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 female people in Biology,
#801
Jane Clarke
#42937
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Jane Clarke is an English biochemist and academic. Since October 2017, she has served as President of Wolfson College, Cambridge. She is also Professor of Molecular Biophysics, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. She was previously a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. In 2023, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#802
Meenakshi Banerjee
#46341
Overall Influence
Meenakshi Banerjee is an Indian cyanobacteriologist and the head of the Center for Applied Algal Research at Rice University in Houston, Texas. She is the former head of the Bioscience Department of Barkatullah University, Bhopal.
Go to Profile#803
Simone Fulda
#94997
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
#804
Mary Cameron
#81027
Overall Influence
Mary M. Cameron FRES is a medical entomologist in the United Kingdom. In 2019 she was the Professor of Medical Entomology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Education and career Cameron obtained a BSc in Zoology in 1983 from Bedford College and then a PhD in Entomology in 1987 from the University of London.
Go to Profile#805
Ewa Paluch
#73887
Overall Influence
Ewa Paluch is a French-Polish biophysicist and cell biologist. She is the 17th Professor of Anatomy in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge.
Go to Profile#806
Pauline Ladiges
#86497
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Pauline Yvonne Ladiges is a botanist whose contributions have been significant both in building the field of taxonomy, ecology and historical biogeography of Australian plants, particularly Eucalypts and flora, and in science education at all levels. She is professorial fellow in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne, where she has previously held a personal chair and was head of the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne from 1992 to 2010. She has been a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science since 2002.
Go to Profile#807
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...
Go to Profile#808
Merry Lindsey
#81491
Overall Influence
Merry L. Lindsey is an American cardiac physiologist. She is the Stokes-Shackleford Professor and Chair of the University of Nebraska Medical Center Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology and the director of the Center for Heart and Vascular Research. In 2021, Lindsey was appointed editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Physiology. Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
Go to Profile#809
Merete Nordentoft
#95368
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
#810
Winifred Watkins
#65916
Overall Influence
1924 - 2003 (79 years)
Winifred May Watkins, FRS was a British biochemist and academic. She worked at the Imperial College School of Medicine. Early life Watkins was born on 6 August 1924 in Shepherd's Bush, London, England. Her father worked as an engraver but he was an artist in his spare time. She took to science after she won a scholarship to The Godolphin and Latymer School for Girls in Hammersmith. In 1939 the whole school was evacuated from London with no forward planning for where the school would stay. Watkins returned to London after a year.
Go to Profile#811
Jaqueline Goés de Jesus
#25577
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (35 years)
Jaqueline Góes de Jesus is a Brazilian scientist and researcher. She was part of the team which sequenced the Zika virus. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was a member of the team responsible for sequencing the first genome of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Brazil.
Go to Profile#812
Sarah Ratner
#61955
Overall Influence
1903 - 1999 (96 years)
Sarah Ratner was an American biochemist. Her contributions to the study of nitrogen metabolism led to a better understanding of human disorders in urea synthesis. In 1961, Ratner was awarded the Garvan–Olin Medal from the American Chemical Society and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1974.
Go to Profile#813
Sophia Frangou
#48065
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Sophia Frangou is a professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai where she heads the Psychosis Research Program. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and vice-chair of the RCPsych Panamerican Division. She is a Fellow of the European Psychiatric Association and of the American Psychiatric Association . She served as vice-president for Research of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders from 2010 to 2014. She has also served on the Council of the British Association for Psychopharmacology. She is founding member of the EPA NeuroImaging sectio...
Go to Profile#814
Fabiola León-Velarde
#55771
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Fabiola León-Velarde Servetto is a Peruvian physiologist who has devoted her research to the biology and physiology of high altitude adaptation. Born in Lima, Peru. She is the daughter of Carlos Leon-Velarde Gamarra and Juana Servetto Marti from Uruguay, and granddaughter of Angelica Gamarra. Under the mentorship of high altitude physiologist Carlos Monge Cassinelli, she obtained a BSc. in Biology , an MSc and DSc in physiology at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, Perú.
