Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Biology,

#2151

Rebecca Spindler

#102720

Overall Influence

Rebecca Spindler is the head of science and conservation at non-profit conservation organisation Bush Heritage Australia. She previously was the manager of research and conservation at Taronga Conservation Society Australia, in the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage .

#2152

Afwa Thameur

#60826

Overall Influence

Afwa Thameur, in Arabic: عفوا ثامر is a plant biologist and agronomist from Tunisia who specialises in drought tolerance in cereal crops. She holds is a Fellow of the Arab Women Leaders in Agriculture initiative.

#2153

Kristen Marhaver

#142652

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (42 years)

Kristen Marhaver is a marine biologist studying coral reefs and specializing in coral ecology, reproduction, and conservation. Marhaver is a senior scientist at CARMABI Marine Research Station. Marhaver was part of the group of scientists that successfully used frozen Elkhorn coral sperm to fertilize live coral eggs to raise the first lab-reared juveniles in nurseries. Some of the sperm and eggs were from geographically isolated corals of the same species. Their success allows for the possibility of breeding corals to be more resistant to increasing ocean water temperatures by breeding cora...

#2154

Jan Strugnell

#82408

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Jan Maree Strugnell is an Australian evolutionary molecular biologist. She is a professor and director in the Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Strugnell's work has investigated population and species level molecular evolution in Antarctic and deep sea species in the context of past geological and climatic change. Strugnell's work also uses genetic tools to help solve bottlenecks in aquaculture and fisheries industries.

#2155

Nancy Carrasco

#97881

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (123 years)

Nancy Carrasco is a professor in, and the chair of, the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University. Carrasco has conducted research in the fields of biochemistry, biophysics, molecular physiology, molecular endocrinology, and cancer. She cloned the sodium/iodide symporter , a breakthrough in thyroid pathophysiology with ramifications for many other fields, including structure/function of transport proteins, molecular endocrinology, gene transfer studies, cancer, and public health .

#2156

Cynthia Wolberger

#115973

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Cynthia Wolberger is an American structural biologist currently at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On April 19, 2019, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Science among 100 new members and 25 foreign associates.

#2157

Nathalie Gontard

#155664

Overall Influence

#2158

Kerrie Wilson

#128004

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Kerrie Ann Wilson is an Australian environmental scientist who is the Queensland Chief Scientist and a Professor in the Faculty of Science at Queensland University of Technology . She was formerly the Pro Vice-Chancellor at QUT. Wilson is also an affiliated professor in conservation science at the University of Copenhagen, honorary professor at The University of Queensland, a member of the Australian Heritage Council and the Australian Natural Sciences Commissioner for UNESCO.

#2159

Marianne Schultzberg

#155707

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

#2160

Zoraida Luces de Febres

#107822

Overall Influence

1922 - 2015 (93 years)

Zoraida Luces de Febres was a Venezuelan botanist whose specialty was grasses . She was an important figure in Venezuelan botany for many years. Biography Zoraida Luces de Febres was born in Caracas, Venezuela, 1922. She studied for five years under the Swiss geographer and botanist Henri Pittier, then the director of the Servicio Botanico of the Venezuelan Agriculture Ministry. When American agrostologist Mary Agnes Chase came to Venezuela in 1940 to survey grasses and advise on the development of a botanical program, Chase recommended Luces for training at the Smithsonian Institution and offered to let her live at her home in Washington, D.C., during the year that would take.

#2161

Dena Dubal

#85099

Overall Influence

Dena Dubal is the David A. Coulter Endowed Chair in Ageing and Neurodegenerative Disease at University of California, San Francisco. Dubal has demonstrated that the hormone Klotho can enhance cognition and protect the brain from neurodegenerative decline.

#2162

Elizabeth Joan Stokes

#59717

Overall Influence

1912 - 2010 (98 years)

Elizabeth Joan Stokes was an English bacteriologist. She spent the majority of her career as a clinical bacteriologist at University College Hospital in London. Biography Elizabeth Joan Stokes was born on 6 May 1912 in Hampstead, London, to Thomas Rooke, an engineer, and Elizabeth Frances Pearce, whose father was the Liberal MP Robert Pearce. She attended University College Hospital Medical School and graduated with an MBBS in 1937. She worked at UCH as a house physician, house surgeon and casualty officer before becoming a medical registrar under Thomas Lewis in 1940. When UCH was evacuated to Cardiff in 1941, Stokes decided to make a career change from clinical medicine to pathology.

#2163

Romina Vidal-Russell

#155862

Overall Influence

Romina Vidal-Russell is an Argentinean botanist who works in the areas of phytogeography, phylogeny, and parasitic plants, and on which she has written extensively. Her papers on the phylogeny of parasitic plants are cited on the APG website, and elsewhere and her collaborations are international. She currently works at the National University of Comahue in Argentina. She earned a Ph.D. at SIUC with Daniel L. Nickrent as supervisor.

#2164

Catherine Blish

#143403

Overall Influence

Catherine Blish is a translational immunologist and professor at Stanford University. Her lab works on clinical immunology and focuses primarily on the role of the innate immune system in fighting infectious diseases like HIV, dengue fever, and influenza. Her immune cell biology work characterizes the biology and action of Natural Killer cells and macrophages.

#2165

Marina Bentivoglio

#155981

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

#2166

Sonia Gandhi

#125536

Overall Influence

Sonia Gandhi is a British physician and neuroscientist who leads the Francis Crick Institute neurodegeneration laboratory. She holds a joint position at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that give rise to Parkinson's disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi was involved with the epidemiological investigations and testing efforts at the Francis Crick Institute.

#2167

Mary Ellen Jones

#114332

Overall Influence

1922 - 1996 (74 years)

Mary Ellen Jones was an American biochemist. She was notable for discovery of carbamoyl phosphate, a chemical substance that is key to the biosynthesis of arginine and urea, and for the biosynthesis of pyrimidine nucleotides. Jones became the first woman to hold a chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the first woman to become a department chair at the medical school. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She was also president of the Association of Medical School Departments of Biochemistry, president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and president of the American Association of University Professors.

#2168

Joan Mott

#144160

Overall Influence

1921 - 1994 (73 years)

Joan Mott was an English physiologist and zoologist who worked for most of her career at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Institute for Medical Research. Following wartime work on anti-fouling of ships her main research interest was in the circulatory system, especially the fetal renin–angiotensin system.

#2169

Kennda Lynch

#113741

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Kennda Lian Lynch is an American astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist who studies polyextremophiles. She has primarily been affiliated with NASA. She identifies environments on Earth with characteristics that may be similar to environments on other planets, and creates models that help identify characteristics that would indicate an environment might host life. Lynch also identifies what biosignatures might look like on other planets. Much of Lynch's research on analog environments has taken place in the Pilot Valley Basin in the Great Salt Desert of northwestern Utah, U.S. Her work in that pa...

#2170

Bianca Jones Marlin

Bianca Jones Marlin

#129035

Overall Influence

Bianca Jones Marlin is an American neuroscientist and the Herbert and Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Cell Research at the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University in New York City. Marlin studies the epigenetic mechanisms that enable trauma experienced by parents to be passed on to offspring in rodent models. Marlin's graduate work uncovered the fundamental role for the hormone oxytocin in maternal behavior, for which she was awarded the Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience for Outstanding Ph.D. thesis as well as the STAT Wunderkinds Award for her groundbreaking findin...

#2171

Karen Koch

#107649

Overall Influence

Karen Koch is a plant biologist in the horticultural science department in the University of Florida. She is a professor in the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, Horticultural Sciences Department, and Genetics Institute at University of Florida.

#2172

Lisa Saksida

#138597

Overall Influence

Lisa Marie Saksida is a Canadian neuroscientist. She is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. Since 2000, Saksida has worked on the development of a touchscreen-based cognitive assessment system specifically for mouse models.

#2173

Bonnie Bartel

#156470

Overall Influence

#2174

Judith Schiebout

#153321

Overall Influence

1946 - 2020 (74 years)

Dr. Judith Schiebout was an American paleontologist, and was an Adjunct Associate Professor of Geology at Louisiana State University and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at LSU Museum of Natural Science.

#2175

Judith Blake

#153487

Overall Influence

Judith Anne Blake is a computational biologist at the Jackson Laboratory and Professor of Mammalian Genetics. Education Blake completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology in 1974 at the University of Connecticut. She moved to Harvard University for postgraduate study where she was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1978 followed by a PhD in 1981. Her PhD investigated chromosomal variation in the Jamaican lizard Anolis grahami and was supervised by Ernest Edward Williams.

#2176

Petra Fromme

#147470

Overall Influence

Petra Fromme is a German-American chemist who is Director of the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery and Regents Professor at the Arizona State University. Her research considers the structure-to-function relationship of the membrane proteins involved with infectious diseases and bio-energy conversion. In 2021, she was awarded the Protein Society Anfinsen Award.

#2177

Cristina Alberini

#147707

Overall Influence

Cristina Maria Alberini is an Italian neuroscientist who studies the biological mechanisms of long-term memory. She is a Professor in Neuroscience at the Center for Neural Science in New York University, and adjunct professor at the Departments of Neuroscience, Psysciatry, and Structural and Chemical Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

#2178

Katrin Linse

#139380

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Katrin Linse is a German marine biologist, best known for her work on discovering new Antarctic and deep sea species. Early life and education Linse was born in Germany. She discovered marine biology at the age of six, thanks to undergraduates she encountered while on holiday with her family. She developed the goal of working in polar science at the age of twelve, when a national polar research vessel was being built in a shipyard near to her family home: forbidden from visiting the shipyard during its open day, a were all women and children, Linse announced that one day she would sail aboard the ship to study marine life in the Antarctic.

#2179

Toby Kiers

#142814

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Professor Toby Kiers is an evolutionary biologist. She is a University Research Chair and Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Kiers pioneered an economic interpretation of the interactions and exchanges between plants, fungi and microbes in mycorrhizal networks. She co-founded the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks . Prof. Dr. Toby Kiers is a 2023 Spinoza laureate.

#2180

Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner

#93902

Overall Influence

1933 - 1995 (62 years)

Beatrix Tugendhut Gardner was an Austrian zoologist who became well known for the research that she conducted in the United States. She is most well known for her sign language studies with Washoe the chimpanzee, who was the first ape to learn sign language.

#2181

Gail Petuna Risbridger

#157011

Overall Influence

#2182

Margot Forde

#119437

Overall Influence

1935 - 1992 (57 years)

Margot Bernice Forde was a New Zealand botanist, curator, and taxonomist. Biography Forde was educated at Wellington Girls' College, and graduated from Victoria University College where she studied natural history and botany. She was married to fellow New Zealand botanist Bernard Forde, and they both received their PhD degrees from the Botany Department of the University of California, Davis in the early 1960s.

#2183

Jill S. Baron

#143338

Overall Influence

Jill S. Baron is an American ecosystem ecologist specializing in studying the effects of atmospheric nitrogen deposition in mountain ecosystems. She is a senior scientist at the United States Geological Survey and a senior research ecologist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University.

#2184

Lilian Lewis

#107360

Overall Influence

1904 - Present (120 years)

Lilian Burwell Lewis, was an American zoologist known for being the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate degree from the University of Chicago and for her research in gonadogenesis. Early life and education Lewis was born Lilian Leonora Burwell in Meridian, Mississippi on August 13, 1904, as the ninth of thirteen children. She earned a High school diploma from Tougaloo College in 1919 before attending Howard University, where she studied under Ernest Everett Just and graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1925. Lewis would then follow in the footsteps of another one o...

#2185

Enid MacRobbie

#90949

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Enid Anne Campbell MacRobbie, is a Scottish plant scientist, Emeritus Professor of Plant Biophysics at the University of Cambridge and a Life Fellow of Girton College. Her specialty is biophysics, with particular interests in ion fluxes and stomata.

#2186

Janelle Ayres

#148661

Overall Influence

Janelle S. Ayres is an American immunologist and microbiologist, member of the NOMIS Center for Immunobiology and Microbial Pathogenesis and Helen McLoraine Developmental Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. Her research focuses on the relation of host-pathogen interactions with the microbiome.

