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,
#7901
Roger Garaudy
#65271
Overall Influence
1913 - 2012 (99 years)
Roger Garaudy was a French philosopher, French resistance fighter and a communist author. He converted to Islam in 1982. In 1998, he was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law for claiming that the death of six million Jews was a "myth".
Go to Profile#7902
Kenneth L. Mattox
#117453
Overall Influence
#7903
Jan Sapp
#35092
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Jan Anthony Sapp is a professor in the Department of Biology, York University, Canada. His writings focus especially on evolutionary biology beyond the classical neo-Darwinian framework, and emphasize the fundamental importance of symbiosis and horizontal gene transfer in heredity and evolution.
Go to Profile#7904
Dieter Senghaas
#38568
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Dieter Senghaas is a German social scientist and peace researcher. Biography After studying political science, social science, philosophy and history from 1960 to 1967, Senghaas received his doctorate in Frankfurt in 1967. His dissertation, Kritik der Abschreckung , dealt with the field which has characterised his scientific activities since then: international relations, especially peace research, research on developing countries and conflict research. His studies were followed by work as an assistant at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt until 1968, and then a research residency in the USA with Karl W.
Go to Profile#7905
Makis Solomos
#76345
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Makis Solomos was a Franco-Greek musicologist who specialized in contemporary music and particularly in the work of Iannis Xenakis. He is also one of the specialists of Adorno's thought. His work focuses on the issue of sound ecology and decay. He has published articles and books and participates in meetings and symposia. In 2005, he also participated in the creation of the magazine "Filigranes" which aims to broaden the field of musicology.
Go to Profile#7906
Caroline Joan S. Picart
#56161
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Caroline Joan S. Picart is a Filipino-born American academic who has written and edited numerous books and anthologies on philosophy and cultural studies, especially horror film. She is also a lawyer and had a radio show, The Dr. Caroline Picart Show. In 2011, she received the Lord Ruthven Award, non-fiction category, for the book Dracula in Visual Media Film, Television, Comic Book and Electronic Game Appearances, 1921-2010, co-authored with John Edgar Browning.
Go to Profile#7907
Patti Valkenburg
#90829
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Patricia Maria Valkenburg is a Distinguished Professor of Communication at the University of Amsterdam. She is the founder and director of Center for research on Children, Adolescents, and the Media . She is a fellow of the International Communication Association. In 2011, she received the Spinoza Prize, the highest Dutch award in science.
Go to Profile#7908
John J. Bergan
#117499
Overall Influence
#7909
Jan Gillquist
#117531
Overall Influence
#7910
Alexander Galich
1783 - 1848 (65 years)
Alexander Ivanovich Galich was a Russian teacher, philosopher, and writer. Galich was a teacher of Latin and Russian literature at the German Saint Peter's School in St. Petersburg, a professor at St. Petersburg University, a teacher of Alexander Pushkin, and a writer and philosopher who was one of the first followers of the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling in Russia.
Go to Profile#7911
David S. Ludwig
#117544
Overall Influence
#7912
Samiran Nundy
#33311
Overall Influence
Samiran Nundy is an Indian gastrointestinal surgeon, medical academic, writer and the President of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Rishikesh. He is a former member of the faculty at the Cambridge University, London University and Harvard University, and is the founder editor of the National Medical Journal of India and Tropical Gastroenterology. The Government of India awarded him the fourth-highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1985.
Go to Profile#7913
Elizabeth Flower
#102832
Overall Influence
1915 - 1995 (80 years)
Elizabeth Farquhar Flower was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. She co-authored a standard textbook on the history of philosophy, History of Philosophy in America.
Go to Profile#7914
Xavier Estivill i Pallejà
#117611
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#7915
Germain Sée
1818 - 1896 (78 years)
Germain Sée was a French clinician who was a native of Ribeauvillé, Haut-Rhin. He studied medicine in Paris, obtaining his doctorate in 1846 with a dissertation on ergotism . In 1852 he became a physician of hospitals in Paris, and subsequently worked at La Rochefoucauld , Beaujon , Pitié and Charité hospitals. In 1866 he succeeded Armand Trousseau as chair of therapeutics at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and in 1876 attained the chair of clinical medicine at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris.
Go to Profile#7916
William French Anderson
#86599
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
William French Anderson is an American physician, geneticist and molecular biologist. He is known as the "father of gene therapy". He graduated from Harvard College in 1958, Trinity College, Cambridge University in 1960, and from Harvard Medical School in 1963. In 1990 he was the first person to succeed in carrying out gene therapy by treating a 4-year-old girl suffering from severe combined immunodeficiency . In 2006, he was convicted of sexual abuse of a minor and in 2007 was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He was paroled on May 17, 2018, for good behavior.
Go to Profile#7917
Allen M. Spiegel
#117652
Overall Influence
#7918
Gottfried Schlaug
#117657
Overall Influence
#7919
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas
#70622
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas is an American author and educator. She is associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Floyd-Thomas is a Womanist Christian social ethicist whose research interests include Womanist thought, Black Church Studies, liberation theology and ethics, critical race theory, critical pedagogy and postcolonial studies.
Go to Profile#7920
William Placher
#66136
Overall Influence
1948 - 2008 (60 years)
William Carl Placher was an American postliberal theologian. He was Follette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Wabash College until his death in 2008. He was a leader at Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church.
Go to Profile#7921
Sarah Gilbert
#19022
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Dame Sarah Catherine Gilbert FRS is an English vaccinologist who is a Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Vaccitech. She specialises in the development of vaccines against influenza and emerging viral pathogens. She led the development and testing of the universal flu vaccine, which underwent clinical trials in 2011.
Go to Profile#7922
Walter Orenstein
#72034
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Walter A. Orenstein served as the director of the United States' National Immunization Program, from May 1993 to January 2004. Education Orenstein has a bachelor's degree from the City College of New York. He went on to receive his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1972. He then completed a residency in pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, after which he completed a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Southern California Medical School. Orenstein then completed another residency, this time in preventive medicine at the Centers for Dise...
Go to Profile#7923
Alexander W. Clowes
#117677
Overall Influence
#7924
Mike Ashley
#11792
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael Raymond Donald Ashley is a British bibliographer, author and editor of science fiction, mystery, and fantasy. He edits the long-running Mammoth Book series of short story anthologies, each arranged around a particular theme in mystery, fantasy, or science fiction. He has a special interest in fiction magazines and has written a multi-volume History of the Science Fiction Magazine and a study of British fiction magazines, The Age of the Storytellers. He won the Edgar Award for The Mammoth Encyclopedia of Modern Crime Fiction. In addition to the books listed below he edited and prepared for publication the novel The Enchantresses by Vera Chapman.
Go to Profile#7925
Michael H. Davidson
#117679
Overall Influence
#7926
R. Kumar Bhaskar
#117704
Overall Influence
#7927
Samuel Donald Wright
#117711
Overall Influence
#7928
Suad Efendić
#117725
Overall Influence
#7929
Henry Silton Harris
#97715
Overall Influence
1926 - 2007 (81 years)
Henry Silton Harris was a British-Canadian philosopher, having been a Distinguished Research Professor at York University. He is best known for his work on the intellectual development of G. W. F. Hegel and for his writings and commentary upon The Phenomenology of Spirit.
Go to Profile#7930
Joseph Michael Lane
#117728
Overall Influence
#7931
Jacopo Stellini
1699 - 1770 (71 years)
Jacopo Stellini was an Italian abbot, polymath writer and philosopher. Born in Cividale del Friuli to a family of modest means; his father was a tailor. Stellini was first educated by the Somaschi order, and he joined the order in 1718. He moved to Venice where he studied in the seminary in Murano, and was made a priest in 1722. In Venice, he served as a tutor to the prominent Emo family, and the patronage in 1739 helped him land a professor position teaching "moral philosophy" at the University of Padua.
Go to Profile#7932
Paulo Saldiva
#49993
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Paulo Hilário Nascimento Saldiva is a Brazilian professor, physician, pathologist and medical researcher. He researches particularly on the academic area of pathophysiology of the lungs and the hazardous consequences of air pollution for human health. He is a member of the World Health Organization and is a researcher of the Department of Environmental Health of Harvard University, and has co-authored the book "Saúde e Meio Ambiente: o desafio das metrópoles" , released in 2011. Saldiva graduated and obtained a bachelor's degree by the department of Medicine of the Universidade de São Paulo in 1977 and a Doctor's Degree in Pathology in 1983, among other academic accomplishments.
Go to Profile#7933
Hubert Erich Blum
#117748
Overall Influence
#7934
Thomas S. Kupper
#96482
Overall Influence
Thomas S. Kupper is an American physician, academic, and clinician. His work with clinical and research experience spans dermatology, cutaneous oncology, and immunology. He is the Thomas B. Fitzpatrick Professor at Harvard Medical School, and chairs the Departments of Dermatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He also leads the Cutaneous Oncology Disease Center at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
Go to Profile#7935
Euan Ashley
#15447
Overall Influence
Euan Angus Ashley is a Scottish physician, scientist, author, and founder based at Stanford University in California where he is Associate Dean in the School of Medicine and holds the Roger and Joelle Burnell Chair of Genomics and Precision Health. He is known for helping establish the field of medical genomics.
Go to Profile#7936
Apollonius Cronus
350 BC - 350 BC (0 years)
Apollonius Cronus from Cyrene was a philosopher of the Megarian school. Very little is known about him. He was the pupil of Eubulides, and was the teacher of Diodorus Cronus, as Strabo relates: Apollonius Cronus, was from Cyrene, ... being the teacher of Diodorus the Dialectician, who also was given the appellation "Cronus," certain persons having transferred the epithet of the teacher to the pupil.
Go to Profile#7937
Johann Christian Lossius
1743 - 1813 (70 years)
Johann Christian Lossius was a German materialist philosopher who made contributions to philosophical anthropology, the philosophy of mind, and physiognomy. Life Lossius studied philosophy at Jena. Appointed professor of philosophy at Erfurt in 1770, he became professor of theology there in 1772.
Go to Profile#7938
Christoph Meiners
1747 - 1810 (63 years)
Christoph Meiners was a German racialist, philosopher, historian, and writer born in Warstade. He supported the polygenist theory of human origins. He was a member of the Göttingen School of History.
Go to Profile#7939
Thomas C. Gasser
#117803
Overall Influence
#7940
Jan Rustem
1762 - 1835 (73 years)
Jan Rustem was a painter of Armenian ethnicity who lived and worked in the territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Primarily a portrait painter, he was commissioned to execute portraits of notable personalities of his epoch. For many years he was a professor at Vilnius University.
Go to Profile#7941
Benjamin Hale
#117805
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Benjamin S. Hale is an environmental philosopher and ethicist. He is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado–Boulder, as well as a faculty affiliate at the university's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research.
Go to Profile#7942
Aize Kijlstra
#7943
Liz Dennis
#81432
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Elizabeth Salisbury Dennis is an Australian scientist working mainly in the area of plant molecular biology. She is currently a chief scientist at the plant division of CSIRO Canberra. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 1987, and the Australian Academy of Science in 1995. She jointly received the inaugural Prime Minister's Science Prize together with Professor Jim Peacock in 2000 for her outstanding achievements in science and technology.
Go to Profile#7944
Rene F. Frydman
#117823
Overall Influence
#7945
Harold Merskey
#117845
Overall Influence
#7946
Gustav Dallner
#117847
Overall Influence
#7947
Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht
#62257
Overall Influence
1919 - 1999 (80 years)
Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht was a German musicologist and professor of historical musicology at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg. Life Eggebrecht was born in Dresden. His father was a Protestant minister and since 1929 superintendent in Prussian Schleusingen and early on sympathized with political right-wing movements. In 1933 he joined the German Christians.
Go to Profile#7948
Milosch Dr Chvapil
#117861
Overall Influence
#7949
Jacques M. Deviere
#117865
Overall Influence
#7950
Gerold M. Grodsky
#117868
Overall Influence
