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,
#9351
Michael A. Gerber
#130648
Overall Influence
#9352
Francis Home
1719 - 1813 (94 years)
Francis Home FRSE FRCPE was a Scottish physician, and the first Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh, known to make the first attempt to vaccinate against measles, in 1758. In 1783 he was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#9353
Arnold G. Herman
#130666
Overall Influence
#9354
Ernst Gräfenberg
1881 - 1957 (76 years)
Ernst Gräfenberg was a German-born physician and scientist. He is known for developing the intra-uterine device , and for his studies of the role of the woman's urethra in orgasm. The G-spot is named after him.
Go to Profile#9355
Olof Nyrén
#130674
Overall Influence
#9356
Stewart Duke-Elder
1898 - 1978 (80 years)
Sir William Stewart Duke-Elder was a Scottish ophthalmologist, a dominant force in his field for more than a quarter of a century. Life Duke-Elder was born in the manse in Tealing near Dundee. His father, Rev Neil Stewart Elder, was the village minister of the Free Church of Scotland. His mother was Isabelle Duke, daughter of Rev John Duke of the Free Church in Campsie, Stirlingshire.
Go to Profile#9357
Fátima Cardoso
#130733
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#9358
Scott D. Holmberg
#130739
Overall Influence
#9359
R. C. Johnson
#130741
Overall Influence
#9360
Ulf H. De Faire
#130743
Overall Influence
#9361
William F. Ganz
#130748
Overall Influence
#9362
Zbylut Twardowski
#76055
Overall Influence
Zbylut Twardowski is a Polish-American nephrologist, known for his pioneering work on dialysis. His patented dialysis machines and catheters are commonly found in hospitals and dialysis centers worldwide. Twardowski is associated with the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.
Go to Profile#9363
K. Kian Ang
#130771
Overall Influence
#9364
William Henry Jackson
1843 - 1942 (99 years)
William Henry Jackson was an American photographer, Civil War veteran, painter, and an explorer famous for his images of the American West. He was a great-great nephew of Samuel Wilson, the progenitor of America's national symbol Uncle Sam. He was the great-grandfather of cartoonist Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead comics.
Go to Profile#9365
Ronald Lawrence Hayes
#130800
Overall Influence
#9366
John D. Meeker
#130818
Overall Influence
#9367
Miguel Srougi
#130829
Overall Influence
#9368
Kenneth G. Davey
#130834
Overall Influence
#9369
Ulrich Steinvorth
#82421
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ulrich Steinvorth is a German political philosopher. He earned his doctorate with in 1967. His dissertation was on private language and sensation in Wittgenstein. He habilitated in 1975 at the University of Mannheim with a thesis that advanced an analytic interpretation of Marx's Dialectic . His primary field of research is political philosophy. Additionally, he has published on topics in moral philosophy and applied philosophy, as well as the history of philosophy and metaphysics. He has also been an active supporter of the German branch of the Creative Commons movement.
Go to Profile#9370
John E. Sarno
#6198
Overall Influence
1923 - 2017 (94 years)
John Ernest Sarno Jr. was Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, and attending physician at the Howard A. Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University Medical Center. He graduated from Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1943, and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1950. In 1965, he was appointed the director of the Outpatient Department at the Rusk Institute.
Go to Profile#9371
Luca Richeldi
#130851
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#9372
Bernhard Hube
#130853
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#9373
Stuart L. Stanton
#130861
Overall Influence
#9374
Milton W. Brightman
#130864
Overall Influence
#9375
Ernesto Cardenal
#24012
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Ernesto Cardenal Martínez was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for more than ten years . A former member of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, he was Nicaragua's minister of culture from 1979 to 1987. He was prohibited from administering the sacraments in 1984 by Pope John Paul II, but rehabilitated by Pope Francis in 2019.
Go to Profile#9376
Dario Campana
#130883
Overall Influence
#9377
Herbert Young Reynolds
#130896
Overall Influence
#9378
Martin J. Lohse
#80947
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Martin J. Lohse is a German physician and pharmacologist. Career Lohse performs ongoing research on G protein-coupled receptors. Since 1993, he is a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Würzburg, Germany, and he was the Founding Chairman of the Rudolf Virchow Center . From 2016 to 2019, he was Chairman of the Board and Scientific Director of the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, a national research center of the Helmholtz Association for molecular medicine. In 2017, he also became Speaker of the Board of the Berlin Institute of Health, a joint research center of the Max Delbrück Center...
Go to Profile#9379
Sven Erik K. Dahlén
#130905
Overall Influence
#9380
Jane Harding
#106384
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Dame Jane Elizabeth Harding is a New Zealand academic new-born intensive case specialist . She was awarded the Rutherford Medal in 2019. Harding is the incoming president of the New Zealand national academy of sciences, the Royal Society Te Apārangi, with her term beginning in July 2024.
Go to Profile#9381
Timothy E. Mcalindon
#130922
Overall Influence
#9382
Jose‐ramón González‐juanatey
#130924
Overall Influence
#9383
Paul Bach‐y‐rita
#130947
Overall Influence
#9384
Clifton F. Mountain
#130957
Overall Influence
#9385
Henri Le Fauconnier
1881 - 1946 (65 years)
Henri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier was a French Cubist painter born in Hesdin. Le Fauconnier was seen as one of the leading figures among the Montparnasse Cubists. At the 1911 Salon des Indépendants Le Fauconnier and colleagues Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger and Robert Delaunay caused a scandal with their Cubist paintings. He was in contacts with many European avant-garde artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, writing a theoretical text for the catalogue of the Neue Künstlervereinigung in Munich, of which he became a member. His paintings were exhibited in Moscow reproduced as exam...
Go to Profile#9386
Dorothy Hewett
#25510
Overall Influence
1923 - 2002 (79 years)
Dorothy Coade Hewett was an Australian playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed through different literary styles: modernism, socialist realism, expressionism and avant garde. She was a member of the Australian Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s, which informed her work during that period.
Go to Profile#9387
August Deusser
1870 - 1942 (72 years)
August Deusser was a German painter and art professor, at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Life and work From 1892 to 1897, he studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf; finishing as a master student of Peter Janssen At first, he painted genre and historical works; with subjects ranging from farmers in the field, to scenes from Shakespeare. In one of his first successes, he won a competition for decorating the meeting room of the courthouse in Kleve; with a scene depicting the evening before the .
Go to Profile#9388
Donald P. Pinkel
#131029
Overall Influence
#9389
Andrew Sawyer
#42401
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Andrew "Andy" Sawyer is a librarian, critic and editor, as well as an active part of science fiction fandom . He was educated at the Duke of York's Royal Military School, Dover and the University of East Anglia. He is married with two daughters.
Go to Profile#9390
Pauline Yu
#50532
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Pauline Yu is an American scholar of Chinese literature and culture noted for her contributions to the study of classical Chinese poetry and comparative literature. She is also known for her research and advocacy on issues in the humanities.
Go to Profile#9391
Samuel I. Rapaport
#131056
Overall Influence
#9392
Sultan M. M. Karim
#131063
Overall Influence
#9393
Ludwig Wachler
1767 - 1838 (71 years)
Johann Friedrich Ludwig Wachler was a German literary historian and theologian. He was the father-in-law of lexicographer Franz Passow. Biography Wachler studied theology from 1784 at the University of Jena, but due to consequences stemming from a duel, he was forced to leave Jena, and subsequently relocated to the University of Göttingen, where he became a student of philology. At Göttingen he was a pupil of Christian Gottlob Heyne, Ludwig Timotheus Spittler and Johann Christoph Gatterer. In 1788, Wachler became an associate professor at Rinteln, where he gave lectures in philology and church history.
Go to Profile#9394
Alberto Priori
#129149
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Alberto Priori is an Italian neurologist, academic, and author. He is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Milan, Director of Neurology 1 Unit at San Paolo Hospital, and the Founder and Coordinator of Aldo Ravelli Center of the University of Milan. He also serves as President of the Neurophysiopatology Tecniques Course, and Professor of Postgraduate Schools - Medicine, Healthcare, Dental Medicine at the same University.
Go to Profile#9395
Lai Wei
#131094
Overall Influence
#9396
Peter C. Hayes
#9397
Gösta Tibblin
#131096
Overall Influence
#9398
Robert J. Soiffer
#131123
Overall Influence
#9399
Eulamius
#88364
Overall Influence
Eulamius , born in Phrygia, was, along with Damascius, one of the Athenian philosophers who sought asylum at the court of Khosrau I of Persia in 531/532 when Byzantine emperor Justinian I closed down the last pagan philosophical schools in Athens. Eulamius was disappointed in Persia and ultimately returned to Byzantium in 532 together with other Greek philosophers, protected by a treaty that guaranteed their safety. His name appears as Eulalios in the Suda and as Eulamios in the historical works of Agathias.
Go to Profile#9400
Manfred Paul Dierich
#131167
Overall Influence
