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).

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Philosophy,

#3751

Barry A. Franklin

#97988

Overall Influence

#3752

Austin Dacey

#61917

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Austin Dacey is an American philosopher, writer, and human rights activist whose work concerns secularism, religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of conscience. He is the author of The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life, The Future of Blasphemy: Speaking of the Sacred in an Age of Human Rights, and a 2006 New York Times op-ed entitled "Believing in Doubt," which criticized the ethical views of Pope Benedict. He is a representative to the United Nations for the International Humanist and Ethical Union and the creator and director of The Impossible Music Sessions.

#3753

Marek Cichocki

#48056

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Marek Aleksander Cichocki is a Polish philosopher, historian of political thought, journalist, conservative columnist and former advisor to Lech Kaczyński, the late president of Poland. Biography Cichocki graduated in German Studies, and in 1998 he received his PhD degree in philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

#3754

Judith Andre

#76807

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Judith Andre is a philosophy professor and virtue theorist. She earned her Ph.D. at Michigan State University in 1979 and has taught courses on ethical issues in global public health, ethics and development, animal welfare, and virtue theory at Old Dominion University and Michigan State University before retiring.

#3755

Ronald Hetzer

#98011

Overall Influence

#3756

Burke A. Cunha

#98039

Overall Influence

#3757

Zeno Vendler

#49619

Overall Influence

1921 - 2004 (83 years)

Zeno Vendler was an American philosopher of language, and a founding member and former director of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Calgary. His work on lexical aspect, quantifiers, and nominalization has been influential in the field of linguistics.

#3758

Zumrud Guluzadeh

#85331

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Zumrud Guluzadeh was an Azerbaijani professor of philosophy at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Honored Scholar of the Azerbaijan and Recipients of the Shohrat Order. Zumrud Guluzadeh authored many books on philosophy in the Azerbaijani, Turkish, English, and Russian languages.

#3759

Philip Kantoff

#54600

Overall Influence

Philip W. Kantoff is a medical oncologist. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of Convergent Therapeutics. He served as the Chairman of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center between 2015 and 2021. He is best known for his contributions to the impact of DNA abnormalities in prostate cancer and the discovery of therapies for metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.

#3760

Normanh. Ashton

#98077

Overall Influence

#3761

Andrew Brook

#53671

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Andrew Brook is a Canadian philosopher, author and academic particularly known for his writings on Immanuel Kant and the interplay between philosophy and cognitive science. Brook is Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Carleton University, former President of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, and former President of the Canadian Philosophical Association.

#3762

Scott Lippman

#76965

Overall Influence

Scott M. Lippman is the former Director of Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego and current Professor of Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. His clinical and translational research addresses head and neck and lung cancer, cancer genetics, predictive cancer biomarkers, and molecular targeting for cancer treatment.

#3763

Warren Zapol

#36124

Overall Influence

1942 - 2021 (79 years)

Warren M. Zapol was the emeritus Anesthetist-in-Chief at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Reginald Jenney Distinguished Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School. From 1994 to 2008, Zapol served as anesthetist-in-chief at MGH and was the director of the MGH Anesthesia Center for Critical Care Research until his death.

#3764

Kiran Musunuru

#18560

Overall Influence

Kiran Musunuru is an American cardiologist who is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He researches the genetics and genomics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Musunuru is a leading expert in the field of gene-editing.

#3765

Helga Refsum

#98146

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

#3766

Lars Engebretsen

#98150

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

#3767

Vere Claiborne Chappell

#85277

Overall Influence

1930 - 2019 (89 years)

#3768

George R. Breese

#98155

Overall Influence

#3769

Anne Monique Nuyt

#28825

Overall Influence

Anne Monique Nuyt is a Canadian paediatrician who is Professor of Neonatology and Canada Research Chair in Prematurity and Developmental Origins of Cardiovascular Health and Diseases at the Université de Montréal. Her research considers how perinatal oxidative stress can alter the structural development and function of the cardiovascular system.

#3770

William Edgar

#34902

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

William "Bill" Edgar is an American apologist and was professor of apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary. He has been called by Charles Colson "one of evangelicalism's most valued scholars and apologists".

#3771

William McNeill

#33866

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

William McNeill is Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. Career and work McNeill was educated at the University of Essex, and he is now teaching Heidegger at DePaul University. He is a translator of the work of Martin Heidegger, about whom he has written two books. The Glance of the Eye closely examines the relation between Heidegger's thought and Greek philosophy, in particular his relation to Aristotle. The Time of Life is an examination of the implications of Heidegger's thought for ethics.

#3772

Katharina Grosse

Katharina Grosse

#55058

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Katharina Grosse is a German visual artist. She is known for her large-scale, site-related installations to create immersive visual experiences. Grosse's work employs a use of architecture, sculpture and painting. She has been using an industrial paint-sprayer to apply prismatic swaths of color to a variety of surfaces since the late 1990s, and often uses bright, unmixed sprayed-on acrylic paints to create both large-scale sculptural elements and smaller wall works.

#3773

John Kaag

#78559

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

John Kaag is an American philosopher and Chair and Professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Kaag specializes in American philosophy. His writing has been published in The Paris Review, The New York Times, and Harper’s Magazine.

#3774

Ofra Magidor

#69588

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Ofra Magidor is a philosopher and logician, and current Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at University of Oxford and Fellow of Magdalen College. Biography Magidor received her BSc in mathematics, philosophy, and computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2002, and a BPhil in philosophy from the University of Oxford in 2004. In 2007 she completed her DPhil, also from the University of Oxford. She has lectured at Oxford since 2005, and in 2016 she became the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy, the second woman to hold this position. In 2014, she was ...

#3775

Lawrence Blum

#20893

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Lawrence Alan Blum is an American philosopher who is Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He is known for his work in the philosophy of education, moral philosophy, and race.

#3776

Hanne Andersen

#58487

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Hanne Andersen is a Danish philosopher of science. She is a professor of science education at the University of Copenhagen, head of the Department of Science Education, and a member of the research group on history and philosophy of science and science studies.

#3777

Mark Anthony Neal

#12692

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Mark Anthony Neal is an American author and academic. He is the Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Duke University, where he won the 2010 Robert B. Cox Award for Teaching. Neal has written and lectured extensively on black popular culture, black masculinity, sexism and homophobia in Black communities, and the history of popular music.

#3778

John M. Doris

#91159

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

John M. Doris is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy and Peter L. Dyson Professor of Ethics in Organizations and Life at Cornell University. He is known for his works on moral philosophy.

#3779

Andrew Joseph Galambos

#23901

Overall Influence

1924 - 1997 (73 years)

Andrew Joseph Galambos was an astrophysicist and philosopher who presented his revolutionary theories of freedom and Volitional Science in oral lectures through his Free Enterprise Institute from 1961 to 1989 in Los Angeles, California. He developed over 117 courses for FEI's curriculum over a period of twenty-eight years. As Galambos' literary executor, William W. Martin completed the all encompassing "Book One" that the professor intended to have published in written form which Martin published under the title Sic Itur Ad Astra . Within Sic Itur Ad Astra is the "roadmap to freedom" Course V-201: The Nature and Protection of Primary Property.

#3780

Robert B. Wallace

#98387

Overall Influence

#3781

Peter Lunenfeld

#61442

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Peter Lunenfeld is a critic and theorist of digital media, digital humanities, and urban humanities. He is a professor and the Vice Chair of the Design Media Arts department at UCLA, director of the Institute for Technology and Aesthetics , and founder of mediawork: The Southern California New Media Group.

#3782

Jere H. Mitchell

#98401

Overall Influence

#3783

Mandeep R. Mehra

#40097

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Mandeep R. Mehra is The William Harvey Distinguished Chair in Advanced Cardiovascular Medicine and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the medical director of the Brigham Heart and Vascular Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and specializes in advanced heart failure, mechanical circulatory support and cardiac transplantation.

#3784

Michael D. Fox

#74068

Overall Influence

Michael D. Fox is an American neurologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts where he holds the Raymond D. Adams Distinguished Chair in Neurology and directs the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics at Brigham and Women's Hospital. His research has focused on resting state brain fMRI which uses spontaneous fluctuations in blood oxygenation to map brain networks including the default mode network. He developed the technique lesion network mapping to study the connectivity patterns of brain lesions to help understand the neuroanatomy of a diverse range of processes including addiction, criminality, blindsight, free will and religiosity.

#3785

José Jalife

#98475

Overall Influence

#3786

John L. Doppman

#98501

Overall Influence

#3787

Franklin G. Miller

#87441

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Franklin G. Miller is an American bioethicist and senior faculty member at the National Institutes of Health . Education Miller received his B.A. in philosophy in 1971 from Columbia College, Columbia University, and his PhD from Columbia University in 1977, also in philosophy.

#3788

Peter Hewitt Hare

#69294

Overall Influence

1935 - 2008 (73 years)

Peter Hewitt Hare was an American philosopher and Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University at Buffalo. Hare is known for his works addressing the problem of evil. Hare and Edward H. Madden's book Evil and the Concept of God is regarded as highly influential in the literature of problem of evil and has been cited by both critics and supporters.

#3789

Mark S. Gold

#63790

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Mark S. Gold is an American physician, professor, author, and researcher on the effects of opioids, cocaine, tobacco, and other drugs as well as food on the brain and behavior. He is married to Janice Finn Gold.

#3790

Kiyokazu Washida

#57442

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

is a Japanese philosopher, specializing in clinical philosophy and ethics. He was born in Kyoto, Japan, and is currently a professor at Otani University. He was the 16th president of Osaka University and served on the screening committee of the Jirō Osaragi Prize, and the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities.

#3791

Franklin H. Epstein

#98586

Overall Influence

#3792

Laura Ruetsche

#58674

Overall Influence

Laura Ruetsche is an American philosopher focusing on the foundations of quantum physics, feminist philosophy and philosophy of science. Ruetsche is a Professor and Chair of the department of philosophy at the University of Michigan. Her book, Interpreting Quantum Theories: The Art of the Possible was published in 2011 and received the 2013 Lakatos Award. She has also published on a diverse array of topics, exploring, among other things, philosophically salient differences between non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, modal semantics for quantum physics and virtue-epistemological theories of warrant.

#3793

Olav Gjelsvik

#98100

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Olav Gjelsvik is a Norwegian philosopher. Born and raised in Røros, he graduated with a DPhil from Oxford University in 1986, and has since been employed by the University of Oslo; from 1991 as an associate professor, and from 1994 as a full professor. He has published papers in journals and anthologies on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and action, and has also worked and published on the phenomenon of addiction. He has held many offices at the University of Oslo, been Chair of Philosophy in Oslo for many years, and is Director of CSMN.

#3794

Gunnar Grimby

#98655

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

#3795

Steven Tainer

#73135

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Steven A. Tainer is a respected scholar and instructor of contemplative traditions. He is a logician, philosopher, teacher and writer with an extensive background in philosophy of science, mathematical logic and Asian contemplative traditions. One of the central themes of his work involves how different ways of knowing can be compared, contrasted, and/or integrated.

#3796

Jean Biès

#42381

Overall Influence

1933 - 2014 (81 years)

Jean Biès was a French philosopher and author. He is the recipient of the High Prize of the Society of French Poets , Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor , and a prolific modern proponent of the Traditionalist School. His works deal with the union of Eastern and Western philosophy.

#3797

Ruth Farwell

#33011

Overall Influence

Ruth Sarah Farwell retired as Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive of Buckinghamshire New University in February 2015. Farwell held a research fellowship in theoretical physics at Imperial College, London, in the early eighties. Her research is at the boundary between applied mathematics and theoretical physics. Her use of Clifford algebras in her mathematics generated her interest in the Victorian mathematician William Kingdon Clifford. She continues to research the mathematical contribution of Clifford, and mathematical models of particle physics, as well as undertaking research on higher education policy.

#3798

István Mészáros

#68076

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

István Mészáros was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher. Described as "one of the foremost political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries" by Monthly Review, Mészáros wrote mainly about the possibility of a transition from capitalism to socialism. His magnum opus, Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition , was concerned not only with this theme but provided a conceptual distinction between capitalism and capital, and an analysis of the current capitalist society and its "structural crisis". He was interested in the critique of the "bourgeois ideology", includin...

#3799

Volkmar Falk

#98681

Overall Influence

#3800

Richard Gallo

#73312

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Richard L. Gallo is an American dermatologist who is a Distinguished Professor and founding Chairman of Dermatology at the University of California, San Diego. His research accomplishments as a physician-scientist include discovery of antimicrobial peptides in mammalian skin, establishing new links between innate immunity and skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis and rosacea, and defining the functions of the skin microbiome in host immune defense.

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