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,
#9801
Peter A. Banks
#134515
Overall Influence
#9802
Sarah Coupland
#80265
Overall Influence
Sarah Coupland is an Australian-born pathologist and professor who is the George Holt Chair in Pathology at the University of Liverpool. Coupland is an active clinical scientist whose research focuses on the molecular genetics of cancers, with particular interests in uveal melanoma, conjunctival melanoma, intraocular and ocular adnexal lymphomas and CNS lymphoma. Coupland is also an NHS Honorary Consultant Histopathologist at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. Since 2006, Coupland has been head of the Liverpool Ocular Oncology Research Group; from which she runs a multidisciplinary on...
Go to Profile#9803
Karim Chamari
#134558
Overall Influence
#9804
Marc Ereshefsky
#86708
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Marc Ereshefsky is a professor of philosophy at the University of Calgary, specializing in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of biology. His research focuses on issues on the intersection of philosophy and biology. Ereshefsky is specifically known for his work on taxonomy, systematics and natural kinds. His research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the National Science Foundation.
Go to Profile#9805
Markus F. Peschl
#63552
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Markus F. Peschl is an Austrian cognitive scientist, philosopher of mind, philosopher of science and researcher on innovation, and professor for Cognitive Science and Philosophy of Science at the University of Vienna, Austria. He is known for his early work on cognitive modelling, and his more recent work concerning a"socio-epistemological approach to innovation."
Go to Profile#9806
Bruce Evan Johnson
#134597
Overall Influence
#9807
Koichi Shudo
#134599
Overall Influence
#9808
David Low
1891 - 1963 (72 years)
Sir David Alexander Cecil Low was a New Zealand political cartoonist and caricaturist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom for many years. Low was a self-taught cartoonist. Born in New Zealand, he worked in his native country before migrating to Sydney in 1911, and ultimately to London , where he made his career and earned fame for his Colonel Blimp depictions and his satirising of the personalities and policies of German dictator Adolf Hitler, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and other leaders of his times.
Go to Profile#9809
Joe Sacco
#6000
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Joe Sacco is a Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist. He is best known for his comics journalism, in particular in the books Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza , on Israeli–Palestinian relations; and Safe Area Goražde and The Fixer on the Bosnian War. In 2020, Sacco released , published by Henry Holt and Company.
Go to Profile#9810
Nir Barzilai
#134601
Overall Influence
#9811
Alan Guyatt Parks
#134602
Overall Influence
#9812
Prof. Peter Weidmann
#134615
Overall Influence
#9813
Kelly M. McMasters
#111614
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Kelly M. McMasters is an American surgeon and researcher. He is the Ben A. Reid Sr., MD Professor and Chair of the Hiram C. Polk Jr., MD Department of Surgery at the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#9814
Robert Saxton Taylor
#34782
Overall Influence
1918 - 2009 (91 years)
Robert Saxton Taylor was an influential library scholar and information scientist who served as Dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies from 1972 to 1981. His research and publications focused attention on users of information systems and information services.
Go to Profile#9815
David A. Hamburg
#134631
Overall Influence
#9816
Hermann Schwarz
1864 - 1951 (87 years)
See also Silesia-born mathematician Hermann Amandus Schwarz.Hermann Schwarz was a German philosopher. Educated at Halle, where he devoted himself to mathematics and to philosophy, he became professor at Marburg in 1908 and at Greifswald in 1910. His philosophy was not unlike that of Goswin Uphues. He edited the Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik.
Go to Profile#9817
Israel Frederic. Charo
#134647
Overall Influence
#9818
Francesco Cosentino
#134648
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#9819
Steven C. Hebert
#85850
Overall Influence
1946 - 2008 (62 years)
Steven C. Hebert, M.D., , a board certified nephrologist, was the chair and C.N.H. Long Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology and professor of medicine at Yale University, beginning in 2000.
Go to Profile#9820
Nir Y. Uriel
#134652
Overall Influence
#9821
Charles E. Rackley
#134661
Overall Influence
#9822
Leslie Dewart
#59450
Overall Influence
1922 - 2009 (87 years)
Leslie Dewart was a Canadian philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Department of Philosophy and the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. Dewart was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1922, but he was raised by his mother in Cuba. Coming to Canada at the age of 19, he served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in bomber-reconnaissance operations on the Atlantic Coast from 1942 to 1947, subsequently becoming a Canadian citizen. He then began his studies at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#9823
Thomas R. Flynn
#116767
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Thomas Robert Flynn is an American philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor at Emory University. He is a former president of the Metaphysical Society of America . Flynn was ordained in 1961, and studied at Columbia University.
Go to Profile#9824
Archibald McIndoe
1900 - 1960 (60 years)
Sir Archibald Hector McIndoe was a New Zealand plastic surgeon who worked for the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He improved the treatment and rehabilitation of badly burned aircrew. Early life Archibald McIndoe was born 4 May 1900 in Forbury, in Dunedin, New Zealand, into a family of four. His father was John McIndoe, a printer and his mother was the artist Mabel McIndoe née Hill. He had three brothers and one sister. McIndoe studied at Otago Boys' High School and later medicine at the University of Otago. After his graduation he became a house surgeon at Waikato Hospital.
Go to Profile#9825
Anthony John Bron
#134698
Overall Influence
#9826
Brian F. Mccabe
#134718
Overall Influence
#9827
Electron Kebebew
#90517
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Electron Kebebew is an American surgeon, educator, and scientist. Kebebew is currently the Harry A. Oberhelman Jr. and Mark L. Welton Professor and Chief of General Surgery at Stanford University. Early life and education Electron Kebebew was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on February 26, 1968. Kebebew graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991 with a B.S. in chemical engineering. In 1995, he graduated with a medicine degree from the University of California, San Francisco where he also went on to do his general surgery residency and postdoctoral fellowship.
Go to Profile#9828
P. Meza-junco J. Angulo
#134736
Overall Influence
#9829
Gary Tomlinson
#53955
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Gary Alfred Tomlinson is an American musicologist and the John Hay Whitney Professor of Music and Humanities at Yale University. He was formerly the Annenberg Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Ph.D., in 1979 with thesis titled Rinuccini, Peri, Monteverdi, and the humanist heritage of opera.
Go to Profile#9830
Emmanuil Enchmen
1891 - 1966 (75 years)
Emmanuil Semenovich Enchmen was a Soviet behaviourist and biologist. He formulated the "Theory of New Biology", often abbreviated TNB, which became popular among the Soviet student youth in the early 1920s. Considered politically, Enchmen's philosophy is an example of ″vulgar materialism″, a term often used by Marxist detractors. It was pejoratively called Enchmenism, especially when coupled and contrasted with the Mininism of Sergey Konstantinovich Minin and Deborinism of Abram Deborin.
Go to Profile#9831
Emanuel Wolinsky
#134766
Overall Influence
#9832
Jean Talairach
#134771
Overall Influence
#9833
Hans Christian Korting
#39776
Overall Influence
1952 - 2012 (60 years)
Hans Christian Korting was a German dermatologist and medical researcher specializing in causes and treatment of infectious and non-infectious inflammatory skin diseases as well as non-melanoma skin cancer".
Go to Profile#9834
David Rosner
#20625
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
David Rosner is the Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and professor of history in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. He is also co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine in 2010.
Go to Profile#9835
John Simon
1816 - 1904 (88 years)
Sir John Simon was an English pathologist, surgeon and public health officer. He was the first Chief Medical Officer for Her Majesty's Government from 1855–1876. Biography John Simon was born in London to Louis Michael Simon, a stockbroker, and Mathilde . He was the sixth of Louis' fourteen children by two marriages. His medical career began in 1833 when he became an apprentice to surgeon Joseph Henry Green and he was educated at King's College and St Thomas' Hospital in London. In 1838 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1845 he won the Astley Cooper Prize for an essay e...
Go to Profile#9836
F. William Blaisdell
#134787
Overall Influence
#9837
Lewellys Franklin Barker
#9838
Niccolò Leoniceno
1428 - 1524 (96 years)
Niccolò Leoniceno was an Italian physician and humanist. Biography Leoniceno was born in Lonigo, Veneto, the son of a doctor. He studied Greek in Vicenza under Ognibene da Lonigo . Around 1453 he graduated at the University of Padua, where he studied medicine and philosophy under Pietro Roccabonella . In 1464, after completing his doctorate, he moved to the University of Ferrara, where he taught mathematics, philosophy and medicine. His students there included Antonio Musa Brassavola.
Go to Profile#9839
Masato Fujisawa
#134800
Overall Influence
#9840
Peter Robert Schofield
#134833
Overall Influence
#9841
William E. Bradley
#134834
Overall Influence
#9842
Wyndham H. Wilson
#134836
Overall Influence
#9843
Nikolaos Scarmeas
#134844
Overall Influence
#9844
Susan Domchek
#110254
Overall Influence
Susan M. Domchek is an oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Executive Director of the Basser Center for BRCA, the Basser Professor in Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine, and Director of the Mariann and Robert MacDonald Cancer Risk Evaluation Program at Penn Medicine. She has authored more than 250 articles in scholarly journals and serves on a number of editorial review boards. In 2018, Domchek was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#9845
Leonard L. Gunderson
#134875
Overall Influence
#9846
Philippe B. Ruszniewski
#134882
Overall Influence
#9847
D. H. C. Williams
#134891
Overall Influence
#9848
Thomas Tomlinson
#115243
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Thomas Tomlinson is a philosophy professor and medical ethicist currently teaching at Michigan State University, where he holds a joint appointment in the Lyman Briggs College and the philosophy department.
Go to Profile#9849
C. Harles B. Carpenter
#134895
Overall Influence
#9850
Lee M. Harrison
#134900
Overall Influence
