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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#14751

Elsdon Storey

#61455

Overall Influence

Elsdon Storey is an Australian neurologist, former Rhodes Scholar & Professor of Neurology at Monash University. His clinical and research interests are in neurogenetics and behavioural neurology .

#14752

S. Serge Barold

#175798

Overall Influence

#14753

Manuel Knoll

#118572

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Manuel Andreas Knoll is a contemporary German scholar and Professor of Political Theory and Philosophy at Turkish-German University. His work focusses on ancient, modern and contemporary Political Philosophy and Ethics, especially on ancient and contemporary theories of justice.

#14754

William H. Goetzmann

#56662

Overall Influence

1930 - 2010 (80 years)

William Harry Goetzmann was an American historian and emeritus professor in the American Studies and American Civilization Programs at the University of Texas at Austin. He attended Yale University as a graduate student and was friends with Tom Wolfe while there. His work on the American West won him the highest prizes for historians, the Parkman Prize and the Pulitzer Prize. He has written and published extensively on American philosophy, American political history, and the American arts. An advocate for the importance of history as a public discussion, he has served in various capacities in television and film production, notably for PBS.

#14755

Terry LaBan

#74413

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Terry LaBan is an alternative/underground cartoonist and newspaper comic strip artist. He is known for his comic book series Cud, and his syndicated strip Edge City, created with his wife, Patty LaBan, a couples and family therapist.

#14756

Paul Kurdyak

#169249

Overall Influence

Paul Andrew Kurdyak is a Canadian psychiatrist and highly regarded expert in mental health. Early life and education Born as Paul Andrew Kurdyak he has a degree in medicine, and completed his psychiatry residency and his PhD in clinical epidemiology at the University of Toronto.

#14757

Richard Fifoot

#139972

Overall Influence

1925 - 1992 (67 years)

Erik Richard Sidney Fifoot MC was a British librarian who served as Bodley's Librarian, the head of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, from 1979 to 1981. Life The son of Hjördis Baars and her husband C. H. S. Fifoot, Richard Fifoot was educated at Berkhamsted School and the University of Oxford. He served as a lieutenant in the Coldstream Guards between 1943 and 1946, winning the Military Cross. He worked at the library of the University of Leeds from 1950 to 1958 , becoming Deputy Librarian of the University of Nottingham in 1958 and Librarian of the University of Edinburgh in 1960.

#14758

Charles Tomlinson

1808 - 1897 (89 years)

Charles Tomlinson , was a scientist who published papers on meteorology and the physical properties of liquids. Biography He studied science under George Birkbeck, the founder of the London Mechanics' Institute. For a while, he had a school with his brother Lewis, at Salisbury. Becoming known for original investigation, he was called to London, where he was appointed lecturer on experimental science at King's College School. During the 1840s and 1850s he published several notable scientific works relating to phenomena of the weather for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In 1872 he...

#14759

Karen Duff

#39097

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Karen Elizabeth Keitley Duff is a British scientist known for her work on Alzheimer's disease. Her most notable work focused on the development and characterization of mouse models of Alzheimer's disease amyloid deposition. She became Centre Director of the UK Dementia Research Institute's hub at University College London in spring 2020.

#14760

Mikhail Reisner

1868 - 1928 (60 years)

Mikhail Andreevich Reisner was a Russian and Soviet lawyer, jurist, writer, social psychologist and historian of Baltic German extraction. He was the father of writer Larissa Reisner and orientalist Igor Reisner, and adoptive father of naval officer and submariner Lev Reisner.

#14761

Ye Xiushan

#106940

Overall Influence

1935 - 2016 (81 years)

Ye Xiushan was a Chinese philosopher, aestheticist and Chinese Opera theorist. Ye was one of the first Faculty Scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , a , and a member of the 8th, the 9th and the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as an independent scholar.

#14762

Lucile Adams-Campbell

#134374

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Lucile L. Adams-Campbell is the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in epidemiology in the United States. She serves as the Professor of Oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and associate director for Minority Health at the Georgetown University Medical Center. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine and the Washington DC Hall of Fame.

#14763

Richard P. Smiraglia

#95297

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Richard P. Smiraglia is an American information scientist and prominent figure in the field of knowledge organization. Smiraglia is an emeritus professor in the School of Information Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Knowledge Organization and a cataloging theorist perhaps best known for his work concerning two concepts pertaining to bibliographic control, information retrieval, and knowledge organization: a definition of the meaning of a “work” derived from empirical and semiotic analysis, and “instantiation,” the phenomenon of an informati...

#14764

Helga Varden

#102141

Overall Influence

Helga Varden is a Norwegian-American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy and Gender and Women Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was Brady Distinguished Visiting Professor in Ethics and Civic Life at Northwestern University between 2014-2015. She is known for her works on Kantian philosophy.

#14765

Gil Amelio

#85820

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Gilbert Frank Amelio is an American technology executive. Amelio worked at Bell Labs, Fairchild Semiconductor, and the semiconductor division of Rockwell International, and was also the CEO of National Semiconductor and Apple Computer.

#14766

Christopher Pepin-Neff

#131328

Overall Influence

Christopher Pepin-Neff is an American-Australian social scientist, public policy lecturer, and LGBTQ rights activist. He is known for his research and findings on public behavior and shark attacks. Pepin-Neff is a former president of the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance.

#14767

Bulent Diken

#94014

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Bulent Diken is a Danish-Turkish philosopher and sociologist who teaches at Lancaster University. He has studied urban planning at the Aarhus School of Architecture. He is known for his research on social theory, post-structuralism, nihilism, political philosophy, urban sociology, and immigration. During 1998-1999 he was an assistant professor at Roskilde University, Department of Geography.

#14768

Andrew Raftery

#95363

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Andrew Stein Raftery is an American artist and educator, known for his paintings, burin engravings, and drawings on fictional and autobiographical narratives of contemporary American life. Biography In 1984, Raftery earned his B.F.A. degree in painting from Boston University, and took his first intaglio printing class with . In 1988, he completed his M.F.A. degree in printmaking from Yale University. He is a professor at Rhode Island School of Design teaching in the printmaking and painting departments, since 1991. He credits Stanley William Hayter and his proteges in Atelier 17 as an influe...

#14769

Gustavo Bounous

#77786

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Gustavo Bounous was a research medical doctor. He was born in Luserna, Italy on July 10, 1928. He was educated at the University of Turin and at the University of Genoa. Then, he worked as a research fellow in surgery at the Indiana Medical Center. In 1963 he moved to Canada. He became a professor of surgery, successively at the Université de Sherbrooke, 1973–1985, after that, at McGill University, 1985–1993. He died at the age of 83 on December 29, 2011.

#14770

Hans Popper

1903 - 1988 (85 years)

Hans Popper was an Austrian-born pathologist, hepatologist and teacher. Together with Dame Sheila Sherlock, he is widely regarded as the founding father of hepatology. He is the namesake of the Hans Popper Hepatopathology Society, as well as the International Hans Popper Award and the Hans Popper Hepatopathology Society.

#14771

Joan S. Ash

#73208

Overall Influence

Joan S. Ash is Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University , Portland, OR. She holds master's degrees in library science Columbia University, health science , and business administration Portland State University. Her doctorate is in Systems Science: Business Administration from Portland State. She is currently the Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications. She has served on the Boards of Directors of the American Medical Informat...

#14772

Alim Louis Benabid

Alim Louis Benabid

#16939

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Alim Louis Benabid is a French-Algerian emeritus professor, neurosurgeon and member of the French Academy of Sciences, who has had a global impact in the development of deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. He became emeritus professor of biophysics at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble in September 2007, and chairman of the board of the Edmond J. Safra Biomedical Research Center in 2009 at Clinatec, a multidisciplinary institute he co-founded in Grenoble that applies nanotechnologies to neurosciences.

#14773

Alissa M. Weaver

#103875

Overall Influence

Alissa Margaret Weaver is an American oncologist. In 2017, she was promoted to the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Cell and Developmental Biology and Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

#14774

Lucy O'Brien

#174012

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Lucy O'Brien is a British philosopher and the Richard Wollheim Professor of Philosophy at University College London. O'Brien predominantly works in the philosophy of mind and action, focusing in particular on self-consciousness and self-knowledge. She is the author of Self-Knowing Agents and co-editor, with Matthew Soteriou, of Mental Actions .

#14775

Lawrence S. Thompson

1916 - 1986 (70 years)

Lawrence Sidney Thompson worked at the University of Kentucky as the Director of Libraries and as a faculty member in the classics department. He wrote extensively on the processes of printing and publication. Thompson also researched processes for cataloging materials, frequently corresponding with European colleagues.

