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,

#3201

John Francis Fowler

#88577

Overall Influence

#3202

David S. Goldstein

#88585

Overall Influence

#3203

Dennis Slamon

#10003

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Dennis Joseph Slamon , is an American oncologist and chief of the division of Hematology-Oncology at UCLA. He is best known for his work identifying the HER2/neu oncogene that is amplified in 25–33% of breast cancer patients and the resulting treatment trastuzumab.

#3204

Neal S. Young

#88613

Overall Influence

#3205

Gustav Naan

#28372

Overall Influence

1919 - 1994 (75 years)

Gustav Naan was a Soviet and Estonian physicist and philosopher. According to the Estonian Encyclopedia's definition, he "wrote plenty of irritating publicist articles". Personal life Gustav Naan was born in Russian SFSR in a village near Vladivostok to a family of Estonian settlers. He graduated from the Leningrad State University in 1941. He took part in World War II and joined the CPSU in 1943. Having settled to Estonia after the USSR annexed Estonia, Gustav Naan, a loyal communist and graduate of the Higher Party School of the AUCP published a number of Stalinist-oriented polemic pieces .

#3206

Simon the Shoemaker

#43294

Overall Influence

Simon the Shoemaker was an associate of Socrates, and a 'working-philosopher'. He is known mostly from the account given in Diogenes Laërtius' Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers. He is also mentioned in passing by Plutarch and Synesius; a pupil of Socrates, Phaedo of Elis, is known to have written a dialogue called Simon.

#3207

Víctor J. Ferrans

#88622

Overall Influence

#3208

H. W. L. Poonja

H. W. L. Poonja

#32821

Overall Influence

1910 - 1997 (87 years)

Hariwansh Lal Poonja was an Indian sage. Poonja was called "Poonjaji" or "Papaji" by devotees. He was a key figure in the Neo-Advaita movement. Biography Early life At the age of eight, he claimed he had experienced an unusual state of consciousness:

#3209

Guttorm Fløistad

#60828

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Guttorm Fløistad is a Norwegian philosopher. He was born in Arendal as a son of sawmill owner Ivar Fløistad and Thordis Renskaug . He is married to teacher Kirsten Kathrine Kaspersen. He is a grandson of politician Guttorm Fløistad and great-grandson of politician Ivar Guttormsen Fløistad.

#3210

Václav Bělohradský

Václav Bělohradský

#25113

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Václav Bělohradský is a Czech philosopher and sociologist. Life and career A graduate in philosophy and Czech from Charles University, Prague, from 1970 to 2010s he lived in Italy, where he was Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Trieste. He is said to be a successor of Jan Patočka. He is a representative of biocentrism, which he developed to refusing anthropocentric overestimation of symbol and culture. He also thinks we need to step back from "us" to be able to lay foundations of new and freer society. He co-participated with Chantal Mouffe and Slavoj Žižek at Monument to Transformation.

#3211

Gerhard Giebisch

#87671

Overall Influence

1927 - 2020 (93 years)

Gerhard Giebisch was a cellular and molecular physiologist and a Sterling Professor emeritus at Yale School of Medicine. He held an M.D. degree from the University of Vienna which he got in 1951. He died on April 6, 2020, aged 93.

#3212

Andrew J. Reck

#57610

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (97 years)

Andrew Joseph Reck was an American philosopher and emeritus professor in the Department of Philosophy at Tulane University. He was a former president of the Metaphysical Society of America. Life He was born on October 29, 1927, in New Orleans to Andrew Gervais and Katie Reck. He married Elizabeth Lassiter Reck in 1987.

#3213

Dan W. Brock

#63304

Overall Influence

1937 - 2020 (83 years)

Dan W. Brock was an American philosopher, bioethicist, and professor emeritus at Harvard University and Brown University. He was the Frances Glessner Lee Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the former Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the Harvard Medical School, and former Director of the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health .

#3214

Nita A. Farahany

#37147

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Nita Farahany is an Iranian American author and distinguished professor and scholar on the ramifications of new technology on society, law, and ethics. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology. She currently teaches Law and philosophy at Duke University where she is the Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke Law School, the founding director of the Duke Initiative for Science and Society as well as a chair of the Bioethics and Science Policy MA program. She ...

#3215

Bartha Knoppers

#52249

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Bartha Maria Knoppers, OC OQ is a Canadian law Professor and an expert on the ethical aspects of genetics, genomics and biotechnology. Born in Hilversum, Netherlands, she received a Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University , a Master of Arts degree in comparative literature from the University of Alberta , Bachelor of Common Law and Civil Law degrees from McGill University, where she was selected as an Executive Editor for the McGill Law Journal, a Diploma of Legal Studies from University of Cambridge , and a Doctorate of Laws from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne . In additio...

#3216

Saba Soomekh

#20903

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Saba T. Soomekh is an American professor and author. Early life and education Soomekh was born in Tehran, Iran, to a Persian-Jewish family. to Hamid and Manijeh Soomekh. She is a sister of Hollywood actress Bahar Soomekh. The Iranian-Jewish family moved to Los Angeles, California in 1978 to escape the Islamic Revolution of Iran with Soomekh only two years old.

#3217

John Tyrrell

#14925

Overall Influence

1942 - 2018 (76 years)

John Tyrrell was a British musicologist. He published several books on Leoš Janáček, including an authoritative and largely definitive two-volume biography. Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Zimbabwe and worked as a professor of music and executive editor of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. He died on October 4, 2018, aged 76.

#3218

John C. Marshall

#88718

Overall Influence

#3219

Eben Alexander

#19858

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Eben Alexander III is an American neurosurgeon and author. His book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife describes his near-death experience that happened in 2008 under medically-induced coma when treated for meningitis. He asserts that the coma resulted in brain death, that consciousness is not only a product of the brain and that this permits access to an afterlife.

#3220

Bennett Foddy

#36761

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Bennett Foddy is an Australian video game designer based in New York. Raised in Australia and trained as a moral philosopher on topics of drug addiction, Foddy was a bassist in the electronic music group Cut Copy and a hobbyist game designer while he finished his dissertation. During his postdoctoral research at Princeton University and time on staff at Oxford University, Foddy developed games of very high difficulty, including QWOP , which became an Internet sensation at the end of 2010 with the rise of new online social sharing tools. He later became an instructor at the NYU Game Center. His...

#3221

Desidério Murcho

Desidério Murcho

#60263

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Desidério Murcho is a Portuguese philosopher, professor, and writer. Desidério Murcho got his BA in philosophy in 1992 from Lisbon University and his MA in 2000 from the same university. He is pursuing a PhD in philosophy at the King's College London since 2000. He is founding member of the Centro para o Ensino da Filosofia da Sociedade Portuguesa de Filosofia .

#3222

Juan Mayorga

#52138

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Juan Antonio Mayorga Ruano is a Spanish dramatist. He is best known in English-speaking countries for his 2004 play Himmelweg , which was brought to the London stage in June 2017 as part of the Festival of Spanish Theatre in London .

#3223

Daniel A. Arnold

#52535

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Daniel A. Arnold is an American scholar and philosopher. He is Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. His work focuses on Indian Buddhist philosophy, which he engages in a constructive and comparative way. His particular interests are in Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka, and in the appreciation of Indian Buddhist philosophy as an integral part of the broader tradition of Indian philosophy. In this regard, he has been especially interested in issues disputed between Buddhist schools and the orthodox Brahmanical school of Pūrva Mīmāṃsā.

#3224

Mohit Bhandari

#47362

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Mohit Bhandari is an Indian bariatric surgeon known for his work in laparoscopic and robot-assisted surgery. He is the first surgeon in Asian sub-continent to perform more than twenty one thousand bariatrics and metabolic surgeries. He is the President of IRCAD , India's first centre of excellence solely devoted to training and research & development in the realm of minimally invasive surgery.

#3225

Steven M. Rosen

Steven M. Rosen

#64637

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Steven M. Rosen is an American-Canadian philosopher and psychologist, currently based in Vancouver, British Columbia. His writings focus on issues concerning phenomenological ontology, the philosophy and poetics of science, Jungian thought, the gender question, ecological change, and cultural transformation.

#3226

Patricia J. Kelly

#88825

Overall Influence

#3227

Peter A. French

#67763

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Peter A. French is an American philosopher and writer. He is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Arizona State University where he taught from 2000 until 2016. He previously was a professor at Northern Arizona University, University of Minnesota, Dalhousie University, Trinity University, and the University of South Florida.

#3228

Mark Colyvan

#41807

Overall Influence

Mark Colyvan is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. He is a former president of the Australasian Association of Philosophy. Colyvan is known for his research on philosophy of mathematics.

#3229

Manohar M. Panjabi

#88842

Overall Influence

#3230

Peter-André Alt

#37186

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Peter-André Alt is a German literary scholar, former president of the Freie Universitaet of Berlin and, since August 2018, president of the German Rectors' Conference . Alt is married to the writer Sabine Alt and has two adult sons.

#3231

Glen Newey

#50941

Overall Influence

1961 - 2017 (56 years)

Glen Francis Newey was a political philosopher, last acting as a Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Leiden. He previously taught in Brussels at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and until 2011 was Professor in the School of Politics, International Relations & Philosophy at Keele University, Staffordshire, England. He was a prominent member of the "Realist" school of political philosophers which also includes such figures as Bernard Williams, John N. Gray, and Raymond Geuss. Newey also wrote extensively about toleration, casting doubt on whether it remains a coherent politi...

#3232

Peter Pronovost

Peter Pronovost

#15162

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Peter J. Pronovost is Chief Quality and Transformation Officer at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, the main affiliate of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. At UH, Pronovost is responsible for improving value across the health system, helping people stay well, get well and manage their most acute medical conditions. He is the clinical lead for population health and the lead for high-reliability medicine, with direct responsibility for the UH employee accountable care organization. He is also responsible for telehealth and virtual health programs serving patie...

#3233

Theodor Bergmann

#61543

Overall Influence

1916 - 2017 (101 years)

Theodor Bergmann was a German agronomist and published author. Until 1981 he was Professor for international comparisons in agrarian policy at University of Hohenheim. Bergmann was “the last participant and eyewitness to the German labor movement of the Weimar era”.

#3234

Gilbert Meilaender

#38384

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Gilbert Meilaender is a prominent American Lutheran bioethicist and theologian. He is Senior Research Professor of Theology at Valparaiso University, and served on the President's Council on Bioethics from its founding in 2002 until its dissolution in 2009.

#3235

Galen Johnson

#80234

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Galen A. Johnson is a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Rhode Island and the General Secretary of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle. Education and background Johnson received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Boston University in 1977. He has been teaching at the University of Rhode Island since 1976. His research interests include phenomenology, aesthetics, American philosophy, and recent French philosophy. He is the author of numerous articles in contemporary continental philosophy and has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council for Learned Societies, and the American Philosophical Society.

#3236

David Grimes

#82924

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

David Alan Grimes is an American physician and abortion provider who is certified in both obstetrics and gynecology and in preventive medicine. He is known for his research into abortion. Education Grimes received his undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University, after which he attended medical school at the University of North Carolina. He later earned certification from the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, after which he was also certified in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine from the American Board of Preventive Medicine.

#3237

Michael N. Pollak

#88966

Overall Influence

#3238

Vittorio Vettori

#51531

Overall Influence

1920 - 2004 (84 years)

Vittorio Vettori was an Italian poet, writer and humanist, passionate spokesperson of ‘’Toscana Europea’’. He has been author of more than 200 volumes of poetry, narrative, philosophy, literary criticism and Dante essays translated into diverse languages.

#3239

Jon D. Cohen

#88969

Overall Influence

#3240

Masahiro Morioka

#66985

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

is a Japanese philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of philosophy of life, bioethics, gender studies, media theory, and civilization studies. He is a professor of philosophy and ethics at Waseda University, Japan. He coined the term "life studies" for an integrated approach to the issues of life, death, and nature in contemporary society. Since 2006 he has proposed a new philosophical discipline he calls "philosophy of life". He has published numerous academic books and articles, mainly in Japanese, and has regularly contributed commentaries and book reviews to major Japanese newspapers and magazines.

#3241

Josef E. Fischer

#56050

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Josef E. Fischer, M.D. was an American surgeon, scientist, and professor at Harvard Medical School. Biography A native of Brooklyn, NY, Fischer was a summa cum laude graduate of Yeshiva University and a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Medical School. He completed his internship and surgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA. From 1963 -1965 Fischer served as a Research Associate under Nobel Laureate Julius Axelrod at the National Institutes of Health and in 1968 began working as a Teaching Fellow in Surgery and Fellow of the American Cancer Society at Harva...

#3242

Kathryn Norlock

#80460

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Kathryn Norlock is the inaugural Kenneth Mark Drain Endowed Chair in Ethics, the Chair of the Department of Philosophy, an affiliated faculty member in Sustainability Studies, and an associated faculty member in Gender and Women's Studies at Trent University.

#3243

Vittorio Mathieu

#79109

Overall Influence

1923 - 2020 (97 years)

Vittorio Mathieu was an Italian philosopher and historian. Biography Mathieu was born in 1923 in Varazze. After his secondary studies, he enrolled in the Faculty of Law in Turin. He graduated from the University of Turin with a degree in theoretical philosophy.

#3244

Charles Sawyers

Charles Sawyers

#26851

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Charles L. Sawyers is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator who holds the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center . HOPP is a program created in 2006 that comprises researchers from many disciplines to bridge clinical and laboratory discoveries.

#3245

Nosratola D. Vaziri

#89115

Overall Influence

#3246

Peter K. Machamer

#41801

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Peter K. Machamer was an American philosopher and historian of science. Machamer was Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His work has been influential in philosophy of science in developing an account of mechanistic explanation which rejects standard deductive models of explanation, such as the deductive-nomological model by understanding scientific practice as the search for mechanisms. His research has also focused on 17th-century history of philosophy and science, on Galileo Galilei and René Descartes in particular, and on values and science. He...

#3247

Tobias Welte

#89187

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

#3248

Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla

#27818

Overall Influence

1925 - 2015 (90 years)

Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla was a Venezuelan philosopher. Biography Vallenilla graduated from Liceo Andrés Bello High School in Caracas. He graduated with degrees in philosophy and literature from Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1950, where he also obtained his PhD in Philosophy. He also studied at universities in Göttingen, Freiburg, and Munich, Germany.

#3249

Lewis E. Braverman

#55182

Overall Influence

1929 - 2019 (90 years)

Lewis E. Braverman was a U.S. endocrinologist who specialized in thyroid gland problems. He discovered that humans converted thyroxine to triiodothyronine. He was a mentor to physicians for over 40 years.

#3250

Martin Moors

#22745

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Martin Moors is a professor of Philosophy and is the Chair of Contemporary Metaphysics at the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven , Belgium, where he lectures. He has published work on Kant, German idealism and Schelling.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions