Search People Result | Academic Influence

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.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#11201

Richard Hocking

#120422

Overall Influence

1906 - 2001 (95 years)

Richard Boyle O'Reilly Hocking was an American philosopher and a professor of philosophy at Emory University. He was the son of William Ernest Hocking and grandson of John Boyle O'Reilly. He was a president of the Metaphysical Society of America .

#11202

Harriet Robinson

Harriet Latham Robinson is an American vaccine researcher who is founder and Chief Scientific Officer Emeritus at GeoVax. She is the former Chief of Microbiology and Immunology at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Microbiology at Emory University. Her research considered HIV vaccine development. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#11203

Tadeusz P. Chorzelski

#146607

Overall Influence

#11204

Hans A. Messner

#146608

Overall Influence

#11205

Thomas Lindsay

#40432

Overall Influence

Thomas Kevin Lindsay is an American academic who briefly served as President of Shimer College. He was the Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities until December 2008. He was also the Director of the NEH We the People initiative, which funds programs, research and other activities that explore significant events and themes in US history and culture, and advance knowledge of the principles that define America. He serves as the Director of the Center for Higher Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank.

#11206

Soga Ryōjin

1875 - 1971 (96 years)

Soga Ryōjin was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and priest of the Ōtani-ha of Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism. He served as the 17th president of Ōtani University from 1961 to 1967. Biography Soga was born in the city of Niigata, Niigata Prefecture. He entered Shinshu University, later known as Ōtani University, and graduated in 1901. After graduation from Shinshū, Soga returned to Niigata and became the adopted son-in-law of the priest of Jō'on-ji, a temple in Mitsuke, Niigata.

#11207

Trevor J. Powles

#146624

Overall Influence

#11208

Duanqing Pei

#109903

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Dr. Duanqing Pei is a research scientist who specializes in regenerative medicine. Originally from a small agricultural college in southern China, Dr. Pei went on to complete his graduate work at and obtained his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991. He then became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan before becoming a faculty member at the University of Minnesota School of Medicine in 1996. He joined the medical faculty at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China in 2002 and became the head of the pharmacology department soon after. In 2004, Dr. Pei moved to the newly f...

#11209

Nino Stocchetti

#146631

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

#11210

Heinz Wolff

#3538

Overall Influence

1928 - 2017 (89 years)

Heinz Siegfried Wolff, was a German-born British scientist as well as a television and radio presenter. He was best known for the BBC television series The Great Egg Race. Early life Wolff was born in Berlin. His father, Oswald Wolff, was a volunteer in World War I and a publisher specializing in German history. His mother, Margot Wolff died "of an acute heart infection" in 1938. Father and son fled to the Netherlands in August 1939, and then arrived as Jewish refugees in Britain on 3 September 1939, on the same day that World War II was declared by Britain and France; Wolff was 11. He was ...

#11211

Anne E. Tattersfield

#146678

Overall Influence

#11212

Gordon W. Duff

#146685

Overall Influence

#11213

Michael F. Seldin

#146690

Overall Influence

#11214

Sam Ahmedzai

#128968

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Professor Emeritus Sam H Ahmedzai FRCP, FRCPGlas, FFPMRCoA is a British supportive and palliative care specialist and an Honorary Consultant Physician in Palliative Medicine. Ahmedzai studied medicine at the University of St Andrews and at the University of Manchester.

#11215

Peter J. Fitzgerald

#146710

Overall Influence

#11216

Olympiodorus the Elder

500 - 600 (100 years)

Olympiodorus the Elder was a 5th-century AD Neoplatonist who taught in Alexandria, then part of the Byzantine Empire. He is most famous for being the teacher of the important Neoplatonist Proclus , whom Olympiodorus wanted his own daughter to marry. He is not to be confused with Olympiodorus the Deacon, an Alexandrian writer of Bible commentaries.

#11217

Robert Herman Wagner

#146736

Overall Influence

#11218

Howard M. Yonas

#146742

Overall Influence

#11219

Jan G. M. Klijn

#146748

Overall Influence

#11220

E. William Hancock

#146785

Overall Influence

#11221

Lorenzo Bonomo

#146799

Overall Influence

#11222

Donald J. Woodward

#146833

Overall Influence

#11223

Henri Berr

1863 - 1954 (91 years)

Henri Berr was a French philosopher and lycée teacher, known as the founder of the journal Revue de synthèse. He is credited with moving the centre of gravity of the study of history in France, in accordance with his ideas on "synthesis". Despite the lack of recognition of his concepts by the academic establishment of the time, and its adverse effect on his own career, he had a large impact on the younger generation of French historians. He is considered to have anticipated significant aspects of the later Annales School.

#11224

Ferris M. Hall

#146869

Overall Influence

#11225

Jo Fox

#70910

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Joanne Clare Fox , is a British historian specialising in the history of film and propaganda in twentieth-century Europe. Director of the Institute of Historical Research at the School of Advanced Study, University of London from 2018 to 2020, Fox was promoted as Dean of London University's School of Advanced Study in 2020.

#11226

Pieter Johannes Slootweg

#146873

Overall Influence

#11227

Édouard Séguin

1812 - 1880 (68 years)

Édouard Séguin was a French physician and educationist born in Clamecy, Nièvre. He is remembered for his work with children having cognitive impairments in France and the United States. Background and career in France He studied at the Collège d’Auxerre and the Lycée Saint-Louis in Paris, and from 1837 studied and worked under Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, who was an educator of deaf-mute individuals, that included the celebrated case of Victor of Aveyron, also known as "The Wild Child". It was Itard who persuaded Séguin to dedicate himself to study the causes, as well as the training of individuals with intellectual disabilities.

#11228

Rohan Pethiyagoda

Rohan Pethiyagoda

#28698

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Rohan David Pethiyagoda is a Sri Lankan biodiversity scientist, amphibian and freshwater-fish taxonomist, author, conservationist and public-policy advocate. Early life and career Born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 19 November 1955 Pethiyagoda had his secondary education at S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia. He was awarded a BSc Hons. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from King's College, University of London in 1977, and a M.Phil. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Sussex in 1980.

#11229

Saul Krugman

#74111

Overall Influence

1911 - 1995 (84 years)

Saul Krugman was a physician, and later pediatrician, whose studies of hepatitis, rubella, and measles resulted in the development of vaccinations for these debilitating diseases. The results of these studies were acquired through unethical medical practices involving experimentation on disabled children, which came to light during the Willowbrook State School scandal of 1987.

#11230

John E. Houston

#146895

Overall Influence

#11231

Alejandro Deustua

Alejandro Deustua

1849 - 1945 (96 years)

Alejandro Octavio Deustua Escarza was a Peruvian philosopher, educator and statesman. He was the Prime Minister of Peru from 9 August 1902 until 4 November 1902. Biography Deustua was born in Huancayo, Peru. His parents were Remigio Deustua and Toribia Escarza. Deustua studied in Guadalupe National School and graduated from Universidad de San Marcos in Lima, Peru. He died on 6 August 1945 at the age of 96 in Lima, Peru.

#11232

Jeanne Clark

#68368

Overall Influence

Jeanne Marie Clark is an American internist and physician-scientist specializing in the epidemiology and treatment of obesity, type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. She is a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

#11233

Dirk Görlich

#121582

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Dirk Görlich, born October 18, 1966, in Halle of Germany, is a German biochemist. He is now director at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen. His research focuses on cellular logistics, the transport mechanism of proteins in cells between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Görlich became a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2005. He is also a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization.

#11234

Siegfried Hoyer

#146911

Overall Influence

#11235

Leonard J. Waks

#64798

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Leonard J. Waks is an American philosopher and scholar working in philosophy with specializations in social and political philosophy; ethics, American philosophy, and philosophy of education. Waks also serves as an author and editor. He has held faculty appointments at Purdue University , Stanford University

#11236

Helga de la Motte-Haber

#76404

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Helga de la Motte-Haber is a German musicologist focusing on the study of systematic musicology. Life Haber was born in Ludwigshafen am Rhein as the first child of Paula Haber, née Kilian, and the physicist and mathematician Gustav Haber. Two brothers followed in 1939 and 1941. She survived the Second World War and the post-war period, according to her own statement, "in the back of the Palatinate" - a few kilometres from the French border and the Siegfried Line. She attended school in Kaiserslautern and in Kusel, where she passed her Abitur in 1957. Her father also taught at the grammar sch...

#11237

Achim Hoerauf

#146930

Overall Influence

#11238

Hiroshi Abe

#146935

Overall Influence

#11239

Robert Gooding-Williams

#47001

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Robert Gooding-Williams is M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is the founding director of Columbia's Center for Race, Philosophy, and Social Justice. He specializes in philosophy of race and Continental philosophy, especially Nietzsche.

#11240

Peter Rudge

#146942

Overall Influence

#11241

Donald West Harward

#38462

Overall Influence

Donald West "Don" Harward is an American philosopher who served as the sixth President of Bates College from March 1989 to November 2002, where he was succeeded by the first female president, Elaine Tuttle Hansen.

#11242

Gastone G. Celesia

#147000

Overall Influence

#11243

R. D. G. Milner

#147037

Overall Influence

#11244

Jacqueline Whang-Peng

#84160

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Jacqueline Jia-Kang Whang-Peng is a Taiwanese-American physician-scientist specialized in cytogenetics of cancer, as well as medical genetics, genetic oncology, and gene mapping. She was a researcher at the National Cancer Institute from 1960 to 1993.

#11245

Frank w. Sharbrough

#147057

Overall Influence

#11246

Josephus Flavius Cook

Josephus Flavius Cook

1838 - 1901 (63 years)

Josephus Flavius Cook , commonly known as Joseph Cook, was an American philosophical lecturer, clergyman, and writer. Life and career Born in Ticonderoga, New York, he attended Phillips Academy, and then entered Yale College, later transferring to Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1865. He married Georgiana Hemingway on June 30, 1877.

#11247

Ashok Gangadean

#117194

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Ashok Gangadean is a Trinidadian philosopher, author and spiritual activist. He is the Margaret Gest Professor of Global Philosophy at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania and the Founder and Director of the Global Dialogue Institute.

#11248

Zvi Fuks

#147077

Overall Influence

#11249

Robin Wood

#56203

Overall Influence

1931 - 2009 (78 years)

Robert Paul "Robin" Wood was an English film critic and educator who lived in Canada for much of his life. He wrote books on the works of Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Arthur Penn. Wood was a longtime member—and co-founder, along with other colleagues at Toronto's York University—of the editorial collective which publishes CineACTION!, a film theory magazine. Wood was also York professor emeritus of film.

#11250

Franciscus Bonae Spei

1617 - 1677 (60 years)

Franciscus Bonae Spei was a Catholic scholastic theologian and philosopher. He was born in Lille under the name of François Crespin, and entered the Carmelite order in 1635 under the religious name of Franciscus Bonae Spei . During many years, he taught philosophy and theology in Leuven. He also held numerous charges within his order: he was Provincial, traveled three times to Rome and twice to Madrid, and died as prior of the Carmelite convent in Brussels. He wrote two vast philosophy and theology courses, of high quality. As all reformed Carmelites, he follows broadly the doctrine of Thomism, but discussed numerous contemporary issues.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions