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,
#1151
Veronica van Heyningen
#98826
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Veronica van Heyningen is an English geneticist who specialises in the etiology of anophthalmia as an honorary professor at University College London . She previously served as head of medical genetics at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh and the president of The Genetics Society. In 2014 she became president of the Galton Institute. she chairs the diversity committee of the Royal Society, previously chaired by Uta Frith.
Go to Profile#1152
Mónica Bettencourt-Dias
#92908
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Areas of Specialization: Molecular Biology Monica Bettencourt-Dias is the Director of Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. A biochemist and cellular biologist, she is also the head of the Cell Cycle Regulation research group. She earned her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Lisbon, and graduated from University College London with a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology. She split her postdoctoral time between the University of Cambridge and Birkbeck, University of London, where she researched kinases and scientific communication. She earned a Diploma in Science...
Go to Profile#1153
Maria Prokhorova
#98486
Overall Influence
1903 - 1993 (90 years)
Maria Illarionovna Prokhorova was a Russian scientist, biologist, the Head of Molotov University, the Dean of Faculty of Biology and Soil Studies at Leningrad State University; also she was the Head of A.A. Ukhtomsky Physiology Institute, a member of International Society for Neurochemistry, Doctor of Biology, and professor. Maria Prokhorova took part in the Great Patriotic War as a researcher on gas gangrene and its methods of treatment.
Go to Profile#1154
Isabella Eckerle
#55530
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Isabella Eckerle is a German virologist who is the co-Head of the Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases at the Geneva University Hospitals and the University of Geneva. Her research considers infectious diseases and the development of cell lines that allow a better understanding of their epidemiology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eckerle studied the difference in response of adults and children to coronavirus disease.
Go to Profile#1155
Tanya M. Smith
#45898
Overall Influence
Tanya M. Smith is a human evolutionary biologist, and Professor at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University . Education Smith obtained her BSc Hons in Biology at the State University of New York at Geneseo in 1997, followed by her MA at Stony Brook University in 2002, and PhD in the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences at Stony Brook University in 2004. She received the Stony Brook University President's Award for Distinguished Doctoral Students in 2005.
Go to Profile#1156
Eucharia Oluchi Nwaichi
#67998
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Eucharia Oluchi Nwaichi is a Nigerian environmental biochemist, soil scientist and toxicologist. Her research interest focus on waste management, pollution prevention and phytoremediation, which involves the treatment of environmental problems through the use of local plants that mitigate the environmental problem without the need to excavate the contaminant material and dispose of it elsewhere. She is an expert in elimination of toxic heavy metal such as cadmium, copper, mercury, lead and arsenic from contaminated soil.
Go to Profile#1157
Eleftheria Zeggini
#100920
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Eleftheria Zeggini is a director of the institute of translational genomics in Helmholtz Zentrum München and a professor at the Technical University of Munich . Previously she served as a research group leader at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute from 2008 to 2018 and an honorary professor in the department of health sciences at the University of Leicester in the UK.
Go to Profile#1158
Deborah Nickerson
#110097
Overall Influence
1954 - 2021 (67 years)
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Nickerson was an American human genomics researcher. She was professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington. Nickerson founded and directed of one of the five clinical sites of the Gregor Consortium and was a major contributor to many genomics projects, including the Human Genome Project and the International HapMap Project.
Go to Profile#1159
Cindy-Lee Dennis
#107556
Overall Influence
Cindy-Lee E. Dennis is a Canadian professor in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She holds the Women's Health Research Chair at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital. Previously she held the Canada Research Chair in Perinatal Community Health at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#1160
Andolalao Rakotoarison
#83445
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (42 years)
Andolalao Rakotoarison is a Malagasy herpetologist. Life and research Rakotoarison conducted her Master's thesis at the University of Antananarivo in 2011. She then conducted her PhD at the Technical University of Braunschweig on the systematics of the frogs of the Madagascar-endemic narrow-mouthed frog subfamily Cophylinae, under the supervision of Professor Miguel Vences. As of mid-2020, she has co-authored the description of 52 frog species and two reptiles . In particular, Rakotoarison has contributed to knowledge of Madagascar's smallest frogs. In 2017, she led a study published as a mon...
Go to Profile#1161
Brigitte Kieffer
#89586
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Dr. Brigitte Kieffer is a French molecular neurobiologist known for her research of opiate receptors. Her areas of expertise include: molecular psychiatry, addiction, mood disorders, pain, and developmental disorders. Kieffer has international reputation in the field of opiate receptors, and has paved the way for better understanding of brain mechanisms involved in pain, mental illness, and drug addiction. She continues to pursue research and directs a team of over 300 people. Her discoveries have shed light on how substances like morphine or heroin can kill pain, and foster addiction.
