The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#2251
Bernard Ryosuke Inagaki
#49593
Overall Influence
1928 - 2022 (94 years)
Bernard Ryosuke Inagaki was a Japanese philosopher and Thomas Aquinas scholar. He wrote extensively on medieval philosophy, scholastic philosophy, and philosophy of law; while he was known as one of the leading members for the Japanese translation of Summa Theologiæ. A number of his works are dedicated to the study of Thomas Aquinas. He received Mainichi Shuppan Bunka Shō for the translation of Summa Theologiæ in 2013 and the Watsuji Tetsurō Bunka Shō for his Thomas Aquinas: Metaphysics of Existence in 2015.
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Gábor Betegh
#55214
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Gábor Betegh is a Hungarian academic, specialising in ancient philosophy. He is the eighth Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University, having succeeded David Sedley in October 2014. He is Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, where he is Director of Studies in Philosophy and Graduate Tutor.
Go to Profile#2253
Lewis Thomas
#5432
Overall Influence
1913 - 1993 (80 years)
Lewis Thomas was an American physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher. Life and career Thomas was born in Flushing, New York and attended Princeton University and Harvard Medical School. He became Dean of Yale Medical School and New York University School of Medicine, and President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute. His formative years as an independent medical researcher were at Tulane University School of Medicine.
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Frederick R. Appelbaum
#69116
Overall Influence
#2255
Cristina Lafont
#36964
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Cristina Lafont is Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Biography Lafont graduated 'cum laude' with a Licenciatura in philosophy from the Universidad de Valencia in 1987. From there, she moved to Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt , where she obtained her PhD in philosophy 'summa cum laude' in 1992 under the supervision of Jürgen Habermas. At the same university, she was awarded the Habilitation in the year 2000. Cristina Lafont has held numerous positions as a distinguished lecturer or visiting professor in the English-speaking, Spanish-speaking and German-speaking academic world.
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Hannele Yki-Järvinen
#69195
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Hannele Yki-Järvinen is a Finnish endocrinologist, who specialises in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and the treatment of type 2 diabetes. She is Professor of Medicine at the Department of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland. She is also Head of the Division of Diabetes at the Helsinki University Central Hospital. She received the 1995 Young Scientist Anders Jahre Award. She was also the recipient of the Minkowski Award in 1993. Yki-Järvinen was an assistant professor at the University of Texas from 1994 to 2000. She was then an Academy Professor at the Academy of Finland from 1995 t...
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Thelma Z. Lavine
#48311
Overall Influence
1915 - 2011 (96 years)
Thelma Zeno Lavine , was an American philosopher, professor, and writer, specializing mainly in the areas of 19th and 20th century, especially the writing of John Dewey. She taught courses that highlighted the correlation between philosophy and other topics such as economics, history, literature, and contemporary American culture
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Elijah ben Joseph Chabillo
#47503
Overall Influence
Eli ben Joseph Chabillo was a Spanish philosopher who lived in Monzón, Aragon, in the second half of the fifteenth century. He was an admirer of the Christian scholastics, and studied Latin in order to translate into Hebrew some of their works, especially those dealing with psychology. The works which he partly translated and partly adapted were the followingBy Thomas AquinasQuæstiones Disputatæ, Quæstio de AnimaDe Animæ Facultatibus , published by Adolf Jellinek in Philosophie und Kabbala, Leipzig, 1854De UniversalibusShe'elot Ma'amar be-Nimtza ube-Mahut questions on Thomas Aquinas' treati...
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Mahmoud Khatami
#28624
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Mahmoud Khatami is an Iranian philosopher. Life Mahmoud Khatami grew up in Tehran. Showing an early interest in humanities, he attended the Seminary of Islamic Studies, which gained him the traditional degree of Ijtihad, the highest level in Islamic religious and theological learning. Concurrently, he attended the University of Tehran to pursue his secular education for the BA, MA and MS degrees. He also received two PhD degrees in philosophy from Iranian institutions, one in 1987 and one in 1992. Afterwards, he furthered his education in England, where he was awarded a further PhD in the fie...
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Christopher Janaway
#61492
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Christopher Janaway is a philosopher and author. He earned degrees from the University of Oxford. Before moving to Southampton in 2005, Janaway taught at the University of Sydney and Birkbeck, University of London. His recent research has been on Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and aesthetics. His 2007 book Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy focuses on a critical examination of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. Janaway currently lectures at the University of Southampton, which in the past has included a module focusing on Nietzsche's Genealogy. That module is no...
