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,
#1801
Isabelle Vernos
#137124
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Isabelle Vernos is an ICREA research professor at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. She received a PhD in biochemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid followed by postdoctoral studies at Cambridge University. Between 1992 and 2005 she developed her research career at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Since 2005 she is an ICREA Research Professor at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona where she leads the group on Microtubule Function and Cell Division, the same year she also became a member of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Go to Profile#1802
Lesley Ann Hughes
#77163
Overall Influence
Lesley Ann Hughes is an Australian academic and climate scientist. Hughes is Distinguished Professor of Biology and Pro Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie University. She is also Director, Biodiversity Node, at the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage Climate Adaptation Research Hub and a Councillor at the independent Climate Council. From 2011 to 2013, she was a Commissioner of the Australian Government’s Climate Commission . Hughes was one of five Australian Lead Authors who worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth & Fifth Assessment Reports in 2007. She works at the Centre for Smart Green Cities.
Go to Profile#1803
Nina Rønsted
#68670
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Nina Rønsted is a Danish botanist, who is Director of Science and Conservation at The National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii. Career Following completion of her PhD in Pharmaceutical Science she worked as a postdoctoral and then international fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew , including spending 16 months on secondment to the Department of Plant Biology, University of Minnesota US, before returning to work at the University of Copenhagen as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry . Since 2012 she has been at her current position as an associate professor and since 2015 full professor.
Go to Profile#1804
Alison Bailey
#99141
Overall Influence
Alison Bailey is a New Zealand farm management academic researching the economics of farming. Bailey completed both her undergraduate studies and PhD at University of Wales, Aberystwyth. After completing her PhD, she worked at Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh, University of Reading and Cranfield University. Appointed in 2015, she is currently professor of farm management at Lincoln University.
Go to Profile#1805
Nancy Cox
#76248
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Nancy J. Cox is an American virologist who has served as the director of the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2006 to 2014 and as director of the CDC's World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Control of Influenza from 1992 to 2014. Cox served as the Chair and Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council of GISAID, between the years 2008 and 2017 and is frequently recognized for having played an instrumental role in the success of GISAID.
Go to Profile#1806
Julie Overbaugh
#134559
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Julie M. Overbaugh is an American virologist. She is a professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Overbaugh is best known for her translational approach to studying HIV transmission and pathogenesis and studies of how the antibody response evolves to recognize viruses. Her work in maternal and infant HIV transmission helped make clear the risk posed by breastfeeding and highlighted unique characteristics of an infant immune response that could inform vaccine development. Major scientific contributions to the understanding of HIV transmission and pathogenesis also include: identif...
Go to Profile#1807
Lisa Ballance
#116462
Overall Influence
Lisa Taylor Ballance is an American marine scientist who is Director Marine Mammal Institute and Endowed Chair for Marine Mammal Research at Oregon State University. Early life and education Ballance studied biology as an undergraduate student at the University of California, San Diego. Ballance completed her master's studies in marine science at San Jose State University. Her research considered the ecology and behavior of the bottlenose dolphin. She moved to University of California, Los Angeles for her doctoral research, where she studied the ecology of tropical seabirds in the Eastern Pacific.
Go to Profile#1808
Sally Archibald
#135129
Overall Influence
Sally Archibald is a South African scientist and Associate Professor at the University of Witwatersrand. Her research primarily focuses on savanna ecosystems within the context of global climate change as well as the exploration of fire ecology and earth-system feedbacks. Archibald was the recipient of the 2012 Mercer Award for her co-authorship of the paper "Tree cover in sub-Saharan Africa: Rainfall and fire constrain forest and savanna as alternative stable states".
Go to Profile#1809
Małgorzata Kossut
#95033
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Małgorzata Kossut is a Polish neuroscientist specializing in neuroplasticity and neural mechanisms of learning and memory, professor of natural sciences, Head of Department of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology and Laboratory of Neuroplasticity of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#1810
Lisbeth Olsson
#86267
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Lisbeth Olsson is a Swedish microbiologist and a Professor in industrial biotechnology at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. Early life On November 22, 1963, Olsson was born in Höör, Sweden.
Go to Profile#1811
Roseli Ocampo-Friedmann
#113734
Overall Influence
1937 - 2005 (68 years)
Roseli Ocampo-Friedmann was a Filipino-American microbiologist and botanist who specialized in the study of cyanobacteria and extremophiles. Her work has been cited in work exploring the terraforming of Mars.
Go to Profile#1812
Jane Hurst
#123511
Overall Influence
Jane Louise Hurst is the William Prescott Professor of Animal Science at the University of Liverpool. She is Head of Mammalian Behaviour & Evolution. She studies scent communication between mammals, as well as animal welfare and pest control. She served as the president of the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour from 2010 to 2012.
Go to Profile#1813
Katharine N. Suding
#134847
Overall Influence
Katharine Nash Suding is an American plant ecologist. Suding is a Distinguished Professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado Boulder and a 2020 Professor of Distinction in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Go to Profile#1814
Rose Frisch
#55634
Overall Influence
1918 - 2015 (97 years)
Rose Epstein Frisch was a pioneering American scientist in fertility and human development whose work was instrumental in the discovery of leptin. She is mainly known for her work in infertility; specifically the discovery that low body fat was a contributing factor to infertility.
Go to Profile#1815
Helen Firth
#113674
Overall Influence
Helen V. Firth is a British geneticist who specialises in the application of new genomic technologies to improve the diagnosis of severe developmental disorders. She is clinical lead for the UK-wide Deciphering Developmental Disorders project and global DECIPHER platform for data-sharing in rare disease. In 2020, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Go to Profile#1816
Hélène Morlon
#92805
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Hélène Morlon, born in 1978, is a French mathematician and ecologist specializing in biodiversity computational modeling, identifying the factors that influence diversification of species and their phenotypic evolution over millions of years. For her work, she was awarded an Irène Joliot-Curie Prize in 2017.
Go to Profile#1817
Sara Iverson
#120453
Overall Influence
Sara Iverson is a professor of biology at Dalhousie University, and the Scientific Director of the Ocean Tracking Network . Iverson was selected by Mattel Inc. and National Geographic as an influential Canadian scientist and role model for Barbie's You Can Be Anything campaign as part of the doll's 60th anniversary. This effort is aimed at helping young girls can have a career in a scientific fields where women have historically been underrepresented.
Go to Profile#1818
Laura Lechuga
#109276
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Laura M. Lechuga Gómez is a Spanish scientist who is a biosensor researcher and full professor. She leads the Nanobiosensors and Bioanalytical Application Group at the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology .
Go to Profile#1819
Lisa Pratt
#103968
Overall Influence
Lisa Pratt is a biogeochemist and astrobiologist who previously served as the 7th Planetary Protection Officer for NASA from 2018 to 2021 under President Donald Trump. Her academic work as a student, professor, and researcher on organisms and their respective environments prepared her for the position, in which she is responsible for protecting the Earth and other planets in the solar system from traveling microbes. Originally, Pratt did not see a place for herself in science, but with encouragement from her academic mentors and family members along the way, she has been able to accomplish much work as a scientist.
Go to Profile#1820
Deborah Bronk
#121215
Overall Influence
Deborah Ann Bronk is an American oceanographer and the president and CEO of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. She leads the nonprofit research institution in East Boothbay, Maine in its mission to understand the ocean's microbial engine and to harness the potential of these and other organisms at the base of the ocean food web through research, education, and innovation.
Go to Profile#1821
Shirley Cotter Tucker
#120702
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (97 years)
Shirley Cotter Tucker is an American botanist, lichenologist, and a former Boyd Professor of botany at Louisiana State University. Biography Shirley Cotter was born in Minnesota in 1927 to Ralph and Myra Cotter. Ralph Cotter was a plant pathologist at the University of Minnesota; growing up, Shirley Cotter would play in the university's greenhouses.
Go to Profile#1822
Loeske Kruuk
#133136
Overall Influence
Loeske E. B. Kruuk FRS is an evolutionary ecologist who is a Royal Society Research Professor at the University of Edinburgh. She was awarded the 2018 European Society for Evolutionary Biology President's Award. In 2023, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Go to Profile#1823
Catherine Keever
#129851
Overall Influence
1908 - 2003 (95 years)
Catherine Keever was an educator and ecologist focused on ecological succession and highland region ecology. Keever proved that moss is the first plant to grow on bald rock, rather than lichens. Early life Keever was born September 8, 1908, in Iredell County, North Carolina to John C. Keever, a Methodist preacher, and Blanche Moore Keever. Her brother, Homer Keever, was the historian of Irdell County, NC. During her childhood, Keever moved throughout Western North Carolina within the Methodist Conference as her father took on various churches. She attended Davenport College in Lenoir, North Carolina, for two years before transferring to Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Go to Profile#1824
Carsen Stringer
#90306
Overall Influence
Carsen Stringer is an American computational neuroscientist and Group Leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus. Stringer uses machine learning and deep neural networks to visualize large scale neural recordings and then probe the neural computations that give rise to visual processing in mice. Stringer has also developed several novel software packages that enable cell segmentation and robust analyses of neural recordings and mouse behavior.
Go to Profile#1825
Ruth E. Gordon
#129053
Overall Influence
1910 - 2003 (93 years)
Ruth Evelyn Gordon was an American bacterial taxonomist. She was member of the American Type Culture Collection. The bacterial genus Gordonia and species Mycobacterium gordonae are named after her.
Go to Profile#1826
June Halliday
#128324
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
June Halliday AM is a biochemist and researcher of liver disease and iron metabolism. She is a pioneer in the use of serum ferritin and liver iron concentration as diagnostic aids for studying haemochromatosis.
Go to Profile#1827
Erika Zavaleta
#121751
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Erika S. Zavaleta is an American professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Zavaleta is recognized for her research focusing on topics including plant community ecology, conservation practices for terrestrial ecosystems, and impacts of community dynamics on ecosystem functions.
Go to Profile#1828
Annette Menzel
#138359
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
#1829
Jennifer Van Eyk
#136992
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Jennifer Eileen Van Eyk is the Erika Glazer Chair in Women's Heart Health, the Director of Advanced Clinical Biosystems Institute in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, the Director of Basic Science Research in the Women's Heart Center, a Professor in Medicine and in Biomedical Sciences at Cedars-Sinai. She is a renowned scientist in the field of clinical proteomics.
Go to Profile#1830
Jolanta Gutkowska
#138467
Overall Influence
#1831
Berthe Rakotosamimanana
#128567
Overall Influence
1938 - 2005 (67 years)
Berthe Rakotosamimanana was a primatologist and palaeontologist from Madagascar. Early life Rakotosamimanana was born in Andasibe in Moramanga District on 18 January 1938. She studied at the University of Paris VII, Faculty of Sciences, for a degree in animal biology and anthropology. On her return in 1967 she was employed in the Geology Department at the University of Madagascar. She was married to the primatologist Philibert Rakotosamimanana.
Go to Profile#1832
Vanessa Sperandio
#131497
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Vanessa Sperandio is a professor at the UT Southwestern Medical Center in both the departments of microbiology and biochemistry. She will join the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health as the chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology in spring 2022.
Go to Profile#1833
Helen Walden
#132150
Overall Influence
Helen Walden is an English structural biologist who received the Colworth medal from the Biochemical Society in 2015. She was awarded European Molecular Biology Organization membership in 2022. She is a Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Glasgow and has made significant contributions to the Ubiquitination field.
Go to Profile#1834
Barbara Baehr
#108108
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Barbara Baehr is a German research scientist, entomologist, arachnologist, and spider taxonomist. She has described over 400 new spider species, mostly from Australia. She is originally from Pforzheim, Germany.
Go to Profile#1835
Sabine Dittmann
#53778
Overall Influence
Sabine Dittmann is an Australian-based marine biologist and expert on the ecology of tidal flats. She is Associate Professor of Marine Biology at Flinders University in Adelaide, and is President of the Australian Marine Sciences Association.
Go to Profile#1836
Margaret McCarthy
#97441
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Margaret M. "Peg" McCarthy is an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist. She is the James & Carolyn Frenkil Endowed Dean's Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where she is also Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology. She is known for her research on the neuroscience of sex differences and their underlying mechanisms. In 2019, she received the Gill Transformative Investigator Award from the Gill Center for Biomolecular Science at Indiana University.
Go to Profile#1837
Anne E. Giblin
#98353
Overall Influence
Anne E. Giblin is a marine biologist who researches the cycling of elements nitrogen, sulfur, iron and phosphorus. She is a Senior Scientist and Acting Director of the Ecosystem Center at the Marine Biological Lab.
Go to Profile#1838
Menna Clatworthy
#119094
Overall Influence
Menna R. Clatworthy FRCP FMedSci FLSW is a British immunologist who is Professor of Translational Medicine at the University of Cambridge. She studies human tissue immunity. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and was elected to the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2022.
Go to Profile#1839
Yimtubezinash Woldeamanuel
#131062
Overall Influence
Yimtubezinash Woldeamanuel Mulate is an Ethiopian physician and microbiologist researching infectious diseases, hospital-acquired infections, and antimicrobial resistance. She is an associate professor of medical microbiology at Addis Ababa University.
Go to Profile#1840
Gabrielle Belz
#130929
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (123 years)
Gabrielle T. Belz is an Australian molecular immunologist and viral immunologist. She is a faculty member of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, within the Molecular Immunology division. Belz has made important contributions to the understanding of immune system function, especially in relation to the molecular and cellular signalling pathways of immune response to viruses. Her research has focused on understanding the signals that drive the initial development of protective immunity against pathogen infections, such as influenza and herpes viruses. This includes research ...
Go to Profile#1841
Hilary Lappin-Scott
#63714
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Hilary Margaret Lappin-Scott FLS FLSW PFHEA FAAM FRSB is a British microbiologist whose field of research is microbial biofilms. In 2009 Hilary was elected as the second female President of the Society for General Microbiology in 70 years and served in this role until 2012. In September 2019 she was elected as President of the Federation of European Microbiological Societies , being the first President from the UK.
Go to Profile#1842
Melissa Wong
#102033
Overall Influence
Melissa Wong is an American biologist known for her work describing cell fusion, the cancer stem cell niche, and early detection strategies. She currently holds appointments at Oregon Health & Science University in the Department of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology and co-leads the Knight Cancer Institute's Cancer Biology program.
Go to Profile#1843
Whendee Silver
#129376
Overall Influence
Whendee Silver is an American ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist. Early life and education Silver grew up in Southern California. She earned her MS in Forest Science from Yale School of Forestry in 1987 and in 1992, received her PhD from Yale University.
Go to Profile#1844
Elsie Conway
#115615
Overall Influence
1902 - 1992 (90 years)
Elsie Conway was a British phycologist. She served as president of the British Phycological Society from 1965 to 1967, and was one of the earliest women Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Early life and education Conway was born Elsie Phillips on 15 March 1902 in Aldford, Cheshire, England, the elder daughter of William and Margaret Phillips. She attended the Queen's School in Chester from 1912 to 1919. She then studied botany at the University of Liverpool, achieving a Bachelor of Science in 1922, Honours in 1923, and PhD in 1925. Contact with Margery Knight started her life-long interest in algae.
Go to Profile#1845
Elba Serrano
#66209
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Elba E. Serrano is a neuroscientist and biophysicist who holds a position as a Regent's Professor of Biology at New Mexico State University. She is known for her contributions to research on the nervous system of gastropods, inner ear development in Xenopus, neurobiology of glia, sensory signal transduction in guard cells, and for leadership of programs that recruit, train and retain underrepresented minorities in STEM. Her research considers the central role of ion channels in the reception and transduction of stimuli and integrates methods from genetics, physiology, and anatomy. In 2020 s...
Go to Profile#1846
Alice Barkan
#136441
Overall Influence
Alice Barkan is an American molecular biologist and a professor of biology at the University of Oregon. She is known for her work on chloroplast gene regulation and protein synthesis. Education Alice Barkan received her B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#1847
Vivien Casagrande
#132864
Overall Influence
1942 - 2017 (75 years)
Vivien Alice Casagrande was a professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Life Casagrande was born in Belmont, Massachusetts to Erna and Arthur Casagrande in 1942. She received her B.S. in psychology from University of Colorado in 1964 and then obtained her PhD from Duke University in 1973 in physiological psychology under the direction of Irving T. Diamond.
Go to Profile#1848
Nancy Bonini
#115975
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Nancy M. Bonini is an American neuroscientist and geneticist, best known for pioneering the use of Drosophila as a model organism to study neurodegeneration of the human brain. Using the Drosophila model approach, Bonini's laboratory has identified genes and pathways that are important in the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease, as well as aging, neural injury and regeneration, and response to environmental toxins.
Go to Profile#1849
Cecilia Lindgren
#128328
Overall Influence
Cecilia Margareta Lindgren is a Swedish geneticist. She is a Professor of Genomic Endocrinology & Metabolism in the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford, where she is also Group Head at the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics and a research fellow at St. Anne's College. She became Director of the Big Data Institute at Oxford on 1 April 2021; she had previously been a Senior Group Leader at the Institute. Lindgren is best known for her research on the genetics of obesity and other complex traits.
Go to Profile#1850
Joy M. Bergelson
#111900
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Joy M. Bergelson is an American evolutionary biologist. She is currently the Dorothy Schiff Professor of Genomics at New York University. Bergelson was previously and James D. Watson Distinguished Service Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, where she chaired the department for ecology and evolution. Her research focuses on the evolution and ecology of plants.
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