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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Biology,

#1751

Rosie Woodroffe

#122068

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Rosemary Brigitte Woodroffe is a British ecologist and academic. Education Woodroffe was educated at the Somerville College, Oxford and was awarded Bachelor of Arts degree in 1989 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in 1992 for research on factors affecting reproductive success in the European badger, Meles meles L. supervised by David Macdonald.

#1752

Pamela Russell

#115002

Overall Influence

Pamela J. Russell was an Australian academic researcher of immunology, bladder and prostate research. Russell was awarded Membership of the Order of Australia for her research on prostate and bladder cancer in 2003.

#1753

Yishi Jin

#121692

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Yishi Jin is a Chinese-American neurobiologist who is a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is interested in neural development and regeneration in nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Jin is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and American Society for Cell Biology.

#1754

Michelle Dawson

#27682

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Michelle Dawson is a Canadian autism researcher who was diagnosed with autism in 1993–1994. Since 2004, she has worked as an autism researcher affiliated with the Autism Specialized Clinic of Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

#1755

Leanne Redman

#82381

Overall Influence

Leanne M. Redman is a physiologist. She is an LPFA Endowed Fellowship Professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of the Louisiana State University System, where she studies childhood obesity. She was lead researcher on a study that found that low-calorie diets decreased the effects of aging. Redman received the 2018 NPA Garnett-Powers & Associates Mentor Award in recognition of support for post-doctorate mentee scholars in her reproductive endocrinology lab.In October 2023, Redman was honored by The Obesity Society with the 2023 TOPS Research Achievement Award, in recognition to he...

#1756

Jane S. Paulsen

#135059

Overall Influence

#1757

Giamila Fantuzzi

#135068

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

#1758

Tara Matise

#82069

Overall Influence

Tara Matise is an American geneticist at Rutgers University. Since 2018, she has served as chair of the Department of Genetics. Her research interests span computational genetics, data science, and human genetics. She is co-director of the Rutgers University Genetics Coordinating Center.

#1759

Mady Hornig

#87052

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Mady Hornig is an American psychiatrist and an associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. A physician-scientist, her research involves clinical, epidemiological, and animal model research on autism and related neurodevelopmental conditions. She directs the clinical core of an international investigation of the role of Borna disease virus in human mental illness and participates as a key investigator for the Autism Birth Cohort project, a large prospective epidemiological study, based in Norway, that is identifying how genes and timing interact with environmental agents preceding the onset of autism spectrum diagnoses.

#1760

Elly Nedivi

#102690

Overall Influence

Elly Nedivi is an American neuroscientist. She is a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the William R. and Linda R. Young Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#1761

Joyce Van Eck

#120099

Overall Influence

Joyce Van Eck is a plant biologist and faculty member at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, NY. She is an Adjunct Professor in the Section of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University. Education Van Eck attended Pennsylvania State University as an undergraduate, receiving a bachelor's degree in plant breeding. She studied plant tissue culture at the University of Delaware with Sherry L. Kitto including the regeneration of mint species from culture. She completed her PhD at Cornell University in 1993. In 2008 she became the director of the Boyce Thompson Center for Biotechnology, a...

#1762

Marlena Fejzo

#63043

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Marlena Schoenberg Fejzo is an American medical scientist and professor of research on hyperemesis gravidarum and ovarian cancer. She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University in Applied Math in 1989 and a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard University in 1995. Currently she has joint appointments in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Southern California and the department of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she works in the laboratory of Dennis J. Slamon.

#1763

Nan Bernstein Ratner

#54291

Overall Influence

Nan Bernstein Ratner is a professor in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. Ratner is a board-recognized specialist in child language disorders. Her primary areas of research are fluency development and disorder, psycholinguistics, and child language development. She has published numerous research articles, chapters, and edited texts, as well as co-authored textbooks in her areas of research.

#1764

Ingrid Pabinger

#135399

Overall Influence

#1765

Louise Howard

#119971

Overall Influence

Louise Michele Howard is Professor of Women's Mental Health, King's College London. Howard's research includes medication in pregnancy, violence and health and the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of perinatal mental health services. She is an Honorary Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist with South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

#1766

Justine Germo Nzweundji

#116578

Overall Influence

Dr. Justine Germo Nzweundjiis a plant biotechnologist from Cameroon. She is the president of the Cameroon Academy of Young Scientists, and was a 2011 fellow of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards.

#1767

Christine Alewine

#105122

Overall Influence

Christine Campo Alewine is an American oncologist and biologist researching immunotoxin therapeutics in pancreatic cancer. She is an investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Education Campo completed a B.A. in chemistry and Asian studies at Dartmouth College. In college, she interned under chemist Karen Wetterhahn focusing on the environmental effects of toxic metals. It was in this lab that Alewine was introduced to MD–PhD programs and became interested in becoming a physician-scientist. She completed a postbaccalaureate program at the National Cancer Institute's laboratory of pathology from 1998 to 1999.

#1768

Billie J. Swalla

#132991

Overall Influence

Billie J. Swalla is a professor of biology at the University of Washington. She was the first female director of Friday Harbor Laboratories, where she worked from 2012 to 2019. Her lab investigates the evolution of chordates by comparative genetic and phylogenetic analysis of animal taxa.

#1769

Margaret Torn

#114986

Overall Influence

Margaret Torn is an ecologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory known for her research on carbon cycling, especially with respect to the interactions between soils and the atmosphere. Education and career Torn grew up in Marin county and worked in the family's food business, the Torn Ranch, where they handled nuts and dried fruits. She started college at the College of Marin before transferring to University of California, Berkeley. She earned a B.S. , an M.S. , and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1994 until 1998, Torn was a postdoctoral fellow at University of California Irvine and Stanford University.

#1770

Paula Clayton

#119672

Overall Influence

1934 - 2021 (87 years)

Paula Jean Clayton was an American psychiatrist. She was the first female chairperson of a major psychiatric department in the United States. She is known for destigmatising mental illness, rigorous data driven research methods to study psychiatry, especially depression and bipolar disorder.

#1771

Mary B. Kennedy

#118937

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Mary Bernadette Kennedy is an American biochemist and neuroscientist. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the Allen and Lenabelle Davis Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, where she has been a member of the faculty since 1981. Her research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity, the process underlying formation of memory in the central nervous system. Her lab uses biochemical and molecular biological methods to study the protein machinery within a structure called the postsynaptic density. Kennedy has published o...

#1772

Tanja Woyke

#135641

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

#1773

Jeannine Cavender-Bares

#110193

Overall Influence

Jeannine Cavender-Bares is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior. Her research integrates evolutionary biology, ecology, and physiology by studying the functional traits of plants, with a particular focus on oaks.

#1774

Nicola Stonehouse

#123492

Overall Influence

Nicola Jane Stonehouse is a British virologist who is a professor in molecular virology at the University of Leeds. Her research investigates viral diseases and the use of RNA aptamers to study viral proteins. She has worked on the development of a novel poliovirus vaccine that makes use of virus-like particles.

#1775

Diana Prata

#95651

Overall Influence

Diana Prata is a Portuguese neuroscientist who concentrates on identifying the biological basis of human behaviour. She reported the first evidence that schizophrenia-risk genes can also predispose to bipolar disorder and has also investigated reasons why people respond differently to antipsychotic medications. She is head of the Biomedical Neuroscience Lab at the University of Lisbon.

#1776

Sharon A. Savage

#120542

Overall Influence

Sharon A. Savage is an American pediatric hematologist/oncologist. She is the clinical director of the National Cancer Institute's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. Life Savage completed a B.S. in biochemistry at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Savage earned her M.D. from the University of Vermont College of Medicine, completed residency training in pediatrics at Children’s National Medical Center, in Washington DC, and a fellowship in pediatric hematology/oncology at the National Cancer Institute Pediatric Oncology Branch and Johns Hopkins University. She is board-certified in b...

#1777

Sara A. Courtneidge

#126392

Overall Influence

Sara A. Courtneidge is a cancer research scientist. Education and research Courtneidge was a very young child when she decided that she wanted to be a scientist. Years later, she earned her Bachelor of Science certificate in Biochemistry from the University of Leeds and her PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research. After receiving her PhD, Courtneidge accepted a research position with J. Michael Bishop at The University of California, Berkeley where she began her research on the Proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase Src. Courtneidge’s most notable finding is her discovery of the link between the T antigen of polyomavirus and c-Src.

#1778

Jean Langenheim

#128718

Overall Influence

1925 - 2021 (96 years)

Jean H. Langenheim was an American plant ecologist and ethnobotanist, highly respected as an eminent scholar and a pioneer for women in the field. She has done field research in arctic, tropical, and alpine environments across five continents, with interdisciplinary research that spans across the fields of chemistry, geology, and botany. Her early research helped determine the plant origins of amber and led to her career-long work investigating the chemical ecology of resin-producing trees, including the role of plant resins for plant defense and the evolution of several resin-producing trees in the tropics.

