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,
#10901
Phoebe Gloeckner
#32349
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Phoebe Louise Adams Gloeckner , is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and novelist. Early life Gloeckner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her mother was a librarian and her father, David Gloeckner, was a commercial illustrator. Her father's family was Quaker and she attended Quaker schools when she was young. She has a younger sister.
Go to Profile#10902
Pavol Strauss
#123122
Overall Influence
1912 - 1994 (82 years)
Pavol Strauss ; was a Slovak medical doctor, writer, essayist and translator. Biography Strauss's autobiography, Kolíska dôvery, published in 1994, can be considered as an authentic guidebook through his remarkable life. Strauss studied at a „gymnazium“ in his birthplace, where he actively worked in the self-educational group of M. M. Hodža. After passing the „maturita“ he studied medicine in Vienna and finished his studies at the German university in Prague in 1938. From 1938 to 1939 he completed a one-year military service. He worked as a doctor in Palúdzka and Ružomberok. Strauss converted to Catholicism from Judaism after a two-year struggle in 1942.
Go to Profile#10903
June E. Osborn
#74605
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Dr. June E. Osborn has served as an expert advisor on numerous urgent medical and health issues that include infectious diseases and their vaccines, virology, and public health policy as well as publishing research on these subjects. Osborn currently works on public health policy with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The World Health Organization, The National Institutes of Health, and The Food and Drug Administration.
Go to Profile#10904
Marcel Borgers
#177100
Overall Influence
#10905
David Applebaum
#38128
Overall Influence
1952 - 2003 (51 years)
David Applebaum was an American-born Israeli physician and rabbi. He was chief of the emergency room and trauma services of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center. Applebaum was murdered in a Palestinian suicide bombing at Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem on September 9, 2003.
Go to Profile#10906
Federico Zuolo
#174301
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Federico Zuolo is an Italian philosopher whose work concerns political philosophy and applied ethics. He is an associate professor in the Department of Classics, Philosophy and History at the University of Genoa.
Go to Profile#10907
David Rockefeller
#51590
Overall Influence
1915 - 2017 (102 years)
David Rockefeller was an American investment banker who served as chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. He was the oldest living member of the third generation of the Rockefeller family, and family patriarch from 2004 until his death in 2017. Rockefeller was the fifth son and youngest child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and a grandson of John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller.
Go to Profile#10908
Rainer Blasczyk
#45943
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Rainer Blasczyk is a German physician, university professor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He specializes in transfusion medicine with a focus on transplantation and immunogenetics. He is considered a pioneer in genetic engineering of allografts to increase histocompatibility and prevent organ rejection after organ transplantation.
Go to Profile#10909
Edvard Kovač
#129680
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Fr. Edvard Kovač is a Slovenian theologian, philosopher and author. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor and professor at the University of Ljubljana Theological Faculty and the Catholic University of Toulouse.
Go to Profile#10910
Charles Czeisler
#34392
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Charles Andrew Czeisler is a Hungarian-American physician and sleep and circadian researcher. He is a leading researcher and author in the fields of the effects of light on human physiology, circadian rhythms and sleep medicine.
Go to Profile#10911
Ted Kaptchuk
#64930
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ted Jack Kaptchuk is an American medical researcher who holds professorships in medicine and in global health and social medicine at Harvard Medical School. He researches the placebo effect within the field of placebo studies.
Go to Profile#10912
Paul D. Stein
#177164
Overall Influence
#10913
Max Liboiron
#46955
Overall Influence
Max Liboiron is a Canadian researcher and designer known for their contributions to the study of plastic pollution and citizen science. Career Liboiron directs the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research , an interdisciplinary plastic pollution laboratory based at the Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Liboiron was the Managing Editor of the online journal Discard Studies for nearly a decade, which publishes research on industrial waste and its social, political, cultural, and economic implications.
Go to Profile#10914
José E. Cavazos
#143011
Overall Influence
José Enrique Cavazos is a Mexican-American physician-scientist. He is a professor and assistant dean of the MD/PhD program at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Early life and education Jose Enrique Cavazos was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León. He completed a M.D., cum laude at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education. In 1993, he earned a Ph.D., cum laude in neuroscience under the guidance of Thomas Sutula at the University of Wisconsin–Madison . He completed an internship in internal medicine the same year at UW. In 1996, he completed a residency in neurology at Duke University.
Go to Profile#10915
David Gius
#100879
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
David R. Gius is an American physician-scientist the Zell Family Scholar Professor, Women's Cancer Research Program director, and Vice Chair of Translational Research at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology and Pharmacology. His research focuses into the mechanistic connection between aging, cellular and/or mitochondrial metabolism, and carcinogenesis focusing on the Sirtuin gene family.
Go to Profile#10916
Emil Kakkis
#56078
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Emil Kakkis is an American medical geneticist known for his work to develop treatments for ultra rare disorders. He is the Founder of the Everylife Foundation for Rare Disease and Founder, CEO and President of Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc.
Go to Profile#10917
Jarlath Udoudo Umoh
#99067
Overall Influence
Jarlath Udoudo Umoh is a professor of Veterinary medicine at Ahmadu Bello University. He is a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science, elected into the Academy’s Fellowship at its Annual General Meeting held in January 2015. He was 11th of Ahmadu Bello University from May 2009 to December 2009. He is a scientist who through his study on the dissemination of rabies virus in tissues, developed the use of skin biopsy for in vitro diagnosis of rabies in 1983.
Go to Profile#10918
Carl B. Camras
#113037
Overall Influence
1953 - 2009 (56 years)
Carl B. Camras was an American ophthalmologist known for his research on the treatment of glaucoma. He discovered a new class of drugs to treat glaucoma—prostaglandin analogues. Specifically, he developed latanoprost sold under the trade name Xalatan, which is the most widely used glaucoma medication.
Go to Profile#10919
Apollonius of Athens
#125623
Overall Influence
Apollonius of Athens—sometimes Apollonius of Naucratis—was a Greek sophist and rhetorician who lived in the time of the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, that is, the end of the 2nd century. Apollonius was a pupil of the sophists Adrianus and Chrestus. He distinguished himself by his forensic eloquence, and taught rhetoric at Athens at the same time with Heracleides. He was an opponent of Heracleides, and with the assistance of his associates he succeeded in expelling him from the chair of rhetoric in Athens. Apollonius was afterward appointed by the emperor to the chair of rhetoric, with a salary of one talent.
Go to Profile#10920
Ronnie Lichtman
#51861
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ronnie Sue Lichtman, is a midwife, educator, writer and advocate for women's health. She has published widely for both lay and professional audiences. The Chair of the Midwifery Education Program at The State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in New York City, she earned a Ph.D. in sociomedical sciences from Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and her MS in Maternity Nursing with a specialization in midwifery from Columbia University School of Nursing. She previously directed the midwifery programs at Columbia University and Stony Brook University.
Go to Profile#10921
Ray Lightwood
#54371
Overall Influence
1922 - 2001 (79 years)
Raymond Lightwood was a British medical engineer who developed the first variable rate heart pacemaker, together with Leon Abrams at the University of Birmingham. Ray Lightwood was born in Coventry. He was educated at Birchfield Road School in Birmingham. During World War Two Lightwood received training at the Radar and Wireless training school at RAF Yatesbury and after initially serving in India as a ground and service engineer, he became a travelling engineer with South East Asia Command. He was also seconded to Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough to study captured radar equipment....
Go to Profile#10922
Jan Erkert
#118203
Overall Influence
Jan Erkert is a choreographer, teacher, author and Head of the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dance company As Artistic Director of Jan Erkert & Dancers from 1979 to 2000, she created over 70 modern dances. Ms. Erkert's work has been seen throughout the United States as well as in Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Uruguay and Israel. Ms. Erkert and the company have been honored with numerous awards including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council, and Ruth Page Awards for choreography and performance. She has received two Fulbright Scholar Awards and is currently serving on the Fulbright panel.
Go to Profile#10923
Sarah Lewis
#82756
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is an associate professor of History of Art and Architecture and African and African-American studies at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the intersection of African American and Black Atlantic visual representation, racial justice, and representational democracy in the United States from the nineteenth century through the present.
Go to Profile#10924
Marie Jalowicz-Simon
#117921
Overall Influence
1922 - 1998 (76 years)
Marie Jalowicz was a German philologist and historian of philosophy. She became known to larger audiences for her autobiographical account of the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, which was published posthumously.
Go to Profile#10925
Pamela Shoemaker
#43764
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Pamela J. Shoemaker is a professor of communication and gatekeeping theorist. From 1994 until her retirement in 2015, Shoemaker was the John Ben Snow Professor, an endowed research chair, in the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She was previously the director of the School of Journalism at Ohio State University and earlier was on the faculty of the Department of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#10926
Sonia Gandhi
#125536
Overall Influence
Sonia Gandhi is a British physician and neuroscientist who leads the Francis Crick Institute neurodegeneration laboratory. She holds a joint position at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that give rise to Parkinson's disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi was involved with the epidemiological investigations and testing efforts at the Francis Crick Institute.
