The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#16201
Josina Carolina van Lynden
1717 - 1791 (74 years)
Josina Carolina van Lynden was a Dutch philosopher who, in 1770, published a book on Logic, called De Logica of redenkunde. She was the first Dutch woman to publish on this topic. Van Lynden was the daughter of Dirk van Lynden en Heilwig van Lynden, member of a Dutch noble family. She lived with her parents in Huis de Parck, a castle in Gelderland. At the age of 25, she married with Adriaan Buurt, a local pastor. Their marriage was not approved by some members of her family as she was part of a noble family while her husband was not. They had managed to postpone the wedding till Josina became 25, but could not prevent them form marrying.
Go to Profile#16202
Karl von Vierordt
1818 - 1884 (66 years)
Karl von Vierordt was a German physiologist. Vierordt was born in Lahr, Baden. He studied at the universities of Berlin, Göttingen, Vienna, and Heidelberg, and began a practice in Karlsruhe in 1842. In 1849 he became a professor of theoretical medicine at the University of Tübingen, and in 1853 a professor of physiology.
Go to Profile#16203
William MacGillivray
1796 - 1852 (56 years)
William MacGillivray FRSE was a Scottish naturalist and ornithologist. Life and work MacGillivray was born in Old Aberdeen and brought up on Harris. He returned to Aberdeen where he studied Medicine at King's College, graduating MA in 1815. In Old Aberdeen he lived at 107 High Street.
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Byam Shaw
1872 - 1919 (47 years)
John Byam Liston Shaw , commonly known as Byam Shaw, was a British painter, illustrator, designer and teacher. He is not to be confused with his sons, Glen Byam Shaw, actor and theatre director, and James Byam Shaw, art historian and director of Colnaghi's, who both used "Byam Shaw" as a surname.
Go to Profile#16205
Christoph Stein
#184144
Overall Influence
#16206
Kenneth Lyons Jones
#184161
Overall Influence
#16207
Ilit Ferber
#178840
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Ilit Ferber is an associate professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. Academic biography During the years 1998–2002, Ferber was a student at the Adi Lautman Interdisciplinary Program for Outstanding Students at Tel Aviv University. Her Master Thesis, "Truth and the idea in Walter Benjamin's early writings", was written at the department of philosophy. Ferber continued to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, which she wrote between the years 2003-2008 under the supervision of . Her dissertation was titled "Melancholy and philosophy: Walter Benjamin's early writings". During her Ph.D. studies, ...
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Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Breyer
1771 - 1818 (47 years)
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Breyer was a German historian. Biography From 1789, he studied philosophy and theology at the Tübinger Stift in Tübingen, then from 1797 furthered his education at the University of Jena as a student of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. In 1803, he became an associate professor, and during the following year, was appointed professor of history and statistics at the University of Landshut. In 1807 he became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and later on, a professor of history at the lyceum in Munich.
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Guro Valen
#174355
Overall Influence
1960 - 2014 (54 years)
Guro Valen was a Norwegian professor of medicine. She was a daughter of political scientist Henry Valen. She worked at the University of Tromsø, Karolinska Institutet and the University of Oslo, and was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. She died from cancer in September 2014.
Go to Profile#16210
Joseph DeLee
1869 - 1942 (73 years)
Joseph Bolivar DeLee was an American physician who became known as the father of modern obstetrics. DeLee founded the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, where he introduced the first portable infant incubator. Early in his career, he was associated with the medical school at Northwestern University. After 1929, he was employed by the medical school at the University of Chicago.
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Andrea Alpago
1450 - 1521 (71 years)
Andrea Alpago was an Italian physician and arabist. In publications of his work in Latin, his name is frequently given as Andreas Alpagus Bellunensis, where "Bellunensis" refers to his birthplace of Belluno in northeastern Italy.
Go to Profile#16212
Michael Cohen
#25644
Overall Influence
2000 - 2018 (18 years)
M. Michael Cohen Jr. was an American pathologist and geneticist who was Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University . He was the first doctor to diagnose Proteus syndrome, in 1979.
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Shahamir Shahamirian
1723 - 1798 (75 years)
Shahamir Shahamirian was an 18th-century Armenian writer, philosopher, and wealthy merchant in Madras . Born in New Julfa, Iran, he moved to India where he became an affluent merchant and an active member of the Armenian community of Madras. In 1771, Shahamirian and his collaborators founded the first Armenian printing press in Madras. In 1787/88, Shahamirian published , which contained a proposed constitution for a future independent Armenian republic. He is thus regarded as the author of the first Armenian constitution.
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Jean Tagault
Jean Tagault or Jean Tagaut was a French physician and anatomist known for his surgical work and for having fought against Michel Servet who defended judicial astrology and divination as sciences. He is often confused with his son Jean Tagaut, a doctor and poet.
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Spencer Shaw
#72314
Overall Influence
1916 - 2010 (94 years)
Spencer Gilbert Shaw was an American librarian and educator specializing in library services to children. He taught at the Information School of the University of Washington and served as president of the Association for Library Services to Children .
Go to Profile#16216
Enrique Pérez Santiago
#78124
Overall Influence
1916 - 1999 (83 years)
Dr. Enrique Pérez Santiago, MD was a Puerto Rican medical doctor. Born in Comerio, he was the first Puerto Rican hematologist and he began the formal program at the University of Puerto Rico Hospital.
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Aleksandra Pawliszyn
#154697
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Aleksandra Pawliszyn is a Polish philosopher, specializing in the areas of phenomenology and philosophical hermeneutics. Biography She obtained her doctorate in 1991 at Warsaw University on the basis of a work titled: Czynności rozumienia w hermeneutyce Gadamerai psychoanalizie Freuda, and qualified as an assistant professor in 2002, also at Warsaw University, on the basis of a work titled: Krajobrazyczasu. Obecne dociekania egzystencjalnej wartości czasu. For a period of eight years she was head of The Department of Learning Theory at the Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Journalism at Gdańsk University.
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Anne-Maria Laukkanen
#181188
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Anne-Maria Laukkanen is a Finnish researcher and a permanent full professor of speech technique and vocology at the University of Tampere. She has supervised 12 doctoral dissertations and 23 master theses and is now supervising 7 doctoral dissertations. She is a peer reviewer in 23 international scientific journals.
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Nils Retterstøl
#182276
Overall Influence
1924 - 2008 (84 years)
Nils Retterstøl was a Norwegian psychiatrist. He was a professor at the University of Bergen from 1968 to 1973, and at the University of Oslo from 1973 to 1994. He published several books on mental subjects. He is also famous for saying "A man who is determined that he is right, despite everyone else telling him that he is wrong, certainly do have a serious mental illness" which was his statement in the Juklerød case, where a healthy person was forcibly restrained in a mental institution and medicated, because of him being "difficult for the authorities". Perhaps the biggest psychiatric scand...
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Barbara Sattler
#184071
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Barbara Michaela Sattler is a Senior Lecturer in philosophy at St Andrews University. Her area of research is metaphysics and natural philosophy in the ancient Greek world. Career From January to March 2017, she was an Institute of Advanced Study Fellow at St John's College, Durham.
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Carl Bloch
1834 - 1890 (56 years)
Carl Heinrich Bloch was a Danish artist. Biography He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and studied there at the Royal Danish Academy of Art under Wilhelm Marstrand. Bloch's parents wanted their son to enter what they considered to be a respectable profession – an officer in the Navy. This, however, was not what he wanted. His only interest was drawing and painting, and he was consumed by the idea of becoming an artist. He went to Italy to study art, passing through the Netherlands, where he became acquainted with the work of Rembrandt, which became a major influence on him. Bloch met his wife, Alma Trepka, in Rome, where he married her on 31 May 1868.
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Enitan Carrol
#169319
Overall Influence
Enitan Carrol is a British physician and Professor of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology. Carrol studies the mechanisms that underpin bacterial infection. In 2020 she was featured in Nicola Rollock's exhibition Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors.
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Gavin C. E. Stuart
#101713
Overall Influence
Gavin C. E. Stuart FRCPC is Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, UBC Faculty of Medicine, where he formerly was Dean of Medicine and Vice-Provost Health . Stuart was born in Manitoba and attended medical school at the University of Western Ontario. He pursued postgraduate training in obstetrics and gynecology and then a fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He has held faculty appointments at Wayne State University and the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, where later served as the centre's director and Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
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Praxiphanes
Praxiphanes a Peripatetic philosopher, was a native of Mytilene, who lived a long time in Rhodes. He lived in the time of Demetrius Poliorcetes and Ptolemy I Soter, and was a pupil of Theophrastus, about 322 BC. He subsequently opened a school himself, in which Epicurus is said to have been one of his pupils. Praxiphanes paid special attention to grammatical studies, and is hence named along with Aristotle as the founder and creator of the science of grammar.
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Pietru Caxaro
1400 - 1485 (85 years)
Pietru "Peter" Caxaro was a Maltese philosopher and poet. He is so far Malta's first known philosopher, fragments of whose works are extant. His philosophical views and positions qualify him as an honourable adherent of the mediaeval humanist movement. His contribution skilfully stands as a mature reflection of the social and cultural revival of his time.
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Osamu Ito
#184242
Overall Influence
#16227
Jerzy Tabeau
#20335
Overall Influence
1918 - 2002 (84 years)
Jerzy Tabeau , an imprisoned Polish medical student, was one of the first escapees from Auschwitz to give a detailed report to the outside world on the genocide occurring there. First reports in early 1942 had been made by the Polish officer Witold Pilecki. Zabłotów-born Tabeau's report was known as that of the "Polish major" in the Auschwitz Protocols. After the war, he became a noted cardiologist in Kraków.
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Oswald Taylor Brown
#101398
Overall Influence
1916 - 2006 (90 years)
Oswald Taylor Brown OBE, FRCP, FRCP was a Scottish consultant physician in geriatric medicine based in Dundee from 1951 until 1979. He is recognised as an early architect of geriatric care services in Scotland.
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Lloyd Evans
#52345
Overall Influence
1927 - 2015 (88 years)
Lloyd Thomas Evans AO FRS FAA was a New Zealand plant physiologist who made his career in Australia. Early life and education Evans was born in Wanganui in 1927. He received his secondary education at Wanganui Technical College and at Wanganui Collegiate School. He studied at the Canterbury Agricultural College in Lincoln from 1945 to 1950 and in 1947, he won the Hunter Brown Cup for that year's best essay on sheep husbandry. His 1950 master's thesis was on the ecology of the Lake Ellesmere flats. In 1948, he represented Lincoln at the Joynt Scroll, a debating competition between New Zealand universities; he also won that year's Hunter Brown Cup.
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Michael F. Berger
#184266
Overall Influence
#16231
Charles Le Roy
1726 - 1779 (53 years)
Charles Le Roy was an 18th-century French physician and Encyclopédiste. An advisor to the king, he was professor of medicine at the University of Montpellier, a member of the French Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society, the Société royale de médecine and the Academies of Montpellier, Nîmes and Toulouse.
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Elizabeth Yakel
#83504
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Elizabeth Yakel is an archivist, researcher, and educator in information science. Yakel is known for work advancing archival practice, the use of primary sources in archives education, studies of data reuse practices, and digital curation. Yakel is the senior associate dean for academic affairs and a professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, where she has been on the faculty since 2000. She is the former coordinator of the Preservation of Information specialization in the Master of Science in Information program and teaches in the Archives and Record Management area. She s...
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Charles Wesley Shilling
#51895
Overall Influence
1901 - 1994 (93 years)
Captain Charles Wesley Shilling was an American physician who was known as a leader in the field of undersea and hyperbaric medicine, research, and education. Shilling was widely recognized as an expert on deep sea diving, naval medicine, radiation biology, and submarine capabilities. In 1939, he was Senior Medical Officer in the rescue of the submarine U.S.S. Squalus.
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Austin Gill
1906 - 1990 (84 years)
Austin Gill, was a British scholar of the French language and culture. He was the Marshall Professor of French at the University of Glasgow from 1966 to 1971. Gill's family was of Irish extraction, but he was born in Stockport, England, which is just southeast of Manchester proper. Gill matriculated at the University of Manchester where he studied French and played football. After graduation, he went on to study first at Grenoble, where he played centre-half for FC Grenoble, and then in Paris. In France, Gill was a Faulkner Fellow from 1930 to 1931 and a then back in Manchester a Langton Fellow from 1931 to 1933.
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Donald S. Gann
#106561
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Donald Stuart Gann was an American trauma surgeon. He chaired surgical departments at Case Western Reserve University, Brown University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He was a past president of the Biomedical Engineering Society and the .
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George Stillman
#117981
Overall Influence
1921 - 1997 (76 years)
George Stillman was an American abstract expressionist artist and member of the San Francisco Bay Area group known as the "Sausalito Six". Biography George Stillman was born in Laramie, Wyoming, but was raised in Ontario, California. He began working with photography while still a teenager and at the age of 17 or 18 won first prize for creative photography in the Golden Gate International Exposition. He got an associate degree at Chaffey College and then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, but in 1942 he was drafted to serve in the military in World War II.
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A. Monem Mahjoub
#118302
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
A. Monem Mahjoub is a Libyan linguist, philosopher, poet, historian, and political critic. Sometimes described as "the last Sumerian", his major works are in the fields of linguistics, philology, historiography, religion and humanistic thought, civilization development and politics. As a prolific author he has written more than twenty-five books.
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Mary De Vera
#100804
Overall Influence
Mary De Vera is a Canadian pharmacoepidemiologist, health services researcher, and academic. De Vera is an assistant professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at the University of British Columbia and is the Canada Research Chair in medication adherence, utilization, and outcomes.
Go to Profile#16239
Jerzy Wordliczek
#87966
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jerzy Władysław Wordliczek is a Polish anesthesiologist and academic, professor of medical sciences, Head of the Intensive Care Interdisciplinary Clinic of the Jagiellonian University Medical College. He is an author of more than three hundred scientific papers and Jagiellonian University Rector's Proxy for Clinical Affairs at the Medical College.
Go to Profile#16240
Hitoshi Takahashi
#184334
Overall Influence
#16241
Brian Shure
#80723
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Brian R. Shure is an American printmaker, painter, author and educator. He is best known for his mastery of printing techniques, knowledge of lesser known art techniques and has published multiple books about the art of chine-collé.
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William Drummond of Logiealmond
1770 - 1828 (58 years)
Sir William James Charles Maria Drummond of Logiealmond FRS FRSE DCL was a Scottish diplomat and Member of Parliament, poet and philosopher. His book Academical Questions is arguably important in the development of the ideas of English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Go to Profile#16243
Johann Ender
1793 - 1854 (61 years)
Johann Nepomuk Ender was an Austrian portrait painter and engraver. Biography He spent several years studying at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he had his debut with his canvas depicting the death of Marcus Aurelius. which won an award. Although he developed his own style, his works show the obvious influence of his contemporary, Jean-Baptiste Isabey.
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Marc Froment-Meurice
#174528
Overall Influence
1953 - 2019 (66 years)
Marc Froment-Meurice is a French and American writer and philosopher. Early life Born in Tokyo on 30 October 1953 to a French diplomat father and a mother Pupille de la Nation who met while both graduating from the École Nationale d’Administration .
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Hazel K. Bell
#155978
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Hazel K. Bell is an indexer, editor and writer. Bell was editor of The Indexer and Learned Publishing journals. She has created nearly 900 book indexes and has also written and edited several books. Bell received the Carey Award for services to indexing in 1997 and has been awarded the Wheatley Medal of the Society of Indexers for an outstanding index twice in 2005 and 2006.
Go to Profile#16246
Daniela M. Ferreira
#182421
Overall Influence
Daniela M. Ferreira is a Brazilian British immunologist. She is a specialist in bacterial infection, respiratory co-infection, mucosal immunology and vaccine responses. She is currently Professor of Respiratory Infection and Vaccinology at the Oxford Vaccine Group in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford and the Director of the Liverpool Vaccine Group at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. She leads a team of scientists studying protective immune responses against pneumococcus and other respiratory pathogens such as SARS-CoV2. Her team has established a novel method of inducing pneumococcal carriage in human volunteers.
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Einar Hammarsten
1889 - 1968 (79 years)
Einar Hammarsten was a Swedish physician and professor of pharmacy and chemistry at the Karolinska Institute from 1928 to 1957. His area of research was the chemistry of the cell nucleus, in particular nucleic acids.
Go to Profile#16248
John C. Green
#184388
Overall Influence
#16249
Samuel Cabanchik
#181302
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Samuel, Manuel Cabanchik is an Argentine philosopher, academic and politician. He was elected to the Argentine Senate in 2007, representing the City of Buenos Aires on the Civic Coalition ticket. He left the Civic Coalition on July 8, 2009, and formed his own parliamentary group, the Federal Buenos Aires Project, and was subsequently considered a circumstantial ally of the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner government.
Go to Profile#16250
Yu Dunkang
#130500
Overall Influence
1930 - 2019 (89 years)
Yu Dunkang was a Chinese philosopher and historian of Chinese philosophy, known for his research on Xuanxue and the I Ching. Denounced as a "rightist" during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1957, he was banished from academia for twenty years. After the end of the Cultural Revolution, he became a research professor at the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , and was elected an honorary academician of the CASS.
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