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,

#10101

Carol Ann Mooney

#41869

Overall Influence

Carol Ann Mooney is the 11th president of Saint Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana . She is the first lay alumna president of the college. Life Mooney grew up in Norwich, New York. She graduated from Saint Mary's College in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She went on to earn her J.D. degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1977, where she graduated first in her class and received the Colonel William J. Hoynes award. She practiced law from 1977-78 as an associate attorney in the Washington, D.C., firm of Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue.

#10102

D. D. Raphael

#165813

Overall Influence

1916 - 2015 (99 years)

David Daiches Raphael was a philosopher. He is known for his writings on Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, justice, the rights of man, and his 1981, introductory philosophical book; Moral Philosophy. External links The University of Glasgow StoryInternational Association for Scottish Philosophy

#10103

Adaora Adimora

#162261

Overall Influence

Adaora Alise Adimora is an American doctor and academic. She is the Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Her research centers on the transmission of HIV, as well as other sexually transmitted infections , among minority populations. Her work has highlighted the importance of social determinants of HIV transmission and the need for structural interventions to reduce risk. In 2019, she became an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine in recognition of her contributions.

#10104

Janice Light

#112983

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Janice Light is an American academic who holds the Hintz Family Endowed Chair in Children's Communicative Competence in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Pennsylvania State University. As a Distinguished Professor, she teaches graduate courses and seminars in augmentative and alternative communication and has developed an internationally recognized research program in AAC.

#10105

Laurent-Michel Vacher

#98993

Overall Influence

1944 - 2005 (61 years)

Laurent-Michel Vacher was a French-born, French Canadian philosopher, writer, journalist and teacher . He was a proponent of scientism, rationalism, positivism, pragmatism and materialism, a critic of mainstream schools of today's philosophy and of the usual history-centered pedagogy in the field of philosophy.

#10106

Alain Carpentier

#10894

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Alain Frédéric Carpentier is a French surgeon whom the President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery calls the father of modern mitral valve repair. He is most well known for the development and popularization of a number of mitral valve repair techniques. In 1996, he performed the first minimally invasive mitral valve repair in the world and in 1998 he performed the first robotic mitral valve repair with the DaVinci robot prototype. He is the recipient of the 2007 Lasker Prize.

#10107

Mark Burnett

#33519

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

James Mark Burnett is a television producer and author who is the former Chairman of MGM Worldwide Television Group. He created and produced the reality shows Survivor, The Apprentice, The Voice, and Shark Tank .

#10108

Julie K. Silver

#73502

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Julie Kathleen Silver is an American medical researcher who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the Harvard Medical School. Her research considers musculoskeletal disorders and cancer rehabilitation. Silver is involved with several initiatives to improve gender equity in medicine.

#10109

Randeep Guleria

#14799

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Randeep Guleria is an Indian pulmonologist and the ex-director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, credited with the establishment of India's first centre for pulmonary medicines and sleep disorders at AIIMS. He was honoured by the Government of India in 2015 with Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award.

#10110

Helen Ranney

#52105

Overall Influence

1920 - 2010 (90 years)

Helen Margaret Ranney was an American doctor and hematologist who made significant contributions to research on sickle-cell anemia. Early life Ranney was born in Summer Hill, Cayuga County, New York, where her parents ran a dairy farm. Her mother was a teacher and both her parents encouraged her in her studies and pursuing a professional career. She attended a one-room school as a child, and later attended Barnard College with initial plans to study law; however, it was here that she decided to study medicine, saying "Medicine attempts to fix what it studies." She initially faced barriers ...

#10111

Zayn al-Din Omar Savaji

#135095

Overall Influence

Zayn al-Din Omar Savaji was a Persian philosopher and logician. Life He was born in Saveh in the early 12th century. After serving as a judge in his native city, he went to pursue scholarly interests in Neyshapur. He earned his living by being a copyist of manuscripts, primarily of philosophical texts.

#10112

Mark May

#169610

Overall Influence

#10113

Lennart Souchon

#148874

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Lennart Souchon is a German strategist and scholar of political philosophy and military theory. He was the director of the International Clausewitz-Center at the Military Academy of the German Armed Forces and founded the Clausewitz Network for Strategic Studies in 2008. He was also a professor at the University of Potsdam and lectured at the University of Halle-Wittenberg .

#10114

James Black

#9081

Overall Influence

1924 - 2010 (86 years)

Sir James Whyte Black was a Scottish physician and pharmacologist. Together with Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings, he shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988 for pioneering strategies for rational drug-design, which, in his case, lead to the development of propranolol and cimetidine. Black established a Veterinary Physiology department at the University of Glasgow, where he became interested in the effects of adrenaline on the human heart. He went to work for ICI Pharmaceuticals in 1958 and, while there, developed propranolol, a beta blocker used for the treatment of heart disease.

#10115

Bahram Beyzai

#49556

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Bahrām Beyzāêi is an Iranian playwright, theatre director, screenwriter, film editor, and ostād of Persian letters, arts and Iranian studies. Beyzaie is the son of the poet Ne'matallah Beyzai . The celebrated poet Adib Beyzai, one of the most profound poets of 20th-century Iran, is Bahram's paternal uncle. Bahram Beyzaie's paternal grandfather, Mirzā Mohammad-Rezā Ārāni , and paternal great-grandfather, the Mulla Mohammad-Faqih Ārāni , were also notable poets.

#10116

I. Michael Leitman

#40007

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

I. Michael Leitman is an American surgeon and medical educator. He is Professor of Surgery and Medical Education and Dean for Graduate Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He previously held the position of Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City.

#10117

Abram Salmon Benenson

#58070

Overall Influence

1914 - 2003 (89 years)

Abram Salmon Benenson was an authority in public health, preventive medicine, military medicine, and "shoe-leather" epidemiology. He was best known as the editor-in-chief for the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual of the American Public Health Association. His tenure as editor was so lengthy that the manual was often known as the "Benenson Book".

#10118

Alan Pratt

#169649

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Alan R. Pratt is a Professor of Humanities at Embry–Riddle University. He is known for his research on existential nihilism and meaning of life. Books Tales of Florida Fishes, Zane Grey's West Society, 2016 The Critical Response to Andy Warhol, New York: Greenwood Press, 1997 The Dark Side: Thoughts on the Futility of Life from the Ancient Greeks to the Present, New York: Citadel Press, 1994Black Humor: Critical Essays, New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993

#10119

Allison Eddy

#128384

Overall Influence

Allison Audrey Eddy is a Canadian nephrologist. She was the inaugural Hudson Family Hospital Chair in Pediatric Medicine at British Columbia Children's Hospital and a clinician-scientist at the British Columbia Children's Hospital.

#10120

Richard J. F. Day

#64198

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

#10121

Karen Green

#132306

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Karen Green is an Australian philosopher and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. She is known for her works on women's intellectual history. Green is the president of the Australasian Association of Philosophy and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities .

#10122

Robert Piercey

#128639

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Robert Piercey is a Canadian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Campion College, University of Regina. He is the editor of Philosophy in Review. Piercey is known for his works on continental philosophy.

#10123

Karl Sarafidis

#135891

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Karl Sarafidis, is a French philosopher of Greek and Lebanese origin. Doctor in philosophy, holder of the Agrégation, he taught at Paris-East Créteil University, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and at the French University College . Specialist in contemporary philosophy, his thesis topic was on the resumption of metaphysics in Heidegger's and Bergson's thought. In 2013, he published Bergson. La création de soi par soi, in which he attempted to pull out from Bergson's work an ethical program based on the creation of self by self. Research Associate of the Husserl Archives in Paris , his in...

#10124

Arnaldo Rascovsky

Arnaldo Rascovsky

#38460

Overall Influence

1907 - 1995 (88 years)

Arnaldo Rascovsky was an Argentine pediatrician and psychoanalyst. He graduated from University of Buenos Aires. Rascovsky was instrumental in establishing Buenos Aires as an important center for psychoanalysis in Latin America and made significant contribution to the analysis of filicide.

#10125

Loriene Roy

#47140

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Loriene Roy is an American scholar of Indigenous librarianship, professor and librarian from Texas. She was the first Native American president of the American Library Association when she was inaugurated in 2007.

#10126

Audrey F. Manley

#14368

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Audrey Forbes Manley is an American pediatrician and public health administrator. Manley was the first African-American woman appointed as chief resident at Cook County Children's Hospital in Chicago . Manley was the first to achieve the rank of Assistant Surgeon General in 1988 and later served as the eighth president of Spelman College.

#10127

Mario Aguilar

#65862

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Mario Ignacio Aguilar is the Chair of Religion and Politics at the School of Divinity of the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Biography He completed his PhD in Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Since joining the University of St Andrews in 1994 he has held various positions including, Dean of Divinity . Aguilar is also the current director and a founding director of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Politics based within St Mary's, and the centre only accepts PhD researchers. He is also the coordinator of the Scholars at the Peri...

#10128

Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini

#101126

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Mariangiola Dezani-Ciancaglini is an Italian logician and theoretical computer scientist whose research topics include type theory and intersection type disciplines, lambda calculus, and programming language semantics. She is a professor emerita at the University of Turin.

#10129

David M. Eisenberg

#114250

Overall Influence

David M. Eisenberg is an American physician, alternative medicine researcher, and the Bernard Osher Distinguished Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also the founder of the Osher Center for Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies, a healthcare clinic associated with Brigham and Women's Hospital, and served as its director from 2000 to 2010. He is also the founder of the "Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives" initiative, which, according to the New York Times, aims "to tear down the firewall between “healthy” and “ crave-able” cuisine."

#10130

Dennis Washburn

#68651

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Dennis Washburn is the Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor of Asian Studies at Dartmouth College where he has taught since 1992. He has served as chair of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures and is currently chair of the Comparative Literature Program. Washburn has published extensively on Japanese literature and culture and is an active translator of both modern and classical Japanese fiction. In 2004 he received the Japanese Foreign Ministry's citation for contributions to cross-cultural understanding, and in 2008 he received the Japan-US Friendship Commiss...

#10131

H. Wiley Hitchcock

#37323

Overall Influence

1923 - 2007 (84 years)

Hugh Wiley Hitchcock was an American musicologist. He is best known for founding the Institute for Studies in American Music at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York in 1971. The institute was recently renamed the Hitchcock Institute for Studies in American Music in his honor.

#10132

Christopher Heeschen

#169807

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Christopher Heeschen is a German MD with a PhD. In 2004, he became a professor of Experimental Medicine and Department Head of Medicine at the University of Munich. He has worked at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre since 2009.

#10133

James Gill

#39383

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

James Francis Gill is an American artist and one of the protagonists of the Pop art movement. In 1962, the Museum of Modern Art included his Marilyn Tryptych into its permanent collection. At the peak of his career, Gill retired. He returned to the art scene around 30 years later.

#10134

Michael Custodis

#103470

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Michael Custodis is a German musicologist, sociologist and university lecturer at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster. Career Born in Cologne, Custodis studied musicology, sociology, comparative politics, educational science and film studies at the Universität Mainz. He then moved to the University of Bergen and finally to Albrecht Riethmüller at Freie Universität Berlin. He received his diploma in sociology, his doctorate in musicology and his habilitation at the FU Berlin.

#10135

Winston Wole Soboyejo

Winston Wole Soboyejo

#26241

Overall Influence

Winston Wole Soboyejo commonly known as "Wole" is an American Scientist of Yoruba Nigerian parentage. He is a materials scientist whose research focuses on biomaterials and the use of nanoparticles for the detection and treatment of disease, the mechanical properties of materials, and the use of materials science to promote global development. He was appointed President at SUNY Polytechnic Institute and began his service on October 2, 2023.

#10136

Ruy Pérez Tamayo

Ruy Pérez Tamayo

#16710

Overall Influence

1924 - 2022 (98 years)

Ruy Pérez Tamayo was a Mexican medical pathologist, immunologist, researcher, science communicator and academic. Life and career Born in Tampico, Pérez Tamayo graduated in medicine and specialised in pathology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and then got a doctorate in immunology from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City. He was the founder and director of the pathology unit at the General Hospital of Mexico, and the director of the Department of Pathology at the National Institute of Nutrition for ten years. He was professor in his alma mater for 58 years, and w...

#10137

John Loughlin

#69049

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

John Loughlin, FAcSS, FLSW is a British-based academic and educator from Northern Ireland, and a noted specialist in European territorial politics. Career Loughlin attended St Finian's Primary School followed by St. Malachy's College, Belfast. He then spent several years as a Cistercian monk at Portglenone Abbey where he carried out the usual studies for the priesthood in philosophy, theology and biblical studies.

#10138

Janusz Jankowski

#42504

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Janusz Jankowski is a doctor, educationalist and scientist of Scottish Polish origin He is an expert in Social and Healthcare Policy, Academic Management and Global Research and Education Networks He was formerly in previous senior management roles including Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and Innovation, Pro Vice Chancellor Research, Vice Dean Research and the Sir James Black Professorship.

#10139

Martha Herbert

#77603

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Martha Herbert is an American physician and assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and pediatric neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Herbert is also director of the TRANSCEND program at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging.

#10140

Linda Chang

#88948

Overall Influence

Linda Chang is an American neurologist. She is a professor of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine and the vice-chair for faculty development at University of Maryland School of Medicine. Education Chang completed a bachelor of science in biochemistry through the honors program at University of Maryland, College Park in 1981. Chang earned a master of science in physiology and biophysics from Georgetown University in 1982. Chang completed a medical doctorate at Georgetown University School of Medicine in 1986. Chang completed a residency in neurology at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in 1990.

#10141

Paul Bowles

#28538

Overall Influence

1910 - 1999 (89 years)

Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator. He became associated with the Moroccan city of Tangier, where he settled in 1947 and lived for 52 years to the end of his life.

#10142

Don E. Detmer

#31182

Overall Influence

Don E. Detmer is professor emeritus and professor of medical education at the University of Virginia. Biography and career Detmer chaired the 1991 study, The Computer-based Patient Record. He was a member of the committee that developed the IOM Reports, To Err is Human and Crossing the Quality Chasm. From 1999 to 2003 he was the Dennis Gillings Professor of Health Management at Cambridge University and is a lifetime member of Clare Hall College, Cambridge. From 2005 to 2015 he was visiting professor, Centre for Health Informatics and Multi-professional Education, University College London.

#10143

James L. Turk

#76156

Overall Influence

James Leonard Turk is a Canadian academic and labour leader. He is a frequent media commentator and public speaker on post-secondary education, academic freedom, labour and other public policy issues. Until June 2014, he was executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers . In September 2014, Turk joined Ryerson University's school of journalism as a visiting professor.

#10144

Ivan Djeparoski

Ivan Djeparoski

#131059

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Ivan Djeparoski is a philosopher, cultural theorist, poet and translator. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. He is an author of fourteen books in the field of aesthetics and cultural theory, five poetry books and also of two poetry anthologies, for which he was awarded the "Mlad Borec Prize" , "Dimitar Mitrev Prize" and “Paradigm Prize” . He works at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje as a professor of "Aesthetics", "History of Aesthetics" and "Cultural Theories". He is/was Head of the Institute of Philosophy , Head of postgraduate studies of the Institute of philosophy and secretary of Macedonian P.E.N.

#10145

T. W. J. Huizinga

#169920

Overall Influence

#10146

Rachel Morello-Frosch

#167562

Overall Influence

Rachel A. Morello-Frosch is an American environmental health scientist. She is a professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management & School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2022, Morello-Frosch was elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine for being a "renowned expert on structural determinants of environmental health inequities" and a "leader in the application of community-engaged data science."

#10147

Mohamed Habib Marzouki

#151266

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Mohamed Habib Marzouki is a Tunisian academic, philosopher and translator. Along with intellectual work, he involved in politics for a short time following the Jasmine revolution. Resigning only a year later, he declared his intention to step out of political work for good and count on writing to incite social change.

#10148

Vyacheslav Shestakov

#169945

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Vyacheslav Pavlovich Shestakov is a Russian philosopher who holds the title of . During the period of 2004–2014 he headed the department of art theory at the . Selected publications in RussianЕвропейский эрос. Философия любви и европейское искусство. [] Moscow: ЛКИ, 2020 in EnglishTransformation of Eros. Philosophy of Love and European art. — Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.

#10149

Dermot P. Kelleher

#64133

Overall Influence

Dermot P. Kelleher FMedSci is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Vice-President, Health at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He moved to UBC in August 2015. He was subsequently appointed as UBC's inaugural Vice-President, Health in June 2018. Previously Kelleher was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. He took up this role on 1 October 2012. From 2006 until 2012 he was Head of the School of Medicine and Vice-Provost for Medical Affairs at Trinity College, Dublin. He was one of the three founders of Opsona Therapeutics in 2004; Opsona's researc...

#10150

Göran K. Hansson

Göran K. Hansson

#20619

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Göran K. Hansson , is a Swedish physician and scientist. Hansson was awarded his doctorate in 1980 at the University of Gothenburg. He has been a research scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle, professor of cell biology at the University of Gothenburg, and visiting professor at Harvard Medical School. Since 1995, he is professor of experimental cardiovascular research at the Karolinska Institute.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions