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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School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Biology,

#2651

Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke

#124862

Overall Influence

Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke, FMedSci is an English cell biologist who has made significant contributions to the understanding of the cellular and molecular biology of the tumour microenvironment and in particular angiogenesis. She is Professor of Angiogenesis and the Tumour Microenvironment and Deputy Institute Director of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London. In 2015 she was awarded the Hooke medal from the British Society for Cell Biology and EMBO membership.

#2652

Elsa Matilde Zardini

#167942

Overall Influence

1949 - 2020 (71 years)

Elsa Matilde Zardini was an Argentinian/Paraguayan botanist, teacher, curator, and explorer. She made botanical expeditions in the US, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay. Three botanical taxon names were authored by Zardini. Her specialization was the flora of the Plata basin, with an emphasis on that of Paraguay.

#2653

Di McCarthy

#134660

Overall Influence

Dianne Christine McCarthy is a New Zealand scientist and professional director, who was the chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand between 2007 and 2014. She lives in Blenheim. Education McCarthy completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and music, followed by a Master of Science degree at the University of Auckland. She also completed a PhD in experimental psychology at the university in 1979. The title of her doctoral thesis was A behavioural analysis of signal-detection performance.

#2654

Terri H. Finkel

#77575

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Terri H. Finkel is an American pediatric rheumatologist and immunologist who is the Children's Foundation of Memphis Endowed Chair and tenured professor of pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Previously, she was the pediatrician-in-chief, chair of pediatrics and chief scientific officer at Nemours Children's Hospital. She is known for her research into autoimmunity, AIDS, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and cancer. Her work has been recognized in more than 200 publications, 10 U.S. patents, and 4 licensed technologies.

#2655

Sophie Schwartz

#172338

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Sophie Schwartz is a Swiss neuroscientist who is a professor at the University of Geneva. She studies the neural mechanisms that underpin experience-dependent changes in the human brain. Early life and education Schwartz is from Switzerland. She was an undergraduate student at the University of Geneva, where she majored in biology. She moved to Lausanne as a graduate student, working toward a second bachelor's degree in psychology. She studied dreams through neurophysical investigations at the University of Lausanne. After completing her doctorate, Schwartz joined the Institute of Cognitive Ne...

#2656

Melissa Trainer

#116667

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Melissa G. Trainer is an American astrobiologist who in 2004 demonstrated empirically that life could have formed on Earth through the interaction of methane, carbon dioxide and ultraviolet light . She is Assistant Chief for Science, Operations, and Strategic Planning in the Planetary Environments Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

#2657

Sue VandeWoude

#114588

Overall Influence

Susan VandeWoude is an American veterinarian and researcher specializing in viral diseases of cats. She is currently serving as the Dean of Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

#2658

Keity Souza Santos

#129907

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Keity Souza Santos is an immunologist working at the allergy and immunology department of the University of São Paulo's school of medicine. Santos stated that she was the first person in her family to express interest in science as a career. She was inspired to become a biologist by the story of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal clone. She received her bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of São Paulo in 2003, and her doctorate in Allergy and Immunopathology in 2008 from the same institution. During her doctorate, she worked to find an anti-venom for the sting of Apis m...

#2659

Karen L. Wiebe

#172880

Overall Influence

Karen L. Wiebe is a Canadian ornithologist and the Stuart and Mary Houston Professor of Ornithology in the Department of Biology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Education Wiebe received her doctorate at the University of Saskatchewan in 1993.

#2660

Katrin Meissner

#105822

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Katrin Juliane Meissner is a physical oceanographer and climate scientist known for climate models assessing the impact of abrupt climate change on terrestrial and marine biogeochemical cycling. Education and career Meissner grew up in Berlin, Germany, where she attended the Französisches Gymnasium Berlin. Meissner completed an engineering degree at the Ecole Centrale de Lille in 1995. Meissner moved to the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France where she investigated the predictability of the West African monsoon based on ocean-atmosphere fluxes off the coast of Senegal. Meissner received her Ph.D.

