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,
#10251
Badrinath R. Konety
#138282
Overall Influence
#10252
Tomoyoshi Soga
#138301
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#10253
George W. Bruyn
#138303
Overall Influence
#10254
Charles B. Pratt
#138323
Overall Influence
#10255
Atsushi Ohtsu
#138329
Overall Influence
#10256
Peter Wolfe Kaplan
#138332
Overall Influence
#10257
Magnus Björkholm
#138369
Overall Influence
#10258
Arlan L. Rosenbloom
#138379
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
#10259
David Erlinge
#138390
Overall Influence
#10260
Edward Downes
#63970
Overall Influence
1911 - 2001 (90 years)
Edward Olin Davenport Downes was an American musicologist, professor, radio personality, and music critic. He was the host of the Texaco Opera Quiz on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts for nearly forty years. These broadcasts were heard across North America and Europe.
Go to Profile#10261
Juerg Hodler
#138396
Overall Influence
#10262
James H. Moller
#138404
Overall Influence
#10263
Yngve T. Falck‐ytter
#138406
Overall Influence
#10264
Haile Debas
#12263
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Haile Debas is an Eritrean physician and academic administrator at the University of California, San Francisco. Life Haile T. Debas was born in Asmara, Eritrea, in 1937. Following undergraduate training at University College of Addis Ababa, he received his M.D. from McGill University in 1963, and completed his surgical training at the University of British Columbia. His postgraduate training included a year as a research fellow at the University of Glasgow/Western Infirmary in Scotland, and two years at UCLA as a Medical Research Council Scholar in gastrointestinal physiology.
Go to Profile#10265
Danilo Fliser
#138409
Overall Influence
#10266
Luke Bretherton
#75105
Overall Influence
Luke Bretherton is a London born, British author and theologian. His work addresses contemporary moral and political questions, particularly as these relate to the relationship between religion and democracy. He is currently Robert E. Cushman Distinguished Professor of Moral and Political Theology at Duke University in North Carolina . Previously he taught at King’s College London and St Augustine’s College . Alongside his scholarly work, he writes in the media on topics related to religion and politics, has worked with a variety of faith-based NGOs and churches around the world, and is actively involved in forms of grassroots democratic politics, both in the UK and the US.
Go to Profile#10267
Irvin Mark Modlin
#138416
Overall Influence
#10268
Alan Solomon
#138418
Overall Influence
#10269
Eli Moschcowitz
1879 - 1964 (85 years)
Eli Moschcowitz was an American doctor best known for his role in discovering thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura , which was originally called "Moschcowitz syndrome". He is also known for having an early role in the development of psychosomatic medicine.
Go to Profile#10270
K. N. Udupa
#59556
Overall Influence
Kodethur Narasimha Udupa was an Indian surgeon, medical administrator, a pioneer of integrative medicine and the founder director of the Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University . Born in Udupi in the South Indian state of Karnataka, His father was Tamayya Udupa scholar in Sanskrit and Jyotish belonging to Shivalli brahmin community. He passed his bachelor's degree in Ayurvedic Medicine from Banares Hindu University, secured his master's degree from the University of Michigan in 1948 and passed FRCS examination from Canada.
Go to Profile#10271
Kwang‐hyub Han
#138460
Overall Influence
#10272
Mona Nemer
#31434
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Mona Nemer, is a Lebanese-Canadian scientist specializing in molecular genetics and cardiac regeneration. She was formerly a professor of pharmacology at the University of Montreal and the Director of the Cardiac Development Research Unit at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal where she held a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cardiovascular Cell Differentiation. She is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Medicine, and also served as Vice-President, Research at the University of Ottawa from 2006 to 2017.
Go to Profile#10273
Thomas A. Mustoe
#138473
Overall Influence
#10274
Peter Tippett
#25607
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Peter S. Tippett is an American physician, researcher, and inventor known for contributions to information security, clinical medicine, and technology. These contributions include the development of the anti-virus program "Corporate Vaccine". Tippett was Vice President of Verizon's Innovations Incubator and Chief Medical Officer for Verizon Enterprise Services from 2009 to 2015. He is currently the Founder and CEO of careMESH Inc.
Go to Profile#10275
Fiona Gilbert
#22575
Overall Influence
Fiona Jane Gilbert is a Scottish radiologist and academic. Background Gilbert graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1978. She trained in Radiology in Aberdeen, and became a consultant radiologist in 1989, then appointed Roland Sutton Professor of Radiology at the University of Aberdeen in 1996. She was assigned the role of professor of radiology and head of the Department of Radiology at University of Cambridge in 2011, where she now leads a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine in various fields of radiology. Prior to this she was head of t...
Go to Profile#10276
Constantine D. Mavroudis
#138477
Overall Influence
#10277
Mike Bartlett
#18269
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Michael Bartlett is an English playwright and screenwriter for film and TV series. His 2015 psychological thriller TV series, Doctor Foster, starring Suranne Jones, won the New Drama award from National Television Awards. Bartlett also won Best Writer from the Broadcast Press Guild Awards. A BBC TV Film of Bartlett's play King Charles III was broadcast in May 2017 and while critically acclaimed, generated some controversy.
Go to Profile#10278
Herbert H. Schaumburg
#138483
Overall Influence
#10279
Eleanor Barnes
#126265
Overall Influence
Eleanor Barnes is a British physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital and a Professor of Hepatology and Experimental Medicine at the University of Oxford. She has studied hepatitis C and the development of the development of HCV vaccines. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and serves as the lead for hepatology at the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network.
Go to Profile#10280
Calvin J. Hobel
#138502
Overall Influence
#10281
John Paul Kampine
#138506
Overall Influence
#10282
Leif Mosekilde
#138550
Overall Influence
#10283
Jarava Lal Mehta
1912 - 1988 (76 years)
Jarava Lal Mehta was an Indian philosopher, and expert on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. He was a professor at the Central Hindu College of Banaras Hindu University, Center for the Study of World Religions of Harvard Divinity School and the University of Hawaiʻi .
Go to Profile#10284
Frederick L. Grover
#138556
Overall Influence
#10285
James R. Wright
#138564
Overall Influence
#10286
Andrew J. Saxon
#138567
Overall Influence
#10287
Neil Norman Finer
#138601
Overall Influence
#10288
Nancy L. Ascher
#138616
Overall Influence
#10289
Larry E. Kun
#138622
Overall Influence
#10290
Neil R. Macintyre
#138639
Overall Influence
#10291
Arthur Rook
#10292
Arthur Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder
1890 - 1967 (77 years)
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Arthur William Tedder, 1st Baron Tedder, was a Scottish senior Royal Air Force commander. He was a pilot and squadron commander in the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and he went on to serve as a senior officer in the Royal Air Force during the inter-war years when he served in Turkey, Great Britain and the Far East.
Go to Profile#10293
Eric Walten
1663 - 1697 (34 years)
Eric Walten was a Dutch Enlightenment thinker and pamphleteer, notably accused of blasphemy and of secretly following the philosophical thinking of Benedict Spinoza in the 1690s. Little information survives of Walten's life. He told the court that he was born in Ham, Munsterland, now in Germany. The Dutch scholar Wiep van Bunge suggests that Walten may have been of English descent. He lived in Utrecht until 1685, and from 1688 in The Hague and Rotterdam.
Go to Profile#10294
Roland John Wiley
#90047
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Roland John Wiley is an American musicologist, instructor and consultant whose main area of focus is on 19th-century Russian music and ballet. He has written a biography and critical study on the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and contributed the entry on the composer in the 2001 edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. His current project is a study of choreographer Marius Petipa.
Go to Profile#10295
Lasse Kanerva
#138671
Overall Influence
#10296
John Rutherford
1695 - 1779 (84 years)
John Rutherford was a Scottish physician and professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He is the father of the scientist Daniel Rutherford and the grandfather of the writer Walter Scott.
Go to Profile#10297
Allan Edward Gross
#138712
Overall Influence
#10298
Grant N. Stemmermann
#138730
Overall Influence
#10299
André Senik
#65960
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
André Senik , is a French associate professor of philosophy and former communist activist. Biography Senik was born to Polish Jewish parents in the Sentier neighbourhood of Paris in 1938. He later joined a number of political groups, including MAPAM, the Union of Republican Youth of France, and the Union of Communist Students . He studied philosophy at the Parisian lycée in Janson-de-Sailly, where he met Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond. He was also editor-in-chief of Clarté, the press organ of the UEC.
Go to Profile#10300
Manuel Casanova
#48451
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Manuel F. Casanova is the SmartState Endowed Chair in Childhood Neurotherapeutics and a professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville. He is a former Gottfried and Gisela Kolb Endowed Chair in Outpatient Psychiatry and a Professor of Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology at the University of Louisville.
Go to Profile