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).
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#5901
Nanette Wenger
#80059
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Nanette Kass Wenger is an American clinical cardiologist and professor emerita at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Early life and education Nanette Wenger was born September 3, 1930, in New York City to parents who had emigrated from Russia to the United States and settled in New York. Her early education was in the New York City public schools. In 1951 she graduated summa cum laude from Hunter College in New York. She received her doctor of medicine degree from Harvard Medical School in 1954 as one of their first female graduates, and began her postgraduate work at Mo...
Go to Profile#5902
Liaw Yun-fan
#91218
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Liaw Yun-fan is a Taiwanese hepatologist. He attended Hsinchu Senior High School and earned his medical degree from the College of Medicine at National Taiwan University in 1967. Liaw completed his residency in internal medicine at National Taiwan University, where he became chief resident. After Liaw's residency, he began teaching as a clinical assistant professor at the National Defense Medical Center. He joined the Chang Gung University Medical College faculty in 1987, having served as director of the affiliated Department of Hepato-Gastroenterology and the Liver Research Unit at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital since 1976.
Go to Profile#5903
J. John Alta Loma Rossi
#96699
Overall Influence
#5904
Michel Guiomar
#79681
Overall Influence
1921 - 2013 (92 years)
Michel Guiomar was a French writer and philosopher who was a Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics at the University of Paris IV. Guiomar was Director of Research in Philosophy and Aesthetics at CNRS before taking the chair in aesthetics at the University.
Go to Profile#5905
Lawrence M. Weiss
#96736
Overall Influence
#5906
Paul-Louis Couchoud
1879 - 1959 (80 years)
Paul-Louis Couchoud was a French philosopher, a graduate from the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris, a physician, a man of letters, and a poet. He became well known as an adapter of Japanese haiku into French, an editor of Reviews, a translator, and a writer promoting the German thesis of the non-historicity of Jesus Christ.
Go to Profile#5907
Stuart James Connolly
#96744
Overall Influence
#5908
Catherine Verfaillie
#17452
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Catherine M. Verfaillie obtained an M.D. from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in 1982. After graduation, she specialized in internal medicine and in 1987. Currently she works as a Belgian molecular biologist and professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven . Her work on the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate to different cell types has garnered controversy due to accusations of poor laboratory practices and fabrication of data by members of her laboratory. In 2019, it was shown that several of her more recent papers also contained altered images and potential fraud was committed.
Go to Profile#5909
Alan M Jette
#96770
Overall Influence
#5910
Robert V. Farese Jr.
#96514
Overall Influence
Robert V. Farese, Jr., is an American physician-scientist and professor of Cell Biology at the Sloan Kettering Institute of Memorial Sloan Kettering. He is an internationally recognized leader in the study of cellular lipid metabolism and has made seminal contributions to our understanding of energy storage as triglycerides in cellular organelles called lipid droplets.
Go to Profile#5911
Everett E. Vokes
#69621
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Everett E. Vokes is an American oncologist. He is the John E. Ultmann Professor, chair of the Department of Medicine, and physician-in-chief at the University of Chicago Medical Center. In this role, he pioneered the combination radiation and chemotherapy as first-line treatment for head and neck cancer.
Go to Profile#5912
Richard Dien Winfield
#63058
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Richard Dien Winfield is an American philosopher and Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Georgia. He has been president of the Society for Systematic Philosophy, the Hegel Society of America, and the Metaphysical Society of America. Winfield was a candidate for U.S. Representative from Georgia's 10th congressional district in 2018 and for U.S. Senate during the 2020–21 United States Senate special election in Georgia. `in both campaigns, Winfield advocated a Federal Job Guarantee social rights agenda, for which he argues at length in his 2020 book, Democracy U...
Go to Profile#5913
Antoine Galland
1646 - 1715 (69 years)
Antoine Galland was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of One Thousand and One Nights, which he called Les mille et une nuits. His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes between 1704 and 1717 and exerted a significant influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world. Jorge Luis Borges has suggested that Romanticism began when his translation was first read.
Go to Profile#5914
Timothy Endicott
#15830
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Timothy Endicott is a Canadian legal scholar and philosopher specializing in constitutional law and language and law. He is the Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#5915
Leonidas Polk
1806 - 1864 (58 years)
Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk was a bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and founder of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America, which separated from the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. He was a planter in Maury County, Tennessee, and a second cousin of President James K. Polk. He resigned his ecclesiastical position to become a major-general in the Confederate States Army, when he was called "Sewanee's Fighting Bishop". His official portrait at the University of the South depicts him as a bishop with his army uniform hanging nearby. He is often erroneously referred to as "Leonidas K.
Go to Profile#5916
Claude Imbert
#81240
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Claude Imbert is a French philosopher, logician, and translator of Gottlob Frege. Education and career Imbert earned an agrégation in 1955 at the École normale supérieure, and is a professor emeritus of the École normale supérieure.
Go to Profile#5917
Victor E. Reuter
#96832
Overall Influence
#5918
Daniel Maichel
1693 - 1752 (59 years)
Daniel Maichel was a German professor of philosophy, theology, logic, physics, rights and politics. He studied protestant theology in Tübingen and earned a master's degree in 1713. Maichel was born in Stuttgart and died in Königsbronn.
Go to Profile#5919
Tom Campbell
#48103
Overall Influence
1938 - 2019 (81 years)
Thomas Douglas Campbell was a Scottish philosopher and jurist. He held academic positions in Scotland and Australia, and was a professorial fellow of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics in Canberra.
Go to Profile#5920
Stanley Schultz
#32715
Overall Influence
1931 - 2014 (83 years)
Stanley G. Schultz was an American physician and scientist whose work led to the development of oral rehydration therapy. He held the Fondren Family Chair in Cellular Signaling and the H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professorship in the Medical Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston before becoming the center's medical school dean.
Go to Profile#5921
David Baskin
#60798
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David S. Baskin is a neurosurgeon who currently works at Houston Methodist Hospital as the Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, the Director of the Residency Training program, and the Director of the Kenneth R. Peak Brain & Pituitary Tumor Center, and is also a professor of neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Go to Profile#5922
Otto Buek
1873 - 1966 (93 years)
Otto Buek was a German philosopher and translator born in St. Petersburg. He studied philosophy, chemistry and mathematics at the University of Heidelberg, and obtained his doctorate from the University of Marburg. Later he worked as a journalist in Berlin, where he translated works of Tolstoy, Unamuno and Alexander Herzen. Additionally, with Kurt Wildhagen , he edited works by Turgenev, Gogol and two volumes of Ernst Cassirer's edition of Kant's collected writings. During the 1920s, he worked as a correspondent for the Argentine newspaper La Nación.
Go to Profile#5923
Lex Doyle
#96281
Overall Influence
Lex William Doyle is an Australian paediatrician, researcher and academic, best known for his widely published neonatal research into positive long-term outcomes for premature babies. He is currently the head of clinical research development at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, having been a consultant neonatal paediatrician at the hospital from 1983 until 2006.
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Henry Ercole
Henry Ercole was a minor Maltese mediaeval philosopher who specialised mainly in ethics and logic. He enjoyed great esteem from his contemporaries, both as an administrator and a philosopher. Life It is unclear where Ercole was born in Malta or when. He was a Dominican friar, but it is not known where he completed his initial studies. The first documentary evidence about him is in 1711, when he was Master of Studies at the Studium Generale of the Dominicans at Rabat, Malta. Four years later, in 1715, he held the same office at Trapani, Sicily.
Go to Profile#5925
Antonia Trichopoulou
#60322
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Antonia Trichopoulou is a nutrition epidemiologist, specialising in the study of the health effects of the Mediterranean diet. She has been called the "mother of the Mediterranean Diet". Trichopoulou is a Professor Emeritus of the School of Medicine of the University of Athens and the President of the Hellenic Health Foundation. She has published more than 900 scientific papers and was president of the Federation of European Nutrition Societies . For her contributions, she was elected in December 2021 a full member of the Academy of Athens in the Chair of "Medical Sciences: Epidemiology and Public Health".
Go to Profile#5926
Wojciech Sadurski
#17032
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Wojciech Sadurski is a Polish and Australian scholar of constitutional law. As of 2023, he is Challis Professor in Jurisprudence at the University of Sydney and Professor in the Centre for Europe in the University of Warsaw.
Go to Profile#5927
Matthew Fuller
#26615
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Matthew Fuller is an author and Professor of Cultural Studies at the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is known for his writings in media theory, software studies, critical theory and cultural studies, and contemporary fiction.
Go to Profile#5928
James H. Hyslop
1854 - 1920 (66 years)
James Hervey Hyslop, Ph.D., LL.D, was an American psychical researcher, psychologist, and professor of ethics and logic at Columbia University. He was one of the first American psychologists to connect psychology with psychic phenomena. In 1906 he helped reorganize the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City and served as the secretary-treasurer for the organization until his death.
Go to Profile#5929
Richard Lance Barnett
#5930
John Cantius
1390 - 1473 (83 years)
John Cantius was a Polish priest, scholastic philosopher, physicist and theologian. Biography John Cantius was born in Kęty, a small town near Oświęcim, Poland, to Anna and Stanisław Kanty. He attended the Kraków Academy at which he attained bachelor, and licentiate. In 1418 he became a Doctor of Philosophy. Upon graduation he spent the next three years conducting philosophy classes at the university, while preparing for the priesthood.
Go to Profile#5931
Joseph P. Broderick
#96944
Overall Influence
#5932
Robert Charles Moellering
#96989
Overall Influence
#5933
Jeffrey Mehlman
#23754
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Jeffrey Mehlman is a literary critic and a historian of ideas. He has taught at Cornell University, Yale University, and Johns Hopkins University, and is currently University Professor and Professor of French Literature at Boston University. He has held visiting professorships at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, CUNY Graduate Center, Washington University in St. Louis, and MIT. Over a number of years, he has been writing an implicit history of speculative interpretation in France in the form of a series of readings of canonical literary works.
Go to Profile#5934
Peter H. Forsham
#97021
Overall Influence
#5935
Kaja Silverman
#19848
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Kaja Silverman is an American art historian and critical theorist. She is currently the Katherine and Keith L. Sachs Professor of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. She received B.A. and M.A. degrees in English from the University of California Santa Barbara and a Ph.D. in English from Brown University. Thereafter, she taught at Yale University, Trinity College, Simon Fraser University, Brown University, the University of Rochester and for many years was the Class of 1940 Professor in the Rhetoric Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008, and is currently the holder of an Andrew W.
Go to Profile#5936
Brian I. Rini
#97051
Overall Influence
#5937
Robert M. Wachter
#14412
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Robert M. "Bob" Wachter is an academic physician and author. He is on the faculty of University of California, San Francisco, where he is chairman of the Department of Medicine, the Lynne and Marc Benioff Endowed Chair in Hospital Medicine, and the Holly Smith Distinguished Professor in Science and Medicine. He is generally regarded as the academic leader of the hospitalist movement, the fastest growing specialty in the history of modern medicine. He and a colleague, Lee Goldman, are known for coining the term "hospitalist" in a 1996 New England Journal of Medicine article.
Go to Profile#5938
François Gigot de la Peyronie
1678 - 1747 (69 years)
François Gigot de la Peyronie was a French surgeon who was born in Montpellier, France. His name is associated with a condition known as Peyronie's disease. As a teenager, he studied philosophy and surgery in Montpellier, where in 1695 he received his diploma as a barber-surgeon. Peyronie became fascinated with phalluses, which later developed into a lifelong obsession. He continued his education in Paris as a student of Georges Mareschal , who was chief-surgeon at the Hôpital de la Charité. Afterwards he returned to Montpellier as lecturer on anatomy and surgery, and was surgeon-major at the Hôtel-Dieu de Montpellier.
Go to Profile#5939
Marcel Foucault
1865 - 1947 (82 years)
Marcel Foucault was a French philosopher and psychologist. Marcel Foucault was professor of philosophy at the University of Montpellier. In 1906 he founded a laboratory of experimental psychology at the university.
Go to Profile#5940
Michael Neumann
#31658
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. He is the author of What's Left? Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche , The Rule of Law: Politicizing Ethics and The Case Against Israel , and has published papers on utilitarianism and rationality.
Go to Profile#5941
Richard Assmann
1845 - 1918 (73 years)
Richard Assmann was a German meteorologist and physician who was a native of Magdeburg. He made numerous contributions in high altitude research of the Earth's atmosphere. He was a pioneer of scientific aeronautics and considered a co-founder of aerology.
Go to Profile#5942
Giuseppe Scaraffia
#25499
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Giuseppe Scaraffia is an Italian writer and professor. Biography Giuseppe Scaraffia was born in Turin, Italy, in 1950. He graduated in Philosophy at the University of Milan with a thesis on the idea of happiness in Diderot. He has taught French Literature at the Sapienza University of Rome since 1976. Over the years his research has focused in particular on the great myths of seduction of the 19th century, from the figure of the femme fatale to that of the tall dark stranger.
Go to Profile#5943
Roy Sydney Porter
#97124
Overall Influence
#5944
Chakradhar Swami
#19997
Overall Influence
Chakradhara , also known as Sarvadnya Shri Chakradhar Swami or Kunwar Haripaladeva was an Indian saint and philosopher, who is considered as an avatara of Krishna by his disciples and one of the most important exponents of the Dvaita tradition within Hinduism. He is the founder of Mahanubhava Sampradaya of Krishnaism. Shri Chakradhar Swami advocated worship of Lord Krishna and preached a distinct philosophy based on Bhakti. He did not recognize caste distinctions, and like Buddha had only two others viz the householder and recluses. Some sources claim that Chakrapani Prabhu and Govinda Prabhu ...
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William Bartram
1739 - 1823 (84 years)
William Bartram was an American botanist, ornithologist, natural historian and explorer. Bartram was the author of an acclaimed book, now known by the shortened title Bartram's Travels, which chronicled his explorations of the southern British colonies in North America from 1773 to 1777. Bartram has been described as "the first naturalist who penetrated the dense tropical forests of Florida".
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Zarmanochegas
#14125
Overall Influence
Zarmanochegas or Zarmarus was a gymnosophist , a monk of the Sramana tradition who, according to ancient historians such as Strabo and Dio Cassius, met Nicholas of Damascus in Antioch in the first years of Augustus' rule over the Roman Empire, and shortly thereafter proceeded to Athens where he burnt himself to death. He is estimated to have died in 19 BC.
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Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales
1741 - 1816 (75 years)
Jean-Baptiste-Claude Delisle de Sales or Jean-Baptiste Isoard de Lisle was a French philosopher noted for his multi-edition, multi-volume opus The Philosophy of Nature: Treatise on Human Moral Nature.
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Hermogenes
500 BC - 400 BC (100 years)
Hermogenes was an ancient Athenian philosopher best remembered as a close friend of Socrates as depicted by Plato and Xenophon. Life Hermogenes was the son of Hipponicus, brother of the wealthy Callias, and resident of the Alopece deme alongside Socrates. Although he belonged to the great family of Callias, he is mentioned by Xenophon as a man of very little property, suggesting that he may have been an illegitimate son of Hipponicus. Plato, on the other hand, suggests that he was unjustly deprived of his property by Callias, his brother.
Go to Profile#5949
Raffaele De Caterina
#97218
Overall Influence
#5950
Francisco Romero
1891 - 1962 (71 years)
Francisco Romero was a Latin American philosopher who spearheaded a reaction against positivism. Biography Romero was born in Seville, Spain, but spent much of his adult life in Latin America, especially Argentina, where he emigrated in 1904. He entered the Argentine army in 1910 and retired with the rank of major in 1931. He became a friend of the Argentine philosopher Alejandro Korn, and when he left military service he took over Korn's professorships at the universities of La Plata and Buenos Aires. Due to his strong disapproval of the Peronist government, he resigned his university positi...
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