#1779

Flossie Cohen

#90404

Overall Influence

1925 - 2004 (79 years)

Flossie Cohen was an Indian-born pediatric immunologist who spent most of her career at the Children's Hospital of Michigan. She was also a professor at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

#1780

Beatriz Rico

#38643

Overall Influence

Beatriz Rico is a professor of developmental neurobiology at King's College London. Her research focuses on neural circuit development. Early life and education Beatriz was born in Madrid, Spain, where she completed her public primary and secondary education. She then attended Complutense University of Madrid to study biology, and earned her Ph.D. at the Autónoma University in Madrid under her supervisor Carmen Cavada.

#1781

María Teresa Miras Portugal

#121245

Overall Influence

1948 - 2021 (73 years)

María Teresa Miras Portugal was a Spanish scientist, pharmacist, biochemist, molecular biologist and Emeritus professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. She was a member of the Spanish "Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia" and served as President of this Institution from 2007 to 2013, becoming the first female to be elected for this position in a Spanish "Real Academia". She was Honorific President.

#1782

Eva Gottwein

#81443

Overall Influence

Eva Henriette Gottwein is a virologist and Associate Professor of Microbiology-Immunology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. The main focus of her research is the role of viral miRNAs involved in herpesviral oncogenesis. Gottwein is member of Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Her contributions as a member include the focus on how encoded miRNAs target and function in the human oncogenic herpesvirus Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus known as KSHV.

#1783

Katherine L. Knight

#126042

Overall Influence

Katherine L. Knight is an American immunologist. She is professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Loyola University Chicago whose research work has focused on the genetic basis of antibody formation and the interactions of the immune system with intestinal microbiota. Knight was president of The American Association of Immunologists from 1996 to 1997.

#1784

Tamar Flash

#91011

Overall Influence

Tamar Flash is an Israeli neuroscientist and control theorist whose research concerns biological motor control, including the motion of the human arm, the effects of neurological damage on motion, and the use of robotics to study biological motion. She holds the Dr. Hymie Moross Professorial Chair in the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

#1785

Rhondda Jones

#71922

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Rhondda Elizabeth Jones was the first Professor of Zoology and the first female professor at James Cook University, and served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor from 1997 to 2000. Professor Jones was previously the Chair of the Academic Board of James Cook University. In 2019 she is Director, Research Development in the division of Tropical Health & Medicine at James Cook University.

#1786

Susan Halabi

#110911

Overall Influence

Susan Halabi is a professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics at Duke University, known for her research on prostate cancer. As a member of the data safety monitoring board for a study of the anti-prostate cancer effects of abiraterone acetate , she argued that stopping the study early had prevented the study from accurately determining the effectiveness of the drug, and possibly made it appear to be more effective than it actually was. She also took part in a study showing that, when prostate cancer has reached the point of spreading to other parts of the body, the parts that it spreads to ...

#1787

Karen Beemon

#136383

Overall Influence

Karen Beemon is an American molecular biologist and professor of biology at Johns Hopkins University known for her research on RNA viruses and viral oncogenesis. Career Beemon got her B.S. in 1969 from the University of Michigan, and then her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where she worked with Peter Duesberg in collaboration with Peter Vogt. As a graduate student, Beemon determined the size of retroviral genomes which led to the characterization of the Src oncogene of Rous sarcoma virus, the first tyrosine kinase, during her postdoctoral tenure with Tony Hunter at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego.

#1788

Kristin Baldwin

#115564

Overall Influence

Kristin K. Baldwin is an American scientist who is a professor at the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University. Her research focuses on using reprogrammed and induced pluripotent stem cells to identify mechanisms and therapies related to human genetic risk for neurologic and cardiovascular disease. Her lab also studies how disease and aging affect the genome; they have used cloning to produce the first complete genome sequence of a single neuron and helped assess the effect of aging on induced pluripotent stem cells that may be used for cell therapies. They also design bespoke neuronal cells in a dish to understand brain function and disease.

#1789

Dariya Nikitichna Dobroczajeva

#113877

Overall Influence

1916 - 1995 (79 years)

Dariya Nikitichna Dobroczajeva was a Ukrainian botanist and university teacher. Biography Dobroczajeva was the head of the Botanical Museum of the Botanical Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. She brought back numerous herbarium materials from expeditions in Ukraine and private trips to various countries, donating more than 30,000 herbarium sheets to the Institute of Botany. For a long time, she headed the herbarium exchange fund, significantly expanded her connections to botanical institutions in many countries of Europe, Asia and America, and intensified her work to replenish the world flora collection.

#1790

Beate Sodeik

#128562

Overall Influence

Beate Sodeik is a German cell biologist who is Professor of Medical Sciences at the Hannover Medical School. Her research considers the biology of viral infections, with a particular focus on Herpes simplex virus.

#1791

Annika Linde

#100102

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Gerda Annika Linde is a Swedish physician, virologist and retired civil servant. From 2005 to 2013 she served as State Epidemiologist at the Swedish Institute for Communicable Disease Control. Biography Linde was born in Skövde and grew up there. She was inspired by the novel Exodus by Leon Uris to study medicine. She enrolled at Gothenburg University in 1968, studying medicine and sociology, obtaining a medical degree in 1974. After her internship at Danderyd Hospital she went on to work as an infectious disease specialist at the presently defunct Roslagstull Hospital in Stockholm. In 1979 s...

#1792

Barbara Seliger

#136767

Overall Influence

#1793

Nancy Allbritton

Nancy Allbritton

#60553

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Nancy Allbritton is a Professor of Bioengineering and the Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Washington. She was previously a Kenan Professor and Chair in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

#1794

Bess Ward

#129546

Overall Influence

Bess Ward is an American oceanographer, biogeochemist, microbiologist, and William J. Sinclair Professor of Geosciences at Princeton University. Ward studies include marine and global nitrogen cycles, and how marine organisms such as phytoplankton and bacteria influence the nitrogen cycle. Ward was the first woman awarded the G. Evelyn Hutchinson Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography for her pioneering work on applying molecular methods for nitrogen and methane conversions as well as scaling up organismal biogeochemical rates to whole ecosystem rates.

#1795

J. Mary Taylor

#99832

Overall Influence

1931 - 2019 (88 years)

Jocelyn Mary Taylor was an American mammalogist, who served as president of the American Society of Mammalogists from 1982 to 1984. She was also an honorary trustee of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. As a pioneer for women in the field of mammalogy, Taylor actively worked to broaden the study, doing so as a member of the American Society of Mammalogists, as a university professor, and through conducting her research, publishing numerous works.

#1796

Ayla Kalkandelen

#109262

Overall Influence

1939 - 2002 (63 years)

Ayla Kalkandelen was a Turkish entomologist. Her specialty was in Auchenorrhyncha, a suborder of true bugs or insects order Homoptera. She described ten taxa and has five taxa named after her. Ayla Kalkandelen was born in Gaziantep on 14 March 1939. She had an elder brother named Nejat. She completed her primary and secondary education in her hometown.

#1797

Christiane Linster

#83656

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Christiane Linster is a Luxembourg-born behavioral neuroscientist and a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. Her work focuses on neuromodulation along with learning and memory, using the olfactory system of rodents as a model. Her lab integrates behavioral, electrophysiological, and computational work. Linster was the founding President of the Organization for Computational Neurosciences , which was created to coordinate and lead the annual meeting of aspiring and senior computational neuroscientists. Linster served as president of the OCNS from 2003 ...

#1798

Susan Edwards

#43897

Overall Influence

Susan L. Edwards is an Australian physiologist and academic administrator serving as president of Wright State University since 2020. She was previously a professor of biology and vice provost for faculty affairs at Appalachian State University.

#1799

Marina Wolf

#124231

Overall Influence

Marina Elizabeth Wolf is an American neuroscientist and Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University. Previously she served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience in the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She has been a pioneer in studying the role of neuronal plasticity in drug addiction. Her laboratory is particularly interested in understanding why individuals recovering from substance use disorder remain vulnerable to drug craving and relapse even after long periods of abstinence.

#1800

Anne D. Yoder

#96963

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Anne Daphne Yoder is an American biologist, researcher, and professor in the Department of Biology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Yoder's work includes the study, preservation, and conservation of the multifarious biodiversity found in Madagascar. One of her main research topics focuses on the diverse lemur population found on the island. Specifically, Yoder's research concentrates on assorted geographic factors that lead to varying levels of biological differences in the speciation process. Her investigations utilize genome research to further understand the complex and unique degree of speciation that occurs in lemur populations.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions