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,
#8201
J. Phillip Smith
#149470
Overall Influence
#8202
Richard Gaskin
#122781
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Richard Maxwell Gaskin is a British philosopher who is a professor at the University of Liverpool. He has published on metaphysics, philosophy of language and logic, and history of philosophy, as well as on philosophy of literature, literary theory, and the European literary tradition. Gaskin received his Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Philosophy, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in classics and philosophy at University College, Oxford, and has held academic posts at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, as well as at the University of Sussex.
Go to Profile#8203
Gerard A. Silvestri
#149483
Overall Influence
#8204
Howard A. A. Bird
#149491
Overall Influence
#8205
Robert H. Miller
#106508
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Robert Harold Miller, M.D., M.B.A., F.A.C.S. is an American surgeon and the executive director of the American Board of Otolaryngology in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. Education and career Miller graduated from Metairie Park Country Day School in 1965. Miller received his B.S. degree in Biology from Tulane University in New Orleans in 1969, and his M.D. degree from Tulane's School of Medicine in 1973. He was also named to the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society that same year. He completed Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery residency training in 1978 at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, and subsequently practiced at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Go to Profile#8206
Mario Thevis
#149506
Overall Influence
#8207
Hermes A. Kontos
#149514
Overall Influence
#8208
Malcolm I. Levene
#149518
Overall Influence
#8209
Gregory Russell Pond
#149528
Overall Influence
#8210
William L. Young†
#149540
Overall Influence
#8211
Beau M. Ances
#149545
Overall Influence
#8212
Jacques Jamart
#149558
Overall Influence
#8213
Tim-matthias Strom
#149572
Overall Influence
#8214
Nehmat Houssami
#149590
Overall Influence
#8215
Michael Barza
#149598
Overall Influence
#8216
Richard Quintiliani
#149600
Overall Influence
#8217
Mark B. Mcclellan
#149613
Overall Influence
#8218
Mark V. Sauer
#149617
Overall Influence
#8219
Melvyn T. Korobkin
#149635
Overall Influence
#8220
Marc R. De Leval
#149644
Overall Influence
#8221
Robert John Mentz
#149656
Overall Influence
#8222
John Harry Fuller
#149657
Overall Influence
#8223
Daniel Rothschild
#129854
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Daniel Henry Rothschild is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy of Language at University College London Department of Philosophy. He is known for his expertise on philosophy of language. Rothschild has held various fellowships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is a Fifty-Pound fellow of All Souls College.
Go to Profile#8224
Michael. W. Fried
#149670
Overall Influence
#8225
John Anthony Lust
#149690
Overall Influence
#8226
Burton I. Korelitz
#149694
Overall Influence
#8227
Rüdiger Schmidt-Grépály
#92756
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Rüdiger Schmidt-Grépály is a German cultural manager and Director of the Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Research and academic career After leaving school in 1972, he studied philosophy, politics and literature in Kiel, Freiburg im Breisgau and Marburg until 1980. In 1980, he successfully completed a doctorate on the early work of Friedrich Nietzsche under the direction of Hans Heinz Holz, Gert Mattenklott and Katharina Kanthack. From 1983 to 1985, holding grants from the German Academic Exchange Service and the Italian foreign ministry, he worked in Florence with M...
Go to Profile#8228
Michael P. Flentje
#149697
Overall Influence
#8229
John Thomas Sharp
#149708
Overall Influence
#8230
Daniel Zhitomirsky
#80114
Overall Influence
1906 - 1992 (86 years)
Daniel Vladimirovich Zhitomirsky was a Russian musicologist and music critic who specialized in the music of German composer Robert Schumann and the aesthetics of German Romanticism. He also wrote extensively on Russian composers of the Soviet period, especially Dmitri Shostakovich.
Go to Profile#8231
Marc T. Goodman
#149728
Overall Influence
#8232
Nita Ahuja
#18609
Overall Influence
Nita Ahuja is a surgeon and the Chair of the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine and Surgeon-in-Chief of Surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital. She is the first woman ever to serve as Chair of Surgery in Yale in its >200 year history. Before taking this position she was the first woman ever to be the Chief of Surgical Oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, USA. Ahuja researches in the field of epigenetics and is a passionate advocate of clinician scientist. She also served as the director of Sarcoma and peritoneal surface malignancy program. She is a surgeon-scientist and her...
Go to Profile#8233
Fu-Tong Liu
#117496
Overall Influence
Fu-Tong Liu is a Taiwanese dermatologist. Liu studied chemistry at National Taiwan University and completed a doctorate in the same field at the University of Chicago in 1976. He started postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and ended postdoctoral work at Scripps Research. Liu remained at Scripps while earning an MD at the University of Miami School of Medicine. His medical residency took place at the University of California, San Diego. Liu left Scripps for the University of California, Davis faculty in 2001. At UCD, Liu was chair professor and later appointed distinguished professor in 2012.
Go to Profile#8234
Dr David H. P. Streeten
#149756
Overall Influence
#8235
Henri Schmitt
#149788
Overall Influence
#8236
David John Leaper
#149794
Overall Influence
#8237
Thomas W. Langfitt
#149801
Overall Influence
#8238
Jay Kesler
#61019
Overall Influence
Jay Kesler is the former president, Chancellor and current President Emeritus of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Kesler graduated in 1958 from Taylor University and is notable for his writings and radio work. Most recently, he served as the Preaching Pastor of Upland Community Church, in Upland, Indiana. Dr. Kesler was President of Youth for Christ from 1973–1985 and President of Taylor University from 1985-2000. Dr. Kesler is also the author of nearly 30 books.
Go to Profile#8239
Paul J. Eslinger
#149833
Overall Influence
#8240
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia
#77473
Overall Influence
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia is an American neurologist and clinical investigator. He is the John McCrae Dickson, MD Presidential professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Director of Clinical Traumatic Brain Injury Research, and Attending Neurologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Go to Profile#8241
Peter G. Bullough
#149866
Overall Influence
#8242
Lennart Kaijser
#149867
Overall Influence
#8243
Marian Hobson
#74617
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Marian Elizabeth Hobson Jeanneret, is a British scholar of French philosophy, and culture. From 1992 to 2005, she was Professor of French at Queen Mary, University of London. She had previously taught at the University of Warwick, the University of Geneva, and the University of Cambridge. In 1977, she became the first woman to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#8244
Demosthenes George Katritsis
#149906
Overall Influence
#8245
Laura Mauri
#149910
Overall Influence
#8246
Paul L. Tessier
#149913
Overall Influence
#8247
Jiri J. Frohlich
#149919
Overall Influence
#8248
Trisha Suppes
#126434
Overall Influence
Trisha Suppes is a professor at Stanford University in the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She also works at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System as director of the Bipolar and Depression Research Program. She is noted for being an expert in the treatment and management of bipolar disorder. She been the author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles and has written numerous academic textbooks for the treatment of Bipolar Disorder. Suppes' recent work includes exploring the biological basis of mood disorders.
Go to Profile#8249
Scott A. Armstrong
#83285
Overall Influence
Scott Allen Armstrong is an American pediatric oncologist and cancer biologist focused on chromatin-based control of gene expression in cancer and therapeutic discovery. Armstrong and his team were the first to isolate rare leukemia stem cells in a mouse model of leukemia.
Go to Profile#8250
Henry Leroy Finch Jr.
#94668
Overall Influence
1918 - 1997 (79 years)
Henry Leroy Finch, Jr. was an American scholar and professor of philosophy and a pacifist organizer. Early life and education Roy Finch was born in New York City the oldest child of Henry Le Roy Finch and Mary Farquhar Baker. His grandfather was Stephen Baker, President of the Bank of the Manhattan Company. He had three brothers: Charles B. Finch Jr., Stephen Baker Finch, and John Finch. He attended the Buckley School, Phillips Academy, and Yale University . During World War II he registered as a conscientious objector. After the war he earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Columbia University, w...
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