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,
#8751
Robert Paul Myers
#8752
Eduard Caspar Jacob von Siebold
1801 - 1861 (60 years)
Eduard Caspar Jacob von Siebold was a German professor of gynecology. He worked at Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Marburg and University of Göttingen. Life and career Von Siebold was born 19 March 1801, the son of gynecologist Adam Elias von Siebold, in Würzburg, in the Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg . He became a medical doctor in 1826, docent in obstetrics in 1827 in Berlin, and professor in this field in 1829 in Marburg. From 1833 until his death in 1861, he was director of the clinic for gynecology and obstetrics at University of Göttingen, succeeding Caspar Julius Mende. Von ...
Go to Profile#8753
Joseph Anthony Carcillo
#125143
Overall Influence
#8754
Tu Youyou
#1565
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Tu Youyou is a Chinese malariologist and pharmaceutical chemist. She discovered artemisinin and dihydroartemisinin, used to treat malaria, a breakthrough in twentieth-century tropical medicine, saving millions of lives in South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America.
Go to Profile#8755
Justin Leiber
#53386
Overall Influence
1938 - 2016 (78 years)
Justin Fritz Leiber was an American philosopher and science fiction writer. He was the son of fantasy, horror and science fiction author Fritz Leiber and the grandson of stage and film actor Fritz Leiber, Sr. Previously a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston, Leiber was most recently a professor emeritus of philosophy at Florida State University. He was a visiting fellow at Linacre College, Oxford during the Trinity term on numerous occasions.
Go to Profile#8756
Andrew Jess Dannenberg
#73469
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Andrew Jess Dannenberg is a U.S. physician and former researcher specializing in molecular mechanisms of cancer, formerly associated with Weill Medical College/M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Beginning in 2020 some of Dannenberg's published papers were retracted due to irregularities with the data or figures.
Go to Profile#8757
Thaddeus P. Dryja
#125183
Overall Influence
#8758
Baker Brownell
1887 - 1965 (78 years)
Baker Brownell was an American philosopher. Brownell was born in St. Charles, Illinois, the fifth of six children of Eugene A. and Esther Burr Baker Brownell. He grew up in St. Charles, where he graduated from St. Charles High School.
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Dan Larhammar
#45825
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dan Larhammar is a Swedish academic professor in molecular cell biology at Uppsala University. His research concerns evolution, neurobiology, endocrinology and pharmacology. As of 2021 Larhammar leads a research team at Uppsala that studies receptors for brain neurotransmitters and uses zebrafish as a model species to investigate the localization and functions of memory proteins. Larhammar also serves as President of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences since 2018 and is a skepticism activist.
Go to Profile#8760
Herbert Budka
#125202
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#8761
Richard J. Miller
#125218
Overall Influence
#8762
Martin Foss
1889 - 1968 (79 years)
Martin Foss was a German-born American philosopher, professor, and scholar. Life and career Martin Foss was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1889 and studied philosophy and law at German and French universities. He married Hilde Schindler, and they had two children, Oliver Foss, a painter, and the composer Lukas Foss. The Jewish family left Germany in 1933 when Adolf Hitler came into power, and for the next four years Martin Fuchs commuted secretly between Paris and Berlin. With the help of the Quaker community in the United States, the family was able to immigrate to the U.S. in 1937. The Quakers...
Go to Profile#8763
Gustav Emil Mueller
1898 - 1987 (89 years)
Gustav Emil Mueller was a Swiss philosopher and Hegelian scholar. Mueller was born in Bern, Switzerland, and received a doctorate in philosophy in 1923 from the University of Bern. He studied also at the University of Heidelberg. After teaching in European universities and joining the faculty of the University of Oregon in 1925, he became a professor of philosophy at the University of Oklahoma in 1930 where he remained on the faculty until his retirement in 1968. He then returned to Bern, where he continued to work and write until the end of his life. Here is a quote:
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David Rowitch
#108161
Overall Influence
David Rowitch, FMedSci, FRS is an American physician-scientist known for his contributions to developmental glial biology and treatment of white matter diseases. He heads the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Cambridge and is an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco .
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Douglas Vernon Hubble
1900 - 1981 (81 years)
Sir Douglas Vernon Hubble was a paediatric endocrinologist, general practitioner, and professor of paediatrics and dean of medicine at the University of Birmingham. Hubble was principally notable for research into paediatric endocrinology and publishing a number of papers on the subject, which gave him a national reputation.
Go to Profile#8766
Richard E. Sampliner
#125250
Overall Influence
#8767
Franz Xaver Zippe
1791 - 1863 (72 years)
Franz Xaver Maximilian Zippe , was a Bohemian natural philosopher, scientist and mineralogist. Biography After attending secondary school in Dresden, Zippe studied philosophy at the Prague University from 1807 to 1809. While still a student, he attended lectures of the chemist Karl August Neumann and Josef Johann Steinmann , a professor of general chemistry at the Polytechnic Academy in Prague. Zippe developed a close relationship with Dr. Steinmann. Starting in 1819 Zippe taught mineralogy, first as an adjunct, and beginning in 1822 as an assistant professor at the Polytechnic. In 1835 he b...
Go to Profile#8768
James H. Lewis
#125302
Overall Influence
#8769
Scott E. Kern
#125308
Overall Influence
#8770
Henry H. Balfour
#125328
Overall Influence
#8771
Bernard De Bruyne
#125338
Overall Influence
#8772
Roelof Willemze
#125341
Overall Influence
#8773
Merrill D. Benson
#125350
Overall Influence
#8774
Richard Greil
#125352
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#8775
Pope Urban II
1035 - 1099 (64 years)
Pope Urban II , otherwise known as Odo of Châtillon or Otho de Lagery, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 12 March 1088 to his death. He is best known for convening the Council of Clermont which ignited the series of Christian conquests known as the Crusades.
Go to Profile#8776
George Lewith
#82702
Overall Influence
1950 - 2017 (67 years)
George Lewith was a professor at the University of Southampton researching alternative medicine and a practitioner of complementary medicine. He was a prominent and sometimes controversial advocate of complementary medicine in the UK.
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Linda Williams
#8261
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Linda Williams is an American professor of film studies in the departments of Film Studies and Rhetoric at University of California, Berkeley. Career Williams graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a B.A in Comparative Literature in 1969, and then earned a PhD at the University of Colorado for her dissertation subsequently published as Figures of Desire: A Theory and Analysis of Surrealist Film. Her main academic areas of interest are: film history, film genre, melodrama, pornography, feminist theory and visual culture; all with an emphasis on women, gender, race, and sexualit...
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Patricia M. Mcnamara
#125380
Overall Influence
#8779
Peng Tee Khaw
#72897
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Sir Peng Tee Khaw is a Chinese-Malaysian British consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, specialising in adult and paediatric glaucoma. Career Khaw was born on 8 October 1957 in Singapore. His father, Tan Sri Khaw Kai Boh, was a cabinet member of Tunku Abdul Rahman. His family moved back to Malaysia soon after, and he studied at Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur before leaving for the UK.
Go to Profile#8780
O. P. Kretzmann
1901 - 1975 (74 years)
Otto Paul Kretzmann was a Lutheran pastor, professor, author, and long-tenured president of Valparaiso University. Early life and education Otto Paul Kretzmann was born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1901 and grew up in New York City in a Lutheran family. His father, grandfather, and five brothers were all Lutheran pastors. He was called 'John' by family and close friends, but later went by and published under his initials, 'O. P.'. Kretzmann graduated from Concordia Collegiate Institute in Bronxville, New York in 1920. He attended Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated in 1924 with a master's degree in sacred theology.
Go to Profile#8781
Gennaro Ciliberto
#125400
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#8782
Pirjo Helena Mäkelä
#125405
Overall Influence
#8783
Anselm Kampik
#125427
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
#8784
Shafey Kidwai
#13325
Overall Influence
Shafey Kidwai is an Indian academic, bilingual critic, translator, columnist, and author. He is the professor in the Department of Mass Communications at Aligarh Muslim University. He has written twelve books in English and Urdu. His seminal study, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Reason, Religion and Nation has got wide acclaim across the globe. He writes for The Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, The Hindu, The Frontline, The Outlook, Indian Literature, The Book Review, The Stateman, and Siyasat.com .Many reputed literary journals of the subcontinent carry his articles regularly and he ...
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William N. Rom
#114511
Overall Influence
William N. Rom is the Sol and Judith Bergstein Professor of Medicine and Environmental Medicine, Emeritus at New York University School of Medicine and former Director of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at New York University and Chief of the Chest Service at Bellevue Hospital Center, 1989–2014. He is Research Scientist at the School of Global Public Health at New York University and Adjunct Professor at the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. He teaches Climate Change and Global Public Health and Environmental Health in a Global World.
Go to Profile#8786
Michael P. Vieth
#125437
Overall Influence
#8787
J. Clifton Thompson
#125456
Overall Influence
#8788
Timo Vesikari
#125459
Overall Influence
#8789
John Power Kane
#125488
Overall Influence
#8790
Yves A. Dauvilliers
#125496
Overall Influence
#8791
Sallie Lamb
#108571
Overall Influence
Sarah Elizabeth Lamb is the Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Exeter, and the Mireille Gillings Professor for Health Innovation. She is also an Honorary Departmental Professor at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford and was the Foundation Director of the Oxford Clinical Trials Research Unit.
Go to Profile#8792
Peter Bradshaw
#14474
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Peter Nicholas Bradshaw is a British writer, art and film critic. He has been chief film critic at The Guardian since 1999, and is a contributing editor at Esquire. Early life and education Bradshaw was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire and studied English at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he was president of the Cambridge Footlights. He was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1984, followed by postgraduate research in the Early Modern period in which he studied with Lisa Jardine and Anne Barton. He received his PhD in 1989.
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Alden Hood Harken
#125533
Overall Influence
#8794
Michael Georg Conrad
1846 - 1927 (81 years)
Michael Georg Conrad was a German writer and philosopher. He was the founder and editor of Die Gesellschaft. External links
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Thanos Athanasiou
#125541
Overall Influence
#8796
Muthiah Vaduganathan
#125552
Overall Influence
#8797
John Finamore
#120803
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
John Finamore is Roger A. Hornsby Professor of the Classics at The University of Iowa. He is known for his research on Greek and Roman Philosophy, Word Power, Greek, and Latin. Finamore is the editor-in-chief of The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition.
Go to Profile#8798
Leonard Maltin
#24057
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Leonard Michael Maltin is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of film capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, published annually from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film critic on Entertainment Tonight from 1982 to 2010. He currently teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and has appeared regularly on Turner Classic Movies, and hosts the weekly podcast Maltin on Movies. He has written articles for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Variety, Playboy and TV Guide.
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Tite Margwelaschwili
1891 - 1946 (55 years)
Tite Margwelaschwili was a Georgian philosopher and writer. He studied at the University of Leipzig and did a doctor's degree in history at the University Halle-Wittenberg in 1914. His career in Georgia was interrupted by the Soviet invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1921.
Go to Profile#8800
Dr. David F. Ransohoff
#125599
Overall Influence
