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,
#951
Susan McElroy
#96165
Overall Influence
Susan Lynn McElroy is Chief Research Officer at Lindner Center of HOPE. Education and early career McElroy did her B.A. at Colgate University, Hamilton, and her M.D. at Cornell University Medical College, both in New York. This was followed by an internship in Internal Medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and a residency in psychiatry at McLean Hospital, Massachusetts. She has also had fellowships at Cornell University Medical College, Harvard Medical School, and McLean Hospital.
Go to Profile#952
Hélène Bergès
#47656
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Hélène Bergès is a French scientist and was the Director of the French Plant Genomic Resources Center from its foundation until 2019. Education Bergès completed a doctorate in 1995 at the Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University in the fields of genetics and molecular biology.
Go to Profile#953
Zulma Brandoni de Gasparini
#78611
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Zulma Nélida Brandoni de Gasparini is an Argentine paleontologist and zoologist. She is known for discovering the fossils of the dinosaur Gasparinisaura, which was named after her. Work Born in the city of La Plata, Argentina on 15 May 1944, Brandoni de Gasparini graduated in zoology from the National University of La Plata in 1966 and obtained her PhD in Natural Sciences in 1973.
Go to Profile#954
Chen Hang
#48535
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Chen Hang was born in 1931. She is a botanist and horticulturist. Career Chen was born in Guangde County, Anhui Province. In 1949, she studied in the Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang University. In 1953, she graduated from the Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang Agricultural College
Go to Profile#955
Turi King
#57934
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Turi Emma King is a Canadian-British professor of Public Engagement and Genetics at the University of Leicester. In 2012, King led the DNA verification during the exhumation and reburial of Richard III of England. She is also known for featuring with Stacey Dooley on the BBC Two genealogy series, DNA Family Secrets.
Go to Profile#956
Else Marie Friis
#85972
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Else Marie Friis is a Danish botanist and paleontologist. She is Professor Emerita in the Department of Geoscience at Aarhus University. Her work has been fundamental in the phylogenetic analysis of angiosperms, with widespread application to reproductive biology.
Go to Profile#957
Joan Rose
#59339
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Joan Bray Rose is an American microbiologist. Rose earned her bachelor's degree in microbiology from the University of Arizona, followed by a master's degree in the same subject from the University of Wyoming. She returned to Arizona to obtain a doctorate, also in microbiology. Rose then taught at the University of South Florida until 2003. She serves as the Homer Nowlin Chair in Water Research at Michigan State University.
Go to Profile#958
Kathleen Donohue
#98799
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Kathleen Donohue is an American biologist at Duke University. She researches how adaptation occurs on a genetic basis and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013 for her work. Education Kathleen Donohue attended Stanford University, graduating in 1985 with two bachelor's degrees. She then attended the University of Chicago for her master's degree and PhD . Her doctoral advisor was Ellen Simms and her dissertation was titled "The evolution of seed disperal in Cakile edentula var. lacustis".
Go to Profile#959
Natalie Strynadka
#74289
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Natalie C. J. Strynadka FRS is a professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of British Columbia. Education Strynadka was educated at the University of Alberta where she was awarded a PhD in 1990. Her thesis committee included Michael N. G. James and Sir David Chilton Phillips.
Go to Profile#960
Sharon Hillier
#74288
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Sharon Louise Hillier is an American microbiologist. She is the Richard Sweet Endowed Chair in Reproductive Infectious Disease and vice chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Magee-Women's Research Institute.
Go to Profile#961
Merritt Turetsky
#89972
Overall Influence
Merritt Turetsky is an American ecosystem ecologist and a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She currently serves as the Director of Arctic Security for the University of Colorado. She served as the first woman Director of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research from 2019-2023. Her research considers fire regimes, climate change and biogeochemical cycling in Arctic wetlands. Turetsky is a member of the Permafrost Action Team , a group of scientists who translate and deliver science to decision-makers.
Go to Profile#962
Marie-Hélène Verlhac
#57380
Overall Influence
Marie-Hélène Verlhac is a French cellular biologist, specialising in the final stages of oocyte development. She was the recipient of the French National Centre for Scientific Research's Silver Medal in 2021.
Go to Profile#963
Susan M. Rosenberg
#55024
Overall Influence
Susan M. Rosenberg is a cancer research scientist and the Ben F. Love Chair in Cancer Research at Baylor College of Medicine. Her research focuses on the processes of DNA mutations, damage, and repair.
Go to Profile#964
Kathy K. Griendling
#103391
Overall Influence
#965
Nadia Harbeck
#103495
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#966
Mercedes Pascual
#88423
Overall Influence
Mercedes Pascual is an Uruguayan theoretical ecologist, and a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, where she leads the Laboratory for Modeling and Theory in Ecology and Epidemiology . She was previously the Rosemary Grant Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Go to Profile#967
Hongkui Zeng
#82688
Overall Influence
Hongkui Zeng is the Director of the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, where she leads the creation of open-access datasets and tools to accelerate neuroscience discovery. In 2011-2014 Zeng led the team that created the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, which indicates which regions of the mouse brain are connected to which other regions. Since then, she has led the creation of atlases of neuronal cell types in the brain of humans and mice.
Go to Profile#968
Sabine Kastner
#79748
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Sabine Kastner is a German-born American cognitive neuroscientist. She is professor of psychology at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute at Princeton University. She also holds a visiting scientist appointment at the University of California at Berkeley.
Go to Profile#969
Mary E. Rice
#96523
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Mary Esther Rice was an American invertebrate zoologist specializing in systematics, evolution and the development of marine invertebrates. She worked at the Smithsonian Institution as a curator, educator, research advisor, and administrator from 1966 until her retirement in 2002. She is known for her work on the life histories of Sipuncula, as well as for serving as the first director of the Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce.
Go to Profile#970
G. Taru Sharma
#47951
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
G. Taru Sharma is an Indian biologist and the head of the physiology and climatology division at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Known for her studies on germ cell marker genes, Sharma is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and National Academy of Sciences . The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences in 2006.
Go to Profile#971
Gloria Lim
#17122
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Gloria Lim BBM is a retired Singaporean mycologist whose research focused on tropical fungi and who built up a fungal repository of regional samples. Lim was twice appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Singapore , the first woman to hold that position. After her retirement, she became the first Director of Singapore's National Institute of Education and helped it launch a university degree program. She served on the Public Service Commission as its first woman commissioner for 14 years, and then served as general manager of the Community Mediation Unit for 8 years. ...
Go to Profile#972
Eveline Crone
#53199
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Eveline Crone is a Dutch professor of cognitive neuroscience and developmental psychology at Leiden University. Her research focuses on risky behaviors in adolescent humans during puberty and examines the function of those risks. For her research in adolescent brain development and behaviour, she was awarded the Spinoza Prize, the highest recognition for Dutch scientists, in 2017.
Go to Profile#973
Helga Dietrich
#91254
Overall Influence
1940 - 2018 (78 years)
Helga Dietrich was a German orchidologist and author who is noted for her comprehensive guides to literature on orchids, and for her work as curator of the Botanischer Garten Jena. She described over eighty species of orchids, many from Cuba. She was a 2012 recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Dietrich studied biology at the University of Jena from 1959 and graduated in 1964 with a diploma on the topic The Pollen Morphology of the Plantaginaceae. Afterwards she was a research assistant at the Institute of Special Botany/Botanical Garden of the University. After receiving her doctorate in 1975, she was appointed curator of the Jena Botanical Garden.
Go to Profile#974
Amy Rosenzweig
#57774
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Amy C. Rosenzweig is a professor of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences at Northwestern University. She was born in 1967 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her current research interests include structural biology and bioinorganic chemistry, metal uptake and transport, oxygen activation by metalloenzymes, and characterization of membrane protein. For her work, she has been recognized by a number of national and international awards, including the MacArthur "Genius" Award in 2003.
Go to Profile#975
Susanna Larsson
#100960
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Susanna C. Larsson is a Swedish epidemiologist. She is associate professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. She is currently also associated with the Neurology Unit, University of Cambridge, where she is part of a group engaged in a study on the effect of diet on stroke risk.
Go to Profile#976
Jennifer Owen
#95019
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Jennifer Owen is a British zoologist. Career Jennifer Bak was the daughter of F. A. Bak, a noted amateur ornithologist and Leicester based textile manufacturer. She went on to study zoology in Oxford where, in 1955 as an undergraduate, she met Denis Owen. They married after graduation in 1958 and she went to the University of Michigan to work as a teaching fellow and complete a research PhD on the study of wasps. After the doctorate Owen took up teaching positions from 1962 in Makerere University, Uganda and Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone as well as Sweden. On her return to the department o...
Go to Profile#977
Susan Celniker
#94618
Overall Influence
Susan E. Celniker is an American biologist, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and an adjunct professor Comparative Biochemistry department at UC Berkeley. She is the co-director of the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project.
Go to Profile#978
Sandrine Dudoit
#62467
Overall Influence
Sandrine Dudoit is a professor of statistics and public health at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research applies statistics to microarray and genetic data; she is known as one of the founders of the open-source Bioconductor project for the development of bioinformatics software.
Go to Profile#979
Ann C. Palmenberg
#90993
Overall Influence
Ann C. Palmenberg is a professor of virology and biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received her B.S. from St. Lawrence University and her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Palmenberg has been given numerous awards for her research and involvement within the scientific community, such as Fellow for the American Academy of Microbiology. News articles have been published about her work within virology, including an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on her findings on the common cold.
Go to Profile#980
Deborah Persaud
#31226
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Deborah Persaud is a Guyanese-born American virologist who primarily works on HIV/AIDS at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Biography Persaud was born on 23 August 1960 in Port Mourant, East Berbice-Corentyne, Guyana. At age 16 she moved to Brooklyn. Persaud attended the New York University School of Medicine after receiving her undergraduate degree from York College CUNY. She also earned a master's degree at the New York University School of Medicine. She started residency at the Babies Hospital of New York and finished her chief residency at the same hospital. Persaud later was a fellow at the New York University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#981
Annalisa Pastore
#93858
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Annalisa Pastore is a Professor of Chemistry and Molecular Biology at King's College London. In 2018 she was appointed full professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. In 2022, she was appointed director of research for life sciences, chemistry and soft matter science at European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. She resigned in Frebruary 2023.
Go to Profile#982
Jun Wen
#100508
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Jun Wen is an evolutionary biologist and curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in the Department of Botany and has worked in the Laboratory of Molecular Systematics. She researches the monography, phylogenetics, biogeography, and ethnobotany of the plant families Araliaceae and Vitaceae. She has published over 190 scientific papers.
Go to Profile#983
Priyanga Amarasekare
#97454
Overall Influence
Priyanga Amarasekare is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles and distinguished Fellow of the Ecological Society of America . Her research is in the fields of mathematical biology and trophic ecology, with a focus on understanding patterns of biodiversity, species dispersal and the impacts of climate change. She received a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship and received ESA's Robert H. MacArthur Award in 2022.
Go to Profile#984
Anne Ferguson-Smith
#94644
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Anne Carla Ferguson-Smith is a mammalian developmental geneticist. She is the Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships at the University of Cambridge. Formerly head of the Department of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, she is a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge and serves as President of the Genetics Society.
Go to Profile#985
Rachel Jenkins
#86778
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Rachel McDougall Jenkins is a professor of epidemiology and international mental health policy at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre and a visiting professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Go to Profile#986
Linda J. S. Allen
#39569
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Linda Joy Svoboda Allen is an American mathematician and mathematical biologist, the Paul Whitfield Horn Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University. Education and career Allen earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1975 from the College of St. Scholastica, and a master's degree in 1978 and doctorate in 1978 from the University of Tennessee. Her dissertation, Applications of Differential Inequalities to Persistence and Extinction Problems for Reaction-Diffusion Systems, was supervised by Thomas G. Hallam.
Go to Profile#987
Molly J. Crockett
#51506
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Molly J. Crockett is an American neuroscientist who studies human morality, altruism and decision making. She received the 2019 Janet Taylor Spence Award from the Association for Psychological Science.
Go to Profile#988
Himla Soodyall
#63306
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Himla Soodyall is a South African geneticist involved in finding some of the oldest human genetic lines, mainly focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa. Her work on DNA has pointed to southern Africa as the most likely geographic region of origin of the human species.
Go to Profile#989
Pat Monaghan
#94936
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Patricia Monaghan is Regius Professor of Zoology in the Institute of biodiversity, animal health & comparative medicine at the University of Glasgow. Biography Monaghan was educated at Durham University where her PhD investigated the utilisation of urban resources by the herring gull Larus arqentatus.
Go to Profile#990
Allison Tong
#104258
Overall Influence
#991
Dora E. Angelaki
#77400
Overall Influence
Dora Angelaki is a Professor of Neuroscience in the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. She previously held the Wilhelmina Robertson Professorship of Neuroscience at the Baylor College of Medicine. She looks at multi-sensory information flow between subcortical and cortical areas of the brain. Her research interests include spatial navigation and decision-making circuits. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.
Go to Profile#992
Joan E. Strassmann
#73771
Overall Influence
Joan E. Strassmann is a North American evolutionary biologist and the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology at the Washington University in St. Louis. She is known for her work on social evolution and particularly how cooperation prospers in the face of evolutionary conflicts.
Go to Profile#993
Denise P. Barlow
#74544
Overall Influence
1950 - 2017 (67 years)
Denise P. Barlow was a British geneticist who worked in the field of epigenomics. Barlow was an elected member of European Molecular Biology Organization , an honorary professor of genetics at the University of Vienna and recipient of the Erwin Schrödinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1991, she discovered the first mammalian imprinted gene, IGF2R, which codes for the insulin-like growth factor.
Go to Profile#994
Alice L. Pérez Sánchez
#33398
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Alice L. Pérez Sánchez was the Vice-dean of Research at the University of Costa Rica between 2012 and 2016. Pérez has a degree in chemistry from the University of Costa Rica, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Simon Fraser University, Canada. She is a professor in the chemistry department at the University of Costa Rica, and researcher at the Centro de Investigaciones en Productos Naturales, CIPRONA. She was director of CIPRONA from 2002 to 2010, and of the doctoral science program at the same university from 2009 to 2012. Her scientific work focuses on the synthesis of organic anti-p...
Go to Profile#995
Sarah McAnulty
#54721
Overall Influence
Sarah McAnulty is an American squid biologist and science communicator. She is the founder of Skype a Scientist, a non-profit organization that connects scientists and teachers around the world for live video calls.
Go to Profile#996
Katrina Edwards
#76572
Overall Influence
1968 - 2014 (46 years)
Katrina Jane Edwards was a pioneering geomicrobiologist known for her studies of organisms living below the ocean floor, specifically exploring the interactions between the microbes and their geological surroundings, and how global processes were influenced by these interactions. She spearheaded the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigation project at the University of Southern California, which is ongoing. Edwards also helped organize the deep biosphere research community by heading the Fe-Oxidizing Microbial Observatory Project on Loihi Seamount, and serving on several program steering committees involving ocean drilling.
Go to Profile#997
Aimée Classen
#90302
Overall Influence
Aimée Classen is an American ecologist who studies the impact of global changes on a diverse array of terrestrial ecosystems. Her work is notable for its span across ecological scales and concepts, and the diversity of terrestrial ecosystems that it encompasses, including forests, meadows, bogs, and tropics in temperate and boreal climates.
Go to Profile#998
Marta Zlatic
#90611
Overall Influence
Marta Zlatic is a Croatian neuroscientist who is group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. Her research investigates how neural circuits generate behaviour. Early life and education Zlatic is from Zagreb, Croatia. She has said that growing up she had excellent Latin and Greek teachers. She was awarded a full scholarship to study the Natural Sciences Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge. During her summer holidays from Cambridge, Zlatic studied linguistics and Russian at the University of Zagreb. Alongside her studies, Zlatic was involved with the Cambridge theatre scene, taking part in Greek tragedies and Shakespeare's plays.
Go to Profile#999
Paola Allavena
#104694
Overall Influence
#1000
Anna Wåhlin
#53816
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Anna Wåhlin is a Swedish researcher on the Antarctic and the polar seas. She is a professor of physical oceanography at the University of Gothenburg and co-chair of the Southern Ocean Observing System.
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