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,
#10001
Jennifer Walden
#49583
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Jennifer Lee Walden is an American plastic surgeon, author, and entrepreneur. She is one of the first doctors to use laser machines to do a "a high volume of labiaplasties and vaginoplasties." Harper’s Bazaar listed Walden as one of the Best Beauty Surgeons in 2014. Walden is a member of Modern Aesthetics’ and Plastic Surgery Practice’s editorial board of Directors, and one of the few women to be elected to serve on the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Board of Directors. She became the first female president of The Aesthetic Society in 2022.
Go to Profile#10002
Robert S. Cohen
#136201
Overall Influence
#10003
Ammar Al-Chalabi
#126259
Overall Influence
Ammar Al-Chalabi is Professor of Neurology and Complex Disease Genetics at the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute at King's College London, where he is also head of the Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience and Director of the King's Motor Neuron Disease Research Centre. In 2020, he received the Forbes Norris Award from the International Alliance Of Als/Mnd Associations and was a co-winner of the Healey Center International Prize for Innovation in ALS. His other awards include the Sheila Essey Award from the American Academy of Neurology and the Charcot Young Investigator Award from the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Go to Profile#10004
János Vaszary
1867 - 1939 (72 years)
János Miklós Vaszary was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist. Biography He was born into a prominent Catholic family in Kaposvár. His uncle was Kolos Ferenc Vaszary, the Archbishop of Esztergom. His art studies began at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts under János Greguss. In 1887, he went to Munich, where he studied with Gabriel von Hackl and Ludwig von Löfftz. After seeing an exhibition of paintings by Jules Bastien-Lepage, he moved to Paris in 1899 and enrolled at the Académie Julian. Although he later became involved with Simon Hollósy and the artists' colony in Nagybánya and deve...
Go to Profile#10005
Nigel David Heaton
#136252
Overall Influence
#10006
Steven Robert Goldring
#136257
Overall Influence
#10007
Herbert Charles Sanborn
1873 - 1967 (94 years)
Herbert Charles Sanborn was an American philosopher, academic and one-time political candidate. He was the chair of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1921 to 1942, and he served as the president of the Nashville German-American Society. He founded and coached the Vanderbilt fencing team. He ran for the Tennessee State Senate unsuccessfully in 1955. He was opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, and he published antisemitic pamphlets.
Go to Profile#10008
William H. Mcbride
#136270
Overall Influence
#10009
Gaetano da Thiene
1387 - 1465 (78 years)
Gaetano da Thiene was an Italian Renaissance philosopher and physician who was born and lived in Padua. Biography A student of Paul of Venice, Gaetano, like his teacher, held an Averroist interpretation of Aristotle's teachings. He worked towards a compromise between that position and Christian doctrines on the personal immortality of the soul, and in later life he abandoned Averroism entirely.
Go to Profile#10010
Andrew I. Schafer
#136292
Overall Influence
#10011
Enrico Mugnaini
#136293
Overall Influence
#10012
Roger D. Weiss
#136299
Overall Influence
#10013
Story Musgrave
#3201
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Franklin Story Musgrave is an American physician and a retired NASA astronaut. He is a public speaker and consultant to both Disney's Imagineering group and Applied Minds in California. In 1996, he became only the second astronaut to fly on six spaceflights, and he is the most formally educated astronaut with six academic degrees. Musgrave is the only astronaut to have flown aboard all five Space Shuttles.
Go to Profile#10014
Sven Hammarström
#136313
Overall Influence
#10015
Rachel McCleary
#22580
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Rachel M. McCleary is a lecturer in the Economics Department at Harvard University and a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Biography McCleary has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago, a Master of Theological Studies from Emory University and a B.A. from Indiana University. Her work is interdisciplinary with theoretical grounding in the fields of political science, sociology and economics. Within these disciplines, she conducts research on the political economy of religion. Her research focuses on how religion interacts with economic performance and the political and social behavior of individuals and institutions across societies.
Go to Profile#10016
Keith M. Kerr
#136335
Overall Influence
#10017
Adèle Van Reeth
#105788
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Adèle Van Reeth is a French philosopher, radio producer and columnist. Life Studies, family Van Reeth is the only daughter in a family of four children. She is of Flemish origin by her paternal grandfather. Daughter of an archivist, she moved a lot in her childhood due to her father's assignments.
Go to Profile#10018
William Luhr
#91420
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
William Luhr is an American film author and professor and the author of such works as Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying, World Cinema Since 1945: An Encyclopedic History and Returning to the Scene. He is also currently a professor of English at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Go to Profile#10019
Carol J. Oja
#36854
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Carol J. Oja is a musicologist and scholar of American Studies. Biography Since 2003, she has held the post of William Powell Mason Professor at Harvard University. She has served as the Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence with the New York Philharmonic. Her previous appointments have been at the College of William and Mary and the City University of New York , where she was professor of music at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, as well as director of the Institute for Studies in American Music . She attended St. Olaf College , the University of Iowa , and the Graduate School of ...
Go to Profile#10020
Tilottama Rajan
#98613
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Tilottama Rajan is a Canadian scholar and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Western Ontario. She is Canada Research Chair and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Rajan is known for her research on Romantic literature, post-Kantian philosophy and contemporary theory. She is the daughter of Balachandra Rajan.
Go to Profile#10021
Eleazar Shafrir
#136382
Overall Influence
#10022
J. Michael Drake
#136384
Overall Influence
#10023
Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff
1807 - 1882 (75 years)
Theodor Ludwig Wilhelm von Bischoff was a German physician and biologist. Biography He lectured on pathological anatomy at Heidelberg and held professorships in anatomy and physiology at Giessen and Munich, where he was appointed to the chair of anatomy and physiology in 1854. In 1843, Theodor von Bischoff was elected as member of the German Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#10024
Niccolò Guicciardini
#55004
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Niccolò Guicciardini Corsi Salviati is an Italian historian of mathematics. He is a professor at the University of Milan, and is known for his studies on the works of Isaac Newton. Guicciardini obtained his Ph.D. from Middlesex Polytechnic in 1987 under the supervision of Ivor Grattan-Guinness.
Go to Profile#10025
Alexander Murray Harper
#136397
Overall Influence
#10026
Eugenio Rignano
1870 - 1930 (60 years)
Eugenio Vittorio Rignano was a Jewish Italian philosopher. Biography He was born in Livorno to Giacomo Rignano and Fortunata Tedesco, into a Jewish family. Rignano edited the journal Rivista di scienza, later known as Scientia . His book The Psychology of Reasoning influenced the social anthropologist Edward Evans-Pritchard. His book Man Not a Machine was replied to by Joseph Needham's Man A Machine . In 1897 he married Costanza "Nina" Sullam, also from a Jewish family.
Go to Profile#10027
George Washburn
1833 - 1915 (82 years)
George Washburn was an American educator, Christian missionary, and second president of Robert College. Biography George Washburn was born on March, 1, 1833 in Middleboro, Massachusetts. His father Philander Washburn was a manufacturer and his mother Elizabeth Homes was a housewife. He attended Pierce Academy in his hometown of Middleboro and Phillips Academy in Andover, and graduated from Amherst College in 1855. Spending a year traveling Europe and the Middle East, he then attended Andover Theological Seminary in 1859 for one year.
Go to Profile#10028
Judith Clements
#106450
Overall Influence
Judith Ann Clements is an Australian academic and educator, specializing in Kallikrein proteases in prostate and ovarian cancers. Clements is the scientific director at the Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre – Queensland and was head of the Cancer Research Program at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation of Queensland University of Technology at the Translational Research Institute from 1997–2014.
Go to Profile#10029
Charles E. Scott
#127584
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Charles E. Scott is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and Research Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Previously, he was Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy at Penn State University.
Go to Profile#10030
Adrian Heath
#65503
Overall Influence
1920 - 1992 (72 years)
Adrian Heath was a 20th-century British painter. Heath was born in Burma and attended Bryanston School in Dorset, southern England. In 1938, he studied art under Stanhope Forbes at Newlyn. In 1939 and 1945–47, he attended the Slade School of Art. He served in the RAF as a tail gunner in a[Wellington bomber in World War II, but spent almost the entire war as a prisoner of war at Stalag 383. During this period he became friends with and taught fellow POW Terry Frost to paint.
Go to Profile#10031
Blaženka Despot
#94455
Overall Influence
1930 - 2001 (71 years)
Blaženka Despot was a Croatian philosopher, socialist feminist, and sociologist. After finishing high school in Zagreb in 1948 and graduating in philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, she received her PhD in Ljubljana in 1970 with a thesis on humanity of the technological society. During the period 1956-64 she worked as a high school professor, and later as an assistant at the Department of Socialism at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In 1974 she was appointed as an associate professor of sociology and political economy, receiving full professorship in 1980 as a Professor of Marxism, socialism and socialist self-management at the Veterinary Faculty in Zagreb.
Go to Profile#10032
André Bazin
1918 - 1958 (40 years)
André Bazin was a renowned and influential French film critic and film theorist. Bazin started to write about film in 1943 and was a co-founder of the renowned film magazine Cahiers du cinéma in 1951, with Jacques Doniol-Valcroze and Joseph-Marie Lo Duca.
Go to Profile#10033
Eva Brann
#35296
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Eva T. H. Brann is a former dean and the longest-serving tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. She is a 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Brann was born to a Jewish family in Berlin. She immigrated in 1941 to the United States and received her B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1950, her M.A. in Classics from Yale University in 1951, and her Ph.D. in Archaeology from Yale in 1956. She also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Middlebury College.
Go to Profile#10034
Frank Jessen
#136466
Overall Influence
#10035
Krystyn Lach-Szyrma
1791 - 1866 (75 years)
Krystyn Lach Szyrma was a professor of philosophy at Warsaw University. He was also a writer, journalist, translator and political activist. Life Szyrma was professor of philosophy at Warsaw University from 1824 to 1831. He left no philosophical writings.
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Ronald A. Asherson
#136470
Overall Influence
#10037
Jacques Clémenty
#136471
Overall Influence
#10038
Frank Schalow
#65922
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Frank Schalow is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy and university research professor at the University of New Orleans. He is known for his exegesis of Martin Heidegger's writings. He is a co-editor of, the journal Heidegger Studies.
Go to Profile#10039
Eckhart George Hahn
#136473
Overall Influence
#10040
William Pepper
1843 - 1898 (55 years)
William Pepper Jr. , was an American physician, leader in medical education in the nineteenth century, and a longtime Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1891, he founded the Free Library of Philadelphia.
Go to Profile#10041
Athol Williams
#26374
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Athol Williams is a South African poet, social philosopher and public intellectual based at Oxford University. Life Williams was born in Lansdowne, Cape Town, South Africa, and grew up in Mitchells Plain, the coloured township established under apartheid. Before becoming a professional writer and social philosopher, he worked in business for fifteen years, mainly as a strategy advisor.
Go to Profile#10042
Joshua B. Bederson
#34527
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Joshua B. Bederson is an American neurosurgeon, Leonard I. Malis, MD/Corinne and Joseph Graber Professor of Neurosurgery, and System Chair of Neurosurgery at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, and an attending neurosurgeon at The Mount Sinai Hospital.
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Hans Zellweger
1909 - 1990 (81 years)
Hans Ulrich Zellweger was a Swiss-American pediatrician known for his research on Zellweger syndrome. Zellweger trained in Zurich, Hamburg, Rome and Berlin and received his doctorate in Zurich in 1934, where he worked until 1950. In the 1950s he was appointed Professor at the American University in Beirut and from 1959 until his retirement in 1977, he was Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Iowa. There he performed research on neuromuscular disorders and genetic diseases and is known for his research on Zellweger syndrome which is named after him.
Go to Profile#10044
John W. Holaday
#136525
Overall Influence
#10045
Bradley R. Wilcox
#82746
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Bradley Ray Wilcox is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and has been a counselor in the Young Men general presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since April 2020.
Go to Profile#10046
Mark E. Nesbit
#136534
Overall Influence
#10047
Daniel Heartz
#32696
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Daniel Heartz was an American musicologist and professor emeritus of music at the University of California, Berkeley. Heartz studied at Harvard University. He lived in Berkeley, California. Honors Recipient of Guggenheim FellowshipsASCAP–Deems Taylor AwardsKinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society.
Go to Profile#10048
Richard Lindner
1901 - 1978 (77 years)
Richard Lindner was a German-American painter. Biography Richard Lindner was born in Hamburg, Germany. His mother Mina Lindner was American and born in New York as the daughter of German parents. In 1905, the family moved to Nuremberg, where Lindner's mother was owner of a custom-fitting corset business and Richard Lindner grew up and studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule , now the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg. From 1924 to 1927, he lived in Munich and began studies there at the Kunstakademie in 1925. In 1927, Lindner moved to Berlin and stayed there until 1928, when he returned to Munich to become art director of a publishing firm.
Go to Profile#10049
Raymondd T. Krediet
#136544
Overall Influence
#10050
Delphine Parrott
#32855
Overall Influence
1928 - 2016 (88 years)
Delphine Mary Vera Parrott FRSE was a British endocrinologist, immunologist, and academic. She did research at the National Institute for Medical Research in the 1950s and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in the 1960s.
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