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,
#12551
Wil L. Iam Y. Chey
#158597
Overall Influence
#12552
Domenico Maria Novara da Ferrara
1454 - 1504 (50 years)
Domenico Maria Novara was an Italian scientist. Life Born in Ferrara, for 21 years he was professor of astronomy at the University of Bologna, and in 1500 he also lectured in mathematics at Rome. He was notable as a Platonist astronomer, and in 1496 he taught Nicolaus Copernicus astronomy. He was also an astrologer.
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R. W. Williams
#158611
Overall Influence
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Joseph Rovan
#64540
Overall Influence
1918 - 2004 (86 years)
Joseph Adolphe Rovan , was a French philosopher and politician, and is considered a spiritual father of post-war Europe. Initially born into the Jewish faith, on Whitsunday 1944 he was received into the Catholic Church.
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Johann Ritter von Oppolzer
1808 - 1871 (63 years)
Johann Ritter von Oppolzer was an Austrian physician born in Nové Hrady, Bohemia. He was the father of the astronomer Theodor von Oppolzer . In 1835 he earned his medical doctorate at the University of Prague, and later worked as a university professor at Prague , Leipzig and Vienna , where he also served as rector in 1860/61. In 1863, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
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Frederick Samuel Kaplan
#158658
Overall Influence
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Karsten Rippe
#158663
Overall Influence
#12558
Ken Hillman
#92453
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ken Hillman AO FRCP FRCA FCICM is an Australian doctor and researcher. He is an intensive care specialist with research interests including health system reforms and end of life care. He has been Professor of Intensive Care at the University of New South Wales since 1990.
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G. A. (gerald Allan) Cohen
#158669
Overall Influence
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F.rederick J. Francis
#158670
Overall Influence
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Hamid Ikram
#158672
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
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Luis Souhami
#158686
Overall Influence
#12563
Francis Dominic Bencini
1664 - 1744 (80 years)
Francis Dominic Bencini was a minor Maltese philosopher who specialised in apologetics. Life Benici began his studies in Malta, and went on to become a diocesan priest. He then studied theology in Rome, from where he obtained his graduate colours. Thereafter, he immediately began teaching dogmatic theology at the Collegio Urbano, in Rome, Italy. While there, he was also installed as librarian of Propaganda Fide, and chosen as secretary to the pontifical councils. He dedicated much of his intellectual energies to the anti-reformist polemic which was in full swing during his times.
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Anna K. Nowak
#158723
Overall Influence
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Robert P. Perrillo
#158725
Overall Influence
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Jurij Moskvitin
#129399
Overall Influence
1938 - 2005 (67 years)
Jurij Moskvitin was a classical pianist, composer, philosopher, mathematician and boheme. Jurij Moskvitin grew up in Denmark; his mother was a Russian aristocrat and his father was a Danish civil engineer. After World War II he studied at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He then obtained a master's degree in Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen.
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Johann Winter von Andernach
1505 - 1574 (69 years)
Johann Winter von Andernach was a German Renaissance physician, university professor, humanist, translator of ancient, mostly medical works, and writer of his own medical, philological and humanities works.
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Manikkam Suthanthiran
#158744
Overall Influence
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Welton M. Gersony
#158748
Overall Influence
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Vinzenz Prof. Dr. Med. Hombach
#158749
Overall Influence
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Hans-jochem Prof Dr Kolb
#158781
Overall Influence
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Adolfo A. Ferrando
#158799
Overall Influence
#12573
E. Tessa Hedley‐whyte
#158822
Overall Influence
#12574
Dorothy Hansine Andersen
1901 - 1963 (62 years)
Dorothy Hansine Andersen was an American physician, pediatrician, and pathologist who first identified cystic fibrosis. She was the first to describe the disease, and name it. In 1939, she was awarded the E. Mead Johnson Award for her identification of the disease. In 2002, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
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Helena Johansson
#158842
Overall Influence
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Flemming Bendtsen
#158855
Overall Influence
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Emre Kokmen
#158862
Overall Influence
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Robert MacLaren
#60758
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Robert E. MacLaren FMedSci FRCOphth FRCS FACS VR is a British ophthalmologist who has led pioneering work in the treatment of blindness caused by diseases of the retina. He is Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford and Honorary Professor of Ophthalmology at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. He is a Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Oxford Eye Hospital. He is also an Honorary Consultant Vitreo-retinal Surgeon at the Moorfields Eye Hospital. MacLaren is an NIHR Senior Investigator, or lead researcher, for the speciality of Ophthalmology. In addition, he is a member of the res...
