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,
#2501
Sandra Witelson
#155679
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Sandra Freedman Witelson is a Canadian neuroscientist best known for her analysis of specimens from Albert Einstein's brain, as well as exploring anatomic and functional differences regarding male and female brains, handedness, and sexual orientation. She and her colleagues maintain the world's largest collection of "cognitively normal" brains at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Go to Profile#2502
Krina Zondervan
#160158
Overall Influence
Krina Tynke Zondervan is a Dutch biomedical scientist who is a Professor of Genomic Epidemiology at the University of Oxford. She serves on the board of the World Endometriosis Society. Early life and education Zondervan was born in the Netherlands. She was a masters student in biomedical sciences at the Leiden University. She moved to the University of Oxford as an Erasmus Programme student in 1993, where she worked toward a doctorate in the epidemiology of chronic pelvic pain. She was awarded a Medical Research Council Research Fellowship to work on Genetic Epidemiology. She was part of the Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics in genetic epidemiology.
Go to Profile#2503
Maia Martcheva
#69173
Overall Influence
Maia Nenkova Martcheva-Drashanska is a Bulgarian-American mathematical biologist known for her books on population dynamics and epidemiology. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Florida, where she is also affiliated with the department of biology.
Go to Profile#2504
Darcy Kelley
#167617
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Darcy Brisbane Kelley , is an American neurobiologist and currently a Weintraub and HHMI Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She is also Co-Director of Columbia’s Graduate Program in Neurobiology and Behavior and Editor of Developmental Neurobiology, and well known for her contributions to neuroethology, particularly the neural control of vocalization in Xenopus and the cellular and molecular mechanisms of sexually differentiated acoustic communication.
Go to Profile#2505
Virginia Matzek
#84728
Overall Influence
Virginia Alynn Matzek is an American restoration ecologist. She is an Associate Professor in Environmental Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University. Education Matzek completed her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1998, Matzek was the recipient of the UC Berkely's Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award. In 1999, Matzek was the recipient of the UC Berkely's Teaching Effectiveness award.
Go to Profile#2506
Carmen Williams
#147059
Overall Influence
Carmen J. Williams is an American obstetrician-gynecologist and reproductive biologist. She has served as the deputy chief of the reproductive developmental biology laboratory at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences since 2017.
Go to Profile#2507
Tang Chongti
#135339
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Tang Chongti is a Chinese parasitologist and professor of Xiamen University. In 1991, she was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is mainly engaged in research on pathogenic developmental biology, epidemiology, and prevention of zoonotic parasitic diseases.
Go to Profile#2508
Victoria Sanz-Moreno
#164439
Overall Influence
Victoria Sanz Moreno is a Spanish scientist. She is professor of cancer cell and metastasis biology at The Institute of Cancer Research. Early life Sanz-Moreno was born in London, England to an analytical chemist father and English teacher mother. Following completion of her father's postdoctoral studies her family moved back to Spain.
Go to Profile#2509
Julie Jastrow
#111099
Overall Influence
Julie Dierstein Jastrow is an American terrestrial ecologist who works at the Argonne National Laboratory. Her research considers soil and ecosystems ecology. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021.
Go to Profile#2510
Laura M. Calvi
#131745
Overall Influence
Laura Maria Calvi is an American neuroendocrinologist and physician-scientist. She is the SKAWA Foundation Professor in Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Rochester. Calvi researches the bone marrow microenvironment and the treatment of patients with pituitary tumors.
Go to Profile#2511
Adrienne Ruth Hardham
#170296
Overall Influence
Adrienne Hardham is a professor within the division of Plant Sciences of the Research School of Biology at the Australian National University. Education Adrienne Hardham completed a Bachelor of Science at Monash in 1973 and completed her Honours year at the Australian National University in 1974. She completed her PhD thesis entitled "Microtubules and morphogenesis in Azolla pinnata roots" in 1978 at the ANU, for which she received the Crawford Medal.
Go to Profile#2512
Elizabeth A. Buffalo
#130415
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Elizabeth A. Buffalo is professor of physiology and biophysics at the University of Washington School of Medicine and chief of the neuroscience division at the Washington National Primate Research Center. She is known for her research in the field of neurophysiology pertaining to the role of the hippocampus and medial temporal lobe structures in learning and memory and in spatial representation and navigation.
Go to Profile#2513
Rosemary Bagot
#132818
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (43 years)
Rosemary C. Bagot is a Canadian neuroscientist who researches the mechanisms of altered brain function in depression. She is an assistant professor in behavioral neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her focus in behavioral neuroscience is on understanding the mechanisms of altered brain circuit function in depression. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, Bagot investigates why only some people who experience stress become depressed.
Go to Profile#2514
Meaghan Creed
#84340
Overall Influence
Meaghan Creed is a Canadian neuroscientist and associate professor of anesthesiology at Washington University in St. Louis. Creed has conducted research on understanding and optimizing deep brain stimulation in the basal ganglia for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Her work has been recognized at the national and international level by Pfizer, the American Association for the Advancement of Science , the Whitehall Foundation, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the Rita Allen Foundation.
Go to Profile#2515
Maria Uriarte
#162453
Overall Influence
María Uriarte is an ecologist who specializes in the processes that drive tropical forest dynamics, especially after extreme weather events. She is currently a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Science at Columbia University and serves as adjunct faculty in the Department of Ecology at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She conducts research primarily in Puerto Rico and Brazil and is associated with the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments tropics and ForestGeo research groups.
Go to Profile#2516
Geraldine Pittman Woods
#77533
Overall Influence
1921 - 1999 (78 years)
Geraldine Pittman Woods was an American science administrator. She is known for her lifelong dedication to community service and for establishing programs that promote minorities in STEM fields, scientific research, and basic research.
Go to Profile#2517
Jacqueline Jakway
#168548
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Jacqueline Halle Sinks Jakway a professor of anatomy and cell biology. Background Jakway was born Jacqueline Halle Sinks in 1928 in Puerto Rico, later moving to Missouri. Jakway attended Joplin High School in 1946, followed by attending Park College in Parkville, earning a BA in biology in 1950, and then in 1958 pursued a PhD in anatomy from the University of Kansas. Jakway worked her postdoc at the University of Nebraska becoming an assistant professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California in 1961. Jakway then moved to New York and taught gross anatomy and neuroanatomy as an as...
Go to Profile#2518
Eileen Furlong
#170928
Overall Influence
Eileen E. M. Furlong is an Irish molecular biologist working in the fields of transcription, chromatin biology, developmental biology and genomics. She is known for her work in understanding how the genome is regulated, in particular to how developmental enhancers function, how they interact within three dimensional chromatin topologies and how they drive cell fate decisions during embryogenesis. She is Head of the Department of Genome Biology at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory . Furlong was elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2013, the Academia Europ...
Go to Profile#2519
Linda Randall
#168736
Overall Influence
Linda Randall is a Professor Emerita of Biochemistry and Wurdack Chair Emerita of Biological Chemistry at the University of Missouri. Her research has shown unexpected and complex details of the movement of newly made proteins from the cytosol across membranes into the organelles of the cell. In particular, she found that the entire protein was kept unfolded by association with a chaperone and not just directed to cross membranes by its terminal leader sequence. In 1997, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences of the USA because of the excellence of this work. She has received a ...
Go to Profile#2520
Lesley Rhodes
#150174
Overall Influence
Lesley Louise Rhodes is a New Zealand scientist. She is the co-leader of the Nationally Significant Database programme for the Cawthron Institute. In the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours, she was named as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition for her contributions to science and marine farming.
Go to Profile#2521
Vanessa Ezenwa
#168816
Overall Influence
Vanessa Olivia Ezenwa is an American ecologist who is a professor at the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. Her research considers the ecology of infectious diseases amongst animal populations. In 2020, she was selected by The Community of Scholars as one of the most Inspiring Black scientists in the United States.
Go to Profile#2522
Sheila Lukehart
#171036
Overall Influence
Sheila Lukehart is an American physician who is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington. Her research covered immune responses and the pathogenesis of syphilis. In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology.
Go to Profile#2523
Susan Bradley
#64043
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Susan Jane Bradley is a Canadian psychiatrist. She has written many journal articles and books, including Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents and Affect Regulation and the Development of Psychopathology. Bradley was chair of the DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Disorders.
Go to Profile#2524
Gladys W. Royal
#104499
Overall Influence
1926 - 2002 (76 years)
Gladys W. Royal is one of a small number of early African-American biochemists. Part of one of the few African-American husband-and-wife teams in science, Gladys worked with George C. Royal on research supported by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. She later worked for many years as principal biochemist at the Cooperative State Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Royal was also active in the civil rights movement in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Go to Profile#2525
Denise Cai
#135272
Overall Influence
Denise Cai is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Education and early career Cai attended the University of California, San Diego, where she received her Bachelor of Science in psychology in 2004. There, she performed an honors thesis under the mentorship of Ebbe Ebbesen entitled "Computational model of rape and assault cases." She continued her education at UCSD, pursuing her doctoral degree in Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, working with advisors Sara Mednick, Stephan Anagnostaras, and Michael Gorman. Her graduate work focused on how sleep affects memory formation in humans and in mice.
Go to Profile#2526
Chantal Stern
#136807
Overall Influence
Chantal Stern is a neuroscientist who uses techniques including functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the brain mechanisms of memory function. She is the Director of the Brain, Behavior and Cognition program and a professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. After completing a degree at McGill University, she performed her doctoral research at Oxford University with Richard Passingham.
Go to Profile#2527
Anne La Flamme
#171236
Overall Influence
Anne Camille La Flamme is a New Zealand immunologist. She is currently a professor at the Malaghan Institute at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. She has a MSc entitled 'Interleukin-2 production by transgenic Trypanosoma cruzi : molecular and biochemical characterization' and a PhD entitled 'Trypanosoma cruzi-infected macrophages are defective in class II antigen presentation,' both from the University of Washington.
Go to Profile#2528
Elizabeth Maywood
#169800
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Maywood is an English researcher who studies circadian rhythms and sleep in mice. Her studies are focused on the suprachiasmatic nucleus , a small region of the brain that controls circadian rhythms.
Go to Profile#2529
Liz Slooten
#144516
Overall Influence
Elisabeth Slooten is a New Zealand zoology academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Otago. Biography After secondary school in the Netherlands and a BSc and MSc in marine biology at the University of Auckland, Slooten completed a 1990 PhD from the University of Canterbury entitled Population biology, social organization and behaviour of Hector's Dolphins. Moving to the University of Otago for an extended period, she rose to the rank of full professor in 2015.
Go to Profile#2530
Helen Singer Kaplan
#81657
Overall Influence
1929 - 1995 (66 years)
Helen Singer Kaplan was an Austrian-American sex therapist and the founder of the first clinic in the United States for sexual disorderss established at a medical school. The New York Times described Kaplan as someone who was "considered a leader among scientific-oriented sex therapists. She was noted for her efforts to combine some of the insights and techniques of psychoanalysis with behavioral methods." She was also dubbed the "Sex Queen" because of her role as a pioneer in sex therapy during the sexual revolution in 1960s America, and because of her advocacy of the idea that people should enjoy sexual activity as much as possible, as opposed to seeing it as something dirty or harmful.
Go to Profile#2531
Caroline Lear
#129892
Overall Influence
Caroline "Carrie" Helen Lear is a Professor of Earth Science and the Head of the Changing Earth and Oceans Research Group at Cardiff University. She was awarded 2017 the Geological Society of London Bigsby Medal. She is the founding chair of the Changing Earth and Oceans Research Group and an editor of the journal Geology.
Go to Profile#2532
Margalith Galun
#157686
Overall Influence
1927 - 2012 (85 years)
Margalith Galun was an Israeli lichenologist. She was a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and established the Israeli collection of lichens at Tel Aviv University. Founder of the academic journal Symbiosis, she served as its editor-in-chief between 1985 and 2006. In 1994, she was awarded the Acharius Medal and in 1996 won the Meitner-Humboldt Prize, for her contributions to the field. The International Association for Lichenology grants an award which bears her name to honor scholarship at their quadrennial symposium.
Go to Profile#2533
Anna-Bella Failloux
#142010
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Anna-Bella Failloux is a French Polynesian entomologist who is a professor of medical entomology at the Pasteur Institute. Failloux was born on Raiatea and grew up on Tahiti. She studied plant physiology at Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, before completing a thesis on the parasitic worms responsible for Lymphatic filariasis at Paris-Sud University. She then worked at the Malardé Institute before joining the Pasteur Institute in 1994. Since 2011 she has been director of research on arboviruses and insect vectors. Her work has covered Bancroft's filariasis, Dengue fever, and Chikungunya.
Go to Profile#2534
Deborah Dunn-Walters
#112407
Overall Influence
Deborah Kay Dunn-Walters is a British immunologist who is Professor of Immunology at the University of Surrey. Her research considers B-cell development in healthy ageing and in disease, particularly from the viewpoint of antibody repertoires. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dunn-Walters focussed on mapping responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of single cell analyses of the immunological responses to a COVID-19 vaccine. She was a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, and provided the government with scientific advice during the pandemic.
Go to Profile#2535
Amy T. Austin
#141130
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Amy Theresa Austin is an Argentine ecologist. She is a principal research scientist at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina and a professor at the Faculty of Agronomy, University of Buenos Aires.
Go to Profile#2536
Susan Lea
#135780
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Susan Mary Lea is a British biologist who serves as chief of the center for structural biology at the National Cancer Institute. Her research investigates host-pathogen interactions and biomolecular pathways. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2022.
Go to Profile#2537
Julie Campbell
#107596
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Professor Julie Hazel Campbell AO FAA is an Australian vascular biologist from Sydney, Australia. Campbell is a professorial fellow at the Australian Academy of Science and is a world leader in the field of smooth muscle biology and, along with her husband, holds two patents for vascular implant material.
Go to Profile#2538
Viji Draviam
#161733
Overall Influence
Viji Mythily Draviam is a Professor of Quantitative Cell and Molecular Biology at Queen Mary University of London. Her research considers the molecular level mechanisms that underpin cell division. Whilst working at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Draviam identified a process that caused the formation of tumours.
Go to Profile#2539
Emma Teeling
#115124
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Emma Caroline Teeling is an Irish zoologist, geneticist and genomicist, who specialises in the phylogenetics and genomics of bats. Her work includes understanding of the bat genome and study of how insights from other mammals such as bats might contribute to better understanding and management of ageing and a number of conditions, including deafness and blindness, in humans. She is the co-founder of the Bat1K project to map the genomes of all species of bat. She is also concerned with understanding of the places of bats in the environment and how to conserve their ecosystem.
Go to Profile#2540
Susan Baker
#147573
Overall Influence
Susan C. Baker is an American molecular virologist and professor at Loyola University Chicago, Illinois. She teaches microbiology and immunology within the Loyola Medicine Health System. She received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. Currently, she has 80 publications, dating back to 1987, within each of the following disciplines: microbiology, infectious disease, and infectious disease control to name a few. A list of her publications can be found here.
Go to Profile#2541
Mary-Louise Penrith
#170735
Overall Influence
#2542
Bette A. Loiselle
#170744
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Bette Ann Loiselle is an American neotropical ornithologist, neotropical ecologist, and conservation biologist. Education and career At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign she graduated in 1979 with a B.A. in biology and in 1981 with an M.S. in biology. In 1987 she received her Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her Ph.D. thesis in entitled Birds and plants in a neotropical rain forest: seasonality and interactions. From 1987 to 1990 she was a naturalist for Betchart Expeditions in Cupertino, California. From 1988 to 1990 she was an adjunct research associate at the Natural Resources Institute at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.
Go to Profile#2543
Bridgette Barry
#128385
Overall Influence
Bridgette Anne Barry was an American biophysicist and biochemist. She was a professor and researcher of molecular biophysics and biochemistry in the Georgia Tech chemistry and biochemistry department from 2003 until her death. Her research focused on protein electron and oxygen evolution mechanisms.
Go to Profile#2544
Diane Bassham
#168103
Overall Influence
Diane C. Bassham is a plant pathologist and professor at Iowa State University. Bassham earned a bachelor's of science degree in biochemistry at the University of Birmingham, followed by a doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Warwick. She joined the Iowa State University faculty in 2001, where she was promoted from assistant to associate professor. In 2013, Bassham became the first holder of the Walter E. and Helen Parke Loomis Professorship of Plant Physiology. She was invited to join Faculty 1000 in 2017. Bassham was elected a fellow of the American Society of Plant Biolog...
Go to Profile#2545
Linda Nedbalová
#169980
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Linda Nedbalová is a Czech Antarctic researcher, best known for her work on snow algae. Early life and education Nedbalová was born in 1976 in Prague . She received her MSc. degree in biology in 2000 at the Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague. She then received a Ph.D. at the same faculty in 2007. The title of her thesis was Phytoplankton in acidified lakes: structure, function and response to ecosystem recovery'.
Go to Profile#2546
Polina V. Lishko
#85343
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Polina V. Lishko is an American cellular and developmental biologist. She was a 2015 Pew biomedical scholar. She is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. She is currently an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley as well as an adjunct professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
Go to Profile#2547
Paola Malanotte Rizzoli
#168763
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Paola Malanotte Rizzoli is a physical oceanographer known for her research on ocean circulation and sea level rise, especially with respect to flooding conditions in Venice. Education and career As a child growing up in Venice, Malanotte Rizzoli had a passion for music and by age eleven learned La Traviata while considering a future as an opera singer. However, math prevailed and she earned a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Lyceum “Benedetti” Italy. In 1968 she completed a Ph.D. at the University of Padua with a dissertation titled “Quantum-mechanical structure of biologically important molecules.
Go to Profile#2548
Barbara Mawer
#89705
Overall Influence
1936 - 2006 (70 years)
Elizabeth Barbara Mawer was a British biochemist and medical researcher. She was regarded as a "highly influential figure in the calcium homoeostasis field". Early life and education Barbara Entwistle was born on 6 March 1939 in Blackburn to Thomas Entwistle, a teacher, and Gladys Mary Entwistle . She attended Blackburn High School and Queen Mary School in Lytham St Annes. She received a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 1957. She stayed there to conduct research, supervised by Guy Marrian, and in 1961 received a PhD for her thesis entitled The metabolism of cholesterol in the animal body.
Go to Profile#2549
Simone Vigod
#157320
Overall Influence
Simone Natalie Vigod is a Canadian scientist, Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Women's College Hospital and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She focuses her research on perinatal mood disorders and has conducted some of the largest studies worldwide on maternal mental illness around the time of pregnancy.
Go to Profile#2550
Tina Henkin
#171891
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Tina M. Henkin is a professor of microbiology, Distinguished University Professor, and Robert W. and Estelle S. Bingham Professor of Biological Sciences at Ohio State University. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology, and was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2019, she was reappointed to her Bingham professorship. Henkin researches how bacterial cells modulate gene expression in response to changes in their environment through effects on RNA str...
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