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).

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#10751

Richard Fifoot

#139972
Overall Influence
1925 - 1992 (67 years)
Erik Richard Sidney Fifoot MC was a British librarian who served as Bodley's Librarian, the head of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, from 1979 to 1981. Life The son of Hjördis Baars and her husband C. H. S. Fifoot, Richard Fifoot was educated at Berkhamsted School and the University of Oxford. He served as a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards between 1943 and 1946, winning the Military Cross. He worked at the library of the University of Leeds from 1950 to 1958 , becoming Deputy Librarian of the University of Nottingham in 1958 and Librarian of the University of Edinburgh in 1960.
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#10752

Karen Duff

Karen Duff
#39097
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Karen Elizabeth Keitley Duff is a British scientist known for her work on Alzheimer's disease. Her most notable work focused on the development and characterization of mouse models of Alzheimer's disease amyloid deposition. She became Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute's hub at University College London in spring 2020.
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#10753

Ye Xiushan

Ye Xiushan
#106940
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Ye Xiushan was a Chinese philosopher, aestheticist and Chinese Opera theorist. Ye was one of the first Faculty Scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , a , and a member of the 8th, the 9th and the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as an independent scholar.
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#10754

Lucile Adams-Campbell

#134374
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Lucile L. Adams-Campbell is the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in epidemiology in the United States. She serves as the Professor of Oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and associate director for Minority Health at the Georgetown University Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and the Washington DC Hall of Fame.
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#10755

Richard P. Smiraglia

#95297
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Richard P. Smiraglia is an American information scientist and prominent figure in the field of knowledge organization. Smiraglia is an emeritus professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Knowledge Organization and a cataloging theorist perhaps best known for his work concerning two concepts pertaining to bibliographic control, information retrieval, and knowledge organization: a definition of the meaning of a “work” derived from empirical and semiotic analysis, and “instantiation,” the phenomenon of an informati...
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#10756

Helga Varden

#102141
Overall Influence
Helga Varden is a Norwegian-American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy and Gender and Women Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was Brady Distinguished Visiting Professor in Ethics and Civic Life at Northwestern University between 2014-2015. She is known for her works on Kantian philosophy.
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#10757

Gil Amelio

#85820
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Gilbert Frank Amelio is an American technology executive. Amelio worked at Bell Labs, Fairchild Semiconductor, and the semiconductor division of Rockwell International, and was also the CEO of National Semiconductor and Apple Computer.
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#10758

Christopher Pepin-Neff

#131328
Overall Influence
Christopher Pepin-Neff is an American-Australian social scientist, public policy lecturer, and LGBTQ rights activist. He is known for his research and findings on public behavior and shark attacks. Pepin-Neff is a former president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.
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#10759

Bulent Diken

#94014
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Bulent Diken is a Danish-Turkish philosopher and sociologist who teaches at Lancaster University. He has studied urban planning at the Aarhus School of Architecture. He is known for his research on social theory, post-structuralism, nihilism, political philosophy, urban sociology, and immigration. During 1998-1999 he was an assistant professor at Roskilde University, Department of Geography.
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#10760

Andrew Raftery

#95363
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Andrew Stein Raftery is an American artist and educator, known for his paintings, burin engravings, and drawings on fictional and autobiographical narratives of contemporary American life. Biography In 1984, Raftery earned his B.F.A. degree in painting from Boston University, and took his first intaglio printing class with . In 1988, he completed his M.F.A. degree in printmaking from Yale University. He is a professor at Rhode Island School of Design teaching in the printmaking and painting departments, since 1991. He credits Stanley William Hayter and his proteges in Atelier 17 as an influe...
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#10761

Gustavo Bounous

#77786
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Gustavo Bounous was a research medical doctor. He was born in Luserna, Italy on July 10, 1928. He was educated at the University of Turin and at the University of Genoa. Then, he worked as a research fellow in surgery at the Indiana Medical Center. In 1963 he moved to Canada. He became a professor of surgery, successively at the Université de Sherbrooke, 1973–1985, after that, at McGill University, 1985–1993. He died at the age of 83 on December 29, 2011.
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#10762

Joan S. Ash

#73208
Overall Influence
Joan S. Ash is Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University , Portland, OR. She holds master's degrees in library science Columbia University, health science , and business administration Portland State University. Her doctorate is in Systems Science: Business Administration from Portland State. She is currently the Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications. She has served on the Boards of Directors of the American Medical Informat...
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#10763

Alim Louis Benabid

Alim Louis Benabid
#16939
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Alim Louis Benabid is a French-Algerian emeritus professor, neurosurgeon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, who has had a global impact in the development of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. He became emeritus professor of biophysics at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble in September 2007, and chairman of the board of the Edmond J. Safra Biomedical Research Center in 2009 at Clinatec, a multidisciplinary institute he co-founded in Grenoble that applies nanotechnologies to neurosciences.
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#10764

Alissa M. Weaver

#103875
Overall Influence
Alissa Margaret Weaver is an American oncologist. In 2017, she was promoted to the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Cell and Developmental Biology and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
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#10765

Lucy O'Brien

#174012
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Lucy O'Brien is a British philosopher and the Richard Wollheim Professor of Philosophy at University College London. O'Brien predominantly works in the philosophy of mind and action, focusing in particular on self-consciousness and self-knowledge. She is the author of Self-Knowing Agents and co-editor, with Matthew Soteriou, of Mental Actions .
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#10766

Michael S. Pritchard

Michael S. Pritchard
#169791
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Michael Pritchard is an American philosopher and the Willard A. Brown Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. Books Englehardt, Elaine E.; Pritchard, Michael S. . Ethics across the curriculum—pedagogical perspectives. Cham: Springer-Verlag.Charles Harris, Michael J. Rabins, Michael S. Pritchard. Engineering Ethics: Concepts and CasesLisa H. Newton, Elaine E. Englehardt, Michael S. Pritchard. Clashing Views in Business Ethics and SocietyMichael S. Pritchard. Professional Integrity: Thinking Ethically Elaine E. Englehardt, Michael S. Pritchard, Kerry D. Romesburg, Brian Schrag.
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#10767

Ann Buchholtz

#136068
Overall Influence
1952 - 2015 (63 years)
Ann K. Buchholtz was Professor of Leadership and Ethics and Research Director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership at Rutgers University. She served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Management and was past Division Chair of the Social Issues in Management division, as well as inaugural Chairperson of the Ethics Adjudication Committee at Academy of Management. She also served on the editorial board of Business & Society. She died on September 14, 2015, from complications related to surgery.
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#10768

Zhi-wei Sun

#175999
Overall Influence
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#10769

Günter Ollenschläger

Günter Ollenschläger
#61805
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Günter Ollenschläger is a German physician, medical editor, and á former professor of internal medicine and clinical decision making at the University of Cologne, Faculty of Medicine. Biography Ollenschläger is a certified pharmacist and general internist. He has a pharmaceutical doctorate from the University of Münster , a medical doctorate from the University of Giessen , and the venia legendi from the University of Cologne .
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#10770

Emily Drabinski

#82527
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Emily Drabinski is an academic librarian, author, and teacher, serving as president of the American Library Association since 2023. Early life and education Drabinski was born in June 1975 in Boise, Idaho, with an identical twin sister, Kate Drabinski. Emily attended Madison Elementary School, North Junior High School and Boise High School while living in Idaho. She left Boise at age 18 in hopes of becoming a writer after attending Columbia University. Drabinski earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1997 from Columbia University.
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#10771

Cliff Eisen

#50499
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Cliff Eisen is a Canadian musicologist and a Mozart expert. He was based in the Department of Music at King's College London. He studied at the University of Toronto and at Cornell University, and has taught at the University of Western Ontario and New York University.
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#10772

Anna Hansell

#102715
Overall Influence
Anna Louise Hansell is a British physician who is Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hansell studied the relationship between pollution and COVID-19.
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#10773

David Southall

#24261
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
David Southall is a retired British paediatrician who specialised in international maternal and child hospital healthcare and in child protection. He worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993-1995, for which he received an OBE in 1999. In 1995 he set up the charity Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International , of which he remains a trustee as of 2023. His child protection work and research into Munchausen syndrome by proxy attracted controversy and led to conflict with the General Medical Council.
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#10774

Fred Hollows

Fred Hollows
#16110
Overall Influence
1929 - 1993 (64 years)
Frederick Cossom Hollows was a New Zealand–Australian ophthalmologist who became known for his work in restoring eyesight for people in Australia and many other countries through initiatives such as The Fred Hollows Foundation.
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#10775

Jerry Pattengale

#56293
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Jerry A. Pattengale is a faculty member and administrator at Indiana Wesleyan University. He coined and founded the approach of “purpose-guided education” in 1997 while leading the implementation of student success programs at Indiana Wesleyan University. His approach includes calling for a humanities approach to student success, and the need for faculty involvement in the development of strategies.
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#10776

Linda Ruth Williams

#108076
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Linda Ruth Williams is Professor of Film Studies in the College of Humanities at the University of Exeter, UK. Her special interests include sexuality and censorship in cinema and literature , women in film, psychoanalytic theory and D. H. Lawrence.
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#10777

Helen Burt

#156427
Overall Influence
Helen M. Burt is a British-Canadian pharmaceutical scientist who is the Angiotech Professor of Drug Delivery at the University of British Columbia. She serves as Associate Vice President of Research and Innovation at UBC. Her research considers novel therapeutics based on nanotechnology, including drug delivery systems for the treatment of bladder cancer and coronary artery disease.
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#10778

Ben Ramalingam

#60126
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Ben Ramalingam is a British researcher, strategist, innovator and author, currently Director of Strategy at British Red Cross, senior research associate at the Overseas Development Institute Politics and Governance programme and advisor to the OECD Development Assistance Committee on innovation investments for development, humanitarian and human rights issues.
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#10779

Thomas Mertens

#57485
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Thomas Michael Christian Mertens is a German virologist who currently heads the Standing Committee on Vaccination , which as part of the Robert Koch Institute advises the German government regarding vaccines.
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#10780

Loren D. Walensky

#41733
Overall Influence
Loren David Walensky is an American physician-scientist and pediatric oncologist at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute since 2003 and a professor of pediatrics at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. He researches peptides and oncogenic pathways. In 2013, Walensky became director of the joint MD/PhD program at Harvard Medical School. He is the husband of Rochelle Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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#10781

Frederick H. Wagman

#118567
Overall Influence
1912 - 1994 (82 years)
Frederick Herbert Wagman was an American librarian and president of the American Library Association from 1963 to 1964. Wagman was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from Amherst College in 1933 before attending Columbia University where he earned both master's and a doctorate degree in 1934 and 1942 respectively. While studying for his doctorate, he taught at the University of Minnesota. In 1945, Wagman joined the Library of Congress as Acting Director of Personnel and of Administrative Services. He served in several roles at the Library of Congress before leaving to be Director of the University of Michigan Library and a professor of Library Science in 1953.
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#10782

Richard Locksley

#27195
Overall Influence
Richard Locksley is a medical doctor, professor and researcher of infectious diseases, who pioneered approaches to study immunology. He is a professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, where he also serves as the director of the Sandler Asthma Basic Research Center. He is also an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. In 2018, he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for his work on immunology.
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#10783

Jens Zimmermann

#125654
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Dr. Jens Michael Zimmermann is a German-Canadian Christian philosopher, theologian, and professor who specializes in hermeneutics and the philosophical and theological roots of humanism. Zimmermann is a longtime educator in Vancouver. He is currently the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College. and the professor of philosophy and theology at Trinity Western University.
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#10784

Johan Sebastiaan Ploem

#109685
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Johan Sebastiaan Ploem is a Dutch microscopist and digital artist. He made significant contribution to the field of fluorescence microscopy, and invented reflection interference contrast microscopy.
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#10785

Hubert Unverricht

#150407
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Hubert Johannes Unverricht was a German musicologist and a lecturer at various universities. Life Unverricht worn in Liegnitz. After the Flight and expulsion of Germans in 1946 and a short stay in the Kleinwelka camp near Bautzen, he passed his Abitur in Großenhain in 1947. He then studied musicology , German studies and philosophy at the Humboldt University Berlin until 1951. In 1952, he moved to the Free University of Berlin, where he completed his studies in 1953 with the dissertation Hörbare Vorbilder in der Instrumentalmusik bis 1750. Untersuchungen der Vorgeschichte der Programmmusik.
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#10786

Kevin Williamson

#96260
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Kevin Williamson is a writer, publisher, and activist originally from Caithness. He is a Scottish socialist and republican and was an activist for the Scottish Socialist Party . He was also the architect of their radical drug policy, which included the legalisation of cannabis and the provision under the National Health Service of free synthetic heroin to addicts under medical supervision to combat the problems of drugs in working class communities. He wrote a regular weekly column, "Rebel Ink", for the Scottish Socialist Voice.
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#10787

Akio Mori

#21194
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
is a Japanese physiologist, sports scientist and writer. He is also the founder and the former head of the Japanese learned society . Mori was originally known for his physiology researches, but began to write books about human neuroscience, coining the term "game brain" in his 2002 book . He claimed that the brains of people who played video games were physically damaged. Game Nō no Kyōfu received much attention from critics such as Tamaki Saitō.
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#10788

David S. Ingram

#176216
Overall Influence
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#10789

Sendurai Mani

#59151
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Sendurai A. Mani is an Indian-American oncologist and a Molecular Bilogist. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, and Dean's Chair for Translational Oncology at Brown University Warren Alpert Medical School. He is also the associate director for Translational Oncology at the Legorreta Cancer Center at Alpert Medical School, Brown University. Previously, he was a co-director of Metastasis Research Center and co-director, the Center for Stem Cell & Developmental Biology, and a professor of Translational Molecular Pathology at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
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#10790

René Joyeuse

René Joyeuse
#25828
Overall Influence
1920 - 2012 (92 years)
René Joyeuse, M.D., MS, FACS was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher. He distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II.
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#10791

Mireille Hildebrandt

#86720
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Mireille Hildebrandt is a Dutch lawyer and philosopher who works at the intersection of law and computer science. She is the Research Professor on 'Interfacing Law and Technology' at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and holds the Chair of Smart Environments, Data Protection and the Rule of Law at the Institute for Computing and Information Sciences at Radboud University Nijmegen.
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#10792

Mildred Fay Jefferson

Mildred Fay Jefferson
#18403
Overall Influence
1926 - 2010 (84 years)
Mildred Fay Jefferson was an American physician and anti-abortion political activist. The first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School, the first woman to graduate in surgery from Harvard Medical School and the first woman to become a member of the Boston Surgical Society, she is known for her opposition to the legalization of abortion and her work as president of the National Right to Life Committee.
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#10793

Nelson Thomas Potter Jr.

#146196
Overall Influence
1939 - 2013 (74 years)
Nelson Thomas Potter Jr. was a professor of philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. Intellectual biography In 1961, he graduated summa cum laude from Monmouth College and in 1969, he received as Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University in philosophy. In 1965, he became a faculty member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and was chair of the department from 1980 to 1985. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. His philosophical research focused on ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of Kant. ...
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#10794

Hannah E. Hashkes

#154934
Overall Influence
Dr. Hannah E. Hashkes is an Israeli philosopher of Jewish thought. Hashkes studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on American pragmatism. It is entitled “Philosophy and the Role of the Philosopher in American Pragmatism”. In this work, Hashkes provided a detailed and careful examination of the thought of the main classical American pragmatists - Peirce, James, and Dewey - while analyzing the neo-pragmatism of Richard Rorty in comparison to them.
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#10795

Nils Roll-Hansen

#105259
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Nils Roll-Hansen is a historian and philosopher of 19th and 20th century biology at University of Oslo. He is the author of four books and many academic articles. His book The Lysenko Effect was praised in Nature. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
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#10796

Johannes B. Reitsma

#176316
Overall Influence
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#10797

Shri Mohan Jain

Shri Mohan Jain
#113552
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Prof. Dr. Shri Mohan Jain is an Indian-born plant biotechnology scientist. He worked several years for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. He has done research on genetically modified food, mutation breeding, ornamental plants, date palm, and tropical fruit, such as banana. He has edited 44 internationally sold books.
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#10798

Charles Gordon Roland

#101501
Overall Influence
1933 - 2009 (76 years)
Charles "Chuck" Gordon Roland was born on January 25, 1933, in Winnipeg, Manitoba to Jack and Leona Roland. After a long and distinguished career as an author, editor, and Hannah Professor of the History of Medicine at McMaster University, Roland died at the age of 76 on June 9, 2009, in Burlington, Ontario.
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#10799

Vladimir Khavinson

Vladimir Khavinson
#28670
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Vladimir Khavinson - is a professor, Treasurer of the European region of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics; Main gerontologist of the Health Committee of the Government of Saint Petersburg, Russia; Director of the Saint Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology; Vice-president of Gerontological Society of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Head of the Chair of Gerontology and Geriatrics of the North-Western State Medical University, St-Petersburg; Colonel of medical service , retired.
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#10800

Federico Luisetti

#150366
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Federico Luisetti is an Italian philosopher, he is Associate professor of Italian Culture and Society at the University of St. Gallen. From 2005 to 2017, he taught Italian Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he was the chair of the Department of Romance Studies from 2014 to 2017. He is the author of books and essays on philosophy, literature, visual studies, the Avant-gardes, and political thought. He has also worked on decolonial thought and anthropology.
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