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,
#1101
Anne E. Carpenter
#83008
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Anne E. Carpenter is an American scientist in the field of image analysis for cell biology and artificial intelligence for drug discovery. She is the co-creator of CellProfiler, open-source software for high-throughput biological image analysis, and a co-inventor of the Cell Painting assay, a method for image-based profiling. She is an Institute Scientist and Senior Director of the Imaging Platform at the Broad Institute.
Go to Profile#1102
Lynnette Ferguson
#48301
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Lynnette Robin Ferguson is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2021 is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland. Ferguson has been a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi since 2016. Academic career Ferguson says she initially wanted to be a hairdresser, until a stint at hairdressing school showed her she did not have the talent or interest for it.
Go to Profile#1103
Renee Wegrzyn
#82178
Overall Influence
Renee Diane Wegrzyn is an American applied biologist who has served as the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health since October 2022. Education Wegrzyn earned a Bachelor of Science and PhD in applied biology from Georgia Tech.
Go to Profile#1104
Chicita F. Culberson
#89572
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Chicita Frances Culberson was an American lichenologist. Education She graduated with a B.S. from the University of Cincinnati in 1953, where she also met her future husband, Bill Culberson. In 1954, she received an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin, and in 1959 she received a Ph.D. from Duke University.
Go to Profile#1105
Sarah P. Gibbs
#105069
Overall Influence
1930 - 2014 (84 years)
Sarah P. Gibbs was Emeritus Professor of Biology at McGill University in Canada, where she was initially appointed as an assistant professor on tenure track in September 1966. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she received the 2003 Gilbert Morgan Smith medal for research on algae.
Go to Profile#1106
Maria Dornelas
#44107
Overall Influence
Maria Dornelas FRSE is a researcher in biodiversity and professor of biology based at St. Andrew's University. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021. Her research into biodiversity change has challenged previous views, on the growth and decline of coral reefs to understanding global biodiversity with data analysis on how species or ecosystems are changing in the Anthropocene.
Go to Profile#1107
Julie Huber
#93829
Overall Influence
Julie Huber is a Senior Scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She previously was an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, an associate scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the associate director of the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution. She also serves as the associate director of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, a National Science Foundation-supported program headquartered at the Uni...
Go to Profile#1108
Katharina Gaus
#86956
Overall Influence
1972 - 2021 (49 years)
Katharina Gaus was a German-Australian immunologist and molecular microscopist. She was an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and founding head of the Cellular Membrane Biology Lab, part of the Centre for Vascular Research at the University of New South Wales. Gaus used new super-resolution fluorescence microscopes to examine the plasma membrane within intact living cells, and study cell signalling at the level of single molecules to better understand how cells "make decisions". A key discovery of Gaus and her team was how T-cells decide to switch on the body's immune system to attack diseases. He...
Go to Profile#1109
Natalie Whitford Uhl
#55894
Overall Influence
1919 - 2017 (98 years)
Natalie Whitford Uhl was an American botanist who specialised in palms. The eldest of three sisters, she grew up on a farm in Rhode Island. She graduated B.S in 1940 from Rhode Island State College, publishing two papers on general plant morphology with Vernon Cheadle, her senior year advisor, the same year. In 1940 she went to Cornell University, earning her M.S. in 1943, and her Ph.D. in 1947. While at Cornell, she met and married her husband, Charles Uhl, abandoning botany to start a family.
Go to Profile#1110
Ying-Hui Fu
#91132
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Ying-Hui Fu is a Taiwanese-American biologist and human geneticist who has made important contributions to understanding the genetics of many neurological disorders. Her chief discoveries include describing Mendelian sleep phenotypes, identifying causative genes and mutations for circadian rhythm disorders, and characterizing genetic forms of demyelinating degenerative disorders. Fu is currently a professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. She was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2018.
Go to Profile#1111
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem
#73688
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Faraneh Vargha-Khadem is a British cognitive neuroscientist specializing in developmental amnesia among children. Faraneh was a part of the team that identified the FOXP2 gene, the so-called 'speech gene', that may explain why humans talk and chimps do not.
Go to Profile#1112
Marjorie Thompson
#85195
Overall Influence
1954 - 2014 (60 years)
Marjorie Ellen Thompson was an American biologist and musician who served as Associate Dean of Biological Sciences at Brown University. Thompson received a ScB in biochemistry and a PhD in biology from Brown, in 1974 and 1979 respectively, and was appointed Associate Dean of Biological Sciences in 1983, a position she continued to hold until her death in 2014. Her awards as Associate Dean included the Barrett Hazeltine Senior Class Citation in 1994 and 1996, the Onyx Award in 1998 and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Advising in 2009. Outside of her work as an aca...
Go to Profile#1113
Denise Faustman
#48852
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Denise Louise Faustman is an American physician and medical researcher. An associate professor of medicine at Harvard University and director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, her work specializes in diabetes mellitus type 1 and other autoimmune diseases. She has worked at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston since 1985.
Go to Profile#1114
Priscilla Kolibea Mante
#71824
Overall Influence
Priscilla Kolibea Mante is a Ghanaian neuropharmacologist, a researcher and lecturer from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, currently based at the Kumasi campus. Her research work focuses on alternatives of plant-based therapeutic options to manage drug-resistant epilepsy and the neglected tropical disease neurocysticercosis. In her work, she mostly explores the anticonvulsant activity of the plant alkaloid cryptolepine and its solid-lipid nanoparticles in the management of neurocysticercosis-induced epilepsy. Her goal is to identify a way to help cryptolepine permeate more e...
Go to Profile#1115
Pernessa C. Seele
#48923
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Pernessa C. Seele is an American immunologist and interfaith public health activist. Seele is the CEO and founder of Balm in Gilead, Inc., a religious-based organization that provides support to people with AIDS and their families, as well as working for prevention of HIV and AIDS. In 1989 she initiated the Harlem Week of Prayer, with 50 churches, synagogues and mosques participating. This became an annual event and organizing force for the religious community to respond to the AIDS crisis.
Go to Profile#1116
Rentala Madhubala
#105473
Overall Influence
Rentala Madhubala is an Indian scientist who studied molecular parasitology and functional genomics. She is the director of the Academic Staff College in Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was the Dean at the School of Life Sciences and the director of the Advanced Instrumentation Research Facility there.
Go to Profile#1117
Kit Kovacs
#105009
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Kit Kovacs is a marine mammal researcher, best known for her work on biology, conservation and management of whales and seals. She is based at the Norwegian Polar Institute , Tromsø and is an Adjunct professor of biology, Marine Biology, at the University Centre in Svalbard .
Go to Profile#1118
Michela Gallagher
#105003
Overall Influence
Michela Gallagher is an American cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist. She is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. Her scientific work has changed the model of neurocognitive aging, and developed new indices for its study. Previously, work had focused on neurodegeneration as a primary cause of memory loss.
Go to Profile#1119
Irene Schloss
#35397
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Irene R. Schloss is an Antarctic researcher, best known for her work on plankton biology. She is a researcher at the Argentine Antarctic Institute and was a correspondent researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina until July 2017. She became an independent researcher since August 2017 and an associate professor at the University of Quebec.
Go to Profile#1120
Agata Smogorzewska
#72826
Overall Influence
Agata Smogorzewska is a Polish-born scientist. She is an associate professor at Rockefeller University, heading the Laboratory of Genome Maintenance. Her work primarily focuses on DNA interstrand crosslink repair and the diseases resulting from deficiencies in this repair pathway, including Fanconi anemia and karyomegalic interstitial nephritis.
Go to Profile#1121
Wendy Chung
#63053
Overall Influence
Wendy K. Chung is an American clinical and molecular geneticist and physician. She currently directs the clinical genetics program at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital / Columbia University Medical Center in New York City and serves as the Kennedy Family Professor of Pediatrics. She is the author of 600 peer-reviewed articles and 75 chapters and has won several awards as a physician, researcher, and professor. Chung helped to initiate a new form of newborn screening for spinal muscular atrophy which is used nationally and was among the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case which banned gene patenti...
Go to Profile#1122
Una M. Ryan
#92750
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Una M. Ryan is a biochemist from Ireland, researching parasites and infectious agents in Australia, where she lives. She is an associate professor at the School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences of Murdoch University. In 2000, she received the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year from the Prime Minister of Australia for her work in isolating a method of diagnosing parasites.
Go to Profile#1123
Lisa Ng
#90289
Overall Influence
Lisa Ng is a Singaporean viral immunologist. In 2008, she became the first Singaporean and the first woman to win the ASEAN Young Scientist and Technologist Award for her work in developing diagnostic kits for Avian Influenza and Sars-CoV. She has been featured as part of the "Beyond Curie" project as a pioneer in viral immunology, as well as being inducted into the Singapore Women's Hall of Fame. Her ongoing research includes endemic tropical diseases and Sars-CoV-19.
Go to Profile#1124
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser
#104455
Overall Influence
Janice K Kiecolt-Glaser is S. Robert Davis Chair of Medicine and Distinguished University Professor at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. She is a clinical health psychologist specializing in psychoneuroimmunology and Director of the Ohio State Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research. Her research on stress associated with caregiving and marital relationships has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other news outlets.
Go to Profile#1125
Jenny Tung
#46653
Overall Influence
Jenny Tung is an evolutionary anthropologist and geneticist. She is an Associate Professor of Biology and a researcher at Duke University. In 2019, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. Personal life Tung’s mother and father immigrated to the United States from China and moved to Maryland and then to Delaware where they had Tung and her older sister, Wenny. Tung’s father was a chemical engineer for DuPont, an American chemical company, and her mother was a teacher prior to their coming to the United States. Upon starting her undergraduate work at Duke University, Tung studied biology with ...
Go to Profile#1126
Beronda Montgomery
#106700
Overall Influence
Dr. Beronda Montgomery is a writer, science communicator, and researcher. In 2022, she moved to Grinnell College as professor of biology and vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college. Prior to Grinnell, Montgomery served as Michigan State University Foundation Professor in the Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics. She was also a member of the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory. Her research group investigates how photosynthetic organisms adapt to changes in their environment. Her scholarship extends beyond biology and into st...
Go to Profile#1127
Pamela J. Green
#98081
Overall Influence
Pamela J. Green is Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair, Professor of Plant and Soil Sciences and Professor of Marine Studies at the University of Delaware. She has researched the uses for RNA, one of the three major biological macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.
Go to Profile#1128
Anita Thapar
#101641
Overall Influence
Anita Thapar is a Welsh child psychiatrist who is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience at Cardiff University. Her research focuses on risk factors for ADHD and major depression in children. She was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1995, and of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Learned Society of Wales in 2011. In 2017, she received the Frances Hoggan Medal from the Learned Society of Wales and was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire , both in recognition of her research in ...
Go to Profile#1129
Merav Ben-David
#71778
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Merav Ben-David is an Israeli-American ecologist, zoologist, and politician who is the chair of the Department of Zoology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming. She was the Democratic nominee in the 2020 United States Senate election in Wyoming, losing to former Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis in the general election. She ran for State Representative from Wyoming's 46th District in 2022.
Go to Profile#1130
Sarah E. Diamond
#88059
Overall Influence
Sarah E. Diamond is an American ecologist and biologist who is currently the George B. Mayer Chair in Urban and Environmental Studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. A climate scientist, Diamond's research focuses on predicting how ecological and biological systems will respond and adapt to the changing climate.
Go to Profile#1131
Beatrice H. Hahn
#110342
Overall Influence
#1132
Cristen Willer
#95207
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Cristen Jennifer Willer is an American-Canadian bioinformatician and geneticist. She is an associate professor of Internal Medicine, Human Genetics, and Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#1133
Lia Addadi
#103664
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Lia Addadi is a professor of structural biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science. She works on crystallisation in biology, including biomineralization, interactions with cells and crystallisation in cell membranes. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2017 for “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research”, and the American Philosophical Society .
Go to Profile#1134
Jean Vance
#108123
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Jean Vance is a British-Canadian biochemist. She is known for her pioneering work on subcellular organelles and for her discovery of a connection between the endoplasmic reticulum and the mitochondrial membrane. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta, Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Go to Profile#1135
Geneviève Almouzni
#100946
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Geneviève Almouzni is a French biologist, a specialist in epigenetics and director of the Curie Institute's research centre. Biography Geneviève Almouzni was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure de Fontenay-aux-Roses from 1980 to 1985. In 1988, she defended a thesis in microbiology at the Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie on the use of a system derived from xenope eggs to study DNA chromatin replication and assembly under the supervision of Marcel Méchali.
Go to Profile#1136
Marjorie G. Horning
#50571
Overall Influence
1917 - 2020 (103 years)
Marjorie Janice Groothuis Horning was an American biochemist and pharmacologist. She was considered to be a pioneer of chromatography for her work in developing new techniques and applying them to the study of drug metabolism. She demonstrated that drugs and their metabolites can be transferred from a pregnant woman to her developing child, and later through breast milk, from a mother to a baby. Horning's work made possible the prevention of birth defects, as doctors began to warn of the dangers of drugs, alcohol, and smoking during pregnancy.
Go to Profile#1137
Kim D. Pruitt
#96806
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Kim Dixon Pruitt is an American bioinformatician. She is chief of the information engineering branch at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Pruitt led the development of the RefSeq gene database.
Go to Profile#1138
Janet Sprent
#96711
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Janet Irene Sprent, FRSE OBE is a British botanical scientist, and emeritus professor at University of Dundee. Education and career After graduating from Imperial College London in 1954 with a BSc and ARCS, Sprent worked for a year at Rothamsted Experimental Station before undertaking a PhD at the University of Tasmania. She taught botany for two years at Rochester Grammar School before being awarded a lectureship at Goldsmiths College in 1960. Sprent moved to Dundee, Scotland in 1967 where she secured a research fellowship at the University of Dundee. She became dean of the Faculty of Scienc...
Go to Profile#1139
Suzanne Walker
#75710
Overall Influence
Suzanne Walker is a professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard University. Her research focuses on mechanisms of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.
Go to Profile#1140
Julie F. Barcelona
#109179
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Julie F. Barcelona is a Filipina botanist and taxonomist working as Research Associate at University of Canterbury . She is mostly known for her research on the Philippine members of the genus Rafflesia.
Go to Profile#1141
Rosina Bierbaum
#59017
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Rosina M. Bierbaum is currently the Roy F. Westin Chair in Natural Economics and Research Professor at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy. She is also a professor and former dean at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment . She was hired in October 2001, by then-University of Michigan President, Lee Bollinger. She is also the current Chair of The Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the GEF on its policies, strategies, programs, and projects.
Go to Profile#1142
Maydianne Andrade
#46527
Overall Influence
Maydianne Andrade is a Jamaican-born Canadian ecologist. She is known for her work on the mating habits of spiders, in particular spiders belonging to the Latrodectus species. In 2007, she was named a Canadian Research Chair in Integrative Behavioural Ecology.
Go to Profile#1143
Emily Balskus
#73530
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Emily P. Balskus is an American chemical biologist, enzymologist, microbiologist, and biochemist born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1980. She has been on the faculty of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department of Harvard University since 2011 and is currently the Morris Kahn Professor. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and three book chapters. Since 2012 she has been invited to give over 170 lectures, has held positions on various editorial boards, and served as a reviewer for ACS and Nature journals among others. Balskus also currently serves as a consultant for Novartis, Kint...
Go to Profile#1144
Tatyana Sharpee
#92314
Overall Influence
Tatyana Sharpee is an American neuroscientist. She is a Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where she spearheads a research group at the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, with the support from Edwin Hunter Chair in Neurobiology. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Physics at University of California, San Diego. She was elected a fellow of American Physical Society in 2019.
Go to Profile#1145
Nieves López Martínez
#78515
Overall Influence
1949 - 2010 (61 years)
Nieves López Martínez was a Spanish paleontologist specializing in research on the vertebrate fossil record and part of a group of paleontologists who were responsible for the modernization of paleontological studies in Spain.
Go to Profile#1146
Frédérique Vidal
#71043
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Frédérique Vidal is a Monegasque-born French-based biochemist, academic administrator, and politician who served as Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in the government of Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and Jean Castex from 2017 to 2022. She was the president of the University of Nice from 2012 to 2017.
Go to Profile#1147
Patricia Howlin
#97484
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Patricia Howlin is Professor of Clinical Child Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, whose principal research interests focus on autism and developmental disorders including Williams syndrome, developmental language disorders and Fragile X. Howlin had a specific interest in the adult outcomes for individuals with autism. She published and presented on this subject extensively.
Go to Profile#1148
Heidi Johansen-Berg
#106524
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Heidi Johansen-Berg is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford. She studies brain plasticity in the context of stroke rehabilitation and aging.
Go to Profile#1149
Daphne Bavelier
#55151
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Daphné Bavelier is a French cognitive neuroscientist specialized in brain plasticity and learning. She is full Professor at the University of Geneva in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. She heads the Brain and Learning lab at Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland.
Go to Profile#1150
Karin Limburg
#80128
Overall Influence
Karin Limburg is a professor in the department of Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY-ESF. Biography She graduated with a double AB degree in Ecology and Conservation from Vassar College, and then studied Systems Ecology under Howard T. Odum at the University of Florida, Gainesville for her MS degree. She completed her Ph.D. under the supervision of Simon Levin at Cornell University in 1994. A broadly trained ecologist, she has spent most of her career inferring water chemistry and fish ecology from careful examination of fish otoliths. Otoliths are small calcified structures that help fish to hear and balance, and they make excellent subjects for sclerochronology.
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