Go to Profile#10927
Anthony Powell
#61178
Overall Influence
1935 - 2021 (86 years)
Anthony Powell was an English costume designer for film and stage. He won three Academy Awards, for Travels with My Aunt , Death on the Nile and Tess . Biography Powell was born in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in June 1935, and is a cousin of fellow costume designer Sandy Powell. Raised in Yorkshire and Dublin, Powell began his professional career as a teenager touring with his handmade marionettes. While serving as a wireless operator in the military, he mistakenly led the British Army of the Occupation in Germany into the Russian zone. After graduating from the Central School of Art and Design in Lo...
Go to Profile#10928
Joseph Jankovic
#177285
Overall Influence
#10929
Elizabeth Klerman
#177035
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Klerman is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School whose research focuses on applying circadian and sleep research principles to human physiology and pathophysiology. She also uses mathematical analysis and modeling to study human circadian, sleep, and objective neurobehavioral performance and subjective mood and alertness rhythms.
Go to Profile#10930
John O. Stubbs
#58290
Overall Influence
John O. Stubbs is a Canadian academic. He was president of Trent University and Simon Fraser University. Stubbs began his career as a historian and political scientist, specializing in the history of 20th century British politics and media. He distinguished himself as a teacher and administrator at the University of Waterloo, serving in various positions including associate dean of arts. Stubbs was appointed president of Trent University in 1987, a post that he held until 1993, when he was appointed for a five-year term as president of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. His term wa...
Go to Profile#10931
Kendall Shaw
#79226
Overall Influence
1924 - 2019 (95 years)
George Kendall Shaw was an American painter who was based in New Orleans, with a career spanning a number of art styles—ranging from abstract expressionism to pop art to minimalism to pattern and design to color field—with heightened emotion, pattern, shape, and vivid color predominant. Shaw's work includes a series of 30 paintings based on the Torah of the Old Testament, as well as recent work with pure colors that he terms “Cajun Minimalism.”
Go to Profile#10932
Ty Burr
#53358
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Ty Burr is an American film critic, columnist, and author who currently writes a film and popular culture newsletter "Ty Burr's Watchlist" on Substack. Burr previously served as film critic at The Boston Globe from 2002 until 2021.
Go to Profile#10933
David Henderson
#160389
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
David Henderson is an American philosopher and Robert R. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is known for his works on epistemology and the philosophy of the social sciences.
Go to Profile#10934
Robert M. Douglas
#104117
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Robert Matheson Douglas AO . He studied medicine at the University of Adelaide, graduating in 1959. In 1968 he took up a position as Specialist Physician and Deputy Medical Superintendent of the Port Moresby hospital in Papua New Guinea.
Go to Profile#10935
Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi
#165832
Overall Influence
Moses ben Joseph ben Merwan ha-Levi flourished about the mid-12th century and was a prominent Provençal rabbi, Philosopher, and Talmudist. Biography He was a nephew and pupil of Isaac ben Merwan ha-Levi. His colleagues addressed him as "Great scholar, Nasi Rabbi Moses," and his ritual decisions and Talmudic comments are often quoted.
Go to Profile#10936
Julie Story Byerley
#48250
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Julie Story Byerley is an American physician who is known as a leader in the fields of medical education and pediatrics. Byerley has served as a clinical professor and Vice Dean for Education for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. She currently serves as President and Dean of Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine as well as Executive Vice President and Chief Academic Officer for Geisinger Health System.
Go to Profile#10937
Glòria Muñoz
#78843
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Glòria Muñoz is a Spanish painter, and a professor of painting at the University of Barcelona. Life and work Glòria Muñoz Pfister was born on 12 August 1949 in Barcelona, Spain. Her family was artistically inclined. She studied in Barcelona at l'Escola Superior de Belles Arts Sant Jordi, completing her art coursework in 1972. In the same year, she married Josep, whose father, painter and professor Josep Puigdengolas Barella, helped her meet important members of Barcelona's exclusive art community. This opportunity, combined with her desire to explore new methods of artistic expression, influe...
Go to Profile#10938
Nurida Kurbanova
#177356
Overall Influence
Nurida Zulfi kizi Kurbanova is an Azerbaijani philosopher, known for her research in the sphere of alternative medicine and parapsychology. She was born in Shusha city. When Nurida was ten years old, she was hit by lightning and spent over a month in a coma. Nurida Kurbanova has a Ph.D. in philosophy and a candidate of Energy and Information Sciences. For her scientific work, Kurbanova was awarded several high international awards. She is the founder of the International Fund For Contribution for Peace and Culture.
Go to Profile#10939
Manuel Gervink
#119371
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Manuel Gervink is a German musicologist and scholar who has worked at the Universities of Cologne and Dresden. Life Born in Münster, Gervink graduated from Gymnasium in 1976. From 1976 to 1984 he studied musicology, German language and literature and philosophy at the University of Münster, where he received his doctorate in 1984. From 1984 he worked for ten years as a research assistant at the Musicological Institute of the University of Cologne. From 1995 to 1999, he was professor for musicology at the Musikhochschule Köln. In 2000 he was appointed professor at the University of Cologne.
Go to Profile#10940
Boris Meissner
#38903
Overall Influence
1915 - 2003 (88 years)
Boris Meissner was a German lawyer and social scientist, specializing in Soviet studies, international law and Eastern European history and politics. Life Meissner was the son of Artur Meissner, a judge of Baltic German extraction, and spent his childhood in Pärnu, Estonia. He attended Tartu University, where he received a first degree in economics in 1935. He then studied law in Tartu until he had to leave Estonia during the repatriation of Baltic Germans in 1939.
Go to Profile#10941
Kim Cobb
#53175
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Kim M. Cobb is an American climate scientist. She is Professor of Environment and Society and Professor of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University, where she directs the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society. Cobb was previously a professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is particularly interested in oceanography, geochemistry and paleoclimate modeling.
Go to Profile#10942
Debbie Shawcross
#111605
Overall Influence
Debbie Lindsay Shawcross is a British physician and clinician who is a professor at King's College London. Her research looks to better understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin chronic liver disease, with a focus on the gut-liver-brain axis.
Go to Profile#10943
Ioan Biris
#173611
Overall Influence
Ioan Biris is a university professor at the West University of Timișoara,Department of Philosophy and Communication Sciences, Romania. He studied philosophy at the Babes-Bolyai University from Cluj-Napoca. Secondary studies in sociology. Ph.D. in philosophy and Ph.D. in sociology . He is known for his research in the areas of philosophy of science, analytic philosophy, ontology and applied logic.
Go to Profile#10944
Richard M. Dougherty
#57167
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Richard M. Dougherty is an American librarian and educator who was the director of libraries at both the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan. He served as the president of the American Library Association from 1990 to 1991, focusing on bringing attention to information access issues and supporting children's literacy.
Go to Profile#10945
Joseph Osmundson
#98787
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Joseph S. Osmundson is an American biophysicist and writer. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Biology at New York University. Osmundson is the author of various books exploring bodies, queerness, race, and geography.
Go to Profile#10946
Mark L. Kahn
#142581
Overall Influence
Mark L. Kahn is a cardiologist currently serving as the Edward S. Cooper, M.D./Norman Roosevelt and Elizabeth Meriwether McLure Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, Kahn additionally serves as Director of Center for Vascular Biology and Director of Molecular Cardiology.
Go to Profile#10947
Paul Finger
#58538
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Paul T. Finger, MD, FACS, is an ophthalmologist in New York, New York, specializing in ocular oncology . Finger is a Clinical Professor of Ophthalmology at the New York University School of Medicine in New York City, New York. He is also the director of The New York Eye Cancer Center and Ocular Tumor Services at The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mt. Sinai. He consults for Northwell Health Complex of affiliated Hospitals including Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital and NYU School of Medicine. He is Chair of the Ophthalmic Oncology Task Force for the American Joint Committee on Cancer , wrote the eye cancer staging systems section for the Union International for Cancer Control .
Go to Profile#10948
Janet Jakobsen
#171512
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Janet R. Jakobsen is a scholar of gender and sexuality. She is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and Director of Barnard's Center for Research on Women. She has also been Barnard's Dean for Faculty Diversity and Development.
Go to Profile#10949
Steven M. Zeitels
#19374
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Steven Marc Zeitels is the Eugene B. Casey Professor of Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Director of Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation . He specializes in diseases and disorders of the throat, voice, airway, and larynx. His contributions to voice and laryngeal surgery are highly recognized in the USA and throughout the world. In 2004, the first endowed Chair in Laryngeal Surgery at Harvard Medical School was created for him while he re-established a Harvard Laryngeal Surgery service at the MGH, which had not been present since the 1920s.
Go to Profile#10950
William Padula
#69980
Overall Influence
William Padula is a professor of pharmaceutical and health economics at the University of Southern California. He is a fellow in the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. He is a co-founder and principal for Stage Analytics. From 2021 to 2022, he was the President and chief executive officer of the National Pressure Injury Advisory Panel.
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