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,

#2601

Felicia Keesing

#126791

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Felicia Keesing is an ecologist and the David & Rosalie Rose Distinguished Chair of the Sciences, Mathematics, and Computing at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Education Keesing received her B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University in 1987 and her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1997.

#2602

Isabel Bäurle

#120258

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Isabel Bäurle is a German plant biologist who is a Professor of Plant Epigenetics at the University of Potsdam. She is on the editorial board of the Current Opinion in Plant Biology. Early life and education Bäurle was an undergraduate student at the University of Freiburg, where she studied biology and chemistry. She completed an undergraduate research internship at the University of Bologna. In 2000, Bäurle completed her doctoral research at the University of Freiburg. After graduating, she moved to the John Innes Centre, where she worked with Caroline Dean. Bäurle was awarded a Royal Societ...

#2603

Kathryn McPherson

#160465

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Kathryn Margaret McPherson is a New Zealand medical researcher and administrator. As of 2018 she is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology and chief executive of the Health Research Council of New Zealand.

#2604

Maddy Parsons

#170901

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Maddy Parsons is a British cell biologist who is a professor and Associate Dean for Impact & Innovation at King's College London. She is the Director of the Nikon Imaging Centre. Her research looks to understand the fundamental mechanisms that underpin cell adhesion and migration. She is Chair of the Medical Research Council Molecular & Cellular Medicine Board.

#2605

Brenda Bloodgood

Brenda Bloodgood

#156797

Overall Influence

Brenda Bloodgood is an American neuroscientist and associate professor of neurobiology at the University of California, San Diego. Bloodgood studies the molecular and cellular basis of brain circuitry changes in response to an animal's interactions with the environment.

#2606

Kathryn L. Cottingham

#108741

Overall Influence

Kathryn Linn Cottingham is a Professor of Ecology, Evolution, Environment and Society in the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College. She is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America and American Association for the Advancement of Science. From 2020 she will serve as editor-in-chief of the journal Ecology.

#2607

Shelly Flagel

#115868

Overall Influence

Shelly B. Flagel is an American behavioral neuroscientist whose research focuses on the underlying brain mechanisms of reward and addiction. She is an associate professor of psychiatry in the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan.

#2608

Jenny Stauber

#168901

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Jennifer Lee Stauber is an Australian ecotoxicologist and chief research scientist at the CSIRO Land and Water. Education Stauber graduated from the University of Sydney in 1979 with a BSc in biochemistry and microbiology and MSc for her thesis titled "Photosynthetic pigments in marine diatoms" in 1984. In 1996, she completed a PhD titled "Toxicity of Metals in Biological Systems" at the University of Tasmania.

#2609

Barbara Almond

#86883

Overall Influence

1938 - 2016 (78 years)

Barbara Almond was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. She authored books on psychiatry, including The Monster Within: The Hidden Side of Motherhood . Biography Almond was born Barbara Mary Rosenthal in The Bronx. Her father was an actuary, and her mother was a teacher. She attended The High School of Music & Art in Manhattan before graduating from Antioch College and Yale University Medical School. Almond had a private practice in Palo Alto, California, and taught at Stanford University and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.

#2610

Heather Hendrickson

#153039

Overall Influence

Heather Hendrickson is a microbiologist and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. She previously worked at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand. Her research is focussed on the evolution of bacterial cell shape, and the discovery of bacteriophages that can attack antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the bee disease American foulbrood.

#2611

Melina Hale

#160143

Overall Influence

Melina Elisabeth Hale is an American neuroscientist and biomechanist. She is the dean of the College and the William Rainey Harper Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, at the University of Chicago.

#2612

Beatriz Morales-Nin

#172321

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Beatriz Morales-Nin is a marine ecologist and expert in fish and sustainable management of fishery resources. She is currently a research professor at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies . She is a leading Spanish expert in sclerochronology where her main field of research is fish otoliths.

#2613

Katie Doores

#166366

Overall Influence

Katherine Jane Doores is a British biochemist who is a senior lecturer in the School of Immunology & Microbial Sciences at King's College London. During the COVID-19 pandemic Doores studied the levels of antibodies in patients who had suffered from COVID-19.

#2614

Sarah Garfinkel

Sarah Garfinkel

#121936

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Sarah Garfinkel is a British neuroscientist and Professor of neuroscience and psychiatry based at the University of Sussex and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research is focused on the link between interoception and emotion and memory. In 2018, she was selected as one of 11 researchers on the Nature Index 2018 Rising Stars.

#2615

Claudia Benitez-Nelson

#169576

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Claudia Benitez-Nelson is a Latinx American oceanographer whose research focuses on marine geochemistry and biogeochemistry. A Carolina Distinguished Professor, she serves as the Senior Associate Dean for College Initiatives and Interdisciplinary Programs at the University of South Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences.

#2616

Josefa Celsa Señaris

Josefa Celsa Señaris

#151560

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Josefa Celsa Señaris is a Venezuelan herpetologist. She has published information about frogs and she has identified new genera and species. Señaris is the director of the La Salle Foundation's Natural History Museum in Caracas.

#2617

Mariya Zerova

#122890

Overall Influence

1902 - 1994 (92 years)

Mariya Yakovlevna Zerova, alternately Marija Jakovlevna Zerova, was a Ukrainian biologist and taxonomist known for her work in mycology. Her research included work on ectrotrophic mycorrhiza and fungal diseases of the rubber tree and beet . She made a major contribution to the multi-volume books of the Determination of Mushrooms of Ukraine published between 1967 and 1979. Her collection of 12,000 specimens of fungi and plants is now held in the National Herbarium of Ukraine.

#2618

Anna-Lise Williamson

#110269

Overall Influence

Anna-Lise Williamson MASSAf is a Professor of Virology at the University of Cape Town. Williamson obtained her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1985. Her area of expertise is human papillomavirus, but is also known on an international level for her work in developing vaccines for HIV. These vaccines have been introduce in phase 1 of clinical trial. Williamson has published more than 120 papers.

#2619

Houra Merrikh

#89216

Overall Influence

Houra Merrikh is an Iranian-American microbiologist. She is a full professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Biochemistry. Her field of work is antibiotic resistance and bacterial evolvability.

#2620

Maree Gleeson

#106616

Overall Influence

Emeritus Professor Maree Gleeson is an Australian immunologist. Her research has focused on respiratory immunology in children and elite athletes. She has held multiple leadership positions within the health sector in the Hunter Region in NSW.

#2621

Laura Wegener Parfrey

#173133

Overall Influence

Laura Wegener Parfrey is a Canadian bioscientist, focusing on microbial ecology. , she is a Canada Research Chair in Protist Ecology at the University of British Columbia. Her work has two distinct strands: the microbial ecology of the mammalian gut and coastal microbial ecosystems.

#2622

Rohini Kuner

#123534

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Rohini Kuner is an Indian-born German pharmacologist and director of the Institute of Pharmacology at Heidelberg University. Vita After studying pharmacology in India she obtained her PhD from University of Iowa in the laboratory of Gerald Gebhart studying the role of spinal NMDA-receptors in nociception.

#2623

Natasha J. Caplen

#82442

Overall Influence

Natasha Jane Caplen is a British-American geneticist who discovered RNA interference in mammalian cells. She is a senior investigator and head of the functional genetics section at the National Cancer Institute.

#2624

Earyn McGee

#140909

Overall Influence

Earyn McGee is an American herpetologist and science communicator. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science IF/THEN Ambassador and a 2020 AAAS Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellow. In response to the racism faced by Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper in the Central Park birdwatching incident, McGee co-organized Black Birders Week to celebrate Black birders.

#2625

Rani Hoff

#106170

Overall Influence

Rani A. Hoff is a professor of psychiatry and a director of a national center for Post-traumatic stress disorder at Yale University. Life and work Rani Hoff, daughter of Robert and Victoria Hoff, grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and first became a concertmaster of the Erie Philharmonic Youth orchestra at the age of 10. She graduated with a BS in mathematics and biology from Mercyhurst University in 1985 at the age of 16, and within the next two months she joined the Army and was reporting to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, hoping to become a medical specialist.

