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 …
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List of the most influential people in Philosophy,
#4951
Marina Gržinić
#70836
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Marina Gržinić is a philosopher, theoretician, and artist from Ljubljana. She is a prominent contemporary theoretical and critical figure in Slovenia. Since 1993, she is employed at the Institute of Philosophy at the Scientific and Research C |title= enter of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Arts . Today, she serves as a professor and research adviser. For her scientific work, she received the Golden SASA sign in 2007. Since 2003, she has also served as a Full Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. She publishes extensively, lectures worldwide, and is involved in video ...
Go to Profile#4952
Christopher G. Chute
#54184
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Christopher G. Chute is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University, physician-scientist and biomedical informatician known for biomedical terminologies and health information technology standards. He chairs the World Health Organization Revision Steering Group for the revision of the International Classification of Diseases .
Go to Profile#4953
Darío Botero
#38420
Overall Influence
1938 - 2010 (72 years)
Darío Botero Uribe was a Colombian writer, thinker, professor emeritus and teacher at the National University of Colombia; he received a Doctorate degree from the National University with the title of Master. He studied law, political science and philosophy at the same university, where he held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Law, Political and Social Sciences . He developed an original philosophical project that he called Cosmic Vitalism. He was vitalist and utopian. He contributed to Colombian and Latin American thought.
Go to Profile#4954
Aleksander Giwercman
#114944
Overall Influence
#4955
Peter Branscombe
#47095
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Peter John Branscombe was an English academic in German studies, a musicologist, and a writer on Austrian cultural history. Career Branscombe attended Dulwich College where he showed talent as cricket player. Having served his military service in Vienna, Austria, he studied literature at Worcester College, Oxford. There, he became acquainted with notable Austrian émigrés such as the composer Egon Wellesz and the musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch.
Go to Profile#4956
Emily Chew
#68400
Overall Influence
Emily Ying Chew is an American ophthalmologist and an expert on the human retina with a strong clinical and research interest in diabetic eye disease and age-related eye diseases. She currently works for the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where she serves as deputy director of the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications and the Institute's deputy clinical director. She designs and implements Phase 1, 2 and 3 clinical trials at the NIH Clinical Center. Chew is board certified in ophthalmology.
Go to Profile#4957
Maurizio Cecconi
#114971
Overall Influence
#4958
Anna Brożek
#106333
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Anna Magdalena Brożek is a Polish philosopher and musician. Life Brożek studied piano at the Academy of Music in Kraków in 1999–2004, and at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in 2006–2008. At the same time, she studied philosophy at the Pontifical University of John Paul II from 1999 to 2003. Between 2004 and 2006, she completed her PhD studies in philosophy at Warsaw University, gaining her habilitation in 2008, and titular professorship in 2015.
Go to Profile#4959
James Rutka
#34039
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
James Rutka is a Canadian neurosurgeon from Toronto, Canada. Rutka served as RS McLaughlin Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto from 2011 – 2022. He subspecializes in pediatric neurosurgery at The Hospital for Sick Children , and is a Senior Scientist in the Research Institute at SickKids. His main clinical interests include the neurosurgical treatment of children with brain tumours and epilepsy. His research interests lie in the molecular biology of human brain tumours – specifically in the determination of the mechanisms by which brain tumours grow and invade.
Go to Profile#4960
Walter Hermann Hörl
#114974
Overall Influence
#4961
Douglas P. Kiel
#114985
Overall Influence
#4962
Stephen G. Pauker
#114993
Overall Influence
#4963
Eliot L. Berson
#115000
Overall Influence
#4964
Watson W. Buchanan
#115004
Overall Influence
#4965
Brie Gertler
#75497
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Brie Gertler is an American philosopher who works primarily on problems in the philosophy of mind. A mind-body dualist, she is Commonwealth Professor of Philosophy and Vice-Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Virginia. Her special interests include introspection, consciousness and mental content.
Go to Profile#4966
Haralambos P. Gavras
#115014
Overall Influence
#4967
Mohan k. Raizada
#115019
Overall Influence
#4968
Harry S. Jacob
#115026
Overall Influence
#4969
David Grob
#115032
Overall Influence
#4970
Richard V. Milani
#115036
Overall Influence
#4971
Marlène Zarader
#87208
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Marlene Zarader, born in 1949, is a French philosopher. She teaches philosophy at the Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III in Montpellier. Since became a member of the Institut Universitaire de France in 2007. Her book The Unthought Debt was originally published in French in 1990. The work was translated to English by Bettina Bergo.
Go to Profile#4972
Fons Elders
#79567
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Fons Elders is a Dutch philosopher and an emeritus professor at the University of Humanistic Studies. He was the host of the Chomsky–Foucault debate in 1971.
Go to Profile#4973
Wayne A. I. Frederick
#18387
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Wayne Alix Ian Frederick is a Trinidadian-American scholar, surgeon, and university administrator. He served as president of Howard University in Washington D.C. from July 21, 2014 to August 31, 2023 superseded by Ben Vinson III. Frederick also serves as the distinguished Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery.
Go to Profile#4974
Sjur Olsnes
#100548
Overall Influence
1939 - 2014 (75 years)
Sjur Olsnes was a Norwegian biochemist. He was born in Bergen, but grew up in Vaksdal. He took his medicine degree at the University of Bonn, and worked at the University of Bergen from 1967 to 1968 before being hired at the Norwegian Radium Hospital. He took the dr.med. degree at the University of Oslo in 1972 and was promoted to professor in 1989, retiring in 2009.
Go to Profile#4975
Jamie Lindemann Nelson
#88356
Overall Influence
Jamie Lindemann Nelson is a philosophy professor and bioethicist currently teaching at Michigan State University. Nelson earned her doctorate in philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1980 and taught at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and St. John's University before moving to Michigan State University. In addition, Nelson was an Associate for Ethical Studies at The Hastings Center from 1990–95 and is both a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and a Fellow of the Hastings Center. Nelson usually teaches courses on biomedical ethics, ethical theory, moral psychology, fe...
Go to Profile#4976
E. Regis Mcfadden
#115132
Overall Influence
#4977
Abraham I. Braude
#115172
Overall Influence
#4978
Alim‐louis Benabid
#115183
Overall Influence
#4979
Fyodor Konstantinov
#100054
Overall Influence
1901 - 1991 (90 years)
Fyodor Vasilyevich Konstantinov was a Soviet Marxist–Leninist philosopher and academician. Career Born in to a peasant family, he joined the Red Army after the October Revolution and became a participant of the Civil War in Siberia.
Go to Profile#4980
Rifat Atun
#64144
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Rifat Atun is a British Physician and academic who currently serves as the Harvard University Professor of Global Health Systems and Director of the Health System Innovation Lab at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in the contemporary study of comparative health systems and healthcare innovation and has made substantial contributions to health systems theory, health systems reform, and innovation in health systems.
Go to Profile#4981
Egon Hynek Kodicek
#115212
Overall Influence
#4982
Nicholas T. Kouchoukos
#115219
Overall Influence
#4983
Manuel Curado
#85390
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Manuel Curado is a Portuguese essayist and philosopher dedicated to Biomedical Ethics, Philosophy of mind. He has worked on the following issues: the intellectual history of the idea of a universal language and the idea of machine translation, or automatic translation, the problem of human consciousness and its relationship with the brain, the relationship between science and religion, studies about the European and Portuguese intellectual history, academic editions of works by authors such the Eighteenth-century mathematician José Maria Dantas Pereira, the logician Edmundo Curvelo, and other...
Go to Profile#4984
Lisa Shapiro
#80574
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Lisa C. Shapiro is an American and Canadian philosopher, Professor and the Dean of Faculty of Arts at McGill University. She is known for her expertise on early modern philosophy. Shapiro is the first winner of the German Elisabeth of Bohemia Prize which celebrates the history of women in philosophy. It is awarded to internationally recognized philosophers for outstanding services to research on women in the history of philosophy.
Go to Profile#4985
Anthony. H. Barnett
#115263
Overall Influence
#4986
Leonard B. Seeff
#115279
Overall Influence
#4987
Nicholas W. Read
#115287
Overall Influence
#4988
Frank L. Meyskens Jr.
#54230
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Frank L. Meyskens Jr. is the former Daniel G. Aldrich chair and director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center; currently professor of medicine at the University of California, Irvine. Biography Meyskens received an MD from the University of California, San Francisco in 1972. At UC Irvine Meyskens holds appointments in cancer biology, epidemiology, public health, and pharmacological sciences.
Go to Profile#4989
Andrea Nightingale
#81524
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Andrea Wilson Nightingale is an American scholar working in the field of Classics. She is a Professor of Classics at Stanford University. She works on Ancient philosophy and literature, focusing on the intersection of philosophy and literature. She has also taught and written on ecological issues from a literary and philosophical point of view.
Go to Profile#4990
John Loike
#72352
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
John Loike is an American research biologist and bioethicist at Touro University. Biography Loike has a Ph.D from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. His research focuses on the role of inflammation in cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. He has published many articles in leading scientific journals including Science, Nature, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Journal of Cell Biology, New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, PNAS, PlosOne, Journal of Biological Chemistry and The Scientist. In addition he has authored or co-authored several books.
Go to Profile#4991
Kenneth Fearon
#78152
Overall Influence
1960 - 2016 (56 years)
Kenneth C. H. Fearon FRCSE FRCPSG was a 20th-century Scottish surgeon and cancer specialist. He was Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Edinburgh with a special interest in cachexia.
Go to Profile#4992
Kim Hyung-suk
#51586
Overall Influence
1920 - Present (106 years)
Kim Hyung-suk or Kim Hyung-seok is a South Korean writer, philosopher, and professor emeritus of Yonsei University. He taught as a professor at the Department of Philosophy of Yonsei University from 1954 to 1985. He became professor emeritus of the same school after his retirement in 1985. He was a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. He is the author of a few best-selling books which include Solitude and The Discourse between Eternity and Love . He turned 100 in Korean age in 2019.
Go to Profile#4993
Shuji Ogino
#115364
Overall Influence
#4994
Paolo Macchiarini
#31695
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Paolo Macchiarini is a Swiss-born Italian thoracic surgeon and former regenerative medicine researcher who became known for research fraud and manipulative behavior. He has been convicted of research-related crimes in Italy and Sweden.
Go to Profile#4995
Mark Norman Levine
#115394
Overall Influence
#4996
John Beatty
#66342
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
John Beatty is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. He received his PhD in 1979 in the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. His research focuses on the theoretical foundations, methodology, and socio-political dimensions of genetics and evolutionary biology. He is well known in the philosophy of biology community.
Go to Profile#4997
Cushman D. Haagensen
#115436
Overall Influence
#4998
Robert Lyndsay Sutherland
#115440
Overall Influence
#4999
Professor Peter J. Scheuer
#115457
Overall Influence
#5000
Giles Skey Brindley
#115474
Overall Influence