Go to Profile#815
Robin Chazdon
#92152
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Robin Lee Chazdon is an American tropical ecologist. She is a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Early life and education Chazdon was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1957. While attending Kenwood High School, she participated on their swimming team. During high school, she became aware of environmental problems and gravitated toward studying ecology. As a result, Chazdon enrolled at Grinnell College with the goal of becoming a plant ecologist and field biologist. She was advised by her academic advisor to join a field study program in Costa Rica, which she did from January–June 1976.
Go to Profile#816
Carin Bondar
#57227
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Carin Bondar is a Canadian biologist, writer, filmmaker, speaker and television personality. She is a host of Outrageous Acts of Science, Stephen Hawking's Brave New World, and Worlds Oddest Animal Couples.
Go to Profile#817
Montserrat Aguadé
#95617
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Montserrat Aguadé Porres is a professor emeritus of genetics at University of Barcelona and member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. Aguadé is internationally recognized for her research in the fields of evolution and population genetics, and together with Richard R. Hudson and Martin Kreitman, she co-developed the HKA test, a statistical test used in genetics to evaluate the predictions of the neutral theory of molecular evolution.
Go to Profile#818
Alice Auersperg
#65272
Overall Influence
Alice Auersperg is an Austrian cognitive biologist specializing in the evolution of intelligence in birds. Her research is primarily focused on the physical cognition, play behavior, problem-solving and tool-making abilities in parrots and corvids. Since 2011, she has managed the Goffin Lab of Comparative Cognition at the Messerli Research Institute of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Austria, where she has extensively studied the intelligence of the Tanimbar corella, also known as the Goffin's cockatoo.
Go to Profile#819
Francine Ratner Kaufman
#57552
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Francine Ratner Kaufman is an American endocrinologist, professor, author, researcher, consultant, and corporate officer in the medical field of diabetes mellitus. She is the author of Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America. She is currently serves as chief medical officer for Senseonics, Inc.
Go to Profile#820
Kathy Townsend
#95768
Overall Influence
Dr. Kathy Townsend is an academic marine biologist at the University of Queensland , Australia. Early life Kathy Townsend was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She enrolled in the University of Calgary in 1990, before moving to Australia in 1991 to pursue marine biology studies at the University of Queensland. She credits the Jacques Cousteau documentaries as the inspiration for her passion for marine biology.
Go to Profile#821
Amy Wagner
#55282
Overall Influence
Amy K. Wagner is an American neuroscientist. Early life and education Wagner completed her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Illinois State University in 1992 and her medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in 1996.
Go to Profile#822
Raquel Urtasun
#95877
Overall Influence
#823
Patricia Baird
#63809
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Patricia Ann Baird, is a British medical geneticist active in Canada. Her research has specialized on the relationship between medical technology and ethics. Early life and education Patricia Baird was born in Littleborough, Lancashire, England, the daughter of Harold and Winifred Cainen Holt. She was educated at the Queen Mary School for Girls in Lytham, Lancashire. She emigrated to Canada at the age of 17 and was accepted to McGill University. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1959 and a M.D., C.M. in 1963 from McGill University in Montreal.
Go to Profile#824
Ashani Weeraratna
#70890
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Ashani Tanuja Weeraratna is a Sri Lanka-born American cancer researcher whose findings are contributing to the scientific understanding of melanoma tumors. She is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of cancer biology and the E.V. McCollum Professor and Chair of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Weeraratna is a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board, which advises and assists the director of the National Cancer Institute on the activities of the national cancer program.
Go to Profile#825
Meritxell Huch
#88912
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Meritxell Huch is a stem cell biologist and director at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. Her research considers tissue regeneration and the development of tissue-specific disease models for human organs. She was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant in 2023.
Go to Profile#826
Judy Stamps
#84444
Overall Influence
Judy A. Stamps is a professor and researcher within the Department of Evolution and Ecology at University of California, Davis. Stamps' research focuses on conservation ecology and ethology. Specifically, her research is centered in behavioral ecology, habitat selection, animal personality, plasticity in lizard communication, and implications of developmental processes for problems in behavioral ecology and conservation biology.