#14776

Michael S. Pritchard

Michael S. Pritchard

#169791

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Michael Pritchard is an American philosopher and the Willard A. Brown Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. Books Englehardt, Elaine E.; Pritchard, Michael S. . Ethics across the curriculum—pedagogical perspectives. Cham: Springer-Verlag.Charles Harris, Michael J. Rabins, Michael S. Pritchard. Engineering Ethics: Concepts and CasesLisa H. Newton, Elaine E. Englehardt, Michael S. Pritchard. Clashing Views in Business Ethics and SocietyMichael S. Pritchard. Professional Integrity: Thinking Ethically Elaine E. Englehardt, Michael S. Pritchard, Kerry D. Romesburg, Brian Schrag.

#14777

Ann Buchholtz

#136068

Overall Influence

1952 - 2015 (63 years)

Ann K. Buchholtz was Professor of Leadership and Ethics and Research Director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership at Rutgers University. She served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Management and was past Division Chair of the Social Issues in Management division, as well as inaugural Chairperson of the Ethics Adjudication Committee at Academy of Management. She also served on the editorial board of Business & Society. She died on September 14, 2015, from complications related to surgery.

#14778

Abraham Abigdor

1350 - Present (676 years)

Abraham Abigdor , born 1350, was a Jewish physician, philosopher, kabbalist, and translator. He should not be confused with Maestro Abraham Abigdor, who in 1386 was the proprietor of a house at Arles .

#14779

Leif Efskind

1904 - 1987 (83 years)

Leif Efskind was a Norwegian surgeon. He was the first to perform regular heart surgery in Norway. He was born at Verdal in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. He graduated from the University of Oslo. He was associated with the Rikshospitalet and was a professor of surgery at the University of Oslo. He was the father of Lasse Efskind.

#14780

Zhi-wei Sun

#175999

Overall Influence

#14781

John David Mabbott

1898 - 1988 (90 years)

John David Mabbott was a British academic who worked as the president of St John's College, Oxford, from 1963 from to 1969. Education Mabbott was educated at Berwickshire High School; the University of Edinburgh; and St John's.

#14782

Günter Ollenschläger

Günter Ollenschläger

#61805

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Günter Ollenschläger is a German physician, medical editor, and á former professor of internal medicine and clinical decision making at the University of Cologne, Faculty of Medicine. Biography Ollenschläger is a certified pharmacist and general internist. He has a pharmaceutical doctorate from the University of Münster , a medical doctorate from the University of Giessen , and the venia legendi from the University of Cologne .

#14783

Emily Drabinski

#82527

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Emily Drabinski is an academic librarian, author, and teacher, serving as president of the American Library Association since 2023. Early life and education Drabinski was born in June 1975 in Boise, Idaho, with an identical twin sister, Kate Drabinski. Emily attended Madison Elementary School, North Junior High School and Boise High School while living in Idaho. She left Boise at age 18 in hopes of becoming a writer after attending Columbia University. Drabinski earned her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science in 1997 from Columbia University.

#14784

Cliff Eisen

#50499

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Cliff Eisen is a Canadian musicologist and a Mozart expert. He was based in the Department of Music at King's College London. He studied at the University of Toronto and at Cornell University, and has taught at the University of Western Ontario and New York University.

#14785

Anna Hansell

#102715

Overall Influence

Anna Louise Hansell is a British physician who is Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Director of the Centre for Environmental Health and Sustainability at the University of Leicester. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hansell studied the relationship between pollution and COVID-19.

#14786

David Southall

#24261

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

David Southall is a retired British paediatrician who specialised in international maternal and child hospital healthcare and in child protection. He worked in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1993-1995, for which he received an OBE in 1999. In 1995 he set up the charity Maternal and Childhealth Advocacy International , of which he remains a trustee as of 2023. His child protection work and research into Munchausen syndrome by proxy attracted controversy and led to conflict with the General Medical Council.

#14787

Fred Hollows

#16110

Overall Influence

1929 - 1993 (64 years)

Frederick Cossom Hollows was a New Zealand–Australian ophthalmologist who became known for his work in restoring eyesight for people in Australia and many other countries through initiatives such as The Fred Hollows Foundation.

#14788

Jerry Pattengale

#56293

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Jerry A. Pattengale is a faculty member and administrator at Indiana Wesleyan University. He coined and founded the approach of “purpose-guided education” in 1997 while leading the implementation of student success programs at Indiana Wesleyan University. His approach includes calling for a humanities approach to student success, and the need for faculty involvement in the development of strategies.

