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,
#16351
Isaac-Bénédict Prévost
1755 - 1819 (64 years)
Isaac-Bénédict Prévost was a Swiss Protestant theologian and naturalist who was one of the first to identify fungal infection of plants and to find treatments to avoid them. Prévost was born in Geneva to Jean-Jacques Prévost and Marie-Élisabeth Henri. A cousin was the ophthalmologist Pierre Prévost. Little is known of his early life but he chose science to a career in business after apprenticing in a grocery. He became interested in science after reading the work of the astronomer Duc-la-Chapelle. In 1777, he became a private tutor to the sons of Delmas in Montauban. He founded a society for science in Montauban.
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John T. Sinnott
#152396
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John T. Sinnott is a physician, scientist, and business executive who is the Chairman of Internal Medicine at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. Dr. Sinnott serves as chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine at the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida, the medical school's largest department. Sinnott is also the James P. Cullison Professor of Medicine as well. Sinnott has served as the director of the Florida Infectious Disease Institute since 2004 and is the former Associate Dean of USF Medicine International, which he founded with Dr.
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Cornelis de Waal
#184819
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Cornelis de Waal is a Dutch Professor of American Philosophy at Indiana University. He is Editor-in-Chief of Transactions . Books Peirce: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Translated into Korean as Peoseu Chualhakeui Eehae, Seoul: Hankuk University Press, 2016.On Pragmatism. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2005. Translated into Portuguese as Sobre pragmatism. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2007.On Mead. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2002.On Peirce. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2001. Translated into Chinese as Pi Er Shi. Beijing: Zhong Hua Book Co., 2003; and in Bulgarian as За Пърс. Sofia: New Bulgarian Univ...
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Daniel Carleton Gajdusek
#40175
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek was an American physician and medical researcher who was the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for work on the transmissibility of kuru, implying the existence of an infectious agent, which he named an 'unconventional virus'.
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Sapna Kudchadkar
#146362
Overall Influence
Sapna Ravi Kudchadkar is an American critical care physician and anesthesiologist. She is an Associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, pediatrics and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In 2022, she was appointed Vice Chair of Pediatric Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins as well as Anesthesiologist-in-Chief of the Johns Hopkins Charlotte R. Bloomberg Children's Center.
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Caspar Wistar
1761 - 1818 (57 years)
Caspar Wistar was an American physician and anatomist. He is sometimes referred to as Caspar Wistar the Younger, to distinguish him from his grandfather of the same name. The plant genus Wisteria is named for him.
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Rita Moreno
#90661
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer. She is noted for her work on stage and screen in a career spanning over eight decades. Moreno is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Among her numerous accolades, she is one of a few performers to have been awarded an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony and the Triple Crown of Acting, with individual competitive Academy, Emmy, and Tony awards. Additional accolades include the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, the National Medal of Arts in 2009, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2013...
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Kenneth Seeskin
#170805
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Kenneth Seeskin is an American philosopher and Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor Emeritus of Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University. He is known for his works on Jewish philosophy. Seeskin won the Koret Jewish Book Award for his book Searching for a Distant God: The Legacy of Maimonides in 2001.
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Janine Austin Clayton
#128455
Overall Influence
Janine Austin Clayton is an American ophthalmologist. She is the NIH associate director for research on women's health and director of the Office of Women's Health. Clayton was previously the deputy clinical director of the National Eye Institute.
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Michael James Aitken
#90183
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Michael James Aitken is a New Zealand author who specializes in the area of security market microstructure and design. He is listed among the top 1000 authors publishing in the finance literature over the last 50 years. His research has contributed to the understanding of market microstructure and its impact on market efficiency and, in particular, on market integrity.This results in great part from his role in the design of information systems for real-time fraud detection in securities markets .
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Claire Kelly Schultz
#96713
Overall Influence
1924 - 2015 (91 years)
Claire Kelly Schultz was an American computer consultant and academic. She was a leading figure in the early development of automated information retrieval systems and information science. A "documentalist", she was particularly known for her work in thesaurus construction and machine-aided indexing, innovating techniques for punch card information retrieval.
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Derek Malcolm
#74899
Overall Influence
1932 - 2023 (91 years)
Derek Elliston Michael Malcolm was an English film critic and historian. Early life Derek Elliston Michael Malcolm was born on 12 May 1932. He was the son of Douglas Malcolm and Dorothy Vera , Malcolm was educated at Eton College and Merton College, Oxford. As a child, he expressed an interest in film, often going to the newsreel cinema on Victoria station.
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Dragoș Protopopescu
1892 - 1948 (56 years)
Dragoș Protopopescu was a Romanian writer, poet, critic, philosopher, and far-right politician. Early life and education Protopopescu was born in Călărași to son of Constantin Popescu and Octavia Blebea. After going to school in his native city, he pursued his studies at the Saint Sava High School in Bucharest, and then at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest.
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Anthony Brownless
1817 - 1897 (80 years)
Sir Anthony Colling Brownless, , was an English-Australian physician and educationist, chancellor of the University of Melbourne. Biography Brownless was the only son of Anthony Brownless, of Paynetts House, and Bockingfold Manor, near Goudhurst, Kent. After studying for the medical profession at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, and at the University of Liège, he was admitted M.R.C.S. of London in 1841, and M.D. of St Andrews in 1846. Brownless practised for some years as a physician in London. Brownless probably suffered from tuberculosis; it's almost certain the state of his health made him decide to come to Australia.
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Nita Patel
#105214
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nita K. Patel is an Indian-American vaccinologist who leads vaccine development at Novavax. She oversaw the development of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. Early life and education Patel was born in Sojitra, a farming village in Gujarat. When she was four years old her father contracted tuberculosis, and came close to death. This experience motivated Patel to become a physician and attempt to find a cure for tuberculosis. She went on to earn a master's degree in microbiology at Sardar Patel University and a master's degree in biotechnology at Johns Hopkins University.
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Syed Aqeel-ul-Gharavi
#113294
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Syed Aqeel-ul-Gharavi also known as Ayatullah Aqeel-ul-Gharavi is a leading Indian Twelver Shia scholar, philosopher, thinker, writer, poet, educationist, community activist, critic and a mujtahid. Presently, Aqeel-ul-Gharavi is acknowledged as one of the famous and senior Shia scholars from the Indian Subcontinent. He was the principal of Hawza-e-Ilmia Jamia-tus-Saqalain, Delhi and is the current chairman of Safinatul Hidaya Trust, India. He is the vice-President of All India Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat and member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board. Syed Aqeel is also a member of the Majma Jahani Ahlulbayt, Iran.
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Kathleen M. Foley
#184904
Overall Influence
#16368
Michael Brady
#175495
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Michael Sean Brady is a British philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. He is best known for his works on philosophy of emotions. Books Emotional Insight: The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience, Oxford University Press, 2013, Emotion: The Basics, Routledge, 2018, Suffering and Virtue, Oxford University Press, 2018,
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Anne Comi
#183334
Overall Influence
Anne Marie Spalding Comi is an American pediatric neurologist specialized in the treatment of Sturge–Weber syndrome. She is a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and director of the Hunter Nelson Sturge-Weber Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
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Rustam Singh
#93811
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Rustam Singh is an Indian poet, philosopher, translator and editor. He writes poetry in Hindi and theoretical and philosophical papers and essays in English. He is regarded as an important Hindi poet of this period. His poems have been translated into many Indian and foreign languages including English, Telugu, Marathi, Malayalam, Panjabi, Swedish, Norwegian and Estonian. Apart from his books, his poems have appeared in many important literary journals and magazines, such as Sakshatkaar, Poorvagrah, Bahuvachan, Jansatta, Pratilipi, Indian Literature, International Quarterly, Aufgabe, LyrikVannen etc.
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Yoko Kato
#82192
Overall Influence
Yoko Kato is a Japanese neurosurgeon. She is professor and chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Fujita Health University. She was the first woman in Japan to be promoted to full professor of neurosurgery.
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Jackie Dawson
#175352
Overall Influence
Jackie Dawson is a Canadian academic who holds the Canada Research Chair in Environment, Society and Policy. Dawson is also co-Scientific Director of ArcticNet, where she is currently a member of the Board of Directors.
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Yokoi Yayū
1702 - 1783 (81 years)
Yokoi Yayū was a Japanese samurai best known for his haibun, a scholar of Kokugaku, and haikai poet. He was born Yokoi Tokitsura, and took the pseudonym Tatsunojō. His family are believed to be descendants of Hōjō Tokiyuki.
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Albert Edwin Avey
1886 - 1963 (77 years)
Albert Edwin Avey was an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is known for his works on conceptual cognition and the philosophy of religion. Books Handbook in the history of philosophy.
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Geoffrey Midgley
#182734
Overall Influence
1921 - 1997 (76 years)
Geoffrey Charles John Midgley was a British philosopher. Life, education & career Midgley had won a classical scholarship to Oxford, but served four years as a radar engineer in the RAF during the Second World War. After the war he completed the PPE course at New College, Oxford and studied under Isaiah Berlin and Gilbert Ryle. Since 1949 he worked at the Department of Philosophy, Newcastle University, as lecturer and senior lecturer , and as head of department . In 1950 he married a fellow philosopher, Mary Scrutton, with whom he raised three sons .
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Christian A. Sander
#184926
Overall Influence
#16377
Rebecca Hains
#34549
Overall Influence
Rebecca Hains is an American communication and media studies scholar and author. She is a professor in the Media and Communication Department at Salem State University and is a frequently quoted expert on the subject of children's media culture and marketing, which she studies from a feminist media studies and critical/cultural studies perspective.
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Utah Phillips
#162652
Overall Influence
1935 - 2008 (73 years)
Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips was an American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller and poet. He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words.
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Stephen D. John
#176926
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Stephen David John , is a British philosopher . He is a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and the University Hatton Professor in the Philosophy of Public Health. John is a member of the academic staff and lecturer in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science , his research focuses on the philosophy of science, political philosophy and the philosophy of public health.
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John Armstrong
#159579
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
John Armstrong is a British writer and philosopher living in Hobart, Australia. He was born in Glasgow and educated at Oxford and London, later directing the philosophy program at the University of London's School of Advanced Study. Armstrong was philosopher in residence at the Melbourne Business School and senior adviser to the vice-chancellor of Melbourne University until 2014. In 2014 he became a professorial fellow at the University of Tasmania. He is the author of several books on philosophical themes.
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Amphicrates of Athens
#111124
Overall Influence
Amphicrates of Athens was a sophist and rhetorician . Biographical information Amphicrates was forced to leave Athens in 86 B.C, living henceforward in Seleucia on the Tigris. When responding to a plea for the creation of a rhetoric school in Seleucia he replied that he could not for
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Debara L. Tucci
#132835
Overall Influence
Debara Lyn Tucci is an American otolaryngologist, studying ear, nose, and throat conditions. She co-founded the Duke Hearing Center and currently serves as a professor of Surgery and Director of the Cochlear Implant Program at Duke University. In September 2019 she became Director of the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, one of the National Institutes of Health's 27 Institutes and Centers.
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Ezra Abbot
1819 - 1884 (65 years)
Ezra Abbot was an American biblical scholar. Life and writings Abbot was born at Jackson, Maine, April 28, 1819; son of Ezra and Phebe Abbot. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1840. In 1847, at the request of Andrews Norton, he went to Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was principal of a public school until 1856. He was assistant librarian of Harvard University from 1856 to 1872, and planned and perfected an alphabetical card catalog, combining many of the advantages of the ordinary dictionary catalogs with the grouping of the minor topics under more general heads, which is characteristic of a systematic catalogue.
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Jan Blatný
#136587
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jan Blatný is a Czech physician, teacher and politician. On 29 October 2020 he was named as Minister of Health of the Czech Republic by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš following the resignation of Roman Prymula. On 7 April 2021 he was replaced by Petr Arenberger.
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Jawahar L. Mehta
#109543
Overall Influence
Jawahar L. Mehta is the Stebbins Chair and Professor of Medicine at the College of Medicine, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences . Biography Mehta was born in India and migrated to the United States in 1970. He received his M.D. from Punjab University in 1968 and PhD from the University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden. Mehta's thesis topic was "studies on experimental myocardial reperfusion" which he completed under the direction of Prof. Tom Saldeen. He completed his post-graduate training in Medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, followed by a research fellowship at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
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Philippe Gumplowicz
#78794
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Philippe Gumplowicz is a French professor of universities, musicologist and music historian. Biography His parents, a couple of Polish Jews, emigrated to France in 1933. As a young man, Gumplowicz bathed in the "Zionist and Marxist" youth movements. He studied history and passed his master's degree at the Sorbonne University in 1972. Passionate about music, he financed his studies by playing in a jazz orchestra. He then studied social science and became passionate about psychoanalysis which he abandoned in the 1970s. He then worked on the history of musical institutions, such as the Conservatoire de Paris and the Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique.
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Jan G. Švec
#103903
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Jan Švec is a Czech voice scientist. He is the inventor of videokymography, a method for high-speed visualization of vocal-fold vibrations, which is being used for advanced diagnosis of voice disorders.
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John Robert Evans
#25042
Overall Influence
1929 - 2015 (86 years)
John Robert Evans was a Canadian cardiologist, academic, businessperson, and civic leader. He was the founding dean of the McMaster University Medical School and then vice-president of Health Services at McMaster University from 1965 to 1972. From 1972 to 1978 he was President of the University of Toronto. From 1979 to 1983, he served as founding Director of the Population, Health and Nutrition Department of the World Bank in Washington, DC.
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Richard Müller-Freienfels
1882 - 1949 (67 years)
Richard Müller-Freienfels was a German philosopher, psychologist and social critic. He was "one of the most important mediators of empirical psychology" to poetics. Life Müller-Freienfels was born in Bad Ems on 7 August 1882. He was a lecturer and writer at the Berlin Trade School . He died on 12 December 1949 in Weilburg.
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John Belton
#64442
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Belton is Professor Emeritus of English and Film at Rutgers University. He is editor of the Film and Culture series at Columbia University Press and associate editor of SMPTE's Motion Imaging Journal. He earned his PhD from Harvard University, BA from Columbia University, and specializes in film history and cultural studies. Belton has served on the National Film Preservation Board, as chair of the Board of Editors of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, and authored numerous books. In 2005/2006, he was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship to pursue his study of the use of d...
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Jerome Daugherty
1849 - 1914 (65 years)
Jerome Daugherty was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who served in many different capacities at Jesuit institutions throughout the northeast United States, eventually becoming president of Georgetown University in 1901. Born in Baltimore, he was educated at Loyola College in Maryland, before entering the Society of Jesus and becoming a member of the first class at Woodstock College. He then taught various subjects, including mathematics, Latin, Ancient Greek, rhetoric, and the humanities in Massachusetts, New York City, and Washington, D.C., and served as minister at many of the insti...
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Theodore K. Lawless
1892 - 1971 (79 years)
Theodore Kenneth Lawless was an American dermatologist, medical researcher, and philanthropist. He was a skin specialist, and is known for work related to leprosy and syphilis. Lawless was also involved in various charitable causes, including Jewish causes. Related to the latter, he created the Lawless Department of Dermatology in Beilinson Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel. He received his M.D. degree from Northwestern University Medical School, and was a self-made millionaire. In 1954, he won the NAACP Spingarn Medal, presented annually to an African American of distinguished achievement.
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Tashi Tsering
#35432
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Serme Khen Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering BEM is abbot of Sera Mey Monastic University in India. From 1994 to 2018, he was the resident Tibetan Buddhist teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London. Tsering was born in Purang, Tibet in 1958, and his parents escaped to India in 1959. He entered Sera Mey Monastic University in South India when he was 13 years old, and graduated with a Lharampa Geshe degree 16 years later. Geshe Tashi then entered the Higher Tantric College for a year of study.
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Leo H. Bartemeier
1895 - 1982 (87 years)
Leo Henry Bartemeier was an American physician, psychoanalyst, and educator. He was President of the American Psychiatric Association. Biography Bartemeier was born on September 12, 1895, in Muscatine, Iowa, into a Roman Catholic family. He attended the local parochial school and then enrolled in St. Mary's College , a Jesuit center, and completed two years of college. He learned shorthand and typing when working for the Associated Press. He transferred and completed college at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, earning a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees, following acceptance of his thesis on animal research.
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Lockhart Muirhead
1765 - 1829 (64 years)
Lockhart Muirhead was a Scottish librarian, museum-keeper and academic. He was Regius Professor of Zoology at Glasgow University, from 1807. Life Muirhead travelled in Europe shortly before the French Revolution, and subsequently wrote on both French and Italian topics. He contributed to the Monthly Review and Edinburgh Review. He was librarian of Glasgow University in the period 1795 to 1823.
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Francesco Conconi
#26319
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Francesco Conconi is an Italian sports doctor and scientist, with disciples such as Michele Ferrari and Luigi Cecchini. Conconi is a professor at the University of Ferrara in Italy where he heads the Centro Studi Biomedici Applicati allo Sport or Biomedical Research Institute. His research focused on tracing techniques for doping substances but he is better known for his doping activities and is said to have introduced Erythropoietin or EPO to the sport of cycling. Conconi is most famous for having prepared Francesco Moser for his successful attempt to break the world hour record in Mexico, 1...
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Kwak Jun-hyeok
#91051
Overall Influence
Kwak Jun-hyeok is a South Korean political philosopher and professor of Philosophy at Sun Yat-sen University, China, where he is also serving as the head of political philosophy and ethics. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2002. Before joining Sun Yat-sen University, he taught at various universities including Korea University and Kyungpook National University. His research interests lie at the crossroads of Western political philosophy, contemporary political theory, and comparative philosophy. He has a particular interest in the republican tradition of political philosophy , democratic theories, nationalism, patriotism, and global justice.
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Brian E. O'Neil
Brian E. O'Neil was an American philosopher and a professor of philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He was known for his research on Descartes' philosophy. O'Neil died from cancer in 1985. Books Epistemological Direct Realism in Descartes' Philosophy, University of New Mexico Press
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SreyRam Kuy
#84645
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
SreyRam Kuy is a Cambodian American surgeon, writer, researcher and healthcare executive. Early life SreyRam Kuy was two years old when she and her family escaped Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. She along with her mother and sister were severely injured during a bombing in a border refugee camp in Thailand, and treated for wounds by a Red Cross volunteer surgeon, which inspired her to later become the first female Cambodian refugee to work as a surgeon in the United States. In 1981, she and her mother and sister moved to the United States.
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Éric Geoffroy
#75349
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Éric Geoffroy is a French philosopher, islamologist, writer and scholar in the Sufi studies teaching at the University of Strasbourg. Thought He is a critic of the notion of a Clash of Civilizations, which he transcends into a Dialogue of Traditions He is an affiliate of the Alawiya Sufi Brotherhood.
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