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

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#13451

James McIlwain

#141411

Overall Influence

James T. McIlwain is an American ophthalmologist currently the Sidney A. and Dorothea Doctors Fox Professor Emeritus at Brown University. He obtained his M.D. degree from Tulane University in 1961.

#13452

Genevieve Lee

#191176

Overall Influence

Genevieve Feiwen Lee is an American pianist and musicologist. She is the Everett S. Olive Professor of Music at Pomona College in Claremont, California. Early life and education Lee attended the Peabody Conservatory of Music and École Normale de Musique de Paris before completing her doctorate in musical arts at Yale University.

#13453

T. Narayana Rao

T. Narayana Rao

#130913

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

T. Narayana Rao M.B.B.S., MS FICS, FACS, FRCS Glasgow is Professor of Surgery, Andhra Medical College, and chief surgeon at King George Hospital, bariatric surgeon of Visakhapatnam. Started Visakha Obesity Surgery Center and Member of Governing Council and Hon Jn secretary of ASSOCIATION of Surgeons of India.

#13454

B. P. Loughridge

B. P. Loughridge

#107523

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Billy Paul Loughridge is a cardiovascular surgeon, author, and health care consultant in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He practiced cardiovascular surgery in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1967 until 1998. During this period he performed more than 10,000 surgeries. He also taught in medical schools, supervised surgery at two hospitals, wrote three books, and served as an expert witness in numerous legal cases involving medical issues. In the 1970s he worked for four years with engineers at a company which makes oil pumping equipment in an unsuccessful attempt to create an artificial heart. Beyond his medical practi...

#13455

Michael O'Donnell

#71621

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Michael O'Donnell was a British physician, journalist, author and broadcaster. He became a full-time writer after working for 12 years as a doctor. On BBC Radio Four he was the last chairman and word-setter of My Word! and wrote and presented Relative Values. On BBC Television he presented the O'Donnell Investigates series and, on Yorkshire Television, the controversial Tuesday Documentary Is Your Brain Really Necessary?. He worked as a newspaper and magazine columnist, published three novels, edited World Medicine, wrote and presented over 100 television and radio documentaries, and helped f...

#13456

Moses Alobo

#162935

Overall Influence

Moses Alobo is a Kenyan physician, public health researcher and social entrepreneur. He leads the African Academy of Sciences Grand Challenges Africa Programme. He specialises in the implementation of health research in resource-limited countries, including programmes in vaccinology and antimicrobial resistance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Alobo led the African Academy of Sciences' response to coronavirus disease.

#13457

Donald Burrows

#95849

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Donald James Burrows is Professor of Music at the Open University, and a leading scholar of the music of George Frideric Handel. He read History and Music at Trinity Hall, Cambridge . He completed his PhD at the Open University in 1981. He is vice-president of the Händel-Gesellschaft, and chairman of the Handel Institute.

#13458

Sho Yano

#44673

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Sho Timothy Yano is an American physician. Yano is a former child prodigy and has an estimated IQ of 200. Life and education Yano's mother, Kyung, is originally from South Korea, while his father, Katsura, is originally from Japan. Yano reportedly was reading by age two, writing by age three, playing classical music on the piano at age four, and composing by age five. He went to the Mirman School as a child. After scoring 1500 out of 1600 on the SAT at age eight, he graduated from the American School of Correspondence at age nine then entered Loyola University Chicago also at age nine, graduating summa cum laude at age 12.

#13459

Netha Hussain

#157947

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Netha Hussain is an India-born medical doctor and Wikipedian known for her efforts to tackle the spread of misinformation in Wikipedia about the origin of the coronavirus. Biography Hussain was born on 11 June 1990 in Kunnamangalam in the state of Kerala.

#13460

Lisa Warrington

#129271

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Lisa Jadwiga Valentina Warrington is a New Zealand theatre studies academic, director, actor and author. She has directed more than 130 productions, and established the Theatre Aotearoa database. In 2014 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Dunedin Theatre Awards, and was three times winner of a New Zealand Listener Best Director award, including one for Tom Scott's The Daylight Atheist.

#13461

Laurence Howard

#162062

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Sir Laurence Howard was the Lord Lieutenant of Rutland. He was appointed in 2003 in succession to Air Chief Marshal Sir Thomas Kennedy, having served as a deputy lieutenant since 1997. He is a former chairman of the Central Council of Magistrates' Courts Committees, serving on the bench in Leicestershire for 25 years. He was also the honorary air commodore of 504 County of Nottingham Squadron for ten years, ending in 2018.