#2661

Claire Haworth

#113726

Overall Influence

Claire Haworth is a reader in behavioural genetics and co-director of the Dynamic Genetics Lab at the University of Bristol. Education Haworth graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in experimental psychology. She completed her MSc and PhD at King's College London.

#2662

Renae Ryan

#123928

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Professor Renae Monique Ryan is the academic director of the Science in Australia Gender Equity Program at the University of Sydney, and a researcher in neuroscience, pharmacology and membrane transport proteins. She argues for systemic change to increase academic diversity.

#2663

Corinne Watts

#69146

Overall Influence

Corinne Hannah Watts is a New Zealand entomologist and ecologist. Specimens collected by Watts are held at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Education Watts graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a MSc in Ecology in 1999, and gained a PhD in Invertebrate Ecology from the University of Canterbury in 2006.

#2664

Silvia Pressel

#172073

Overall Influence

Silvia Pressel is a botanist and head of the LS Algae, Fungi and Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London. She is a joint recipient of the Linnean Society's 2008 Irene Manton Prize for the "best thesis in botany examined for a doctorate of philosophy during a single academic year" in the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD, Experimental studies of bryophyte cell biology, conservation, physiology and systematics, at Queen Mary University of London in 2007. She was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow. She is also the recipient of the Linnean Society's Trail-Crisp Awa...

#2665

Sandra Escher

#55845

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

Alexandre Dorothée Marie Adriaan Charlotte Escher was a Dutch mental health advocate and researcher. Early life, family and education Sandra Escher was born in The Hague, the Netherlands. She trained at the School of Journalism in Utrecht.

#2666

Yocasta Brugal

#173994

Overall Influence

Yocasta Clara Brugal Mena is a Puerto Rican forensic pathologist and academic administrator. She is the president and dean of San Juan Bautista School of Medicine. Brugal leads the department of clinical pathology.

#2667

Margaret M. Davies

#142277

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Margaret Davies is an Australian herpetologist born on 8 November 1944. She worked at the University of Adelaide studying Australian frogs, retiring in 2002. Initially appointed to a teaching post at the university, she was inspired to research frog taxonomy and their ecology from the 1970s. She identified over 30 new species of frogs during her career. She has contributed to over 120 publications.

#2668

Jessica Ware

#111344

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (40 years)

Jessica Lee Ware is a Canadian-American evolutionary biologist and entomologist. She is the associate curator of invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In addition, she is a principal investigator at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics and an associate professor for the Richard Gilder Graduate School.

#2669

Jill R. Harper

#136235

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Jill Reiss Harper is an American molecular biologist and policy advisor serving as the deputy director for science management and executive officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

#2670

Maria Natasha Rajah

#125611

Overall Influence

Maria Natashini "Natasha" Rajah is a Canadian neuroscientist who is a Full Professor at the Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University. Prior to joining Toronto Metropolitan University in August 2023, she was Full Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University from 2005 to July 2023, and was the inaugural Scientific Director of the Cerebral Imaging Center at the Douglas Research Centre from 2011 to 2021. She is a cognitive neuroscientist who is interested in episodic memory, ageing and dementia. Her research uses functional magnetic resonance imaging to investi...

#2671

Anna Cox

#80987

Overall Influence

Anna Louise Cox is a British Professor of Human Computer Interaction in the University College London Faculty of Brain Sciences. Her research considers evidence-based approaches to reduce work-related stress and remain focussed through the use of digital technology. Cox serves as Vice Dean for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and was an advisor to the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee for their select committee enquiry on immersive and addictive technologies.

#2672

Valentina Grigorievna Sideleva

#106375

Overall Influence

#2673

Milena Holmgren

#174112

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Milena Holmgren is a Chilean ecologist who is a lecturer at the Wageningen University and a writer of over 60 peer-reviewed articles which were published in such journals as the Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Oikos, Science, and many others.

#2674

Melanie Blokesch

#173742

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Melanie Blokesch is a German microbiologist. Her research focuses on Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium causing cholera. She is a professor of life sciences at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne , where she heads the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology.

#2675

Elise Pendall

#174009

Overall Influence

Elise Gislaine Pendall is an American soil and ecosystem ecologist who is a professor at Western Sydney University. She studies how biogeochemical cycling responds to climate change and disturbances to the ecosystem.

#2676

Erin M. Gibson

#160969

Overall Influence

Erin M. Gibson is a glial and circadian biologist as well as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine at Stanford University. Gibson investigates the role of glial cells in sculpting neural circuits and mechanistically probes how the circadian rhythm modulates glial biology.

#2677

Stacy Philpott

#92316

Overall Influence

Stacy Philpott is an American ecologist who is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research considers agroecology and the conservation of biodiversity. She was elected a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America in 2021.

#2678

Belinda Ferrari

#131202

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Belinda Carlene Ferrari is an Australian microbiologist who specialises in the genetics and ecology of soil bacteria and fungi, particularly in polar regions. She is an associate professor at the University of New South Wales in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, where she heads a microbiology laboratory.

#2679

Susan Strome

#174270

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Susan Strome is a Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz. Strome received a B.A. degree in chemistry from University of New Mexico and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Washington, as well as post-graduate work at the University of Colorado Boulder. Strome is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

#2680

Mercedes S. Foster

#154172

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Mercedes S. Foster is an American zoologist who researched the evolution of lek behavior in birds, bird-plant interactions, and male-male cooperation in reproduction. She is very active in conservation efforts, including training workshops, being a Scientific Advisor for the National Bio-inventory Program of Paraguay, as a Founding Director of the American Bird Conservancy, and as a Founder and Co-coordinator of the Latin American Library Enhancement Program. She is also the Director and Editor of a program to publish handbooks giving "standard methods for measuring and monitoring the biodive...

#2681

Sarah Woodin

#174288

Overall Influence

Sarah Woodin is an American biologist currently at University of South Carolina and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#2682

Denise Dearing

#80382

Overall Influence

Maria Denise Dearing is an American ecological physiologist and mammalogist. As a distinguished professor at the University of Utah, Dearing's research has focused on animals and toxic diets and diseases.

#2683

Dorothy Riggs Pitelka

#173798

Overall Influence

1920 - 1994 (74 years)

Dorothy Riggs Pitelka was an American zoologist, protistologist, cancer researcher, and pioneer in applications of electron microscopy to zoology and protistology, known for her 1963 book Electron-Microscopic Structure of Protozoa.

#2684

Katherine Ewel

#161030

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Katherine Carter Ewel is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida's School of Forest Resources and Conservation. She is an ecosystem, forest, and wetlands ecologist who has worked in Florida for much of her career, focusing much of it on cypress swamps, pine plantations, and mangrove forests in the Pacific. Ewel served as the vice-president of the Society of Wetland Scientists in 2003, becoming president in 2004 and now since 2005, a past president. She has now retired and lives near Gainesville, Florida.

#2685

Yolanda van Heezik

#172954

Overall Influence

Yolanda van Heezik is a New Zealand academic and a professor of zoology at the University of Otago. She is considered one of New Zealand's first urban ecologists. In 1988 van Heezik completed a PhD at the University of Otago in animal biology, writing her thesis on penguin ecology. Her research is focused on birds and other wildlife in urban areas, and biodiversity of gardens. She also researches and writes about children's connections with nature.

#2686

Raffaella Rumiati

#170045

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Raffaella Ida Rumiati is professor of cognitive neuroscience at the International School for Advanced Studies [Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati], , Italy. She sits on the editorial board of the journal Cognitive Neuropsychology, and is an action editor for the journal Brain and Cognition. Rumiati is also a member of the steering committee of the European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology. and a member of The NeuroGenderings Network.

#2687

Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey

#174259

Overall Influence

Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey is an American-Indian biologist. She is the Morris Pollard Professor and former Department Chair of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. D'Souza-Schorey researches how membrane trafficking impacts cell motility under normal conditions and in disease states.

#2688

Anne Searls De Groot

Anne Searls De Groot

#172558

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Anne Searls De Groot is a physician, immunologist and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO/CSO of the immunoinformatics company EpiVax. She is actively involved in graduate teaching at the Center for Vaccines and Immunology and guides the scientific research program in her laboratory at EpiVax.

#2689

Janet Wilmshurst

#152902

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Janet Mary Wilmshurst is a New Zealand palaeoecologist who works on reconstructing the ecological past. Wilmshurst has been a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi since 2015. She was president of the New Zealand Ecological Society, and currently works as principal scientist in long-term ecology at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research focusing on recent fossil records to reconstruct and trace past ecosystem changes in response to natural disturbance.

#2690

Rachel Wynberg

#91358

Overall Influence

Rachel P. Wynberg is a South African biodiversity researcher and natural scientist who is a professor at the department of Environmental and Geography Sciences at the University of Cape Town. Life and work

#2691

Renate Radek

#161873

Overall Influence

Renate Radek is a protistologist and an associate professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. Education Radek received a Diploma in biology from the University of Bonn in 1985. She received her PhD in 1987 at the University of Bonn's Institute of Cytology, supervised by .

#2692

Jill Macoska

#144812

Overall Influence

Jill A. Macoska is an American scientist and professor. She is the Alton J. Brann endowed chair and distinguished professor of science and mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Education Macoska earned a B.A. in physical anthropology from Kent State University . She holds an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She completed postdoctoral work at Harvard University in molecular genetics and at the Michigan Cancer Foundation.

#2693

Vibeke Videm

#168634

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Vibeke Videm is a professor of clinical and molecular medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, where she specializes in inflammation and immunology. She also is a senior physician at St. Olav's University Hospital.

#2694

Judith Mank

#173848

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Judith Elizabeth Mank is an American-British zoologist who is a Canada 150 Chair at the University of British Columbia. She studies how evolution produces variation in animals. She is interested in sexual dimorphism and the formation of sex chromosomes.

#2695

Claudia M. Palena

#116166

Overall Influence

Claudia M. Palena is an American-Argentine immunologist and cancer researcher. She is head of the immunoregulation section at the National Cancer Institute. Palena researches tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy.

#2696

Karla Kaun

#172678

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Karla Renea Kaun is a Canadian behavioral neurogeneticist and the Robert and Nancy Carney Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Brown University. She studies addiction using fruit flies , as a model. Kaun is currently president of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society .

#2697

Türkan Haliloğlu

#111846

Overall Influence

Türkan Haliloğlu is a Turkish biochemist researching biopolymers, computational structural biology, protein dynamics, binding and folding of proteins, and protein interactions. She is a professor in the department of chemical engineering and director of the polymer research center at the Boğaziçi University.

#2698

Christine Beveridge

#132390

Overall Influence

Christine Beveridge is an Australian scientist and plant physiologist whose research focuses on the shoot architecture of plants, shrubs and trees. She is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland, Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, and affiliated professor at the Centre for Crop Science at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.

#2699

Amanda Ramirez

#82245

Overall Influence

Amanda Ramirez is Professor of Liaison Psychiatry, director of the Promoting Early Presentation Group at King's College London, director of Informed Choice about Cancer Screening at King's Health Partners and National Clinical Lead for Cancer Patient Information, National Cancer Action Team, now part of NHS Improving Quality.

#2700

Erin Dolan

#172269

Overall Influence

Erin Dolan is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Innovative Science Education at the University of Georgia. Dolan is a biochemist known for her research on engaging students in science research.

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