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).
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.
List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#16801
Albert Pitres
1848 - 1928 (80 years)
Jean Marie Marcel Albert Pitres was a French neurological physician. He was born in Bordeaux and received his training in Paris, where he was the student of Jean Martin Charcot and Louis-Antoine Ranvier . He served as dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bordeaux – appointed 1885.
Go to Profile#16802
Douglas Volk
1856 - 1935 (79 years)
Stephen Arnold Douglas Volk was an American portrait and figure painter, muralist, and educator. He taught at the Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York, and was one of the founders of the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. He and his wife Marion established a summer artist colony in western Maine.
Go to Profile#16803
Peter de Rivo
1420 - 1500 (80 years)
Peter de Rivo was a Flemish scholastic philosopher, teaching at the Old University of Leuven. His views on future contingents were controversial, being opposed by Henry of Zomeren, also at Leuven . De Rivo went to Rome in 1472 to defend his views to Pope Sixtus IV; they were condemned in 1473. Under pressure from the influence of Cardinal Bessarion to whom Henry had as secretary, de Rivo retracted partially his opinions in 1473, and more fully three years later. This meant that views going back at least to Peter Auriol, that future contingents lacked a truth value, had become heretical in th...
Go to Profile#16804
Henry Beeching
1859 - 1919 (60 years)
Henry Charles Beeching was a British clergyman, author and poet, who was Dean of Norwich from 1911 to 1919. Biography H.C Beeching was born on 15 May 1859 in Sussex, the son of J. P. G. Beeching of Bexhill. He was educated at the City of London School and at Balliol College, Oxford. He took holy orders in 1882, and began work in a Liverpool parish at Mossley Hill. He was Rector of Yattendon from 1885 to 1900; Clark Lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1900; professor of Pastoral Theology at King's College London from 1900 to 1903; Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn from 1900 to 1903; Canon of Westminster Abbey from October 1902 until 1911 and Dean of Norwich from 1911 until his death.
Go to Profile#16805
George Smith
1713 - 1776 (63 years)
George Smith was an English landscape painter and poet, known as "George Smith of Chichester". He and his two brothers, all artists, are known as the "Smiths of Chichester". Life and work George was born at Chichester in Sussex, where his father, William Smith, was a tradesman and Baptist minister. He was the second and most gifted of three brothers, who all practised painting and were known as 'the Smiths of Chichester.' When a boy he was placed with his uncle, a cooper, but, preferring art, became a pupil of his brother William, whom he accompanied to Gloucester; there and in other places ...
Go to Profile#16806
William Manderstown
1485 - 1552 (67 years)
William Manderstown was a Scottish philosopher and Rector of the University of Paris. Life He was born in the diocese of St. Andrews, probably at the town of Manderston, Stirlingshire. Educated apparently at St. Andrews, he then attended the University of Paris, where he graduated licentiate in medicine, and became one of the school of Terminists . On 15 December 1525, he succeeded Jean Tixier de Ravisi as rector of the University of Paris. Before 1539 he returned to Scotland, where he and John Mair co-founded a bursary or chaplaincy in St. Salvator's, and endowed it with the rents of houses in South Street, St.
Go to Profile#16807
Wilhelm Weismann
1900 - 1980 (80 years)
Wilhelm Weismann was a German composer and musicologist. Life On 20 September, Weismann was born in Alfdorf/Württemberg on the plateau of Welzheim forest. His parents ran a general store. His mother, sister of the renowned musicologist Alfred Heuß, encouraged his artistic inclinations and he received his first piano and music lessons. At an early age the son of a merchant showed his musical interest by composing small choral pieces.
Go to Profile#16808
Grace Arabell Goldsmith
1904 - 1975 (71 years)
Grace Arabell Goldsmith was a U.S. physician best known for her research on nutritional deficiency diseases, B-complex vitamins, and the vitamin enrichment of foods. She identified the cause of the disease pellagra.
Go to Profile#16809
Heinrich Philipp August Damerow
1798 - 1866 (68 years)
Heinrich Philipp August Damerow was a German psychiatrist born in Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Prussia . He made significant contributions in the field of institutional psychiatry. In 1822 he earned his doctorate in Berlin, where he was a student of Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Schleiermacher and psychiatrist Anton Ludwig Ernst Horn. He continued his education in Paris, where he studied under Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol, and at the Siegburg asylum north of Bonn, where he met with Carl Wigand Maximilian Jacobi. In 1830 he became an associate professor, and in 1836 was appointed director of Provinzial-Irrenanstalt near Halle.
