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,

#17701

Matthew Davis

#189811

Overall Influence

#17702

Silas Dodu

#76441

Overall Influence

1924 - 2007 (83 years)

Silas Rofino Amu Dodu, was a Ghanaian physician and academic. He was a professor of medicine, the second Dean at the University of Ghana Medical School and a pioneer cardiologist in Ghana. He and others have been described as pioneers of the medical profession in Ghana.

#17703

Carolina Sartorio

#103588

Overall Influence

Carolina Sartorio is an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Rutgers University. Previously she taught at the University of Arizona. She is known for her works on free will. Books Causation and Free Will, Oxford University Press 2016 Do We Have Free Will? A Debate, with Robert Kane, Routledge 2021

#17704

Muhammad Zahid Wakhshi

1448 - 1529 (81 years)

Muhammad Zahid Vakhshi was a Sufi of the Naqshbandī Sufi order. He lived in Vakhsh , a small town in present-day Tajikistan, about 100 km South of the capital Dushanbe. Naqshbandī The Sufi order from Khwaja Ahrar transferred to him and he transferred to Darwish Muhammad. He was a close relative of Yaqub al-Charkhi, and according to some sources, he was his maternal grandson. His tomb is in Vakhsh.

#17705

Peter Langston

#117585

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Peter Langston is a computer programmer who wrote and distributed for free several games for Unix systems in the 1970s, including one of the earliest text adventure video games Wander, the original version of Empire and the program "Oracle" upon which the later net-wide Oracle was modeled. He is also an experienced jazz, rock, and folk musician.

#17706

Caroline Ford

#68158

Overall Influence

Caroline E. Ford is an Australian scientist at the University of New South Wales and advocate for women in science. Her research aims to understand why gynaecological cancers develop, how they spread and how best to treat them, and she leads the Gynaecological Cancer Research Group at the University of New South Wales, which was established in 2010.

#17707

Stefania Jabłońska

Stefania Jabłońska

#34679

Overall Influence

1920 - 2017 (97 years)

Stefania Jabłońska was a Polish physician and professor specializing in dermatology. She worked at the Medical University of Warsaw. In 1972, she theorized the association of human papilloma viruses with skin cancer in epidermodysplasia verruciformis.

#17708

Marshall Stearns

1908 - 1966 (58 years)

Marshall Winslow Stearns was an American jazz critic and musicologist. He was the founder of the Institute of Jazz Studies. Biography Stearns was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Edith Baker Winslow and Harry Ney Stearns . His father was a Harvard University graduate and an attorney.

#17709

Philipp Franck

1860 - 1944 (84 years)

Johann Heinrich Philipp Franck was a German Impressionist painter, graphic artist and illustrator. Biography With his father's support, and insistence, he began by studying architecture at the Frankfurt Business College. When his father died, he decided to pursue his true artistic interests. Accordingly, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled at the Städelschule, where he studied with Heinrich Hasselhorst and Eduard Jakob von Steinle. He focused on landscapes but, under Steinle's direction, also created illustrations for fairy tales.

#17710

Wolfgang Ernst

#85611

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Wolfgang Ernst is a German media theorist. He is Professor for Media Theories at Humboldt University of Berlin and a major exponent of media archaeology as a method of scholarly inquiry. Biography Ernst studied history, archaeology and classics at the University of Cologne, University of London, and Ruhr University Bochum. He wrote his dissertation on the aesthetic history of collections and work as an assistant at the Studienstiftung. He held positions in Leipzig, Kassel, Rome, Cologne, Weimar, Bochum, Paderborn and Berlin. Wolfgang Ernst collaborated with bootlab Berlin and developed alter...

#17711

Johann Wilhelm Ridler

1772 - 1834 (62 years)

Johann Wilhelm Ridler was an author, historian and university professor. For the final twenty years of his life he was head librarian at the Vienna University Library. Biography Johann Wilhelm Ridler was born at Leitmeritz 1945

#17712

Raymond J. Bishop

1906 - 1978 (72 years)

Raymond J. Bishop was a Catholic priest who was one of the several involved in the case of exorcising a boy in Maryland, who allegedly was possessed after using a ouija board. The case inspired author William Peter Blatty to write his 1971 novel The Exorcist.

#17713

William F. House

William F. House

#15779

Overall Influence

1923 - 2012 (89 years)

William Fouts House was an American otologist, physician and medical researcher who developed and invented the cochlear implant. The cochlear implant is considered to be the first invention to restore not just the sense of hearing, but any of the absent five senses in humans. Dr. House also pioneered approaches to the lateral skull base for removal of tumors, and is considered "the Father of Neurotology".

#17714

Victor Dzau

#17994

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Victor Joseph Dzau is a Chinese-American doctor and academic. He serves as the President of the United States National Academy of Medicine of the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was previously the president and CEO of Duke University Medical Center.

#17715

Zygmunt Laskowski

Zygmunt Laskowski

1841 - 1928 (87 years)

Zygmunt or Sigismond Laskowski was a Polish physician, surgeon, and anatomist. Life Born in Warsaw, he studied at the University of Warsaw and in 1863 fought in the January Uprising. After its defeat he went into exile in France, completing his medical studies in Paris and London between 1864 and 1855. In 1866 he invented a new method of embalming and conserving anatomical specimens, for which he received medals at the Expositions Universelles of 1867 and 1878 as well as another medal in Kraków in 1869.

#17716

Olga Grau

#129853

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Olga Ida Magdalena Grau Duhart is a contemporary Chilean writer, full professor, and philosopher, a specialist in gender, sexuality, philosophy, education, and literature. Early life and education Olga Ida Magdalena Grau Duhart was born in Santiago, Chile, September 21, 1945. She has a Diploma in childhood studies from Montclair State University, in Montclair, New Jersey, U.S., and a Doctorate in Literature with a specialization in Chilean and Hispanic literature from the University of Chile.

#17717

Lisa Littman

#70946

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

#17718

Arman Sedghi

#122214

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Arman Sedghi is an Iranian engineer and assistant professor at Imam Khomeini International University. He is best known for his scientific achievement in production of low cost carbon fibers, and being highly experienced in fabrication and characterization of ceramic fibers and their composites.

#17719

Song Jun-gil

1606 - 1672 (66 years)

Song Jun-gil , also known by his art name Dongchundang, was a Korean politician and Neo-Confucian scholar, who lived during the Joseon Dynasty. Born in Okcheon, North Chungcheong Province, he was the best friend and a distant relative of Song Si-yeol. His daughter, Lady Song, was the mother of Queen Inhyeon, who would become the second wife of King Sukjong.

#17720

Ruthild Hahne

#137808

Overall Influence

1910 - 2001 (91 years)

Ruthild Hahne was a German sculptor. Her most productive phase coincided with the early years of the German Democratic Republic . Life Provenance and early years Ruthild Hahne was born in Berlin. Her father is variously described as a businessman and as a factory owner. Elsewhere her parents are described as distant and domineering. She grew up in a prosperous household in a substantial family home in Berlin's Schmöckwitz quarter. The household included a housekeeper, a gardener and a chauffeur. She attended the single-sex secondary school in the city's Neukölln quarter. While she was there someone lent her a book by Karl Marx which she took home and read.

#17721

José María Pérez Gay

#72185

Overall Influence

1944 - 2013 (69 years)

José María Pérez Gay was a Mexican academic, writer, translator and diplomat. Some of his best known writings include "El imperio perdido," "La profecia de la memoria: ensayos alemanes" and "El principe y sus guerrilleros." He also founded Channel 22 and served as the television station's director. He later became an adviser to former presidential candidate, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

#17722

Lorraine Besser

#182602

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Lorraine Besser is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at Middlebury College. She is known for her works on moral philosophy. Books The Philosophy of Happiness: An Interdisciplinary Introduction, Routledge Press 2021Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well, Routledge Press 2014The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, Co-edited with Michael Slote, Routledge Press 2015

#17723

Gerhard Küntscher

1900 - 1972 (72 years)

Gerhard Küntscher was a German surgeon who inaugurated the intramedullary nailing of long bone fractures. Biography Küntscher was born in Zwickau, Germany. Küntscher invented what is known as the Küntscher nail, an internal fixation device used to maintain the position of the fracture fragments during healing. The nail is rigid and has a cloverleaf shape in cross-section.

#17724

Marc Amsler

1891 - 1968 (77 years)

Marc Amsler was a professor of ophthalmology in the Eye Clinic at the University of Zurich. He took the position as professor of ophthalmology in Zurich in 1944. His predecessor was Prof. Alfred Vogt. Prior to assuming the position at Zurich, Dr. Amsler was chief ophthalmologist in Lausanne, since 1935. His predecessor there, under whom he worked beforehand, was Jules Gonin. During his time in Lausanne, Amsler was instrumental in creating the Jules Gonin Medal which is awarded every four years and is considered the highest honor in ophthalmology. Amsler was professor and chief of the Zurich Eye Clinic until 1961.

#17725

Andrew Heggie

#178340

Overall Influence

Andrew A.C. Heggie is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. His primary interest has been the management of developmental skeletal facial deformity, including patients with cleft lip and palate, craniofacial microsomia and infants with micrognathism. His contribution to the treatment of infant upper airway obstruction for Pierre Robin sequence, using internal devices for jaw lengthening using distraction osteogenesis, has replaced the need for tracheostomy in this condition. In 2019, Heggie was awarded Member of the Order of Australia for s...

#17726

Euphantus

320 BC - Present (2346 years)

Euphantus of Olynthus was a philosopher of the Megarian school as well as a historian and tragic poet. He was the disciple of Eubulides of Miletus, and the instructor of Antigonus II Gonatas king of Macedonia. He wrote many tragedies, which were well received at the games. He also wrote a very highly esteemed work, On Kingship , addressed to Antigonus, and a history of his own times. He lived to a great age.

#17727

Kevin Murphy

#121354

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Kevin Murphy is an American screenwriter, television producer, lyricist and composer. He wrote the book and lyrics of the musical Reefer Madness, as well as its television adaptation. For television, he has worked as a writer and producer for many series, most notably Desperate Housewives. He also wrote the stage musical Heathers: The Musical.

#17728

Constance Mabel Winchell

Constance Mabel Winchell

1896 - 1983 (87 years)

Constance Mabel Winchell was an American librarian. Winchell worked at Columbia University for thirty-eight years before retiring in 1962. She is best remembered for producing the seventh and eighth editions of the Guide to Reference Books. In 1999, American Libraries included Constance Winchell in a list of 100 most influential individuals in the field of library and information science.

#17729

Kevin R. Stone

#64424

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Kevin Robert Stone is an American physician, orthopedic surgeon, clinician, researcher, and company founder of The Stone Clinic and the Stone Research Foundation in San Francisco. Stone’s most notable inventions have led to:the Collagen Meniscus Implant, the first successful and commercialized tissue-engineering template for re-growing the meniscus cartilage in the knee. This invention led to a public company, ReGen Biologics Inc.the first glucosamine beverage, Joint Juice, which gained wide distribution through the United States selling over 1/3 billion cans and bottles for people with arthritis.

#17730

Kazimierz Imieliński

#52925

Overall Influence

1929 - 2010 (81 years)

Kazimierz Imieliński was a Polish physician and the “father of Polish sexology”. Some of his monographs on sexology have been translated into foreign languages, including Czech and Russian.

