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,
#3651
J. Glenn Morris
#149628
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
John Glenn Morris, Jr. is an American physician and epidemiologist. He is the founding and current director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute, an interdisciplinary research facility located within the University of Florida, having served since 2007.
Go to Profile#3652
Ana Catarina Fonseca
#173747
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Ana Catarina Fonseca is a Portuguese neurologist, researcher and university teacher. Training Ana Catarina Gaspar Fonseca was born on 22 April 1981. She obtained a degree in medicine from the NOVA University Lisbon in Portugal between 1998 and 2004, followed by a master's in neurosciences from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon . She also obtained a master's in stroke medicine from Danube University Krems in Austria, between 2008 and 2011. She studied at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, obtaining a master's in Public Health in 2014 and in the same year completed ...
Go to Profile#3653
Louise Baur
#123944
Overall Influence
Louise Baur is an Australian paediatrician with a research interest in childhood obesity. In 2015 she was appointed professor and head of paediatrics and child health at the University of Sydney, and head of The Children's Hospital at Westmead Clinical School.
Go to Profile#3654
Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon
#73750
Overall Influence
Rachael Zoe Stolzenberg-Solomon is an American epidemiologist and dietitian. She is a senior investigator and head of the metabolic epidemiology branch at the National Cancer Institute. Life Stolzenberg-Solomon received a B.S. in nutrition and dietetics at the University of California, Davis, followed by a dietetic internship and M.Ed. in health science education at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Peabody College, respectively. After this training, she worked as a registered dietitian for ten years.
Go to Profile#3655
Norman Maldonado
#167993
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Norman Maldonado, , is one of Puerto Rico's top hematologists and served as President of the University of Puerto Rico . He studied elementary school in Adjuntas and high school in Ponce, standing out as a committed student. He obtained with honors the Bachelor of Arts at the Polytechnic of San Germán and a doctorate in Medicine at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, carved with the highest honor of being the first of its class.
Go to Profile#3656
Jean-Henri Jaeger
#159335
Overall Influence
1944 - 2022 (78 years)
Jean-Henri Jaeger was a French surgeon and academic. He was well known for developing a surgical technique to repair the anterior cruciate ligament , using the fascia lata as a form of transplant. Biography Jaeger was born in Thionville to an engineer father who worked for the SNCF. He became devoted to working in surgery after a near-death experience from a kick to the stomach during a football match at the age of six. He studied at the University of Strasbourg I, where he met his lifelong friend Arsène Wenger.
Go to Profile#3657
Matthew Boulton
#152103
Overall Influence
Matthew L. Boulton is an American epidemiologist and physician. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and is the former Chief Medical Executive, State Epidemiologist, and Director of the Bureau of Epidemiology for the State of Michigan. At the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Boulton is Senior Associate Dean for Global Public Health, the Pearl L. Kendrick Collegiate Professor of Global Health, and a Professor of Epidemiology, Professor of Preventive Medicine, and a Professor of Internal Medicine, Infectious Disease Division, a...
Go to Profile#3658
Sidiga Washi
#133582
Overall Influence
1955 - 2018 (63 years)
Sidiga Abdelrahim Washi was a Sudanese academic specializing in population, reproductive health and nutrition. Sidiga Washi is a Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences/Community Nutrition and former Dean of the School of Family/Health Sciences and former Director Nutrition and Health Research and Training at Ahfad University for Women in Sudan. She is currently the Director of the Quality Assurance and Institutional Assessment Office at the University.
Go to Profile#3659
Crystal Watson
#163657
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Crystal Watson is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. She is an expert in health security, biodefense, and risk assessment and preparedness for emerging infectious diseases. She is currently working on the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to Profile#3660
Marewa Glover
#173659
Overall Influence
Marewa Glover is a New Zealand public health academic specialising in smoking cessation. She has worked at the University of Auckland and been a full professor at Massey University. She set up the Centre for Research Excellence: Indigenous Sovereignty and Smoking in 2018.
Go to Profile#3661
Helen Cooke
#108433
Overall Influence
Helen J. Cooke was an American gastroenterologist who was a professor at Ohio State University. She studied intestinal mucosa and pioneered the field of neurobiology. Throughout her career, Cooke campaigned to support women and early career researchers.
Go to Profile#3662
Paul D. Stein
#177164
Overall Influence
#3663
Kelly K. Ferguson
#177043
Overall Influence
Kelly K. Ferguson is an American public health researcher who is a Senior Investigator in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. She leads the Perinatal and Early Life Epidemiology Group, which studies how maternal exposure to chemicals impacts pregnancy and development. In 2021, she was awarded the inaugural Lou Guillette Jr. Outstanding Young Investigator Award.
Go to Profile#3664
Dick Hill
#116071
Overall Influence
Richard "Dick" P. Hill is a scientist. His work in Applied Molecular Oncology has led to advanced cancer treatments. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and gained a B.A in Physics from St John's College, Oxford in 1964 and a Ph.D from London University in 1967. He carried out research at the Ontario Cancer Institute from 1967 to 1971, the Institute of Cancer Research, London from 1971 to 1973 and from 1973 at the Ontario Cancer Institute.
Go to Profile#3665
Samuel J. Lin
#177255
Overall Influence
Samuel J. Lin is an associate professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and a plastic surgeon at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He is also the program director for the BIDMC/Harvard Plastic Surgery Residency Training Program and Co-Fellowship Director for the Aesthetic and Reconstructive Fellowship Program.
Go to Profile#3666
Niu Lizhi
#108186
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Niu Lizhi is a surgeon who specializes in minimally invasive cryosurgery for cancers. In 1996, he graduated from the Fourth Military Medical University with a doctoral degree in Thoracic & Cardiac Surgery.
Go to Profile#3667
Joseph Jankovic
#177285
Overall Influence
#3668
Charles Stuart Platkin
#177394
Overall Influence
Charles Platkin is an American author, academic, television producer and nutrition and public health advocate Platkin is a professor at Hunter College and a blogger for Active.com and Everydayhealth.com. Platkin also publishes an annual Airline Snacking and Onboard Food Service Survey with health ratings for 12 domestic airlines. He also published Super Bowl exercise equivalents where football related activities are compared to foods typically eaten while watching the game ,
Go to Profile#3669
David Barker
#69899
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
David Barker was a British zoologist and neurologist specialising in animal neuroanatomy. He was professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Durham and is honoured by the annual award of the David Barker Prize in Zoology. In February 1963, he published Zoology and Medical Research.
Go to Profile#3670
Shiriki Kumanyika
#167966
Overall Influence
Shiriki K. Kumanyika is an Emeritus Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and co-chair of the International Association for the Study of Obesity International Obesity Task Force. She has previously served as Associate Dean for Disease Prevention and was founding director of the University of Pennsylvania Master of Public Health. She chairs the African American Collaborative Obesity Research Network. She is the former president of the American Public Health Association.
Go to Profile#3671
Guy G. De Backer
#177470
Overall Influence
#3672
Manuel Carballo
#173120
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Manuel Carballo is an epidemiologist and Executive Director of the International Centre for Migration, Health and Development and former Professor of Clinical Public Health at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, in New York.
Go to Profile#3673
Amy Fairchild
#112495
Overall Influence
Amy Lauren Fairchild is an American historian who is a professor at Syracuse University. She is co-director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Bioethics. Early life and education Fairchild was an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Austin. She graduated in 1990, before moving to Columbia University to complete a master's degree in public health. She remained at Columbia for her graduate studies, where she investigates the health of migrants.
Go to Profile#3674
Taneko Suzuki
#110506
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Taneko Suzuki was a Japanese biochemist and nutritionist who was an expert in protein chemistry and development of foods from fish proteins. Her work on transforming pollock into a hamburger-like substance received the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award in 1980. She was also honored with the Achievement in Processing and Technology Award of the Japanese Society of Fisheries Science in 1980, and the Director's Medal from the Japan Science and Technology Agency Commissioner in 1985.
Go to Profile#3675
María José Alonso
#136018
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
María José Alonso Fernandez is a full professor of biopharmaceutics and pharmaceutical technology at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The laboratory she leads is specialized in pharmaceutical nanotechnology and nanomedicine, and her research is oriented to the development of nanostructures for targeted delivery of drugs and vaccines. Her discoveries have led to significant clinical advances in the development of potential new treatments for cancer, ocular diseases, skin diseases, diabetes, obesity and other autoimmune pathologies, as well as new vaccines.
Go to Profile#3676
Erminio Costa
#177680
Overall Influence
#3677
Chris Fearne
#115276
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Christopher Fearne is a Maltese physician and politician. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Health in April 2014 and Minister for Health since April 2016. In July 2017, the Labour Party elected him as Deputy Leader for Parliamentary Affairs, thus assuming the role of Deputy Prime Minister of Malta and Leader of the House.
Go to Profile#3678
Elaine Rush
#137217
Overall Influence
Professor Emeritus, Elaine Rush, MNZM, Professor of Nutrition at Auckland University of Technology, PhD has been involved in health and education for all her working career. In 2014 she was appointed as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health and in 2019 was appointed Professor Emeritus in recognition of long and distinguished service to the University through outstanding research and teaching.
Go to Profile#3679
Beatrice Wiafe Addai
#168432
Overall Influence
Beatrice Wiafe Addai is a medical officer in Ghana and specializes in breast pathology and surgery. Career In 1989, Beatrice Wiafe Addai began her medical officer career at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. Her career as a surgeon also started at the same hospital in 1994 when she became a resident general surgeon. Then in 2002, she became a consultant in breast cancer management for SDA. Hospital which is also located in Ghana.
Go to Profile#3680
Carmen Williams
#147059
Overall Influence
Carmen J. Williams is an American obstetrician-gynecologist and reproductive biologist. She has served as the deputy chief of the reproductive developmental biology laboratory at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences since 2017.
Go to Profile#3681
David Earn
#177535
Overall Influence
David J. D. Earn is a Canadian mathematical epidemiologist. He is the Faculty of Science Research Chair in Mathematical Epidemiology in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McMaster University. In 2022, Earn was elected a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Go to Profile#3682
Katrina A. B. Goddard
#170069
Overall Influence
Katrina A. Blouke Goddard is an American genetic epidemiologist and biostatistician specializing in public health genomics and the translation of genomic applications into clinical practice. Goddard is the director of the division of cancer control and population sciences at the National Cancer Institute . She was previously the distinguished investigator and director of translational and applied genomics at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research and a faculty member at Case Western Reserve University.
Go to Profile#3683
Roy Hamilton
#177298
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Roy Hamilton is professor in the departments of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at University of Pennsylvania . He is the Director of Penn's Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation , and launched the Brain Stimulation, Translation, Innovation, and Modulation Center at the University of Pennsylvania in 2020.
Go to Profile#3684
Hiroshi Kobayashi
#178130
Overall Influence
#3685
Jason L. Powell
#178252
Overall Influence
#3686
Mark Khangure
#133295
Overall Influence
Makhan Singh Khangure in an Indian-born radiologist and a pioneer in the field of neuroradiology. He trained in the United Kingdom and Australia, and has been based in Perth, Western Australia, since the 1970s.
Go to Profile#3687
Morris Wessel
#176768
Overall Influence
1917 - 2016 (99 years)
Morris Arthur Wessel was an American pediatrician who practiced in New Haven, Connecticut from 1951 to 1993. He was a professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. He was known as "a pediatrician who treated not just the children but the whole family."
Go to Profile#3688
Carolyn Cannuscio
#177802
Overall Influence
Carolyn Cannuscio is an American epidemiologist who is an associate professor at the Perelman School of Medicine. She serves as Director of Research for the Center for Public Health Initiatives. Cannuscio works to improve public health with a specific focus on disadvantaged urban populations.
Go to Profile#3689
Cornelis Erik Hack
#178454
Overall Influence
#3690
Ann Progulske-Fox
#137893
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Ann Progulske-Fox is an American dentist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Oral Biology at University of Florida College of Dentistry and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and National Academy of Inventors. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis of Porphyromonas gingivalis.
Go to Profile#3691
Swarup Sarkar
#93732
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Swarup Sarkar is an Indian epidemiologist, public health professional and diplomat known for his work in the field of Infectious Diseases and HIV/AIDS in particular. He retired as the Director of Communicable diseases at the World Health Organization, South East Asia regional Office in November 2018.<Sarkar has been awarded for his contribution in Public Health by World Health Organization in 2018. Prior to his role in the WHO, he has served as the Head of South Asia and Regional Advisor of the Asia Pacific region of the UNAIDS and Director of Asia Pacific Country Programs of The Global Fun...
Go to Profile#3692
Victor G. Rodwin
#145906
Overall Influence
Victor G. Rodwin is professor of health policy and management at the Robert. F Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University where he has taught since 1985. He is also co-director, with Michael Gusmano, of the World Cities Project, a joint venture of NYU Wagner, The Hastings Center, and the Rutgers University School of Public Health.
Go to Profile#3693
Ralph Hudson Johnson
#104621
Overall Influence
1933 - 1993 (60 years)
Ralph Hudson Johnson FRSE was a 20th-century British neurologist. Early life and education He was born on 3 December 1933 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear the son of Sydney Reynald Edward Johnson, an electrical engineer, and his wife, Phyllis. He attended Lawrence Sheriff School and then won a scholarship to Rugby School. He won a double scholarship and obtained multiple degrees at both University of Cambridge and University of Oxford.
Go to Profile#3694
Angelo Izzo
#131971
Overall Influence
Angelo A. Izzo is an Italian pharmacologist and professor in the Department of Pharmacy in the School of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Naples Federico II. He serves as editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Phytotherapy Research. He was named an ISI highly cited researcher in 2014 and was elected a fellow of the British Pharmacological Society in 2016.
Go to Profile#3695
Rohit Bakshi
#108303
Overall Influence
Rohit Bakshi is the Jack, Sadie and David Breakstone Professor of Neurology and Radiology at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Neurologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is director of the Laboratory for Neuroimaging Research at the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center. Since 2015, he is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Neuroimaging.
Go to Profile#3696
Max Costa
#178557
Overall Influence
#3697
Tamara Awerbuch-Friedlander
#106196
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Tamara Eugenia Awerbuch-Friedlander was a biomathematician and public health scientist who worked at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. Her primary research and publications focus on biosocial interactions that cause or contribute to disease. She also is believed to be the first female Harvard faculty member to have had a jury trial for a lawsuit filed against Harvard University for sex discrimination.
Go to Profile#3698
Diana Temple
#120371
Overall Influence
1925 - 2006 (81 years)
Diana Temple AM was an Australian pharmacologist and Associate Professor who pioneered respiratory research in Australia. She was recognised for her work on respiratory pharmacology, the role of women in science and in promoting popular science.
Go to Profile#3699
Walter J. Curran Jr.
#177645
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Walter "Wally" J. Curran, Jr. is an American radiation oncologist specializing in the treatment of malignant brain tumors and locally advanced lung cancer. Until 2021, Curren served as the executive director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University and professor and chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. He currently serves as the global chief medical officer of GenesisCare, a provider of cancer and cardiovascular care that serves communities in 440 locations across the world.
Go to Profile#3700
Anna María Nápoles
#136556
Overall Influence
Anna María Nápoles is an American behavioral epidemiologist and science administrator. She is the Scientific Director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She was a professor and epidemiologist at University of California, San Francisco.
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