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,
#10201
Carol Meyers
#29243
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Carol Lyons Meyers is an American feminist biblical scholar. She is the Mary Grace Wilson Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Duke University. Meyers' field of research is focused on biblical studies, archaeology in the Middle East, and the study of women in the biblical world.
Go to Profile#10202
Joseph E. Bavaria
#137886
Overall Influence
#10203
Thomas Reilly
#137890
Overall Influence
#10204
Henry F. Mcfarland
#137903
Overall Influence
#10205
Nicholas Mann
#46749
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Colin Nicholas Jocelyn Mann, CBE, FBA is a scholar of Italian humanism, and especially of Petrarch. He was director of the Warburg Institute from 1990 to 2001. He is now an emeritus professor in the University of London.
Go to Profile#10206
Emmanuella Guenova
#137918
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
#10207
Nancy Keating
#94809
Overall Influence
Nancy Keating is an American physician who works at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and is a professor at Harvard Medical School. Her research considers the factors that influence quality care for people suffering from cancer.
Go to Profile#10208
Darren K. Mcguire
#137922
Overall Influence
#10209
Herbert N. Hultgren
#137923
Overall Influence
#10210
John Warner Duckett
#137924
Overall Influence
#10211
Kenneth Ouriel
#137938
Overall Influence
#10212
Leila Azadbakht
#137954
Overall Influence
#10213
Stephen Alfred Forbes
1844 - 1930 (86 years)
Stephen Alfred Forbes was the first chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey, a founder of aquatic ecosystem science and a dominant figure in the rise of American ecology. His publications are striking for their merger of extensive field observations with conceptual insights. Forbes believed that ecological knowledge was fundamental for human well being. Forbes was important to the development of ecological theory. He was acknowledged by the National Academy of Sciences as "the founder of the science of ecology in the United States".
Go to Profile#10214
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
1827 - 1875 (48 years)
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was a French sculptor and painter during the Second Empire under Napoleon III. Life Born in Valenciennes, Nord, son of a mason, his early studies were under François Rude. Carpeaux entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and won the Prix de Rome in 1854, and moving to Rome to find inspiration, he there studied the works of Michelangelo, Donatello and Verrocchio. Staying in Rome from 1854 to 1861, he obtained a taste for movement and spontaneity, which he joined with the great principles of baroque art. Carpeaux sought real life subjects in the streets and broke with t...
Go to Profile#10215
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
1564 - 1638 (74 years)
Pieter Brueghel the Younger was a Flemish painter known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work, as well as original compositions and Bruegelian pastiches. The large output of his studio , which produced for the local and export market, contributed to the international spread of his father's imagery.
Go to Profile#10216
Jerome H. Check
#137993
Overall Influence
#10217
John A. Glaspy
#138010
Overall Influence
#10218
Thomas Gil
#124345
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Thomas Gil is a Spanish-born German philosopher, currently University Professor of Practical Philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin. Born in Madrid on Oct. 21, 1954, he received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Münster in 1981 and his Habilitation from the University of Stuttgart in 1992.
Go to Profile#10219
Humayun Ahmed
#35360
Overall Influence
1948 - 2012 (64 years)
Humayun Ahmed was a Bangladeshi novelist, dramatist, screenwriter, filmmaker, songwriter, scholar, and academic. His breakthrough was his debut novel Nondito Noroke published in 1972. He wrote over 200 fiction and non-fiction books. He was one of the most popular authors and filmmakers in post-independence Bangladesh. Dawn referred to him as the cultural legend of Bangladesh.
Go to Profile#10220
Robert O. Becker
#22442
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Robert Otto Becker was a U.S. orthopedic surgeon and researcher in electrophysiology/electromedicine. He worked mainly as professor at Upstate Medical Center in State University of New York, Syracuse, and as Director of Orthopedic Surgery at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Syracuse, New York.
Go to Profile#10221
Vincent J. Felitti
#138056
Overall Influence
#10222
Pierre Tiollais
#138061
Overall Influence
#10223
David Brown
#33241
Overall Influence
1929 - 2014 (85 years)
David Clifford Brown was an English musicologist, most noteworthy for his major study of Tchaikovsky’s life and works. Brown attended Gravesend Grammar School and then studied English, Latin and music at the University of Sheffield, graduating in 1951, and took his MusB there . During national service he studied Russian and was commissioned in the Intelligence Corps. He taught in secondary schools before becoming music librarian of the University of London, working at Senate House 1959–62. In 1962 he became a lecturer at the University of Southampton, becoming senior lecturer in 1970 and reader in 1975; he was awarded a doctorate for his book on Thomas Weelkes in 1971.
Go to Profile#10224
Allen Foster
#10225
Edward L. Jr. Spitznagel
#138109
Overall Influence
#10226
Michael D. Greicius
#138117
Overall Influence
#10227
C. T. Cent Tsai
#138121
Overall Influence
#10228
Jean-Michel Macron
#21909
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron is a French doctor and professor of neurology at the University of Picardy. He is the father of French president Emmanuel Macron. Early life Jean-Michel Macron was born in 1950. His father was André Macron , a railway executive, and his mother was Jacqueline Macron , née Robertson, of half English origin. He wrote a thesis on feline neurology in 1981.
Go to Profile#10229
Emmanuel Lévinas
#138129
Overall Influence
#10230
Roy L. Freeman
#138133
Overall Influence
#10231
Abraham M. Y. Nomura
#138135
Overall Influence
#10232
Adam Torbicki
#138148
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#10233
Robert A. Wolfe
#138156
Overall Influence
#10234
Ray R. Larson
#138177
Overall Influence
#10235
Frederic Leighton
1830 - 1896 (66 years)
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, , known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British Victorian painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter in an academic style. His paintings were enormously popular and expensive, during his lifetime, but fell out of critical favour for many decades in the early 20th century.
Go to Profile#10236
Melanie Wakefield
#96123
Overall Influence
Melanie Ann Wakefield is an Australian psychologist and behavioural researcher at the Cancer Council of Victoria. She has worked extensively on cancer prevention including tobacco control, through the introduction of plain-paper packaging.
Go to Profile#10237
Yuriy Drohobych
1450 - 1494 (44 years)
Yuriy Drohobych or Yuriy Kotermak was a Ruthenian philosopher, astronomer, writer, medical doctor, rector of the University of Bologna, and professor of Kraków Academy, and the first publisher of a Church Slavonic printed text. He is the author of Iudicium Pronosticon Anni 1483 Currentis.
Go to Profile#10238
Alfred Mann
#43184
Overall Influence
1917 - 2006 (89 years)
Alfred Mann , was an American musicologist who specialized in the history of Western musical theory. He was a professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. His parents were the portrait painter Wilhelm Mann and the well-known harpsichordist and musicologist Edith Weiss-Mann.
Go to Profile#10239
Omid Tofighian
#54445
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Omid Tofighian is an Iranian-Australian philosopher and Honorary Research Associate at the University of Sydney. He is known for his research on ancient Greek philosophy and his translation of the award-winning book by Kurdish-Iranian asylum seeker Behrouz Boochani, No Friend But the Mountains from Persian into English.
Go to Profile#10240
Lari Pittman
#43932
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Lari George Pittman is a Colombian-American contemporary artist and painter. Pittman is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Painting and Drawing at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. Early life Pittman's American father met his Colombian mother while the former was working abroad in the latter's homeland. At the age of five, Pittman's family moved back to Colombia, returning to California in 1963. In contrast to his childhood in Colombia, Pittman's experience in the United States keeps him alert to "the overwhelming hatred that is exhibited by the American population and through...
Go to Profile#10241
Donald W. Macglashan
#138214
Overall Influence
#10242
Régis Bataille
#138220
Overall Influence
#10243
Tjalf Ziemssen
#138222
Overall Influence
#10244
Uicheon
1055 - 1101 (46 years)
Uicheon was a Korean Royal Prince and influential Korean Buddhist scholar-monk during the Goryeo period . He was the fourth son of King Munjong and Queen Inye from the Incheon Yi clan and the younger brother of Sunjong, Seonjong, and Sukjong.
Go to Profile#10245
Benjamin Apthorp Gould Fuller
1879 - 1956 (77 years)
Benjamin Apthorp Gould Fuller was a philosopher, author of A History of Philosophy, and president of the American Philosophical Association. He is also known and published as B.A.G. Fuller. He was the son of Horace Williams Fuller and Emily Gorham Carter. He studied at Roxbury Latin School in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1900, 1902, and 1906, respectively. In 1902 he matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, and received his B.Sc. in 1905. His Ph.D. thesis on "The Problem of Evil in Plotinus" was published in 1912. He was describe...
Go to Profile#10246
Reinhard Ziegler
#138235
Overall Influence
#10247
José Pablo Feinmann
#59144
Overall Influence
1943 - 2021 (78 years)
José Pablo Feinmann was an Argentine philosopher, writer, playwright, and television host. He also penned several screenplays for domestic film production and international coproductions. Born to Abraham and Elena Feinmann, Feinmann was a Peronist Youth militant during the 1970s, considering Peronism as a real mass movement with the potential to change the country for the better. Nevertheless, he opposed armed violence to achieve political ends, criticizing the foco theory of Che Guevara which, years after the Cuban Revolution, became popular in some sectors of the Marxist-Peronist movement,...
Go to Profile#10248
Stephen E. Straus
#138262
Overall Influence
#10249
Thomas Louis Mckenzie
#138277
Overall Influence
#10250
Colin M. Bloor
#138279
Overall Influence