#17731

Taylor Howard

#24898

Overall Influence

1932 - 2002 (70 years)

H. Taylor Howard was an American scientist and radio engineer. Howard was a major player in the development of consumer satellite television in the USA. In 1976, he demonstrated the possibility of receiving of TV signal from a communications satellite direct to the home of an ordinary householder, using a home-made satellite dish and a self-designed and built analog satellite receiver. He co-founded San Jose, California-based Chaparral Communications. He was born in Peoria, Illinois.

#17732

William Dudgeon

1765 - Present (261 years)

William Dudgeon , was a Scottish freethinker and philosopher. A tenant farmer who resided at Lennel Hill Farm, near Coldstream, Berwickshire, he was one of several philosophers active in the borders area of Scotland during this period. Other figures in this group include Andrew Baxter, Henry Home , and most importantly David Hume.

#17733

Lizbeth Goodman

#101269

Overall Influence

1964 - 2000 (36 years)

Lizbeth Goodman is the Chair of Creative Technology Innovation and founder director of the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute and the MAGIC Multimedia & Games Innovation Centre, formerly at the University of East London, England, and elsewhere, now at University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland.

#17734

Andrew Burn

#114247

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Andrew Burn is an English professor and media theorist. He is best known for his work in the fields of media arts education, multimodality and play, and for the development of the theory of the Kineikonic Mode. He is Emeritus professor of Media at the UCL Institute of Education.

#17735

Andrzej Grzybowski

#65635

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Andrzej Edward Grzybowski is a Polish ophthalmologist, professor of medical science, lecturer and head of the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, founder of Nationwide Education Operator., and Foundation for Ophthalmology Development "Ophthalmology 21".

#17736

John Versor

1500 - 1485 (-15 years)

John Versor was a French Dominican, known as a Thomist philosopher and commentator on Aristotle. He was Rector of the University of Paris in 1458. Works Though traditionally Versor has often been considered a Thomist, more recent studies show his dependence on both Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great, and evidence suggests that, by his contemporaries, Versor was regarded as an authority of his own. Insofar as he can be regarded as a Thomist, his position represents an interesting, pre-Cajetan version of Thomism. His commentaries covered most of the works of Aristotle, and his textbooks were...

#17737

Ralph Kirkpatrick

Ralph Kirkpatrick

1911 - 1984 (73 years)

Ralph Leonard Kirkpatrick was an American harpsichordist and musicologist, widely known for his chronological catalog of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas as well as for his performances and recordings.

#17738

Dean L. May

#163467

Overall Influence

1938 - 2003 (65 years)

Dean Lowe May was an American academic, author and documentary filmmaker and professor of History at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. May specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century social and cultural history of the American West through the study of community and family. He taught American studies as a Fulbright guest professor at the University of Bonn, Germany and Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. May was a member of the Utah State Board of History, editor of the Journal of Mormon History , and served as president of the Mormon History Association in 2002. May was...

#17739

Ian McWhinney

#100362

Overall Influence

1926 - 2012 (86 years)

Ian Renwick McWhinney was an English physician and academic known as Canada's "Founding Father of Family Medicine" for his work in creating a family medicine program at the University of Western Ontario.

#17740

George Minchin

1845 - 1914 (69 years)

George Minchin Minchin was an Irish mathematician and experimental physicist. He was a pioneer in the development of astronomical photometry: the first-ever celestial photometric measurements were made using photovoltaic cells that he developed for the purpose. He invented the absolute sine-electrometer and was a prolific author of mathematical and scientific textbooks and papers.

#17741

Shin Suk-ju

1417 - 1475 (58 years)

Shin Suk-ju was a Korean politician during the Joseon Dynasty. He served as Prime Minister from 1461 to 1466 and again from 1471 to 1475. He came from the Goryeong Shin clan . Shin was an accomplished polyglot, and was particularly well educated in the Chinese language. He served as a personal linguistic expert to King Sejong, and was intimately involved in the creation and application of the Korean alphabet known in modern times as Hangul. Shin used the newly created hangul system to create an accurate transcription of spoken Mandarin Chinese in 15th century Ming dynasty China. These tran...

