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,
#6301
Stephen Anthony Boorjian
#130290
Overall Influence
#6302
Carl Victor Granger
#130295
Overall Influence
#6303
Thomas M. Ulbright
#130305
Overall Influence
#6304
John S. Rumsfeld
#83731
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
John S. Rumsfeld is an American cardiologist. He is the Chief Innovation Officer for the American College of Cardiology, and Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He was previously the National Director of Cardiology for the U.S. Veterans Health Administration. Rumsfeld was named as Chief Innovation Officer for American College of Cardiology in 2015.
Go to Profile#6305
Alan R. Shuldiner
#130319
Overall Influence
#6306
Stephan Grupp
#116103
Overall Influence
Stephan A. Grupp is an American pediatric oncologist. He is the Chief of the Cell Therapy and Transplant Section in the Division of Oncology and Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2019, Grupp was elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#6307
Luigi Naldi
#130331
Overall Influence
#6308
H. Joel Laks
#130340
Overall Influence
#6309
Steven M. Cahn
#105722
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Steven M. Cahn is an American philosopher and academic administrator who served as Provost and Acting President of the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Biography Cahn was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1942, performed extensively as a pianist and organist, graduated from Columbia College in 1963 and received his PhD from Columbia University in 1966.
Go to Profile#6310
Daniel Druckman
#130355
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
#6311
Richard E. Kerber
#130362
Overall Influence
#6312
Stuart L. Weinstein
#130371
Overall Influence
#6313
James I. Ausman
#130379
Overall Influence
#6314
Harvey Jay Cohen
#130384
Overall Influence
#6315
Jörg Prof. Dr. Kreuter
#130422
Overall Influence
#6316
Phillip Barron
#27365
Overall Influence
Phillip Barron is an American poet and philosopher who teaches at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. His poetry has won the Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award for philosophical literature and has been featured in many national journals including The Brooklyn Rail, New American Writing, and Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature, Continental Philosophy, Phenomenological Psychology, and the Arts. Barron also has a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut.
Go to Profile#6317
Elena Losina
#130493
Overall Influence
#6318
Claudio Tiribelli
#113909
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Claudio Tiribelli is an Italian hepatologist best known for his studies on bilirubin and Kernicterus, a bilirubin-induced neurological condition. Scientific activity Since very early in his career, Tiribelli was fascinated by bilirubin. Expanding upon his research activity and expertise, he founded Bilimetrix together with Richard Wennberg. Bilimetrix developed the first point-of-care device for measuring bilirubin in newborns. Early detection of harmful bilirubin levels would prevent neonatal jaundice and allow the newborns to receive timely and proper treatment.
Go to Profile#6319
Fritz Schick
#130509
Overall Influence
#6320
Stefanie Schwab
#130511
Overall Influence
#6321
Klas Kärre
#47518
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Klas Kärre is a Swedish immunologist. Kärre received his doctorate in 1981 at Karolinska Institutet and is a professor of molecular immunology at Karolinska Institutet since 1993. In the mid-1980s Kärre discovered one of the mechanisms for how cells of the immune system, natural killer cells , identify their target cells and kill them. The findings were that the NK cells are inhibited by a transplantation antigen, the major histocompatibility complex class I, which prevents NK cells from killing their target cells. When MHC class I is removed from the target cells, they are killed by the NK cells.
Go to Profile#6322
David Buckingham
#48782
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
David Dennis Buckingham, is a media, communications and education scholar and retired academic. Career David Dennis Buckingham was born on 6 October 1954. He completed his undergraduate studies at Clare College, Cambridge, graduating in 1975. He worked at the Inner London Education Authority from 1978 to 1984, during which time he also completed film studies master's degree at the Polytechnic of Central London . In 1984, he joined the Institute of Education as a lecturer, and completed a doctorate there in 1993 . Three years later, he was promoted to a readership at the institute, and in 1999 was promoted again to Professor of Education.
Go to Profile#6323
Kjell E. Öberg
#130573
Overall Influence
#6324
Tobias Kurth
#130587
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
#6325
Julia Alexis Wendon
#130599
Overall Influence
#6326
William p. Arend
#130613
Overall Influence
#6327
William T. Cefalu
#100345
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
William T. Cefalu is an American physician-scientist. Cefalu is the chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association. Education Cefalu completed a B.S. from Southeastern Louisiana University and an M.D. from LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans in 1979. He was a resident in internal medicine and chief resident at University of California, Irvine, Veterans Affairs Long Beach Healthcare System. He conducted a fellowship in endocrinology at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Go to Profile#6328
Val J. Lowe
#130622
Overall Influence
#6329
Wolfgang Gerok
#130631
Overall Influence
#6330
Michael A. Gerber
#130648
Overall Influence
#6331
Arnold G. Herman
#130666
Overall Influence
#6332
Olof Nyrén
#130674
Overall Influence
#6333
Fátima Cardoso
#130733
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#6334
Scott D. Holmberg
#130739
Overall Influence
#6335
R. C. Johnson
#130741
Overall Influence
#6336
Ulf H. De Faire
#130743
Overall Influence
#6337
William F. Ganz
#130748
Overall Influence
#6338
Zbylut Twardowski
#76055
Overall Influence
Zbylut Twardowski is a Polish-American nephrologist, known for his pioneering work on dialysis. His patented dialysis machines and catheters are commonly found in hospitals and dialysis centers worldwide. Twardowski is associated with the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.
Go to Profile#6339
K. Kian Ang
#130771
Overall Influence
#6340
Ronald Lawrence Hayes
#130800
Overall Influence
#6341
John D. Meeker
#130818
Overall Influence
#6342
Miguel Srougi
#130829
Overall Influence
#6343
Kenneth G. Davey
#130834
Overall Influence
#6344
Ulrich Steinvorth
#82421
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ulrich Steinvorth is a German political philosopher. He earned his doctorate with in 1967. His dissertation was on private language and sensation in Wittgenstein. He habilitated in 1975 at the University of Mannheim with a thesis that advanced an analytic interpretation of Marx's Dialectic . His primary field of research is political philosophy. Additionally, he has published on topics in moral philosophy and applied philosophy, as well as the history of philosophy and metaphysics. He has also been an active supporter of the German branch of the Creative Commons movement.
Go to Profile#6345
John E. Sarno
#6198
Overall Influence
1923 - 2017 (94 years)
John Ernest Sarno Jr. was Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, and attending physician at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University Medical Center. He graduated from Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1943, and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1950. In 1965, he was appointed the director of the Outpatient Department at the Rusk Institute.
Go to Profile#6346
Luca Richeldi
#130851
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#6347
Bernhard Hube
#130853
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#6348
Stuart L. Stanton
#130861
Overall Influence
#6349
Milton W. Brightman
#130864
Overall Influence
#6350
Ernesto Cardenal
#24012
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Ernesto Cardenal Martínez was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for more than ten years . A former member of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, he was Nicaragua's minister of culture from 1979 to 1987. He was prohibited from administering the sacraments in 1984 by Pope John Paul II, but rehabilitated by Pope Francis in 2019.
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