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,
#351
Riad Barmada
#24224
Overall Influence
1929 - 2014 (85 years)
Riad Barmada , a Syrian-American orthopaedic surgeon and professor. Barmada was the head of orthopedics at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1984 to 1998 and served as the president of the Illinois Orthopedic Society and president of the Chicago Committee on Trauma.
Go to Profile#352
Kay-Tee Khaw
#46276
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Kay-Tee Khaw, is a Singaporean British physician and academic, specialising in the maintenance of health in later life and the causes and prevention of chronic diseases. She has been Professor of Clinical Gerontology at the University of Cambridge since 1989 and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge since 1991.
Go to Profile#353
Jonathan Rhoads
#44727
Overall Influence
1907 - 2002 (95 years)
Jonathan Evans Rhoads was an American surgeon, responsible for the development of total parenteral nutrition . Early life and education Rhoads was born to a Quaker family with roots in Pennsylvania dating to 1682. His father, Edward, was a physician in Philadelphia, who had interned under Sir William Osler at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania . He attended Germantown Friends School, Westtown School, Haverford College and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, all Quaker affiliated. An accomplished athlete, he was a track and field star at Haverford, undefeated as a pole-vaulter in int...
Go to Profile#354
James Doty
#28833
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
James R. Doty, M.D., FACS, FICS, FAANS is a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, an affiliate of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. He is the author of a self-help book called Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart. Doty is also the Senior Editor of the Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science .
Go to Profile#355
Olufunmilayo Olopade
#16966
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Olufunmilayo I. Olopade born in the year 1957, is a Nigerian hematology oncologist, Associate Dean for Global Health and Walter L. Palmer, Distinguished Service Professor in Medicine and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. She also serves as director of the University of Chicago Hospital's Cancer Risk Clinic.
Go to Profile#356
Bizhan Aarabi
#35688
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (78 years)
Bizhan Aarabi is an Iranian-American neurosurgeon, researcher, author, and academic. He is a professor of neurosurgery at University of Maryland and the Director of Neurotrauma at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.
Go to Profile#357
Arvid Carlsson
#55692
Overall Influence
#358
John W. Daly
#56035
Overall Influence
#359
Kenneth Kaushansky
#43296
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Kenneth Kaushansky, M.D., Master of the American College of Physicians is an American medical doctor, hematologist, former editor of the medical journal Blood, and served as the dean of the Stony Brook University School of Medicine from 2010 to 2021. Prior to moving to Stony Brook, he was the Helen M. Ranney Professor, and chair of the department of medicine at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#360
Ulf Landmesser
#54605
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (55 years)
Ulf Landmesser is a German specialist for cardiology and internal medicine. He is professor at the Institute for Health Research in Berlin and Head of the Medical Clinic of Cardiology at the Charité in Berlin. Landmesser is known for his work on coronary interventions and modern methods of catheter-based heart valve therapy.
Go to Profile#361
Curtis Dean Klaassen
#56215
Overall Influence
#362
Kristine Yaffe
#47371
Overall Influence
Kristine Yaffe is an American Cognitive decline and dementia researcher. She is the Scola Endowed Chair and Vice Chair and Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Epidemiology and the Director of the Center for Population Brain Health at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2019, Yaffe was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#363
Harris Isbell
#27372
Overall Influence
1910 - 1994 (84 years)
Harris Isbell was an American pharmacologist and the director of research for the NIMH Addiction Research Center at the Public Health Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky from 1945 to 1963. He did extensive research on the physical and psychological effects of various drugs on humans . Early work investigated aspects of physical dependence with opiates and barbiturates, while later work investigated psychedelic drugs, including LSD. The research was extensively reported in academic journals such as the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Psychopharmacologia, and the ...
Go to Profile#364
Moshe Many
#13159
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Moshe Many was an Israeli urologist who was President of Tel Aviv University from 1983 to 1991, and President of Ashkelon Academic College from 2002 to 2012. Biography Moshe was born in Hebron to Israel and Simcha Mani, of the well-established Mani family. His great-grandfather was Rabbi Eliyahu Mani, the renown scholar who led the Jewish community of Hebron for 40 years. His father was Dr. Israel Mani, who served as a judge. The family survived the 1929 Hebron massacre when he was a child.
Go to Profile#365
William H. Oldendorf
#36795
Overall Influence
1925 - 1992 (67 years)
William Henry Oldendorf was an American neurologist, physician, researcher, medical pioneer, founding member of the American Society for Neuroimaging , and originator of the technique of computed tomography.
Go to Profile#366
Harminder Dua
#40907
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (72 years)
Professor Harminder Singh Dua is an Indian-British medical doctor and researcher. He is the chair and professor of ophthalmology at University of Nottingham and is the head of the Division of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences. Prior, he was associate professor at the Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA when he was invited to chair in Nottingham in April 1994. He earlier did his Graduation in Medicine from Government Medical College and Hospital, Nagpur.
Go to Profile#367
Elizabeth Warrington
#23169
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (94 years)
Elizabeth Kerr Warrington FRS is a British neuropsychologist specialised in the study of dementia. She holds a PhD in Psychology visual processing and is now an emeritus professor of clinical neuropsychology at the University College London. She formerly worked as the Head of the Department of Neuropsychology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery where she is also a member of the Dementia Research Centre. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1986.
Go to Profile#368
Malcolm Macleod
#33401
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
Malcolm Macleod is a Scottish neurologist and translational neuroscientist. Biography Macleod spent his early years in Achiltibuie and Inverness. He attended the Leachkin Primary School, Jedburgh Grammar School and Loretto School, Musselburgh, before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh. As an undergraduate he was President of Edinburgh University Students' Association. After graduation, he held a number of junior medical posts in Edinburgh and Forth Valley. He was Rector of the University of Edinburgh from 1994 to 1997, Secretary of the Labour Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, ...
Go to Profile#369
Alice Stewart
#30043
Overall Influence
1906 - 2002 (96 years)
Alice Mary Stewart, née Naish was a British physician and epidemiologist specialising in social medicine and the effects of radiation on health. Her study of radiation-induced illness among workers at the Hanford plutonium production plant, Washington, is frequently cited by those who seek to demonstrate that even very low doses of radiation cause substantial hazard. She was the first person to demonstrate the link between x-rays of pregnant women and high cancer rates in their children. She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1986 "for bringing to light in the face of official opposit...
Go to Profile#370
Allan Rosenfield
#42671
Overall Influence
1933 - 2008 (75 years)
Allan Rosenfield was an advocate for women's health during the worldwide AIDS pandemic as dean of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Early life Rosenfield was born in Brookline, Massachusetts on April 28, 1933. He received a B.A. in biochemistry from Harvard College in 1955. In 1959, he graduated from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons with his M.D. degree.
Go to Profile#371
Miroslav Djordjevic
#52537
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (60 years)
Miroslav L Djordjevic is a Serbian surgeon specializing in sex reassignment surgery, and an assistant professor of urology at the School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Early life and education Djordjevic completed his medical studies, including his urology residency, at the University of Belgrade's School of Medicine, in Serbia, in 1991. His PhD thesis, completed in 2003, was titled "A New Approach for Surgical Treatment of Peyronie's Disease".
Go to Profile#372
Stephen I. Katz
#39389
Overall Influence
1941 - 2018 (77 years)
Stephen Ira Katz was an American immunodermatologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases from 1995 to 2018. He was the Marion B. Sulzberger Professor of Dermatology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences from 1989 to 1995.
Go to Profile#373
Mahlon DeLong
#49681
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Mahlon R. DeLong is an American neurologist and professor at the Medical School of Emory University. His research has advanced the understanding and treatment of Parkinson's disease, dystonia, tremor and other neurological movement disorders.
Go to Profile#374
Geoffrey C. Gurtner
#33385
Overall Influence
Geoffrey C. Gurtner is an American microsurgeon. As of January 2022, he is the Chair of Surgery, Professor of Surgery and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson. He was previously Professor of Surgery and Inaugural Vice Chairman of Surgery for Innovation at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#375
Paul Marks
#35434
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Paul Alan Marks was a medical doctor, researcher and administrator. He was a faculty member and president at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Background Marks was born in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, in 1926, to Robert Marks and Sarah Bohorad. Marks attended Columbia College and Columbia Medical School. After completing postdoctoral research at the United States National Institutes of Health and at the Institut Pasteur in France, he joined the faculty at Columbia University. Marks served as dean of the Medical Faculty at Columbia University from 1970 to 1973. He was president and chief executive officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering from 1980 until 1999.
Go to Profile#376
Jacques E. Chelly
#47882
Overall Influence
Jacques E. Chelly is an academic specializing in anesthesiology and acute pain management. He is currently a professor at the University of Pittsburgh with dual appointments in the Department of Anesthesiology and Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. He is also Director of the Division known as the Acute Interventional Perioperative Pain Service at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center . Chelly has authored over 150 publications since 1979, and continues to be one of the leading investigators in anesthesiology research. He is currently the Vice Chair of Clinical Research at the UPMC.
