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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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#12451

Larry Travis

#73136

Overall Influence

1929 - 2017 (88 years)

Larry E. Travis was a Professor Emeritus at the Department of Computer Sciences as the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He had a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin as early as 1964 until 1994. He got his Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles in 1966, with a dissertation titled as: A Logical Analysis of the Concept of Stored Program: A Step Toward a Possible Theory of Rational Learning.

#12452

David Ludwig

#73521

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

David S. Ludwig is an American endocrinologist and low-carbohydrate diet advocate in Boston, Massachusetts. Education Ludwig received a PhD and an MD from Stanford University School of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at Boston Children's Hospital.

#12453

Robert McMurtry

#78335

Overall Influence

Robert McMurtry is a physician and special advisor to the Canadian Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care. He is actively involved in discussions on creating an accessible medical system for the Canadian public, and has long advocated for more effective public involvement in healthcare policy.

#12454

Michael Heinemann

#181519

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Michael Heinemann is a German musicologist and university professor. Career Born in Bergisch Gladbach, Heinemann passed his Abitur at the Nicolaus-Cusanus-Gymnasium Bergisch Gladbach in 1977. From 1978 to 1985 he studied Catholic church music , music pedagogy and concert subject organ at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. From 1982 to 1988 he studied musicology, philosophy and art history at the universities of Cologne, Bonn and Berlin, graduating in 1988 with a Master's degree. From 1986 to 1989 he worked as a tutor at the Musicological Institute of the Technical University of Berlin with Carl Dahlhaus.

#12455

Judith Weisenfeld

#141986

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Judith Weisenfeld is an American scholar of religion. She is Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University, where she is also the Chair of the Department of Religion. Her research primarily focuses on African-American religion in the first half of the 20th century. In 2019, Weisenfeld was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

#12456

David Malebranche

#73465

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

David J. Malebranche is an American internal medicine physician, researcher, and public health advocate who specializes in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Early life and education Malebranche was born in Schenectady, New York to Roger and Donna Malebranche. He is a first-generation Haitian-American and his mother is European-American. His father, a surgeon, was born in Anse-à-Veau, Haiti and came to the United States in 1961.

#12457

Show Lo

#151512

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Show Lo Chih Hsiang is a Taiwanese singer, actor, television host, and dancer. He is commonly known by his nickname Hsiao Chu . Lo is recognized for his trademark dance music and comedic talent. He has over 50 million followers on Chinese micro-blogging platform Weibo as of June 2018.

#12458

Steven Seifert

#81709

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Steven A. Seifert was an American medical toxicologist. He was a professor of emergency medicine at the University of New Mexico, as well as the medical director of the New Mexico Poison and Drug Information Center. Since 2017, he was the editor-in-chief of Clinical Toxicology. He was also a jazz tenor saxophonist.

#12459

Hendrika B. Cantwell

#87319

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (101 years)

Hendrika Bestebreurtje Cantwell is a German-born American retired physician, professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Denver, advocate for abused and neglected children, and parenting educator. She was one of the first physicians in the United States to work for a child protection agency, serving with the Denver Department of Social Services from 1975 to 1989. Her work there brought her in contact with an estimated 30,000 cases of suspected child abuse and she testified as an expert witness in thousands of court cases. An author of peer-reviewed journal articles, book cha...

#12460

Barys Kit

#15684

Overall Influence

1910 - 2018 (108 years)

Boris Uladzimiravich Kit was a Belarusian-American rocket scientist. Biography Kit was born on April 6, 1910, in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire to the family of an employee at the Post and Telegraph Department of Belarusian origin. His true surname is Kita. In 1918 Kit's family moved to their native village of Aharodniki, now the town of Karelichy, Grodno Region. In 1921 this area became a part of the Second Polish Republic.

#12461

Leo Laporte

#114676

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Leo Laporte is the former host of The Tech Guy weekly radio show and a host on TWiT.tv, an Internet podcast network focusing on technology. He is also a former TechTV technology host and a technology author. On November 19, 2022, actor, writer, musician, and comedian Steve Martin called into Laporte's radio show to announce Leo's retirement from The Tech Guy radio show. Laporte's last new radio show was December 18, 2022 with reruns for the remainder of the year. Rich DeMuro later appeared on the show to announce that he will be taking over in January with a weekly show, recorded on Saturd...

#12462

Hans Schmidt

#178686

Overall Influence

1930 - 2019 (89 years)

Hans Schmidt was a German musicologist. Life Born in Bonn, Schmidt was professor of musicology at the University of Cologne and a long-standing Beethoven researcher like his father Joseph Schmidt-Görg, who directed the Bonn Beethoven House from 1945 to 1972. Schmidt received his doctorate in 1954 at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn for his thesis Untersuchungen zu den Tractus des zweiten Tones aus dem Codex St. Gallen 359.

#12463

Amin J. Barakat

#20844

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Amin J. Barakat is a Lebanese-American physician known for the diagnosis Barakat syndrome. Barakat was in full-time pediatric practice at Northern Virginia Pediatric Associates before retiring in 2020. He is certified by the American Board of Pediatrics. He is also clinical professor of pediatrics and pediatric nephrology at Georgetown University. Barakat is a member of the ALSAC/St Jude Children's Research Hospital Leadership Council, and president of the American Foundation for Saint George Hospital.

#12464

William Paul Jones

William Paul Jones

#117386

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

William Paul Jones is a pioneer of the field of personal information management . He has written extensively on the topic, holds seven patents relating to search and personal information management, and was noted for his early contribution to Planz. In 2005, he organized a seminal National Science Foundation -sponsored event the His 2007 Annual Review of Information Systems and Technology survey Personal Information Management continues to be strongly cited. His 2008 book Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management was well-received and followed by a ...

#12465

Carolina Scotto

#187347

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Silvia Carolina Scotto is an Argentinian history professor, with degrees in philosophy and politics. In 2007, she became the first woman to take over as rector of the National University of Córdoba, in an institution that is more than 400 years old. In 2013, she was elected a member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies for the Front for Victory in the Córdoba Province. On 6 August 2014, she resigned for "strictly personal reasons".

#12466

Lisette Burrows

#124205

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Lisette C. Burrows is a New Zealand physical education academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Waikato. Academic career After a 1999 PhD from the University of Wollongong titled 'Developmental discourses in school physical education,' Burrows worked at the University of Otago from 1991, rising to full professor in 2015 before moving to the University of Waikato in 2017.

#12467

Joseph C. Gambone

#36981

Overall Influence

Joseph C. Gambone is an osteopathic physician, clinical professor at Western University of Health Sciences, and emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at University of California, Los Angeles . Gambone is the Executive Editor of the textbook Essentials of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He currently practices reproductive endocrinology and infertility in Durango, Colorado. A former Lieutenant in the US Navy, Gambone Peak in Antarctica was named in his honor.

#12468

Miranda Lubbers

#116774

Overall Influence

Miranda J. Lubbers is a Dutch social scientist specializing in the analysis of migration, segregation, and social identity through personal networks. She is Professor in Anthropology at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and director of the COALESCE Lab.

#12469

Susan Durham

#175728

Overall Influence

Susan Durham is an American Board Certified Neurosurgeon and a Member of The Society of Neurological Surgeons. A professor of neurosurgery at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, she is also Division Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.

#12470

Jon Stoessl

#92937

Overall Influence

Alexander Jon Stoessl is a Canadian neurologist and Parkinson's disease researcher. He is the director of the Pacific Parkinson's Research Centre and Parkinson's Foundation Centre of Excellence at the University of British Columbia . He is also the head of the division of neurology at this university. He is currently the President of the World Parkinson Coalition.