#2187

Katrin Böhning-Gaese

#135795

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Katrin Böhning-Gaese is a German biologist who specialises in ornithology. She is currently a professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, director of the Senckenberg Nature Research Society and Vice-President of the Leibniz Association.

#2188

Eqbal Dauqan

#98956

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Eqbal Mohammed Abdu Dauqan is a Yemeni biochemist known for her studies of Biochemistry, nutrition, advocacy for refugees, and support of women scientists in her home country of Yemen and adopted country of Malaysia.

#2189

Cristina Takacs-Vesbach

#98498

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Cristina Takacs-Vesbach is an American microbial ecologist conducting research on the productivity, diversity, and function of microbial communities living at the two extremes of temperature found on Earth-Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys and Yellowstone National Park's thermal springs.

#2190

Isabel Moura

#157880

Overall Influence

#2191

Susan Fisher-Hoch

#73740

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Susan P. Fisher-Hoch is a British-born infectious-disease specialist who has made major contributions to the understanding of Legionnaires' disease and Lassa fever. She is the co-author, along with her husband Joseph B. McCormick, of the memoir Level 4: Virus Hunters of the CDC. Fisher-Hoch is professor of epidemiology at The University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health. She was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2008.

#2192

Dominique G. Homberger

#137785

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Dominique G. Homberger is an Alumni Professor the Louisiana State University, where she taught for 31 years. She is noted for her work on the evolution of complex structures in birds, mammals, and fish, and is also the author of a textbook on vertebrate dissection. A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Ornithological Union, she served as the President of the International Ornithological Congress 2022, and President of the International Ornithologists' Union from 2018-2022.

#2193

Irena Nalepa

#117017

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Irena Maria Nalepa is a Polish neuroscientist, pharmacologist and biochemist, professor of medical sciences and professor at the Institute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. She graduated from the Jagiellonian University and received her PhD in 1980. Since 2004 she has the title of full professor.

#2194

Sara Mole

#142330

Overall Influence

Sara Elizabeth Mole Crowley is a Professor of Molecular Cell Biology and Provost's Envoy for Gender Equality at University College London and the Great Ormond Street Hospital. She works on diseases caused by genetic changes, in particular neurodegenerative diseases that impact children.

#2195

Stella Ifeanyi Smith

#128588

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Stella Ifeanyi Smith is a Nigerian medical scientist with interests in molecular biology and biotechnology. Smith joined Nigeria Institute of Medical Research in 1988, and was made director of research in 2013. As of September 2018, she had 1,739 citations on Google scholar.

#2196

Jill James

#121898

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Sandra Jill James is an American biochemist and autism researcher who studies metabolic autism biomarkers. She works at Arkansas Children's Hospital Research Institute, where she is the director of the Metabolic Genomics Laboratory, as well as the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences's department of pediatrics, where she has worked since 2002. She is also a member of the Autism Speaks Treatment Advisory Board, and is also a scientific advisor to the autism foundation N of One. Her current research focuses on the role of epigenetics in causing autism, as well as the effectiveness of supp...

#2197

Deborah M. Hinton

Deborah M. Hinton

#149429

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Deborah Meetze Hinton is an American microbiologist. She is a senior investigator and chief of the gene expression and regulation section in the laboratory of cell and molecular biology at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

#2198

Odile Launay

#158233

Overall Influence

#2199

Catherine Potvin

#144611

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Catherine Potvin is a tropical forest ecologist and professor at McGill University in the Department of Biology. Her scientific research studies climate change, carbon cycling, and biodiversity in tropical rainforests with an additional focus on community empowerment and climate change policy. She was the first woman to receive the Miroslaw Romanowski Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, in recognition of her "significant contributions to the resolution of scientific aspects of environmental problems". In addition to her scientific research, she works on sustainable development with indigen...

#2200

Sandra Vehrencamp

#140627

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Sandra Lee Vehrencamp , is a scientist, teacher, and mentor who specializes in Behavioral ecology, with a geographical focus on avian species in Costa Rica. She served as a faculty member of Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology and Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and taught graduate students while conducting research until retiring as of October 2010. She currently resides in Ithaca, New York, with her husband, Jack Bradbury.

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