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,
#7151
John Foster Marshall
#138930
Overall Influence
#7152
Richard A. Polin
#138936
Overall Influence
#7153
Dr. Daniel Rachmilewitz
#138943
Overall Influence
#7154
Professor P. J. Lefèbvre
#138983
Overall Influence
#7155
Tadashi Yoshino
#138995
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#7156
Louis U. Bigliani
#138996
Overall Influence
#7157
Jorge Albores‐saavedra
#138999
Overall Influence
#7158
Daniel Benhamou
#139003
Overall Influence
#7159
Arnold Brossi
#139006
Overall Influence
#7160
Stefan Gradmann
#96653
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Stefan Gradmann is a professor at KU Leuven and former manager of the University Library. After studying Philosophy and Literature in Paris and Freiburg and his PhD in 1986 and a post-graduate studies in Cologne, he worked as a research librarian at the State and University Library of Hamburg.
Go to Profile#7161
Itzhak Fried
#139015
Overall Influence
#7162
Gerald Fischbach
#59269
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Gerald D. Fischbach is an American neuroscientist. He received his M.D. from the Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in 1965 before beginning his research career at the National Institutes of Health in 1966, where his research focused on the mechanisms of neuromuscular junctions. After his tenure at the National Institutes of Health, Fischbach was a professor at Harvard University Medical School from 1972 to 1981 and from 1990 to 1998 and the Washington University School of Medicine from 1981 to 1990. In 1998, he was named the director of the National Institute of Neurological...
Go to Profile#7163
Lena Marie Napolitano
#139018
Overall Influence
#7164
Nasser Khaled Altorki
#139025
Overall Influence
#7165
Masunori Matsuzaki
#139043
Overall Influence
#7166
Christian H. Herfarth
#139045
Overall Influence
#7167
Thomas Joseph White
#88336
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Thomas Joseph White, O.P., is an American Roman Catholic priest and theologian. On September 14, 2021, he succeeded Michał Paluch, OP, as rector of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome .
Go to Profile#7168
Ingmar Persson
#139096
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#7169
Randolph Warren Evans
#139099
Overall Influence
#7170
Stephen J Smith
#72346
Overall Influence
Stephen J Smith is Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science [1] and Emeritus Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University [2]. He held faculty and Howard Hughes Medical Institute positions at the Yale University School of Medicine 1980-1989. He served 1990-2014 as a Stanford Professor, teaching many courses in synaptic physiology and cellular microscopy while mentoring many students and fellows [3]. He also taught in many expert workshops and summer courses at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Go to Profile#7171
Ashutosh Tewari
#18623
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Ashutosh K. Tewari is the chairman of urology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He is a board certified American urologist, oncologist, and principal investigator. Before moving to the Icahn School of Medicine in 2013, he was the founding director of both the Center for Prostate Cancer at Weill Cornell Medical College and the LeFrak Center for Robotic Surgery at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Tewari was the Ronald P. Lynch endowed Chair of Urologic Oncology and the hospital's Director of Robotic Prostatectomy, treating patients with prostate, urinary bladder and other urological cancers.
Go to Profile#7172
Brian Staskawicz
#107608
Overall Influence
Brian John Staskawicz ForMemRS is professor of plant and microbial miology at the University of California, Berkeley and scientific director of agricultural genomics at the Innovative Genomics Institute .
Go to Profile#7173
Jerome Donar Waye
#139129
Overall Influence
#7174
William Robert Wilson
#139142
Overall Influence
#7175
Dr. Duncan M. Geddes
#139146
Overall Influence
#7176
Kenneth Lee Carder
#61504
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Kenneth Lee Carder is a retired American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1992. Carder distinguished himself as a pastor, a member of Annual Conference and General U.M. agencies, a bishop, seminary professor, and an author.
Go to Profile#7177
Dominique M. Elias
#139162
Overall Influence
#7178
Alexandra H. Filipovich
#139164
Overall Influence
#7179
Lalit Dandona
#139166
Overall Influence
#7180
David Borsook
#139167
Overall Influence
#7181
Fang-Fang Yin
#132140
Overall Influence
Fang-Fang Yin is a Chinese-born radiologist. Yin earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Zhejiang University in 1982. He subsequently moved to the United States, completing a Master of Science degree at Bowling Green State University in 1987, followed by a doctorate at the University of Chicago in 1992. Yin teaches at Duke University, where he is affiliated with the Duke Cancer Institute, and was appointed the Gustavo S. Montana Professor of Radiation Oncology in 2021.
Go to Profile#7182
John S. Macdonald
#139175
Overall Influence
#7183
Peter Wilhelmus De Leeuw
#139178
Overall Influence
#7184
Robert A. Wolff
#139180
Overall Influence
#7185
Theodore G. Karrison
#139194
Overall Influence
#7186
Henric Blomgren
#139210
Overall Influence
#7187
Satoshi Minoshima
#139214
Overall Influence
#7188
Peter Hackett
#62470
Overall Influence
Peter H. Hackett is an American mountaineer and medical doctor. He is the third person to have summited Mount Everest in a solo ascent, climbing from South Col to the top on October 24, 1981. He studies the effect of altitude on human physiology, and is the founder of a medical rescue camp on Everest and a rescue clinic and lab on Mount Denali, and the director of the Institute for Altitude Medicine in Colorado.
Go to Profile#7189
Gunnar Steineck
#139218
Overall Influence
#7190
Leontine T. Kelly
#32681
Overall Influence
1920 - 2012 (92 years)
Leontine Turpeau Current Kelly was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church. She was the second woman elevated to the position of bishop within the United Methodist Church, and the first African American woman.
Go to Profile#7191
Gary Lilien
#60866
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Gary L. Lilien is Distinguished Professor of Management Science at the Smeal College of Business at Pennsylvania State University and is also the co-founder and research director of Institute for the Study of Business Markets ISBM, the world's leading institution focusing on fostering research in B2B markets.
Go to Profile#7192
I. Herbert Scheinberg
#139243
Overall Influence
#7193
Judith Aberg
#45368
Overall Influence
Judith Aberg is an American physician who is the George Baehr Professor of Clinical Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. She was appointed Dean of System Operations for Clinical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her research considered infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS and COVID-19.
Go to Profile#7194
David Buller
#80825
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
David J. Buller is an American philosopher of science who is Distinguished Research Professor and Chair Emeritus of the Department of Philosophy at Northern Illinois University. He is known for his 2005 book Adapting Minds, in which he presents a detailed philosophical critique of evolutionary psychology.
Go to Profile#7195
Robert Zimmer
#95639
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert Zimmer is a German philosopher and essayist who writes biographies and popular introductions to philosophy and to the history of philosophy. Life and career Robert Zimmer was born in Trier, West Germany on 25 October 1953. He was educated at the German universities of Saarbrücken and Düsseldorf and wrote his doctoral dissertation on Edmund Burke. From 1986 - 2013 he lived as a freelance writer and publicist in Berlin. In 2013 he moved to Stuttgart. His most popular book so far has been “Das Philosophenportal”, a collection of 16 essays on 16 different classical works of philosophy, which has been translated into more than a dozen languages .
Go to Profile#7196
Eugene P. Frenkel
#139288
Overall Influence
#7197
Kenneth Dawson Bagshawe
#139289
Overall Influence
#7198
Ramesh Chandra Tripathi
#139295
Overall Influence
#7199
L. Ch.m. Klenerman
#139327
Overall Influence
#7200
Robert Y. Moore
#139338
Overall Influence