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Andrés Ortiz-Osés
#28183
Overall Influence
1943 - 2021 (78 years)
Andrés Ortiz-Osés was a Spanish philosopher. He was the founder of symbolic hermeneutics, a philosophical trend that gave a symbolic twist to north European hermeneutics. He was born in Tardienta, studied theology in Comillas and Rome, and then moved to The Institute of Philosophy in Innsbruck where he earned a Ph.D. in hermeneutics.
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Douglas V. Steere
#42343
Overall Influence
1901 - 1995 (94 years)
Douglas Van Steere was an American Quaker ecumenist. Biography He served as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College from 1928 to 1964 and visiting professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1962. Steere organized Quaker post-war relief work in Finland, Norway and Poland, was invited to participate as an ecumenical observer in the Second Vatican Council and co-founded the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality. He authored, edited, translated and wrote introductions for many books on Quakerism, as well as other religions and philosophy.
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Oscar Ratnoff
#36008
Overall Influence
1916 - 2008 (92 years)
Oscar Davis Ratnoff was an American physician who conducted research on the process of coagulation and blood-related disorders. Ratnoff discovered the substance later known as Factor XII and was one of the primary contributors to the delineation of the exact sequence that makes up the clotting cascade. He also made notable research contributions to the understanding of the complement system and to the detection and treatment of hemophilia.
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Michael R. Heim
#46056
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Michael R. Heim is an American author and educator. Known as "the philosopher of cyberspace", Heim's three scholarly books - Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing , The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality , and Virtual Realism - have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. He taught at Missouri Western University in the 1980s, was an online lecturer for Connected Education in the mid-1980s, and taught at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, 1995–2002. Heim is currently a lecturer at the University of California, Irvine.
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Geert Lovink
#19464
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Geert Lovink is the founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, whose goals are to explore, document and feed the potential for socio-economical change of the new media field through events, publications and open dialogue. As theorist, activist and net critic, Lovink has made an effort in helping to shape the development of the web.
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Daniel W. Nebert
#50648
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Daniel Walter Nebert is an American physician-scientist. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. His research has revolved around the central theme of gene–environment interaction.
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Stanley Sadie
#3867
Overall Influence
1930 - 2005 (75 years)
Stanley John Sadie was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Along with Thurston Dart, Nigel Fortune and Oliver Neighbour he was one of Britain's leading musicologists of the post-World War II generation.
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Piotr Lenartowicz
#21446
Overall Influence
1934 - 2012 (78 years)
Piotr Lenartowicz was a Polish philosopher, vitalist, professor of philosophy at the Jesuit University of Philosophy and Education Ignatianum, jesuit. Life Lenartowicz was born in Warsaw, Poland, the son of Wiesław Lenartowicz and Krystyna Schneider. He completed his medical studies at School of Medicine in Warsaw in 1958. In 1961 he obtained a doctorate in neurophysiology at the School of Medicine in Warsaw. Studied philosophy
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Carolyn Abbate
#18712
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Carolyn Abbate is an American musicologist, described by the Harvard Gazette as "one of the world’s most accomplished and admired music historians". She is currently Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University. From her earliest essays she has questioned familiar approaches to well-known works, reaching beyond their printed scores and composer intentions, to explore the particular, physical impact of the medium upon performer and audience alike. Her research focuses primarily on the operatic repertory of the 19th century, offering creative and innovative approaches to understanding these works critically and historically.
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Bruno Nettl
#16283
Overall Influence
1930 - 2020 (90 years)
Bruno Nettl was an ethnomusicologist who was central in defining ethnomusicology as a discipline. His research focused on folk and traditional music, specifically Native American music, the music of Iran and numerous topics surrounding ethnomusicology as a discipline.
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Edward M. Hundert
#23359
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Edward M. Hundert is the Dean for Medical Education and the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Professor in Residence of Global Health and Social Medicine and Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, where he is also Associate Director of the Center for Bioethics at HMS . Hundert is a member of the TIAA Board of Trustees of TIAA-CREF.
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Alan Montefiore
#51104
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Alan Claude Robin Goldsmid Montefiore is a British philosopher and Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. He is a co-founder and Emeritus President of the Forum for European Philosophy, as well as Joint President of the Wiener Library, and a former Chair of Council of the Froebel Educational Institute.