#2626

Anne Schaefer

#140220

Overall Influence

Anne Schaefer is a neuroscientist, professor of Neuroscience, vice-chair of Neuroscience, and director of the Center for Glial Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Schaefer investigates the epigenetic mechanisms of cellular plasticity and their role in the regulation of microglia-neuron interactions. Her research is aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying various neuropsychiatric disorders and finding novel ways to target the epigenome therapeutically.

#2627

Katherine A. Lathrop

#114826

Overall Influence

1915 - 2005 (90 years)

Katherine Austin Lathrop was an American nuclear medicine researcher, biochemist and member of the Manhattan Project. Lathrop conducted pioneer work on the effects of radiation exposure on animals and humans.

#2628

Melanie Greter

#168572

Overall Influence

Melanie Greter is a Swiss neuroimmunologist and a Swiss National Science Foundation Professor in the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University of Zurich. Greter explores the ontogeny and function of microglia and border-associated macrophages of the central nervous system to understand how they maintain homeostasis and contribute to brain-related diseases.

#2629

Sharon Emerson

#57551

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Sharon B. Emerson is an American biologist and was a research professor emeritus at the University of Utah. In 1993, she was chair of the Division of Vertebrate Morphology of the American Society of Zoologists. She taught at University of Illinois, Chicago.

#2630

Laura Huenneke

#73653

Overall Influence

Dr. Laura Huenneke is an American ecologist and former President of the Ecological Society of America. She is known for her research in public health in Arizona's Native American community, focusing on cancer prevention, invasive species, and desert ecosystems. Huenneke is the former Vice President for Research at Northern Arizona University where she continues her research studying the impact of biological diversity on ecosystems and teaching classes in Environmental Sciences. She has served on a variety of boards and review panels for ecological research journals and has received a number of...

#2631

Tyra Wolfsberg

#170234

Overall Influence

Tyra Gwendolen Wolfsberg is an American bioinformatician. She is the associate director of the bioinformatics and scientific programming core at the National Human Genome Research Institute. Life Wolfsberg received a A.B. in molecular biology from Princeton University. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of California, San Francisco. Her 1995 dissertation was titled Identification and characterization of ADAM, a novel gene family. Wolfsberg transitioned to computationally based research by performing a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at NIH.

#2632

Anne Goodenough

#93364

Overall Influence

Anne Goodenough is an ecologist in the United Kingdom. She is Professor of Applied Ecology at the University of Gloucestershire. Education and career Goodenough did a PhD on nest box choice and breeding success in woodland birds. She became Professor of Applied Ecology at the University of Gloucestershire in 2017 and is also course leader for Applied Ecology, prior to this she was a Senior Lecturer and course leader for Biosciences at the University.

#2633

Martina Sester

#170681

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Martina Sester is a biologist, Professor of Transplantation and Infection Immunology and Head of Department of the Institute of Infection Medicine at Saarland University Hospital as well as former Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer at Saarland University.

#2634

Linda C. Samuelson

#121722

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Linda Carol Samuelson is an American physiologist who researches the role of stem cells in the gastrointestinal tract. She is the John A. Williams Collegiate Professor of Gastrointestinal Physiology at the University of Michigan, president of the American Physiological Society, and fellow of the American Physiological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#2635

Eleanor Feingold

#140120

Overall Influence

Eleanor Feingold is an American statistical geneticist. She is a professor of human genetics and of biostatistics, and executive associate dean, in the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.

#2636

Catherine Jeandel

#109045

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Catherine Jeandel is a French geochemical oceanographer known for her research on isotope geochemistry and trace elements in the ocean. Education and career Jeandel grew up in northern Brittany wanting to be an ocean scientist, despite a lack of interest in mathematics. She was a student at the École normale supérieure de Sèvres from 1977 to 1982. Jeandel earned a B.S. and her Ph.D. at the University of Paris VII.

#2637

Phyllis McAlpine

#166428

Overall Influence

1941 - 1998 (57 years)

Phyllis Jean McAlpine was a Canadian geneticist. She was a pioneer in mapping the human genome and served as Chair of the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee. Education McAlpine was awarded an honours bachelor's degree at Western University where she won a gold medal in zoology. She received a master's degree from the University of Toronto in 1966. Her thesis was called An assessment of the creatine kinase test in the detection of carriers of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She went on to complete a PhD at University College London in 1970 with a thesis entitled Studies on the genetic variation of phosphoglucomutase in man.

#2638

Sharon R. Browning

#158720

Overall Influence

Sharon Ruth Browning is a statistical geneticist at the University of Washington, and a research professor with its Department of Biostatistics. Her research has various implications for the field of biogenetics.

#2639

Farkhanda Manzoor

#139184

Overall Influence

Farkhanda Manzoor is a zoologist and the former Vice-Chancellor of Lahore College for Women University. Her research most often focuses on termite control, mosquitoes, insecticides, and tropical diseases and virology.

#2640

Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér

#136182

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, born 1967, is a Swedish immunologist who is Professor of Microbial Pathogenesis at the Karolinska Institute. In 2013, she demonstrated that a simple antiviral could improve the life expectancy of glioblastoma disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden, Söderberg-Nauclér on several occasions strongly criticized the Swedish response to SARS-CoV-2, claiming that they were leading the country into a catastrophe, and demanded that the Swedish state epidemiologist should resign.

#2641

Sarah Dunlop

#171466

Overall Influence

Sarah Dunlop is an Australian researcher working in neuroplasticity, neuroscience and community programs for people with spinal cord injury. Dunlop is head of an integrated program of laboratory and clinical research at The University of Western Australia and Royal Perth Hospital promoting functional recovery after traumatic injury to the nervous system. Laboratory studies use rodent models and focus on preventing the spread of secondary degeneration to intact tissue.

#2642

Reinette Biggs

#168180

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Professor Reinette "Oonsie" Biggs is a South African sustainability scientist whose research focuses on food, water, and the benefits people receive from nature. Biggs is the co-director of the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and a researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University in Sweden.

#2643

Lauren B. Buckley

#133257

Overall Influence

Lauren B. Buckley is an evolutionary ecologist and professor of biology at the University of Washington. She researches the relationship between organismal physiological and life history features and response to global climate change.

#2644

Teresa Paiva

#99626

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Teresa Paiva is a Portuguese somnologist, neurologist, academic and author. She was head of neurology at the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon and is clinical director of the Sleep Medicine Center in Lisbon.

#2645

Tracy Ainsworth

#103037

Overall Influence

Tracy Ainsworth is a marine biologist and Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, working on coral reefs, and the biology of the Great Barrier Reef. Her research covers the biology of stresses, cells, disease, immunity and symbiosis. She was awarded the Dorothy Hill Medal for science, from the Australian Academy of Science, for research on coral reef, stresses and impacts of temperature on coral health.

#2646

Carly Stevens

#166937

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Carly Stevens is a professor of plant ecology and soil biogeochemistry at University of Lancaster, UK. Her work focuses on how changes in the atmospheric nitrogen cycle affect plant communities, particularly grasslands.

#2647

Anne-Brit Kolstø

#135978

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Anne-Brit Kolstø is a Norwegian microbiologist. She took her dr.philos. degree in biochemistry at the University of Tromsø, and is now a professor of microbiology at the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, University of Oslo. From 2002 to 2005 she served as prorector of the University of Oslo.

#2648

Hitoshi Ida

#169580

Overall Influence

#2649

Gudrun Kadereit

#156996

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Gudrun Kadereit is a German botanist, the Princess Therese von Bayern Chair of Systematics, Biodiversity and Evolution of Plants at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and the director of both the Botanical Garden Munich-Nymphenburg and the Botanical State Collection Munich. Her research focuses on angiosperm phylogenetics, systematics and biogeography, in particular on the families Amaranthaceae, Melastomataceae, Crassulaceae, Aizoaceae and Zygophyllaceae but also on the evolution of C4 photosynthesis and Crassulacean Acid Metabolism and the evolution of seed traits.

#2650

Adina Merenlender

#169109

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Adina Merenlender is a Professor of Cooperative Extension in Conservation Science at University of California, Berkeley in the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, and is an internationally recognized conservation biologist known for land-use planning, watershed science, landscape connectivity, and naturalist and stewardship training.

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