#17742

Kevin Bishop

#124334

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Kevin Brian Bishop is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is best known for his roles as Jim Hawkins in Muppet Treasure Island, Stupid Brian in My Family, and Nigel Norman Fletcher in the 2016 revival of Porridge, and as star of The Kevin Bishop Show, which he co-wrote with Lee Hupfield.

#17743

Seema Yasmin

#79023

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Seema Yasmin is a British-American physician, writer and science communicator based at Stanford University. She is Director of Research and Education at the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Yasmin helped to debunk myths about the coronavirus.

#17744

Alon Tal

#119723

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Alon Tal is an Israeli environmental politician, academic and activist. He was a member of the 24th Knesset between 2021 and 2022, representing the Blue and White political party; founder of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies; and co-founder of Ecopeace: Friends of the Earth–Middle East, This Is My Earth, the Israel Forum for Demography, Environment and Society, Aytzim: Ecological Judaism, and the Green Movement. Tal was appointed chair of the department of Public Policy at Tel Aviv University in 2017.

#17745

Jack Body

#146577

Overall Influence

1944 - 2015 (71 years)

John Stanley Body was a New Zealand composer, ethnomusicologist, photographer, teacher, and arts producer. As a composer, his work comprised concert music, music theatre, electronic music, music for film and dance, and audio-visual gallery installations. A deep and long-standing interest in the music of non-Western cultures – particularly South-East Asian – influenced much of his composing work, particularly his technique of transcribing field recordings. As an organiser of musical events and projects, Body had a significant impact on the promotion of Asian music in New Zealand, as well as t...

#17746

Axiothea of Phlius

400 BC - 400 BC (0 years)

Axiothea of Phlius was a female student of Plato and Speusippus. She was born in Phlius, which was under Spartan rule when Plato founded his Academy. Axiothea is said by Themistius to have read Plato's Republic and then traveled to Athens to be his student. According to Dicearchus, Axiothea dressed as a man during her time at Plato's Academy. After Plato's death she continued her studies with Speusippus, Plato's nephew.

#17747

Robert H. Brower

1923 - 1988 (65 years)

Robert H. Brower was a professor of Far East Language and Literature, Japanese Language and Literature, chair of Far East Language and Literature at the University of Michigan from 1966 to 1988. Life as a student Professor Brower was born on March 23, 1923, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1944. He learned Japanese while serving with the armed forces in World War II, and received his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan in 1947 and 1952, respectively.

#17748

Erich Paulun

1862 - 1909 (47 years)

Erich Paulun was a German naval surgeon. After leaving active duty in 1899, he founded together with the German medical doctor Oscar von Schab the Tung Chee Hospital for Chinese . He founded the Shanghai German medicine school in 1907, the German government established the "German Medical School for Chinese in Shanghai". Paulun was the founding rector. Today, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan relies on this foundation.

#17749

Theodor Escherich

Theodor Escherich

1857 - 1911 (54 years)

Theodor Escherich was a German-Austrian pediatrician and a professor at universities in Graz and Vienna. He discovered and described the bacterium Escherichia coli. Life and achievements Family and education Theodor Escherich was born in Ansbach, as the younger son of Kreismedizinalrat Ferdinand Escherich , a medical statistician, and his second wife, Maria Sophie Frederike von Stromer, daughter of a Bavarian army colonel. When Theodor Escherich was five, his mother died, and five years later Ferdinand Escherich moved to Würzburg to take up his former position as Kreismedizinalrat and married his third wife.

#17750

Mark Khangure

#133295

Overall Influence

Makhan Singh Khangure in an Indian-born radiologist and a pioneer in the field of neuroradiology. He trained in the United Kingdom and Australia, and has been based in Perth, Western Australia, since the 1970s.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions