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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School

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Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Biology,

#1001

Amy Bastian

#53981

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Amy Jo Bastian is an American neuroscientist, who has made important contributions to the neuroscience of sensorimotor control. From 2011 she has been a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. In 2015 Bastian was appointed Chief Science Officer at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Bastian is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

#1002

Janice Limson

#46712

Overall Influence

Janice Leigh Limson is a South African Professor of Biotechnology, former Chairperson the School of Biotechnology at Rhodes University and the SARChI Chair in Biotechnology Innovation & Engagement at Rhodes University. She is founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Science in Africa, the first popular online science magazine for Africa. Her research focuses on topics ranging from the development of nanotechnology biosensors for cancer diagnostics, drug delivery, detection of pathogens in food to the design of fuel cell technology.

#1003

Johanna Schmitt

#70492

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Johanna Schmitt is an evolutionary ecologist and plant geneticist. Her research is notable for its focus on the genetic basis of traits in ecologically valuable plants and on predicting how such plants will respond and adapt to environmental change such as climate warming. She has authored over 100 articles and her works have been cited over 7900 citations. She is honored with being the first female scientist at Brown University to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

#1004

Nesrin Özören

#98938

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Nesrin Özören , is a Turkish molecular biologist researching vaccines, apoptosis, innate immune signaling, Behçet's disease, and melanomas. She is a professor at Boğaziçi University. Early life and education Nesrin Özören was born on July 25, 1972, in the in Silistra Province, Bulgaria. In 1995, she completed a B.S. in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Boğaziçi University where she graduated second in her class.

#1005

Kathleen Taylor

#30883

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (123 years)

Kathleen E. Taylor is a popular science author and a research scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. In July 2012 she was appointed as a Science Fellow of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour.

#1006

Dolly Montoya Castaño

#92356

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Dolly Montoya Castaño , also known as Dolly Montoya, is a Colombian university professor and scientist, and rector of the National University of Colombia. She was re-elected for the period 2021–2024, having already served in 2018–2021 when she became the first woman to hold the position.

#1007

Kimberly Noble

#21687

Overall Influence

Kimberly G. Noble is an American neuroscientist and pediatrician known for her work in socioeconomic disparities and children's cognitive development. She is Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director of the Neurocognition, Early Experience and Development Lab.

#1008

Angela Belcher

#38456

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Angela M. Belcher is a materials scientist, biological engineer, and the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. She is director of the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow. In 2019, she was named head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.

#1009

Siouxsie Wiles

#47978

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Siouxsie Wiles is a British microbiologist and science communicator. Her specialist areas are infectious diseases and bioluminescence. She is based in New Zealand. She is the head of University of Auckland's Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab.

#1010

Diane Lipscombe

#77517

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Diane Lipscombe is a British neuroscientist who is a professor of neuroscience and the Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Director of Brown University’s Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science. She served as the president of the Society for Neuroscience in 2019, the world’s largest organization for the study of the brain and nervous system.

#1011

Sarah Tabrizi

#43054

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Sarah Joanna Tabrizi FMedSci is a British neurologist and neuroscientist in the field of neurodegeneration, particularly Huntington's disease. She is a Professor and Joint Head of the Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the UCL Institute of Neurology; the founder and Director of the UCL Huntington's Disease Centre; a Principal Investigator at the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL; and an Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, where she established the Multidisciplinary Huntington's Disease Clinic. The UCL Hunti...

#1012

Maria Harrison

#81370

Overall Influence

Maria Harrison is a plant biologist, William H. Crocker Scientist professor at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science, and adjunct professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. Harrison's lab, including post-doctoral, graduate, undergraduate, and intern students, utilizes a combination of molecular, cell biology, genetic, and genomic techniques to investigate the developmental mechanisms underlying the symbiosis and phosphate transfer between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the roots of model legume Medicago truncatula. Among Harrison's most notable fin...

#1013

Virginia Man-Yee Lee

Virginia Man-Yee Lee

#85040

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Virginia Man-Yee Lee is a Chinese-born American biochemist and neuroscientist who specializes in the research of Alzheimer's disease. She is the current John H. Ware 3rd Endowed Professor in Alzheimer's Research at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She received the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.

#1014

Lynne Isbell

#28619

Overall Influence

Lynne A. Isbell is an American ethologist and primatologist, professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. Isbell has served as president of the American Society of Primatologists and is the originator of the snake detection theory, which suggests that snakes have contributed to the evolution of the visual system of primates.

#1015

Marlene Zuk

#76406

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Marlene Zuk is an American evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist. She worked as professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside until she transferred to the University of Minnesota in 2012. Her studies involve sexual selection and parasites.

#1016

Daria Hazuda

#38084

Overall Influence

Daria J Hazuda is a biochemist known for discovering the first HIV Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors and leading the development of the first HIV integrase inhibitor to gain FDA approval, Isentress . Her lab also determined these inhibitors' mechanism of action and ways the virus could develop resistance to them. Hazuda has also performed extensive research and led the development of antivirals for Hepatitis C Virus including Elbasvir and Grazoprevir. She currently serves as Vice President for Infectious Diseases Discovery for Merck and Chief Scientific Officer of their MRL Cambridge Exp...

#1017

Patricia Wiltshire

#68144

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Professor Patricia Wiltshire , is a forensic ecologist, botanist and palynologist. She has been consulted by police forces and industry in almost 300 investigations in several countries and has been instrumental in solving several high-profile crimes, including the killings of Sarah Payne and Millie Dowler, the cold case of Christopher Laverack, the Soham murders, and the Ipswich serial murders.

#1018

Sevvandi Jayakody

#37468

Overall Influence

Sevvandi Jayakody is a conservationist and echinodermologist from Sri Lanka, who is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Aquaculture & Fisheries at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. Career Jayakody has a BSc in Zoology from the University of Kelaniya and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen. She also has a diploma in Wildlife Management and Conservation from the Wildlife Institute of India. She joined the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation as an Assistant Director in 1997, followed post-doctoral research at institutions in Scotland, Canada and Australia. She joined the Department of Aquaculture & Fisheries at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka in 2001.

#1019

Riin Tamm

#69040

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Riin Tamm is an Estonian geneticist and a science popularizer. She is the head of the Department of Youth and Talent Policy within the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. She has previously served as the director of University of Tartu Youth Academy.

#1020

Jane Memmott

#100502

Overall Influence

Jane Memmott is an ecologist and entomologist from the United Kingdom. She is professor of ecology at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on community ecology and she is an expert on the interactions between insect pollinators and plants.

#1021

Lori Passmore

#93878

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Lori Anne Passmore is a Canadian/British cryo electron microscopist and structural biologist who works at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. She is known for her work on multiprotein complexes involved in gene expression and development of new supports for cryo-EM.

#1022

Eugenia del Pino

Eugenia del Pino

#55454

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Eugenia María del Pino Veintimilla is a developmental biologist at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador in Quito. She was the first Ecuadorian citizen to be elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences . She was awarded the 2019 Prize of the Latin American Society for Developmental Biology for her strong contributions to research in Ecuador, and in general to promoting Developmental Biology in Latin America.

#1023

Jenny P. Y. Ting

#103174

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Jenny Pan-Yun Ting is a Taiwanese-American immunologist and microbiologist at University of North Carolina. She is a highly cited researcher who studies the role of NLR genes in regulating inflammation and how nanoparticles and microparticles can be used as vaccine adjuvants. She was president of the American Association of Immunologists from 2020 to 2021.

#1024

Ami Bhatt

#78098

Overall Influence

Ami Bhatt is an American physician-scientist who studies the link between blood cancers and the human gut microbiome. She holds associate professorships in Genetics and Medicine at Stanford University. She is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute , and Stanford ChEM-H. In addition, Bhatt is the co-founder of Global Oncology Inc., a nonprofit focused on providing quality oncologic treatment in resource-constrained settings.

#1025

Dominique Bergmann

#102647

Overall Influence

Dominique C. Bergmann is a plant scientist with a specific focus on developmental biology and plant biology. Correspondingly, she is a professor of Biology at Stanford University and is in association with the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Additionally, Bergmann is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

#1026

Dionicia Gamboa

#66872

Overall Influence

Dionicia Gamboa is a Peruvian parasitologist and professor at Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander von Humboldt, Cayetano Heredia University. Her research focusses on Plasmodium vivax, a major malaria parasite species in South America .

#1027

Rosa Rademakers

#94054

Overall Influence

Rosa Rademakers is an American neurogeneticist and professor within the Department of Neuroscience at the Mayo Clinic. Her research centers on the genetic basis of neurodegenerative diseases, such as identifying causal genes and their function, exploring familial risk factors, and the mechanism of the degeneration. Her neurodegenerative diseases of focus include "Alzheimer's disease , frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ." She received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology, a Master of Arts in Biochemistry, and a Ph.D. in Science, all from the University of Antwerp. Originally f...

#1028

Miriam Phoebe de Vos

#87766

Overall Influence

1912 - 2005 (93 years)

Miriam Phoebe de Vos was a leading South African botanist and academic. She was an expert on bulbous plants, especially Romulea. She also had a special interest in Moraea and Clivia. Career She studied at the University of Stellenbosch and obtained her BSc and MSc . She held a junior lecture position from 1939 at the University of Cape Town. She obtained a DSc in Botany in 1940 from Stellenbosch University with the thesis "A cytological study on South African genera of the Aizoaceae and the Proteacea". In 1941 she joined the Botany Department of the University of Stellenbosch. Cytology, embryology, anatomy and biosystematics were the subjects she lectured in.

#1029

Helen McShane

#47574

Overall Influence

Helen Irene McShane is a British infectious disease physician and a professor of vaccinology, in the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, where she has led the tuberculosis vaccine research group since 2001. She is senior research fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford.

#1030

Denisa D Wagner

#105900

Overall Influence

#1031

Rong Li

#100759

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Rong Li is the Director of Mechanobiology Institute, a Singapore Research Center of Excellence, at the National University of Singapore. She is a Distinguished Professor at the National University of Singapore's Department of Biological Sciences and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Whiting School of Engineering. She previously served as Director of Center for Cell Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences. She is a leader in understanding cellula...

#1032

Lois K. Miller

#100446

Overall Influence

1945 - 1999 (54 years)

Lois Kathryn Miller was an American geneticist and academic. She was a Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics and Entomology at the University of Georgia. A graduate of Upsala College, she taught at the University of Idaho before moving to Georgia. Miller's research was related to baculoviruses, which infect agricultural pests. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#1033

Susan Harrison

#105936

Overall Influence

Susan Patricia Harrison is a professor of ecology at the University of California, Davis who works on the dynamics of natural populations and ecological diversity. She is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America and the California Academy of Sciences. She has previously served as vice president of the American Society of Naturalists. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2018.

#1034

Mary Carrington

#102250

Overall Influence

Mary N. Carrington is an American immunologist researching the role of host genetics in cancer, autoimmunity and infectious disease pathogenesis. She is director of the basic science program at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.

#1035

Marian Packham

#91235

Overall Influence

1927 - 2020 (93 years)

Marian Aitchison Packham was Professor Emerita in biochemistry at University of Toronto. She researched biochemical and physiological activities of blood platelets. Education Packham studied Biochemistry at the University of Toronto, obtaining her BA in 1949 and completing her doctorate in 1954.

#1036

Louise Burke

#77304

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Louise Mary Burke, is an Australian sports dietitian, academic and author. She was the head of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport throughout its existence from 1990 to 2018 and in 2018 was appointed Chief of AIS Nutrition Strategy. Since 2014, she holds the chair in sports nutrition in the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University.

#1037

Eve Johnstone

#88240

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Eve Cordelia Johnstone CBE FRCP FRCPE FRCPGla FRCPsych FMedSci FRSE is a Scottish physician, clinical researcher, psychiatrist and academic. Her main research area is in the field of schizophrenia and psychotic illness. She is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Honorary Assistant Principal for Mental Health Research Development and Public Understanding of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. She is best known for her 1976 groundbreaking study that showed brain abnormalities in schizophrenic patients compared to a control group.

#1038

Noris Salazar Allen

#39588

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Noris Salazar Allen is a bryologist from Panama, who is Professor of Botany at the University of Panama and an associate researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Salazar Allen was the first Panamanian to research bryophytes, and was instrumental in expanding the University of Panama's bryological collection to 10,000 specimens. In 2013 she received the Riclef Grolle Award for Excellence in Bryodiversity Research from the International Association of Bryologists.

#1039

Hazel Sive

#83048

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Hazel L. Sive is a South African-born biologist and educator. She is Dean of the College of Science, and Professor of Biology at Northeastern University. Sive is a research pioneer, award-winning educator and innovator in the higher education space who was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in November 2021. Prior to June 2020, she was a Member of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Sive studies development of the ver...

#1040

Charlotte Deane

Charlotte Deane

#67190

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Charlotte Mary Deane is an English Professor of Structural Bioinformatics and the former Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Charlotte Deane was born in May 1975. She completed her undergraduate education at University College, Oxford studying chemistry, completing her final year project in Graham Richards' group. She then went to the University of Cambridge to study structural bioinformatics supervised by Tom Blundell. In 2000 she published her thesis entitled "Protein structure prediction: amino acid propensities and comparative modell...