Go to Profile#1162
Jane Fromont
#99612
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Phyllis Jane Fromont is a New Zealand and Australian scientist specialising in sponges. Early life and education Fromont was raised in Whanganui, New Zealand, the youngest of six children. She became interested in marine biology after scuba diving in Northland, and completed a Bachelor of Science degree that included some marine biology papers at the University of Auckland. She then undertook her overseas experience for about two years, before arriving in Perth, Western Australia, where she found work with an environmental consultancy firm and was a volunteer at the Western Australian Museum with curator of marine invertebrates, Loisette Marsh.
Go to Profile#1163
Joy Zedler
#90891
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Joy Buswell Zedler is an American ecologist and professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin–Madison , holding the title of Aldo Leopold Chair of Restoration Ecology. In addition to restoration ecology, she specializes in the ecology of wetlands, rare species, interactions between native and introduced species, and adaptive management.
Go to Profile#1164
Michèle Ramsay
#79261
Overall Influence
Michèle Ramsay is a South African Professor of human genetics at the National Health Laboratory Service and the University of the Witwatersrand. Ramsay's research has investigated single-gene disorders, epigenetics, obesity and hypertension. She was the President of the African Society of Human Genetics from 2014 until 2019.
Go to Profile#1165
Uma Ramakrishnan
#92430
Overall Influence
Uma Ramakrishnan is an Indian molecular ecologist and professor at National Centre for Biological Sciences , Bangalore. Her research investigates population genetics and evolutionary history of mammals in the Indian subcontinent, including work to save India’s tigers. In July 2019, she was elected as a fellow to the Indian National Science Academy.
Go to Profile#1166
Jennifer Rohn
#83360
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Jennifer Leigh Rohn is a British-American scientist and novelist. She is a cell biologist at University College London, editor of the webzine LabLit.com and founder of the Science is Vital organization that campaigns against cuts to the public funding of science in the United Kingdom.
Go to Profile#1167
Dianne Newman
#65854
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Dianne Newman is a molecular microbiologist, a professor in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering and the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at California Institute of Technology. Her research interests include bioenergetics and cell biology of metabolically diverse, genetically-tractable bacteria. Her work deals with electron-transfer reactions that are part of the metabolism of microorganisms.
Go to Profile#1168
Anne Churchland
#42596
Overall Influence
Anne K. Churchland is a neuroscientist at University of California, Los Angeles. Her laboratory studies the function of the posterior parietal cortex in cognitive processes such as decision-making and multisensory integration. One of her discoveries is that individual neurons in rodent posterior parietal cortex can multitask i.e. play a role in multiple behaviors. Another discovery is that rodents are similar to humans in their ability to perform multisensory integration, i.e. to integrate stimuli from two different modalities such as vision and hearing.
Go to Profile#1169
Anna Wald
#107435
Overall Influence
Anna Wald is an American epidemiologist and clinical virology researcher. She is the Head of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington School of Medicine . Education Wald attended Wesleyan University for her Bachelor of Arts degree, where she was encouraged by a professor to apply to medical school. Wald agreed and graduated from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with her MD degree in 1985. During her doctoral residency, she worked in inner-city hospitals and AIDS clinics. She moved to Seattle in 1989 and was hired by doctors Ann Collier and Lawrence...
Go to Profile#1170
Barbara Cannon
#111758
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
#1171
Faten Zahran Mohammed
#86211
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Faten Zahran Mohammed is an Egyptian biochemist and environmental biologist, cancer biologist and toxicologist known for her work on the anti-tumoral effects of snake venom and iodoacetate. She is currently Professor of Biochemistry at Zagazig University, Egypt, head of the Biochemistry Division, Faculty of Science, and a member of Egyptian Universities Promotion Committees "EUPC".
Go to Profile#1172
Carla Penz
#66120
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Carla Maria Penz is a butterfly comparative morphologist and systematist, and the Doris Zemurray Stone Chair in Biodiversity at the University of New Orleans. Her research also focuses on natural history and behavior, mostly of neotropical butterflies.
Go to Profile#1173
Julia Vorholt
#87618
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Julia A. Vorholt is a full professor of microbiology at ETH Zurich and an elected member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. Biography She earned her PhD in 1997 under professor Rudolf K. Thauer at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, for which she was awarded the Otto Hahn Medal, and is a German national residing in Switzerland. Following her Ph.D., she was a postdoctoral researcher with Mary Lidstrom at the University of Washington.
Go to Profile#1174
Monika Hilker
#91258
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Monika Hilker is a biologist and a professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. She leads the Applied Zoology/Animal Ecology working group at the Freie Universität, studying the chemical and molecular ecology of plant-insect interactions. She is also the speaker and director of the Collaborative Research Centre 973 "Priming and Memory of Organismic Responses to Stress".
Go to Profile#1175
Jeanne Loring
#95725
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Jeanne Frances Loring is an American stem cell biologist, developmental neurobiologist, and geneticist. She is the founding Director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine and emeritus professor at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. She has founded two biotechnology companies, Arcos BioScience and Aspen Neuroscience
Go to Profile#1176
Carla Green
#107504
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Carla Beth Green is an American neurobiologist and chronobiologist. She is a professor in the Department of Neuroscience and a Distinguished Scholar in Neuroscience at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is the former president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms , as well as a satellite member of the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine at the University of Tsukuba in Japan.
Go to Profile#1177
Lenore Terr
#23173
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Lenore C. Terr is a psychiatrist and author known for her research into childhood trauma. Terr graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School with an MD. She is the winner of the Blanche Ittleson Award for her research on childhood trauma. Terr is noted for her work studying the after-effects of the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping on the 26 children who were buried alive for 16 hours after being kidnapped from a bus.
Go to Profile#1178
Jane A. Langdale
#98097
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Jane Alison Langdale, is a British geneticist and academic. She is Professor of Plant Development in the Department of Biology at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford.
Go to Profile#1179
Muireann Irish
#68160
Overall Influence
Muireann Irish is a cognitive neuropsychologist at the Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney. She has won international and national awards, including an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Fellowship.
Go to Profile#1180
Frances Cress Welsing
#16825
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Frances Luella Welsing was an American psychiatrist and well-known proponent of the black supremacist melanin theory. Her 1970 essay, The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism , offered her interpretation of what she described as the origins of white supremacy culture.
Go to Profile#1181
Judith H. Myers
#100151
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Judith H. Myers is a Canadian-American ecologist. In 2014 she was elected president of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution. Professor Myers is well known for her decades-long research into plant-animal-microbe interactions, including insect pest outbreaks, viral pathogens of insects, and pioneering work on biological control of insects and plants, particularly invasive species. Throughout her career she has advocated strongly for both the public understanding of science and for increasing the number of women in the STEM subjects: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
Go to Profile#1182
Sarah Hobbie
#109097
Overall Influence
Sarah E. Hobbie is an American ecologist, currently at the University of Minnesota, a National Academy of Sciences Fellow for Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in 2014 and a formerly Minnesota McKnight Land-Grant Professor.
Go to Profile#1183
Margaret A. Palmer
#90864
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Margaret A. Palmer is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland and director of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center . Palmer works on the restoration of streams and rivers, and is co-author of the book Foundations of Restoration Ecology. Palmer has been an invited speaker in numerous and diverse settings including regional and international forums, science-diplomacy venues , and popular outlets such as The Colbert Report.
Go to Profile#1184
Nancy Simmons
#90216
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Nancy B. Simmons is an American zoologist, mammalogist, professor, and author. Specializing in bats, Simmons has conducted extensive research on the morphology and evolutionary history of numerous bat species. She is also the curator-in-charge of the Department of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History and a professor at the Richard Gilder Graduate School.
Go to Profile#1185
Raissa Berg
#27838
Overall Influence
1913 - 2006 (93 years)
Raissa L'vovna Berg was a Russian geneticist and evolutionary biologist. Early life Raissa Berg was born in St. Petersburg, the second child of Lev Semyonovitch Berg and Polina Abramovna Kotlovker, both natives of Bendery, within the Jewish Pale. In order to study at Moscow University, Lev Berg chose to convert to Lutheranism and became a noted geographer and ichthyologist.
Go to Profile#1186
Denise Montell
#109853
Overall Influence
Denise Johnson Montell is an American biologist who is the Duggan Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research considers the oogenesis process in Drosophila and border cell migration. She has served as president of the Genetics Society of America and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Go to Profile#1187
Rut Carballido Lopez
#105830
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Rut Carballido Lopez also spelled Carballido-Lopez is a Spanish-born microbiologist and research team leader in France. She won an Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize in 2015. Biography Carballido Lopez left her home in Spain for Lyon, France, at the age of 17 and became part of the first graduating class of Eurinsa, the European section of the INSA Lyon First Cycle. .
Go to Profile#1188
Judith Wright
#12222
Overall Influence
1915 - 2000 (85 years)
Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award. Biography Judith Wright was born in Armidale, New South Wales. The eldest child of Phillip Wright and his first wife, Ethel, she spent most of her formative years in Brisbane and Sydney. Wright was of Cornish ancestry. Following the early death of her mother, she lived with her aunt and then boarded at New England Girls' School after her father's remarriage in 1929. After graduating, Wright studied philosophy, English, psychology and history at the University of Sydney.
Go to Profile#1189
Lyn R. Griffiths
#86771
Overall Influence
Lyn Robyn Griffiths is an Australian academic who serves as Distinguished Professor of molecular genetics at Queensland University of Technology, where she is director of the Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health, the Genomics Research Centre and the BridgeTech Programs. Griffiths is internationally renowned for her work in the discovery of the genetics of migraine headaches.
Go to Profile#1190
Melanie Ott
#104425
Overall Influence
Melanie Ott is a German virologist who is a senior investigator of The Ott Lab, Director the Gladstone Institute of Virology, and Senior Vice President of Gladstone Institutes. She is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Go to Profile#1191
Sharon Y. Strauss
#111789
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Sharon Y. Strauss is an American evolutionary ecologist. She is a Professor of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Early life and education Strauss was born in 1956 in New York. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University before enrolling in the University of Minnesota and Florida State University for her MA and PhD. While attending Florida State University, she received the 1987 Murray F. Buell Award for Excellence in Ecology from the Ecological Society of America.
Go to Profile#1192
Oluwatoyin Asojo
#28392
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Oluwatoyin Asojo is Associate Professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Hampton University. She was formerly an Associate Professor of Pediatrics-Tropical medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. She works at "the interface of math, chemistry, biology, computation." She is a crystallographer and interested in structural studies of proteins from neglected tropical disease pathogens.
Go to Profile#1193
Sara Imari Walker
#78059
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Sara Imari Walker is an American theoretical physicist and astrobiologist with research interests in the origins of life, astrobiology, physics of life, emergence, complex and dynamical systems, and artificial life. Walker is deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University , associate director of the ASU-SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems and an associate professor at ASU. She is a co-founder of the astrobiology social network SAGANet, and on the board of directors for Blue Marble Space, a nonprofit education and science organization. ...
Go to Profile#1194
Tessa M. Hill
#72934
Overall Influence
Tessa Michelle Hill is an American marine geochemist and oceanographer. She is a professor at the University of California, Davis, and a resident professor at its Bodega Marine Laboratory. She is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, and in 2016 was named a Leshner Public Engagement Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In that year she also received the US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers .
Go to Profile#1195
Eva-Maria Mandelkow
#98283
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Eva-Maria Mandelkow is a German neuroscientist and Alzheimer's disease researcher at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases , Bonn. Biography Eva-Maria Mandelkow studied medicine in Hamburg and Heidelberg, qualifying in 1968. After three years of medical internships, she began doctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg, investigating the enzyme kinetics of the motor protein myosin. She graduated in 1973 with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, then undertook postdoctoral training at Brandeis University in Massachusetts researching cytoskeletal proteins. She c...
Go to Profile#1196
Patricia G. Gensel
#58332
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Patricia Gabbey Gensel is an American botanist and paleobotanist. Life Gensel was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, earning a B.A. in 1966. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1972 from the University of Connecticut. As of 2011, Gensel was on the faculty of the Biology Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Go to Profile#1197
Karla Kirkegaard
#85521
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Karla Kirkegaard is the Violetta L. Horton Research Professor of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She was the chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology from 2006 to 2010. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on virology.
Go to Profile#1198
Carla Dove
#38410
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Carla J. Dove is an American researcher who specializes in identifying birds that have gotten trapped in airplane engines, known as bird strikes. She is currently the Program Manager for Feather Identification Lab in the Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History. Her work helps promote wildlife safety, as well as pave the way for the development of preventative measures that will decrease the chance of wildlife impacting airplanes. She has published over 40 articles on her research so far.
Go to Profile#1199
Elma González
#41651
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Elma L. González is a Mexican-born American plant cell biologist. She is Professor Emerita of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1974, she was appointed professor of cell and molecular biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. At the time, she was the only Mexican American woman scientist in the University of California system faculty. Professor Martha Zúñiga at the University of California, Santa Cruz, appointed in 1990, was the second. In 2004, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science rec...
Go to Profile#1200
Helene Marsh
#71378
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Professor Helene Denise Marsh is an Australian scientist who has provided research in the field of Environmental Science, more specifically Zoology and Ecology. The focal point of her research has been the biology of dugongs, with particular foci in the areas of population ecology, history, reproduction, diet, and movements. She is the Dean of Graduate Research Studies and the Professor of Environmental Science at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and also a Distinguished Professor in the College of Marine and Environmental Science. Marsh is also a program leader for the Marine and Tropical Research Science Facility.
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