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Michael Hauser
#61275
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Michael Hauser is a Czech philosopher, translator and founder of the civic organization Socialist Circle , which he also chaired until 2014. He became a member of the Council of Česká televize in March 2014.
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Fabien Eboussi Boulaga
#31994
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Fabien Eboussi Boulaga was a Cameroonian philosopher. Biography Born in 1934 in Bafia, Eboussi Boulaga earned his high school diploma from the Akono Minor Seminary , before joining the Society of Jesus in 1955. He was ordained as a priest in 1969, and became an official member of the Society of Jesus in 1973. He became known as a polemical figure, for example in his book Bantou problématique , and in his theological stance, notably in La démission , which caused an outcry in ecclesiastical circles; this latter publication called for the organised departure of missionaries. Three years later,...
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Caner Taslaman
#35157
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Caner Taslaman is a Turkish academic, professor of religious philosophy, Quran researcher and writer known for his works on the Big Bang theory and the structure of the Quran. He is a professor of philosophy at the Yıldız Technical University.
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Donniel Hartman
#42765
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Donniel Hartman is an Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbi and author. He is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. Biography Donniel Hartman has a doctorate in Jewish philosophy from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a Master of Arts in political philosophy from New York University, and a Master of Arts in religion from Temple University. He has rabbinic ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute.
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Lynne Mca. Reid
#69633
Overall Influence
#2278
Herman Tønnessen
#65309
Overall Influence
1918 - 2001 (83 years)
Herman Tønnessen was a Norwegian–Canadian philosopher and writer. Having studied with Arne Næss, in the years following the end of World War II he was affiliated with the Norwegian Institute for Social Research.
Go to Profile#2279
Bart Staels
#69698
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
#2280
Gary R. Mar
#42593
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Gary R. Mar is an American philosopher and logician specializing in logic, the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and linguistics, philosophy of science, computational philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and Asian American philosophy. Professor Mar is a member of the Philosophy Department at Stony Brook University. Gary Mar was the last student to have a Ph.D. directed by Alonzo Church. He is co-author with Donald Kalish and Richard Montague of the second edition of Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning.
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Barry C. Smith
#49478
Overall Influence
Barry C. Smith is a British philosopher and director of the Institute of Philosophy at the School of Advanced Study at University of London. He also co-directs the Centre for the Study of the Senses. He has previously been a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and at the École Normale Supérieure, and was the writer and presenter of the BBC World Service radio series, The Mysteries of the Brain. He has also done several interviews with Philosophy Bites.
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Andrew P. Feinberg
#69730
Overall Influence
#2283
Hugh J. Silverman
#44700
Overall Influence
1945 - 2013 (68 years)
Hugh J. Silverman was an American philosopher and cultural theorist whose writing, lecturing, teaching, editing, and international conferencing participated in the development of a postmodern network. He was executive director of the International Association for Philosophy and Literature and professor of philosophy and comparative literary and cultural studies at Stony Brook University , where he was also affiliated with the Department of Art and the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. He was program director for the Stony Brook Advanced Graduate Certificate in Art and Philosophy.
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Graham Teasdale
#20979
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Sir Graham Michael Teasdale is an English neurosurgeon and the co-developer of the neurologic assessment tool known as the Glasgow Coma Scale. He is an Honorary Professor in Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow Medical School.
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Emmanuel Faye
#42854
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Emmanuel Faye is a philosopher and historian of French philosophy. A specialist in the Renaissance and Descartes, he has also published several critical studies on Heidegger and his reception. Biography
Go to Profile#2286
Hélène de Beauvoir
#29770
Overall Influence
1910 - 2001 (91 years)
Henriette-Hélène de Beauvoir was a French painter. She was the younger sister of philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Her art was exhibited in Europe, Japan, and the US. She married Lionel de Roulet. When Hélène de Beauvoir lived in Goxwiller, a village near Strasbourg, she became president of the center for battered women. She continued painting until she was 85. Her paintings were related to feminist philosophy and women's issues.
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John O'Neill
#33008
Overall Influence
John F. O'Neill is a philosopher. He is professor of political economy at the University of Manchester. He has published on subjects related to political economy and philosophy, philosophy and environmental policy, political theory, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science.
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Georg Stenger
#68758
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Georg Stenger is a German philosopher and professor and chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Vienna. He is known for his works on structural ontology, intercultural philosophy, Heidegger's philosophy and also his contributions to Heidegger Gesamtausgabe. Stenger is the president of Society of Intercultural Philosophy.
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Manzoor Ahmad
#11600
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Manzoor Ahmed, DSc is a Pakistani scientist and philosopher of science. He is a professor of philosophy and is currently serving as rector of Usman Institute of Technology in Karachi, Sindh Province. He has international prestige for publishing articles, books, and leading edge research on the field of Philosophy of science, particularly the philosophy of space and time.
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Peter Hotez
#11304
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Peter Jay Hotez is an American scientist, pediatrician, and advocate in the fields of global health, vaccinology, and neglected tropical disease control. He serves as founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also Director of the Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Endowed Chair in Tropical Pediatrics, and University Professor of Biology at Baylor College of Medicine.
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Jean-Michel Berthelot
#26260
Overall Influence
1945 - 2006 (61 years)
Jean-Michel Berthelot was a French sociologist, philosopher, epistemologist and social theorist, specialist in philosophy of social sciences, history of sociology, sociology of education, sociology of knowledge, sociology of science and sociology of the body.
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Basil Mitchell
#31876
Overall Influence
1917 - 2011 (94 years)
Basil George Mitchell was an English philosopher and at one time Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. Mitchell argued for the place of religious belief in public debate and criticized liberal humanism.
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Marcia Tiburi
#53481
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Márcia Angelita Tiburi is a Brazilian plastic artist, professor of philosophy, literary critic, and writer. Her main areas of research are ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of knowledge. In 1990, she obtained a degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and in 1996 in Arts from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, a master's degree in philosophy from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul with an emphasis on contemporary philosophy.
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Sextus of Chaeronea
#29626
Overall Influence
Sextus of Chaeronea was a philosopher, a nephew or grandson of Plutarch, and one of the teachers of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Biography The Suda identifies Sextus of Chaeronea as being a student of Herodotus of Tarsus and being the same person as Sextus Empiricus, in which case Sextus would be a Pyrrhonist. Diogenes Laertius also says that Sextus Empiricus was a student of Herodotus. A Latin translation of Outlines of Pyrrhonism ascribe them to Sextus of Chaeronea.
Go to Profile#2295
Graham Nerlich
#58181
Overall Influence
1929 - 2022 (93 years)
Graham Nerlich was an Australian philosopher. He was an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, and his expertise was in the areas of philosophy; existence of God; meaning of life; mind and body; ethics; and philosophy of science.
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Ato Sekyi-Otu
#34049
Overall Influence
Ato Sekyi-Otu is a Ghanaian political philosopher. He was born at Saltpond, Ghana in 1941 and until 1971 was known as Daniel Sackey Walker. He was educated at Mfantsipim School, Cape Coast, where he was Head Prefect in 1960-61 and completed his Cambridge Higher School Certificate in 1961 with distinctions in Greek and Latin. He went to Harvard and received an A.B. in Government in 1966. He pursued graduate studies at the University of Toronto where he worked with the renowned Canadian political theorist C.B. Macpherson and received his PhD in 1971.
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Anita Silvers
#41505
Overall Influence
1940 - 2019 (79 years)
Anita Silvers was an American philosopher, focusing on medical ethics, bioethics, feminism, disability studies, philosophy of law, and social and political philosophy. She "was a leading voice in the interpretation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, arguing that disability rights should be viewed the same as other civil rights and not as an accommodation or as a social safety net issue".
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Eric Cassell
#13223
Overall Influence
1928 - 2021 (93 years)
Eric Jonathan Cassell was an American physician and bioethicist. Early life and education Eric Jonathan Goldstein was born on August 29, 1928, in New York City. He and his brother changed their surname to Cassell to render it closer to their grandfather's name, which was changed at Ellis Island. He received a BS from Queens College, City University of New York, in 1950, an MA from Columbia University, also in 1950, and an MD from New York University School of Medicine in 1954.
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Ken Mogi
#11590
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Kenichirō "Ken" Mogi is a Japanese scientist. He is a senior researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratories and a visiting professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. According to the profile posted at his personal blog, his mission is "to solve the so-called mind-brain problem."
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Roxana Mehran
#20906
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Roxana Mehran is an Iranian-American cardiologist and Mount Sinai Endowed Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is known for her work in interventional cardiology.
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