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,

#3701

Linda Saltzman

#154326
Overall Influence
1949 - 2005 (56 years)
Linda Ellen Saltzman was an American public health researcher who worked at the Centers for Disease Control from 1984 until her death in 2005. She was especially known for her research on domestic violence, which has been credited with helping to define the entire field. She has been described as "...one of the CDC’s top experts on violence, and one of the violence prevention movement’s most trusted allies." In 2007, the CDC established the Linda Saltzman New Investigator Award in her memory; it is awarded biennially to a new researcher in the field of domestic violence.
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#3702

Dorothea Liebermann-Meffert

#171632
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Dorothea Maria Irene Liebermann-Meffert was a German surgeon and professor of surgery at the Technical University of Munich. Early life Liebermann-Meffert was born on 6 May 1930 in Rastatt, Germany, to Karl Peter and Irene Meffert. She received the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Freiburg in 1958.
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#3703

Russell Strong

#129165
Overall Influence
Russell Walker Strong, is an Australian transplant surgeon. He pioneered several techniques for liver transplantation, including reduced-size liver transplantation, split-liver transplantation, and living donor liver transplantation.
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#3704

Kwaku Ohene-Frempong

#174109
Overall Influence
1946 - 2022 (76 years)
Kwaku Ohene-Frempong was a Ghanaian pediatric hematologist-oncologist and an expert in sickle cell disease . Ohene-Frempong grew up in Ghana and was a standout athlete in track-and-field, later competing for Yale University as well as Ghana at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games. He continued his medical training in the United States, where he completed medical school, pediatrics residency and a pediatric hematology-oncology fellowship. With a professional interest in SCD, Ohene-Frempong was a physician and involved in public health initiatives at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, Louisiana, and later the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
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#3705

Stephen P. Marks

#83704
Overall Influence
Stephen P. Marks is an American scientist who is currently the François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
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#3706

Vijay Pratap Singh

#179130
Overall Influence
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#3707

Suzanne M. Babich

#176199
Overall Influence
Suzanne Marie Babich , formerly Suzanne Havala Hobbs is an American public health scientist, food writer, registered dietitian and vegetarianism activist. She was the primary author for the American Dietetic Association's 1988 and 1993 vegetarian position papers.
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#3708

Yan Xiao

#179179
Overall Influence
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#3709

Don Aickin

#174450
Overall Influence
1934 - 2019 (85 years)
Donald Russell Aickin was a New Zealand obstetrician and gynecologist. He was professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Otago Christchurch School of Medicine from 1972 until his retirement in 2000 when he was conferred professor emeritus.
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#3710

Ian Hart

#122594
Overall Influence
1958 - 2008 (50 years)
Ian Kirkland Hart FRCP was a lecturer and consultant in neurology at the Walton Centre in Liverpool. He ran a clinic for neurological paraneoplastic syndromes, myasthenia gravis, neuromyotonia, Lambert–Eaton myasthenic syndrome and autoimmune encephalitis. He was also the founder member of the Walton Centre Clinical Neuroimmunology Group researching on autoantibody-associated neurological diseases.
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#3711

Diana Lennon

#179329
Overall Influence
1949 - 2018 (69 years)
Diana Rosemary Lennon was a New Zealand academic and pediatrician, specialising in infectious diseases, and was a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career Lennon graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery from the University of Otago in 1972. She was awarded FRACP in Pediatrics in 1978.
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#3712

Dzulkefly Ahmad

#119613
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Datuk Seri Dr. Dzulkefly bin Ahmad is a Malaysian politician who has served as the Member of Parliament for Kuala Selangor since May 2018 and from March 2008 to May 2013. He served as the Minister of Health in the Pakatan Harapan administration under former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad from May 2018 to his resignation and the collapse of the PH administration in February 2020. He is a member the National Trust Party , a component party of PH coalition and was a member of the Malaysian Islamic Party , a former component party of the former Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Alternatif oppositio...
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#3713

Bonnielin Swenor

#175959
Overall Influence
Bonnielin Swenor is an American epidemiologist who is an associate professor and director of the Johns Hopkins University Disability Health Research Center. She seeks to address inequities impacting people with disabilities and change public perception of disability, away from "living with disability" and toward "thriving with a disability".
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#3714

Sharad P. Paul

#170880
Overall Influence
Sharad P. Paul is a New Zealand-based skin cancer specialist, social entrepreneur and author. Currently, he is an adjunct professor at the Auckland University of Technology and senior lecturer at the School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Australia. He is also senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Surgery at the University of Auckland. He has authored both fiction including novels and poetry as well as non-fiction including medical books, journals and articles.
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#3715

Niki Moutsopoulos

#170361
Overall Influence
Niki M. Moutsopoulos is a Greek periodontist and immunologist. She is a senior investigator in the oral immunity and infection section at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. Moutsopoulos specializes in oral immunology and periodontitis. Her research program focuses on host-microbial interactions that can drive chronic inflammatory responses and tissue destruction in the oral cavity.
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#3716

Reina Bendayan

#178470
Overall Influence
Reina Bendayan is a Canadian pharmacologist. She is a professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto and Career Scientist at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network.
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#3717

Edward Hawrot

#177031
Overall Influence
Edward Hawrot is an American medical scientist, and currently the Alva O. Way University Professor of Medical Science at Brown University. He was previously the Upjohn Professor from 2001 to 2008.
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#3718

Andrew Jackson

#179631
Overall Influence
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#3719

Cathie Sudlow

#158899
Overall Influence
Catherine Sudlow is a British neurologist. She is a professor of Neurology and Clinical Epidemiology and Head of the Centre for Medical Informatics at the Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. She is the Chief Scientist of UK Biobank, and an honorary Consultant Neurologist in the Division of Clinical Neurosciences in Edinburgh.
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#3720

Gina Lovasi

#178902
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Gina Danielle Schellenbaum Lovasi is the Urban Health Collaborative Co-Director and Dornsife Associate Professor of Urban Health at Drexel University. She has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and co-edited the book Urban Public Health: A Research Toolkit for Practice and Impact.
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#3721

Alison Gurney

#169367
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Alison Marion Gurney is professor of Pharmacology at the University of Manchester. She previously held the W.C. Bowman Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Strathclyde, where she was the first female appointed to a science professorship and the first female Professor of Pharmacology in Scotland. She is known for her research into the pharmacology and physiological roles of ion channels, especially in the pulmonary circulation.
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#3722

Fernando Alfageme

Fernando Alfageme
#175482
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Fernando Alfageme Roldán is a Spanish dermatologist. He introduced the diagnostic technique of cutaneous ultrasound in Spain, is an associate professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, and is responsible for the Dermatological Ultrasound Unit at the Puerta de Hierro University Hospital in Majadahonda. He has authored several essays, manuals and academic articles about dermatology.
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#3723

Limor Aharonson-Daniel

#174191
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Limor Aharonson-Daniel is an Israeli emergency medicine expert. Biography Limor Aharonson-Daniel was born in Israel to Nurit and Ephraim Aharonson, a direct descendant of the Aharonson family of Zichron Yaakov.
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#3724

Judith Kaur

#112932
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Judith Salmon Kaur is an American oncologist who is Director of the Native American Programs in the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. According to Indian Country Today, Kaur is one of only two Native American oncologists working in the United States.
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#3725

Donald Douglas

#107469
Overall Influence
1911 - 1993 (82 years)
Sir Donald Macleod Douglas, was a Scottish academic surgeon. His schooling and medical undergraduate education were at St Andrews following which he embarked at an early stage on an academic career, winning a scholarship to pursue research at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesota.
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#3726

Clark Stanford

#180094
Overall Influence
Clark Stanford is an American dentist, focusing restorative dentistry and craniofacial pathobiology, currently the Dean and Professor at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry. He was UIC Distinguished Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry.
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#3727

Ting Yu

#180123
Overall Influence
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#3728

Charlotte Coles

#180134
Overall Influence
Charlotte E. Coles is a British oncologist and professor at the University of Cambridge Her research focuses on using personalised radiation therapy for people with breast cancer. In 2019 she was awarded a Research Professorship at the National Institute for Health Research .
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#3729

Dirk De Ridder

#170907
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Dirk De Ridder is a Belgian neurosurgeon. He is a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. De Ridder spends half his time in New Zealand and half in Belgium, involved in setting up a dedicated neuromodulation clinic.
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#3730

Donald Leake

#178133
Overall Influence
1931 - 1997 (66 years)
Donald Lewis Leake was an oral surgeon, and inventor of the alloplastic tray, a method for reconstruction of jaws without the need for bone grafts. He gained his D.M.D. from Harvard University in 1962, and an M.D. from Stanford University in 1969. In 1970, Leake was employed at Harvard Medical School as an oral surgeon, and since 1971, Leake had been a Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at UCLA.
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#3731

Catharina Boehme

#173842
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Catharina Boehme is the Assistant Director-General for External Relations and Governance of the World Health Organization. She previously served as WHO Chef de Cabinet, and is known for her work in developing diagnostic tests for diseases such as tuberculosis and for advocating for increased testing for the COVID-19 disease.
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#3732

Henk Tennekes

#136515
Overall Influence
1950 - 2020 (70 years)
Henk Tennekes was a Dutch toxicologist. Tennekes worked as doctor and researcher at the Philipps-Universiteit Marburg; the German research cancer centre Krebsforschungszentrum in Heidelberg; Sandoz in Muttenz, Switzerland and at the Research and Consulting Company in Itingen. Since 1992 he was an independent researcher.
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#3733

Raymond Heimbecker

#141058
Overall Influence
1922 - 2014 (92 years)
Raymond O. Heimbecker, was a Canadian cardiovascular surgeon who performed the world’s first complete heart valve transplant in 1962, and Canada’s first modern heart transplant in 1981 with anti-rejection drugs to prolong the patient's survival.
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#3734

Sarah B. Henderson

#169896
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Sarah B. Henderson is a senior environmental health scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and a public health professor at the University of British Columbia. Early life and education Henderson was born in Toronto, Ontario, and excelled in math and science classes which led to pursue scientific fields later in life. Henderson earned a bachelor of applied science from the University of British Columbia in 2000, focusing on environmental engineering. She worked in the field of pollution control and reduction. She also worked in Uganda developing gravity fed water systems before earning her Ph.D.
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#3735

Cathy Zimmerman

#180165
Overall Influence
Cathy Lynn Zimmerman is a social scientist and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine . She founded the LSHTM Gender Violence & Health Centre. Her research investigates migration, violence and health.
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#3736

Aimée R. Kreimer

#141851
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Aimée Rebecca Kreimer is an American cancer epidemiologist who researches the etiology and prevention of human papillomavirus infection and cancer prevention. She is a senior investigator in the infections and immunoepidemiology branch at the National Cancer Institute.
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#3737

Aneez Esmail

#180416
Overall Influence
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#3738

Jonathan Shepherd

#127146
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Jonathan P Shepherd CBE FRCS FFPH FRCPsych FMedSci FLSW is a Welsh surgeon, criminologist and professor at Cardiff University's Crime and Security Research Institute which he co-founded in 2015. He also founded the University's Violence Research Group. He has initiated UK public service reforms and other measures to strengthen the evidence foundations on which these services are based. These include new professional bodies for policing, probation and teaching; the UK What Works Centres and What Works Council; new university police research centres in England and Wales; and a new police researc...
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#3739

Christophe Wiart

#118429
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Christophe Wiart is a French scientist. His fields of expertise are Asian ethnopharmacology, chemotaxonomy and ethnobotany. He has collected, identified and classified several hundred species of medicinal plants of India, Southeast Asia and China.
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#3740

Adrian M. Di Bisceglie

#180563
Overall Influence
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#3741

Valerie Wojna

#179524
Overall Influence
Valerie E. Wojna Muñiz is a Puerto Rican neurologist and professor of neurology at University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus. Education Wojna graduated from University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine in 1984. At UPR, she completed an internship in internal medicine , a residency in neurology , and a fellowship in clinical neurophysiology .
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#3742

Andrew Heggie

#178340
Overall Influence
Andrew A.C. Heggie is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. His primary interest has been the management of developmental skeletal facial deformity, including patients with cleft lip and palate, craniofacial microsomia and infants with micrognathism. His contribution to the treatment of infant upper airway obstruction for Pierre Robin sequence, using internal devices for jaw lengthening using distraction osteogenesis, has replaced the need for tracheostomy in this condition. In 2019, Heggie was awarded Member of the Order of Australia for s...
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#3743

Richard T. Lee

#180668
Overall Influence
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#3744

Roland Boer

#31917
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Roland Boer is an Australian theologian and scholar of Marxism. He was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2014. Career Boer obtained a bachelors degree in divinity from the University of Sydney. He was a professor at University of Newcastle .
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#3745

Carlos Manuel Chávez

#176205
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Carlos Manuel Chávez is a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon best known for his participation in the first-ever human heart transplant. He was also the first surgeon to perform a coronary artery bypass, during 1972 in Mississippi, United States, and Monterrey, Mexico.
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#3746

Marion Sewer

#120410
Overall Influence
1972 - 2016 (44 years)
Marion Sewer was a pharmacologist and professor at the University of California, San Diego's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences known for her research on steroid hormone biogenesis and her commitment to increasing diversity in science. Much of her research centered around cytochrome P450, a family of enzymes involved in the conversion of cholesterol into steroid hormones. She died unexpectedly at the age of 43 from a pulmonary embolism on January 28, 2016, while traveling through the Detroit airport.
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#3747

Nadia Dowshen

#179050
Overall Influence
Nadia Lauren Dowshen is an American pediatrician and adolescent medicine physician. She specializes in the care of youth living with HIV infection and medical care to transgender and gender-diverse youth. Dowshen researches health inequality, access to care, and promoting resilience in LGBT youth. As an associate professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, she is also the medical director and co-founder of the Gender and Sexuality Development Clinic.
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#3748

Jill Koshiol

#82581
Overall Influence
Jill E. Koshiol is an American cancer epidemiologist who researches the risk factors of hepatobiliary cancers. She is a senior investigator in the infections and immunoepidemiology branch at the National Cancer Institute.
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#3749

Xavier Leroy

#181264
Overall Influence
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#3750

Lyda Osorio

#66076
Overall Influence
Lyda Elena Osorio Amaya is a Colombian physician, epidemiologist and infectious disease specialist. She is an associate professor at the Universidad del Valle, and a researcher at the Centro Internacional de Entrenamiento e Investigaciones Médicas in Cali, Valle del Cauca. Osorio's research has focused mainly on vector-borne diseases like malaria, leishmaniasis, Zika and dengue fever. She has also played a role in Colombia's response against COVID-19.
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