Go to Profile#16810
Fabrizio Mordente
1532 - 1608 (76 years)
Fabrizio Mordente was an Italian mathematician. He is best known for his invention of the "proportional eight-pointed compass" which has two arms with cursors that allow the solution of problems in measuring the circumference, area and angles of a circle. In 1567 he published a single sheet treatise in Venice showing illustrations of his device.
Go to Profile#16811
Eliza Maria Mosher
1846 - 1928 (82 years)
Eliza Maria Mosher was a United States physician, inventor, medical writer, and educator whose wide-ranging medical career included an educational focus on physical fitness and health maintenance. She was the first Dean of Women at the University of Michigan, and the first woman professor to be recognized by the university.
Go to Profile#16812
Arthur Thost
1854 - 1937 (83 years)
Hermann Arthur Thost was a German physician and otolaryngologist. He studied medicine at several universities in Europe, receiving his doctorate at Heidelberg University in 1879. After graduation, he remained in Heidelberg as an assistant to pathologist Nikolaus Friedreich. Later on, he was associated with the General Hospital in Eppendorf, then in 1919 was appointed an associate professor of otolaryngology at the newly established University of Hamburg. He was interested in local politics, being known for his advocacy of public medical insurance.
Go to Profile#16813
Walter Kaufmann
1907 - 1984 (77 years)
Walter Kaufmann was a composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, librettist and educator. Born in Karlsbad, Bohemia , he trained in Prague and Berlin before fleeing the Nazi persecution of Jews to work in Bombay until Indian Independence. He then moved to London and Canada before settling in the USA as a professor of musicology at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana in 1957. In 1964, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Go to Profile#16814
Joice NanKivell Loch
1887 - 1982 (95 years)
Joice NanKivell Loch MBE was an Australian author, journalist and humanitarian worker who worked with refugees in Poland, Greece and Romania after World War I and World War II. Biography Joice Mary NanKivell was born at Farnham sugar cane plantation in Ingham in far north Queensland in 1887. Her father acted as manager of the plantation for Fanning, NanKivell, a company run by the Fanning brothers and her wealthy grandfather, Thomas NanKivell. The family fortune was lost however when Kanaka labour was abolished and Joice and her parents walked off the property virtually penniless. Her father,...
Go to Profile#16815
William Pole
1561 - 1635 (74 years)
Sir William Pole of Colcombe House in the parish of Colyton, and formerly of Shute House in the parish of Shute , both in Devon, was an English country gentleman and landowner, a colonial investor, Member of Parliament and, most notably, a historian and antiquarian of the County of Devon.
Go to Profile#16816
Ethel Collins Dunham
1883 - 1969 (86 years)
Ethel Collins Dunham , and her life partner, Martha May Eliot, devoted their lives to the care of children. Dunham focused on premature babies and newborns, becoming chief of child development at the Children's Bureau in 1935. She established national standards for the hospital care of newborn children and expanded the scope of health care for growing youngsters by monitoring their progress in regular home visits by Children's Bureau staff.
Go to Profile#16817
Pat Sullivan
1887 - 1933 (46 years)
Patrick Peter Sullivan was an Australian-American cartoonist, pioneer animator, and film producer best known for producing the first Felix the Cat silent cartoons. Early life Sullivan was born in Paddington, New South Wales, the second son of Patrick Sullivan, an immigrant from Ireland and his Sydney-born wife Margaret, née Hayes. Around 1909, Sullivan left Australia and spent a few months in London, England, before moving to the United States around 1910. He worked as assistant to newspaper cartoonist William Marriner and drew four strips of his own. When Marriner died in 1914, Sullivan joined the new animated cartoon studio set up by Raoul Barré.
Go to Profile#16818
James Graham
1856 - 1913 (57 years)
Sir James Graham was a Scottish-born physician and politician, active in Australia. He was Mayor of Sydney in 1901. Graham was born in Edinburgh, son of Thomas Graham, marble polisher, and his wife Jane . Graham graduated M.A. at University of Edinburgh in 1879 and M.B. and C.M. in 1882. Graham migrated to Sydney in 1884 but then returned to Europe in August 1888 and studied at Berlin, Vienna and Paris. In 1888, he obtained the M.D. degree of Edinburgh Medical School with gold medal for his thesis on "Hydatid Disease in its Clinical Aspects". Returning to Sydney he was appointed superintende...
Go to Profile#16819
Joseph Lieutaud
1703 - 1780 (77 years)
Joseph Lieutaud was a French physician. Biography Early life Joseph Lieutaud was born on 21 June 1703 at 31 Rue Cardinale in Aix-en-Provence. His father was Jean-Baptiste Lieutaud, a lawyer, and his mother, Louise Garibel. He started studying botany, following in the wake of his uncle, Pierre Joseph Garidel, and went on to be called upon as a doctor in the Hotel-Dieu in Aix-en-Provence. He graduated from the University of Aix-en-Provence in 1725.
Go to Profile#16820
Édouard Collignon
1831 - 1913 (82 years)
Édouard Charles Romain Collignon was a French engineer and scientist, known for the Collignon projection and for his role in building railways in Russia. Career After graduating from the l'École polytechnique in 1849, he became an ingénieur des ponts et chaussées. He became inspecteur des Ponts et chaussées in 1878.
Go to Profile#16821
Louis Waldenburg
1837 - 1881 (44 years)
Louis Waldenburg was a German physician. Waldenburg was born in Filehne, Posen. He graduated from the University of Berlin . After a postgraduate course at Heidelberg he established himself in Berlin as a specialist in chest and throat diseases. From 1864 to 1868 he co-edited the Allgemeine Medizinische Central-Zeitung . In 1865 he earned the title of Privatdozent at Berlin University. From 1868 until his death he edited the Berliner Klinische Wochenschrift . In 1871 he was appointed assistant professor, and in 1877 department physician, at the Charité hospital in Berlin.
Go to Profile#16822
Georg Forster
1510 - 1568 (58 years)
Georg Forster was a German editor, composer and physician. Forster was born at Amberg, in the Upper Palatinate. While a chorister at Elector Ludwig V’s court in Heidelberg around 1521, he was a colleague of Caspar Othmayr who would also become a composer of renown. Forster received his first instruction in composition from the Kapellmeister Lorenz Lemlin. Forster died at Nuremberg.
Go to Profile#16823
Carl Ebert
1887 - 1980 (93 years)
Carl Anton Charles Ebert , was a German actor, stage director and arts administrator. Ebert's early career was as an actor, training under Max Reinhardt and becoming one of the leading actors in his native Germany during the 1920s. During that decade he was also appointed to administrative posts, both theatrical and academic. In 1929 he directed opera for the first time, and during the 1930s established a reputation as an operatic director in Germany and beyond. A strong opponent of Nazism, he left Germany in 1933 and did not return until 1945.
Go to Profile#16824
Georg Lotheissen
1868 - 1941 (73 years)
Georg Lotheissen was an Austrian surgeon born in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1892 he earned his medical doctorate in Vienna, and following graduation was an assistant to Emil Zuckerkandl , and a surgical apprentice under Theodor Billroth and Carl Gussenbauer . From 1895 to 1901, he served as first assistant to Viktor von Hacker at the surgical clinic at Innsbruck, where in 1899 he received his habilitation in surgery. In 1902 he returned to Vienna, where in 1915 he became an associate professor.
Go to Profile#16825
Arthur Groenouw
1862 - 1945 (83 years)
Arthur Groenouw was a German ophthalmologist born in Bosatz, a village near Ratibor. He studied medicine in Breslau, and was an assistant to physiologist Rudolf Heidenhain and ophthalmologist Wilhelm Uhthoff . In 1892 he was habilitated for ophthalmology in Breslau, and in 1899 attained the title of professor.
Go to Profile#16826
August Wagenmann
1863 - 1955 (92 years)
August Emil Ludwig Wagenmann was a German ophthalmologist. August Wagenmann obtained a degree of medical doctor at the universities of Göttingen and Munich. After graduation, he received a position of assistant doctor in the Eye Clinic at Göttingen University, which was chaired by Theodor Leber. In 1888, August Wagenmann was qualified as a privatdocent in ophthalmology.
Go to Profile#16827
Otto Kahler
1849 - 1893 (44 years)
Otto Kahler was a physician and pathologist born in Prague, Austrian Empire. In 1871 he obtained his medical doctorate in Prague, and following an educational trip to Paris, returned to his hometown as an assistant to Joseph Halla at the internal clinic. In 1882 he became an associate professor at Karl-Ferdinands-Universität, and a few years later , was a "full professor" of pathology and therapy. In 1889 he relocated to the University of Vienna, succeeding Heinrich von Bamberger as professor of special pathology. After a year in Vienna, he developed tongue cancer and his assistant, Friedrich Kraus , subsequently took over his lectures.
Go to Profile#16828
Adolf Abicht
1793 - 1860 (67 years)
Adolf Abicht was a Polish-Lithuanian physician. He was a professor of general pathology, therapy, and medical history at the Vilnius University, and was a president of the Medical Society in Vilnius from 1829–1838.
Go to Profile#16829
Paul von Bruns
1846 - 1916 (70 years)
Paul von Bruns was a German surgeon. He was born in Tübingen, and was the son of surgeon Victor von Bruns. His father-in-law was Protestant theologian Karl Heinrich Weizsäcker. Bruns was born July 2, 1846. In 1882, Bruns became director of the surgical clinic at Tübingen, as well as a full professor at the University. He was the author of works on numerous medical subjects — laryngotomy for removal of growths in the larynx, acute osteomyelitis, gunshot wounds, limb operations and the treatment of goiters, to name a few.
Go to Profile#16830
Stephen Whisson
1710 - 1783 (73 years)
Stephen Whisson was a tutor at Trinity College, Cambridge, United Kingdom, and coached 72 students in the 1744–1754 period. Biography Wisson was from St Neots, Huntingdonshire and was the son of a publican. In 1735, he matriculated from Wakefield School, Yorkshire.
Go to Profile#16831
Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben
1806 - 1849 (43 years)
Baron Ernst von Feuchtersleben , was an Austrian physician, poet and philosopher. He was a member of the von Feuchtersleben family Life He was born as a son of Ernst von Feuchtersleben . He was of an old Saxon noble family. His older half-brother was Eduard von Feuchtersleben , son of Ernst von Feuchtersleben from his first marriage.
Go to Profile#16832
Franz Josef Ruprecht
1814 - 1870 (56 years)
Franz Josef Ruprecht was an Austrian-born physician and botanist active in the Russian Empire, where he was known as Frants Ivanovič Ruprekht . He was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, and grew up in Prague, where he studied, and graduated as Doctor of Medicine in 1836. After a short stint in medical practice in Prague, he was appointed curator of the herbarium of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Saint Petersburg in 1839, then assistant director of the Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden between 1851 and 1855, and professor of botany in 1855 at the University of Saint Petersburg. He died in Saint...
Go to Profile#16833
Robert Meyer
1864 - 1947 (83 years)
Robert Meyer was a German pathologist. He studied medicine at the universities of Leipzig, Heidelberg and Strassburg, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution in 1889. From 1890 to 1894 he was a medical practitioner in the community of Dedeleben, and afterwards worked as assistant to gynecologist Johann Veit in Berlin.
Go to Profile#16834
John Smith
1721 - 1797 (76 years)
John Smith was a Scottish physician and academic. Smith was born in Maybole, Scotland, where his father, William, was a merchant. He studied at the University of Glasgow beginning in 1736, entered Balliol College, Oxford in 1744 with the support of the Snell Exhibition, and earned a B.A. in 1748 and an M.A. in 1751 from Balliol. He then studied under Nathan Alcock in St Mary Hall, earning his doctorate in 1757. Alcock left Oxford for Bath in the same year, and Smith took his place. At Oxford, he taught anatomy and chemistry. Despite not being a mathematician, he held the Savilian chair of geo...
Go to Profile#16835
Johann Georg Hiltensperger
1806 - 1890 (84 years)
Johann Georg Hiltensperger was a German history painter and a professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Biography Born in Haldenwang, Oberallgäu, he was trained in drawing by L. Weiß before studying under Johann Peter von Langer at the Royal Art Academy and under Peter von Cornelius at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Returning to Munich in 1825, he there received commissions for frescoes and oil paintings from Ludwig I of Bavaria and Maximilian II Joseph of Bavaria. For example, between 1838 and 1865 he produced the Odyssey Cycle in festal hall of the Munich Residenz to designs by Ludwig Schwanthaler.
Go to Profile#16836
Hans Selye
1907 - 1982 (75 years)
János Hugo Bruno "Hans" Selye was a pioneering Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist who conducted important scientific work on the hypothetical non-specific response of an organism to stressors. Although he did not recognize all of the many aspects of glucocorticoids, Selye was aware of their role in the stress response. Charlotte Gerson considers him the first to demonstrate the existence of biological stress.
Go to Profile#16837
Henry Kaplan
1918 - 1984 (66 years)
Henry Seymour Kaplan was an American radiologist who pioneered in radiation therapy and radiobiology. Career Kaplan earned his degree from Rush Medical College in Chicago, after which he trained at the University of Minnesota, Yale University and the National Cancer Institute. He once said he became interested in oncology after his father died of lung cancer, the same disease which killed Dr. Kaplan, a non-smoker.
Go to Profile#16838
Franz J. Ingelfinger
1910 - 1980 (70 years)
Franz Joseph Ingelfinger was a German-American physician, researcher and journal editor. He served as Chief of Gastroenterology at Evans Memorial Department of Clinical Research, part of Boston University School of Medicine. He also served as Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine from 1967 to 1976. His work was influential in the field of science journalism.
Go to Profile#16839
Alexis Carrel
1873 - 1944 (71 years)
Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation. Carrel was also a pioneer in transplantology and thoracic surgery. He is known for his leading role in implementing eugenic policies in Vichy France.
Go to Profile#16840
Ludwig von Bertalanffy
1901 - 1972 (71 years)
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy was an Austrian biologist known as one of the founders of general systems theory . This is an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics might be applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems" such as living things. His mathematical model of an organism's growth over time, published in 1934, is still in use today.
Go to Profile#16841
Ernest Nagel
1901 - 1985 (84 years)
Ernest Nagel was an American philosopher of science. Along with Rudolf Carnap, Hans Reichenbach, and Carl Hempel, he is sometimes seen as one of the major figures of the logical positivist movement. His 1961 book The Structure of Science is considered a foundational work in the logic of scientific explanation.
Go to Profile#16842
Arthur David Ritchie
1891 - 1967 (76 years)
Arthur David Ritchie FRSE was a British chemical physiologist and philosopher. Life He was born Oxford on 22 June 1891 the son of Prof David George Ritchie. The family moved to St Andrews in 1894 when his father was given a new professorship there.
Go to Profile#16843
John Rock
1890 - 1984 (94 years)
#16844
Tinsley R. Harrison
1900 - 1978 (78 years)
Tinsley Randolph Harrison was an American physician and editor of the first five editions of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. Harrison specialized in cardiology and the pathophysiology of heart disease.
Go to Profile#16845
Daniel Berlyne
1924 - 1976 (52 years)
Daniel Ellis Berlyne was a British and Canadian psychologist. Berlyne worked at several universities both in Canada and the United States. His work was in the field of experimental and exploratory psychology. Specifically, his research focused on how objects and experiences are influenced by and have an influence on curiosity and arousal.
Go to Profile#16846
Kurt Gödel
1906 - 1978 (72 years)
Kurt Friedrich Gödel was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an immense effect upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when others such as Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, and David Hilbert were using logic and set theory to investigate the foundations of mathematics, building on earlier work by the likes of Richard Dedekind, Georg Cantor and Gottlob Frege.
Go to Profile#16847
Harold Saxton Burr
1889 - 1973 (84 years)
Harold Saxton Burr was E. K. Hunt Professor of Anatomy at Yale University School of Medicine and researcher into bio-electrics. Early life He was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1889, to parents Hanford Burr and Clara Saxton. He studied in public schools and at the Technical High School in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1908 he was admitted to the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale and received his Ph.B. in 1911. On December 27 of that year, in Chicago, he married Jean Chandler, with whom he had a son, Peter. In 1914 he was appointed Instructor in Anatomy at Yale. He studied for his Ph.D. under Ross Granville Harrison, which he received in 1915.
Go to Profile#16848
Chester Keefer
1897 - 1972 (75 years)
Chester Scott Keefer was an American physician. He served as "penicillin czar" during World War II, responsible for managing distribution and allocation of the then-new drug for civilian uses in the United States, and was dean of the Boston University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#16849
Hilde Bruch
1904 - 1984 (80 years)
Hilde Bruch was a German-born American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known foremost for her work on eating disorders and obesity. Bruch emigrated to the United States in 1934. She worked and studied at various medical facilities in New York City and Baltimore before becoming a professor of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in 1964.
Go to Profile#16850
Bernardo Houssay
1887 - 1971 (84 years)
Bernardo Alberto Houssay was an Argentine physiologist. Houssay was a co-recipient of the 1947 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering the role played by pituitary hormones in regulating the amount of glucose in animals, sharing the prize with Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Cori. He is the first Latin American Nobel laureate in the sciences.
Go to Profile