#14789

Conrad of Megenberg

1309 - 1374 (65 years)

Conrad of Megenberg was a German Catholic scholar, and a writer. Biography Conrad was born in either Mainberg or Mebenburg, both in Bavaria. He was born on 2 February 1309. Conrad himself calls his native place Megenberg, hence continued confusion on his birthplace. He studied at Erfurt and the University of Paris; at the latter university he obtained the degree of Master of Arts, and he taught philosophy and theology at the University of Paris for several years.

#14790

Linda Ruth Williams

#108076

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Linda Ruth Williams is Professor of Film Studies in the College of Humanities at the University of Exeter, UK. Her special interests include sexuality and censorship in cinema and literature , women in film, psychoanalytic theory and D. H. Lawrence.

#14791

Helen Burt

#156427

Overall Influence

Helen M. Burt is a British-Canadian pharmaceutical scientist who is the Angiotech Professor of Drug Delivery at the University of British Columbia. She serves as Associate Vice President of Research and Innovation at UBC. Her research considers novel therapeutics based on nanotechnology, including drug delivery systems for the treatment of bladder cancer and coronary artery disease.

#14792

Ben Ramalingam

#60126

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Ben Ramalingam is a British researcher, strategist, innovator and author, currently Director of Strategy at British Red Cross, senior research associate at the Overseas Development Institute Politics and Governance programme and advisor to the OECD Development Assistance Committee on innovation investments for development, humanitarian and human rights issues.

#14793

Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve

Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve

1916 - 1989 (73 years)

Jesús Emilio Jaramillo Monsalve was a Colombian Roman Catholic prelate who was a professed member of the Xaverian Missionaries of Yarumal and served as the Bishop of Arauca from 1984 until his assassination. Jaramillo was a staunch opponent of the E.L.N. and spoke out against their atrocities in the midst of conflict and a drug war. But this led to him being marked for death and he was killed not long after being kidnapped and tortured.

#14794

Hugo Leichtentritt

1874 - 1951 (77 years)

Hugo Leichtentritt was a German-Jewish musicologist and composer who spent much of his life in the USA. His pupils include composers Leroy Robertson and Erich Walter Sternberg. Early life Leichtentritt was born to a family of Jewish merchants in Pleschen, German Empire. His German father, Gerson Leichtentritt, was a successful distillery owner. His mother, Frances Caroline Wax, was from Boston, Massachusetts. His great-uncle, Hirsch Leichtentritt, had a high social rank among local nobility, and was responsible for the small Leichtentritt family fortune.

#14795

Thomas Mertens

#57485

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Thomas Michael Christian Mertens is a German virologist who currently heads the Standing Committee on Vaccination , which as part of the Robert Koch Institute advises the German government regarding vaccines.

#14796

Loren D. Walensky

#41733

Overall Influence

Loren David Walensky is an American physician-scientist and pediatric oncologist at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute since 2003 and a professor of pediatrics at the Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. He researches peptides and oncogenic pathways. In 2013, Walensky became director of the joint MD/PhD program at Harvard Medical School. He is the husband of Rochelle Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

#14797

Frederick H. Wagman

#118567

Overall Influence

1912 - 1994 (82 years)

Frederick Herbert Wagman was an American librarian and president of the American Library Association from 1963 to 1964. Wagman was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated from Amherst College in 1933 before attending Columbia University where he earned both master's and a doctorate degree in 1934 and 1942 respectively. While studying for his doctorate, he taught at the University of Minnesota. In 1945, Wagman joined the Library of Congress as Acting Director of Personnel and of Administrative Services. He served in several roles at the Library of Congress before leaving to be Director of the University of Michigan Library and a professor of Library Science in 1953.

#14798

Richard Locksley

#27195

Overall Influence

Richard Locksley is a medical doctor, professor and researcher of infectious diseases, who pioneered approaches to study immunology. He is a professor of medicine and microbiology and immunology at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, where he also serves as the director of the Sandler Asthma Basic Research Center. He is also an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. In 2018, he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for his work on immunology.

#14799

Jens Zimmermann

#125654

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Dr. Jens Michael Zimmermann is a German-Canadian Christian philosopher, theologian, and professor who specializes in hermeneutics and the philosophical and theological roots of humanism. Zimmermann is a longtime educator in Vancouver. He is currently the J.I. Packer Chair of Theology at Regent College. and the professor of philosophy and theology at Trinity Western University.

#14800

Johan Sebastiaan Ploem

#109685

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (99 years)

Johan Sebastiaan Ploem is a Dutch microscopist and digital artist. He made significant contribution to the field of fluorescence microscopy, and invented reflection interference contrast microscopy.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions