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,
#11101
Bruno Lina
#145750
Overall Influence
#11102
Sam S. Chang
#145752
Overall Influence
#11103
M. Sharif Monga
#145760
Overall Influence
#11104
Arri Coomarasamy
#145765
Overall Influence
#11105
Denis Querleu
#145778
Overall Influence
#11106
Sen Pathak
#145779
Overall Influence
#11107
Sharon Ann Hunt
#115543
Overall Influence
Sharon Ann Hunt is a cardiology professor and Director of the Post Heart Transplant Programme in Palo Alto, California and is affiliated with Stanford University Medical Center, professionally known for her work in the care of patients after heart transplantation.
Go to Profile#11108
Gualtiero Palareti
#11109
Michael Gerard Pratt
#145809
Overall Influence
#11110
Jean‐dominique Vassalli
#145818
Overall Influence
#11111
Erhard Scheibe
#115074
Overall Influence
1927 - 2010 (83 years)
Erhard Scheibe was a German philosopher of science. His works discuss the philosophy of physics and the interpretations of quantum mechanics. He was professor at the University of Heidelberg. Bibliography The logical analysis of quantum mechanics, Pergamon, New York, 1973. The reduction of physical theories, vol 1. Springer Nature, Cham, Switzerland 2022.
Go to Profile#11112
James Oleske
#61108
Overall Influence
James M. Oleske is an American pediatrician and HIV/AIDs researcher who is the emeritus François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Pediatrics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. He is best known for his pioneering work in identifying HIV/AIDS as a pediatric disease, and treating and researching it beginning in the 1980s. He published one of the first articles identifying HIV/AIDS in children in JAMA in 1983 and was a co-author of one of the articles by Robert Gallo and others identifying the virus in Science in 1984.
Go to Profile#11113
Christoph Broelsch
#28363
Overall Influence
1944 - 2019 (75 years)
Christoph Broelsch was a German surgeon and former high school teacher. Broelsch pioneered the liver transplant surgery, when he performed the first successful liver transplant on a child in 1989. Life Broelsch grew up with his five siblings in Bremen. His father, Werner Broelsch was a state youth pastor. By the end of the 1950s, the family moved to Berlin. After graduating from high school in 1963, Broelsch went on to study medicine in Cologne, Erlangen, and Düsseldorf. Afterwards he started working under Prof. Dr. Rudolf Pichlmayr at the Hannover Medical School, where he worked for 10 years before moving to Chicago.
Go to Profile#11114
Gordon Finlayson
#145851
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
James Gordon Finlayson is a British philosopher. He is reader in philosophy and director of the Centre for Social and Political Thought at the University of Sussex. Finlayson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a former chair of the Society for European Philosophy .
Go to Profile#11115
Robert N. Colwell
#145855
Overall Influence
#11116
Nicolae Gh. Lupu
1884 - 1966 (82 years)
Nicolae Gh. Lupu was a Romanian physician. In 1948, he was elected a titular member of the Romanian Academy. After completing his studies at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Bucharest, Lupu worked from 1907 to 1913 in the experimental medicine lab of Dr. Ioan Cantacuzino. In 1931 he is appointed professor at the section of anatomical pathology of the Faculty of Medicine, and in 1936 he is named professor at Filantropia Hospital.
Go to Profile#11117
Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia
#46201
Overall Influence
1921 - 1996 (75 years)
Roberto Caldeyro-Barcia was a Uruguayan doctor who pioneered the field of maternal-fetal medicine, or perinatology. His research with Dr. Hermógenes Alvarez created Montevideo units, a measure of uterine performance during labor. He was a founding editor of the Journal of Perinatal Medicine, a widely published author, a lecturer, and the only Uruguayan to be nominated for a Nobel Prize.
Go to Profile#11118
Arnold J. Friedhoff
#145885
Overall Influence
#11119
Sandra J. Horning
#145908
Overall Influence
#11120
John Abercrombie
1780 - 1844 (64 years)
John Abercrombie was a Scottish physician, author, philosopher and philanthropist. His Edinburgh practice became one of the most successful medical practices in Scotland. The Chambers Biographical Dictionary says of him that after James Gregory's death, he was "recognized as the first consulting physician in Scotland". As surgeon to The Royal Public Dispensary and the New Town Dispensary he provided free medical care for the poor of the town and taught medical students and apprentices. He published extensively on medical topics and latterly on metaphysics morality and religion. A devout Christian, he gave financial support to missionary work.
Go to Profile#11121
Sabaratnam Arulkumaran
#19947
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran is a Sri Lankan Tamil physician, former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, and president-elect of the British Medical Association.
Go to Profile#11122
Frank Van Breusegem
#145922
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#11123
Susan Ann Dimock
#117366
Overall Influence
Susan Ann Dimock is a Canadian philosopher and professor of philosophy at York University. She is known for her expertise on meta-ethics and applied ethics. Dimock is the editor-in-chief of Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review.
Go to Profile#11124
Jack L. Cronenwett
#145925
Overall Influence
#11125
Diego de Zúñiga
1536 - 1597 (61 years)
To be distinguished from Diego López de Zúñiga Diego de Zúñiga of Salamanca was an Augustinian Hermit and academic. He is known for publishing an early acceptance of the Copernican theory. Life A student of Luis de León, he taught at the University of Osuna and the University of Salamanca.
Go to Profile#11126
Douglas E. Berg
#145926
Overall Influence
#11127
Anton F. H. Stalenhoef
#145942
Overall Influence
#11128
Jacques Epelbaum
#11129
Amit Etkin
#145974
Overall Influence
#11130
Sultan Walad
1226 - 1312 (86 years)
Baha al-Din Muhammad-i Walad , more popularly known as Sultan Walad was the eldest son of Jalal Al-Din Rumi, Persian poet, Sufi, Hanafi Maturidi Islamic scholar and one of the founders of the Mawlawiya order.
Go to Profile#11131
Wolfgang Grodd
#114150
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Prof. Dr. med. Wolfgang Grodd is a German neuroradiologist and professor emeritus of the University hospital at the University of Tübingen. He is known for his scientific works on the development and application of structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging in metabolic diseases, sensorimotor representation, language production, and cognitive processing, cerebellum, thalamus, and basal ganglia. Currently, Wolfgang Grodd is a research scientist at the Department of the High-Field MR at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.
Go to Profile#11132
Petr Widimský
#146001
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#11133
Herbert Eimert
1897 - 1972 (75 years)
Herbert Eimert was a German music theorist, musicologist, journalist, music critic, editor, radio producer, and composer. Education Herbert Eimert was born in Bad Kreuznach. He studied music theory and composition from 1919 to 1924 at the Cologne Musikhochschule with Hermann Abendroth, , and August von Othegraven. In 1924, while still a student, he published an Atonale Musiklehre which, together with a twelve-tone string quartet composed for the end-of-term examination concert, led to an altercation with Bölsche, who withdrew the quartet from the program and expelled Eimert from his composit...
Go to Profile#11134
Aristides Patrinos
#42427
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Dr. Aristides Patrinos is an expert in synthetic biology, and a former leader of the Human Genome Project. Biography Patrinos was born in 1947 to parents of Greek ancestry in Alexandria, Egypt. After attending and graduating Greek and British schools, in 1965 he left Cairo and moved to Athens, Greece. He studied engineering, both electrical and mechanical, at the National Technical University of Athens. Upon receiving his degree in 1970, he moved to the U.S. and studied in Chicago, Illinois at Northwestern University. In 1975, after receiving his Ph.D, he moved to New York State and taught at the University of Rochester.
Go to Profile#11135
Roger G. Eston
#146025
Overall Influence
#11136
Raymond S. Koff
#146037
Overall Influence
#11137
Lin Nu
#34845
Overall Influence
Lin Nu was a Chinese merchant and scholar in the early Ming dynasty. He is the ancestor of the late Ming philosopher Li Zhi. His family was Han Chinese in origin and the branch that remained true to Han culture cut off the Lin Nu's branch for marrying a foreigner and converting to another religion.
Go to Profile#11138
John Brown
1715 - 1766 (51 years)
John Brown was an English Anglican priest, playwright and essayist. Life He was born in 1715 at Rothbury, Northumberland, the son of the Rev. John Brown , vicar of Wigton from that year, and his wife Eleanor Troutbeck, née Potts. He matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1732, graduating B.A. 1736, and M.A. 1739; he became D.D. in 1755.
Go to Profile#11139
Nicolas Bergasse
1750 - 1832 (82 years)
Nicolas Bergasse was a French lawyer, philosopher, and politician, whose activity was mainly carried out during the beginning of the French Revolution during its early Monarchiens phase. Life After studying philosophy and law, Bergasse became a lawyer at the Parlement of Paris. He was very interested in the Enlightenment and in particular meeting Sieyès and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1781, he became a disciple of Franz Mesmer, and published in 1784 a systemization of Mesmerism titled Considérations sur le magnetisme animal. In the Kornmann case, his quarrel with Beaumarchais made him a famous ...
Go to Profile#11140
Leo Schamroth
#146068
Overall Influence
#11141
Roger M. Kurlan
#146079
Overall Influence
#11142
Veronique Zanetti
#103009
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Veronique Zanetti is a German professor of Political Philosophy at Faculty of History, Philosophy, and Theology, Bielefeld University. Academia The focus of Zanetti's work is in the fields of ethics, philosophy of international relations, and philosophy of law. Issues such as global justice, national and international security, development of normative regulations, new forms of war, and internationally organized crime are at the center of her current research.
Go to Profile#11143
John J. Stuhr
#115053
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
John Jeremy Stuhr is an American philosopher who teaches at Emory University. He has written extensively about a wide assortment of philosophical figures and movements as well as a broad array of cultural problems and issues. His work is known for its lively, engaged, and direct style. He draws critically on thinkers from often separated philosophical traditions . Revealing his impatience with narrow and academic conceptions of philosophy, his writings make deep and consistent use of poetry, painting, photography, and the lyrics of contemporary music, and they exhibit a broad interdiscipl...
Go to Profile#11144
Anthony F. DePalma
#17745
Overall Influence
1904 - 2005 (101 years)
Anthony F. DePalma was an orthopedic surgeon and professor at Thomas Jefferson University, as well as the founder of the orthopedic department at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. DePalma was a commander in the US Navy during World War II, an author of numerous medical manuscripts and textbooks, and the creator and first editor-in-chief of the medical journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research.
Go to Profile#11145
Naser Kamalian
#27581
Overall Influence
1921 - Present (105 years)
Nasser Kamalian is an Iranian medical scholar who can be considered the father of modern neuropathology in Iran. He has published around 60 major articles in prominent Iranian and international medical journals, and has for 40 years been associated with Tehran University.
Go to Profile#11146
Didier Picard
#146103
Overall Influence
#11147
Mark Catesby
1683 - 1749 (66 years)
Mark Catesby was an English naturalist who studied the flora and fauna of the New World. Between 1729 and 1747, Catesby published his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, the first published account of the flora and fauna of North America. It included 220 plates of birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects, mammals and plants.
Go to Profile#11148
Alberto Albanese
#146128
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#11149
E. Jonathan Lowe
#146145
Overall Influence
#11150
Hironobu Ihn
#146166
Overall Influence