#13462

Rita McAllister

#178827

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Margaret 'Rita' McAllister is a Scottish musicologist, composer and academic. She is the Director of Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a renowned authority on the works of Sergei Prokofiev.

#13463

Cecilia Castaño

Cecilia Castaño

#139335

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Cecilia Castaño Collado is a PhD in Political Science, professor of Applied Economics, and lecturer at the Complutense University of Madrid's Department of Applied Economics. She is an expert in information technology and its effect on women's employment and work. She has conducted numerous investigations on the digital gender gap and women's access to the information society. In 2006 she created the Research Program on Gender and the Information Society of the Open University of Catalonia . She has been a visiting researcher at Harvard University, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

#13464

Astrid Söderbergh Widding

#167282

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Astrid Naemi Söderbergh Widding is a Swedish film studies scholar. She is Professor of film studies and Rector of Stockholm University since 2013. Söderbergh Widding is a board member of the Swedish Film Institute, a former President of the board of the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, and a columnist in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. She earned her PhD in 1992 at Stockholm University with a dissertation on Andrei Tarkovsky. She was elected as a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2014 and became a Knight of the French Legion of Honour in 2015.

#13465

R. C. Mehta

#178562

Overall Influence

1918 - 2014 (96 years)

Ramanlal C. Mehta was an Indian musician and musicologist. In 2009, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's third-highest civilian honour. Life Ramanlal was a Gujarati who was born on 31 October 1918 in Surat in the state of Gujarat. He retired in 1978, from the MS University of Baroda, after serving as Principal of the College of Indian Music, Dance & Dramatics / Faculty of Performing Arts for several years. He died after a fall in 2014 at the age of 95.

#13466

Dag Schjelderup-Ebbe

#139554

Overall Influence

1926 - 2013 (87 years)

Dag Schjelderup-Ebbe was a Norwegian musicologist, composer, music critic and biographer. He was a lecturer at the University of Oslo for thirty years, from 1973 with the title of professor. His research mainly centered on the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

#13467

Alan Symonds

#165269

Overall Influence

1946 - 2006 (60 years)

Alan Symonds was the Technical Director of the Harvard College Theaters for many years. He entered Harvard College in the 1960s, started participating in technical theater during his freshman orientation period, and soon found himself spending much more time on technical theater than on his studies. He participated in work on the student level, but also started working with professional companies, particularly the Boston Ballet, for whom he designed low cost portable smoke generators, and the American Repertory Theater.

#13468

Esteban González Burchard

#159305

Overall Influence

Esteban González Burchard is an American physician-scientist, a distinguished professor in the School of Pharmacy at University of California at San Francisco,a specialist in gene-environment interactions in asthma and health disparities.

#13469

Conrad Laforte

#100339

Overall Influence

1921 - 2008 (87 years)

Conrad Laforte was a Québécois ethnologist and librarian. He created the Catalogue de la chanson folklorique française which contains 80,000 entries. Early life and education Laforte was born in Kénogami. He studied in Chicoutimi, the Université Laval, and finally the Université de Montréal.

#13470

Anna Suk-Fong Lok

#74923

Overall Influence

Anna Suk-Fong Lok is a gastroenterologist who studied in Hong Kong and moved to the United States in 1992. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and helped the World Health Organization and American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases develop guidelines for medical professionals and recommendations for the general public on who should be treated and how treatments should be administered to persons with hepatitis B infections.

#13471

Carolyn Sue

#88913

Overall Influence

Carolyn Mary Sue is an Australian physician-scientist, professor and research director. She has been the Executive Director of the Kolling Institute of Medical Research since 2019 and is also Director of Neurogenetics at Royal North Shore Hospital, Director of the Centre of Excellence for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders, and Director of the National Centre for Adult Stem Cell Research . Sue specialises in complex neurogenetic conditions and runs tertiary referral clinics for patients with diseases such as Parkinson's, mitochondrial diseases, and other inherited movement disorders. ...

#13472

John Gillies

#167931

Overall Influence

John Calum Macdonald Gillies FRSE is a medical doctor who worked as general practitioner and who is the Depute Director of the Scottish School of Primary Care. He was formerly the chair of the Scottish Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners from November 2010 to November 2014.

#13473

Fay Biles

#104571

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (99 years)

Fay Biles was an American academic and college sports coach. She was the first woman to serve in a vice presidency role at an Ohio university. As a head coach of the field hockey and lacrosse teams, she logged more victories than any other coach in Kent State University history. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1986.

#13474

Marcia J. Bates

#99841

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Marcia J. Bates is Professor VI Emerita of Information Studies in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Career Bates received a M.L.S in 1967 and a Ph.D , both from the University of California, Berkeley.

#13475

Ruth McNair

#136340

Overall Influence

Ruth McNair has been a driving force behind the improvement of lesbian and bisexual women's health and wellbeing in Australia. Education Ruth McNair obtained diplomas of obstetrics and gynaecology, and anaesthetics in the UK, and has a Fellowship from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. She completed a PhD in lesbian and bisexual women's health in 2009.

#13476

Stanisław Koziej

Stanisław Koziej

#37217

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Stanisław Marian Koziej is a Polish brigadier general, military science professor, and public official who served as the Head of the National Security Bureau from 2010 to 2015. Biography Koziej was educated at the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale and at the NATO Defense College. He holds a doctorate and a habilitation. Since 1990 Koziej is a professor of military science.

#13477

Elisabeth Niggemann

Elisabeth Niggemann

#55738

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Elisabeth Niggemann is a German librarian specializing in the digitization of cultural heritage resources. From 1999 to 2019, she served as the Director General of the German National Library. Education and career Elisabeth Niggemann was born in Dortmund on April 2, 1954. In college she studied biology and English, receiving a Ph.D. in biology from Ruhr University Bochum.

#13478

Lee Guk-jong

#57976

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Lee Guk-jong is a South Korean doctor. As a surgeon specializing in trauma, he is South Korea's leading authority in the treatment of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, and gunshot wounds. He won "The Person Who Brightened the World" award in November 2017. Lee Guk-jong leads the trauma surgery team at Ajou University Hospital.

#13479

Bernard Salick

#190118

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Bernard Salick is an American nephrologist and medical entrepreneur known for his contributions to comprehensive disease-state management and his efforts to reduce the costs of cancer treatment. He is the founder and former CEO and chairman of Salick Health Care, a national disease management company in the United States. While leading the company, Salick created a managed care subsidiary, the first to offer fixed-price insurance products for the treatment of catastrophic diseases such as cancer and end-stage renal disease.

#13480

Younan Nowzaradan

#32810

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Younan Nowzaradan , also known as Dr. Now, is an American doctor, TV personality, and author. He specializes in vascular surgery and bariatric surgery. He is known for helping morbidly obese people lose weight on My 600-lb Life .

#13481

Anton Sebastianpillai

#130706

Overall Influence

1944 - 2020 (76 years)

Anton Sebastianpillai FRCP , was a British historian, author and consultant geriatrician, of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. Biography He had his primay and secondary education at St Sylvester's College, Kandy and trained at Peradeniya Medical School, in Sri Lanka, qualifying in 1967.

#13482

Ashley Taylor Dawson

Ashley Taylor Dawson

#180137

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Philip Ashley Taylor Dawson , known as Ashley Taylor Dawson, is an English actor and singer. He is known for portraying the role of Darren Osborne in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, as well as being a member of the pop group allSTARS*.

#13483

Hans Ulrich Lehmann

#182437

Overall Influence

1937 - 2013 (76 years)

Hans Ulrich Lehmann was a Swiss composer. Education Hans Ulrich Lehmann studied violoncello at the Biel Conservatory in his hometown and music theory with Paul Müller-Zürich at the Zurich University of the Arts. From 1960 to 1963 he attended master classes in composition with Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen at the City of Basel Music Academy. He also studied musicology with Kurt von Fischer at the University of Zurich. From 1961 to 1972 he was a lecturer at the City of Basel Music Academy and from 1969 to 1990 lecturer for Neue Musik and music theory at the University of Zurich and from 1990 at the University of Bern.

#13484

Angela Annabell

#189239

Overall Influence

1929 - 2000 (71 years)

Angela Ruth Annabell was a New Zealand musicologist. She researched and wrote largely about folk music. Biography Annabell completed a master's degree in music at the University of Auckland in 1968. Her 1975 doctoral thesis, titled New Zealand Cultural and Economic Development Reflected in Song, is considered the most thorough discussion of New Zealand folk music and song.

#13485

Mohsen Naghavi

#192176

Overall Influence

Mohsen Naghavi is an Iranian-American researcher and Professor of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington. He is one of the top highly cited researchers according to webometrics.

#13486

Jennie Lea Knight

#173887

Overall Influence

1933 - 2007 (74 years)

Jennie Lea Knight was an American sculptor. Early life and education Knight was a native of Washington, D.C., and received her artistic training in that city, beginning her studies with classes in design and music at the King-Smith School of Creative Arts.

#13487

Malcolm Macnaughton

#74842

Overall Influence

1925 - 2016 (91 years)

Sir Malcolm Campbell Macnaughton was a Scottish obstetrician and gynaecologist. He was an Emeritus Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and an influential voice in promoting legislation allowing for experimentation on early embryos.

#13488

David Hackam

#106160

Overall Influence

David J. Hackam is a surgeon-scientist. Hackam obtained his bachelor's and medical degrees from the University of Western Ontario, then earned a doctorate in cell biology from the University of Toronto. He joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2002, and was named the Watson Family Professor of Surgery in 2010. Hackam left for the Robert Garrett Professorship of Pediatric Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 2014. Hackam specializes in necrotizing enterocolitis.

#13489

Richard Root

#88067

Overall Influence

1937 - 2006 (69 years)

Richard K. Root was the former Chairman of Medicine at Yale University, Chairman of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, and Chairman of Medicine at University of Washington. He also launched the Infectious Disease division at the University of Pennsylvania while a professor there in 1971.

#13490

Peter Cox

#95366

Overall Influence

Peter M. Cox is professor of Climate System Dynamics within the Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Exeter. He is also the director of the Global Systems Institute. Until 2006 he was the Science Director - Climate Change at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and before that he worked at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research .

#13491

Chris Griffiths

#144249

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Christopher Ernest Maitland Griffiths is Foundation Professor of Dermatology at the University of Manchester, Director of the Manchester Centre for Dermatology Research, and Head of the Dermatology Theme of the National Institute for Health Research Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. He is an Honorary Consultant Dermatologist at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust.

#13492

Karen Bryan

#90026

Overall Influence

Karen Bryan OBE FRCSLT, is a speech therapist, and Vice Chancellor of York St John University since April 2020. Prior to this, Bryan was Deputy Vice Chancellor at the University of Greenwich. Career Bryan qualified as a speech and language therapist from the University of Newcastle and also gained her PhD there. Her research interests are in workforce development and the effectiveness of interventions for communication disorders associated with stroke, dementia and other neurological conditions.

#13493

Michael P. Busch

#192190

Overall Influence

Michael P. Busch is a physician specializing in blood-borne pathogens. He has developed screening tests to prevent HIV and West Nile virus infections from blood transfusions. Busch is a professor of laboratory medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and director of the Blood Systems Research Institute. He received his undergraduate education at the University of California, Santa Barbara and his medical training at University of Southern California.

#13494

Sari Feldman

#93602

Overall Influence

Sari Feldman is an American librarian. Sari was president of the American Library Association from 2015 to 2016. During her presidency, she launched the Libraries Transform public awareness campaign that increased funding support for libraries and sought to advance information policy.

#13495

Naohisa Inoue

#60589

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Naohisa Inoue is a fantasy artist influenced by both the Surrealism and Impressionism movements. Most of his paintings are set in the fantastical land of Iblard. He created reference and background art for the Studio Ghibli film Whisper of the Heart and also provided a cameo appearance as the voice of Minami. More recently, his works were given a more direct adaptation in the short film which is shown exclusively at the Ghibli Museum. He directed the 2007 OVA Iblard Jikan, produced by Studio Ghibli.

#13496

Paul Ross

#94289

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Paul Ross is an English television and radio presenter, journalist and media personality. He is the son of Martha Ross and the elder brother of Jonathan Ross. Early life Growing up in outer east London, Ross was educated at Norlington School for Boys, and later read English at the University of Kent. Realising he would not be able to follow the academic career he favoured, "an English lecturer at a polytechnic", he commenced training as a journalist at the University of Exeter and subsequently started his career with the Western Times in Exeter in 1982.

#13497

Arlene Zallman

#185124

Overall Influence

1934 - 2006 (72 years)

Arlene Zallman was an American composer and music educator. Life Zallman was born in Philadelphia and graduated from the Juilliard School of Music. She received a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied composition with Vincent Persichetti and George Crumb. In 1959 she received a two-year Fulbright Scholarship to Florence, Italy, to study with Luigi Dallapiccola. She held positions on the faculty of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and Yale University and then became a professor of composition at Wellesley, Massachusetts in 1976.

#13498

Henry Kitchener

#106747

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Professor Henry Kitchener, MD FRCOG FRCS FMedSci, is a leading British expert in gynaecological oncology, based at the University of Manchester. He is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Research Prof. Kitchener's work has centred on research into Human Papillomavirus .

#13499

Hanne Albert

#173854

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Hanne Albert is a Danish physiotherapist with a Ph.D. in medical science. Her main research interest is in lower back pain and pelvic girdle pain. Albert's studies have revealed that bone œdema could be caused by a bacterial infection and treated with antibiotics.

#13500

John Starr

#189224

Overall Influence

1901 - 2018 (117 years)

John Starr was a British geriatrician. He was Honorary Professor at University of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Public Health.

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