Search People Result | Academic Influence

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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#8851

Nancy Ellen Epstein

#126182

Overall Influence

#8852

Richard J. O’reilly

#126195

Overall Influence

#8853

James Varani

#126223

Overall Influence

#8854

David S. Ettinger

#126234

Overall Influence

#8855

John Henry Morgan

#46488

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

John Henry Morgan is the Karl Mannheim Professor of the History and Philosophy of Social Sciences at the Graduate Theological Foundation, where he also served as president until 2013. A prolific author, his academic work has explored the intersection of theology, philosophy, psychology and culture.

#8856

Per Hedqvist

#126289

Overall Influence

#8857

Thích Nhật Từ

#61536

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Ven. Thich Nhat Tu or Thích Nhật Từ in Vietnamese is a Vietnamese Buddhist reformer, an author, a poet, a psychological consultant, and an active social activist in Vietnam. He is committed to propagate Buddha's teachings through education, cultural activities and charitable programs in order to benefit the individuals and the society at large.

#8858

Danuta Wasserman

#57933

Overall Influence

Danuta Elizabeth Wasserman is a professor of psychiatry and suicidology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. She is a public mental health and medical educator. She is currently the President of the World Psychiatric Association .

#8859

Eric Randolph Bates

#126303

Overall Influence

#8860

André van der Merwe

#32517

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

André van der Merwe is a South African urologist. He is currently head of urology at the University of Stellenbosch and an associate professor at Tygerberg Hospital. He is best known for conducting the world's first successful penis transplant in 2014. He also performed the first laparoscopic kidney removal in South Africa.

#8861

Kenneth E. Covinsky

#126310

Overall Influence

#8862

Seymour I. Schwartz

#23557

Overall Influence

1928 - 2020 (92 years)

Seymour I. Schwartz, was the Distinguished Alumni Professor for the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. He was one of the most prolific and honored surgeons in American history with further successes outside of the field of medicine as a renowned author and cartographic historian. His most notable accomplishments in surgery include being the founding editor-in-chief of Schwartz's Principles of Surgery, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester , Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and President of the American College of Surgeons .

#8863

Erik Yudin

1930 - 1976 (46 years)

Erik Grigorevich Yudin was a Russian philosopher and cybernetician. In 1956, Yudin, publicly denounced the Russian invasion of Hungary. His employment was termination, he was expelled from the Communist Party, and then arrested by the KGB and imprisoned. In March 1960, he was released from prison after numerous petitions from his parents. He then started to attended seminars of the Moscow Methodological Group run by Georgy Shchedrovitsky.

#8864

Roy Meadow

#2671

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Sir Samuel Roy Meadow is a British retired paediatrician infamous for facilitating several wrongful convictions of mothers for murdering their babies. He was awarded the Donald Paterson prize of the British Paediatric Association in 1968 for a study of the effects on parents of having a child in hospital. In 1977, he published an academic paper describing a phenomenon dubbed Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy . In 1980 he was awarded a professorial chair in paediatrics at St James's University Hospital, Leeds, and in 1998, he was knighted for services to child health.

#8865

Chen Chung-hwan

#108309

Overall Influence

1905 - 1992 (87 years)

Chen Chung-hwan , was a scholar of ancient Greek and Western philosophy. In 1924, Chen attended National Southeastern University and graduated from the Department of Philosophy in 1929. He then studied at the University of London in 1930, and later at Berlin University under professors Werner Jaeger, Nicolai Hartmann and Julius Stenzel. He received his doctorate in 1940. After teaching at the National Southwestern Union University , National Central University , and the National Taiwan University in Taipei until 1958, Chen emigrated to the United States, where he taught at Emory University, L...

#8866

Christian-Friedrich Vahl

#58854

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Christian-Friedrich Vahl is a German cardiac surgeon. He is director of the Clinic for Heart, Thorax and Vascular surgery at the University of Mainz. Biography Vahl studied medicine, art history, philosophy and sociology. He absolved the study of medicine between 1975 and 1981 at the University Hospital of Göttingen and at the University Hospital of Heidelberg. He was scholar of the German National Academic Foundation. From 1979 to 81 Vahl spent an academic year abroad at the University of Madrid. 1986 he e graduated with the medical doctor degree . From 1981 to 84 he made a scientific basic ...

#8867

Stephan E. Mergenhagen

#126340

Overall Influence

#8868

Critolaus

200 BC - 120 BC (80 years)

Critolaus of Phaselis was a Greek philosopher of the Peripatetic school. He was one of three philosophers sent to Rome in 155 BC , where their doctrines fascinated the citizens, but frightened the more conservative statesmen. None of his writings survive. He was interested in rhetoric and ethics, and considered pleasure to be an evil. He maintained the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world, and of the human race in general, directing his arguments against the Stoics.

#8869

Michael J. Borowitz

#126357

Overall Influence

#8870

Axel Kahn

#126362

Overall Influence

#8871

Dominic Borg

1501 - 1601 (100 years)

Dominic Borg was a minor Maltese philosopher who specialised in logic and rhetoric. Life He probably lectured at the Collegium Melitense in Valletta. The extant works of Borg reveal practically nothing in terms of biographical data. What they do attest to is his philosophical prowess and his clarity of thought.

#8872

Andrew Sarris

#22376

Overall Influence

1928 - 2012 (84 years)

Andrew Sarris was an American film critic. He was a leading proponent of the auteur theory of film criticism. Early life Sarris was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Greek immigrant parents, Themis and George Andrew Sarris, and grew up in Ozone Park, Queens. After attending John Adams High School in South Ozone Park , he graduated from Columbia University in 1951 and then served for three years in the Army Signal Corps before moving to Paris for a year, where he became a friend of Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. Upon returning to New York's Lower East Side, Sarris briefly pursued graduat...

#8873

Richard Glenn Fessler

#126370

Overall Influence

#8874

Dwight Gary Gilliland

#126383

Overall Influence

#8875

N. W. Ferrante Kowall

#126387

Overall Influence

#8876

G. E. H. Anscombe

#126389

Overall Influence

#8877

Helen Cross

#108084

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Judith Helen Cross is a British physician who is the Prince of Wales's Chair of Childhood Epilepsy and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Neurology at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust. She is also director of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London and a trustee of Young Epilepsy, in Lingfield.

#8878

Jens Sandahl Christiansen

#126393

Overall Influence

#8879

Stephen J. Marx

#126401

Overall Influence

#8880

Frank Quentin Nuttall

#126403

Overall Influence

#8881

John Micallef

#110085

Overall Influence

1923 - 2003 (80 years)

John Micallef was a Maltese philosopher. Although his thoughts remained philosophically grounded in the Christian tradition, he was primarily interested in existentialism. Life Micallef was born in Victoria, Gozo, one of Malta's subsidiary islands, in 1923. After completing his studies at the Lyceum in Malta, he continued studying at the Gregorian University of Rome. From Gregorian, he acquired a Masters in philosophy. He also studied philosophy at Heythop College in London, England. From the University of London he acquired a Bachelor of Arts in Italian language, and another master's degree in linguistics.

#8882

Ernesto Garzón Valdés

Ernesto Garzón Valdés

#87790

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (99 years)

Ernesto Garzón Valdés was an Argentine philosopher. He had been a professor of philosophy of law at the universities of Córdoba and La Plata in Argentina and, upon being exiled in Germany during the administration of Isabel Perón and the subsequent dictatorship in Argentina, at the universities of Bonn, Cologne and Mainz. He worked at the embassy of the Republic of Argentina in Bonn as a cultural attaché and as plenipotentiary minister until 1974, when he was expelled from the diplomatic service for political reasons. He then taught legal philosophy at Bonn and Cologne, until he gained a chair in political science at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz in 1981.

#8883

Lisa Hartling

#126438

Overall Influence

#8884

Carl Clinton Foster

#126444

Overall Influence

#8885

Jerome Kohl

#52146

Overall Influence

1946 - 2020 (74 years)

Jerome Joseph Kohl was an American musicologist, academic journal editor, and recorder teacher. A music theorist at the University of Washington, he became recognized internationally as an authority on the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen.

#8886

Christopher S. Ogilvy

#126450

Overall Influence

#8887

John Grange

#98204

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Professor John Grange died 10 October 2016 was an English immunologist, epidemiologist, researcher, and academic, and was one of Europe's leading tuberculosis specialists. Education Grange was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, and then from 1962 to 1967 at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School of the University of London.

#8888

Ziya Levent Gokaslan

#126465

Overall Influence

#8889

Wayne H. Akeson

#126484

Overall Influence

#8890

Robert B. Bourne

#8891

Moustapha Kassem

#55752

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Moustapha Kassem is a scientist, physician and endocrinologist based in Denmark. He received his medical degree from Kasr-el-Aini Medical School, Cairo University, Egypt and received his post-graduate training in internal medicine and endocrinology in Denmark and the United States. He obtained his PhD degree and DSc degrees from Aarhus University.

#8892

Santiago Castro-Gómez

Santiago Castro-Gómez

#77054

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Santiago Castro-Gómez is a Colombian philosopher, a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the director of the Pensar Institute in Bogotá. Career and Work Castro-Gómez began studying philosophy at Santo Tomás University in Bogotá, Colombia with members of the "Bogotá Group." He received his M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Tübingen and his Ph.D at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main in Germany. In addition to his academic positions in Colombia, he has served as visiting professor at Duke University, Pittsburgh University and the Goethe University of Frankfurt.

#8893

Gerald Salen

#126492

Overall Influence

#8894

Shishunala Sharif

Shishunala Sharif

1819 - 1889 (70 years)

Santha Shishunala Sharifa was an Indian social reformer, philosopher and poet. Birth and early life Santa Shishunala Sharifa was born on 7 March 1819 in Shishuvinahala, a village in Shigganvi taluk , Karnataka. He was the son of Imam Saheb, who was a disciple of Hajaresha Qadri, whose dream was to unite Hinduism and Islam. Hajaresha Qadri used to give "Linga Deeksha", or initiation by tying a linga around the neck of a disciple, as per the Lingayat tradition. His father used to teach him Ramayana, Mahabharata, and even the teachings of Allama Prabhu. Legend has it that Shishunala Sharifa was ...

#8895

Howard Davis Thames

#126506

Overall Influence

#8896

Colin Ivor Johnston

#126512

Overall Influence

#8897

Pietro Perconti

#92036

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Pietro Perconti is an Italian philosopher. Currently 'Professor of Philosophy and Theory of Languages' at the Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Messina. He has written books and texts on cognition and language . He has tried to define common sense.

#8898

Charles Chihara

#114372

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Charles Seiyo Chihara was an American philosopher specializing in the philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. Early life and education Born to Japanese-American parents in Seattle, Chihara spent part of his youth in an internment camp during World War II. After graduating from O'Dea High School, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Seattle, a Master of Science in mathematics from Purdue University, and a PhD in philosophy from the University of Washington.

#8899

Heinrich Anton de Bary

Heinrich Anton de Bary

1831 - 1888 (57 years)

Heinrich Anton de Bary was a German surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist . He is considered a founding father of plant pathology as well as the founder of modern mycology. His extensive and careful studies of the life history of fungi and contribution to the understanding of algae and higher plants established landmarks in biology.

#8900

Jonathon Pines

#38599

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Jonathon Noë Joseph Pines is Head of the Cancer Biology Division at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. He was formerly a senior group leader at the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions