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 Philosophy,
#5501
Pierre Théroux
#121236
Overall Influence
#5502
Levi Alexander Garraway
#121238
Overall Influence
#5503
David Burrell
#65984
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
David Bakewell Burrell , was a priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross and an American educator, theologian, writer and translator. He was the Theodore Hesburgh Professor emeritus in Philosophy and Theology at University of Notre Dame, US. He wrote around thirteen books on Judeo-Christian and Islamic religions. He knew several languages; he translated two books of Al-Ghazali from Arabic into English. He also taught comparative theology, ethics and development at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi, Uganda; Tangaza College, Nairobi, Kenya; and Hebrew University, Jerusalem. During 1960s, he was involved in Anti-Vietnam War Movement.
Go to Profile#5504
Diane Havlir
#110928
Overall Influence
Diane Havlir is an American physician who is a Professor of Medicine and Chief of the HIV/AIDS Division at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research considers novel therapeutic strategies to improve the lives of people with HIV and to support public health initiatives in East Africa. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.
Go to Profile#5505
Thomas M. Mcintyre
#121251
Overall Influence
#5506
Peter Anthony Ubel
#121253
Overall Influence
#5507
Jon M. Hanifin
#121263
Overall Influence
#5508
Ken Burns
#10100
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Kenneth Lauren Burns is an American filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle American history and culture. His work is often produced in association with WETA-TV and/or the National Endowment for the Humanities and distributed by PBS.
Go to Profile#5509
Helmut Kerl
#121284
Overall Influence
#5510
Joycelyn Elders
#2716
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Minnie Joycelyn Elders is an American pediatrician and public health administrator who served as Surgeon General of the United States from 1993 to 1994. A vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, she was the second woman, second person of color, and first African American to serve as Surgeon General.
Go to Profile#5511
Elmar Holenstein
#80070
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Elmar Holenstein is a Swiss philosopher with research interests in the fields of philosophical psychology, philosophy of language and cultural philosophy. Scholarly career Elmar Holenstein studied philosophy, psychology, and linguistics at the universities of Louvain/Leuven, Heidelberg, and Zurich from 1964 to 1972. His Ph.D. dissertation dealt with the phenomenology of the pre- and non-conceptual human experience as explored by Edmund Husserl , the German founder of the phenomenological movement in philosophy. Holenstein gained professorial status by a book on the phenomenological structura...
Go to Profile#5512
Gary Marchionini
#121295
Overall Influence
#5513
Robert T. Schooley
#65641
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Robert "Chip" T. Schooley is an American infectious disease physician, who is the Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, Senior Director of International Initiatives, and Co-Director at the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics , at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. He is an expert in HIV and hepatitis C infection and treatment, and in 2016, was the first physician to treat a patient in the United States with intravenous bacteriophage therapy for a systemic bacterial infection.
Go to Profile#5514
Eric M. Genden
#10843
Overall Influence
Eric M. Genden, MD, MHCA, FACS is a United States head and neck cancer surgeon at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. where he serves as the Isidore Friesner Professor and Chairman of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery and Professor of Neurosurgery and Immunology. According to his biography at Mount Sinai, Genden's professional titles also include Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, He is Executive Vice President of Ambulatory Surgery, and Director of the Head and Neck Institute at the Mount Sinai Health System.
Go to Profile#5515
Deji Akinwande
#25917
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Deji Akinwande is a Nigerian-American professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with courtesy affiliation with Materials Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2016 from Barack Obama. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the African Academy of Sciences, the Materials Research Society , and the IEEE.
Go to Profile#5516
Jørgen Kjems
#121338
Overall Influence
#5517
Michael S. Dunnill
#121359
Overall Influence
#5518
Jerry Hobbs
#33527
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Jerry R. Hobbs is an American researcher in the fields of computational linguistics, discourse analysis, and artificial intelligence. Education Hobbs earned his doctor's degree from New York University in 1974 in computer science and has taught at Yale University and the City University of New York.
Go to Profile#5519
Apollophanes of Antioch
#89765
Overall Influence
Apollophanes of Antioch was a Stoic philosopher. During his life, he left the Seleucid empire for Athens. There he became a pupil and friend of Aristo of Chios. As a student of Aristo, he may have call himself an Aristonian. There is some assertion that he is the same as Apollophanes the physician who lived at the court of Antiochus.
Go to Profile#5520
Michael W. Steffes
#121451
Overall Influence
#5521
Geoffrey Gaddis Hallock
#121462
Overall Influence
#5522
Milton T. Jr. Edgerton
#121490
Overall Influence
#5523
Alexandre Mebazaa
#121508
Overall Influence
#5524
Jan Milíč Lochman
#77142
Overall Influence
1922 - 2004 (82 years)
Jan Milíč Lochman was a Czechoslovakian-Swiss Protestant theologian. Life Lochman came from a family with reformed tradition. He graduated from high school in Náchod in 1941. After the Czech part of Charles University was reopened in 1945, he studied theology and philosophy at the Comenius Protestant Theological Faculty and received his doctorate in 1948. Afterwards he was ordained pastor of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. After a short time as a Preacher, he returned to the Comenius Faculty in Prague, where he habilitated and worked as a lecturer. From 1960 he taught there as a professor of philosophy and systematic theology.
Go to Profile#5525
Douglas A. Jabs
#121573
Overall Influence
#5526
J. Lawton Smith
#121575
Overall Influence
#5527
Erling Falk
#121583
Overall Influence
#5528
Maurice Stanley Friedman
#70980
Overall Influence
1921 - 2012 (91 years)
Maurice Stanley Friedman was an interdisciplinary, interreligious philosopher of dialogue. His intellectual career - spanning fifty years of study, teaching, writing, translating, traveling, mentoring, and co-founding the Institute for Dialogical Psychotherapy - has prompted a language of genuine dialogue. With illuminating range, he has applied Martin Buber’s philosophy of dialogue to the human sciences. After receiving his Ph.D. in religion and history from the University of Chicago in 1950, Friedman had a long career of teaching and publishing.
Go to Profile#5529
Gerald T. Keusch
#104773
Overall Influence
Gerald T. Keusch is an American physician-scientist and academic administrator. Keusch is the associate provost for global health at Boston University Medical Campus and a professor of international health and medicine at Boston University School of Public Health. He was the director of John E. Fogarty International Center and the associate director of international research at the National Institutes of Health from 1998 to 2003.
Go to Profile#5530
Marvin E. Ament
#121614
Overall Influence
#5531
Karl D. Nolph
#121634
Overall Influence
#5532
Dan Atar
#87711
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Dan Atar is a clinical cardiologist, researcher and professor. He is head of research at Oslo University Hospital, Div. of Medicine, and a full professor at the Institute of Clinical Sciences of the University of Oslo, Norway. He is Editor-in- Chief of the scientific journal Cardiology.
Go to Profile#5533
Nathan A. Berger
#121639
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
#5534
Manny Alvarez
#19400
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Manuel Alvarez is a Cuban-American obstetrician-gynecologist who has appeared on Fox News Channel shows such as America's Newsroom, Fox & Friends, Happening Now, Varney & Co., Money with Melissa, The O'Reilly Factor, The Kelly File, and Fox News Weekend, as well as on the local affiliate, WNYW-Fox 5 News. He currently serves as chairman of the department of obstetrics/gynecology at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, New Jersey, and runs AskDrManny.com out of its headquarters in Hoboken, New Jersey. Alvarez is an outspoken opponent of the Patient Protection and Affordable Car...
Go to Profile#5535
Ossama Al‐mefty
#121662
Overall Influence
#5536
Pavel Materna
#97781
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Pavel Materna is a Czech philosopher, logician and key representative of transparent intensional logic. Education and work Materna was introduced to philosophy and logic by his father, Miloš Materna , a member of a group of interwar and postwar Czech logicians propagating and popularizing neopositivism in Czechoslovakia. In 1949, he enrolled at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University to study philosophy and psychology. He graduated in 1953, and in 1957 he completed his postgraduate studies by defending a dissertation called Zu einigen Fragen der modernen Definitionslehre, published in 1959.
Go to Profile#5537
Elaine Zackai
#83900
Overall Influence
Elaine H. Zackai is a Professor of Pediatrics, Director of Clinical Genetics, and the Director of the Clinical Genetics Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . Biography She was born in Brooklyn in 1943, to a metallurgist and a high school teacher.
Go to Profile#5538
Per Eriksson
#121684
Overall Influence
#5539
Hans‐hilmar Goebel
#121691
Overall Influence
#5540
Kazutoshi Takahashi
#121739
Overall Influence
#5541
Michael Neil Forster
#101092
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Michael Neil Forster is an American philosopher and the Alexander von Humboldt Professor, holder of the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy, and Co-director of the International Center for Philosophy at Bonn University. Previously he was Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor in Philosophy and the College at the University of Chicago. Forster is known for his expertise on hermeneutics.
Go to Profile#5542
Eva Badura-Skoda
#36544
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
Eva Badura-Skoda was a German-born Austrian musicologist. Biography Born in Munich, Eva Halfar studied at the Vienna Conservatory and took courses in musicology, philosophy, and art history at the universities of Heidelberg, Vienna , and Innsbruck .
Go to Profile#5543
Lisa Herzog
#98278
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Lisa Maria Herzog is a German philosopher and social scientist who works at the intersection of political philosophy and economic thought. On October 1, 2019, she began a professorship in philosophy at the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
Go to Profile#5544
Sue Knight
#112881
Overall Influence
Sue Knight is an Australian philosopher, educator and academic whose research focuses on teaching reasoning skills and embedding philosophy within school curricula. She is the author of the Primary Ethics curriculum, which has been offered as an alternative to Scripture in New South Wales public schools for students from Kindergarten to Year 6 since 2010.
Go to Profile#5545
Mark F. Leppert
#121811
Overall Influence
#5546
Rabirius
#87375
Overall Influence
Rabirius was a 1st-century BC Epicurean associated with Amafinius and Catius as one of the early popularizers of the philosophy in Italy. Their works on Epicureanism were the earliest philosophical treatises written in Latin. Other than Lucretius, Amafinius and Rabirius are the only Roman Epicurean writers named by Cicero.
Go to Profile#5547
Harold S. Nelson
#121826
Overall Influence
#5548
Gordon Stewart
#117796
Overall Influence
1919 - 2016 (97 years)
Gordon Thallon Stewart was a Scottish epidemiologist and public health physician who served as the Henry Mechan Professor of Public Health at the University of Glasgow from 1972 to 1984. Early life and education Stewart was born on 5 February 1919 in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1939 with a BSc degree. He later received an MB, ChB, and MD from the University of Glasgow in 1942, 1942, and 1949, respectively; he also received a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene from the University of Liverpool in 1948.
Go to Profile#5549
Heinz R. Reichmann
#121836
Overall Influence
#5550
Rachel Cooper
#98105
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Rachel Cooper is a British philosopher specialising in the philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of psychiatry. She is currently a professor in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University. She is the author of Classifying Madness , Psychiatry and the Philosophy of Science and Diagnosing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders .
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