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,
#12601
Elbert P. Trulock
#158986
Overall Influence
#12602
Ronald Feld
#158992
Overall Influence
#12603
Francis E. Rosato
#159001
Overall Influence
#12604
Robert E. Hillman
#159015
Overall Influence
#12605
George Packer Berry
1898 - 1986 (88 years)
George Packer Berry was an American physician and medical educator. He served as dean of Harvard Medical School for sixteen years and is credited with greatly modernizing that institution's medical education program.
Go to Profile#12606
J. D. Thomas
#159036
Overall Influence
#12607
David E. Weissman
#159037
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#12608
Patrice Abry
#138386
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Patrice Abry from the CNRS & Ecole Normale Suprieure de Lyon, Lyon Cedex 07, France was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 "for contributions to the theory and applications of fractal analysis and multifractal analysis in signal and image processing".
Go to Profile#12609
Kazimierz Kelles-Krauz
1872 - 1905 (33 years)
Kazimierz Radosław Elehard baron Kelles-Krauz was a Polish philosopher and sociologist, member of the Polish Socialist Party. He was one of the most significant Marxist thinkers at the end of the 19th century.
Go to Profile#12610
Gary Purdy
#114815
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Gary Rush Purdy is a Canadian materials scientist and engineer. He is a Distinguished University Professor at McMaster University. Early life and education Purdy was born on October 8, 1936, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was born to father Kent Purdy and graduated from McKay Avenue and Victoria Composite High schools. Following high school, he earned his bachelor's degree in mining engineering and his master's degree in metallurgy from the University of Alberta . During his time at the U of A, he won the Robert Tegler Scholarship from 1957 to 1958 and a National Research Council studentship from 1958 to 1959.
Go to Profile#12611
Jan Jesenius
1566 - 1621 (55 years)
Jan Jesenius, also written as Jessenius , was a Bohemian physician, politician and philosopher. Life Early years He was from an old noble family, the House of Jeszenszky, originally from the Kingdom of Hungary. He presented himself in his own works as eques Ungarus . According to scholar publications, he had Slovak, Polish or German roots. His father, Boldizsár Jeszenszky de Nagyjeszen, left Turóc County because of the Ottomans' military campaign against Upper Hungary and settled down in Silesia in 1555. He married Marta Schülerin, who came from a wealthy German bourgeois family.
Go to Profile#12612
Scott A. Lemaire
#159057
Overall Influence
#12613
Francis T. De Dombal
#159060
Overall Influence
#12614
Norman Bernard Hecht
#159075
Overall Influence
#12615
Ivan Esaulov
#120737
Overall Influence
Ivan A. Esaulov is the author of numerous articles and five monographs, of which the most recent are Paschal’nost’ russokoj slovesnosti , Kategoriia sobornosti v russkoi literature , and Spektr adekvatnosti v istolkovanii literaturnogo proizvedenija . He was also an editor of the periodical Postsymbolizm kak javlenie kul’tury and founder of the web site www.postsymbolism.ru. His main area of specialization is in poetics of Old Russian and Russian literature, and the philosophy of religion.
Go to Profile#12616
Berndt Lüderitz
#159110
Overall Influence
#12617
Ciro Indolfi
#159112
Overall Influence
#12618
Reinhard Dengler
#159118
Overall Influence
#12619
Jerome M. Feldman
#159121
Overall Influence
#12620
Franc¸ois Raffi
#159125
Overall Influence
#12621
Chu Teh-Chun
#40433
Overall Influence
1920 - 2014 (94 years)
Chu Teh-Chun or Zhu Dequn was a Chinese-French abstract painter acclaimed for his pioneering style integrating traditional Chinese painting techniques with Western abstract art. Chu Teh-Chun enrolled in the National School of Fine Arts , where he studied under Fang Ganmin and Wu Dayu. He was the first ethnic Chinese member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of France, and together with Wu Guanzhong and Zao Wou-Ki were dubbed the "Three Musketeers" of modernist Chinese artists trained in China and France.
Go to Profile#12622
Ninan T. Mathew.
#159139
Overall Influence
#12623
Emil Skamene
#68862
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Emil Skamene, is a Canadian Immunologist and medical researcher. He is the Director of Research for the McGill University Health Centre, the Director of the Centre for the Study of Host Resistance, and a Professor in the Department of Medicine, the Department of Human Genetics, and the Institute of Parasitology.
Go to Profile#12624
Norio Hayashi
#159149
Overall Influence
#12625
Diogenes of Phoenicia
#107918
Overall Influence
Diogenes of Phoenicia was a 6th-century Greek philosopher. He is known mainly for the fact that Agathias mentions him as one of the seven well-known philosophers who influenced the Academy in its final years. Diogenes was born in Phoenicia, and like most other academy leaders of that time, a native of the Middle East.
Go to Profile#12626
Giovanni Guaraldi
#159173
Overall Influence
#12627
Hong‐hao Zhou
#159182
Overall Influence
#12628
Johannes F. E. Mann
#159183
Overall Influence
#12629
Jack E. Riggs
#159192
Overall Influence
#12630
Mary Putnam Jacobi
1842 - 1906 (64 years)
Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi was an English-American physician, teacher, scientist, writer, and suffragist. She was the first woman admitted to study medicine at the University of Paris and the first woman to graduate from a pharmacy college in the United States.
Go to Profile#12631
Asif Zaman Rashid
#159200
Overall Influence
#12632
Asim Mujkić
#130817
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Asim Mujkić is a Bosnian philosopher and sociologist. Educated at the University of Sarajevo, he works in the areas of ethics, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, philosophy of identity, social and political theory and theories on ethnicity. He has written particularly extensively on ethnicity and identity, ethnic phenomenology, existentialism, and on the works and thought of Richard Rorty and John Rawls. He is a professor at the University of Sarajevo.
Go to Profile#12633
George A. Gregory
#159225
Overall Influence
#12634
Hans‐dieter Flad
#159234
Overall Influence
#12635
Mikala Egeblad
#159255
Overall Influence
#12636
Shlomo Kalo
#65578
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Shlomo Kalo was a writer and microbiologist. He published approximately 80 fiction and nonfiction books in Hebrew, some of which are published in translation internationally. Biography Shlomo Kalo was born on 25 February 1928, in Sofia, Bulgaria. At the age of 12, Kalo joined the anti-Fascist underground in Bulgaria. Aged 15, when Bulgaria was under Nazi occupation, Kalo was imprisoned in an improvised concentration camp in Somovit.", Aged 18, in 1946, he won a prize in a poetry competition and went to Prague, where he studied medicine at the Charles University, worked as a freelance journali...
Go to Profile#12637
Paul F. Engstrom
#159265
Overall Influence
#12638
Kent E. Wallner
#159271
Overall Influence
#12639
John L. Wallwork
#159274
Overall Influence
#12640
Craig T. Simmons
#157190
Overall Influence
Craig T. Simmons is an Australian hydrogeologist and was named South Australia's Scientist of the Year in 2015. Career Simmons began working at Flinders University in 1997 at the age of 25. He went on to establish the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training in 2009 and was appointed the inaugural Schultz Chair in the Environment at Flinders University, South Australia. In August 2015, Simmons was named South Australian Scientist of the Year. As of August 2015, Simmons is also The Advertiser's official scientist in residence. He is a member of the Statutory Independent Expert Sci...
Go to Profile#12641
Harold E. B. Pardee
1886 - 1973 (87 years)
Harold Ensign Bennet Pardee was an American cardiologist and pioneer in electrocardiogram research. Biography Pardee was born on December 11, 1886, to Ensign Bennet Pardee, a physician. He was a grandnephew of Charles Inslee Pardee, former dean of the New York Medical College, and a direct descendant of William Brewster and William Bradford of the Plymouth Colony.
Go to Profile#12642
Nikolai Semashko
1874 - 1949 (75 years)
Dr. Nikolai Aleksandrovich Semashko , was a revolutionary, Soviet statesman and academic who became People's Commissar of Public Health in 1918, and served in that role until 1930. He was one of the organizers of the health system in the Soviet Union , an academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences and of the Russian SFSR .
Go to Profile#12643
Rune Slagstad
#39037
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Rune Slagstad is a Norwegian historian, philosopher, legal theorist, professor and journal editor. In addition to professional work, he has since the late 1960s contributed actively to public debate on a variety of issues from Norway.
Go to Profile#12644
André‐bernard Tonnel
#159311
Overall Influence
#12645
Bronislaw L. Slomiany
#159333
Overall Influence
#12646
Yoshioka Yayoi
1871 - 1959 (88 years)
Yoshioka Yayoi was a Japanese physician, educator, and women's rights activist. She founded the Tokyo Women's Medical University in 1900, as the first medical school for women in Japan. She was also known as Washiyama Yayoi.
Go to Profile#12647
Wolfgang Baehr
#159349
Overall Influence
#12648
Roger D. Sturrock
#159351
Overall Influence
#12649
Albert Prof. Dr. Gollhofer
#159353
Overall Influence
#12650
Richard L. Lindstrom
#159372
Overall Influence
