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,
#7801
M. C. St. Paul
#145416
Overall Influence
#7802
Å. C. Hjalmarson
#145426
Overall Influence
#7803
Sam Hawgood
#19968
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Samuel Hawgood is a pediatrician, researcher, Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished professor, and the tenth chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Queensland and completed residency at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane. Previously, he served as the Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#7804
David Gellinger Kline
#145456
Overall Influence
#7805
Lerner B. Hinshaw
#145464
Overall Influence
#7806
Kenji Ikeda
#145469
Overall Influence
#7807
M.‐j. Vidailhet
#145473
Overall Influence
#7808
Monson H. Hayes
#145489
Overall Influence
#7809
Margaret Shipp
#133396
Overall Influence
Margaret Ann Shipp is an American hematologic oncologist. She is the Douglas S. Miller Chair in Hodgkin Lymphoma at Harvard Medical School. Shipp is an elected Fellow of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#7810
Howard M. Fillit
#145510
Overall Influence
#7811
Robert Craigie Cross
#127774
Overall Influence
1911 - 2000 (89 years)
Robert Craigie Cross FRSE CBE was Regius Professor of Logic at Aberdeen University. He served as vice principal of the university 1974–1978. Life He was born in Glasgow on 24 April 1911, the son of Matthew Cross, a schoolmaster, and Margaret Dickson. He grew up in Dunbartonshire. He attended Glasgow University and graduated in 1932, winning the David Logan Medal for the most distinguished arts graduate. He was awarded the Foulis Scholarship and used this to attend Queen's College, Oxford where he studied "Mods and Greats" under Sir Oliver Franks, focusing on philosophy and ancient history. In 1938 he became a fellow at the college and began to tutor in philosophy.
Go to Profile#7812
Allen C. Alfrey
#145524
Overall Influence
#7813
Robert M. Filler
#145528
Overall Influence
#7814
Ulrich Keilholz
#145535
Overall Influence
#7815
Max Stackhouse
#92910
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Max Lynn Stackhouse was the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was the president of the Berkshire Institute for Theology and the Arts.
Go to Profile#7816
Simmy Bank
#145538
Overall Influence
#7817
Paul E. Alexander
#52705
Overall Influence
Paul Elias Alexander is a Canadian independent scientist, and a former Trump administration official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alexander was recruited from his part-time, unpaid position at McMaster University to serve as an aide to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo in March 2020. In that role, Alexander pressured federal scientists and public health agencies to suppress and edit their COVID-19 analyses to make them consistent with Trump's rhetoric.
Go to Profile#7818
Alan M. Krensky
#93375
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Alan Krensky is executive for development at Northwestern Medicine and vice dean for development and alumni relations at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. He was previously senior investigator in the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the National Institutes of Health and served as the first director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives and a deputy director of NIH. He was Associate Dean for Children’s Health and the Shelagh Galligan Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#7819
R. R. Macdonald Senior
#145561
Overall Influence
#7820
Rivka Carmi
#20431
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Rivka Carmi is an Israeli pediatrician and geneticist. She served as President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev from May 2006 until December 2018. Carmi is the first woman to be appointed president of an Israeli university.
Go to Profile#7821
Geoffrey L. Asherson
#145583
Overall Influence
#7822
Lance L. Simpson
#145584
Overall Influence
#7823
Constantine S. Mitsiades
#145597
Overall Influence
#7824
Stuart L. Fine
#145602
Overall Influence
#7825
John Armleder
#25591
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John Armleder is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations, and collective art activities that were strongly influenced by John Cage. However, Armleder's position throughout his career has been to avoid associating his artistic practice with any type of manifesto.
Go to Profile#7826
Peter Brian Bach
#145650
Overall Influence
#7827
Sheldon G. Sheps
#145657
Overall Influence
#7828
Rajendra R. Makkar
#145659
Overall Influence
#7829
Girish P. Joshi
#145684
Overall Influence
#7830
Melissa Simon
#46460
Overall Influence
Melissa Andrea Simon is an American clinical obstetrician/gynecologist and scientist whose research, teaching, clinical care and advocacy focus on health equity across the lifespan. Simon is founder and director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and founder of the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative, a National Cancer Institute comprehensive cancer partnership led by the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Go to Profile#7831
Oliver Soehnlein
#145702
Overall Influence
#7832
Cun‐yu Wang
#145716
Overall Influence
#7833
Simon May
#136964
Overall Influence
Simon Philip Walter May is visiting professor of philosophy at King's College, London, and at Birkbeck College, University of London. Selected publications How to Be a Refugee. Picador, 2021Love: A History. Yale University Press, 2011.Nietzsche's Ethics and his War on "Morality". Oxford University Press, 1999.Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality: A Critical Guide. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy. Oxford University Press, 2009. Thinking Aloud: A Collection of Aphorisms. Alma Books, 2009.
Go to Profile#7834
Scott L. Pratt
#107959
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Scott L. Pratt is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. His research and teaching is focused primarily upon American philosophy, especially in the areas of Native American philosophy, pragmatism, philosophy of race and gender, philosophy of education, and the history of logic. He has previously served in various administrative roles at the University of Oregon, including executive vice provost for academic affairs , dean of the graduate school , and associate dean for the humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences .
Go to Profile#7835
Bruno Lina
#145750
Overall Influence
#7836
Sam S. Chang
#145752
Overall Influence
#7837
M. Sharif Monga
#145760
Overall Influence
#7838
Arri Coomarasamy
#145765
Overall Influence
#7839
Denis Querleu
#145778
Overall Influence
#7840
Sen Pathak
#145779
Overall Influence
#7841
Sharon Ann Hunt
#115543
Overall Influence
Sharon Ann Hunt is a cardiology professor and Director of the Post Heart Transplant Programme in Palo Alto, California and is affiliated with Stanford University Medical Center, professionally known for her work in the care of patients after heart transplantation.
Go to Profile#7842
Michael Gerard Pratt
#145809
Overall Influence
#7843
Jean‐dominique Vassalli
#145818
Overall Influence
#7844
Erhard Scheibe
#115074
Overall Influence
1927 - 2010 (83 years)
Erhard Scheibe was a German philosopher of science. His works discuss the philosophy of physics and the interpretations of quantum mechanics. He was professor at the University of Heidelberg. Bibliography The logical analysis of quantum mechanics, Pergamon, New York, 1973. The reduction of physical theories, vol 1. Springer Nature, Cham, Switzerland 2022.
Go to Profile#7845
James Oleske
#61108
Overall Influence
James M. Oleske is an American pediatrician and HIV/AIDs researcher who is the emeritus François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Pediatrics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. He is best known for his pioneering work in identifying HIV/AIDS as a pediatric disease, and treating and researching it beginning in the 1980s. He published one of the first articles identifying HIV/AIDS in children in JAMA in 1983 and was a co-author of one of the articles by Robert Gallo and others identifying the virus in Science in 1984.
Go to Profile#7846
Christoph Broelsch
#28363
Overall Influence
1944 - 2019 (75 years)
Christoph Broelsch was a German surgeon and former high school teacher. Broelsch pioneered the liver transplant surgery, when he performed the first successful liver transplant on a child in 1989. Life Broelsch grew up with his five siblings in Bremen. His father, Werner Broelsch was a state youth pastor. By the end of the 1950s, the family moved to Berlin. After graduating from high school in 1963, Broelsch went on to study medicine in Cologne, Erlangen, and Düsseldorf. Afterwards he started working under Prof. Dr. Rudolf Pichlmayr at the Hannover Medical School, where he worked for 10 years before moving to Chicago.
Go to Profile#7847
Gordon Finlayson
#145851
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
James Gordon Finlayson is a British philosopher. He is reader in philosophy and director of the Centre for Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex. Finlayson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a former chair of the Society for European Philosophy .
Go to Profile#7848
Robert N. Colwell
#145855
Overall Influence
#7849
Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia
#46201
Overall Influence
1921 - 1996 (75 years)
Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia was a Uruguayan doctor who pioneered the field of maternal-fetal medicine, or perinatology. His research with Dr. Hermógenes Alvarez created Montevideo units, a measure of uterine performance during labor. He was a founding editor of the Journal of Perinatal Medicine, a widely published author, a lecturer, and the only Uruguayan to be nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Go to Profile#7850
Arnold J. Friedhoff
#145885
Overall Influence
