Search People Result | Academic Influence

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).

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List of the most influential people in Medical,

#3751

Emily Abel

#173546

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Emily K. Abel is a public health and medical historian, author and professor emerita at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health where she was a Professor of Health Services and Women’s Studies. Abel earned a B. A. from Swarthmore College, M.A. in history from Columbia University, her Ph.D. in history from the University of London, and her M.P.H. from the UCLA School of Public Health.

#3752

Arghavan Salles

Arghavan Salles

#177677

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Arghavan Salles is an Iranian American bariatric surgeon. Salles is a Director of the American Medical Women's Association, a Special Advisor for DEI Programs in the Department of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine and a Senior Research Scholar at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research. Salles' research focuses on gender equity, well-being, and the challenges women face in the workplace. Salles works as an advocate for equity and inclusion and as an activist against sexual harassment. Salles is an international speaker who worked on the front lines and supported health prof...

#3753

Karen Witten

#181413

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Karen Witten is a New Zealand public health academic. She is currently a full professor at Massey University. Academic career Witten's 2005 PhD geography thesis from the University of Auckland concerned the six diverse suburban localities in Auckland and the implications of living there for parents raising children and the impacts on health and health inequality. The title of her thesis was Placing caregiving: parenting in diverse localities in suburban Auckland.

#3754

Beth Overmoyer

#179746

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Beth Ann Overmoyer is an American physician and oncologist. She is Director of the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Program at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. Early life and education Overmoyer was an undergraduate student in biology and graduated magna cum laude. She was a medical student at the Case Western Reserve University, before moving to the University of Pennsylvania for her internship and medical residence. She became interested in oncology in the late eighties, when she started researching breast cancer at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

#3755

Hywel Davies

#105035

Overall Influence

1924 - 2016 (92 years)

David Hywel Davies was a Welsh cardiologist and writer. He wrote extensively on a range of medical and scientific subjects. Career Born in Swansea, Wales in 1924, Davies attended Swansea Grammar School and gained a Meyricke Exhibition in chemistry at Jesus College, Oxford. He interrupted his studies in 1943 to join the Royal Engineers, in which regiment he was commissioned and served in Italy, India and Malaya. Upon returning to Oxford in 1946, he changed his degree and started reading medicine. Davies undertook his clinical studies at Westminster Hospital, London, where he gained the Sturge...

#3756

Richard Grucza

#175846

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Richard Grucza is an American epidemiologist and professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine. Education Grucza received his B.S. from Rochester Institute of Technology in 1989, his M.S. from Pennsylvania State University in 1991, and his Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics from Washington University in St. Louis in 2000. As a postdoctoral fellow, he received a Master of Psychiatric Epidemiology from Washington University in St. Louis 2003.

#3757

Ivar A. Mjør

#173716

Overall Influence

1933 - 2017 (84 years)

Ivar A. Mjør was a Norwegian odontologist. Mjør was born in Norderhov. He was professor in dentistry at the University of Oslo, director of Nordisk Institutt for odontologisk materialprøving, president of the International Association for Dental Research, and professor at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. He published more than 300 scientific articles during his career.

#3758

Stephen J. Challacombe

Stephen J. Challacombe

#167720

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Stephen James Challacombe FRC, FDSRCS, FMedSci, is professor of oral medicine at King's College in London, best known for research in oromucosal immunology and for developing the Challacombe scale for measuring the extent of dryness of the mouth. He led the team that laid out research challenges of global health inequalities and oral health, particularly relating to the oral manifestations of HIV.

#3759

Katarina Svanberg

#125954

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Katarina Svanberg is a Swedish physician who is Professor and Chief Consultant of Oncology at the Skåne University Hospital. Her research considers the use of fluorescence-based tumour imaging and photodynamic therapy. She served as President of SPIE in 2011 and was awarded the SPIE Gold Medal in 2017.

#3760

John Maggio

#181423

Overall Influence

1955 - 2017 (62 years)

John Edward Maggio was an American pharmacologist. He earned undergraduate and advanced degrees in chemistry from Harvard University. Maggio specialized in Alzheimer's disease and taught at the University of Cincinnati as Flor van Maanen Professor of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He died in Hyde Park, Cincinnati, of cancer on 15 April 2017, aged 64.

#3761

Elizabeth McDermott

#142092

Overall Influence

Elizabeth McDermott is a Professor of Health Inequality at Lancaster University, in England. Her research considers mental health inequality, with a focus on gender, social class and young people. Early life and education McDermott earned her doctoral degree at the Lancaster University, where she studied the influence of lesbian identity and social class on wellbeing. She was a postdoctoral researcher on a project that looked to understand how people affected by cancer understood end of life issues.

#3762

Pasquale De Bonis

#180790

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Pasquale De Bonis is an Italian Neurosurgeon, Full Professor of Neurosurgery, and Director of the Neurosurgery Residency Program at University of Ferrara, Department of Translational Medicine. He is a top Italian Scientist.

#3763

Sue Desmond-Hellmann

#116277

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Sue Desmond-Hellmann is an American oncologist and biotechnology leader who served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2014–2020. She was previously Chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco , the first woman to hold the position, and Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished Professor, and before that president of product development at Genentech, where she played a role in the development of the first gene-targeted cancer drugs, Avastin and Herceptin.

#3764

Sam Mbulaiteye

#182021

Overall Influence

Sam M. Mbulaiteye is a Ugandan physician-scientist and epidemiologist who researches Burkitt lymphoma. He is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Life Mbulaiteye received physician training at Makerere University with advanced training in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Cambridge , and specialist training in internal medicine from Makerere University . His early research focused on measuring the impact of HIV on cancer in patients at the Uganda Cancer Institute from 1994 and 1997 and investigating population trends of HIV in a general population in rural southwest Uganda while at the Uganda Virus Research Institute and U.K.

#3765

Biörn Ivemark

#165132

Overall Influence

1925 - 2005 (80 years)

Biörn Ivemark was a Swedish pediatrician and pathologist. He is credited with characterizing asplenia with cardiovascular anomalies, also sometimes known as "Ivemark syndrome". Born in Karlstad, Ivemark graduated from Karolinska Institutet in 1951 and received his research doctorate in 1955.

#3766

Wen-Yi Huang

#181345

Overall Influence

Wen-Yi Huang is a cancer epidemiologist who primarily researches colorectal and prostate tumors. She is a staff scientist in the metabolic epidemiology branch at the National Cancer Institute. Life Huang received a Ph.D. in epidemiology from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in 1998, with concentrations on gene-environment interactions and etiologic heterogeneity of breast cancer, defined by molecular markers. She completed two years of postdoctoral research in the epidemiology department at Glaxo Wellcome. She joined the National Cancer Institute as a staff scientist metabolic ...

#3767

Nigel Paneth

#72980

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Nigel Sefton Paneth is an English pediatrician and epidemiologist who serves as Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Pediatrics at Michigan State University. He is known for his research on the causes of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders such as cerebral palsy. He formerly served as a designer and principal investigator for the National Children's Study.

#3768

Bernard Ginsborg

Bernard Ginsborg

#165474

Overall Influence

2000 - 2018 (18 years)

Bernard Lionel Ginsborg was a British pharmacologist and physiologist. Early life Bernard Ginsborg was born on 22 January 1925, the youngest child of Henry Ginsborg and Mala Rebbe, who came from Riga and Kovno in 1913 or 1914 . Henry worked in a wharf in east London and was subsequently a supervisor in a toy factory. An older brother, Eddie, died before Bernard was born, but he grew up very close to his sisters Bertha and Rebecca, who trained as a lawyer.

#3769

Richard Smith

#182277

Overall Influence

#3770

Matthew C. Keifer

#175112

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Matthew C. Keifer is the director of the VA Occupational Health and the Specialty Medicine Service Line at the VA Puget Sound, Seattle, WA. Keifer served as director of the National Farm Medicine Center from 2012 to 2016, and is currently a co-director of the Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center, and a project PI within the National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety. He is an occupational physician and internist who also practiced occupational medicine at the Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, Wisconsin during his time as the director of NFMC. He is ...

#3771

Alexander Mair

#177577

Overall Influence

1912 - 1995 (83 years)

Prof Alexander Mair OBE FRSE DPH was a Scottish public health expert. Life He was born in Portknockie in northern Scotland on 9 September 1912, the son of local herring fisherman, Alexander Mair and his wife, Jessie Slater. His father worked on the Zulu class trawler "Evangeline". He was educated locally and left school at the then normal UK age of 14. He worked in the fishing industry but was an on-shore clerk overseeing catches in Buckie rather than being a fisherman.

#3772

Teresa Wood

#171128

Overall Influence

Teresa L. Wood is an American neuroscientist. In November 2019, Wood was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "her research on growth factors and their signaling pathways as they pertain to stem cell differentiation, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases."

#3773

Michelle A. Williams

#182551

Overall Influence

#3774

Benjamin Alman

#100133

Overall Influence

Benjamin Aaron Alman is an American orthopaedic clinician-scientist and currently Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine . Alman is the Distinguished James R. Urbaniak, MD, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and also holds appointments with the Department of Cell Biology, Pediatrics, and Pathology at Duke University. Among Alman's other appointments, he is co-director of the Regeneration Next Initiative at Duke University.

#3775

Mohammad Ali Sahraian

#107070

Overall Influence

Dr Mohammad Ali Sahraian is a neurologist and a researcher currently working in Sina Hospital which is affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. His main field of research is multiple sclerosis, and he established the first specialised ward for that disease in Iran. He is one of the two main authors of "MRI Atlas of MS Lesions", published by Springer.

#3776

Dina N. Paltoo

#158753

Overall Influence

Dina Nicole Paltoo is an American epidemiologist specializing in open science, data science, and public access. She is the assistant director for scientific strategy and innovation at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

#3777

Shaodong Guo

#113463

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Shaodong Guo is a Chinese-American nutrition scientist, academic, and diabetes researcher. He is a professor in nutrition and medicine at the Department of Nutrition of Texas A&M University. He has been a senior editor for Journal of Endocrinology and Journal of Molecular Endocrinology.

#3778

Sharon Xiangwen Xie

#141474

Overall Influence

Sharon Xiangwen Xie is a Chinese biostatistician and epidemiologist who studies neurodegenerative diseases. She is a professor of biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania.

#3779

Haleema Shakur-Still

#182787

Overall Influence

Haleema Shakur-Still is a professor of Global Health Clinical Trials and the co-director of London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's Clinical Trials Unit. Scientific career Shakur-Still has worked in global health clinical trials for over 16 years, specifically focusing on emergency care. Shakur-Still's work includes designing and conducting clinical trials, as well as developing ways to communicate the work to clinicians, policy makers, and the public.

#3780

Wang Jun

#152949

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Wang Jun is a Chinese surgeon specializing in thoracic surgery and lung cancer. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering who serves as director of Chest Surgery Department of the Peking University People's Hospital. He has been hailed as "The First Thoracoscopic Surgeon in China".

#3781

Barbara Harland

#182328

Overall Influence

1925 - 2020 (95 years)

Barbara F. Harland was a biologist, dietician, nutritionist, and professor of nutritional sciences at Howard University, within the College of Nursing and Allied Health Services. Harland was licensed as a dietician and nutritionist by the State of Maryland and worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a research biologist. In 1984, she accepted a faculty position at Howard University and served as a professor of nutritional sciences for over 30 years, where she was awarded tenure and joined the graduate faculty. She was also involved in supporting student aid and school supply funding, establishing the Dr.

#3782

Jacqueline E. Darroch

#182027

Overall Influence

Jacqueline Eileen Darroch is an American specialist of reproductive health. She is currently a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, with which she has been involved since 1978. Biography Darroch received her B.A. from Barnard College, her M.A. in sociology from the University of Michigan, and PhD from Princeton University. She also studied at the University of Cologne on a Fulbright fellowship.

#3783

Cornelis Van Breemen

#183111

Overall Influence

#3784

Kang Laiyi

#177873

Overall Influence

1936 - 2019 (83 years)

Kang Laiyi was a Chinese epidemiologist. He was a professor, chief medical doctor and director at the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He worked in public health for almost six decades, including more than 30 years in HIV/AIDS epidemiology and management.

#3785

Obrad Zelić

#156425

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Obrad Zelic is a regular professor of parodontology and oral medicine at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Stomatology and a guest professor at faculties in Moscow, Yerevan, Toronto, Winnipeg, Athens, and Jerusalem. He was the first to graduate in the class of 1970, and became a docent before his 33rd birthday in 1979.

#3786

Elena Fuentes-Afflick

#182592

Overall Influence

Elena Fuentes-Afflick is an American pediatrician who is Chief of Pediatrics at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Vice Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco. She is the former President of the Society for Pediatric Research and the American Pediatric Society. In 2010 she was elected a to the National Academy of Medicine.

#3787

Caroline Horwath

#183259

Overall Influence

Caroline Christine Horwath is a New Zealand nutritional scientist and professor in the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago. Academic career Horwath graduated from the University of Adelaide with a PhD in 1987. Her thesis was titled "A random population study of the dietary habits of elderly people". She subsequently joined the University of Otago as a lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition. In December 2019 she, along with two of her colleagues Lisa Houghton and Rachel Brown, was promoted to full professor with effect from 1 February 2020.

#3788

Dieter Koch-Weser

#99244

Overall Influence

1916 - 2015 (99 years)

Dieter Koch-Weser was a German-American physician and social medicine and HIV/AIDS researcher based in the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health. He was a long-time advocate of Dr. Albert Schweitzer's philosophy of Reverence for Life and a supporter of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. He was medically noted for his HIV/AIDS research in Peru and authorization of a book on the heterosexual transmission of AIDS. In public health and healthcare, he had long advocated "a shift from treating illness to preventing it."

#3789

Peter Quilliam

#143702

Overall Influence

1915 - 2003 (88 years)

Peter Quilliam OBE was emeritus professor of pharmacology at the University of London. He is buried at St Andrew's church, Totteridge, London.

#3790

Duncan C. Thomas

#183412

Overall Influence

#3791

David Robertson

#183445

Overall Influence

#3792

C. O. Simpkins

#169115

Overall Influence

1925 - 2019 (94 years)

Cuthbert Ormond Simpkins was an American dentist, civil rights campaigner, and state legislator in Louisiana. He left the state under threat of violence before returning. He was born in Mansfield, Louisiana to Oscar Simpkins. He studied at Wiley College and graduated from Tennessee State University with an undergraduate degree. He received a Doctorate of Dental Surgery from Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry in Nashville, Tennessee.

#3793

Ming-Ming Zhou

#95306

Overall Influence

Ming-Ming Zhou is an American scientist who focuses on structural and chemical biology, NMR spectroscopy, and drug design. He is the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences. He is also the co-director of the Drug Discovery Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, as well as Professor of Sciences. Zhou is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3794

Jesús Vaquero

#174233

Overall Influence

1950 - 2020 (70 years)

Jesús Vaquero Crespo was a Spanish neurosurgeon. He was a pioneer in the treatment of medullary injuries. Biography Born in Madrid in 1950, he became chief of Neurosurgery of the Hospital Puerta de Hierro in 1992. He was also full professor of the Autonomous University of Madrid and also held the Chair of Neuroscience of the Rafael del Pino Foundation.

#3795

Jill Macleod Clark

#115412

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Professor Dame Jill Macleod Clark, DBE, RGN, FRCN has held key leadership roles in Nursing and Health care and was Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences University of Southampton. She is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Southampton and holds Visiting Professor positions in the UK, Canada and Australia.

#3796

Richard Scott Conley

#179452

Overall Influence

Richard Scott Conley is an American dental academic. Conley graduated from Hamilton College with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and obtained a doctorate in dental medicine from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the faculty of the University at Buffalo as L. B. Badgero Endowed Associate Professor in 2016, he taught for a time as Robert W. Browne Endowed Professor of Dentistry at the University of Michigan.

#3797

María Nieves García-Casal

#181861

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

María de las Nieves García-Casal is a licensed dietitian and nutritionist born in Galicia, Spain, raised and educated in Venezuela. She is the first woman to lead the Latin American Society of Nutrition , serving as president from 2012 to 2015. She was also president of the Venezuelan Chapter of the Society from 2014 to 2019. Her research includes iron nutrition and the assessment of marine algae as a source of food for humans.

#3798

Rachel Brown

#179075

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Rachel C. Brown is a New Zealand scientist, professor and deputy head of the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago. Academic career Born in 1970, Brown completed a BSc, MSc and PhD at the University of Otago and joined the university's staff. In December 2019 she, along with two of her colleagues Lisa Houghton and Caroline Horwath, was promoted to full professor with effect from 1 February 2020.

#3799

Lucia Sivilotti

Lucia Sivilotti

#173260

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Lucia Giulia Sivilotti holds the A.J. Clark Chair of Pharmacology at University College London. Her work is aimed at understanding the functioning of receptors that mediate fast synaptic transmission, and focuses on two classes of ion channels in the nicotinic superfamily, nicotinic and glycine receptors.

#3800

Katrina Mealey

#179640

Overall Influence

Katrina Ann Mealey is an American veterinary pharmacologist. She is a Regents Professor and Richard L. Ott Endowed Chair in Small Animal Medicine and Research at Washington State University. Early life and education Mealey was born and raised in New Mexico to parents Maria Gonzales and Wayne R. Larson. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of New Mexico before marrying her husband, Robert Mealey, and enrolling together at Colorado State University for their DVM. Following her DVM, Mealey completed two internships and a residency before completing her PhD at Texas A&M ...

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