#12471

Louise Maple-Brown

#138829

Overall Influence

Louise Maple-Brown is an Australian endocrinologist. She is a clinical researcher at the Royal Darwin Hospital , serving as the hospital's Head of Endocrinology and as NHMRC Practitioner Fellow with the Menzies School of Health Research at Charles Darwin University. She leads a clinical research program within the Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Diseases division of Menzies with a focus on diabetes in Indigenous Australians and provides clinical diabetes services to urban and remote Northern Territory communities.

#12472

Henrietta M. Smith

Henrietta M. Smith

#116544

Overall Influence

1922 - 2021 (99 years)

Henrietta M. Smith was an American academic, librarian, and storyteller, who edited four editions of the Coretta Scott King Award collection published by the American Library Association. In 2008, she was honored with the Association for Library Service to Children Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes significant contributions to library service to children and ALSC. She is also the recipient of the 2011 Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement for her body of work as a significant and lasting literary contribution. She was honored during the 2014 Carle H...

#12473

Ivo Meinhold-Heerlein

#178637

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Ivo Meinhold-Heerlein is a German gynaecologist and obstetrician, honorary professor, university professor and deputy director of the Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at the University Hospital RWTH Aachen University. He is known for his work in the fields of molecular characterization of ovarian cancer.

#12474

Catharine Whiteside

#165332

Overall Influence

Catharine Isobel Whiteside, CM, FRCPC, FCAHS is a Canadian physician and medical researcher. She is Director, Strategic Partnerships of Diabetes Action Canada and Chair of the board of the Banting Research Foundation. Whiteside is the former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

#12475

Maria Aloni

#173146

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Maria D. Aloni is an Italian logician and philosopher of language, interested in formal semantics and the development of forms of logic that can capture the deviations of human reasoning from classical logic. She is an associate professor in the University of Amsterdam Faculty of Humanities, affiliated there with the Department of Philosophy and the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation.

#12476

David Robinson

#94716

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

David Robinson is an English film critic and author. He is a former film critic for both the Financial Times and The Times and wrote the official biography of Charlie Chaplin. Life Robinson began to write for Sight and Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin during the 1950s, becoming assistant editor of Sight and Sound and editor of the Monthly Film Bulletin from 1957 to 1958. He was film critic of the Financial Times from 1958 to 1973, before taking up the same post at The Times in 1973. He remained the paper's main film reviewer until around 1990 and a regular contributor until around 1996.

#12477

Brian Herbert Medlin

#146639

Overall Influence

1927 - 2004 (77 years)

Brian Herbert Medlin was Foundation Professor of Philosophy at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, from 1967 to 1988. He pioneered radical philosophy in Australian universities and played an active role in the campaign against the Vietnam War.

#12478

Mary Fowkes

#82751

Overall Influence

1954 - 2020 (66 years)

Mary Fowkes was an American physician and neuropathologist. She is noted for her early autopsies of COVID-19 victims that significantly contributed to the identification of long-term effects of the novel coronavirus. Her findings that victims had suffered multiple organ failures resulted in the recommendation for use of blood thinners as a part of the treatment process.

#12479

Ilora Finlay, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

#100711

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Ilora Gillian Finlay, Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, FRCP, FRCGP, FLSW, FMedSci is a Welsh doctor, professor of palliative medicine, and a Crossbench member of the House of Lords. Born the only daughter of Professor Charles Beaumont Benoy Downman, Ilora married Andrew Yule Finlay in 1972, with whom she has two children.

#12480

Sophie Nowicki

#182848

Overall Influence

Sophie Marie Jeanne Nowicki, is Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Geology of the University at Buffalo. She does research on the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, focusing on their connections to global climate and sea level. Before that, she was physical scientist at the Nasa Goddard Space Flight Centre, investigating ice sheet changes.

#12481

Ludwig Holtmeier

#186290

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ludwig Holtmeier is a German music theorist and piano player. Life Holtmeier studied piano at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and at the Conservatoire de musique de Genève and Conservatoire de musique de Neuchâtel and passed the concert exam in 1992. In addition to piano he also studied music theory, musicology, school music, history and German studies in Freiburg and Berlin. In 2010 he collected his doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin with a thesis on the reception of Jean-Philippe Rameau's music theory writings.

#12482

Rotonya M. Carr

#175989

Overall Influence

Rotonya McCants Carr is an American hepatologist and physician-scientist who the function of lipid metabolites and lipid droplet proteins in relation to hepatic insulin signaling. She is the Cyrus E. Rubin Chair and division head of gastroenterology at the University of Washington.

#12483

Mark Morris

#64653

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Mark Morris is an English author known for his series of horror novels, although he has also written several novels based on the BBC Television series Doctor Who. He used the pseudonym J. M. Morris for his 2001 novel Fiddleback.

#12484

Graziano Delrio

#90003

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Graziano Delrio is an Italian medical doctor and politician, who served in the government of Italy as Minister of Infrastructure and Transport from 2 April 2015 to 1 June 2018. He previously served as the state secretary to Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. He was minister for regional affairs and autonomy from 28 April 2013 to 22 February 2014 as part of the Letta Cabinet. He also served as the mayor of Reggio Emilia.

#12485

Yiftach Fehige

#184053

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Yiftach Fehige is a German philosopher and Professor of Philosophy for Christianity and Science at the University of Toronto. He is known for his works on thought experiments and philosophy of sexuality.

#12486

Laurenz Lütteken

#154501

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Laurenz Lütteken is a German musicologist. Since 2001, he has been Ordinarius for musicology at the University of Zürich. Since 2013, he is General editor of MGG Online. Writings As AuthorGuillaume Dufay und die isorhythmic motet. Hamburg 1993.: Die Apotheose des Chorals Homo absconditus. Stuttgart 1997.Das Monologische als Denkform in der Musik zwischen 1760 und 1785. Tübingen 1998.Contribution to Ludwig Finscher: Bowed string instrument. Stuttgart 2001.Mozart. Leben und Musik im Zeitalter der Aufklärung. Beck, Munich 2017, .As publisher: Festschrift Klaus Hortschansky zum 60. Geburtstag. Tutzing 1995.Mass and Motets.

#12487

Marcel Bessis

#35021

Overall Influence

1917 - 1994 (77 years)

Marcel Claude Bessis was a French physician known for research on blood cells. Bessis was born in Tunis on 15 November 1917. He was educated at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly in Paris, France. He developed an interest in microscopy in his teenage years and went on to study medicine at the University of Paris. During the Second World War, he served as a military physician and pioneered the technique of exchange transfusion to treat war injuries. He graduated with a medical degree in 1944. Later he studied exchange transfusion as a treatment for hemolytic disease of the newborn, uremia and acute leukemia.

#12488

Karl Lauterbach

#86594

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Karl Wilhelm Lauterbach is a German scientist, physician, and politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , who has served as Federal Minister of Health since 8 December 2021. He is professor of health economics and epidemiology at the University of Cologne . Since the 2005 German federal election, he has been a member of the Bundestag .

#12489

Alexander Fleming

#188820

Overall Influence

#12490

Akinwunmi Isola

#110369

Overall Influence

1939 - 2018 (79 years)

Akinwumi Isola was a Yoruba playwright, novelist, actor, dramatist, culture activist and scholar. He was known for his writing in, and his work in promoting, the Yoruba language. As an actor, he was known for Agogo Eèwò , Efunsetan Aniwura and Efunsetan Aniwura .

#12491

Koert van Mensvoort

Koert van Mensvoort

#158167

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Koert van Mensvoort is an artist, philosopher and scientist best known for his work on the philosophical concept of Next Nature. Academic Van Mensvoort was the head of the Next Nature Lab at the Industrial Design Department of the Eindhoven University of Technology, a position he has held from 2003 until 2015. In 1997 Van Mensvoort received a Master of Science degree in computer science, specializing in computer graphics from the Eindhoven University of Technology. In 2000 he completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. In 2008 he was Visionary in Residence at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

#12492

Kazuyoshi Torii

#184465

Overall Influence

1946 - 2022 (76 years)

Kazuyoshi Torii was a Japanese manga artist and university professor. Life and career Born in Kamata, a defunct village today part of Okazaki, Torii started his career as an assistant of Fujio Akatsuka. He made his official debut as a mangaka in 1968 in Weekly Shōnen Sunday with the manga Kuchinashi Inu . He is best known for the provoking, taboo-free serializated manga . The manga debuted in Weekly Shōnen Jump and sold over 10 million copies.

#12493

Kang Zhang

#52585

Overall Influence

Kang Zhang is a Chinese-American ophthalmologist specializing in ophthalmic genetics and aging processes in the eye. He is currently a Professor of the Faculty of Medicine at Macau University of Science and Technology. He was previously a Professor of Ophthalmology and the Founding Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Zhang is particularly known for his work on lanosterol, stem cell research , gene editing, and artificial intelligence.

#12494

Sharon Fonn

#179706

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Sharon Fonn is a South African Professor of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand. Her work has focused on cervical cancer, health systems and developing African capacity for public health research.

#12495

Emil Frei

#20591

Overall Influence

1924 - 2013 (89 years)

Emil "Tom" Frei III was an American physician and oncologist. He was the former director and former physician-in-chief of the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also the Richard and Susan Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

#12496

Enrico Fazzini

#26954

Overall Influence

Enrico Fazzini is an American neurologist. He is considered an expert on Parkinson's disease and has published numerous research publications on the subject. He has been involved in a number of clinical trials for new pharmaceutical treatments for Parkinson's disease. He attended the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Sciences in Des Moines, Iowa. He is board certified in neurology by both the M.D. and D.O. medical boards. He began his practice in 1989. Dr. Enrico Fazzini completed his neurology training at Boston University in 1987 and his fellowship in Movement Disorders at Columbia Presbyterian in 1989.

#12497

Oleg Atkov

#19756

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Oleg Yur'yevich At'kov is a Russian cardiologist and former Soviet cosmonaut. With a doctorate from the Russian Academy of Medical Science, Atkov was chosen to be the health specialist on board Soyuz T-10 and Soyuz T-11. After Atkov's rather long time in space, he returned to work at the Myasnikov Institute of Clinical Cardiology to continue his research on the adaptation of weightlessness and cardiology. With his published research and time in space, Atkov holds two of the USSR's highest honors; the Order of Lenin and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Atkov is a professor of medicine at...

#12498

Wayne Hankey

#172089

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Wayne John Hankey was a Canadian religious philosopher. Hankey had a lengthy career in academia, holding the title of professor emeritus in the Classics department at Dalhousie University until charged with historic sexual assault in February 2021. Hankey died on February 5, 2022, before standing trial on sexual abuse charges.

#12499

Virendra Nath Pandey

#60227

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Virendra Nath Pandey is an Indian geneticist, molecular virologist and enzymologist, known for his studies on the DNA recombinase enzyme complex. He is an associate professor at the New Jersey Medical School of the Rutgers University and a former scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Center. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1991, for his contributions to biological sciences.

#12500

James M. Matarazzo

#100890

Overall Influence

1941 - 2018 (77 years)

James M. Matarazzo was an American academic and librarian who taught at Simmons University for almost 50 years. He was a national and global leader in the field of special libraries. Education and academic career Matarazzo held bachelor's and master's degrees in Political Science from Boston College, a master's in Library Science from Simmons College and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. He first worked as a librarian at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . From 1969 to 2002, he held a series of combined faculty and leadership positions at the Graduate School of Library a...

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