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,
#11551
Nehmat Houssami
#149590
Overall Influence
#11552
Michael Barza
#149598
Overall Influence
#11553
Richard Quintiliani
#149600
Overall Influence
#11554
Mark B. Mcclellan
#149613
Overall Influence
#11555
Mark V. Sauer
#149617
Overall Influence
#11556
Melvyn T. Korobkin
#149635
Overall Influence
#11557
Marc R. De Leval
#149644
Overall Influence
#11558
Robert John Mentz
#149656
Overall Influence
#11559
Lorenz Heister
1683 - 1758 (75 years)
Lorenz Heister was a German anatomist, surgeon and botanist born in Frankfurt am Main. Biography From 1702 to 1706 Heister studied at the Universities of Giessen and Wetzlar, afterwards relocating to Amsterdam, where he studied anatomy under Frederik Ruysch . In the summer of 1707, he was an assistant physician in field hospitals at Brussels and Ghent during the War of the Spanish Succession. He then traveled to Leiden, where he studied anatomy under Bernhard Siegfried Albinus and Govert Bidloo , also attending Hermann Boerhaave’s lectures on chemistry and ocular diseases. In 1708 he earned...
Go to Profile#11560
John Harry Fuller
#149657
Overall Influence
#11561
Daniel Rothschild
#129854
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Daniel Henry Rothschild is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy of Language at University College London Department of Philosophy. He is known for his expertise on philosophy of language. Rothschild has held various fellowships from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is a Fifty-Pound fellow of All Souls College.
Go to Profile#11562
Fritz Köberle
1910 - 1983 (73 years)
Fritz Köberle was an Austrian-Brazilian physician, pathologist and scientist, discoverer of the neurogenic mechanism of the chronic phase of Chagas disease, a human parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, a protozoan.
Go to Profile#11563
Michael. W. Fried
#149670
Overall Influence
#11564
John Anthony Lust
#149690
Overall Influence
#11565
Burton I. Korelitz
#149694
Overall Influence
#11566
Rüdiger Schmidt-Grépály
#92756
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Rüdiger Schmidt-Grépály is a German cultural manager and Director of the Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche at the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. Research and academic career After leaving school in 1972, he studied philosophy, politics and literature in Kiel, Freiburg im Breisgau and Marburg until 1980. In 1980, he successfully completed a doctorate on the early work of Friedrich Nietzsche under the direction of Hans Heinz Holz, Gert Mattenklott and Katharina Kanthack. From 1983 to 1985, holding grants from the German Academic Exchange Service and the Italian foreign ministry, he worked in Florence with M...
Go to Profile#11567
Michael P. Flentje
#149697
Overall Influence
#11568
John Thomas Sharp
#149708
Overall Influence
#11569
Daniel Zhitomirsky
#80114
Overall Influence
1906 - 1992 (86 years)
Daniel Vladimirovich Zhitomirsky was a Russian musicologist and music critic who specialized in the music of German composer Robert Schumann and the aesthetics of German Romanticism. He also wrote extensively on Russian composers of the Soviet period, especially Dmitri Shostakovich.
Go to Profile#11570
Marc T. Goodman
#149728
Overall Influence
#11571
Jacob Clay
1882 - 1955 (73 years)
Jacob Clay was a prominent Dutch physicist who first suggested and provided evidence that cosmic rays are charged particles. Early life Clay was born "Jacob Claij" in Berkhout on 18 January 1882 as the son of Pieter Claij and Neeltje Molenaar. After attending the Erasmiaans Gymnasium, he studied physics at the University of Leiden under Heike Kamerlingh Onnes and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree in 1908 he married Tettje Clay-Jolles with whom he had a son.
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Richard W. Foltin
#11573
Nita Ahuja
#18609
Overall Influence
Nita Ahuja is a surgeon and the Chair of the Department of Surgery at Yale School of Medicine and Surgeon-in-Chief of Surgery at Yale New Haven Hospital. She is the first woman ever to serve as Chair of Surgery in Yale in its >200 year history. Before taking this position she was the first woman ever to be the Chief of Surgical Oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, USA. Ahuja researches in the field of epigenetics and is a passionate advocate of clinician scientist. She also served as the director of Sarcoma and peritoneal surface malignancy program. She is a surgeon-scientist and her...
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Fu-Tong Liu
#117496
Overall Influence
Fu-Tong Liu is a Taiwanese dermatologist. Liu studied chemistry at National Taiwan University and completed a doctorate in the same field at the University of Chicago in 1976. He started postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and ended postdoctoral work at Scripps Research. Liu remained at Scripps while earning an MD at the University of Miami School of Medicine. His medical residency took place at the University of California, San Diego. Liu left Scripps for the University of California, Davis faculty in 2001. At UCD, Liu was chair professor and later appointed distinguished professor in 2012.
Go to Profile#11575
Dr David H. P. Streeten
#149756
Overall Influence
#11576
Henri Schmitt
#149788
Overall Influence
#11577
David John Leaper
#149794
Overall Influence
#11578
Xiahou Yuan
200 - 219 (19 years)
Xiahou Yuan , courtesy name Miaocai, was a Chinese military general and politician serving under the warlord Cao Cao in the late Eastern Han dynasty of China. He is known for his exploits in western China in the 210s, during which he defeated Cao Cao's rivals Ma Chao and Han Sui in Liang Province and the surrounding areas, and forced several Di and Qiang tribal peoples into submission. He was killed in action at the Battle of Mount Dingjun while defending Hanzhong Commandery from attacks by a rival warlord Liu Bei. Xiahou Yuan's death was highly dramatised in the 14th-century historical nove...
Go to Profile#11579
Thomas W. Langfitt
#149801
Overall Influence
#11580
Jay Kesler
#61019
Overall Influence
Jay Kesler is the former president, Chancellor and current President Emeritus of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Kesler graduated in 1958 from Taylor University and is notable for his writings and radio work. Most recently, he served as the Preaching Pastor of Upland Community Church, in Upland, Indiana. Dr. Kesler was President of Youth for Christ from 1973–1985 and President of Taylor University from 1985-2000. Dr. Kesler is also the author of nearly 30 books.
Go to Profile#11581
Paul J. Eslinger
#149833
Overall Influence
#11582
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia
#77473
Overall Influence
Ramon Diaz-Arrastia is an American neurologist and clinical investigator. He is the John McCrae Dickson, MD Presidential professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Director of Clinical Traumatic Brain Injury Research, and Attending Neurologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.
Go to Profile#11583
Peter G. Bullough
#149866
Overall Influence
#11584
Lennart Kaijser
#149867
Overall Influence
#11585
Marian Hobson
#74617
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Marian Elizabeth Hobson Jeanneret, is a British scholar of French philosophy, and culture. From 1992 to 2005, she was Professor of French at Queen Mary, University of London. She had previously taught at the University of Warwick, the University of Geneva, and the University of Cambridge. In 1977, she became the first woman to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#11586
Demosthenes George Katritsis
#149906
Overall Influence
#11587
Laura Mauri
#149910
Overall Influence
#11588
Paul L. Tessier
#149913
Overall Influence
#11589
Jiri J. Frohlich
#149919
Overall Influence
#11590
Trisha Suppes
#126434
Overall Influence
Trisha Suppes is a professor at Stanford University in the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She also works at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System as director of the Bipolar and Depression Research Program. She is noted for being an expert in the treatment and management of bipolar disorder. She been the author or co-author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles and has written numerous academic textbooks for the treatment of Bipolar Disorder. Suppes' recent work includes exploring the biological basis of mood disorders.
Go to Profile#11591
Scott A. Armstrong
#83285
Overall Influence
Scott Allen Armstrong is an American pediatric oncologist and cancer biologist focused on chromatin-based control of gene expression in cancer and therapeutic discovery. Armstrong and his team were the first to isolate rare leukemia stem cells in a mouse model of leukemia.
Go to Profile#11592
Henry Leroy Finch Jr.
#94668
Overall Influence
1918 - 1997 (79 years)
Henry Leroy Finch, Jr. was an American scholar and professor of philosophy and a pacifist organizer. Early life and education Roy Finch was born in New York City the oldest child of Henry Le Roy Finch and Mary Farquhar Baker. His grandfather was Stephen Baker, President of the Bank of the Manhattan Company. He had three brothers: Charles B. Finch Jr., Stephen Baker Finch, and John Finch. He attended the Buckley School, Phillips Academy, and Yale University . During World War II he registered as a conscientious objector. After the war he earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Columbia University, w...
Go to Profile#11593
O. James Garden
#81979
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Olivier James Garden, is a British surgeon and academic. He holds the Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery at the University of Edinburgh and the president of the International Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association from 2012 to 2014. Garden performed Scotland's first liver transplant in Edinburgh in 1992 and founded the Scottish Liver Transplant Programme.
Go to Profile#11594
Felix Beuschlein
#149949
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
#11595
Robert Luc Brasseur
#149980
Overall Influence
#11596
Gunapala Piyasena Malalasekera
1899 - 1973 (74 years)
Gunapala Piyasena Malalasekera, OBE, JP, was a Sri Lankan academic, scholar and diplomat best known for his Malalasekara English-Sinhala Dictionary. He was Ceylon's first Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Ceylon's High Commissioner to Canada, the United Kingdom and Ceylon's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. He was the Professor Emeritus in Pali and Dean of the Faculty of Oriental Studies.
Go to Profile#11597
Harold F. Clark
#149989
Overall Influence
#11598
Ichirou Kurane
#150002
Overall Influence
#11599
Patrick Gullane
#98431
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Patrick Gullane, CM, OOnt, MB, FRCSC, FACS, FRACS , FRCS , FRCSI is a Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and a Professor of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#11600
Michael Luntley
#136967
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael Luntley is a British philosopher and the Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He is known for his works on philosophy of thought and Wittgenstein's thought. Selected books Language, Logic and Experience, 1988The Meaning of Socialism, 1989Reason, Truth and Self, 1995Contemporary Philosophy of Thought, Blackwell, 1999Wittgenstein: Meaning and Judgement, Blackwell, 2003Wittgenstein: Opening Investigations, Wiley-Blackwell, 2015
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