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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#12951

Angela Davis

#190894

Overall Influence

#12952

Theodore Marier

#155657

Overall Influence

1912 - 2001 (89 years)

Theodore Norbert Marier was a church musician, educator, arranger and scholar of Gregorian Chant. He founded St. Paul's Choir School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1963, and served as the second president of the Church Music Association of America.

#12953

Justin Lewis

#34642

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Justin Lewis FLSW is a Professor of Communication and Creative Industries at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University. He is the Director of Clwstwr, an Arts and Humanities Research Council and Welsh Government funded Research & Development innovation centre for the Screen and News sectors and Media Cymru, a £50 million, 23 partner consortium, funded by UK Research and Innovation, Cardiff Capital Region and Welsh Government, designed to boost inclusive and sustainable media sector innovation in Wales. He is also Chief Field Editor for Frontiers in Comm...

#12954

James Olson

#146917

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

James Olson is an American philosopher and author. A generalist focused on psychological aspects of the brain, neuropsychology, Olson explores the brain's role in influencing the nature of human consciousness, thought, and behavior. In particular, he seeks to understand how genetic dominance and functional lateralization combine to create a series of inheritable default brain-operating systems to help guide perception and response. Olson is the author of Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future , a book that seeks to explain human behavior by focusing on functional differences in the brain's ...

#12955

Roger Stritmatter

#80680

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Roger A. Stritmatter is a Professor of Humanities at Coppin State University and the former general editor of Brief Chronicles, a delayed open access journal covering the Shakespeare authorship question from 2009 to 2016. He was a founder of the modern Shakespeare Fellowship, an organization that promotes Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as the true author of the works of William Shakespeare. He is one of the leading modern-day advocates of the Oxfordian theory of Shakespeare authorship, and has been called the “first professional Oxfordian scholar”.

#12956

Paul Laird

#83555

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Paul Robert Laird is an American musicologist at the University of Kansas born in Louisville, Kentucky. Education Raised in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, Laird graduated in 1976 from Bridgewater-Raritan High School East, where he participated in the New Jersey All-State Orchestra.

#12957

John Abbott

#135680

Overall Influence

1905 - 1996 (91 years)

John Albert Chamberlain Kefford was an English actor professionally known as John Abbott. His memorable roles include the invalid Frederick Fairlie in the 1948 film The Woman in White and the pacifist Ayelborne in the Star Trek episode "Errand of Mercy". He also played Sesmar on an episode of Lost in Space, "The Dream Monster", in 1966. Abbott was known as a Shakespearean actor.

#12958

Johan Bleeker

#96755

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Johannes Alphonsus Marie "Johan" Bleeker is a Dutch space research and technology scientist. He was director of the Netherlands Institute for Space Research from 1983 to 2003. He was involved in the setting up of the Horizon 2000 and Horizon 2000+ long term space science programs of the European Space Agency.

#12959

Nicholas Chare

#85936

Overall Influence

Nicholas Chare is a professor of art history at the Université de Montréal. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English and the history of art from the University of Leeds in 1997, and his Master of Arts in the social history of art from the same institution in 1998. He received his PhD from the University of Leeds in 2005. He has served as an instructor at the University of Melbourne, the University of Leeds, the University of Reading, the University of York, and Goldsmiths, University of London.

#12960

Renee Jenkins

#117949

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Renee Rosalind Jenkins is an American pediatrician known for her work in adolescent medicine. She is the first African-American president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Society of Adolescent Medicine.

#12961

Ole Olsen

#190929

Overall Influence

#12962

Kevin Fong

#16149

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Kevin Jeremy San Yoong Fong is a British doctor and broadcaster. He is a consultant anaesthetist and anaesthetic lead for Major Incident Planning at UCL Hospitals. He is a professor at University College London where he organises and runs an undergraduate course Extreme Environment Physiology. Fong also serves as a prehospital doctor with Air Ambulance Kent Surrey Sussex and specialises in space medicine in the UK and is the co-director of the Centre for Aviation Space and Extreme Environment Medicine , University College London.

#12963

Jeremy G. Butler

#181496

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Jeremy G. Butler is a scholar of television and film, an author, and radio show host on Alabama Public Radio. He is a professor emeritus of film studies at the University of Alabama. Butler has also taught at Northwestern University and the University of Arizona. In 1991, he founded the still-active Screen-L mailing list for academic film and television studies. Butler also created and maintains ScreenSite for film/TV studies and ScreenLex, a pronunciation guide.

#12964

Barbara Ross-Lee

#29192

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Barbara Ross-Lee, D.O. is an American physician, academic, and the first African-American woman to serve as dean of a U.S. medical school; she is also known as the sister of Diana Ross along with being the aunt of actress Tracee Ellis Ross, and singer-songwriters Rhonda Ross Kendrick and Evan Ross. She majored in biology and chemistry at Wayne State University, graduating in 1965. Then, in 1969, she entered Michigan State University's College of Osteopathic Medicine. Ross-Lee then went on to open her own private family practice, teach as a professor, and hold other positions within the medical community.

#12965

Paula Johnson

#9975

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Paula Adina Johnson is a cardiologist and the current president of Wellesley College. She is the first Black woman to serve in this role. The first Black graduate of Wellesley College came in the year 1887, and 129 years later President Johnson became the first Black leader. Prior to her role as president of Wellesley, Johnson founded and served as the inaugural executive director of the Mary Horrigan Connors Center for Women's Health & Gender Biology, as well as Chief of the Division of Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Johnson's background in working for the betterment of ...

#12966

Vincent Cryns

#113542

Overall Influence

Vincent Cryns is the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes & Metabolism at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and holds the Marian A. and Rodney P. Burgenske Chair in Diabetes Research.

#12967

Timothy J. Broderick

Timothy J. Broderick

#58009

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Timothy J. Broderick, F.A.C.S., is Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Cincinnati, where he has served on the faculty since 2003. He also serves as Chief of the Division of Gastrointestinal and Endocrine Surgery and is Director of the Advanced Center for Telemedicine and Surgical Innovation . He has flown on the NASA KC-135 parabolic laboratory and dived in the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations program to develop advanced surgical technologies for long duration space flight.

#12968

Robert W. Newmann

#169040

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Robert W. Newmann is an American painter and sculptor. He was a member of the Washington Color School art movement. In his early career he painted canvas and transitioned in his late career to working in sculpture and installation art.

#12969

Patricia Bath

#7859

Overall Influence

1942 - 2019 (77 years)

Patricia Era Bath was an American ophthalmologist and humanitarian. She became the first female member of the Jules Stein Eye Institute, the first woman to lead a post-graduate training program in ophthalmology, and the first woman elected to the honorary staff of the UCLA Medical Center. Bath was the first African-American to serve as a resident in ophthalmology at New York University. She was also the first African-American woman to serve on staff as a surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center. Bath was the first African-American woman doctor to receive a patent for a medical purpose. A holder of ...

#12970

Angela Christine Bridgland

#168902

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Angela Christine Bridgland is an Australian teacher-librarian, library educator, academic, consultant and former board member and Fellow of Australian Library and Information Association. She is recognised for her contributions to higher education course development and staff development.

#12971

Jim Barnett

#143653

Overall Influence

1926 - 2013 (87 years)

Jim C. Barnett was an American physician and politician who served from 1992 to 2008 in the Mississippi House of Representatives. Born in Edinburg in Leake County in central Mississippi, Barnett served in the United States Navy during World War II and as a naval flight surgeon during the Korean War. He went to Millsaps College in the capital city of Jackson, Mississippi, Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the University of Mississippi Medical School. He graduated from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Engaged in family practice and surgery in Lincoln County, he resided in Brookhaven.

#12972

Remo Giazotto

#131913

Overall Influence

1910 - 1998 (88 years)

Remo Giazotto was an Italian musicologist, music critic, and composer, mostly known through his systematic catalogue of the works of Tomaso Albinoni. He wrote biographies of Albinoni and other composers, including Antonio Vivaldi.

#12973

Dolors Lamarca

#172850

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Dolors Lamarca y Morell is a Catalan librarian and philologist. She has led the Service of Libraries and Bibliographic Heritage of the Generalitat de Catalunya, and has directed the National Library of Catalonia. Widow of Antoni Comas i Pujol, with whom she had three daughters.

#12974

David Carr

#189627

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

David Carr is an American phenomenology scholar and a Charles Howard Candler Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from Emory University. Biography Carr received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Yale University, completing his doctorate there in 1966. At Yale he studied under the tutelage of Wilfrid Sellars and Richard J. Bernstein. Concomitantly, as a graduate student, he studied at Heidelberg University under Karl Löwith, Dieter Henrich and Hans-Georg Gadamer, and at University of Paris under Paul Ricœur.

#12975

John Freeman Loutit

#73780

Overall Influence

1910 - 1992 (82 years)

John Freeman Loutit CBE FRS FRCP , also known as 'Ian', was an Australian haematologist and radiobiologist. Life John Freeman Loutit was born in Western Australia, the son of a locomotive engineer. He moved interstate for his tertiary education, entering residence at Trinity College, Melbourne, in 1929 while studying at the University of Melbourne.

#12976

Rudolf Battěk

#124978

Overall Influence

1924 - 2013 (89 years)

Rudolf Battěk was a Czech sociologist, politician, and political dissident during Czechoslovakia Communist era. Biography Rudolf Battěk was born on the 2 November 1924 to Czech parents in Bratislava. From 1934 his family lived in Banská Bystrice. Following the establishment of the separate Slovak state in March 1939, his family moved to Prague. During World War II, Battěk trained as a mechanical locksmith at ČKD Prague. Towards the end of the war, Battěk left his job and joined the anti-Nazi resistance, fighting in the Prague Uprising in 1945.

#12977

Peter Blokhuis

#183421

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Peter Blokhuis is a Dutch philosopher and politician. From 9 April 2005 to 12 May 2012, he was Party Chairman of the ChristianUnion. He was succeeded by Janneke Louisa. External links

#12978

Betty Comden

#130787

Overall Influence

1917 - 2006 (89 years)

Betty Comden was an American lyricist, playwright, and screenwriter who contributed to numerous Hollywood musicals and Broadway shows of the mid-20th century. Her writing partnership with Adolph Green spanned six decades: "the longest running creative partnership in theatre history." The musical-comedy duo of Comden and Green collaborated most notably with composers Jule Styne and Leonard Bernstein, as well enjoyed success with Singin' in the Rain, as part of the famed "Freed unit" at MGM.

#12979

Bruce M. Zagelbaum

#132609

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Bruce Mitchel Zagelbaum is an American ophthalmologist specializing in cornea and external disease, laser vision correction, eye trauma, and sports ophthalmology. He authored the textbook Sports Ophthalmology, and was the principal investigator in eye injury studies involving players in Major League Baseball and in the National Basketball Association. He is an associate clinical professor of ophthalmology at Hofstra North Shore - LIJ School of Medicine and North Shore University Hospital where he is an attending physician.

#12980

Anselm Gerhard

#76162

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Anselm Gerhard is a German musicologist and opera scholar. Life and career Born in Heidelberg, Gerhard attended schools in Kiel and Mannheim. His studies took place at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University and the Technical University of Berlin with Carl Dahlhaus . From 1982 to 1985, he was a scholarship holder of the Volkswagen Foundation in Parma and Paris, and in 1985, he received his doctorate at the Technical University of Berlin. From 1985 to 1992, Gerhard worked as a research assistant, and later as a university assistant, at the Musicology Department of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Unive...

#12981

Eckehard Kiem

#188942

Overall Influence

1950 - 2012 (62 years)

Eckehard Kiem was a German music theorist, university professor and composer. In his major fields of study he concentrated - in addition to a practical and analytical examination of vocal polyphony in Renaissance music, above all on the work and life of Richard Wagner.

#12982

Roy Howat

#128048

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Roy Howat is a Scottish pianist and musicologist, who specializes in French music. Howat has been Keyboard Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2003, and Research Fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland since 2013.

#12983

David M. Maurice

#87588

Overall Influence

1922 - 2002 (80 years)

David Myer Maurice was a British ophthalmologist, noted for his contributions to the development of the specular microscope used for examination of the cornea. Biography Maurice was educated at Highgate School from 1934 until 1939. He received in 1941 B.Sc. General and in 1942 B.Sc. Special from the University of Reading. After WW II military service from 1942 to 1946 working on radar evasion, he received in 1951 his Ph.D. in physiology from University College London. From 1950 to 1968 he did research in ophthalmology at the Institute of Ophthalmology, University of London. From 1968 to 1993...

#12984

Naomi C. Broering

#170407

Overall Influence

Naomi C. Broering was a medical librarian, elected fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics, past president of the Medical Library Association, and past Dean of Libraries at the Pacific College of Health and Science.

#12985

Abbylynn Helgevold

#191045

Overall Influence

Abbylynn Helgevold is an American philosopher and Board of Regents Distinguished Professor in Ethics at Wartburg College. Previously she was a professor at the University of Northern Iowa .

#12986

Sergey Gauthier

Sergey Gauthier

#96684

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Sergey Vladimirovich Gauthier is a Russian surgeon and transplantologist, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences , Chief Transplantologist of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Medical Sciences .

#12987

Keith Clark

#191058

Overall Influence

#12988

David Dausey

#58146

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

David J. Dausey is an American epidemiologist, professor and academic administrator. He is the Provost of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was formerly the Provost of Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Prior to Mercyhurst, Dausey was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he maintains an honorary faculty appointment as a Distinguished Service Professor. Dausey was also Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation.

#12989

Paul Maar

#40555

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Paul Maar is a German novelist, playwright, translator, and illustrator notable for his contributions to children's literature. Life Maar was born in Schweinfurt. After the early death of his mother he lived with his grandfather in the rural area of Theres in northern Bavaria. He went to school at the Gymnasium in Schweinfurt, and later studied at the State Academy of Arts in Stuttgart. He then worked as a stage designer and stage photographer for the Franconian castle theatre Massbach. After that he spent ten years as an art teacher. Since 1976, he has worked as a freelance writer. He lives...

#12990

Nigel Fortune

#94970

Overall Influence

1924 - 2009 (85 years)

Nigel Cameron Fortune was an English musicologist and political activist. Along with Thurston Dart, Oliver Neighbour and Stanley Sadie he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation. He played an instrumental part in improving professional musicological standards in England through research initiatives, conferences and scholarly publications. This greatly increased his country's international reputation in the field of music scholarship.

#12991

Gary Hartstein

#25326

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Gary Hartstein , is an American sports physician who is Clinical Professor of Anesthesia and Emergency Medicine at University of Liège Hospital, Liège, Belgium and former FIA Medical Delegate for the Formula One World Championship.

#12992

Angie Farrow

#178800

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Angela Rosina Farrow is a New Zealand academic and writer for theatre and radio. Born in the United Kingdom, Farrow was appointed professor emerita at Massey University in November 2022. She was promoted to full professor in 2011 and in the same year was awarded Massey University lecturer of the Year. Farrow has published books on the production of physical theatre as well as her own numerous plays for theatre and radio. In April 2015, her series of 10-minute-long sketches Together All Alone was performed at Bats Theatre in Wellington. In the 2021 New Year Honours, Farrow was appointed an Of...

#12993

Anaxilaus

#187617

Overall Influence

Anaxilaus or Anaxilas of Larissa was a physician and Pythagorean philosopher. According to Eusebius, he was banished from Rome in 28 BC by Augustus on the charge of practicing magic. Anaxilaus wrote about the "magical" properties of minerals, herbs, and other substances and derived drugs, and is cited by Pliny in this regard. His exceptional knowledge of natural science allowed him to produce tricks that were mistaken for magic.

#12994

Diotogenes

#187619

Overall Influence

Diotogenes was a Neopythagorean philosopher. He wrote a work On Piety, of which three fragments are preserved in Stobaeus, and another On Kingship, of which two considerable fragments are likewise extant in Stobaeus.

#12995

Hagnon of Tarsus

#149254

Overall Influence

Hagnon of Tarsus was an ancient Greek rhetorician, an Academic Skeptic philosopher, and a pupil of Carneades. Quintilian chides him for writing a book called Rhetorices accusatio in which he denied that rhetoric was an art.

#12996

Calliphon

#187618

Overall Influence

Calliphon was a Greek philosopher, who probably belonged to the Peripatetic school and lived in the 2nd century . He is mentioned several times and condemned by Cicero as making the chief good of man to consist in a union of virtue and bodily pleasure , or, as Cicero says, in the union of the human with the beast.

#12997

Pierre Orelus

#176475

Overall Influence

Pierre Wilbert Orelus, an educator and a prolific writer, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a working-class family. After graduating from Lycee Alexandre Petion in 1991, he went on to study social work at the faculty of Human Sciences but he did not complete it. Orelus left his native land for the United States in the early 1990s. While he was in his early 20s, he attended a community college during the day with his older brother, Lyonel Orelus, while at the same time taking ESL classes at a community center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at night in order to improve his English skills.

#12998

Bill Frist

#171700

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

William Harrison Frist is an American physician, businessman, conservationist and policymaker who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Frist studied government and health care policy at Princeton University and earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained as a cardiothoracic transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine, and later founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center.

#12999

Beverly Grigsby

#173165

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Beverly Grigsby née Pinsky is an American composer, musicologist and electronic/computer music pioneer. Early life Beverly Pinsky was born in Chicago, Illinois, and studied music as a child. She moved to California with her family at the age of 13 and graduated from Fairfax High School.

#13000

Éric Holder

#176795

Overall Influence

1960 - 2019 (59 years)

Éric Holder was a French novelist. His novels, Mademoiselle Chambon, L'Homme de chevet and were adapted to the cinema in 2009 and 2012. He was awarded several literary prizes, including the Prix littéraire de la vocation , the Prix Fénéon , the Prix Thyde Monnier , the Prix Décembre , the Prix Roger Nimier , and the Prix Service Littéraire . He died on 23 January 2019, aged 58.

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