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,
#4201
Klaus Mainzer
#25316
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Klaus Mainzer is a German philosopher and scientist. Mainzer is the president of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He is the author of the widely translated, cited, and reviewed book Thinking in Complexity.
Go to Profile#4202
Gary Hatfield
#93917
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Gary Carl Hatfield is an American philosopher and Adam Seybert Professor in Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a specialist in the history of modern philosophy up to Kant, as well as philosophy of mind.
Go to Profile#4203
Julie Kristeva
#104693
Overall Influence
#4204
Henk Braakhuis
#88887
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Henricus Antonius Giovanni "Henk" Braakhuis is a Dutch historian of philosophy. He was a professor of history of medieval philosophy at the Radboud University Nijmegen. His 1979 dissertation was titled: "Syncategoremata". Braakhuis was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1990. In 2002 Braakhuis became interim director of the Constantijn Huygens Institute.
Go to Profile#4205
Walter Boron
#28795
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Walter F. Boron is an American scientist and the 72nd president of the American Physiological Society . He was Secretary-General of the International Union of Physiological Sciences. Additionally, Boron is co-editor, along with Emile L. Boulpaep, of the textbook Medical Physiology and Concise Medical Physiology. He is a former editor-in-chief of two leading physiology journals, Physiological Reviews and Physiology.
Go to Profile#4206
Oleg Khoma
#66235
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Oleg Khoma is Ukrainian translator and historian of European philosophy. His research focus is on 17th- and 20th-century French philosophy, particularly Blaise Pascal, Rene Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche.
Go to Profile#4207
Marthe Gautier
#5555
Overall Influence
1925 - 2022 (97 years)
Marthe Gautier was a French medical doctor and researcher, best known for her role in discovering the link of diseases to chromosome abnormalities. Education Marthe Gautier discovered a vocation for pediatrics at an early age. In 1942 she joined her sister Paulette who was about to complete her medical studies in Paris intending to become a pediatrician. She passed the entrance exam of the "Internat des hôpitaux de Paris" and spent the next four years as an intern gaining clinical experience in pediatrics.
Go to Profile#4208
Guido Reifenberger
#104802
Overall Influence
#4209
William Robert Barclay
#104834
Overall Influence
#4210
Andrea Natale
#52290
Overall Influence
Andrea Natale is an Italian-born American cardiologist and electrophysiologist, i.e. a heart rhythm specialist. Natale is known for his work in atrial fibrillation ablation, and he is currently the executive director at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute.
Go to Profile#4211
Todd Dufresne
#35635
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Todd Dufresne is a Canadian social and cultural theorist best known for his work on Sigmund Freud and the history of psychoanalysis. He is Professor of Philosophy at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Go to Profile#4212
Nasrollah Hekmat
#18414
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Nasrollah Hekmat is an Iranian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the Shahid Beheshti University. He first went to hawza and got the highest degree of Islamic studies. But in 1980, he came out from hawza and began to study philosophy. Finally, in 1994 Hekmat got his Ph.D. in Western Philosophy.
Go to Profile#4213
Stuart Kornfeld
#69892
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Stuart Arthur Kornfeld is a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis and researcher in glycobiology. Early life and education Kornfeld was born in St. Louis on October 4, 1936 to Ruth and Max Kornfeld. He graduated from Ladue Horton Watkins High School in 1954. He received his A.B. in 1958 from Dartmouth College and his MD in 1962 from Washington University School of Medicine. In 1959, he married Rosalind Hauk, a PhD student at Washington University.
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Joseph C. Pitt
#102735
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Joseph C. Pitt is an American Pragmatist, philosopher of science and technology who works at Virginia Tech in the Departments of Philosophy and Science and Technology in Society. He is a past editor-in-chief of Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology and the former editor of Perspectives on Science. He was founding director of the Center for Science Studies at Virginia Tech, which is now the Department of Science, Technology, and Society. He is a foundational figure in philosophy of technology and a past president of the Society for Philosophy and Technology.
Go to Profile#4215
Elad Levy
#33818
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Elad I. Levy is an American neurosurgeon, researcher, and innovator who played a major role in the development and testing of thrombectomy, which improved quality of life and survival of stroke patients. He has focused his career and research on developing evidence based medicine and literature showing the benefits of thrombectomy for the treatment of stroke. He is currently Professor of Neurosurgery and Radiology, and the L. Nelson Hopkins, MD Professor Endowed Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Buffalo .
Go to Profile#4216
Norbert M. Samuelson
#50389
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Norbert Max Samuelson was a scholar of Jewish philosophy. He was Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University, having held the Grossman Chair of Jewish Studies there. He wrote 13 books and over 200 articles, with research interests in Jewish philosophy, philosophy and religion, philosophy and science, 20th-century philosophy , history of Western philosophy, and Jewish Aristotelians . He also lectured at university-level conferences around the world.
Go to Profile#4217
Nubia Muñoz
#64365
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Nubia Muñoz is a Colombian medical scientist and epidemiologist, whose research has been instrumental in establishing that human papillomavirus infection is the primary cause of cervical cancer which has led to the development of a vaccine that is capable of preventing 70% of all cervical cancers.
Go to Profile#4218
William Desmond
#89988
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
William James Desmond is an Irish philosopher who has written on ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and religion. Desmond earned his B.A. and M.A. from University College, Cork, in 1972 and 1974; Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1978.
Go to Profile#4219
Jan Hartman
#67297
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jan Marek Hartman is a Polish of Jewish descent philosopher specializing in bioethics, writer, anticlerical, opinion journalist and politician, professor of the humanities. Early life and education He is the son of mathematics professor and a great-great grandson of rabbi Izaak Kramsztyk.
Go to Profile#4220
Leo Groarke
#55013
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Leo Groarke is a Canadian philosopher, known for his contributions to argumentation theory and informal logic. Groarke has authored and edited a number of books, articles, and anthologies. Groarke has held numerous administrative positions at various Canadian universities, and currently serves as the President of Trent University.
Go to Profile#4221
George A. Diamond
#105085
Overall Influence
#4222
Kate Millett
#19722
Overall Influence
1934 - 2017 (83 years)
Katherine Murray Millett was an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She attended the University of Oxford and was the first American woman to be awarded a degree with first-class honors after studying at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She has been described as "a seminal influence on second-wave feminism", and is best known for her book Sexual Politics , which was based on her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. Journalist Liza Featherstone attributes the attainment of previously unimaginable "legal abortion, greater professional equality between the sexes, and a ...
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Christopher Paul Day
#105121
Overall Influence
#4224
Dan Barouch
#61389
Overall Influence
Dan Hung Barouch is an American physician, immunologist, and virologist. He is known for his work on the pathogenesis and immunology of viral infections and the development of vaccine strategies for global infectious diseases.
Go to Profile#4225
Heinrich Rombach
#92761
Overall Influence
1923 - 2004 (81 years)
Heinrich Rombach was a German philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Würzburg. He is known for developing structural ontology. Works Über Ursprung und Wesen der Frage, Freiburg / München: Alber 1952, ²1988. Substanz System Struktur: Die Ontologie des Funktionalismus und der philosophische Hintergrund der modernen Wissenschaft, 2 Bde., Freiburg / München: Alber 1965/66, ²1981. Studienausgabe 2010 mit dem Untertitel Die Hauptepochen der europäischen Geistesgeschichte, Band 1: , Band 2: Strukturontologie: Eine Phänomenologie der Freiheit, Freiburg / München: Alber 1971, ²1988 Mutmaßungen über das Ende der Hochkulturen, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 82 , S.
Go to Profile#4226
Bohdan Pomahač
#14906
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Bohdan Pomahač is a Czech plastic surgeon. He led the team that performed the first full face transplant in United States and the third overall in the world. Biography Pomahač's parents were a chemical engineer and a school teacher. The family lived in the industrial city of Ostrava, today's Czech Republic, in a small three-room apartment, and used to spend weekends at their weekend house in Morávka, a municipality in the Moravian-Silesian Beskids mountain range.
Go to Profile#4227
Harold C. Sox
#75677
Overall Influence
Harold 'Hal' Sox is an Editor Emeritus of the Annals of Internal Medicine and member of the National Academy of Medicine. Sox was an associate editor of Scientific American Medicine, a consulting associate editor of The American Journal of Medicine and a member of the editorial boards of three medical journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine.
Go to Profile#4228
Daniel E. Singer
#105220
Overall Influence
#4229
David Archard
#91885
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
David Archard is a British moral philosopher who is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast. He is known for his work on children and families. Career As an undergraduate, Archard studied philosophy at Corpus Christi, University of Oxford from 1969 to 1972, and then read for a PhD at the London School of Economics from 1972 to 1976. In 1976, he took up a lectureship at Ulster Polytechnic, later being promoted to senior Lecturer. In 1995, he moved to St. Andrews as a reader in moral philosophy, and, in 2003, became a professor of philosophy & public policy in 2003. He left Lancaster in 2018 and became a professor of philosophy at Queen's University Belfast.
Go to Profile#4230
Manuel Sánchez Cuesta
#71978
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Manuel Sánchez Cuesta is philosopher, ethicist and humanist. He studied in the University of Salamanca, Complutense University of Madrid, Heidelberg University and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He is Philosophical Doctor. Since 1991 he is professor of ethics in the Complutense University of Madrid. He has also taught logic at the same university, Spanish literature and Spanish history of philosophy at the Heidelberg University as well as ethics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Amongst other publications, he has regularly written about ethics ...
Go to Profile#4231
John W. Auteur Dominiczak Marek H. Auteur Baynes
#105246
Overall Influence
#4232
Thomas Scott Edgington
#105265
Overall Influence
#4233
Michael Heizer
#11416
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Michael Heizer is an American land artist specializing in large-scale and site-specific sculptures. Working largely outside the confines of the traditional art spaces of galleries and museums, Heizer has redefined sculpture in terms of size, mass, gesture, and process. A pioneer of 20th-century land art or Earthworks movement, he is widely recognized for sculptures and environmental structures made with earth-moving equipment, which he began creating in the American West in 1967. He currently lives and works in Hiko, Nevada, and New York City.
Go to Profile#4234
Rober T. Machemer
#105298
Overall Influence
#4235
Stephen W. Macmahon
#105327
Overall Influence
#4236
Michael Hooker
#85922
Overall Influence
1946 - 1999 (53 years)
Michael Kenneth Hooker was an American academic who served as the eighth Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and President of University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Bennington College.
Go to Profile#4237
Bernard Devauchelle
#15399
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bernard Devauchelle is a French oral and maxillofacial surgeon, best known for successfully completing the first face transplant in November 2005 at Amiens University Hospital.
Go to Profile#4238
Rudolf Pichlmayr
#47118
Overall Influence
1932 - 1997 (65 years)
Rudolf Pichlmayer was a German surgeon and head of the Abdominal and Transplantation Surgery Department of the Hannover Medical School. He was one of the leading transplant physicians in Germany. He is considered a pioneer in liver transplantation. The introduction of the term "transplantation medicine" goes back to Pichlmayr.
Go to Profile#4239
Harry Prosch
#99034
Overall Influence
1917 - 2005 (88 years)
Harry Prosch was an American philosopher born in Logansport, Indiana. Life Prosch, the son of a grocer, was told he was ineligible to enter college because he had not studied Latin. "He was placed in the Industrial Arts program from which he graduated in 1935 and became an apprentice pattern-maker at a machine company where he worked for several years." He joined the army in 1942 and served in the Pacific in New Guinea and the Philippines as a supply sergeant.
Go to Profile#4240
Mathew Chandrankunnel
#23847
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Prof. Dr. Mathew Chandrankunnel CMI is a professor of philosophy of science at Dharmaram Vidya Kshetram and Christ University, both in Bangalore, India. He is the author of several books including "Philosophy of Quantum mechanics" and "Ascent to Truth: The Physics, philosophy and Religion of Galileo Galilei". He is a scientist, philosopher and theologian.
Go to Profile#4241
Hsu Su-ming
#103189
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Hsu Su-ming is a Taiwanese pathologist. Hsu studied medicine at National Taiwan University and split his residency between National Taiwan University Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital. He remained in the United States, first working for the National Institutes of Health, then teaching at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and later the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He returned to Taiwan in 1995 to teach at NTU. From 1985, Hsu was an ISI highly cited researcher.
Go to Profile#4242
Joachim Boldt
#30970
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Joachim Boldt is a German anesthesiologist who fabricated or falsified data, including those reporting clinical trial results. Medical research fabrication Boldt was previously considered to be a leading researcher of medicinal colloids. He was an advocate for the use of colloidal hydroxyethyl starch to boost blood pressure during surgery. However, a meta-analysis of trials that excluded Boldt's fabricated data found that the intravenous use of hydroxyethyl starch is associated with a significant increased risk of death and acute kidney injury compared with other resuscitation solutions. He...
Go to Profile#4243
Sidney C. Werner
#105467
Overall Influence
#4244
Ingrid Scheffer
#81883
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Ingrid Eileen Scheffer is an Australian paediatric neurologist and senior research fellow at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. She has made several major advances in the field of epilepsy research. Scheffer is credited with finding the first gene implicated in epilepsy. She has also described and classified novel epileptic syndromes such as Epilepsy limited to Females with Mental Retardation.
Go to Profile#4245
Murray A. Falconer
#105475
Overall Influence
#4246
Gerald F. Jr. Combs
#105485
Overall Influence
#4247
Jon Mandle
#85815
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Jonathan Mandle is a Professor of Philosophy and former Philosophy Department Chair at the University at Albany, The State University of New York. He is a member of the Crooked Timber group blog. He is the brother of NBA player Adonal Foyle.
Go to Profile#4248
Jörg-rüdiger Siewert
#105499
Overall Influence
#4249
Rand Paul
#13358
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Randal Howard Paul is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Kentucky since 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he is a son of former three-time presidential candidate and 12-term U.S. representative from Texas, Ron Paul. Paul describes himself as a constitutional conservative and supporter of the Tea Party movement.
Go to Profile#4250
Alejandro Vallega
#104849
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Alejandro Arturo Vallega Arredondo is a Chilean-born philosopher, decolonial thinker, writer, painter, and Professor of philosophy at the University of Oregon. In his work he develops an aesthetic philosophy, in which he engages the aesthetic or pre-reflexive affective, embodied and memorial dimensions of understanding and living experience. In the recent years he has emphasized this approach to philosophical understanding in seeking to extend the fields of decolonial philosophy, Continental philosophy, and Latin American Philosophy of Liberation. This work happens in thinking between these w...
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