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).

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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#12651

Riko Muranaka

Riko Muranaka
#69755
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
is a medical doctor, journalist and recipient of the 2017 John Maddox Prize for fighting to reduce cervical cancer and countering misinformation about the human papilloma virus vaccine dominating the Japanese media, despite facing safety threats. Despite the lack of evidence, the HPV vaccine is infamous in Japan due to misattributed adverse effects, with government suspending promotion and coverage. While the World Health Organization safety and efficacy information about the vaccine is consistent with Muranaka's reporting, a court ruled against Muranaka in an unrelated slander lawsuit in 2016 for claims of alleged fabrication.
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#12652

Mark Josephson

#29238
Overall Influence
1943 - 2017 (74 years)
Mark E. Josephson was an American cardiologist and writer, who was in the 1970s one of the American pioneers of the medical cardiology subspecialty of cardiac electrophysiology. His book titled Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology: Techniques and Interpretations is widely acknowledged as the definitive treatment of the discipline. He served as Herman Dana Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard-Thorndike Electrophysiology Institute and Arrhythmia Service and the chief of cardiology at Harvard University's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
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#12653

Rocke Robertson

#87294
Overall Influence
1912 - 1998 (86 years)
Harold Rocke Robertson , was a Canadian physician and the former Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University . Biography Rocke Robertson was born in Victoria, British Columbia in 1912. He studied in Switzerland before moving to Montreal in 1929 to attend McGill University, where he received his B.S. in 1932 and M.D. in 1936.
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#12654

Clara Chu

Clara Chu
#163293
Overall Influence
Clara Chu is a Chinese-Canadian library and information science scholar. She is the Director of the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interest is in multicultural library and information services.
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#12655

Katarina Majerhold

Katarina Majerhold
#186437
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Katarina Majerhold is a Slovenian philosopher, writer and editor. She is particularly interested in philosophy of emotions, especially in philosophy of love and sexuality, happiness, philosophical counseling and ethics. In 2017 she published an article on the History of Love in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. She has been a member of Society for the Philosophy of Sex + Love since 1998. In 2020 she wrote her concept of love as a creative dynamic work In which she claims that all known western concepts of love are based on lack of something or someone, such as primordial wholeness, God...
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#12656

Jack Penn

#25829
Overall Influence
1909 - 1996 (87 years)
Jack Penn , M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S., Mil. Dec. M.B.E., S.M., was a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, sculptor and author, who was also for a time a member of the President's Council in South Africa. Early years Penn was born in Cape Town in 1909, the youngest of 7 children. After World War I, the family moved to Johannesburg, where he was educated at Parktown Boys' High School and the University of the Witwatersrand.
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#12657

Hiram D. Williams

#115049
Overall Influence
1917 - 2003 (86 years)
Hiram Draper Williams was a painter and professor of art at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida. Williams was inducted into the Florida Artist Hall of Fame. His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, all of New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
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#12658

Carl G. Streed

#66997
Overall Influence
Carl G. Streed Jr. is an American physician, researcher, and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. Early life and education Streed grew up in Zion, Illinois. He completed a B.S. in biological chemistry and B.A. in chemistry at University of Chicago in 2007. While at Chicago, Streed became an advocate for LGBTQ issues and served on the university's committee for enhancing support for the LGBTQ community. He came out as gay to his family before graduating. Streed volunteered at the Broadway Youth Center with their HIV and STI services.
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#12659

James Douglas Pearson

James Douglas Pearson
#100794
Overall Influence
1911 - 1997 (86 years)
James Douglas Pearson was a British librarian and bibliographer in the field of Islamic studies who founded the Index Islamicus. Life James Pearson grew up in Cambridge, where he was also educated. His first job was as a book fetcher in the Cambridge University Library at the age of 16.
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#12660

Sean Doherty

#170424
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Sean William Doherty is a British Anglican priest and academic specialising in Christian ethics. Since June 2019, he has been Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, an evangelical Anglican theological college.
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#12661

Allan Hahn

#103195
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Allan Geoffrey Hahn OAM is a leading Australian sports scientist. Between 1984 and 2011, he made a significant contribution to the Australian Institute of Sport in the areas of sports physiology and technology. In September 2011, he was appointed Emeritus Professor at the AIS.
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#12662

Tess Cramond

#174613
Overall Influence
1926 - 2015 (89 years)
Teresa Rita O'Rourke Cramond AO, OBE was an Australian doctor and the director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Centre at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Her career spanning fifty years, was dedicated to improving the use of anaesthesia, resuscitation and pain medicine, with specific reference to the relief of cancer pain and palliative care.
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#12663

Roy Johnston

#60123
Overall Influence
1929 - 2019 (90 years)
Roy H. W. Johnston was an Irish theoretical physicist and republican political activist. He was a Marxist who as a member of the IRA in the 1960s argued for a National Liberation Strategy to unite the Catholic and Protestant working classes. He wrote extensively for such newspapers as The United Irishman and The Irish Times.
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#12664

Onyema Ogbuagu

#70866
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Onyema Eberechukwu Ogbuagu is an American-born infectious diseases physician, educator, researcher, and clinical trial investigator, who was raised and educated in Nigeria. He is an associate professor at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT and is the director of the Yale AIDS Program clinical trials unit. His research contributions have focused on HIV/AIDS prevention and COVID-19 vaccination and treatment clinical trials. He switched his focus at the beginning of the 2019 COVID pandemic and participated as a principal investigator on the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine trials and the Remdesivir SIMPLE trial in 2020 and 2021.
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#12665

Lance Becker

#116640
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Lance B. Becker is an American physician and academic, specializing in emergency medicine and treatment for cardiac arrest, currently at Northwell Health. He is the chairman of the department of emergency medicine at North Shore University Hospital, as well as chair and professor of emergency medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine.
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#12666

Thomas G. McGinn

#125049
Overall Influence
Thomas G. McGinn is an American physician, Educator, and researcher in Evidence Based Medicine, Clinical Prediction Rules, clinical decision support. McGinn is the EVP of CommonSpirit Health and Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine
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#12667

Michael Levin

#189690
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Michael Levin may refer to:Michael Levin , American philosopherMichael Levin , American biologistMichael Levin , American soldier in the Israel Defense ForcesMichael Graubart Levin , American authorMike Levin , American politician from CaliforniaMike Levin , British professor of paediatrics
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#12668

Mark Williams

Mark Williams
#84356
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Mark Williams is an English actor, comedian, presenter and screenwriter. He first achieved widespread recognition as one of the central performers in the popular BBC sketch show The Fast Show. His film roles include Horace in the 1996 version of 101 Dalmatians and Arthur Weasley in seven of the Harry Potter films. He made recurring appearances as Brian Williams in the BBC television series Doctor Who and as Olaf Petersen in Red Dwarf. Since 2013, Williams has portrayed the title character in the long-running BBC series loosely based on the Father Brown short stories by G. K. Chesterton.
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#12669

Frank L. Douglas

#42350
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Frank Lennox Douglas is a Guyanese-American biomedical researcher and business executive. Education and career Douglas was born April 30, 1943, in Georgetown, Guyana. He graduated with a BS in Engineering from Lehigh University in 1966. He went on to a PhD in Physical Chemistry from Cornell University, which he received at the beginning of 1973, with a thesis on chlorophyll-a. After a brief stint working at Xerox, Douglas moved to New York City to pursue a medical degree from the Cornell University Medical School. After finishing the MD, Douglas completed an internship and residency in inte...
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#12670

William H. Stewart

#27866
Overall Influence
1921 - 2008 (87 years)
William H. Stewart was an American pediatrician and epidemiologist. He was appointed tenth Surgeon General of the United States from 1965 to 1969. Biography Early life and education Stewart was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began college at the University of Minnesota and completed his undergraduate degree at Louisiana State University , after his father moved the family to Baton Rouge during World War II to chair the pediatrics department at LSU. Stewart earned his medical degree through an accelerated program at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, under the auspices of the U.S.
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#12671

Don Harper Mills

#79654
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
Don Harper Mills was an American pathologist and medical-legal scholar. He was a clinical professor of pathology and psychiatry at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, president of the American College of Legal Medicine from 1974 to 1976, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, of which he served as president from 1986 to 1987. He was also a practicing lawyer who served as medical director of the County of Los Angeles Medical Malpractice Program. He is known for telling the "Ronald Opus" story to members of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1987, when he was the Academy's president.
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#12672

Kenneth Crews

#87498
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Kenneth D. Crews is an American copyright scholar and librarian. He is particularly noted for his scholarship around educational and library exceptions in copyright law, and was commissioned by WIPO to write an examination of those exceptions around the world. He is a frequent speaker and consultant on library-related copyright matters, and was called for expert testimony in the Cambridge University Press v. Becker copyright case challenging the practice of Georgia State University's e-reserves system. Crews is noted for pioneering the concept of the "fair use checklist", which has enjoyed w...
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#12673

Joe Sam Robinson

#103265
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Joe Sam Robinson Jr. is an American neurosurgeon. He is a professor and chief of neurosurgery at Mercer University and a clinical professor at Georgia Regents University. Early life and education The son of Joe Sam Robinson and Nell Mixon Robinson, he was born on July 21, 1945, in Atlanta, Georgia. Robinson grew up in Macon, Georgia, and attended Harvard University, graduating cum laude in 1967. While at Harvard he ran and lettered in varsity track and football and was a Rhodes Scholar nominee. Robinson then attended the University of Virginia medical school where he played first side on their rugby team and graduated as a member of the medical honors society AOA.
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#12674

Thomas H. Green

#186766
Overall Influence
1932 - 2009 (77 years)
Thomas Henry Green SJ was an American Jesuit, spiritual director, educator and author of spiritual books. He taught primarily in the Philippines. Early life Thomas Henry Green was the son of George Charles and Marie Margaret Green . After graduating from Catholic The Aquinas Institute of Rochester, he entered the noviciate of the Society of Jesus in Poughkeepsie on September 7, 1949. He studied Philosophy and Theology at Bellarmine College in Plattsburgh, New York, and at Woodstock College in Maryland. At Fordham University he earned a M.A. degree in education and a M.S. degree in Physics .
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#12675

Nils Bergman

#54251
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Nils Bergman, is a Swedish specialist in perinatal neuroscience and a promoter of skin-to-skin contact between a mother and newborn. Background Bergman was born in Sweden but grew up in Zimbabwe, and then moved to Cape Town, South Africa, where he received his medical degree at the University of Cape Town, followed by a Masters in Public Health at the University of the Western Cape and a doctoral dissertation on scorpion stings. He returned to Zimbabwe in the 1980s as a mission doctor, and started practising what is now known as Kangaroo Mother Care on babies born prematurely.
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#12676

Zhong Nanshan

#80455
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Zhong Nanshan is a Chinese pulmonologist. He was president of the Chinese Medical Association from 2005 to 2009 and is currently the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Thoracic Disease. He is a recipient of Medal of the Republic, the highest honour of China.
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#12677

Terence Rees

#143297
Overall Influence
1928 - 2014 (86 years)
Terence Albert Ladd Rees was a microbiologist but was best known as a collector of material relating to the theatre and music in Wales and Britain. He was also a published theatre historian and researcher, and, in particular, was an authority on the works of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan who, as Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote 14 comic operas in the late Victorian era.
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#12678

Nick Lemoine

#70949
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Nicholas Robert Lemoine, is a British academic, professor at Queen Mary University of London, director of the Barts Cancer Institute and centre lead, Centre for Molecular Oncology. Lemoine's main interests are "the genomics and molecular pathology of pancreatic cancer and the development of oncolytic virotherapy".
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#12679

Charles Odamtten Easmon

Charles Odamtten Easmon
#43814
Overall Influence
1913 - 1994 (81 years)
Charles Odamtten Easmon or C. O. Easmon, popularly known as Charlie Easmon, was a medical doctor and academic who became the first Ghanaian to formally qualify as a surgeon specialist and the first Dean of the University of Ghana Medical School. Easmon performed the first successful open-heart surgery in Ghana in 1964, and modern scholars credit him as the "Father of Cardiac Surgery in West Africa". Easmon was of Sierra Leone Creole, Ga-Dangme, African-American, Danish, and Irish ancestry and a member of the distinguished Easmon family, a Sierra Leone Creole medical dynasty of African-Americ...
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#12680

Juan Pascual-Leone

#145652
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Juan Pascual-Leone is a developmental psychologist and founder of the neo-Piagetian approach to cognitive development. He introduced this term into the literature and put forward key predictions about developmental growth of mental attention and working memory.
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#12681

Catherine Itzin

#90119
Overall Influence
1944 - 2010 (66 years)
Catherine Lenore Itzin , also known as Cathy Itzin, was a critic specialising in alternative theatre and later an advisor on women's issues. Itzin immigrated to Britain in the late 1960s and completed an MPhil at University College London and a PhD at the University of Kent some years later. A co-editor of Theatre Quarterly until 1977 she began the Alternative Theatre Directory as a short section of the journal in 1971; the directory itself had become a substantial periodical by 1975. She was drama critic of Tribune for about a decade, and wrote a history of the alternative theatre movement, ...
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#12682

Francine Leca

Francine Leca
#53141
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Francine Leca is a French cardiac surgeon and professor of medicine specializing in heart surgery, a pioneer of the discipline in pediatrics. Biography Francine Leca gravitated toward medicine at a very young age. During an internship in cardiac surgery under professor Jean Mathey at Laennec Hospital, she assisted her first open heart surgery. As an intern at hôpitaux de Paris, she discovered pediatric cardiac surgery under Professor George Lemoine. She went on to specialize in congenital heart defects.
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#12683

Tiffany Stewart

#153322
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Tiffany M. Stewart is an American clinical psychologist and the Dudley and Beverly Coates Endowed Professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center of the Louisiana State University System. Stewart is a licensed clinical psychologist who provides mental health treatment and conducts behavioral health research as Director of the Behavior Technology Laboratory. She was the lead scientist who developed one of the first computerized procedures for measuring body image called the Body Morph Assessment . Stewart also established the first treatment clinic at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, ...
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#12684

Norman Longworth

#69681
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Norman Longworth is a British educational theorist who was a professor of lifelong learning at several universities. He is probably best known for the creation of the 'learning Ladder' a diagram describing the stages in human learning, and for his international reputation in the field of Lifelong Learning and, in particular, the development of Learning cities. In his writings 'Cities, Towns and Regions are where the development of human and social potential takes first priority' . In the same book Longworth says ' A learning City, Town or Region goes beyond its statutory duty to provide educa...
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#12685

Krista Lawlor

#120756
Overall Influence
Krista Lawlor is an American philosopher and Henry Waldgrave Stuart Memorial Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University. She is known for her works on philosophy of mind and epistemology. Books Assurance: An Austinian View of Knowledge and Knowledge Claims New Thoughts about Old Things: Cognitive Policies as the Ground of Singular Concepts
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#12686

Celso-Ramón García

#39325
Overall Influence
1922 - 2004 (82 years)
Celso-Ramón García was an American physician who specialized in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. He oversaw early clinical trials of the first oral contraceptive pill in Puerto Rican women and later became a professor of human reproduction at the University of Pennsylvania.
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#12687

Jackie Benschop

#188560
Overall Influence
Jackie Benschop is a New Zealand Professor of Veterinary Public Health at Massey University, specialising in the animal–human–environment interface, particularly for Leptospira, Campylobacter and Salmonella. She is a member of the World Health Organisation's Steering Committee for the Global Leptospirosis Environmental Action Network, and a co-founder of the African Leptospirosis Network.
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#12688

Silvio Almeida

#147671
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Silvio Luiz de Almeida is a Brazilian lawyer, philosopher, university professor, and the current Minister of Human Rights and Citizenship. Recognized as one of greatest Brazilian specialist on racial issues, Almeida is chair of Luiz Gama Institute and is author of book Racismo Estrutural, Sartre: Direito e Política and O Direito no Jovem Lukács: A Filosofia do Direito em História e Consciência.
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#12689

Monique Ryan

#150961
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Monique Marie Ryan is an Australian paediatric neurologist and politician. She is currently the member of parliament for the federal seat of Kooyong, having won the seat at the 2022 Australian federal election.
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#12690

Tom Oppé

#95779
Overall Influence
1925 - 2007 (82 years)
Thomas Ernest Oppé CBE was an English paediatrician and a professor of paediatrics at St Mary's Hospital, London. He is regarded as a pioneer in children's health services and infant nutrition. Early life Oppé was born in 1925 in Hampstead to Ernest Frederick, a banker, and Ethel Nellie . His paternal uncle was the historian and art collector Paul Oppé. Tom Oppé attended University College School, and went into banking at the age of 15. He left after six months, deciding that he would prefer to study medicine, and began his pre-clinical training at Guy's Hospital in 1942. He was evacuated to Tunbridge Wells for much of the Second World War, and graduated with honours in 1947.
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#12691

Tikam Singh Rana

#174790
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Tikam Singh Rana , is an Indian plant biologist, specializing in Plant Taxonomy, Conservation Biology, and Molecular Systematics. He is presently working as Chief Scientist, Head and Area Coordinator of the Plant Diversity, Systematics and Herbarium Division at CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute , Lucknow. Rana’s contributions to understanding the taxonomy and phylogeny of taxonomically complex and economically important taxa like Murraya sp., Chenopodium sp., Ocimum sp., Jatropha curcas, Taxus sp., Ephedra sp., Acorus calamus, Ficus sp., Sapindus sp., Bergenia sp., Betula sp., Uraria sp., Gymnema sp., etc.
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#12692

Sonia Y. Angell

#58359
Overall Influence
Sonia Yris Angell is an American public health figure. She is an assistant clinical professor of medicine in the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 2020, after resigning as director of the California Department of Public Health, Angell was elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine.
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#12693

Mark Henderson

#90601
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Mark Henderson is a British lighting designer who won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Lighting Design for The History Boys. Henderson began his Broadway career with a 1986 comedy revue starring Rowan Atkinson. His Broadway credits include revivals of The Merchant of Venice , Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , Hamlet , The Iceman Cometh , The Real Thing , Faith Healer , and A Moon for the Misbegotten , and the original productions of Indiscretions , Copenhagen , Decocracy , Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , and Deuce .
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#12694

Matthew Davis

#189811
Overall Influence
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#12695

Silas Dodu

#76441
Overall Influence
1924 - 2007 (83 years)
Silas Rofino Amu Dodu, was a Ghanaian physician and academic. He was a professor of medicine, the second Dean at the University of Ghana Medical School and a pioneer cardiologist in Ghana. He and others have been described as pioneers of the medical profession in Ghana.
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#12696

Carolina Sartorio

#103588
Overall Influence
Carolina Sartorio is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. Previously she taught at the University of Arizona. She is known for her works on free will. Books Causation and Free Will, Oxford University Press 2016 Do We Have Free Will? A Debate, with Robert Kane, Routledge 2021
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#12697

Peter Langston

#117585
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Peter Langston is a computer programmer who wrote and distributed for free several games for Unix systems in the 1970s, including one of the earliest text adventure video games Wander, the original version of Empire and the program "Oracle" upon which the later net-wide Oracle was modeled. He is also an experienced jazz, rock, and folk musician.
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#12698

Caroline Ford

#68158
Overall Influence
Caroline E. Ford is an Australian scientist at the University of New South Wales and advocate for women in science. Her research aims to understand why gynaecological cancers develop, how they spread and how best to treat them, and she leads the Gynaecological Cancer Research Group at the University of New South Wales, which was established in 2010.
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#12699

Stefania Jabłońska

Stefania Jabłońska
#34679
Overall Influence
1920 - 2017 (97 years)
Stefania Jabłońska was a Polish physician and professor specializing in dermatology. She worked at the Medical University of Warsaw. In 1972, she theorized the association of human papilloma viruses with skin cancer in epidermodysplasia verruciformis.
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#12700

Wolfgang Ernst

Wolfgang Ernst
#85611
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Wolfgang Ernst is a German media theorist. He is Professor for Media Theories at Humboldt University of Berlin and a major exponent of media archaeology as a method of scholarly inquiry. Biography Ernst studied history, archaeology and classics at the University of Cologne, University of London, and Ruhr University Bochum. He wrote his dissertation on the aesthetic history of collections and work as an assistant at the Studienstiftung. He held positions in Leipzig, Kassel, Rome, Cologne, Weimar, Bochum, Paderborn and Berlin. Wolfgang Ernst collaborated with bootlab Berlin and developed alter...
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