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).

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Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#12301

William Masters

#43602

Overall Influence

1915 - 2001 (86 years)

William Howell Masters was an American gynecologist and the senior member of the Masters and Johnson human sexuality research team. Along with his partner Virginia E. Johnson, he pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunctions and disorders from 1957 until the 1990s.

#12302

Sally Tracy

#157935

Overall Influence

Sally Tracy is an Australian midwife, midwifery researcher, author and activist. She has authored numerous research articles. In 2023, she was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2023.

#12303

Nicholas P. Restifo

#86470

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Nicholas P. Restifo is an American immunologist, physician and educator in cancer immunotherapy. Until July 2019, he was a tenured senior investigator in the intramural National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda, Maryland. Nicholas was an executive vice president of research at Lyell based in San Francisco.

#12304

Steven A. Rosenberg

#187851

Overall Influence

#12305

Dale Fisher

#122326

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Dale Andrew Fisher FRACP is an Australian physician who specialises in Infectious Diseases and is a Senior Consultant in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He is also a professor of medicine at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore , the chair of the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee through the Ministry of Health, Singapore , and chair of the steering committee of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network hosted by the World Health Organization.

#12306

Patricia Battin

#161044

Overall Influence

1929 - 2019 (90 years)

Patricia Meyer Battin was one of the first librarians in the United States to combine the responsibilities of library administrator and technology director. Her focus shifted toward preservation when she became the first president of the Commission on Preservation and Access. She later became a pioneer in the digital library movement and began to work in the area of digital preservation.

#12307

Charles Pépin

#134817

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Charles Pépin is a French philosopher and novelist. He was born in Saint Cloud in 1973. He is the author of several bestsellers, such as Les Vertus de l’échec , La Confiance en soi and La Planète des sages .

#12308

Stanley Greaves

#32616

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Stanley Greaves is a Guyanese painter and writer who is one of the Caribbean's most distinguished artists. Writing in 1995 at the time of a retrospective exhibition to celebrate Greaves's 60th birthday, Rupert Roopnarine stated: "It may be that no major Caribbean artist of our time has been more fecund and versatile than Stanley Greaves of Guyana." Greaves himself has said of his own creativity:

#12309

Nathalie Charpak

Nathalie Charpak

#65842

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Nathalie Charpak is a French and Colombian pediatrician. As the founder and director of the Kangaroo Foundation, and associate researcher of the Pontifical Xavierian University, her research focuses on the care of low-birth weight preterm infants and the application of kangaroo mother care. Charpak's work has earned her, and the Kangaroo Foundation, multiple awards, including the Legion of Honour and the Save the Children Healthcare Innovation Award. Her father is Nobel Laureate Georges Charpak.

#12310

Tim Smith

#38729

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Tim Smith is an English broadcaster and radio personality in the UK. He is best known as being part of the team for Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2. On 1 July 2022 Wright announced that his afternoon show would end in Autumn 2022, after 23 years. It was also announced that Smith would be leaving BBC Radio 2, together with Janey Lee Grace.

#12311

Aneez Esmail

#53875

Overall Influence

Aneez Esmail is a general practitioner and academic at the University of Manchester. He is a professor of general practice and a GP for three sessions a week. Between 2012 and 2017 he served as the director of the National Institute for Health Research's research centre on patient safety in primary care. He is well known for his work over many years on racism in the British National Health Service. He has chaired a wide-ranging review of all postgraduate medical exams. He was medical adviser to the Shipman Inquiry. He was offered an OBE for his contribution to primary care and race relations...

#12312

Maximilian de Gaynesford

#181609

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Robert Maximilian de Gaynesford is an English philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Reading. Education and career De Gaynesford was educated at Ampleforth College and Balliol College, Oxford , after which he spent several years studying theology before studying philosophy in 1993. Shortly before receiving his doctorate, he was elected fellow and tutor in philosophy at Lincoln College, Oxford . He was subsequently Humboldt Research Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin and a tenured professor at The College of William and Mary in Virginia before becoming professo...

#12313

Henry Robert Frankel

Henry Robert Frankel

#172352

Overall Influence

1944 - 2019 (75 years)

Henry Robert Frankel was an American philosopher and historian of science noted for his historical and philosophical analysis of the continental drift controversy and subsequent discovery of plate tectonics. He was emeritus professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Frankel earned his Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College and his PhD from the Ohio State University. == Work ==

#12314

Eliza Atkins Gleason

#60819

Overall Influence

1909 - 2009 (100 years)

Eliza Atkins Gleason was the first African American to receive a doctorate in Library Science. In 1941, she established and became the first Dean of the School of Library Service at Atlanta University and created a library education program that trained 90 percent of all African-American librarians by 1986.

#12315

Aran Safir

#76122

Overall Influence

1926 - 2007 (81 years)

Aran Safir was an American ophthalmologist and inventor. He is known for inventing a groundbreaking iris recognition scanner. This technology has been widely adopted in the security sector, ranging from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Google. The invention was patented on February 3, 1987, and expired in the United States in 2005. Safir and his co-inventor, Leonard Flom, were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2013.

#12316

Terry Cook

#83714

Overall Influence

1947 - 2014 (67 years)

Terry Cook was a noted Canadian archivist and scholar in archival studies. Biography Dr. Terry Cook was born in Vancouver in 1947. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Alberta in 1969, his Master of Arts from Carleton University in 1970, and his Ph.D. in Canadian History from Queen's University in 1977. He worked for the National Archives of Canada, specializing in archival appraisal, for a number of years. He was also an associate professor for the Archival Studies Program in the Department of History at the University of Manitoba from 1998 to 2012.

#12317

S. Bear Bergman

S. Bear Bergman

#56544

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

S. Bear Bergman is an American author, poet, playwright, and theater artist. He is a trans man, and his gender identity is a main focus of his artwork. Biography Bergman, who was educated at Concord Academy, was one of the founders of the first Gay–straight alliance and a member of the Governor of Massachusetts' Safe Schools Commission for LGBT youth. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hampshire College in 1996.

#12318

Abdulwahab Hussain

#81767

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Abdulwahab Hussain Ali Ahmed Esmael is a Bahraini political activist, writer, religious figure and philosopher. He was one of the most prominent opposition leaders in the 1990s uprising when he was arrested twice for a total length of five years in which he was allegedly subjected to solitary confinement and torture. After his release in 2001, he supported government reform plans.

#12319

Agnes Binagwaho

Agnes Binagwaho

#94030

Overall Influence

Agnes Binagwaho is a Rwandan Politian, pediatrician and co-founder and the former vice chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity . In 1996, she returned to Rwanda where she provided clinical care in the public sector as well as held many positions including the position of Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health of Rwanda from October 2008 until May 2011 and Minister of Health from May 2011 until July 2016. She has been a professor of global health delivery practice since 2016 and a professor of pediatrics since 2017 at the University of Global Health Equity. She resides in ...

#12320

Arvid Anseth

#99868

Overall Influence

1925 - 2006 (81 years)

Arvid Anseth was a Norwegian ophthalmologist. Anseth was born in Bærum. He finished his secondary education in 1943, took the Candidate of Medicine degree at Lund University in 1947 and the Doctor Medicinae degree at Lund in 1961, after two years as a research fellow in Boston, Massachusetts. Anseth was a docent at Lund University from 1962 to 1971, a professor at the University of Tromsø from 1971 to 1977, a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the Trondheim from 1977 to 1980, and a professor at the University of Oslo/Rikshospitalet from 1980 to 1989. Among others, he operated on Olav V o...

#12321

Shimon Rochkind

#52158

Overall Influence

Shimon Rochkind is an Israeli clinician and an operating neurosurgeon. His professional interests include surgery on the peripheral nerves, the lumbar and sacral spine, brachial plexus and cauda equina. Rochkind pioneered the use of the laser therapy for the treatment of injuries in the peripheral nervous system. Currently he dedicates a fair share of his time to the scientific work: developing the matrix for peripheral nerve and spinal cord reconstruction.

#12322

Ekwueme Michael Thelwell

#66844

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Ekwueme Michael Thelwell is a Jamaican novelist, essayist, professor and civil rights activist. He was in 1970 founding chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

#12323

Kurt Julius Isselbacher

Kurt Julius Isselbacher

#71742

Overall Influence

1925 - 2019 (94 years)

Kurt Julius Isselbacher was a German-born American physician and held the position of Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and director emeritus of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.

#12324

Jochen Reiser

#93738

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Jochen Reiser is a physician-scientist and a healthcare leader. He is the President of the University of Texas Medical Branch and CEO of the UTMB Health System, which includes the oldest Medical School and Nursing School in the state of Texas. As Chief Executive Officer, he oversees the enterprise which includes multiple campuses, five health science colleges, the Galveston National Laboratory and the Correctional Health Care Services for most of Texas. Before UTMB, he served as the Ralph C Brown MD Professor and the Chairman of Medicine at Rush University Medical Center. Dr. Reiser's research has provided important mechanistic insights into the molecular pathogenesis of kidney diseases.

#12325

Nahid Toubia

#40603

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Nahid Toubia is a Sudanese surgeon and women's health rights activist, specializing in research into female genital mutilation. Toubia is the co-founder and director of RAINBO, the Research, Action and Information Network for Bodily Integrity of Women. She is an associate professor at Columbia University School of Public Health. She sits on scientific and advisory committees for the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and UNDP. She is also vice-chair of the advisory committee of the Women's Rights Watch Project of Human Rights Watch.

#12326

Sam Sofer

#84561

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Sam Sofer is an Iranian-born American scientist who specializes in biological processes and bioreactor design, with applications in medicine, energy, and the environment. He is the creator of biological air and water cleaners that use immobilized cell technology, and of various biomedical instruments and test protocols related to boosting the immune system to fight disease.

#12327

William Lyons

#135085

Overall Influence

William Edward Lyons is a philosopher who specializes in philosophy of mind. Lyons was the head of the Department of Philosophy and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the School of Mental and Moral Science, Trinity College, Dublin. He is now an Emeritus Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and a member of the Royal Irish Academy." He is also the author of a number of "theatre of thought" dramas. His play about Wittgenstein, The Crooked Roads of Genius had its world premiere on 19 April 2011 at the Riverside Studios. He received his PhD at the University of Dundee.

#12328

Thomas Chesney

#103501

Overall Influence

Thomas Chesney is a British–Irish Professor of computational social science at Nottingham University Business School. Born in Northern Ireland, Chesney uses simulation to study economic behaviour such as the problem of modern slavery. He is also the coauthor of a widely used textbook, Principles of Business Information Systems.

#12329

Olival Freire Jr.

#174475

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Olival Freire Jr. is a physicist and historian of physics. He is Full Professor of Physics and History of Physics at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, former president of the Brazilian Society for the History of Science and president of the Commission for the History of Modern Physics, International Union of History and Philosophy of Science.

#12330

Kathy Svoboda

#141144

Overall Influence

Kathy Kay Hartford Svoboda is an American biologist. Early life and career Svoboda was raised in Hershey, Nebraska. After graduating from Hershey High School in 1969, Svoboda attended the University of Nebraska Omaha, where she successively earned a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's degree in human genetics, and a doctorate in anatomy. Svoboda completed postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, and began her teaching career as an instructor there. In 1987, Svoboda accepted an assistant professorship at the Boston University School of Medicine, where she was elevated to associate professor in 1994.

#12331

Mark Windham

#187984

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Mark Windham is an American pathologist, currently a Distinguished Professor in Ornamental Pathology at University of Tennessee.

#12332

Blair Grubb

#78154

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Blair P. Grubb is an American physician, surgeon, researcher and scientist, currently a distinguished university professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Toledo. He is well known for his contributions to the study of syncope and disorders of the autonomic nervous system .

#12333

Arno Karlen

#56514

Overall Influence

1937 - 2010 (73 years)

Arno Chanoch Karlen was an American poet, psychoanalyst, and popular science writer. He won the 1996 Rhone-Poulenc Prize for science books with Plague's Progress. Biography Early life Arno Karlen was born on May 7, 1937, in Philadelphia. His parents were Jewish immigrants from modern-day Belarus and Ukraine who immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s. He was a talented child who was promoted two grades and finished high school at 15. As a teenager, he was interested in literature, science, and classical music. He studied music, and graduated from Antioch College with majors in Eng...

#12334

Dani Shapiro

#38303

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Dani Shapiro is an American writer, the author of six novels including Family History , Black & White and most recently Signal Fires and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion , Devotion , Hourglass , and Inheritance . She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Elle. In February 2019, she created an original podcast on iHeart Radio called Family Secrets.

#12335

Dzodzi Tsikata

#134899

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Dzodzi Tsikata is a Ghanaian feminist, academic, professor of Development Sociology and Director of Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. Biography Dzodzi Tsikata is a professor at the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana. Her academic interests include gender and development Issues, gender equity policies and practices. She was elected in June 2015 as the president of Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa at their 14th general assembly meeting in Senegal.

#12336

Richard M. Levitan

#76378

Overall Influence

Richard Mark Levitan is an American emergency medicine physician and businessperson. He is a clinical professor of medicine at Dartmouth College and a practicing physician at the Littleton Regional Hospital. He also runs a company that creates materials and runs events to teach emergency airway management.

#12337

Sarah Martins Da Silva

#81005

Overall Influence

Sarah Martins da Silva is a British gynaecologist and researcher specialising in male infertility. Martins da Silva is a Clinical Reader in reproductive medicine at the University of Dundee. She also works as an honorary consultant gynaecologist at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, specialising in fertility problems and assisted conception. She was named one of the BBC's "100 Women of 2019" for her contribution to fertility science.

#12338

Hermann Schweppenhäuser

#178120

Overall Influence

1928 - 2015 (87 years)

Hermann Schweppenhäuser was a German philosopher and publisher. He was a professor at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He publisher over 100 books about world peace and socialism. He was born in Frankfurt am Main.

#12339

Arno Mohr

#98029

Overall Influence

1910 - 2001 (91 years)

Arno Mohr was a German Painter and Graphic artist, primarily associated with the German Democratic Republic and, more particularly, with Berlin. Almost unknown in the west, his work was popular in East Germany, notably for his reductionist observational drawings of everyday life.

#12340

Buffie Johnson

#180962

Overall Influence

1912 - 2006 (94 years)

Buffie Johnson was an American painter, associated with the Abstract Imagists. Biography Born in New York City, Johnson studied in her youth at the Académie Julian in Paris and at the Art Students League of New York. She had lessons with Francis Picabia and Stanley William Hayter, and she earned a Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1943, Johnson was included in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Art of This Century gallery in New York. From 1946 to 1950 she taught at the Parsons School of Design. She received many awards, including fell...

#12341

Boris Sobolev

#110628

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Boris Sobolev is a Russian-born Canadian health services researcher. He is an author of Analysis of Waiting-Time Data in Health Services Research and Health Care Evaluation Using Computer Simulation: Concepts, Methods and Applications, and is Editor-in-Chief of the Health Services Research series published by Springer Science+Business Media.

#12342

Roger Nichols

#63786

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Roger David Edward Nichols is an English musicologist, critic, translator and author. After an early career as a university lecturer he became a full-time freelance writer in 1980. He is particularly known for his works on French music, including books about Claude Debussy, Olivier Messiaen, Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc and the Parisian musical scene of the years after the First World War. Among his translations are the English versions of the standard biography of Gabriel Fauré by Jean-Michel Nectoux and of Harry Halbreich's study of Arthur Honegger.

#12343

Howard Dodson

#50629

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Howard Dodson, Jr is an American scholar who was the Director of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and Howard University Libraries, and was formerly the long-time director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, which post he occupied for over a quarter of a century .

#12344

Brian L. Byrne

#105501

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Brian J. Byrne is an Australian social scientist specializing in applied and psycholinguistics, an emeritus professor at the University of New England in Australia, and lead author of publications and articles on research in his field. Byrne was a lead researcher in the 10-year-long, $5 million National Institutes of Health study by an international team of scientists into the development of reading ability in 1,000 pairs of twins. Beginning in 2000, the study found that genetics were more important influences on reading development than environmental factors. In 2012, Byrne was appointed a...

#12345

Rajani Kannepalli Kanth

Rajani Kannepalli Kanth

#105477

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Rajani Kannepalli Kanth is a professor, economist, philosopher, and social thinker. Though born in India, he is a US citizen and has resided overseas for most of his life. His major research interests lie in the fields of Economics, Social Theory and Policy, and Women's Issues. His works have received positive endorsements from iconic intellectuals such as Ravi Batra, Roy Bhaskar, Noam Chomsky, Geoff Harcourt, Robert Heilbroner, John M. Hobson, Jonathan Joseph, Tony Lawson, Ali Mazrui, John McMurtry, Roger Owen, Warren Samuels, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Paul Sweezy, and Immanuel Wallerstein.

#12346

Hollis Taylor

#174683

Overall Influence

Hollis Taylor is an American-born Australian zoomusicologist and composer and a violinist and fiddler. She has argued that birdsong should be approached as music. Early life and education Taylor was born in the United States. She graduated from West Linn High School in West Linn, Oregon. She graduated from Webster University in St. Louis with a bachelor's degree in violin performance. In 2009 she received a PhD from the University of Western Sydney School of Communication Arts with a concentration in musicology, ornithology, and composition.

#12347

John Brunero

#188069

Overall Influence

John Brunero is an American philosopher and academic. He is currently the Robert R. Chambers Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. He is known for his works on reasons.

#12348

Stephen Dolgin

#97108

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Stephen E. Dolgin is an American pediatric surgeon, and professor of Surgery at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. He is a consultant at Cohen Children’s Medical Center, the pediatric hub of Northwell Health.

#12349

Linda Holloway

#148857

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Dame Linda Jane Holloway is a Scottish-born New Zealand anatomical pathologist academic, and was a full professor at the University of Otago. Early life Holloway was born in Loanhead, Midlothian, Scotland, on 10 June 1940. She was raised in that country, and met her husband, New Zealand forester John Stevenson Holloway, the son of John Thorpe Holloway, while he was a student at the University of Aberdeen. She moved to New Zealand in 1970, becoming a naturalised New Zealander in 1978.

#12350

Chris Sherwin

#142446

Overall Influence

1962 - 2017 (55 years)

Christopher M. Sherwin was an English veterinary scientist and senior research fellow at the University of Bristol Veterinary School in Lower Langford, Somerset. He specialised in applied ethology, the study of the behaviour of animals in the context of their interactions with humans, and of how to balance the animals' needs with the demands placed on them by humans.

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