad Al-Aly is an American physician and clinical epidemiologist who is currently Director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center and Chief of the Research and Development at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System. He is also a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. He has led multiple studies on long COVID and its sequelae.
Go to Profile#3131
Stanley Gelbier
#147614
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Stanley Gelbier is emeritus professor of dental public health and honorary professor of the history of dentistry at King's College London. He is a past president of the History of Medicine Society, and the former curator of the British Dental Association's museum.
Go to Profile#3132
Simon Cauchemez
#158089
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
#3133
William R. Roeske
#158102
Overall Influence
#3134
Peter Greenwald
#158170
Overall Influence
#3135
Mark V. Braimbridge
#158172
Overall Influence
#3136
Marilyn A. Winkleby
#158185
Overall Influence
#3137
Molla Sloane Donaldson
#158213
Overall Influence
#3138
Marc A. Van Buchem
#158236
Overall Influence
#3139
Mathias Gautel
#158238
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#3140
June L. Biedler
#158269
Overall Influence
#3141
Paul S. Bass
#158286
Overall Influence
#3142
Sohita Dhillon
#158308
Overall Influence
#3143
Giovanni Broggi
#158361
Overall Influence
#3144
Cynthia E. Dunbar
#153522
Overall Influence
Cynthia Dunbar is an American scientist and hematologist at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute , which is part of the National Institutes of Health . She is the Branch Chief of the Translational Stem Cell Biology Branch.
Go to Profile#3145
W. Thomas Boyce
#97295
Overall Influence
W. Thomas Boyce is an American pediatrician. He is professor emeritus of pediatrics and psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, where he formerly served as Lisa and John Pritzker Distinguished Professor of Developmental and Behavioral Health. He previously taught at the University of California, Berkeley and at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of the book The Orchid and the Dandelion: Why Some Children Struggle and How All Can Thrive, which was published in 2019.
Go to Profile#3146
Mary‐ellen Taplin
#158594
Overall Influence
#3147
Hamid Ikram
#158672
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
#3148
Everhardus Jacobus Ariëns
#120830
Overall Influence
1918 - 2002 (84 years)
Everhardus Jacobus Ariëns was a Dutch pharmacologist and professor at the Catholic University of Nijmegen . He made important contributions to the function of receptors and the mathematical description of ligand–receptor interactions . Moreover, Everhardus Ariëns was the initiator for the collection of stereochemistry in drug development and spearheading the development of enantiopure drugs.
Go to Profile#3149
Daniel Tarantola
#112476
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Daniel Tarantola was born in Ajaccio , France, in 1942. Having obtained his medical degree from Paris University, Daniel began an international health career in 1971 in the context of emergency humanitarian medical missions to Biafra , and Peru. He was engaged in a movement with Bernard Kouchner which resulted in the foundation of Médecins Sans Frontières, of which he was the first physician working in the field . Early in his career, Daniel worked over almost two decades with the World Health Organization on large scale international health programmes, including the eradication of smallpox fr...
Go to Profile#3150
Anna K. Nowak
#158723
Overall Influence