Go to Profile#827
Zeng Fanyi
#83134
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Zeng Fanyi is a Chinese stem cell scientist and professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University medical school. Biography Zeng was born in Shanghai in 1968 with ancestral roots in Shunde, Guangdong province.
Go to Profile#828
Monique Breteler
#83195
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Monique Maria Bernadette Breteler is a Dutch neuroepidemiologist. She is Director of Population Health Sciences at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases , Professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Bonn, and Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts. She has been a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2015.
Go to Profile#829
Anne Glover
#28451
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Dame Lesley Anne Glover is a Scottish biologist and academic. She was Professor of molecular biology and cell biology at the University of Aberdeen before being named Vice Principal for External Affairs and Dean for Europe. She served as Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission from 2012 to 2014. In 2018 she joined the Principal's senior advisory team at the University of Strathclyde.
Go to Profile#830
Amanda Vincent
#80657
Overall Influence
Amanda Vincent is a Canadian marine biologist and conservationist, one of the world's leading experts on seahorses and their relatives. She currently holds the chair of the IUCN SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group and is the marine representative on the IUCN's International Red List Committee as well as being the chair of its Marine Conservation Committee. She previously held the Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation at the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia , Canada from 2002 to 2012. Vincent co-founded and directs Project...
Go to Profile#831
Sarah Spiegel
#96701
Overall Influence
#832
Valsamma Eapen
#33614
Overall Influence
Valsamma Eapen is a chair of infant, child and adolescent psychiatry at UNSW Sydney. She is a fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, and the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK.
Go to Profile#833
Anne Kelso
#73206
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Professor Anne Kelso is an Australian biomedical researcher specialising in immunology and influenza. She is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Government's National Health and Medical Research Council .
Go to Profile#834
Ligia Gargallo
#68356
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Ligia Gargallo is a Chilean chemist and university professor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Career She works at the University of Tarapacá and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, in Santiago. She received a bachelor's degree in chemical pharmaceutical at the University of Chile in 1959, degrees in chemistry from Paris Dauphine University and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, a doctorate in chemical sciences at the University of Liège in Belgium in 1972, and a doctorate in chemistry from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Her areas of investigation are focused in Polymers and Macromolecules.
Go to Profile#835
Sally Temple
#36682
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Sally Temple is an American developmental neuroscientist in Albany, New York. She is a co-founder and scientific director for The Neural Stem Cell Institute and is a professor of Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology at Albany Medical College Temple is also the principal investigator in her laboratory that focuses on neural stem cells and therapies for neurological-related disorders
Go to Profile#836
Sheena Cruickshank
#71309
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Sheena Margaret Cruickshank is a British immunologist and Professor in Biomedical Sciences and Public Engagement at the University of Manchester. She researches how immune responses of the gut are started as a result of infection and/or inflammation. Cruickshank is a science communicator.
Go to Profile#837
Louann Brizendine
#17651
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Louann Brizendine is an American scientist, a neuropsychiatrist who is both a researcher and a clinician and professor at the University of California, San Francisco . She is the author of three books: The Female Brain , The Male Brain , and The Upgrade .
Go to Profile#838
Harini Nagendra
#93414
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Harini Nagendra is an Indian ecologist who uses satellite remote sensing coupled with field studies of biodiversity, archival research, institutional analysis, and community interviews to examine the factors shaping the social-ecological sustainability of forests and cities in the south Asian context. Her areas of interest include Urban sustainability, Ecology and development, Land change, Biodiversity and conservation.
Go to Profile#839
Annette Aiello
#88294
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Annette A. Aiello is an American zoologist, botanical entomologist, and professor. She develops academic activities at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Biography Annette Aiello was born on May 1, 1941, in New York City, New York. She initially studied commercial photography, and became interested in botany via nature photography. In 1972, Aiello obtained a BA in biology, magna cum laude, from Brooklyn College. In 1975 she obtained an MA in biology from Harvard University, followed in 1978 by a PhD in biology, defending her thesis: "A Reexamination of Portlandia and Associated Taxa", under the supervision of her advisor, botanist Richard A.
Go to Profile#840
Marylyn D. Ritchie
#68732
Overall Influence
Marylyn D. Ritchie is a Professor of Genetics, the Director of the Center for Translational Bioinformatics, the Associate Director for Bioinformatics in the Institute for Biomedical Informatics, and the Associate Director of the Center for Precision Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#841
Nancy Papalopulu
#89018
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Athanasia Papalopulu is a Wellcome Trust senior research fellow and Professor of Developmental Neuroscience in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Manchester. Education After completing her undergraduate degree in Pharmacy at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, Nancy Papalopulu moved to London in 1986 to do a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research, where she became one of Robb Krumlauf's first graduate students. There she studied the role of Hox genes in patterning the nervous system. She completed her PhD in 1991.
Go to Profile#842
Christine Janis
#70148
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Christine Marie Janis is a British palaeontologist who specialises in mammals. She is currently based at the University of Bristol. Background Janis earned a bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences and Zoology from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in Vertebrate Paleontology from Harvard University. She has held positions as a researcher and lecturer at Oregon State University, Cambridge, the Field Museum of Natural History in the University of Chicago, the University of Bristol, and Brown University.
Go to Profile#843
Elizabeth A. Craig
#82396
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Elizabeth A. Craig is a Steenbock Professor of Microbial Science and faculty member in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. Research in her laboratory concentrates on the folding and remodeling of proteins in the cell via molecular chaperones.
Go to Profile#844
Asya Rolls
#45236
Overall Influence
Asya Rolls is an Israeli psychoneuroimmunologist and International Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Professor at the Immunology and Center of Neuroscience at Technion within the Israel Institute of Technology. Rolls leads a lab that explores how the nervous system affects immune responses and thus physical health. Her recent work has highlighted how the brain's reward system is implicated in the placebo response and how brain-immune interactions can be harnessed to find and destroy tumors.
Go to Profile#845
Xinnian Dong
#87615
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Xinnian Dong is a Chinese-American biologist who is the current Arts and Sciences Professor of Biology in the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Duke University, United States. She is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#846
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
#54612
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, and conservation strategist. She is the founder and president of Ocean Collectiv, a consulting firm that helps find ocean "conservation solutions grounded in social justice", and the founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for climate change and ocean conservation policy in coastal cities.
Go to Profile#847
Julia Levy
#61578
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Julia Levy is a Canadian microbiologist, immunologist, educator and entrepreneur. Early life and education The daughter of Guillaume Albert and Dorothy Frances Coppens, she was born Julia Coppens in Singapore. In 1940, her father sent her mother and his two daughters from their home in Indonesia to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he joined them at the end of World War II after he was released from a Japanese prisoner of war camp. Her early education was in Canada. She studied immunology and bacteriology at the University of British Columbia, earning a BA in 1955. Levy received a PhD in experimental pathology from the University of London in 1958.
Go to Profile#848
Lorena S. Beese
#68818
Overall Influence
Lorena Beese is a James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry and Duke Cancer Institute Member. Her research involves structural mechanisms underlying DNA replication and repair, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, and microbial pathogenesis; X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy; structure-based drug design; protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, enzyme mechanisms, chemical biology, protein structure and function.
Go to Profile#849
Nicole Webster
#52588
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Nicole Webster is an Australian marine scientist who is Chief Scientist for the Australian Antarctic Division. Early life Nicole Webster gained an undergraduate degree and PhD in marine biology at James Cook University. Professor Webster's research discovered that sponge-microbial associations are fairly uniform throughout large geographic zones and highlighted the specificity of this partnership. She also discovered that the breakdown of this symbiosis may be a good indicator of environmental stress.
Go to Profile#850
Julie McElrath
#54118
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
M. Juliana “Julie” McElrath is a senior vice president and director of the vaccine and infection disease division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the principal investigator of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network Laboratory Center in Seattle, Washington. She is also a professor at the University of Washington.
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