#1041

Margaret L. Kripke

#80177

Overall Influence

Margaret L. Kripke is an American immunologist. She is an expert in photoimmunology and the immunology of skin cancers. She earned a BS and MS in bacteriology, and a Ph.D in immunology, at the University of California at Berkeley.

#1042

Andrea Pauli

#103192

Overall Influence

Andrea Pauli is a developmental biologist and biochemist studying how the egg transitions into an embryo, and more specifically the molecular mechanisms underlying vertebrate fertilisations, egg dormancy, and subsequent egg activation. Her lab uses zebrafish as the main model organism. Andrea Pauli is a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology at the Vienna Biocenter in Austria.

#1043

Tracy Bale

#100335

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Tracy Bale is an American neuroscientist and molecular biologist. Bale is a professor and Director of the Center for Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her research has centered on the role of parental, prenatal, and early life stress on the developing brain and subsequent behavior throughout the lifespan. She is also the current President of the International Brain Research Organization.

#1044

Angela Milner

#72135

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

Angela Cheryl Milner was a British paleontologist who, in 1986 alongside Alan Charig, described the dinosaur Baryonyx. Early life Milner was born Angela Girven in Gosforth, daughter of Cyril and Lucia Girven. Her father was the county engineer for Northumberland. She attended Newcastle upon Tyne Church High School. She initially planned to focus on microbiology for her university degree, but inspiring lectures from Alec Panchen made her change to palaeontology. She gained a BSc in zoology at Newcastle University and stayed there in 1969 to take a PhD in palaeontology supervised by Panchen foc...

#1045

Carole Meredith

#41781

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Carole P. Meredith is an American grape geneticist and was a professor at the Department of Viticulture and Enology of University of California, Davis. Career Before she retired in 2003, Meredith and her research group pioneered the use of DNA typing to differentiate Vitis vinifera grape varieties and for elucidating their parentage, which gives insight into the varieties' history and place of origin. In 1996, Meredith and her research established the parentage of Cabernet Sauvignon, which was the first application of such techniques. Later, Chardonnay, Syrah, and Zinfandel followed. The research group showed that the varieties Zinfandel, Primitivo, and Crljenak Kaštelanski are identical.

#1046

Bonnie S. Dunbar

#67580

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Bonita Sue "Bonnie" Dunbar is a former professor in the department of molecular and cell biology at Baylor College of Medicine, a position she held from 1994 to 2004. Prior thereto she was an assistant professor in the same department at the same university from 1981 to 1983. From 1984 to 1994, also at Baylor College of Medicine, she also held a position as associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology. She is currently an honorary lecturer at the University of Nairobi. She is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Endocrine Society, the American Society for Cell Biology, and the New York Academy of Sciences.

#1047

Joanna Moncrieff

#13339

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Joanna Moncrieff is a British psychiatrist and academic. She is Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London and a leading figure in the Critical Psychiatry Network. She is a prominent critic of the modern 'psychopharmacological' model of mental disorder and drug treatment, and the role of the pharmaceutical industry. She has written papers, books and blogs on the use and over-use of drug treatment for mental health problems, the mechanism of action of psychiatric drugs, their subjective and psychoactive effects, the history of drug treatment, and the evidence for its benefits and harms.

#1048

Folasade Ogunsola

#27646

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Folasade Tolulope Ogunsola OON is a Nigerian professor of medical microbiology, and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos. She specializes in disease control, particularly HIV/AIDS. Ogunsola was provost of College of Medicine, University of Lagos and is reputed as being the first woman to occupy the position. She was also the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the institution between 2017 and 2021. She was acting vice chancellor of the University of Lagos for a short period in 2020 when the University was plunged into crisis as a result of the removal of the Vice Chancellor by the University ...

#1049

Birgitta Bremer

#92477

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Birgitta Bremer , Swedish botanist and academic, is professor at Stockholm University, and director of the Bergius Botanic Garden. Career Professor Bremer obtained her doctorate in botany in 1980 from Stockholm University, with the thesis "Taxonomy of mosses of the genus Schistidium".

#1050

Bettina Meiser

#94923

Overall Influence

Bettina Meiser is a professor at the University of New South Wales, with expertise in the psychosocial aspects of genetics; cancer, hereditary cancer, and the impact of genetic counselling and testing.

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