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,
#7001
Tom Frieden
#17060
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Thomas R. Frieden is an American infectious disease and public health physician. He serves as president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a $225million, five-year initiative to prevent epidemics and cardiovascular disease.
Go to Profile#7002
Bagher Larijani
#39307
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Bagher Ardeshir Larijani is an Iranian medical practitioner at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. He is currently Chief Scientific Officer and Director General of the Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute which has been selected as the highest-ranking research institute in Iran on numerous occasions. According to Google Scholar, in February 2020, his citations exceeded 28021 with an h-index equal to 73. Since 2011, Essential Sciences Indicators of ISI Web of Sciences has announced him to be amongst the world’s top 1% scientists. Professor Larijani’s main fields of interest in...
Go to Profile#7003
Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer
#99421
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer is a German philosopher and professor of theoretical philosophy at the university of Leipzig. He was the president of the international Ludwig Wittgenstein society and is now a vice-president of this institution.
Go to Profile#7004
Hanns-Werner Heister
#59453
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Hanns-Werner Heister is a German musicologist. Life and career Born in Plochingen, , Heister studied musicology, German literature and linguistics in Tübingen, Frankfurt a. M. and Berlin, received his doctorate in 1977 in Berlin on the aesthetics, sociology and history of the institution of the concert and habilitated in 1993 at the University of Oldenburg with studies on music analysis. From 1971 to 1992 he worked as a freelance music journalist for various radio stations, newspapers and magazines. After numerous lectureships and guest professorships he was professor for historical musicolo...
Go to Profile#7005
Felix von Luschan
1854 - 1924 (70 years)
Felix Ritter von Luschan was a medical doctor, anthropologist, explorer, archaeologist and ethnographer born in the Austrian Empire. Life Luschan was born the son of a lawyer in Hollabrunn, Lower Austria, and attended the Akademisches Gymnasium in Vienna. After leaving school he studied medicine at the University of Vienna and anthropology in Paris, with an emphasis on craniometry. After he gained his doctorate in 1878, he was an army doctor in Austro-Hungarian occupied Bosnia and, together with the British archaeologist Arthur Evans, travelled through Dalmatia, Montenegro and Albania. From 1...
Go to Profile#7006
Hayashi Hōkō
1644 - 1732 (88 years)
Hayashi Hōkō, also known as Hayashi Nobutatsu, was a Japanese Neo-Confucian scholar, teacher and administrator in the system of higher education maintained by the Tokugawa bakufu during the Edo period. He was a member of the Hayashi clan of Confucian scholars.
Go to Profile#7007
Clay Johnston
S. Claiborne "Clay" Johnston is the former Dean of the Dell Medical School and Frank and Charmaine Denius Distinguished Dean's Chair at the University of Texas, Austin, United States. Dell Medical School opened in 2016 with Johnston being named as the inaugural dean in January 2014 In July 2021, Johnston announced that he would step down as the dean of the Dell Medical School. He officially left his position on August 31, 2021.
Go to Profile#7008
Harold J. C. Swan
#108455
Overall Influence
#7009
Charles S. Neer
#108465
Overall Influence
#7010
Howard Brody
#83201
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Howard A. Brody is an American bioethicist and family physician. He was a professor of family medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch prior to his retirement from there in 2016. For much of his time at the University of Texas Medical Branch, he was the director of the Institute for the Medical Humanities there. Brody has performed research in the field of placebo studies.
Go to Profile#7011
Takamaro Shigaraki
#43871
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Takamaro Shigaraki was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and priest within the Honganji-ha branch of Jōdo Shinshū. Shigaraki is widely regarded as one of the most influential Buddhologists of the Jōdo Shinshū in the 20th century.
Go to Profile#7012
Geoffrey C. Gurtner
#33385
Overall Influence
Geoffrey C. Gurtner is an American microsurgeon. As of January 2022, he is the Chair of Surgery, Professor of Surgery and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson. He was previously Professor of Surgery and Inaugural Vice Chairman of Surgery for Innovation at Stanford University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#7013
Paul S. Aisen
#108501
Overall Influence
#7014
Daniel Sennert
1572 - 1637 (65 years)
Daniel Sennert was a renowned German physician and a prolific academic writer, especially in the field of alchemy or chemistry. He held the position of professor of medicine at the University of Wittenberg for many years.
Go to Profile#7015
Tetsuya Mitsudomi
#108520
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#7016
Rudolph Matas
1860 - 1957 (97 years)
Rudolph Matas was an American surgeon. He was born outside New Orleans in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, and spent much of his childhood in his parents' native land of Spain. Matas returned to New Orleans in 1877 to begin his medical training at the Medical School of the University of Louisiana, which is now known as Tulane University School of Medicine. He received his medical degree in 1880, at the age of 19.
Go to Profile#7017
Josef Martin Pfeilschifter
#108537
Overall Influence
#7018
Mark K. Wax
#108543
Overall Influence
#7019
Munro Peacock
#108544
Overall Influence
#7020
Lucio Luzzatto
#108545
Overall Influence
#7021
Gilaad G. Kaplan
#108546
Overall Influence
#7022
Duane Litfin
#27586
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
A. Duane Litfin is an American academic administrator and evangelical minister. He was the seventh president of Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Early life and education Litfin was born on November 14, 1945. He holds an undergraduate degree in biblical studies from the Philadelphia College of Bible and a master's degree in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. His two doctoral degrees are from Purdue University and Oxford . He came to Wheaton in 1993 from Memphis, Tennessee, where he served the First Evangelical Church as senior pastor. Prior to that, he was an associate professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Go to Profile#7023
Arnold Whittall
#35755
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Arnold Whittall is a British musicologist and writer. He is Professor Emeritus at King's College London. Between 1975 and 1996 he was Professor at King's. Previously he lectured at Cambridge, Nottingham and Cardiff , where one of his students was Australian composer Norma Tyer.
Go to Profile#7024
Gérard Rabinovitch
#67651
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Gérard Rabinovitch is a French philosopher and sociologist. He is a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique , member of the Center for Research on Sense, Ethics, Society and of the Center for Research on Psychoanalysis, Medicine and Society, at the University of Paris VII-Denis Diderot. He is also a regular visiting faculty member at the University of Minas Gerais .
Go to Profile#7025
David Jay Weber
#108600
Overall Influence
#7026
Elihu Palmer
1764 - 1806 (42 years)
Elihu Palmer was an author and advocate of deism in the early days of the United States. Life Elihu Palmer was born in Canterbury, Connecticut in 1764. He studied to be a Presbyterian minister at Dartmouth College, where he graduated in 1787. Soon after his graduation, however, he became a deist. After rejecting the Calvinist doctrine of Presbyterianism, Palmer became a physical, spiritual, and intellectual wanderer, ultimately making his way to New York City, where he formed the Deistical Society of New York in 1796.
Go to Profile#7027
Louise Burke
#77304
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Louise Mary Burke, is an Australian sports dietitian, academic and author. She was the head of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport throughout its existence from 1990 to 2018 and in 2018 was appointed Chief of AIS Nutrition Strategy. Since 2014, she holds the chair in sports nutrition in the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University.
Go to Profile#7028
Josef Flammer
#25355
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Josef Flammer is a Swiss ophthalmologist and long-time director of the Eye Clinic at Basel University Hospital. Flammer is a glaucoma specialist who developed a new pathogenetic concept of glaucomatous damage according to which unstable blood supply leads to oxidative stress, which in turn plays a major role in apoptosis of cells in the optic nerve and retina in glaucoma patients.
Go to Profile#7029
Philippe Nys
#82780
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Philippe Nys is a Belgian-born French philosopher. The focus of his work is hermeneutics, poetics and theory of space's design. He is associated professor at the University of Paris8 , member of the research teams EA 4010 Arts des images et Art contemporain/Arts of Images and Contemporary Art, AMP: Architecture Milieu Paysage/ Architecture Milieu Landscape at the National School of Architecture of Paris La Villette. He is lecturer in several schools of architecture and landscape such as Paris-Belleville, Versailles, Lille.
Go to Profile#7030
Deal W. Hudson
#95438
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Deal Wyatt Hudson is an American conservative political activist. Hudson is the former publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine and InsideCatholic.com. He is currently president of the Morley Institute for Church and Culture. Hudson also hosts the radio show Church and Culture on Ave Maria Radio and serves as publisher and editor of The Christian Review.
Go to Profile#7031
Sharon Lloyd
#91631
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Sharon A. Lloyd is Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Political Science at the University of Southern California. She co-founded the USC Center for Law and Philosophy, and directs the USC Levan Institute's Conversations in Practical Ethics Program. Lloyd's work, especially on the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, has been considered some of the most significant work published in recent years.
Go to Profile#7032
Cesare Luporini
#87657
Overall Influence
1909 - 1993 (84 years)
Cesare Luporini was an Italian philosopher, historian of philosophy and politician. Biography Luporini was born in Ferrara, but lived in Florence since childhood. Luporini graduated from the University of Florence in 1933 with a thesis on Kant. Immediately after graduation, in 1933, he went to Freiburg, where he attended Martin Heidegger's classes and, after Heidegger's accession to Nazism, to Berlin, he listened to Nicolai Hartmann's lectures on ethics. Following the publication of the first essays on Scheler and Leopardi, and after having started teaching in the Tuscan high schools, he was...
Go to Profile#7033
Armando E. Giuliano
#108690
Overall Influence
#7034
Hecataeus of Abdera
400 BC - 300 BC (100 years)
Hecataeus of Abdera or of Teos , was a Greek historian who flourished in the 4th century BC. Though none of his works survive, his writings are attested by later authors in various fragments, in particular his Aegyptica, a work on the society and culture of the Egyptians, and his On the Hyperboreans. He is one of the authors whose fragments were collected in Felix Jacoby's Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.
Go to Profile#7035
Gérard Michel London
#108696
Overall Influence
#7036
Cyril Scott
1879 - 1970 (91 years)
Cyril Meir Scott was an English composer, writer, poet, and occultist. He created around four hundred musical compositions including piano, violin, cello concertos, symphonies, and operas. He also wrote around 20 pamphlets and books on occult topics and natural health.
Go to Profile#7037
Susanne von Caemmerer
#94031
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Susanne von Caemmerer FRS is a professor and plant physiologist in the Division of Plant Sciences, Research School of Biology at the Australian National University; and the Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis. She has been a leader in developing and refining biochemical models of photosynthesis.
Go to Profile#7038
Vincent Schaefer
#11692
Overall Influence
1906 - 1993 (87 years)
Vincent Joseph Schaefer was an American chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud seeding. On November 13, 1946, while a researcher at the General Electric Research Laboratory, Schaefer modified clouds in the Berkshire Mountains by seeding them with dry ice. While he was self-taught and never completed high school, he was issued 14 patents.
Go to Profile#7039
Axel Buchner
#108745
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#7040
Ernst Viktor von Leyden
1832 - 1910 (78 years)
Ernst Viktor von Leyden was a German internist from Danzig. Biography He studied medicine at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Institut in Berlin, and was a pupil of Johann Lukas Schönlein and Ludwig Traube . He was later a medical professor at the universities of Königsberg, Strassburg and Berlin. Leyden was an important influence to the career of Ludwig Edinger , and during his tenure at the University of Königsberg worked closely with Otto Spiegelberg and Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen . Among his better known students and assistants were Hermann Nothnagel at Königsberg and Hermann Ludwig Ei...
Go to Profile#7041
Herman Friedman
#108756
Overall Influence
#7042
David Shoemaker
#77194
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
David Shoemaker is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy and Interim Chair at Cornell University. He is known for his works on moral philosophy. Books Wisecracks: Humor and Morality in Everyday Life, forthcoming with University of Chicago Press 2024Responsibility from the Margins, Oxford University Press 2015Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, Broadview Press, 2009
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George Allen
1832 - 1907 (75 years)
George Allen was an English craftsman and engraver, who became an assistant to John Ruskin and then in consequence a publisher. His name persists in publishing through the Allen & Unwin company. Early life The son of John and Rebecca Allen, he was born on 26 March 1832 at Newark-on-Trent, and was educated at a private grammar school there. His father died in 1849, and in that year he was apprenticed for four years to an uncle , a builder in Clerkenwell, London. He became a skilled joiner, and was employed for three and a half years in that capacity on the woodwork of the interior of Dorchester House, Park Lane.
Go to Profile#7044
Epicharmus of Kos
524 BC - 435 BC (89 years)
Epicharmus of Kos or Epicharmus Comicus or Epicharmus Comicus Syracusanus , thought to have lived between c. 550 and c. 460 BC, was a Greek dramatist and philosopher who is often credited with being one of the first comic writers, having originated the Doric or Sicilian comedic form.
Go to Profile#7045
Dennis H. Klatt
1938 - 1988 (50 years)
Dennis H. Klatt was an American researcher in speech and hearing science. Klatt was the pioneer of computerized speech synthesis and created an interface which allowed for speech for non-expert users for the first time. Prior to his work, non-verbal individuals would need specialist support to be able to speak at all. Stephen Hawking used a version of this speech synthesizer, based on Klatt's own voice, and which Hawking chose to keep even after others became available.
Go to Profile#7046
Ian Frazer
#5575
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Ian Hector Frazer is a Scottish-born Australian immunologist, the founding CEO and Director of Research of the Translational Research Institute . Frazer and Jian Zhou developed and patented the basic technology behind the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer at the University of Queensland. Researchers at the National Cancer Institute, Georgetown University, and University of Rochester also contributed to the further development of the cervical cancer vaccine in parallel.
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Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze
1885 - 1969 (84 years)
Friedrich Siegmund-Schultze was a German academic working in theology, social pedagogy and social ethics, as well as a pioneer of peace movements. Life After studying at several gymnasia, Siegmund-Schultze studied philosophy and theology in Breslau and Magdeburg. In 1908 he became the secretary of the Church Committee for friendly relations between Great Britain and Germany and later secretary to the World Christian Student League for social work and foreign mission .
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Franklin C. McLean
1888 - 1968 (80 years)
Franklin Chambers McLean was a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine and the first appointed Director of the University of Chicago Medical Clinics, as well as the founder of the National Medical Fellowships. He aided the Manhattan Project by studying effects of radiation on organisms. He was also a trustee of the Julius Rosenwald Fund and Fisk University.
Go to Profile#7049
Frank Allen Sloan
#108823
Overall Influence
#7050
Pierre d'Ailly
1350 - 1420 (70 years)
Pierre d'Ailly was a French theologian, astrologer and cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. Academic career D'Ailly was born in Compiègne in 1350 or 1351 of a prosperous bourgeois family. He studied in Paris at the Collège de Navarre, receiving the licentiate in arts in 1367 and the master’s a year later, and was active in university affairs by 1372. D'Ailly taught the Bible in 1375 and the Sentences of Peter Lombard in 1376–1377, and received the licentiate and doctorate in theology in 1381. He was affiliated with the university, serving as rector in 1384; among his pupils were Jean Gers...
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