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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#11051
Sandrine Bergès
#123289
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Sandrine Berges is a French philosopher and novelist, currently Professor of Philosophy at Bilkent University. She is known for her works on feminist philosophy, ethics and political philosophy. Books Bergés has written a number of non-fiction books on philosophy and political theory, including:Plato on Virtue and the Law, Continuum, 2012The Routledge Guidebook to Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Routledge, 2013A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015The Social and Political Philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft, edited by Sandrine Bergès and Alan Co...
Go to Profile#11052
Aous Shakra
#100349
Overall Influence
1908 - 1992 (84 years)
Aous Shakra was an existential philosopher and politician. He was the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N. in 1991; a position he held for 6 months. Education He was raised a Christian, and attended Catholic School in Safed during the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1935, he immigrated to Canada with his family where he graduated with a Bachelors in Philosophy. He received his PhD in Law and International Relations from Harvard University and taught there until his return to the Middle East in 1965 after an absence of 30 years.
Go to Profile#11053
Herman Mielants
#145365
Overall Influence
#11054
Martin L. Lipkin
#145372
Overall Influence
#11055
Robert A. Mueller
#145385
Overall Influence
#11056
Michael R. Matthews
#108921
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Michael Robert Matthews is an honorary associate professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales. He has researched and published in philosophy of education, history and philosophy of science , and science education. For nearly fifty years he has taught, researched and published on the utilisation of HPS in illuminating theoretical, curricular and pedagogical problems in science education.
Go to Profile#11057
Peter R. Kowey
#104644
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Peter R. Kowey is an American cardiologist and medical researcher. He is Professor of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and holds the William Wikoff Smith Chair in Cardiovascular Research at Lankenau Institute for Medical Research.
Go to Profile#11058
M. C. St. Paul
#145416
Overall Influence
#11059
Å. C. Hjalmarson
#145426
Overall Influence
#11060
Sam Hawgood
#19968
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Samuel Hawgood is a pediatrician, researcher, Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Distinguished professor, and the tenth chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco. He obtained his medical degree from the University of Queensland and completed residency at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Brisbane. Previously, he served as the Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#11061
David Gellinger Kline
#145456
Overall Influence
#11062
Roy Chapman Andrews
1884 - 1960 (76 years)
Roy Chapman Andrews was an American explorer, adventurer and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions through the politically disturbed China of the early 20th century into the Gobi Desert and Mongolia. The expeditions made important discoveries and brought the first-known fossil dinosaur eggs to the museum. Chapman's popular writing about his adventures made him famous.
Go to Profile#11063
Lerner B. Hinshaw
#145464
Overall Influence
#11064
Kenji Ikeda
#145469
Overall Influence
#11065
M.‐j. Vidailhet
#145473
Overall Influence
#11066
Monson H. Hayes
#145489
Overall Influence
#11067
Margaret Shipp
#133396
Overall Influence
Margaret Ann Shipp is an American hematologic oncologist. She is the Douglas S. Miller Chair in Hodgkin Lymphoma at Harvard Medical School. Shipp is an elected Fellow of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#11068
Howard M. Fillit
#145510
Overall Influence
#11069
Robert Craigie Cross
#127774
Overall Influence
1911 - 2000 (89 years)
Robert Craigie Cross FRSE CBE was Regius Professor of Logic at Aberdeen University. He served as vice principal of the university 1974–1978. Life He was born in Glasgow on 24 April 1911, the son of Matthew Cross, a schoolmaster, and Margaret Dickson. He grew up in Dunbartonshire. He attended Glasgow University and graduated in 1932, winning the David Logan Medal for the most distinguished arts graduate. He was awarded the Foulis Scholarship and used this to attend Queen's College, Oxford where he studied "Mods and Greats" under Sir Oliver Franks, focusing on philosophy and ancient history. In 1938 he became a fellow at the college and began to tutor in philosophy.
Go to Profile#11070
Allen C. Alfrey
#145524
Overall Influence
#11071
Robert M. Filler
#145528
Overall Influence
#11072
Ulrich Keilholz
#145535
Overall Influence
#11073
Gerald Abraham
1904 - 1988 (84 years)
Gerald Ernest Heal Abraham, was an English-Jewish musicologist, editor and music critic. He was particularly respected as an authority on Russian music. Early career and author Abraham was born at Newport, Isle of Wight, and initially trained for a naval career in nearby Portsmouth until ill-health forced a change of direction. He was largely self-taught in piano, music theory and history, aside for some practical orchestration experience with military bands and a year's study in Cologne, where he learned German and listened to much music.
Go to Profile#11074
Max Stackhouse
#92910
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Max Lynn Stackhouse was the Rimmer and Ruth de Vries Professor of Reformed Theology and Public Life Emeritus at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and was the president of the Berkshire Institute for Theology and the Arts.
Go to Profile#11075
Simmy Bank
#145538
Overall Influence
#11076
Paul E. Alexander
#52705
Overall Influence
Paul Elias Alexander is a Canadian independent scientist, and a former Trump administration official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alexander was recruited from his part-time, unpaid position at McMaster University to serve as an aide to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo in March 2020. In that role, Alexander pressured federal scientists and public health agencies to suppress and edit their COVID-19 analyses to make them consistent with Trump's rhetoric.
Go to Profile#11077
Alan M. Krensky
#93375
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Alan Krensky is executive for development at Northwestern Medicine and vice dean for development and alumni relations at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. He was previously senior investigator in the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the National Institutes of Health and served as the first director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives and a deputy director of NIH. He was Associate Dean for Children’s Health and the Shelagh Galligan Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#11078
Richard L. Gamelli
#11079
R. R. Macdonald Senior
#145561
Overall Influence
#11080
Wilhelm Winternitz
1834 - 1917 (83 years)
Wilhelm Winternitz , Josefov Josefstadt , Bohemia – February 22, 1917, Vienna Biography Winternitz was educated at Vienna and at Prague , where he settled and became an assistant at the institute for the insane. In 1858 he entered the Austrian Navy, but resigned his position as surgeon in 1861 and established a practice in Vienna. There he became interested in hydropathy, and was soon regarded as one of the leading authorities. Admitted to the medical faculty of the University of Vienna as privat-docent for hydropathy in 1865, he was one of the founders of the General Vienna Dispensary, where by 1905 he had become departmental chief.
Go to Profile#11081
William R. Rayburn
#11082
Rivka Carmi
#20431
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Rivka Carmi is an Israeli pediatrician and geneticist. She served as President of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev from May 2006 until December 2018. Carmi is the first woman to be appointed president of an Israeli university.
Go to Profile#11083
Geoffrey L. Asherson
#145583
Overall Influence
#11084
Lance L. Simpson
#145584
Overall Influence
#11085
Constantine S. Mitsiades
#145597
Overall Influence
#11086
Stuart L. Fine
#145602
Overall Influence
#11087
Ian Rylance Booth
#11088
Johannes Wolf
1869 - 1947 (78 years)
Johannes Wolf was a German musicologist, archivist and teacher, known for his research on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly Ars Nova, and early music notation. Born in Berlin, Wolf studied music history under Philip Spitta and Heinrich Bellermann at the Friedrich Wilhelm University. He completed his doctorate at the Berlin University in 1902.
Go to Profile#11089
John Armleder
#25591
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John Armleder is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations, and collective art activities that were strongly influenced by John Cage. However, Armleder's position throughout his career has been to avoid associating his artistic practice with any type of manifesto.
Go to Profile#11090
Peter Brian Bach
#145650
Overall Influence
#11091
Sheldon G. Sheps
#145657
Overall Influence
#11092
Geoffrey Keating
1569 - 1644 (75 years)
Geoffrey Keating was an Irish historian. He was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, and is buried in Tubrid Graveyard in the parish of Ballylooby-Duhill. He became a Catholic priest and a poet. Biography It was generally believed until recently that Keating had been born in Burgess, County Tipperary; indeed, a monument to Keating was raised beside the bridge at Burgess, in 1990; but Diarmuid Ó Murchadha writes,
Go to Profile#11093
Rajendra R. Makkar
#145659
Overall Influence
#11094
Girish P. Joshi
#145684
Overall Influence
#11095
Melissa Simon
#46460
Overall Influence
Melissa Andrea Simon is an American clinical obstetrician/gynecologist and scientist whose research, teaching, clinical care and advocacy focus on health equity across the lifespan. Simon is founder and director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation in the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, and founder of the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative, a National Cancer Institute comprehensive cancer partnership led by the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Northeastern Illinois University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Go to Profile#11096
Oliver Soehnlein
#145702
Overall Influence
#11097
Cun‐yu Wang
#145716
Overall Influence
#11098
Henricus Reneri
1593 - 1639 (46 years)
Henricus Reneri or Renerius was a Dutch philosopher. Life Reneri was born at Huy in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège in 1593. He studied liberal arts at the University of Leuven and attended the Grand Séminaire of Liège. After his conversion to Calvinism in 1616 he went to the Dutch Republic. He studied theology at the Collège Wallon at Leiden, but he broke off his studies in 1621. The following ten years Reneri worked as a private tutor to the children of several Amsterdam merchant-regents, including Adriaan Pauw. In the meantime he studied medicine at Leiden University. In 1631 he found a position as professor of philosophy at the illustrious school of Deventer, the Illustre Gymnasium.
Go to Profile#11099
Simon May
#136964
Overall Influence
Simon Philip Walter May is visiting professor of philosophy at King's College, London, and at Birkbeck College, University of London. Selected publications How to Be a Refugee. Picador, 2021Love: A History. Yale University Press, 2011.Nietzsche's Ethics and his War on "Morality". Oxford University Press, 1999.Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality: A Critical Guide. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy. Oxford University Press, 2009. Thinking Aloud: A Collection of Aphorisms. Alma Books, 2009.
Go to Profile#11100
Scott L. Pratt
#107959
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Scott L. Pratt is a professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. His research and teaching is focused primarily upon American philosophy, especially in the areas of Native American philosophy, pragmatism, philosophy of race and gender, philosophy of education, and the history of logic. He has previously served in various administrative roles at the University of Oregon, including executive vice provost for academic affairs , dean of the graduate school , and associate dean for the humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences .
Go to Profile