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,
#451
Selahattin Özmen
#36033
Overall Influence
Selahattin Özmen is a Turkish plastic surgeon and a full professor of plastic surgery at the Koç University School of Medicine, department of plastic surgery and American Hospital Department of Plastic Surgery in İstanbul. he performed Turkey's third face transplant in 2012 at Gazi University / Ankara.
Go to Profile#452
Sandra Black
#39535
Overall Influence
Sandra Elizabeth Black, is a Canadian physician and neurologist known for her work in "contributing to improved diagnosis and treatment of vascular dementia, Alzheimer's disease and stroke". She is currently a Senior scientist at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She holds the Brill Chair in Neurology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#453
Kevin J. Catt Catt
#63817
Overall Influence
#454
Masaharu Nagashima
#49128
Overall Influence
1929 - 2010 (81 years)
Masaharu Nagashima was a Japanese dermatologist, the first professor of dermatology at Kyorin University, who proposed the designation of prurigo pigmentosa. He was born in Tokyo in February 1929. After qualification of a dentist, he graduated from Keio University and entered the Department of Dermatology and Urology in 1955. In 1961, he became assistant professor of Keio University. In 1974, he became the first professor of dermatology at Kyorin University. In 1994, he retired and died in 2010.
Go to Profile#455
Jane A. Cauley
#51417
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Jane A. Cauley is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and an Associate Dean for Research at the University of Pittsburgh. Education Cauley received a BSN in Nursing at Boston College in 1975. She then continued to receive a MPH in Epidemiology/Public Health Nursing at the University of Pittsburgh in 1980 and a Doctor of Public Health in Epidemiology in 1983.
Go to Profile#456
Monica Bertagnolli
#45586
Overall Influence
Monica Bertagnolli is an American surgical oncologist and the 17th director of the National Institutes of Health. She previously served as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute. Prior to her governmental positions, she worked at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and was the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. She has advocated for inclusion of rural communities in clinical studies and served as Chair of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology until her appointment to lead NCI. Bertagnolli specializes in the treatment of tumors from gastrointestinal diseases and soft tissue sarcomas.
Go to Profile#457
Miquel Porta
#45917
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Miquel Porta is a Catalan physician, epidemiologist and scholar. He has promoted the integration of biological, clinical and environmental knowledge and methods in health research and teaching, which he has conducted internationally; notably, in Spain, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Harvard, Imperial College London, and several other universities in Europe, North America, Kuwait, and Brazil. Appointed by the International Epidemiological Association , in 2008 he succeeded the Canadian epidemiologist John M. Last as Editor of "A Dictionary of Epidemiology". In the Preface to this book he argues for an inclusive and integrative practice of the science of epidemiology.
Go to Profile#458
Ross J. Baldessarini
#61184
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (88 years)
Ross J. Baldessarini , a psychopharmacologist, is the Director, International Consortium for Bipolar & Psychotic Disorders Research at McLean Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.
Go to Profile#459
Joseph Barnett Kirsner
#64068
Overall Influence
#460
Michael Egnor
#29101
Overall Influence
Michael Egnor is a pediatric neurosurgeon, advocate of intelligent design and blogger at the Discovery Institute. He is a professor at the Department of Neurological Surgery at Stony Brook University, a position held since 1991.
Go to Profile#461
Michael B. Bracken
#40045
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Michael B. Bracken is an American perinatal epidemiologist. He is the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, and Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, and Professor of Neurology at the Yale School of Medicine. He is co-director of the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology.
Go to Profile#462
David de Wied
#31610
Overall Influence
1925 - 2004 (79 years)
David de Wied was a Dutch professor of pharmacology at the University of Utrecht. Due to the necessity of hiding as a Jew during the Second World War, De Wied only started in 1947 studying medicine at the University of Groningen. In 1952 he received his PhD with his thesis "Vitamin C, Adrenal gland and Adaptation" and in 1955 he graduated as physician. In 1961 he was appointed professor of experimental endocrinology and from 1963 he served as director of the Rudolf Magnus Institute and professor of pharmacology in Utrecht.
Go to Profile#463
Fred Wabwire-Mangen
#44891
Overall Influence
Frederick Wabwire-Mangen is a Ugandan physician, public health specialist and medical researcher. Currently he is Professor of Epidemiology and Head of Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Makerere University School of Public Health. Wabwire-Mangen also serves as the Chairman of Council of Kampala International University and a founding member of Accordia Global Health Foundation’s Academic Alliance
Go to Profile#464
Jean Golding
#37125
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Jean Golding , FMedSci, is a British epidemiologist, and founder of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children , also known as "Children of the Nineties". She is Emeritus Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology at the University of Bristol.
Go to Profile#465
Fiona Powrie
#48034
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (62 years)
Dame Fiona Magaret Powrie is currently the head of the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at the University of Oxford. Formerly she was the inaugural Sidney Truelove Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Oxford. She is also head of the Experimental Medicine Division of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine.
Go to Profile#466
Edward Bove
#28800
Overall Influence
Edward Bove is an American pediatric cardiac surgeon who has worked in the University of Michigan Health System most of his career. Bove was raised in New York City. He earned his undergraduate degree at the College of the Holy Cross, earned his medical degree from Albany Medical College in 1972, and went to University of Michigan for his residency. He completed that in 1980, then after a sojourn at Great Ormond Street Hospital as a fellow, spent five years as a surgeon at State University of New York in Syracuse before being recruited back to Michigan in 1985 to become head of the pediatric ...
Go to Profile#467
Richard Cytowic
#22587
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Richard E. Cytowic is an American neurologist and author who rekindled interest in synesthesia in the 1980s and returned it to mainstream science. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times Magazine cover story about James Brady, the Presidential Press Secretary shot in the brain during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Cytowic’s writing ranges from textbooks and music reviews, to his Metro Weekly "Love Doctor" essays and brief medical biographies of Anton Chekhov, Maurice Ravel and Virginia Woolf. His work is the subject of two BBC Horizon documentaries, “Ora...
Go to Profile#468
C. Stephen Foster
#42000
Overall Influence
Charles Stephen Foster is an American ophthalmologist known for his research and treatment of ocular inflammatory disease with immunomodulatory therapy. In addition, Foster is the author of approximately 1,000 papers and 14 textbooks. His focus tends to be dedicated to the advancement of ophthalmology. Foster established the Ocular Immunology and Uveitis Foundation to support relevant research. He is currently is a mentor and part-time professor of ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School.
Go to Profile#469
Dawn Freshwater
#19496
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (63 years)
Dawn Freshwater is a British academic, university professor, mental health researcher, and the incumbent Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland. Early life and education Freshwater was born in a mining family in Nottingham, with two younger brothers. She left school at the age of 15 because her parents became unwell. Freshwater trained as a nurse and was the first member of her family to attend university. Her doctoral research investigated the impact of transformative learning on nursing students for which she awarded a PhD by the University of Nottingham in 1998.
Go to Profile#470
Rudolph E. Tanzi
#40944
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Rudolph Emile 'Rudy' Tanzi a professor of Neurology at Harvard University, vice-chair of neurology, director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, and co-director of the Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital .
Go to Profile#471
Jonathan Fielding
#45554
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (83 years)
Jonathan Evan Fielding is a board-certified physician in both Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine, and the former director and health officer of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. At UCLA, he is a Distinguished Professor in the Fielding School of Public Health and a Professor in the David Geffen School of Medicine. He is the founder and co-director of the UCLA Center for Health Advancement in the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Go to Profile#472
James Enstrom
#48494
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (82 years)
James Eugene Enstrom is an American epidemiologist who has worked at the University of California, Los Angeles since 1976, where he is currently a retired researcher. Education Enstrom received his B.S. in physics from Harvey Mudd College, where he graduated co-valedictorian of the Class of 1965; he received his M.S. and Ph.D., also in physics, from Stanford University in 1967 and 1970, respectively. His dissertation advisor was Nobel Laureate Melvin Schwartz and his elementary particle physics dissertation is posted on a Stanford website. During 1971-1973 he conducted postdoctoral research i...
Go to Profile#473
Courtney Fitzhugh
#35416
Overall Influence
Courtney D. Fitzhugh is an American hematologist-oncologist and scientist. She is a clinical researcher and head of the laboratory of early sickle cell mortality prevention at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Go to Profile#474
Rachael Taylor
#55503
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (54 years)
Rachael Waring Taylor is a New Zealand childhood nutrition academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 2001 PhD titled Body composition in children and adolescents : a DXA based study at the University of Otago, Taylor worked at Otago, rising to full professor in 2016.
Go to Profile#475
Barbara Starfield
#57621
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Barbara Starfield was an American pediatrician. She was an advocate for primary health care worldwide. Her academic and professional life was almost fully dedicated to the Johns Hopkins University. Biography Starfield studied medicine between 1954 and 1959 at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center and graduated magna cum laude. She specialized in pediatrics between 1959 and 1962 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She obtained her Masters in Public Health in 1963 at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health.
Go to Profile#476
Piotr Ponikowski
#45948
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Piotr Ponikowski is a Polish cardiologist, Professor of Medical Sciences, Vice-Rector of the Wrocław Medical University and Head of the Polish Cardiological Society . His scientific interests include research on heart failure, coronary heart disease and heart arrhythmia.
Go to Profile#477
Valerie Rusch
#54856
Overall Influence
Valerie W Rusch, MD, FACS, is an American thoracic surgeon who is currently the Miner Family Chair for Intrathoracic Cancers and Vice Chair for Clinical Research, Department of Surgery, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Go to Profile#478
Martin B. Leon
#65509
Overall Influence
#479
Steven R. Cummings
#65544
Overall Influence
Steven R. Cummings is an American epidemiologist and Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. He is one of the top highly cited researchers according to webometrics.
Go to Profile#480
Peter Boyle
#45297
Overall Influence
1951 - 2022 (71 years)
Peter Boyle, FRSE FFPH FRCPS FRCP FMedSci, was a British epidemiologist. He conducted research on globalisation of cancer, where he showed the dramatic increase of cancer in low- and medium income countries.
Go to Profile#481
Jaakko Kaprio
#64452
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Jaakko Arthur Kaprio is a Finnish human geneticist. He is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at the Department of Public Health of the University of Helsinki, where he also leads the twin study project. He was director of the Finnish Institute for Molecular Medicine starting in October 2015, and ending on 31 January 2018. He formerly held a research professorship funded by the Academy of Finland for five years. He has also served as president of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco's European Chapter, the International Society for Twin Studies, and the Behavior Genetics Associatio...
Go to Profile#482
Ryszard Gryglewski
#38141
Overall Influence
1932 - 2023 (91 years)
Ryszard Jerzy Gryglewski was a Polish pharmacologist and physician. He is known for co-discovering prostacyclin. He was a Member of the Polish Academy of Learning and the Polish Academy of Sciences . He was the recipient of Sir Hans Krebs Medal as well as Poland's highest order of merit, the Order of the White Eagle.
Go to Profile#483
Daniel Tranel
#39246
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Daniel T. Tranel is an American professor of neurology at the University of Iowa. He has been recognized as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While a graduate student at the University of Iowa, he helped establish the Iowa Neurological Patient Registry, which he currently directs. The Iowa Neurological Patient Registry includes cases of unique brain injuries, such as Patient S.M. and Patient E.V.R. Tranel also directs the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Iowa. He serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Clinical and ...
Go to Profile#484
Xin Lu
#37789
Overall Influence
Xin Lu is a Professor of Cancer Biology and Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Oxford. She is known for her discovery of and research on the ASPP family of proteins.
Go to Profile#485
Staffan Lindeberg
#47116
Overall Influence
1950 - 2016 (66 years)
Staffan Lindeberg was an associate professor of family medicine at the Department of Medicine, University of Lund, Sweden. He was a practicing GP at St Lars Primary Health Care Center, Lund, Sweden. Lindeberg researched the paleolithic diet.
Go to Profile#486
Robert R Redfield III
#66093
Overall Influence
#487
William Feindel
#39666
Overall Influence
1918 - 2014 (96 years)
William Howard Feindel was a Canadian neurosurgeon, scientist and professor. Born in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, he received a B.A. in Biology from Acadia University in 1939, a M.Sc. from Dalhousie University in 1942, and an M.D., C.M. from McGill University in 1945. Attending Merton College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar he received his D. Phil in 1949.
Go to Profile#488
Dan Roden
#62380
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Dan Roden is a Canadian-born American medical researcher known for his work in personalized medicine. He is Professor of Medicine, Pharmacology and Biomedical Informatics at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, where he holds the Sam L. Clark Endowed Chair and serves at the Senior Vice President for Personalized Medicine. He is also the director of Vanderbilt University's BioVU project, which is a biobank linking individuals' DNA samples to their medical records.
Go to Profile#489
Ava Shamban
#61287
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
Ava T. Shamban is an American celebrity dermatologist who has made numerous appearances on television and cosmetic publications as an authority on the subject. She is currently a board-certified dermatologist based in Los Angeles, and founder of Ava MD.
Go to Profile#490
Angus Wallace
#55397
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
William Angus Wallace is a Scottish orthopaedic surgeon. He is Professor of Orthopaedic and Accident Surgery at the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences of the University of Nottingham. He came to widespread public notice for a life-saving surgery he performed using improvised equipment on a British Airways flight in 1995, and for treating Wayne Rooney before the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
Go to Profile#491
George Ojemann
#60527
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
George Ojemann is a professor emeritus of neurologic surgery in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Biography Ojemann was born in 1935, in Iowa City, and grew up there. He received a B.A. in 1956 from the University of Iowa, having served in the Air Force wing of the ROTC and being elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was awarded the University's Brigg's award on graduation for having the highest cumulative GPA for the four undergraduate years.
Go to Profile#492
José Narro Robles
#34352
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (77 years)
José Narro Robles is a Mexican physician, researcher, academic, and politician. He is a former director of the Faculty of Medicine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was elected its 23rd Rector on November 20, 2007. After two 4-year periods leading UNAM, in February 2016, he was appointed by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to replace Mercedes Juan as head of the Mexican Secretariat of Health.
Go to Profile#493
Cesar Victora
#64141
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (73 years)
Cesar G. Victora is a Brazilian-born epidemiologist, academic and specialist in child health and nutrition. He is an Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology at the Federal University of Pelotas and holds honorary appointments at the Universities of Harvard, Oxford, and Johns Hopkins and formerly at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Go to Profile#494
Nutrition Board.
#66604
Overall Influence
#495
Arno Villringer
#38740
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (67 years)
Arno Villringer is a Director at the Department of Neurology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany; Director of the Department of Cognitive Neurology at University of Leipzig Medical Center; and Academic Director of the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and the Mind&Brain Institute, Berlin. He holds a full professorship at University of Leipzig and an honorary professorship at Charité, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. From July 2022 to June 2025 he is the Chairperson of the Human Sciences Section of the Max Planck Society.
Go to Profile#496
Peter T. Fox
#50372
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
Peter T. Fox is a neuroimaging researcher and neurologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He is a professor in the Department of Radiology with joint appointments in Radiology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. He is the founding director of the Research Imaging Institute.
Go to Profile#497
Scott Halstead
#56902
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (95 years)
Scott Halstead is an American physician-scientist, virologist and epidemiologist known for his work in the fields of tropical medicine and vaccine development. He is considered one of the world's foremost authorities on viruses transmitted by mosquitoes, including Dengue, Japanese encephalitis, chikungunya and Zika. He was one of the first researchers to identify the phenomenon known as antibody-dependent enhancement , where the antibodies generated from a first dengue infection can sometimes worsen the symptoms from a second infection.
Go to Profile#498
Salvatore DiMauro
#64645
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (86 years)
Salvatore DiMauro, M.D., was born in Verona, Italy, November 14, 1939, graduated in medicine from the University of Padua in 1963 and completed his residency in neurology in 1966. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on genetic errors of energy metabolism and he defines disease entities using both biochemical and molecular approaches. As an "enzyme defect hunter", DiMauro has documented the molecular basis of many enzyme deficiencies, including carnitine palmitoyltransferase deficiency, the first error of fatty acid oxidation to be recognized in humans.
Go to Profile#499
Samantha Nutt
#19763
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (56 years)
Samantha Joan Nutt is a Canadian physician and philanthropist who is the founder and president of War Child Canada. She has more than sixteen years of experience working in war zones. Her 2011 book Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid details her work over the course of fifteen years in some of the most devastated regions of the world.
Go to Profile#500
Rosalyn Scott
#24833
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Rosalyn P. Scott is an American thoracic surgeon known for her work in education and for being the first African-American woman to become a thoracic surgeon. Early life and education Scott was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey and was inspired to become a physician by both her father and uncle. Her father was a dentist, and his dental office was the source of Scott's early exposure to medicine where she helped on Saturday mornings by cleaning dental instruments, editing information on charts, and organizing patient documents. Scott's father suffered from a heart attack when she was in the third grade.
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