Go to Profile#377
Suzanne Maman
#39103
Overall Influence
Suzanne Maman is a social scientist who is trained in public health and serving as a professor in the Department of Human Behavior at the University of North Carolina and an associate dean for global health at the University's Gillings School. Maman also serves as UNC faculty director at the Duke-UNC Rotary Peace Center. Her specific research interests concern HIV/AIDS among women.
Go to Profile#378
Ravi Kant
#25754
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Ravi Kant is a professor of Surgery at Sharda University, who was the director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh from 2017 to 2021 and the Vice Chancellor of King George's Medical University from 2014 to 2017. Earlier he was head of surgery at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Bhopal and faculty at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi. The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2016.
Go to Profile#379
James Lewis Abbruzzese
#40434
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
James Lewis Abbruzzese is the Chief of the Duke Division of Medical Oncology and associate director for Clinical Research for the Duke Cancer Institute. Previously, Abbruzzese was Chairman of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center where he held the M. G. and Lillie A. Johnson Chair for Cancer Treatment and Research and the Annie Laurie Howard Research Distinguished Professorship. Abbruzzese is one of the world's leaders in the clinical study and treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Go to Profile#380
Prakash Narain Tandon
#45872
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (97 years)
Prakash Narain Tandon is an Indian neuroscientist and neurosurgeon. He graduated with an MBBS and MS from the [KGMC] in 1950 and 52 respectively, and then trained at the University of London and obtained his FRCS in 1956. He further obtained specialist training in neurosurgery at Oslo, Norway and Montreal, Canada. After a brief tenure as a professor at the K.G. Medical College, Lucknow , he moved to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi where he founded the neurosurgery department, has been a professor of neurosurgery, a Bhatnagar Fellow and then a professor emeritus. Tand...
Go to Profile#381
Gordon Zubrod
#40431
Overall Influence
1914 - 1999 (85 years)
Charles Gordon Zubrod was an American oncologist who played a prominent role in the introduction of chemotherapy for cancer. He was one of the recipients of the 1972 Albert Lasker Awards in recognition of his contributions to the field, amongst many other doctorates and awards.
Go to Profile#382
Richard Blyton Devereux
#58480
Overall Influence
#383
Elena Cattaneo
#13928
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Elena Cattaneo is an Italian pharmacologist and co-founding director of the University of Milan's Center for Stem Cell Research. She is an internationally prominent Huntington's disease researcher and stem cell research advocate. She is internationally recognised for her major commitment to research ethics and research policy, and for increasing knowledge and engagement in research among the general public.
Go to Profile#384
George P. Chrousos
#31298
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (74 years)
George P. Chrousos is professor of Pediatrics and Endocrinology Emeritus and former chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the Athens University Medical School, Greece. Earlier he was senior investigator, director of the Pediatric Endocrinology Section and Training Program, and chief of the Pediatric and Reproductive Endocrinology Branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , National Institutes of Health . He is also clinical professor of Pediatrics, Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University Medical School and distinguished visiting scientist, NICHD, NIH.
Go to Profile#385
R. Palmer Beasley
#33681
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
Robert Palmer Beasley was an American physician, public health educator and epidemiologist whose work on hepatitis B involved extensive investigations in Taiwan. That work established that hepatitis B virus is a primary cause of liver cancer and that hepatitis B virus is transmitted from mother to infant during childbirth. Beasley and his colleagues also proved that HBV mother-to-infant transmission is preventable by at-birth vaccination. Due to this work, the World Health Assembly designated HBV as the seventh global vaccine in 1992. He later became the author of HBV immunization policies f...
Go to Profile#386
Emelia Benjamin
#53971
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Emelia J. Benjamin is an American cardiologist and researcher. She is a professor of medicine at the Boston University School of Medicine, Professor of Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health, and also a practicing cardiologist at Boston Medical Center.
Go to Profile#387
Hans-Olov Adami
#58844
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Hans-Olov Adami is a Swedish physician, academic and public health researcher. He established the largest epidemiologic and biostatistics research unit in Sweden, the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institutet. He is a former chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US.
Go to Profile#388
Oscar Ratnoff
#36008
Overall Influence
1916 - 2008 (92 years)
Oscar Davis Ratnoff was an American physician who conducted research on the process of coagulation and blood-related disorders. Ratnoff discovered the substance later known as Factor XII and was one of the primary contributors to the delineation of the exact sequence that makes up the clotting cascade. He also made notable research contributions to the understanding of the complement system and to the detection and treatment of hemophilia.
Go to Profile#389
Alfredo Morabia
#50750
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Alfredo Morabia is a Swiss-American physician, epidemiologist, and historian of medicine. He is currently professor of epidemiology at the Barry Commoner Center for Health and the Environment at Queens College, City University of New York in addition to serving as professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University.
Go to Profile#390
Attilio Maseri
#51622
Overall Influence
1935 - 2021 (86 years)
Attilio Maseri OMRI KSG was an Italian academic and physician specialized in cardiology, considered a leading researcher in the field of ischemic heart disease. His patients included Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II.
Go to Profile#391
Kenneth C. Anderson
#59471
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Kenneth C. Anderson is an American hematologist-oncologist and cancer researcher who is primarily known for advances in the treatment of multiple myeloma. He directs the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Myeloma Center at Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and is the Kraft Family Professor of Medicine and Vice Chair of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Go to Profile#392
Leonard B. Kaban
#54115
Overall Influence
Leonard B. Kaban, D.M.D., M.D., F.A.C.S. is the Walter C. Guralnick Professor and Chair of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard University. Biography
Go to Profile#393
Hans Rosling
#13150
Overall Influence
1948 - 2017 (69 years)
Hans Rosling was a Swedish physician, academic and public speaker. He was a professor of international health at Karolinska Institute and was the co-founder and chairman of the Gapminder Foundation, which developed the Trendalyzer software system. He held presentations around the world, including several TED Talks in which he promoted the use of data to explore development issues. His posthumously published book Factfulness, coauthored with his daughter-in-law Anna Rosling Rönnlund and son Ola Rosling, became an international bestseller.
Go to Profile#394
Roy S. Herbst
#26417
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Roy S. Herbst is an American oncologist who is the Ensign Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pharmacology, Chief of Medical Oncology, and Associate Director for Translational Research at Yale Cancer Center and Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut.
Go to Profile#395
James G. Herman
#26106
Overall Influence
James Gordon Herman is an American oncologist. Herman studied chemistry at Hope College and earned a medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Duke University in 1992, and a fellowship in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins in 1996. Herman then became associate professor of oncology at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, and later the UPMC Endowed Chair for Lung Cancer Research at the University of Pittsburgh.
Go to Profile#396
Nadey Hakim
#22931
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Nadey S. Hakim FASMBS , is a British-Lebanese professor of transplantation surgery at Imperial College London and general surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic London. He is also a writer, musician and sculptor, known for kidney and pancreas transplantations, and being part of the surgical team that performed the world's first hand transplantation in 1998 and then the double arm transplantation in 2000. Several of his sculptures are on display around the world, including President Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris, Pope Francis at the Vatican, Michelangelos David in the Madonna del Parto Museum ...
Go to Profile#397
Corwin Hansch
#9650
Overall Influence
1918 - 2011 (93 years)
Corwin Herman Hansch was a professor of chemistry at Pomona College in California. He became known as the 'father of computer-assisted molecule design.' Education and career Hansch was born on October 6, 1918, in Kenmare, North Dakota. He earned a BS from the University of Illinois in 1940 and a PhD from New York University in 1944. He briefly worked as a postdoc at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Go to Profile#398
Nick Day
#50135
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Nicholas Edward Day, CBE, FRS is a retired statistician and cancer epidemiologist. Education He was educated at Gresham's School and the University of Oxford, from 1958-1962, where he gained a B.A. in Mathematics and a Diploma in Statistics, and the University of Aberdeen from 1962-1966, where he obtained a Doctorate of Philosophy.
Go to Profile#399
Gerald Westheimer
#48399
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (101 years)
Gerald Westheimer AM FRS is an Australian scientist at University of California, Berkeley researching the eye, its optics, and how we see details in space and in three dimensions. Life and career Westheimer was born on 13 May 1924 in Berlin into an observant Jewish family—long settled in Germany and traced back at least Joseph Aaron Westheimer who had been born in 1768 in Menzingen, Baden Westheimer is the younger of two sons. In 1938, state-sanctioned attacks against Jews in Nazi Germany prompted the family to emigrate to Australia, settling in Sydney.
Go to Profile#400
Stefan Grimm
#30463
Overall Influence
1963 - 2014 (51 years)
Stefan Grimm was a German biologist and professor of toxicology at Imperial College London. He researched signalling cascades in the development of tumours. Grimm was found dead in Northwood, Middlesex on 25 September 2014 after being told that he was "struggling to fulfil the metrics" of a professorial post by his head of department. The coroner described his death as "needless".
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