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,

#18201

Friedrich Smend

1893 - 1980 (87 years)

Friedrich Smend was a German Protestant theologian and librarian at the Preußische Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, publishing a catalogue of the writings of Adolf von Harnack. He was a liturgist, teaching as professor at the Kirchliche Hochschule Berlin. His publications focus on the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

#18202

Abbylynn Helgevold

#191045

Overall Influence

Abbylynn Helgevold is an American philosopher and Board of Regents Distinguished Professor in Ethics at Wartburg College. Previously she was a professor at the University of Northern Iowa .

#18203

Sergey Gauthier

Sergey Gauthier

#96684

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Sergey Vladimirovich Gauthier is a Russian surgeon and transplantologist, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences , Chief Transplantologist of the Ministry of Healthcare of the Russian Federation, Doctor of Medical Sciences .

#18204

Robert Cyril Layton Perkins

1866 - 1955 (89 years)

Robert Cyril Layton Perkins FRS was a distinguished British entomologist, ornithologist, and naturalist noted for his work on the fauna of the islands of Hawaii and on Hymenoptera. He is not to be confused with his son John Frederick Perkins, also a hymenopterist.

#18205

Keith Clark

#191058

Overall Influence

#18206

David Dausey

#58146

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

David J. Dausey is an American epidemiologist, professor and academic administrator. He is the Provost of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was formerly the Provost of Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Prior to Mercyhurst, Dausey was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he maintains an honorary faculty appointment as a Distinguished Service Professor. Dausey was also Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation.

#18207

Paul Maar

#40555

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Paul Maar is a German novelist, playwright, translator, and illustrator notable for his contributions to children's literature. Life Maar was born in Schweinfurt. After the early death of his mother he lived with his grandfather in the rural area of Theres in northern Bavaria. He went to school at the Gymnasium in Schweinfurt, and later studied at the State Academy of Arts in Stuttgart. He then worked as a stage designer and stage photographer for the Franconian castle theatre Massbach. After that he spent ten years as an art teacher. Since 1976, he has worked as a freelance writer. He lives...

#18208

Fausto Torrefranca

1883 - 1955 (72 years)

Fausto Torrefranca Italian musicologist and critic. Torrefranca studied in Turin and in Germany, he was also the music librarian at the conservatories in Naples and in Milan. He taught at the Catholic University of Milan and at the University of Florence.

#18209

Nigel Fortune

#94970

Overall Influence

1924 - 2009 (85 years)

Nigel Cameron Fortune was an English musicologist and political activist. Along with Thurston Dart, Oliver Neighbour and Stanley Sadie he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation. He played an instrumental part in improving professional musicological standards in England through research initiatives, conferences and scholarly publications. This greatly increased his country's international reputation in the field of music scholarship.

#18210

William Goodell

William Goodell

1829 - 1894 (65 years)

William Goodell was an eminent American gynecologist from Philadelphia, best remembered for first describing what is now referred to as Goodell's sign. Biography William Goodell was born in Malta, the son of missionary William Goodell, and studied at William's College, Massachusetts and Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, graduating in 1854. He worked in Constantinople until 1861. He then worked in general practice in West Chester until he was appointed Lecturer on Obstetric Diseases of Women at the University of Pennsylvania in 1870, and then Clinical Professor in Diseases of Women and ...

#18211

Gary Hartstein

#25326

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Gary Hartstein , is an American sports physician who is Clinical Professor of Anesthesia and Emergency Medicine at University of Liège Hospital, Liège, Belgium and former FIA Medical Delegate for the Formula One World Championship.

#18212

Angie Farrow

#178800

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Angela Rosina Farrow is a New Zealand academic and writer for theatre and radio. Born in the United Kingdom, Farrow was appointed professor emerita at Massey University in November 2022. She was promoted to full professor in 2011 and in the same year was awarded Massey University lecturer of the Year. Farrow has published books on the production of physical theatre as well as her own numerous plays for theatre and radio. In April 2015, her series of 10-minute-long sketches Together All Alone was performed at Bats Theatre in Wellington. In the 2021 New Year Honours, Farrow was appointed an Of...

#18213

Vedanidhi Tirtha

Shri Vedanidhi Tirtha , was a Hindu philosopher, scholar, theologian and saint. He served as the pontiff of Shri Uttaradi Math from 1631-1635. He was the seventeenth in succession from Madhvacharya.

#18214

Chrysanthius

310 - 390 (80 years)

Chrysanthius of Sardis was a Greek philosopher of the 4th century AD who studied at the school of Iamblichus. He was one of the favorite pupils of Aedesius, and devoted himself mainly to the mystical side of Neoplatonism. The Roman emperor Julian went to him by the advice of Aedesius, and subsequently invited him to come to the court and assist in the projected resuscitation of Hellenism. But Chrysanthius declined, citing the strength of unfavorable omens, though he probably realized the revival was unlikely to bear fruit.

#18215

Anaxilaus

#187617

Overall Influence

Anaxilaus or Anaxilas of Larissa was a physician and Pythagorean philosopher. According to Eusebius, he was banished from Rome in 28 BC by Augustus on the charge of practicing magic. Anaxilaus wrote about the "magical" properties of minerals, herbs, and other substances and derived drugs, and is cited by Pliny in this regard. His exceptional knowledge of natural science allowed him to produce tricks that were mistaken for magic.

#18216

Aristonymus of Athens

Aristonymus of Athens was sent by Plato to reform the constitution of the Arcadiansns. Aristonymus was the father of Clitophon. Sources Plato, Republic, 328bPlutarch, Reply to Colotes, 1126c

#18217

Diotogenes

#187619

Overall Influence

Diotogenes was a Neopythagorean philosopher. He wrote a work On Piety, of which three fragments are preserved in Stobaeus, and another On Kingship, of which two considerable fragments are likewise extant in Stobaeus.

#18218

Hagnon of Tarsus

#149254

Overall Influence

Hagnon of Tarsus was an ancient Greek rhetorician, an Academic Skeptic philosopher, and a pupil of Carneades. Quintilian chides him for writing a book called Rhetorices accusatio in which he denied that rhetoric was an art.

#18219

Archedemus of Tarsus

300 BC - 200 BC (100 years)

Archedemus of Tarsus was a Stoic philosopher who flourished around 140 BC. Two of his works: On the Voice and On Elements , are mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius. Archedemus is probably the same person as the Archedemus, whom Plutarch calls an Athenian, and who, he states, went into Parthia and founded a school of Stoic philosophers at Babylon.

#18220

Epigenes, son of Antiphon

450 BC - 500 BC (-50 years)

Epigenes , son of Antiphon, of the deme of Cephisia, is mentioned by Plato among the disciples of Socrates, who were with him in his last moments. Xenophon represents Socrates as remonstrating with him on his neglect of the bodily exercises requisite for health and strength.

#18221

Calliphon

#187618

Overall Influence

Calliphon was a Greek philosopher, who probably belonged to the Peripatetic school and lived in the 2nd century . He is mentioned several times and condemned by Cicero as making the chief good of man to consist in a union of virtue and bodily pleasure , or, as Cicero says, in the union of the human with the beast.

#18222

Pierre Orelus

#176475

Overall Influence

Pierre Wilbert Orelus, an educator and a prolific writer, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to a working-class family. After graduating from Lycee Alexandre Petion in 1991, he went on to study social work at the faculty of Human Sciences but he did not complete it. Orelus left his native land for the United States in the early 1990s. While he was in his early 20s, he attended a community college during the day with his older brother, Lyonel Orelus, while at the same time taking ESL classes at a community center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at night in order to improve his English skills.

#18223

Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr.

1887 - 1969 (82 years)

Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr. , was an American conservationist. He was longtime president of the New York Zoological Society . Biography Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr. was born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1887. Born into the wealthy and influential Osborn family, he was the son of Henry Fairfield Osborn, a prominent paleontologist, eugenicist and "distinguished Aryan enthusiast". After obtaining his Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University, he went on to study biology at Cambridge University but then pursued a career in international business. Towards the end of the First World War, he served bri...

#18224

Bill Frist

#171700

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

William Harrison Frist is an American physician, businessman, conservationist and policymaker who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1995 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as Senate Majority Leader from 2003 to 2007. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Frist studied government and health care policy at Princeton University and earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained as a cardiothoracic transplant surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital and Stanford University School of Medicine, and later founded the Vanderbilt Transplant Center.

#18225

William C. F. Robinson

William C. F. Robinson

1834 - 1897 (63 years)

Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson was an Irish colonial administrator and musical composer, who wrote several well-known songs. He was born in County Westmeath, Ireland, and was educated at home and at the Royal Naval School. He joined the Colonial Office service in 1858 and became the president of Montserrat in 1862.

#18226

Heinrich Frenkel

1860 - 1931 (71 years)

Heinrich Simon Frenkel was a Swiss physician and neurologist born in Heiden, a town overlooking Lake Constance. He was an early practitioner of neuro-rehabilitation, advocating a regimen of special exercises for patients with neurological disorders.

#18227

Beverly Grigsby

#173165

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Beverly Grigsby née Pinsky is an American composer, musicologist and electronic/computer music pioneer. Early life Beverly Pinsky was born in Chicago, Illinois, and studied music as a child. She moved to California with her family at the age of 13 and graduated from Fairfax High School.

#18228

Otto Michael Ludwig Leichtenstern

Otto Michael Ludwig Leichtenstern

1845 - 1900 (55 years)

Otto Michael Ludwig Leichtenstern was a German internist born in Ingolstadt. In 1869 he received his doctorate from the University of Munich, later working as an assistant of clinical medicine in Munich under Karl von Pfeufer and Joseph von Lindwurm . After the death of Felix von Niemeyer , he served as interim head of the medical clinic in Tübingen prior to the appointment of Carl von Liebermeister as Niemeyer's permanent replacement. Leichtenstern remained at the Tübingen clinic for several years, afterwards serving as head physician of internal medicine at the city hospital in Cologne .

#18229

Éric Holder

#176795

Overall Influence

1960 - 2019 (59 years)

Éric Holder was a French novelist. His novels, Mademoiselle Chambon, L'Homme de chevet and were adapted to the cinema in 2009 and 2012. He was awarded several literary prizes, including the Prix littéraire de la vocation , the Prix Fénéon , the Prix Thyde Monnier , the Prix Décembre , the Prix Roger Nimier , and the Prix Service Littéraire . He died on 23 January 2019, aged 58.

#18230

Bruce Bennett

#191087

Overall Influence

#18231

Bert L. Vallee

#61707

Overall Influence

1919 - 2010 (91 years)

Bert L. Vallee was an Edgar M. Bronfman Distinguished Senior Professor at the Harvard Medical School. He was the founder and president of the Endowment and the CBBSM . Early life and career Vallee received his M.D degree from New York University in 1943 and subsequently held positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School in Medicine and Biochemistry. Vallee was a member of the Medical and Science Faculty of Harvard University since 1948. He was the Founding Director of the Biophysics Research Laboratory at Harvard , which was established in 1954 by The Rockefeller Foundation.

#18232

Robert Cutietta

#103127

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Robert Alan Cutietta is best known as an educator, author, researcher, composer, and arts leader. He is the author or co-author of five books and over fifty referereed research articles in the area of music psychology and education. He is also a composer, having written for television shows and movies.

#18233

Philip Edward Smith

1884 - 1970 (86 years)

Philip Edward Smith was an American endocrinologist who is best known for his work studying the pituitary gland. He developed methods for removing pituitary glands from tadpoles and rats and showed that such removal resulted in cessation of growth, and atrophy of other endocrine glands such as the adrenal cortex and the reproductive organs. After graduating with a PhD in Anatomy from Cornell University in 1912, he joined the Department of Anatomy, Berkeley California until 1926. From 1927 to 1952 he served as Professor of Anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.

#18234

Arne Krumsvik

#189444

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Arne Håskjold Krumsvik is a Norwegian scholar, media entrepreneur, and aviator, and considered to be one of the founders of media innovations studies. He is currently the principal of Kristiania University College, previous to that he was the head of department at Department of Media and Communications, University of Oslo, Norway.

#18235

Henryk Hilarowicz

Henryk Hilarowicz

1890 - 1941 (51 years)

Henryk Hilarowicz was a Polish surgeon, and a professor at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwów. He was murdered by the Nazis in the Massacre of Lwów professors. Further reading

#18236

Leonard Marsh

1906 - 1983 (77 years)

Leonard Charles Marsh was a Canadian social scientist and professor. Early life and education Marsh was born in England and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1928. After graduation, he studied wages and housing and conducted research for Sir William Beveridge.

#18237

James Mourilyan Tanner

James Mourilyan Tanner

#52683

Overall Influence

1920 - 2010 (90 years)

James Mourilyan Tanner, was a British paediatric endocrinologist who was best known for his development of the Tanner scale, which measures the stages of sexual development during puberty. He was a professor emeritus of the Institute of Child Health at the University of London.

#18238

Todd Phillips

#154308

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Todd Phillips is an American double bassist. He has appeared on a number of acoustic instrumental and bluegrass recordings made since the mid-1970s. A two-time Grammy Award winner and founding member of the original David Grisman Quintet, Phillips has made a career of performing and recording with acoustic music artists.

#18239

Harry Freedman

#110525

Overall Influence

1922 - 2005 (83 years)

Harry Freedman , was a Canadian composer, English hornist, and music educator of Polish birth. He wrote a significant amount of symphonic works, including the scores to films such as The Bloody Brood , Isabel , The Act of the Heart , The Pyx and The Courage of Kavik the Wolf Dog , and composed a substantial amount of chamber music. He also composed music for six ballets, an opera, some incidental music for the theatre, and a few vocal art songs and choral works. He was awarded a Juno Award in 1996 for his symphonic work Touchings, which was recorded by the Esprit Orchestra on the Nexus label.

#18240

Carys Bannister

#77810

Overall Influence

1935 - 2010 (75 years)

Carys Margaret Bannister was the first female British neurosurgeon. Born in Brazil to Welsh parents, she moved to England as a teenager and trained in surgery after qualifying as a doctor. She spent most of her career as a consultant neurosurgeon at North Manchester General Hospital and as a researcher at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. She specialised in treating disorders of the cerebral circulation, spina bifida, and hydrocephalus.

#18241

Daniel E. Singer

#191097

Overall Influence

#18242

Christian Friedrich Michaelis

1770 - 1834 (64 years)

Christian Friedrich Michaelis was a German philosopher, music aesthete, and essayist. Life Michaelis was the son of a doctor and studied at the University of Leipzig from 1787, and in Jena from 1792. In 1793 he became a private lecturer in Leipzig and published numerous philosophical articles and writings, including the work Ueber den Geist der Tonkunst . He was also a frequent contributor to the music journal Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. His hopes of becoming a professor failed, presumably due to his closeness to Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who was dismissed in 1799 as a result of the atheis...

#18243

Richard William Hunt

1908 - 1979 (71 years)

Richard William Hunt was a scholar, grammarian, palaeographer, editor, and author of a number of books about medieval history. He began his career as a lecturer in palaeography at Liverpool University, and worked at Bush House during World War II. In 1945 he obtained the position of Keeper of the Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, and he relocated to Oxford, remaining in the position until 1975.

#18244

Joseph W. Eschbach

Joseph W. Eschbach

#106320

Overall Influence

1933 - 2007 (74 years)

Joseph Wetherill Eschbach was an American doctor and kidney specialist whose twenty years of research starting in the 1960s led to an improvement in the treatment of anemia. Dr. Eschbach graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1959. Eschbach was married to MaryAnn Eschbach for 51 years, they had 3 children; 5 grandchildren.

#18245

Kelly J. Manahan

#116591

Overall Influence

Kelly J. Manahan is an American gynecologist who is the current Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences in Toledo, Ohio. She is the fifth Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology for The University of Toledo which is the former Medical College of Ohio. She is the first female to hold this position. She was appointed to this position after a nationwide search in 2011.

#18246

Senait Fisseha

#59247

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Professor Senait Fisseha is an Ethio-American physician, lawyer and obstetrician-gynecologist, with a specialization in endocrinology from the University of Michigan. She is currently Vice-President of International Programs at the Susan Thompson Buffet Foundation. Fisseha also received her Juris Doctor from Southern Illinois University and is recognized for her advocacy in global reproductive health, rights and gender equality. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she became an advocate for global equity, collaborating closely with African leaders and institutions in her capacity as an advisor and thought leader.

#18247

Thomas Gann

1867 - 1938 (71 years)

Thomas William Francis Gann was a medical doctor by profession, but is best remembered for his work as an amateur archaeologist exploring ruins of the Maya civilization. Personal history Thomas Gann was born in Murrisk Abbey, County Mayo, Ireland, the son of William Gann of Whitstable, England, and Rose Garvey of Murrisk Abbey. He was raised in Whitstable, where his parents were prominent in the social life of the town. Gann trained in medicine in Middlesex, England.

#18248

Olaitan Soyannwo

#191109

Overall Influence

Olaitan Soyannwo is a Nigerian Professor of Anaesthesia and consultant at the University of Ibadan and foreign secretary of the Nigerian Academy of Science. She was formerly the President of International Association for the Study of Pain.

#18249

Simon of Tournai

1130 - 1201 (71 years)

Simon of Tournai was a professor at the University of Paris in the late twelfth century. His date of birth is uncertain, but he was teaching before 1184, as he signed a document at the same time as Gerard de Pucelle, the Bishop of Coventry, who died that year.

#18250

Jethro Bithell

1878 - 1962 (84 years)

Jethro Bithell was a collier's son, born at Birchall Farm, Hindley, near Wigan. He graduated with first-class honours in Modern Languages from Owens College, Manchester, in 1900. After gaining his M.A. there, he continued his studies in Munich and Copenhagen and then returned to Manchester as Lecturer in German. In 1910 he was appointed Head of the German Department at Birkbeck College, London, where he remained until his retirement in 1938.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions