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,
#18501
Ruth Zechlin
#169554
Overall Influence
1926 - 2007 (81 years)
Ruth Zechlin was a German composer. Life Ruth Oschatz was born in Grosshartmannsdorf, where she began piano lessons at the age of five years, and wrote her first composition at the age of seven. From 1943 to 1949 she studied music theory with Johann Nepomuk David and Wilhelm Weismann, church music and organ with Karl Straube and Günther Ramin and piano with Rudolf Fischer and Anton Rohden at the Music Academy in Leipzig. After she completed the state exam, she worked at the academy for a year as a lecturer and also worked as a deputy organist at the Nikolai Church in Leipzig.
Go to Profile#18502
Ruth Bodenstein-Hoyme
#186450
Overall Influence
1924 - 2006 (82 years)
Ruth Bodenstein-Hoyme was a German composer and piano teacher. Life Hoyme was born in Wurzen as the second daughter of the commercial gardener Walter Hoyme. She attended the elementary school and later for some years the state high school of the city. Against her father's will she took piano lessons. At the age of nine she had her first composition exercises. Through many countless performances, which she often reached overland on her own bicycle, she had saved up her own piano over the years. After high school she graduated from the Frauenfachschule für Hauswirtschaft in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswe...
Go to Profile#18503
Edgar Crookshank
1858 - 1928 (70 years)
Edgar March Crookshank was an English physician and microbiologist. Biography Crookshank studied at King's College London and qualified for medicine in 1881. He served briefly as an assistant to Joseph Lister, a physician noted for his work promoting antiseptics and sterile surgery. In 1882, Crookshank served as a doctor with the British armed forces sent to Egypt as a result of the Urabi Revolt; he was decorated for his service at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir.
Go to Profile#18504
Tsai-Fan Yu
#64112
Overall Influence
1911 - 2007 (96 years)
Tsai-Fan Yu was a Chinese-American physician, researcher, and the first woman to be appointed as a full professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She helped to develop an explanation for the cause of gout and experimented with early drugs to treat the disease which are still in use today.
Go to Profile#18505
Neda Alijani
#170087
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Neda Alijani is an Iranian infectious disease physician and assistant professor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. She is a winner of International Prof Yalda Award.
Go to Profile#18506
Fernando Mönckeberg Barros
#16858
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Fernando Rafael Mönckeberg Barros is a Chilean surgeon, doctor of medicine specializing in nutrition, professor, researcher, and economist at the University of Chile. He is the founder of the and president of the .
Go to Profile#18507
Alexander Marcet
1770 - 1822 (52 years)
Alexander John Gaspard Marcet FRS , was a Genevan-born physician who became a British citizen in 1800. His wife Jane Marcet was a prolific author, whose series of books entitled 'Conversations' treated topics such as chemistry, botany, religion and economics.
Go to Profile#18508
Judah ben Moses Romano
1293 - 1330 (37 years)
Judah ben Moses Romano was an Italian Jewish philosopher and translator of the fourteenth century. He was a cousin of Immanuel of Rome. He was a significant early translator of works of scholastic philosophy from Latin into Hebrew. He was the first Hebrew translator of Thomas Aquinas; he also translated Albertus Magnus, Giles of Rome, Alexander of Alessandri, Domenicus Gundissalinus and Angelo of Camerino.
Go to Profile#18509
Jan Blits
#69751
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Jan H. Blits is an American educational researcher and professor emeritus in the University of Delaware School of Education. He is also the president of the Delaware chapter of the National Association of Scholars . He received the Prometheus Award from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education in 2009, and the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 2011. Along with his colleague Linda Gottfredson he helped to shut down a Residence Life Program at the University of Delaware in 2007, which the NAS had described as an "indoctrination center".
Go to Profile#18510
Richard Fitzpatrick
#181951
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Richard John Fitzpatrick is an Australian Emmy award winning cinematographer and adjunct research fellow specialising in marine biology at James Cook University. Early life Richard Fitzpatrick's fascination for sharks started at an early age. Richard caught his first Epaulette shark from the Coral Sea and took it home to keep in his aquarium when he was eleven years old. He then took the entire aquarium into school for show and tell.
Go to Profile#18511
Caitlin Bernard
#93498
Overall Influence
Caitlin Bernard is an American obstetrician-gynecologist and reproductive and abortion rights activist. Bernard is a practicing physician affiliated with Indiana University Health, as well as an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Indiana University School of Medicine. She also serves as associate medical director and director of ultrasound services for Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, and has provided abortion services at Planned Parenthood facilities in Indiana and Kentucky.
Go to Profile#18512
Francisco Foreiro
1523 - 1581 (58 years)
Francisco Foreiro was a Portuguese Dominican theologian and biblist. Biography Born in 1523 in Lisbon, he studied arts and theology and entered among the Dominicans in February 1539. King John III sent him to study theology in the university of Paris and, on his return to Lisbon, he appointed Foreiro his preacher. Prince Louis at the same time entrusted to him the education of his son, António.
Go to Profile#18513
Victoria Leonard
#163515
Overall Influence
Victoria Leonard is a British Classicist specialising in the study of religion, gender, and the body in Late antiquity. She is a Post-Doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London and a research fellow at the Institute of Classical Studies. She holds a PhD from Cardiff University. Leonard was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in July 2019.
Go to Profile#18514
Adam Strohm
1870 - 1951 (81 years)
Adam Julius Strohm was a Swedish-American librarian. He was born in Vänersborg, Sweden and came to the United States in 1892. He was educated at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, and the University of Illinois. Strohm served as chief librarian of the Detroit Public Library from 1912 until his retirement in 1941. Prior to moving to Detroit, he served as librarian at the University of Illinois.
Go to Profile#18515
James of Metz
James Metz was a fourteenth century philosopher and Dominican theologian. Very little is known about his life. It is a not known when he was born and when he died, but what is known is that he was philosophically active in the first decade of the fourteenth century. Of his works that survive, much remains unedited, and only a dozen manuscript copies still exist. James was known as a Dominican theologian, which meant following the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas. However, he earned the reputation for being a "critical-Thomist," as he openly disagreed some of Aquinas's positions. One accou...
Go to Profile#18516
Fernando Ocaranza Carmona
1876 - 1965 (89 years)
Fernando Ocaranza Carmona was a Mexican surgeon, rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México , and military in the rank of a Coronel . Ocaranza, son of Ramón Ocaranza and his wife Antonia Carmona, visited the Instituto Científico y Literario de Toluca, studied at the Escuela Práctica Médico Militar, and graduated at the Escuela Nacional de Medicina. Reportedly he passed his practical training in the Guaymas Municipal Hospital, in the Hospital de la Cruz Roja , in the military hospital and in the General Hospital in Mexico City. In 1901 he married Loreto Esquer, who gave birth to the...
Go to Profile#18517
Carol J. White
#191583
Overall Influence
1946 - 2000 (54 years)
Carol Jean White was an American philosopher who was an associate professor in the Santa Clara University philosophy department. She was known for her works on Heidegger's philosophy. Books Time and Death: Heidegger's Analysis of Finitude, Edited by Mark Ralkowski, Foreword by Hubert L. Dreyfus, Ashgate 2005 Faith in theory and practice: essays on justifying religious belief, Open Court 1993, edited with Elizabeth S. Radcliffe
Go to Profile#18518
Adam Pulchrae Mulieris
Adam Pulchrae Mulieris, also called Adam de Puteorumvilla, was a Paris master who studied under Peter of Lamballe, who flourished in the first half of the 13th century. Little is known of his life. He has been described as one of the “metaphysicians of light” . He was a contemporary of William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris, and his works are cited by Richard de Fournival, Gerard of Abbeville and Thomas Aquinas. The origin of his name is unknown.
Go to Profile#18519
Heinrich Füger
1751 - 1818 (67 years)
Heinrich Friedrich Füger was a German classicist portrait and historical painter. Biography Füger was a pupil of Nicolas Guibal in Stuttgart and of Adam Friedrich Oeser in Leipzig. Afterward, he traveled and spent some time in Rome and Naples, where he painted frescoes in the Palazzo Caserta. On his return to Vienna he was appointed court painter, professor, and vice-director of the Academy, and in 1806 director of the Belvedere Gallery.
Go to Profile#18520
Alexander Dyce Davidson
1835 - 1886 (51 years)
Alexander Dyce Davidson MD FRSE was Scottish academic and surgeon. He was Professor of Materia Medica at Aberdeen University. He was described as a "sweet and amiable character". He specialised in ophthalmic surgery.
Go to Profile#18521
Patrick Forbes
1776 - 1847 (71 years)
Patrick Forbes was a Scottish minister who served as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for the period 1829 to 1830. He was Professor of Humanities and Chemistry at the University of Aberdeen.
Go to Profile#18522
Yoni Freedhoff
#87656
Overall Influence
Yoni Freedhoff is the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, a for-profit, non-surgical weight management clinic, and is also an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Go to Profile#18523
Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent
#168672
Overall Influence
Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent OBE is England's first Chief Midwifery Officer and Professor of Midwifery at King's College London and London South Bank University. Early life and career Dunkley-Bent received her diploma in midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives, Her Masters degree at Middlesex University and her Doctorate at King's College London. She went on to complete her post-graduate teaching certificate at Surrey University before becoming a lecturer at Middlesex University. Dunkley-Bent has worked as a nurse and midwife, as well as in several management positions. She was the head of maternity, children and young people.
Go to Profile#18524
Arthur Purdy Stout
1885 - 1967 (82 years)
Arthur Purdy Stout was an American surgeon and pathologist. Early years and education Arthur Purdy Stout was the fourth son of Joseph and Julia Frances Stout. He attended the Pomfret School and Yale University, where he earned an A.B. degree in 1907. After spending a year abroad, Arthur entered the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Columbia University. He completed his M.D. degree in 1912.
Go to Profile#18525
Paul North Rice
1888 - 1967 (79 years)
Paul North Rice was an American librarian who served as Chief of the Reference Department of the New York Public Library, Executive Secretary of the Association of Research Libraries and President of the American Library Association.
Go to Profile#18526
Emil Gabrielian
#71409
Overall Influence
1931 - 2010 (79 years)
Emil Samsonovich Gabrielian was an Armenian physician and academician. From 1971 to 1975, he served as the Rector of Yerevan State Medical Institute, and from 1975 to 1989, he was the Minister of Health of Armenia. During his tenure as Minister, he developed a more egalitarian form of healthcare for the population and implemented an entire infrastructure for medicine throughout the country, including the construction of various hospitals, health clinics, and the like.
Go to Profile#18527
Helinand of Froidmont
1160 - 1229 (69 years)
Helinand of Froidmont was a medieval poet, chronicler, and ecclesiastical writer. Biography He was born of Flemish parents at Pronleroy in France around 1150. He studied under Ralph of Beauvais. His talents as a minstrel won the favor of King Philip Augustus, and for some time he freely indulged in the pleasures of the world, after which he became a Cistercian monk at the in the diocese of Beauvais about the year 1190. From being a self-indulgent man of the world he became a model of piety and mortification in the monastery. Whatever time was not consumed in monastic exercises he devoted to ecclesiastical studies and, after his ordination to the priesthood, to preaching and writing.
Go to Profile#18528
Roman Šmucler
#183490
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Roman Šmucler, MD, CSc is a Czech dentist, oral surgeon, specialist in laser and photonics medicine, university lecturer, entrepreneur, TV presenter, and scriptwriter. Early life and education He grew up in Příbram, where he attended elementary and high school. He began contributing to local newspapers when he was ten years old. In 1986 he won second place and in 1987 he won first and second place in a national literary contest. In 1987 he was admitted into the First Faculty of Medicine in Prague, studying Stomatology. In the spring of 1989 he won a casting call to a Czech radio program called Microforum together with Robert Tamchyna and Martin Ondráček.
Go to Profile#18529
Robert G. Vosper
#185366
Overall Influence
1913 - 1994 (81 years)
Robert Gordon Vosper was an American educator and librarian who oversaw college libraries at the University of Kansas and the University of California, Los Angeles. Vosper served as president of the American Library Association and won the Joseph W. Lippincott award in 1985. He was also named one of the top 100 librarians of the 20th century by American Libraries.
Go to Profile#18530
Pawel Tabakow
#129696
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Paweł Tabakow is a Polish neurosurgeon who is known for prepared and performing the operation that allowed Darek Fidyka to recover sensory and motor function after the complete severing of his spinal cord. Tabakow has claimed that an Indian ambassador and other people from round the world have contacted him about performing similar treatments.
Go to Profile#18531
Foster E. Mohrhardt
#121710
Overall Influence
1907 - 1992 (85 years)
Foster Edward Mohrhardt was a United States librarian. He had a long and illustrious career in library and information science as a scholar, organizer and diplomat, and was listed by American Libraries among "100 Leaders we had in the 20th Century". Mohrhardt is also known for his work to have the United States Department of Agriculture Library re-designated as a national library.
Go to Profile#18532
Rolv Yttrehus
#181004
Overall Influence
1926 - 2018 (92 years)
Rolv Berger Yttrehus was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He held degrees from the University of Minnesota and University of Michigan and a Diploma from the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He studied harmony with Nadia Boulanger and composition with Ross Lee Finney, Roger Sessions, Aaron Copland, and Goffredo Petrassi. He taught at the University of Missouri, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, and Rutgers University.
Go to Profile#18533
Wilhelm Peters
1815 - 1883 (68 years)
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich Peters was a German naturalist and explorer. He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Berlin Zoological Museum. Encouraged by Müller and the explorer Alexander von Humboldt, Peters travelled to Mozambique via Angola in September 1842, exploring the coastal region and the Zambesi River. He returned to Berlin with an enormous collection of natural history specimens, which he then described in Naturwissenschaftliche Reise nach Mossambique... in den Jahren 1842 bis 1848 ausgeführt . The work was comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, river fish, insects and botany.
Go to Profile#18534
Jeremi Wasiutyński
#73764
Overall Influence
1907 - 2005 (98 years)
Jeremi Maria Franciszek Wasiutyński was a Polish-Norwegian astrophysicist, philosopher and depth-psychologist. Life and work Wasiutyński studied mathematics, physics and astronomy at the University of Warsaw, then worked some years at a factory for optical instruments, while writing a text-book in two volumes of general astronomy with professor M. Kamieński. In 1938, after the publication of his prize-winning book about Copernicus , Wasiutyński moved to Norway, where he completed his degree in astrophysics at the University of Oslo 1948. His interdisciplinary doctoral dissertation, Studies in...
Go to Profile#18535
Bramwell Cook
#174393
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
Herbert Bramwell Cook was a New Zealand gastroenterologist, noted for his research into the diagnosis and treatment of coeliac disease. Biography Cook was the son of Alfred Bramwell Cook and Dorothy Frances Cook . He was born in Gujarat, India, where his father was a Salvation Army missionary and doctor, and spent most of his first 16 years there. He was educated at Breeks Memorial School in Tamil Nadu from 1942 to 1951, apart from a year at St Andrew's College in Christchurch in 1947–48, before completing his secondary education at Christchurch Boys' High School in 1952 and 1953. After a ye...
Go to Profile#18536
Ihsan El-Kousy
1900 - Present (126 years)
Ihsan El-Kousy was the first Egyptian Muslim woman to graduate from the American University of Beirut. Early life Ihsan El-Kousy was born in 1900 in Al Qusea, an ancient city in central Egypt near the Nile. During that time education for girls wasn't common or encouraged, however, Ihsan received an education and continued her studies until she earned a graduate degree and then a PhD in UK. This was due to the fact that both her parents and grandparents kept on motivating her, in addition to generally being raised up surrounded by books. In fact, Ihsan then moved to Lebanon and became the firs...
Go to Profile#18537
Roderich Stintzing
1854 - 1933 (79 years)
Georg Hieronymus Roderich Stintzing was a German internist born in Heidelberg. Stintzing studied medicine at the Universities of Bonn, Leipzig and Tübingen, receiving his doctorate in 1878 at Bonn. Following graduation he remained in Bonn as an assistant in the institute of physiology of Eduard Pflüger . Later he was an assistant to Hugo von Ziemssen at the medical clinic in Munich, and in 1890 became an associate professor and director of the medical clinic at the University of Jena.
Go to Profile#18538
Bartholomew of Bologna
Bartholomew of Bologna was an Italian Franciscan scholastic philosopher. He was a follower of John Pecham. He studied at the University of Bologna, and then for a degree at the University of Paris. He preached in Paris in 1270.
Go to Profile#18539
Amanda Lynch
#60231
Overall Influence
Amanda H. Lynch is an environmental and social scientist, and the Director of the Brown Institute of Environment and Society and Sloan Lindemann and George Lindemann Jr. Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies at Brown University. She is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering.
Go to Profile#18540
Jordan Deschamps-Braly
#94944
Overall Influence
Jordan Christopher Deschamps-Braly is an American maxillofacial and craniofacial surgeon specializing in facial gender-affirming surgery for transgender people. He co-developed a procedure for building a new Adam's apple for trans men and is known for his work as a plastic surgeon for trans women.
Go to Profile#18541
John Murray
1775 - 1807 (32 years)
John Murray was a seaman and explorer of Australia. He was the first European to land in Port Phillip, the bay on which the cities of Melbourne and Geelong are situated. He is notable for his explorations and surveying work in Victoria and New South Wales, including being the first European captain to enter Port Phillip Bay, then known as Narrm-Narrm by the local Aboriginal people, and exploring the area around present-day Melbourne.
Go to Profile#18542
Marie Lloyd
1870 - 1922 (52 years)
Matilda Alice Victoria Wood , professionally known as Marie Lloyd , was an English music hall singer, comedian and musical theatre actress. She was best known for her performances of songs such as "The Boy I Love Is Up in the Gallery", "My Old Man " and "Oh Mr Porter What Shall I Do". She received both criticism and praise for her use of innuendo and double entendre during her performances, but enjoyed a long and prosperous career, during which she was affectionately called the "Queen of the Music Hall".
Go to Profile#18543
Friedrich Stelzner
#80503
Overall Influence
1921 - 2020 (99 years)
Friedrich Stelzner was a German academic surgeon, scientist and educator with specialization in gastrointestinal surgery. He served consecutively as Professor and Chairman of three university departments and was inducted as President of the German Society for Surgery in 1985. Stelzner contributed more than 80 books and book chapters to the literature and authored over 450 publications and presentations. Throughout his scientific career, Stelzner investigated questions of functional anatomy and its impact on surgical operative methods.
Go to Profile#18544
James William Abert
1820 - 1897 (77 years)
James William Abert was an American soldier, explorer, bird collector and topographical artist. Early life Abert, the son of John James Abert, was born in Mount Holly Township, New Jersey, and graduated from West Point in 1842.
Go to Profile#18545
William Waite
1917 - 1980 (63 years)
William G. Waite was an American-born musicologist. Waite was educated and taught solely at Yale. He began his teaching career in 1947 and received his PhD in 1951. His dissertation, The Rhythm of Twelfth-Century Polyphony: its Theory and Practice outlines his ideas on modal interpretation of organum duplum. The second half of this work is a transcription of organum from the Magnus liber organi. His textbook, The Art of Music , written with Beekman Cannon and Alvin Johnson, was a popular introductory music text for many years. He died from pancreatic cancer in 1980.
Go to Profile#18546
Lucien Campeau
#87993
Overall Influence
1927 - 2010 (83 years)
Lucien Campeau was a Canadian cardiologist. He was a full professor at the Université de Montréal. He is best known for performing the world's first transradial coronary angiogram. Campeau was one of the founding staff of the Montreal Heart Institute, joining in 1957. He is also well known for developing the Canadian Cardiovascular Society grading of angina pectoris.
Go to Profile#18547
Beatrix Borchard
#86381
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Beatrix Borchard is a German musicologist and author. The focus of her publications is the life and work of female and male musicians, such as Clara and Robert Schumann, Amalie and Joseph Joachim, Pauline Viardot-Garcia, and Adriana Hölszky. Also among her topics are the role of music in the process of Jewish assimilation, the history of musical interpretation, and strategies of .
Go to Profile#18548
Sinbuya Asvari
Abu Yunis Sinbuya Asvāri was the originator of the idea of Qadariyah, the doctrine of free-will in Islam. He was a Persian who was put to death by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik, or, according to other narratives, by al-Hajjaj bin Yusuf. His idea was already taught in Damascus at the end of the seventh century of our era by Ma'bad al-Juhani , who had imbibed the doctrine from Sinbuya.
Go to Profile#18549
Hannah Thompson
#175674
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Hannah Jane Thompson is a British academic and professor of French and critical disability studies at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research focuses primarily on 19th and 20th century French literature, especially the novel.
Go to Profile#18550
Orsolina Montevecchi
#184532
Overall Influence
1911 - 2009 (98 years)
Orsolina Montevecchi was an Italian papyrologist. Life and career Montevecchi was born in Gambettola, Forlì-Cesena. She graduated from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore with a thesis on sociological research in the papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt. Since 1950, she has worked as a lecturer and then as a professor at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where she spent the rest of her career. She was the author of numerous publications on the topic of Graeco-Roman Egypt, sociological studies in papyrology and provenance studies.
Go to Profile