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,
#7601
Keith Deans Buchanan
#143400
Overall Influence
#7602
Greg Kot
#13359
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Greg Kot is an American music journalist and author. From 1990 until 2020, Kot was the rock music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues. Kot co-hosts the radio program Sound Opinions, which introduces itself as "the world's only rock 'n' roll talk show", nationally syndicated through Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ.
Go to Profile#7603
Margaret Harding
#97423
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Margaret Harding is an Australian chemist and educator who is currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor at The Australian National University . She is an expert in medicinal and biomolecular chemistry, with special research interests in the areas of antifreeze proteins and ligand-DNA interactions.
Go to Profile#7604
Ann Van Sevenant
#139523
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Ann Van Sevenant is a Belgian philosopher. Biography Van Sevenant was born in Torhout, Belgium. After her humanities, she studied Film and Photography at the Lucas School of Art in Brussels. Inspired by the teaching of Jan Wüst, she decided to study philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel , where she took the courses of Leopold Flam, Hubert Dethier and Annie Reniers.
Go to Profile#7605
Benjamin Movsas
#143452
Overall Influence
#7606
Ronald E. Laporte
#143454
Overall Influence
#7607
Count Gibson
#58375
Overall Influence
1921 - 2002 (81 years)
Count Dillon Gibson, Jr. was an American physician known for his advocacy in medical civil rights. As a young professor at the Medical College of Virginia, in 1955 he became the first person outside Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments to raise ethical objections to the study. He was on the medical auxiliary committee that supported voting rights workers during Freedom Summer and with one of his collaborators from that project, H. Jack Geiger, in 1965 Gibson cofounded the first community health center in the United States, beginning a network that grew to serve 28 million low-income patients, as of 2020.
Go to Profile#7608
Andrew E. Simor
#143464
Overall Influence
#7609
Lemuel A. Iii Moyé
#143481
Overall Influence
#7610
Michael Anthony Hollingsworth
#143502
Overall Influence
#7611
Pierre P. Singer
#143518
Overall Influence
#7612
Philippe Autier
#143522
Overall Influence
#7613
J. Michael Mccune
#143544
Overall Influence
#7614
John Speer Schroeder
#143556
Overall Influence
#7615
Leonard N. Horowitz
#143562
Overall Influence
#7616
Felix Rosenow
#143588
Overall Influence
#7617
Martin Luther King
#143594
Overall Influence
#7618
Jozef J. Janssens
#143604
Overall Influence
#7619
Sheldon Laurence Spector
#143615
Overall Influence
#7620
Joseph D. Khoury
#143668
Overall Influence
#7621
Al Aynsley-Green
#101358
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Sir Albert Aynsley-Green is a paediatric endocrinologist and Professor Emeritus of Child Health at University College London. Aynsley-Green is most notable for advancing the idea of the rights of children. He was appointed to the first Children's Commissioner for England in March 2005, serving in this position until 2009. During this time he launched an initiative to publicize and combat bullying.
Go to Profile#7622
Nicole Eisenman
#30943
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nicole Eisenman is a French-born American artist known for her oil paintings and sculptures. She has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship , the Carnegie Prize , and has thrice been included in the Whitney Biennial . On September 29, 2015, she won a MacArthur Fellowship award for "restoring the representation of the human form a cultural significance that had waned during the ascendancy of abstraction in the 20th century."
Go to Profile#7623
Dina Brooks
#143715
Overall Influence
#7624
Hirofumi Hamada
#143724
Overall Influence
#7625
Richard Dennis Sontheimer
#143749
Overall Influence
#7626
Robert Trundle
#99407
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Robert Christner Trundle, Jr. is an American philosopher, author, and college professor. He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Fate Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in Ufology in 2005 based on his book Is E.T. Here? and an article published in Science and Method in the Netherlands.
Go to Profile#7627
Abram R. Recht
#143756
Overall Influence
#7628
Margot Shiner
#30503
Overall Influence
1923 - 1998 (75 years)
Margot Shiner was a German-British gastroenterologist and medical researcher who worked in London and Israel. As a result of her development of a new technique to biopsy the small intestine in children, she has been credited with launching the subspecialty of paediatric gastroenterology.
Go to Profile#7629
Gabriel Chodick
#143769
Overall Influence
#7630
Alastair J. J. Wood
#143771
Overall Influence
#7631
Robert Michael Tuttle
#143773
Overall Influence
#7632
Daniel Cherqui,
#143775
Overall Influence
#7633
Wim G. V. Quint
#143780
Overall Influence
#7634
Eli Chester Ridgway
#143782
Overall Influence
#7635
Do-ol
#56512
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Kim Yong-ok is a South Korean philosopher. His art name is Do-ol. His name is sometimes rendered as To-ol Kim Young-oak. Career and education Kim Yong-ok was born June 14, 1948, in Cheonan. Once a leading professor of the Oriental Classics at Korea University, Kim became a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a playwright and movie-director, and is now professor emeritus of Chung-ang University. He lectures on KBS TV on his modern interpretations of classical Daoism , the Analects of Confucius, and Zen Buddhism .
Go to Profile#7636
Joseph Verghese
#143819
Overall Influence
#7638
Stephen Callender Schimpff
#143823
Overall Influence
#7639
Cesare Robert Valeri
#143832
Overall Influence
#7640
Jacob Rajfer
#143839
Overall Influence
#7641
Michel Kahaleh
#86864
Overall Influence
Michel Kahaleh is an American gastroenterologist and an expert in therapeutic endoscopy. He is a Professor of Medicine, and is currently the Clinical Director of Gastroenterology, Chief of Endoscopy, and Director of the Pancreas Program at the Department of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He is the Founder and Director of the Therapeutic Endoscopic Ultrasound Society. He is the Founder and CEO of the non-profit organization Innovative Digestive Health Education & Research Inc. since 2018 He is also the Founder and CEO of the non-profi...
Go to Profile#7642
William L. Farrar
#143855
Overall Influence
#7643
Marc E. De Broe
#143858
Overall Influence
#7644
Robert H. Steffen
#143870
Overall Influence
#7645
Allan B. Lumsden
#143874
Overall Influence
#7646
Arthur Ripstein
#97882
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Arthur Ripstein is a Canadian philosopher and Professor of Law and Philosophy and University Professor at the University of Toronto where he is Howard Beck QC Chair in law. He is known for his works on Kantian philosophy and is a winner of Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Prize.
Go to Profile#7647
Per Fugelli
#29616
Overall Influence
1943 - 2017 (74 years)
Per Fugelli was a Norwegian physician and professor of General Practice at the University of Bergen from 1984 to 1992, and social medicine at the University of Oslo from 1992 until his death in 2017.
Go to Profile#7648
Hiroshi Nagura
#143885
Overall Influence
#7649
Jacob J. Schacter
#66351
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jacob J. Schacter is an American Orthodox rabbi. Schacter, a historian of intellectual trends in Orthodox Judaism, is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University.
Go to Profile#7650
Jonathan Benfield
#143904
Overall Influence