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Rodney Bluestone
#158869
Overall Influence
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Claes Hellerström
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Gotthardt Kuehl
1850 - 1915 (65 years)
Gotthardt Kuehl was a German painter and a representative of early German Impressionism. He gained wide international recognition during his lifetime. Life and work His father, Simon Kühl, was the Sexton and organist at . He studied at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, . From 1878 to 1889, he lived in Paris. He also made study trips to Italy and the Netherlands. In 1888, he married Henriette Simonson-Castelli , daughter of the portrait painter, .
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John W. Barnwell
#158887
Overall Influence
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Charles Michael Stein
#158903
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Paul B. Preciado
#63883
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Paul B. Preciado , is a writer, philosopher and curator whose work focuses on applied and theoretical topics relating to identity, gender, pornography, architecture and sexuality. Originally known as a female writer, in 2010 Preciado began a process of "slow transition" where he started taking testosterone to medically transition. From this point on he has publicly considered himself transgender as well as a feminist.
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Nobuhiro Harada
#158914
Overall Influence
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Marian Gieszczykiewicz
1889 - 1942 (53 years)
Marian Teodor Ludwik Gieszczykiewicz was a Polish physician, bacteriologist. Gieszczykiewicz was professor at the Jagiellonian University starting in 1924 and member of the Polish Academy of Skills. During the German occupation he taught at the so-called "Secret Universities".
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Lluís Clavell Ortiz-Repiso
#158931
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Lluis Clavell Ortiz-Repiso is a Roman Catholic priest. Career Although born in Barcelona, he spent all his childhood in Arenys de Mar where his father was the director of "El Forn del Vidre" . He was ordained priest on August 7, 1966, along with 23 other members of the Opus Dei, celebrating his first Mass on August 16, 1966, in the Church of the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes.
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Frans F. Jöbsis
#158938
Overall Influence
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John Punter
#15374
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John Punter is an English former record producer and recording engineer. He has worked with many bands and musicians, such as Japan, Procol Harum, Roxy Music, Doctors of Madness, Sad Café and Slade. His career in music spanned over 30 years and many different genres. He is now retired from the entertainment business, and ran a small bar in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. On July 24, 2019, he became a citizen of Canada.
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Patrick Alexander Ott
#158947
Overall Influence
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Hendrik Schulze‐koops
#158954
Overall Influence
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Lars Søndergaard
#158960
Overall Influence
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Diane Ackerman
#12645
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Diane Ackerman is an American poet, essayist, and naturalist known for her wide-ranging curiosity and poetic explorations of the natural world. Education and career Ackerman received a Bachelor of Arts in English from Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Arts, Master of Fine Arts and Ph.D. from Cornell University. Among the members of her dissertation committee was Carl Sagan, an astronomer and the creator of the Cosmos television series. She has taught at a number of universities, including Columbia and Cornell.
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John J. Paris, S.J.
#110879
Overall Influence
John J. Paris, S.J. is the current Michael P. Walsh Professor of Bioethics at Boston College. Biography He received a B.S in history from Boston College in 1959, an A.M. in Government and Education from Harvard University in 1969, a Ph.L. in Philosophy from Weston College in 1967, and a B.D. in Theology from Boston College in 1967. He then received both an M. A. and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from the University of Southern California. His doctoral thesis was "Toward an understanding of the Supreme Court's approach to religion in conscientious objector cases" Before coming to the Bost...
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Natale Cascinelli
#158969
Overall Influence
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Jean Talairach
#10604
Overall Influence
1911 - 2007 (96 years)
Jean Talairach was a psychiatrist and neurosurgeon who practiced at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center in Paris, and who is noted for the Talairach coordinates, which are relevant in stereotactic neurosurgery.
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D. S. Jacquette
#158980
Overall Influence
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Luigi Barbara
#158981
Overall Influence
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Charles-Emmanuel Sédillot
1804 - 1883 (79 years)
Charles-Emmanuel Sédillot was a French military physician and surgeon. He was the son of orientalist Jean Jacques Emmanuel Sédillot , and an older brother to historian Louis-Pierre-Eugène Sédillot.
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Christopher H. Boshoff
#158985
Overall Influence
