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

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#12701

William F. House

William F. House

#15779

Overall Influence

1923 - 2012 (89 years)

William Fouts House was an American otologist, physician and medical researcher who developed and invented the cochlear implant. The cochlear implant is considered to be the first invention to restore not just the sense of hearing, but any of the absent five senses in humans. Dr. House also pioneered approaches to the lateral skull base for removal of tumors, and is considered "the Father of Neurotology".

#12702

Victor Dzau

#17994

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Victor Joseph Dzau is a Chinese-American doctor and academic. He serves as the President of the United States National Academy of Medicine of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was previously the president and CEO of Duke University Medical Center.

#12703

Olga Grau

#129853

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Olga Ida Magdalena Grau Duhart is a contemporary Chilean writer, full professor, and philosopher, a specialist in gender, sexuality, philosophy, education, and literature. Early life and education Olga Ida Magdalena Grau Duhart was born in Santiago, Chile, September 21, 1945. She has a Diploma in childhood studies from Montclair State University, in Montclair, New Jersey, U.S., and a Doctorate in Literature with a specialization in Chilean and Hispanic literature from the University of Chile.

#12704

Lisa Littman

#70946

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

#12705

Arman Sedghi

#122214

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Arman Sedghi is an Iranian engineer and assistant professor at Imam Khomeini International University. He is best known for his scientific achievement in production of low cost carbon fibers, and being highly experienced in fabrication and characterization of ceramic fibers and their composites.

#12706

Ruthild Hahne

#137808

Overall Influence

1910 - 2001 (91 years)

Ruthild Hahne was a German sculptor. Her most productive phase coincided with the early years of the German Democratic Republic . Life Provenance and early years Ruthild Hahne was born in Berlin. Her father is variously described as a businessman and as a factory owner. Elsewhere her parents are described as distant and domineering. She grew up in a prosperous household in a substantial family home in Berlin's Schmöckwitz quarter. The household included a housekeeper, a gardener and a chauffeur. She attended the single-sex secondary school in the city's Neukölln quarter. While she was there someone lent her a book by Karl Marx which she took home and read.

#12707

José María Pérez Gay

#72185

Overall Influence

1944 - 2013 (69 years)

José María Pérez Gay was a Mexican academic, writer, translator and diplomat. Some of his best known writings include "El imperio perdido," "La profecia de la memoria: ensayos alemanes" and "El principe y sus guerrilleros." He also founded Channel 22 and served as the television station's director. He later became an adviser to former presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

#12708

Lorraine Besser

#182602

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Lorraine Besser is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Middlebury College. She is known for her works on moral philosophy. Books The Philosophy of Happiness: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, Routledge Press 2021Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well, Routledge Press 2014The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, Co-edited with Michael Slote, Routledge Press 2015

#12709

Andrew Heggie

#178340

Overall Influence

Andrew A.C. Heggie is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. His primary interest has been the management of developmental skeletal facial deformity, including patients with cleft lip and palate, craniofacial microsomia and infants with micrognathism. His contribution to the treatment of infant upper airway obstruction for Pierre Robin sequence, using internal devices for jaw lengthening using distraction osteogenesis, has replaced the need for tracheostomy in this condition. In 2019, Heggie was awarded Member of the Order of Australia for s...

#12710

Kevin Murphy

#121354

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Kevin Murphy is an American screenwriter, television producer, lyricist and composer. He wrote the book and lyrics of the musical Reefer Madness, as well as its television adaptation. For television, he has worked as a writer and producer for many series, most notably Desperate Housewives. He also wrote the stage musical Heathers: The Musical.

#12711

Kevin R. Stone

#64424

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Kevin Robert Stone is an American physician, orthopedic surgeon, clinician, researcher, and company founder of The Stone Clinic and the Stone Research Foundation in San Francisco. Stone’s most notable inventions have led to:the Collagen Meniscus Implant, the first successful and commercialized tissue-engineering template for re-growing the meniscus cartilage in the knee. This invention led to a public company, ReGen Biologics Inc.the first glucosamine beverage, Joint Juice, which gained wide distribution through the United States selling over 1/3 billion cans and bottles for people with arthritis.

#12712

Kazimierz Imieliński

#52925

Overall Influence

1929 - 2010 (81 years)

Kazimierz Imieliński was a Polish physician and the “father of Polish sexology”. Some of his monographs on sexology have been translated into foreign languages, including Czech and Russian.

#12713

Taylor Howard

#24898

Overall Influence

1932 - 2002 (70 years)

H. Taylor Howard was an American scientist and radio engineer. Howard was a major player in the development of consumer satellite television in the USA. In 1976, he demonstrated the possibility of receiving of TV signal from a communications satellite direct to the home of an ordinary householder, using a home-made satellite dish and a self-designed and built analog satellite receiver. He co-founded San Jose, California-based Chaparral Communications. He was born in Peoria, Illinois.

#12714

Lizbeth Goodman

#101269

Overall Influence

1964 - 2000 (36 years)

Lizbeth Goodman is the Chair of Creative Technology Innovation and founder director of the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute and the MAGIC Multimedia & Games Innovation Centre, formerly at the University of East London, England, and elsewhere, now at University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland.

#12715

Andrew Burn

#114247

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Andrew Burn is an English professor and media theorist. He is best known for his work in the fields of media arts education, multimodality and play, and for the development of the theory of the Kineikonic Mode. He is Emeritus professor of Media at the UCL Institute of Education.

#12716

Andrzej Grzybowski

#65635

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Andrzej Edward Grzybowski is a Polish ophthalmologist, professor of medical science, lecturer and head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, founder of Nationwide Education Operator., and Foundation for Ophthalmology Development "Ophthalmology 21".

#12717

Dean L. May

#163467

Overall Influence

1938 - 2003 (65 years)

Dean Lowe May was an American academic, author and documentary filmmaker and professor of History at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. May specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century social and cultural history of the American West through the study of community and family. He taught American studies as a Fulbright guest professor at the University of Bonn, Germany and Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. May was a member of the Utah State Board of History, editor of the Journal of Mormon History , and served as president of the Mormon History Association in 2002. May was...

#12718

Ian McWhinney

#100362

Overall Influence

1926 - 2012 (86 years)

Ian Renwick McWhinney was an English physician and academic known as Canada's "Founding Father of Family Medicine" for his work in creating a family medicine program at the University of Western Ontario.

#12719

Kevin Bishop

#124334

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Kevin Brian Bishop is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for his roles as Jim Hawkins in Muppet Treasure Island, Stupid Brian in My Family, and Nigel Norman Fletcher in the 2016 revival of Porridge, and as star of The Kevin Bishop Show, which he co-wrote with Lee Hupfield.

#12720

Seema Yasmin

#79023

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Seema Yasmin is a British-American physician, writer and science communicator based at Stanford University. She is Director of Research and Education at the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Yasmin helped to debunk myths about the coronavirus.

#12721

Alon Tal

#119723

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Alon Tal is an Israeli environmental politician, academic and activist. He was a member of the 24th Knesset between 2021 and 2022, representing the Blue and White political party; founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies; and co-founder of Ecopeace: Friends of the Earth–Middle East, This Is My Earth, the Israel Forum for Demography, Environment and Society, Aytzim: Ecological Judaism, and the Green Movement. Tal was appointed chair of the department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University in 2017.

#12722

Jack Body

#146577

Overall Influence

1944 - 2015 (71 years)

John Stanley Body was a New Zealand composer, ethnomusicologist, photographer, teacher, and arts producer. As a composer, his work comprised concert music, music theatre, electronic music, music for film and dance, and audio-visual gallery installations. A deep and long-standing interest in the music of non-Western cultures – particularly South-East Asian – influenced much of his composing work, particularly his technique of transcribing field recordings. As an organiser of musical events and projects, Body had a significant impact on the promotion of Asian music in New Zealand, as well as t...

#12723

Mark Khangure

#133295

Overall Influence

Makhan Singh Khangure in an Indian-born radiologist and a pioneer in the field of neuroradiology. He trained in the United Kingdom and Australia, and has been based in Perth, Western Australia, since the 1970s.

#12724

Ricardo Punzalan

#121833

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Ricardo L. Punzalan is a Filipino American archivist who is an Associate Professor of Information at the University of Michigan School of Information. He has shaped the fields of archival science, virtual reunification, repatriation, reparative description, and has studied the nature of collections in both museums and archives. He holds undergraduate and Masters degrees from the University of the Philippines and a doctorate in information science from the University of Michigan.

#12725

József Rácz

#158861

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

József Rácz is a Hungarian physician, psychiatrist, addiction doctor, full professor and the former Head of the Department of Counselling Psychology, Faculty of Education and Psychology at the Eötvös Loránd University and the Head of the Department of Addictology, Faculty of Health Sciences at the Semmelweis University, director at Blue Point Drug Counseling and Outpatient Centre. His books, papers and talks focus on qualitative social psychological research of the drug users.

#12726

Alexander M. Schweitzer

#185249

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Alexander M. Schweitzer is a German theologian and musician. Biography From 1984 to 1992 Schweitzer studied philosophy, Catholic theology and church music in Rome, Cremona and Munich. After years of activity in biblical pastoral ministry, from 2001 to 2011 Schweitzer served as General Secretary of the Catholic Biblical Federation. In 2008 Pope Benedict XVI appointed him expert for the Synod of Bishops on the Word of God.

#12727

Rosa-Linda Fregoso

#101834

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Rosa-Linda Fregoso is the Professor and former Chair of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Biography Fregoso was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. She received her Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies: Language, Society and Culture from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied under American media critic and scholar, Herbert Schiller, and literary scholar, Rosaura Sánchez.

#12728

Jonathan Dunsby

#181554

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Jonathan Mark Dunsby is a British classical pianist, musicologist, author and translator, particularly known for his research in musical analysis. His introductory textbook, Music Analysis in Theory and Practice , co-authored with Arnold Whittall, is a standard work in the field. Dunsby has held professorships at the University of Reading in the UK, and SUNY University at Buffalo and the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester in the United States, and was the founding editor-in-chief of the journal Music Analysis .

#12729

Roderick Long

#189998

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

#12730

Anders Indset

#181943

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Anders Indset is a Norwegian philosopher, author investor and public speaker. Among the philosophical and socio-political ideas he has advanced are The Quantum Economy, Reflection on the Simulation Hypothesis, Weltbildung and the final narcissistic injury of mankind.

#12731

Jessica Huber

#125082

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Jessica Eugenie Huber is an American speech scientist. She is a Professor of speech, language and hearing sciences and College of Health and Human Sciences associate dean for research at Purdue University.

#12732

Elijah Ateka

#66474

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Elijah Miinda Ateka is a Professor of Plant Virology at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. He is involved with the diagnosis and characterisation of the sweet potato virus and the cassava virus, and is part of the Cassava Virus Action Project .

#12733

Oliver Crawford

#126992

Overall Influence

1917 - 2008 (91 years)

Oliver Crawford was an American screenwriter and author who overcame the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy Era of the 1950s to become one of the entertainment industry's most successful television writers. Shows that Crawford wrote for include Star Trek, Bonanza, Quincy, M.E., Perry Mason, and the Kraft Television Theatre.

#12734

Walter Douglas Boyd

#65313

Overall Influence

Walter Douglas Boyd, M.D. is a notable Canadian cardiothoracic surgeon. born in Ottawa, he is a graduate of Carleton University, and the University of Ottawa for his medical degree. In 1999, he Boyd completed the world's first closed-chest, beating-heart coronary artery bypass surgery with the use of the ZEUS Robotic Surgical System, and has conducted pioneering work in cardiothoracic surgery and the use of robotic surgical systems. Dr. Boyd is also recognized for performing the first human extracellular matrix xenograft implant for cardiovascular repair in March 2006.

#12735

Elmar Budde

#156563

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Elmar Budde is a German musicologist. He studied at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Training and career Born in Bochum, Budde studied piano and school music at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg where he passed his state examination in 1961. After subsequent studies in musicology and Germanistic at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, he received his doctorate in 1967 with a thesis on the early Anton Webern.

#12736

João Lobo Antunes

João Lobo Antunes

#32095

Overall Influence

1944 - 2016 (72 years)

João Lobo Antunes was a Portuguese neurosurgeon. Life and career João Lobo Antunes was born in Lisbon as the second of six sons of João Alfredo de Figueiredo Lobo Antunes , prominent Neurologist and Professor, close collaborator of Egas Moniz, Nobel prize of physiology, and wife Margarida da Beira Cardoso de Melo Machado, daughter of Joaquim José Machado, 70th, 82nd and 91st Governor of Mozambique and 110th Governor of Portuguese India, and wife Mariana Cardoso de Melo. His great-grandfather in male line was an illegitimate son of Bernardo António de Brito Antunes, 1st Viscount of Nazaré. He ...

#12737

Alex Lee

#114522

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Alex Lee is an English musician. He has played guitar and keyboards for Goldfrapp, Massive Attack, Suede, Placebo, Strangelove and The Blue Aeroplanes amongst others. He has also worked as musical director with Florence And The Machine, Marina & The Diamonds and for the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as composing regularly for film and television.

#12738

Charles Hamm

#60315

Overall Influence

1925 - 2011 (86 years)

Charles Edward Hamm was an American musicologist, writer, composer, and music educator. He is credited with being the first music historian to seriously study and write about American popular music. He also was one of the founders of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music .

#12739

Philip Ledger

#103354

Overall Influence

1937 - 2012 (75 years)

Sir Philip Stevens Ledger, CBE, FRSE was an English classical musician, choirmaster and academic, best remembered as Director of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge in 1974–1982 and of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1982 until he retired in 2001. He also composed choral music and played the organ, piano and harpsichord.

#12740

Sardar Anjum

#43098

Overall Influence

1941 - 2015 (74 years)

Sardar Anjum was an Indian poet Awards and recognition Padma Bhushan Award — Anjum was honoured with the Padma Bhushan Award in 2005 Citation Literature and Education. This is India's third largest civilian honourPadma Shri Award , India's fourth highest civilian honour.The Millennium Peace Award - Anjum has been honored by many literary societies, cultural forums and creative foundations both in India and Abroad. In 2000, former first lady Hillary Clinton presented "The Millennium Peace Award" to Anjum on behalf of "International Peace Foundation of New York". The citation of this award reads - The Millennium Peace Award to Padmashri Dr.

#12741

Aza Rakhmanova

#104343

Overall Influence

1932 - 2015 (83 years)

Aza Rakhmanova or Aza Hasanovna Rakhmanova was a Russian AIDS and Hepatitis expert. She was credited with organizing AIDS prevention and control in St. Petersburg. She was one of the first to be treating HIV in the Soviet Union in 1987.

#12742

Jean-Paul C. Montagnier

#89136

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Jean-Paul C. Montagnier is a French musicologist. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he received two first prizes in musical analysis and music history , before completing a PhD at Duke University under the supervision of Professor Peter Williams . He is currently Professor of musicology at the University of Lorraine , and Associate Member of the Institut de Recherche en Musicologie . He also was Adjunct Professor at McGill University. He was involved with Musica Gallica, an edition of the works of the musical patrimony of France. He serves on the editorial board of the Collected Works of Jean-Baptiste Lully published by Olms .

#12743

Kenneth Baker

#131078

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J. is a Roman Catholic priest in the Society of Jesus. Besides his pastoral duties as a priest he has served as a professor of theology and a university president. He has also worked to bring the message of the Roman Catholic Church into more forms of communication media, most notably as editor-in-chief in the magazine the Homiletic and Pastoral Review which has been called "one of the most important magazines for priests in the English speaking world".

#12744

Ilaria Testa

#182733

Overall Influence

Ilaria Testa is an Italian-born scientist who is a Fellow at the SciLifeLab in Stockholm and an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Physics at the School of Engineering Science at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. She has made major contributions to advanced microscopy, particularly superresolution microscopy .

#12745

Matthew Nudds

#190068

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Matthew Nudds is a British philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick where he is also Chair of the Faculty of Social Sciences. He is known for his works on philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception.

#12746

Giselle Corbie-Smith

#144695

Overall Influence

Giselle Corbie-Smith is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. She serves as Director of the UNC Center for Health Equity Research and Associate Provost of the Institute of Rural Innovation. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018. Her research considers racial disparities in healthcare.

#12747

Munjed Al Muderis

#45560

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Munjed Al Muderis is an Australian adjunct clinical professor in orthopaedic surgery, author and human rights activist. He has done pioneering work on prosthetics, especially on titanium devices. Al Muderis was born in Iraq to a rich family and became a surgeon under the regime of Saddam Hussein. He was a medical student in Basra at the start of the Gulf War in August 1990. As a junior surgeon, he emigrated from Iraq to Australia. He travelled through Indonesia and Malaysia and reached Australia where he was kept in at an immigration detention centre near Derby, Western Australia. He was rele...

#12748

Hemendra Nath Chatterjee

#31021

Overall Influence

Hemendra Nath Chatterjee was an Indian scientist from West Bengal known for the earliest publication of a formula for Orally Rehydrated Saline for diarrhea management in 1952. Although his results were published in The Lancet, they didn't receive much recognition from Western scientists until later. Some argue this was for cultural reasons as his treatment protocol included traditional medicine, and also because the scientific underpinnings of ORS weren't well understood. However, some argue he shouldn't be given credit for its invention at all, as some of his results contradict the results o...

#12749

Meyer Balter

#175666

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Meyer Stanley Balter, MD, FRCPC, FACP, FCCP is a Canadian physician specializing in asthma, sarcoidosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease . He earned an M.D. from McGill University Faculty of Medicine . He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1989. He currently is Director, Asthma Education Clinic and Director, Internal Medicine Residency Training Program at Mount Sinai Hospital , and Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto.

#12750

Sara Howard

#186205

Overall Influence

Sara Howard is a British speech therapist and Professor Emerita of Clinical Phonetics at the University of Sheffield. Career Howard earned a BA in English and an MA in Linguistics at the University of Leeds before receiving a BSc in Speech & Language Therapy at Leeds Metropolitan University and a PhD in Clinical Phonetics at the University of Sheffield. She works in the area of the phonetics/phonology interface in developmental speech impairments .

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