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,
#9401
Josef Zezulka
#159694
Overall Influence
1912 - 1992 (80 years)
Josef Zezulka was a Czech philosopher, healer and the founder of the discipline of biotronics. He wrote many philosophical works, best known of which is BYTÍ - EXISTENCE - A Philosophy for Life, which encompasses topics such as the birth of space and its life, evolution of a being, karma, vegetarianism and life energetics.
Go to Profile#9402
Sven Erik G. Nilsson
#162329
Overall Influence
#9403
Kunio Shirato
#162330
Overall Influence
#9404
Marc A. Boogaerts
#162336
Overall Influence
#9405
Hiroaki Matsuoka
#162337
Overall Influence
#9406
Joseph E. Geenen
#162345
Overall Influence
#9407
Sally Ann Shumaker
#162351
Overall Influence
#9408
Ruth M. Mcpherson
#162355
Overall Influence
#9409
Pentti Kujala
#162373
Overall Influence
#9410
Henri E. Kulbertus
#162375
Overall Influence
#9411
Gérard M. Guiraudon
#162386
Overall Influence
#9412
Jacek J. Hawiger
#162405
Overall Influence
#9413
Yuichiro Ogura
#162416
Overall Influence
#9414
Michael M. Meguid
#102812
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael M. Meguid is Professor of Surgery Emeritus at Upstate Medical University , Syracuse, New York. Biography Born in Egypt, Michael Marwan Meguid spent his childhood in Egypt, Germany, and then England. There he attended University College London and University College Hospital Medical School, graduating with his MB BS degree in 1968. For the next two years he was an Anatomy Professor at UCL, while he successfully completed Part 1 of the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons , London qualification. From 1970 until 1976 he did his surgical residency at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, ...
Go to Profile#9415
John Gall
#35605
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
John Gall was an American author, scholar, and pediatrician. Gall is known for his 1975 book General systemantics: an essay on how systems work, and especially how they fail..., a critique of systems theory. One of the statements from this book has become known as Gall's law.
Go to Profile#9416
Christoph Rehmann-Sutter
#111531
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Christoph Rehmann-Sutter is a philosopher and bioethicist. He is holding a professorship for theory and ethics in biosciences at the Institute for History of Medicine and Science Studies at the University of Lübeck in Germany.
Go to Profile#9417
James Alan Rand
#162432
Overall Influence
#9418
Jens Damsgaard Mikkelsen
#162459
Overall Influence
#9419
Abraham Morgentaler
#162461
Overall Influence
#9420
Garen Wintemute
#48663
Overall Influence
Garen J. Wintemute is an emergency medicine physician at UC Davis Medical Center, in the US state of California, where he is the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program. He conducts research in the fields of injury epidemiology and the prevention of firearm violence. He has been named a "hero of medicine" by Time magazine. He is the director of the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center, which was established in 2017; the center is the first state-funded gun violence research center in the country.
Go to Profile#9421
Günther Rohrmoser
#80499
Overall Influence
Günter Rohrmoser was Christian conservative German social philosopher and professor at the Hohenheim University and at Stuttgart University. He was an advisor to prominent CDU politicians. Life Rohrmoser studied philosophy, theology, history and economics in Münster. One of his eminent professors at Münster University was Joachim Ritter and he became a follower of the German post war "Ritter school" of conservative philosophers. He wrote his "Habilitation" in Cologne on the philosophy of Hegel. From 1976 until 1996 he taught as a professor for social philosophy at Hohenheim University near Stuttgart.
Go to Profile#9422
Harubumi Kato
#162504
Overall Influence
#9423
Daniel John Sexton
#162509
Overall Influence
#9424
Peter R. Kvietys
#162514
Overall Influence
#9425
Richard K. Albert
#162516
Overall Influence
#9426
Esther E. Freeman
#89024
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Esther Ellen Freeman is an American physician who is an Assistant Professor of Dermatology at the Harvard Medical School and Director of Global Health Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research considers HIV infection with AIDS-defining malignancies, including Kaposi's sarcoma. During the COVID-19 pandemic Freeman established the American Academy of Dermatology register of COVID-19 skin complaints, through which she identified the novel symptom of COVID toes.
Go to Profile#9427
Werner Alois Prof Dipl Kaiser
#162540
Overall Influence
#9428
Tosson Aly Morsy
#162570
Overall Influence
#9429
Leighton Chan
#49854
Overall Influence
Leighton Chan is an American medical researcher and rehabilitation physician. He is Chief of the Rehabilitation Medicine Department and Acting Chief Scientific Officer/Scientific Director at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center.
Go to Profile#9430
R. M. Bowen Wright
#162597
Overall Influence
#9431
Edward Tuddenham
#76453
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Edward G. D. Tuddenham FMedSci is considered one of the world's leading haematologists having authored over 200 papers in the field. He gained his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery at the University of London in 1968 and his Membership of the Royal College of Physicians in 1975. Up until 2005 was head of the Haemostasis and Thrombosis Research Group at Imperial College. Professor Tuddenham is a pioneer in the field of haemophilia and was responsible, along with Frances Rotblat, for the purification and cloning of the factor VIII gene, which led to the highly effective and safe treatments available to haemophilia sufferers today.
Go to Profile#9432
Marek Kwiek
#162610
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#9433
Peter Michael Stephan Hacker
#162611
Overall Influence
#9434
Silvio Brusaferro
#162631
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#9435
Federica Agosta
#162634
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
#9436
William A. Friedman
#162663
Overall Influence
#9437
David Vaughan
#39881
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
David Vaughan was a dance archivist, historian and critic. He was the archivist of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1976 until the company was disbanded in 2012. In his long career, Vaughan was a dancer, choreographer, actor and singer whose work had been seen in London, Paris, and in New York, both on- and off-Broadway, as well as in regional theatres across the United States, in cabarets, on television and on film. Vaughan's ballet choreography was used in Stanley Kubrick's 1955 film Killer's Kiss, danced by Kubrick's wife at the time, ballerina Ruth Sobotka. He has worked with both ...
Go to Profile#9438
Clarence E. Grim
#162726
Overall Influence
#9439
Ingalill Rahm Hallberg
#162733
Overall Influence
#9440
Gary P. Carlson
#162742
Overall Influence
#9441
Leon D. Sabath
#162746
Overall Influence
#9442
Clifford Ray Qualls
#162750
Overall Influence
#9443
Michael Cholbi
#144805
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Michael Cholbi is an American philosopher and Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his research on ethical issues related to death and dying, including suicide, grief, and immortality. Cholbi has also published work in moral psychology and Kantian ethics, as well as on topics in practical ethics such as work and labor, punishment, and paternalism.
Go to Profile#9444
Michael J. A. Tanner
#162770
Overall Influence
#9445
Marcello Iriti
#162783
Overall Influence
#9446
S. F. Mullan
#162784
Overall Influence
#9447
Alix Cohen
#134809
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Alix Cohen is a British philosopher and a Reader of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She is known for her works on Kant's thought. She is the current Co-Editor with Sacha Golob of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
Go to Profile#9448
Anthony Manser
#118730
Overall Influence
1909 - 1995 (86 years)
Anthony Richards Manser was a British philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Southampton University. He was a president of Aristotelian Society and a member of the Mind Association. He is known for his works on the philosophy of F. H. Bradley.
Go to Profile#9449
Maureen Andrew
#162816
Overall Influence
#9450
Bonnie Ramsey
#154973
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Bonnie W. Ramsey is the Endowed Chair in Cystic Fibrosis at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Research at Seattle Children's Research Institute. Her research focuses on treatments for cystic fibrosis.
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