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,
#11801
Fritz Heinemann
1889 - 1970 (81 years)
Fritz Heinemann was a German philosopher. Born in Lüneburg, he taught at Frankfurt University from 1930 to 1933. From 1939 to 1956, he taught at Manchester College, Oxford. In Neue Wege der Philosophie Heinemann heralded the rise of the Existential movement by coining the term Existenzphilosphie, translated as Existentialism.
Go to Profile#11802
William Jones
1726 - 1795 (69 years)
William Jones was a Welsh antiquary, poet, scholar and radical. Jones was an ardent supporter of both the American and French Revolutions – his strong support of the Patriot and Jacobin causes earned him the nicknames "the rural Voltaire", the "Welsh Voltaire", and accusations of being, "a rank Republican and a Leveller". Despite his vocal support for foreign revolutions, however, Jones never advocated a violent Welsh republican uprising against the House of Hanover and instead encouraged the Welsh people to emigrate en masse to "The Promised Land"; in the newly founded United States of America.
Go to Profile#11803
Katherine M.d Bushby
#151831
Overall Influence
#11804
Natesa G. Pandian
#151835
Overall Influence
#11805
Hartmut H. Malluche
#151856
Overall Influence
#11806
Michael M. Todd
#151872
Overall Influence
#11807
St Steven R. Bergmann
#151880
Overall Influence
#11808
Luise Kimme
#101166
Overall Influence
1939 - 2013 (74 years)
Luise Kimme was a German artist, primarily a sculptor. She was a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf from 1976 to 2002. Kimme was born in Bremen in 1939 and grew up in Berlin. She worked at a secretary for the German car company Borgward in London in 1957-58, and also worked as an artist's model.
Go to Profile#11809
Virginia Man-Yee Lee
#85040
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Virginia Man-Yee Lee is a Chinese-born American biochemist and neuroscientist who specializes in the research of Alzheimer's disease. She is the current John H. Ware 3rd Endowed Professor in Alzheimer's Research at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She received the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
Go to Profile#11810
Per-lennart A. Westesson
#151899
Overall Influence
#11811
Peter Mathieson
#29174
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Sir Peter William Mathieson is an English nephrologist and current principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh. Previously, he served as the vice-chancellor and president of the University of Hong Kong . He was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Bristol before he assumed office at the HKU in April 2014, and was previously director of studies at Christ's College, Cambridge.
Go to Profile#11812
Nicholas H. Smith
#132438
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Nicholas Hugh Smith is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the Macquarie University. Smith is known for his research on hermeneutics, political philosophy and Charles Taylor's thought.
Go to Profile#11813
Ulrich Keil
#151916
Overall Influence
#11814
Douglas J. Mathisen
#151939
Overall Influence
#11815
Chantal Delsol
#49498
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Chantal Delsol is a French philosopher, political historian and novelist. The founder of the Hannah Arendt research institute, founded in 1993, her work is inspired by Julien Freund and Pierre Boutang, as well as by her Catholic faith. She has described herself as a liberal-conservative.
Go to Profile#11816
Ned Sherrin
#9079
Overall Influence
1931 - 2007 (76 years)
Edward George Sherrin was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC. He appeared in a variety of radio and television satirical shows and theatre shows, some of which he also directed.
Go to Profile#11817
Gustav Adolf Michaelis
1798 - 1848 (50 years)
Gustav Adolf Michaelis was a German obstetrician who was a native of Kiel. He was the founder and establisher of the Michaelis’ Rhomboid. Biography Education and Career Gustav Adolf Michaelis was born on the 9th of July, 1798, to an obstetrician Gottfried Philipp Michaelis. Gustav's uncle Christian Rudolf Wiedemann also was an obstetrician, after Philipp's death in 1811 he raised his nephew. Gustav Michaelis graduated from Kiel medical school in 1820 and continued his medical studies in Paris. Among his teachers were Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck and obstetrician Friedrich Benjamin Osiander .
Go to Profile#11818
Vera Maria Rogiers
#151951
Overall Influence
#11819
Sven Ivar Seldinger
#13651
Overall Influence
1921 - 1998 (77 years)
Sven Ivar Seldinger , was a radiologist from Mora Municipality, Sweden. In 1953, he introduced the Seldinger technique to obtain safe access to blood vessels and other hollow organss. Biography Sven Ivar Seldinger was born on 19 April 1921 in Dalarna, Sweden. He was born to a family who had long run the local Mora Mechanical Workshop. He first began his medical training in 1940 at the Karolinska Institute. After graduating medical school in 1948, he went on to specialize in radiology. While attending at the Karolinska Hospital he came up with an idea of how to administer a catheter that would be able to reach every human artery.
Go to Profile#11820
Robert R. Edelman
#151976
Overall Influence
#11821
Patrick Niaudet
#151984
Overall Influence
#11822
Vincent Meininger
#151996
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#11823
Tommaso Palamidessi
1915 - 1983 (68 years)
Tommaso Palamidessi was an Italian esotericist. Drawn to astrology, parapsychology, and yoga-tantric doctrines, he was active in the field of the occult and developed a form of Esoteric Christianity that he called Archeosophy. In 1968 he founded the Archeosophical Society in Rome, which is still active and has several thousand members in Italy and the rest of Europe .
Go to Profile#11824
Daniel Ira Rosenthal
#152016
Overall Influence
#11825
Ernst Behler
#91288
Overall Influence
1928 - 1997 (69 years)
Ernst Behler was a German philosopher. In 1976 he became the founding Chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research included Friedrich von Schlegel, Friedrich Nietzsche and the early Romanticism. Also notable are his books on irony: Irony and the discourse of modernity , Ironie, romantische Ironie, tragische Ironie , Ironie und literarische Moderne .
Go to Profile#11826
Bruno M. Péault
#152056
Overall Influence
#11827
Satō Issai
1772 - 1859 (87 years)
Satō Issai was a Confucian scholar in late Edo to Bakumatsu period Japan. Biography Satō was the second son of Satō Nobuyoshi, a samurai in the service of Iwamura Domain, a minor domain with holdings in Mino and Suruga Provinces. He was born in the domain's shimoyashiki in Nihonbashi, Edo, and subsequently followed in his father's footsteps in service of the domain in 1790. In 1793, Matsudaira Norihira, the third son of the daimyō of Iwamura was adopted by the Hayashi clan, the Confucian advisors to the Tokugawa shogunate, taking the name of Hayashi Jussai. Satō was assigned to accompany him as his valet, and also entered the Shōheizaka Gakumonjo school for Confucian studies.
Go to Profile#11828
Molly Haskell
#52981
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Molly Clark Haskell is an American film critic and author. She contributed to The Village Voice—first as a theatre critic, then as a movie reviewer—and from there moved on to New York magazine and Vogue. Her most influential book is From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies . She co-hosted Turner Classic Movies' The Essentials with Robert Osborne in 2006 for one season.
Go to Profile#11829
Antoinette Rumley
#152073
Overall Influence
#11830
Manuel Cuenca‐estrella
#152077
Overall Influence
#11831
Georg-wilhelm Bornkamm
#152079
Overall Influence
#11832
Julian Crane
#152081
Overall Influence
#11833
L. J. Jaap Kappelle
#152092
Overall Influence
#11834
Stanley Davidson
1894 - 1981 (87 years)
Sir Leybourne Stanley Patrick Davidson was a British physician, medical investigator and author who wrote the medical textbook Principles and Practice of Medicine, which was first published in 1952.
Go to Profile#11835
Randall R. Betz
#152124
Overall Influence
#11836
George L. Jr. Jordan
#152126
Overall Influence
#11837
Julio García‐aguilar
#152142
Overall Influence
#11838
Jürgen Kurt Rockstroh
#152143
Overall Influence
#11839
Freek D. Van Der Meer
#152152
Overall Influence
#11840
George M. Farrow
#152159
Overall Influence
#11841
Maamar Bettayeb
#77094
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Maamar Bettayeb is a control theorist, educator and inventor. He is the author of publications on understanding the singular value decomposition and model order reduction. Bettayeb is also a promoter of scientific research.
Go to Profile#11842
Richard Paul Cambria
#152186
Overall Influence
#11843
Carl Ferdinand von Arlt
1812 - 1887 (75 years)
Carl Ferdinand Ritter von Arlt was an Austrian ophthalmologist born in Ober-Graupen, a village near Teplitz in Bohemia. He earned his doctorate in Prague in 1839, and later became a professor of ophthalmology in Prague and Vienna . His son Ferdinand Ritter von Arlt was also an ophthalmologist.
Go to Profile#11844
Michael J. Levy
#152191
Overall Influence
#11845
Karl Zerbe
1903 - 1972 (69 years)
Karl Zerbe was a German-born American painter and educator. Biography Zerbe was born on September 16, 1903, in Berlin, Germany. The family lived in Paris, France, from 1904 to 1914, where his father was an executive in an electrical supply concern. In 1914 they moved to Frankfurt, Germany where they lived until 1920. Zerbe studied chemistry in 1920 at the Technische Hochschule in Friedberg, Germany.
Go to Profile#11846
Francesco Panza
#152199
Overall Influence
#11847
Larry Robert Kaiser
#152207
Overall Influence
#11848
Rajendra Prasad
#22777
Overall Influence
Rajendra Prasad is a chest physician and professor of Pulmonary Medicine based in Lucknow. He is an MBBS and MD from King George's Medical College which was then under University of Lucknow. After some time he joined same institution as faculty member and later became head of department of Pulmonary Medicine department of King George's Medical University. He also worked as director of U.P. Rural Institute of Medical Sciences and Research and Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute . Now he is working as Director Medical Education and Professor & Head of Department, Pulmonary Medicine of Era Univer...
Go to Profile#11849
G. Michael Deeb
#63860
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
G. Michael Deeb is a Lebanese-American cardiothoracic surgeon. He serves as a Herbert Sloan Collegiate Professor of Surgery and Director of the Multidisciplinary Aortic Clinic at the University of Michigan. He has published 143 articles in journals and books and lectures both nationally and internationally on topics such as valve implantation and cardiac valve implantation.
Go to Profile#11850
Alan J. Garber
#152222
Overall Influence
