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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Biology,

#2851

Janice Lord

#177199

Overall Influence

Janice Marjorie Lord is a New Zealand academic, a plant evolutionary biologist, and as of 2020 is an associate professor at the University of Otago, where she is the curator of the Otago Regional Herbarium.

#2852

Gail Anderson

#131718

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Gail S. Anderson is a forensic entomologist, academic, and associate director of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. She is an instructor at the Canadian Police College, a fellow of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences and the Canadian Society of Forensic Science, as well as a member of the Canadian Identification Society and the International Association for Identification.

#2853

Carla V. Rothlin

#174327

Overall Influence

Carla V. Rothlin is an Argentinian immunologist and Dorys McConnell Duberg Professor of Immunobiology and Professor of Pharmacology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rothlin is also the co-leader of the Cancer Immunology Program at Yale Cancer Center as well as an Howard Hughes Medical Investigator faculty scholar. Rothlin studies the mechanisms that regulate immune homeostasis and wound repair, with specific interests in cell death recognition, immune checkpoints, and cellular crosstalk in the context of injury and cell turnover. She has made fundamental discoveries about the roles of TAM receptors tyrosine kinase and their ligands in the regulation of inflammation.

#2854

Anya Waite

#176325

Overall Influence

Anya Waite is a biological oceanographer working at the Ocean Frontier Institute in Dalhousie University's Faculty of Science in Nova Scotia, Canada, where she was born and raised. She studies nitrogen fluxes in polar oceans and particle dynamics in mesoscale eddies as an Appointed Associate Vice-President Research of Dalhousie University and Chief Executive Officer of Ocean Frontier Institute. She was previously Winthrop Professor at the University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute, the Section Head of Polar Biological Oceanography at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, and a professor of oceanography in the biology department at the University of Bremen.

#2855

Deborah Tolman

#85942

Overall Influence

Deborah L. Tolman is a developmental psychologist and the co-founder of SPARK: Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge. She is the author of Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality, which was awarded the 2003 Distinguished Book Award from the Association for Women in Psychology.

#2856

Jadwiga Złotorzycka

#175616

Overall Influence

1926 - 2002 (76 years)

Jadwiga Zlotorzycka was a Polish entomologist specialising in Mallophaga. She worked in the Parasitology Department of the University of Wroclaw. Life and career Zlotorzycka was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1926 and grew up in Lviv, Ukraine. She began studying at the University of Wroclaw in 1945, and worked at the Museum of Natural History there while a student. She later pursued doctoral studies there. Zlotorzycka became head of the University's Department of General Parasitology in 1972.

#2857

Sharon J. Hall

#172355

Overall Influence

Sharon J. Hall is an ecosystem ecologist and associate professor at the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. Her research focuses on ecosystem ecology and the ways that human activity interacts with the environment.

#2858

Kelly Benoit-Bird

Kelly Benoit-Bird

#79986

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Kelly Benoit-Bird is a marine scientist and senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Benoit-Bird uses acoustics to study marine organisms and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010.

#2859

Anne Villeneuve

Anne Villeneuve

#176149

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Anne Villeneuve is an American geneticist. She is known for her work on the mechanisms governing chromosome inheritance during sexual reproduction. Her work focuses on meiosis, the process by which a diploid organism, having two sets of chromosomes, produces gametes with only one set of chromosomes. She is a Professor of Developmental Biology and of Genetics at Stanford University and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

#2860

Wendy Yang

#169141

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Wendy Yang is an associate professor of Plant Biology and Geology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she works on soil biogeochemistry and ecosystem ecology. Early life and education Yang is from Indialantic, Florida. She became interested in environmental science from an early age when she spent time at an environmental summer camp called Earth Corps at the Brevard Community College following 5th grade. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 2003, with a degree in Environmental Science and Public Policy. She then moved to the University of California Berkeley, where she earned her PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management in 2010.

#2861

Teresa Wood

#171128

Overall Influence

Teresa L. Wood is an American neuroscientist. In November 2019, Wood was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "her research on growth factors and their signaling pathways as they pertain to stem cell differentiation, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases."

#2862

Sara Brownell

#175971

Overall Influence

Sara Elaine Brownell is an American biology education researcher who is a President's Professor at Arizona State University. Her research looks to make undergraduate science teaching more inclusive. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022.

#2863

Chinyere Ukaga

#170401

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Chinyere Ukaga is a professor of public health parasitology in the department of Animal and Environmental Biology, Imo State University, Owerri. Education Ukaga completed her O'level at Federal Government Girls Secondary school, Onitsha before proceeding to University of Nigeria, Nsukka where she attained a bachelor's degree in Zoology , a master's degree in Medical Parasitology and a doctorate degree in the same field . Her Ph.D. program which was supported by a grant from the Tropical Diseases Research / World Health Organization . Ukaga won the University of Nigeria Nsukka Vice chancellor Chancellor's post graduate prize and Faculty post graduate prize as the best graduating Ph.D.

#2864

Ana Crespo

#154235

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Ana María Crespo de las Casas is a Spanish lichenologist noted for studying the phytosociology, taxonomy and floristics of Mediterranean lichens. She was awarded the 2012 Acharius Medal from the International Association for Lichenology for lifetime achievements in lichenology, and the genera Crespoa, Cresponea and Cresporhaphis were named in her honor.

#2865

Immaculata De Vivo

#168926

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Immaculata De Vivo is a molecular epidemiologist and professor at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Cancer Causes & Control. Background Immaculata De Vivo was born in Sarno, Italy and migrated to United States in 1970 She earned her bachelor's degree at St. John's University in 1986, then proceeded for her MPH and PhD degrees at Columbia University New York in 1991 and 1993 respectively. De Vivo was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley from 1993-1995 and at Stanford University from 1995 to 1998.

#2866

Rosie Hails

#144787

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Rosemary S. Hails is a British population ecologist and entomologist and the current Director of Science and Nature at the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. Prior to this appointment she was the Director of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Science for UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, managing and directing the science of 350 ecologists and hydrologists, in collaboration with the Science Director for Water and Pollution Science. Professor Hails successfully led the development of UKCEH's national capability research programme delivered by the Research Centre, which cuts across the complete portfolio of expertise.

#2867

Mary J. O'Connell

Mary J. O'Connell

#175169

Overall Influence

Mary J. O'Connell is an evolutionary genomicist and Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham. She is the Principal Investigator of the Computational & Molecular Evolutionary Biology Group in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Nottingham.

#2868

Marie Taylor

#177497

Overall Influence

1930 - 1999 (69 years)

Grace Marie Taylor Bulmer was a New Zealand mycologist and botanist as well as a scientific illustrator. She described several new species of fungi and published and illustrated books on New Zealand fungi and plants.

#2869

Caroline Quach-Thanh

#135873

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Caroline Quach-Thanh is a Canadian pediatric microbiologist, epidemiologist and infectious diseases specialist. She is a professor in the Université de Montréal Faculty of Medicine and Medical Lead in the Infection Prevention and Control Unit at CHU Sainte-Justine. She served as the Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, and oversaw the approval process of COVID-19 vaccines in Canada.

#2870

Katherine Samaras

#139394

Overall Influence

Katherine Samaras is the laboratory head at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. She holds positions at St Vincent's Clinic, and University of New South Wales, as well as the University of Notre Dame.

#2871

Carol Collier

#145521

Overall Influence

Carol Collier is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and Fellow in the American Water Resources Association. She practices and teaches in the Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania, United States. A Certified Senior Ecologist, she specializes in watershed management and resilient systems design. She is a faculty member in the Department of Biodiversity, Earth & Environmental Science at Drexel University. Professionally, she serves as an educator, planner, and advocate.

#2872

Laura A. Katz

#150064

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Laura Aline Katz is an American biologist who is the Elsie Damon Simonds Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College. Early life and education Katz was born to Phyllis Beck Katz and Arnold Martin Katz. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College and her PhD from Cornell University.

#2873

Beverly Mock

#144824

Overall Influence

Beverly Anne Mock is an American geneticist who is a deputy director of the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research. Life Mock obtained a Ph.D. in zoology from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1983. Her dissertation was titled, The population biology of Trypanosoma diemyctyli. She continued her studies on the genetics of susceptibility to parasitic diseases in the department of immunology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

#2874

Andrea Alfaro

#175833

Overall Influence

Andrea Casandra Alfaro is an American-New Zealand aquaculture and marine ecology academic. She is currently a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Academic career After a 2001 PhD at the University of Auckland titled 'Ecological dynamics of the green-lipped mussel, Perna canaliculus, at Ninety Mile Beach, northern New Zealand,' Alfaro moved to Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor. Much of her research is related to the Perna canaliculus New Zealand green-lipped mussel, an important species in New Zealand aquaculture industry, but she has projects th...

#2875

Laura Busse

#168674

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Laura Busse is a German neuroscientist and professor of Systemic Neuroscience within the Division of Neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Busse's lab studies context-dependent visual processing in mouse models by performing large scale in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the thalamic and cortical circuits of awake and behaving mice.

#2876

Farah Lubin

#174600

Overall Influence

Farah D. Lubin is an American neuroscientist and Professor of Neurobiology and Cell, Developmental, and Integrative Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham within the Heersink School of Medicine. Lubin is the Principal Investigator of the Lubin Lab which explores the epigenetic mechanisms underlying cognition and how these mechanisms are altered in disease states such as epilepsy and neurodegeneration. Lubin discovered the role of NF-κB in fear memory reconsolidation and also uncovered a novel role for epigenetic regulation of BDNF during long-term memory formation and in epilepsy leading to memory loss.

#2877

Wendy Boss

#175451

Overall Influence

Wendy Farmer Boss is an American botanist and the current William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on plant physiology and phosphoinositide mediated signalling in plants. Phosphoinositols are derived from the phospholipids found in plasma membrane of the cell. Phosphoinositols are known to be key molecules in signal transduction pathways. The role of this chemical in plants is however not well understood and Dr. Boss' research has contributed significantly towards understanding this topic.

#2878

Debra Titone

#130603

Overall Influence

Debra Titone is a cognitive psychologist known for her research on bilingualism and multilingualism. She is currently a Professor of Psychology and a chair holder of Canada Research in Language & Multilingualism at McGill University. Titone is a founding member and officer of the professional society, Women in Cognitive Science. She and her colleagues have written about gender disparities in opportunities, along with the advancement of women the field of cognitive science, with specific reference to Canada.

#2879

Beverley Clarkson

#177737

Overall Influence

Beverley Rae Clarkson is a New Zealand botanist, ecologist and wetland researcher and conservationist. She is best known for her research into and her conservation work with New Zealand wetlands. In 2021, the city of Hamilton awarded her the Hamilton-Kirikiroa Medal. In the same year Clarkson was awarded the New Zealand conservation award, the Loder Cup.

#2880

Jayne S. Danska

#177950

Overall Influence

Jayne S. Danska is an immunologist in Canada. Danska is a Senior Scientist at the Hospital for Sick Children, a Professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine, and the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in Molecular Medicine.

#2881

Amparo Acker-Palmer

#168355

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Amparo Acker-Palmer is a German-based Spanish cell biologist and neuroscientist. Her research focuses on the similarities of the mechanism of nerve and blood vessel development. She has worked alongside her husband, Till Acker, who is a neurobiologist, in researching tumor therapies. In her career, she has won several awards, including the Paul Ehrlich & Ludwig Darmstaeder Prize for Young Researchers in 2010. In 2012, Amparo Acker-Palmer was elected as member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.

#2882

Lindsay M. De Biase

#172794

Overall Influence

Lindsay M. De Biase is an American neuroscientist and glial biologist as well as an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. De Biase explores the diversity of microglia that exist within the basal ganglia circuitry to one day target regional or circuit-specific microglia in disease. De Biase's graduate work highlighted the existence and roles of neuron-OPC synapses in development and her postdoctoral work was critical in showing that microglia are not homogenous within the brain parenchyma.

#2883

Michelle LaRue

#176441

Overall Influence

Michelle La Rue is a conservation biologist and ecologist based at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Her research focuses on using satellite imagery to understand polar animals, including emperor penguins and crabeater seals. She has visited Antarctica at least six times.

#2884

Joan Kleypas

#177159

Overall Influence

Joan Ann Kleypas is a marine scientist known for her work on the impact of ocean acidification and climate change on coral reefs, and for advancing solutions to environmental problems caused by climate change.

#2885

Beth Orcutt

#149335

Overall Influence

Beth N. Orcutt is an American oceanographer whose research focuses on the microbial life of the ocean floor. As of 2012, she is a senior research scientist at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. She is also a senior scientist of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, a Science and Technology Center funded by the National Science Foundation and headquartered at the University of Southern California and part of the Deep Carbon Observatory Deep Life Community. Orcutt has made fundamental contributions to the study of life below the seafloor, particularly in oceanic crust and ...

#2886

Sue T. Griffin

#137715

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Wilma Sue Tilton Griffin is an American neuroscientist best known for her contributions regarding the role of neuroinflammation in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. She conceived a "cytokine cycle" by which interleukin 1 and other paracrine factors conspire with one another to create a "feed-forward" cooperativity, thus establishing the premise for a progressive disease. Griffin is the Alexa and William T. Dillard Professor in Geriatric Research and director of research at the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

#2887

Sujata Tewari

#159933

Overall Influence

1938 - 2000 (62 years)

Sujata Tewari was an Indian-American neuroscientist known for her work with Ernest Noble that demonstrated that chronic alcohol consumption inhibits protein metabolism in the brains of mice. Early life and education Tewari was born and raised in Murshidabad, West Bengal, and began her higher education in India. She earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry at Agra University, graduating in 1955, and a master's degree in biochemistry from Lucknow University in 1957. She received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from McGill University in 1962 and a Psy.D. from the American Behavioral Studies Institute in ...

#2888

Sarah Fidler

#168222

Overall Influence

Sarah Fidler is an immunologist, researcher and professor in HIV Medicine at Imperial College London and consultant physician in HIV for St Mary's Hospital, London. Her clinical work involves looking after people who have just been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus , and testing new approaches towards curing HIV.

#2889

Marianne Nyegaard

#154068

Overall Influence

Marianne Nyegaard is a Danish marine biologist who specializes in the study of ocean sunfish. She is known for identifying the ocean sunfish species Mola tecta. Career As a PhD student at Murdoch University in Australia, Nyegaard lead a team of researchers in analyzing ocean sunfish DNA. While analyzing skin samples in 2013, she identified an undocumented species. She spent the next four years working with other researchers to identify and describe Mola tecta, or the hoodwinker sunfish, in 2017. Nyegaard has continued to help identify specimens of M. tecta in New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Sou...

#2890

Yvonne Chuan Fang Su

#124987

Overall Influence

Yvonne Chuan Fang Su is a Hong Kong evolutionary biologist who is notable for her co-discovery of Pseuduvaria bruneiensis and Pseuduvaria borneensis. Her doctoral work at the University of Hong Kong focused on the phylogeny of the flowering plant genus Pseuduvaria. Her work as a faculty member at Duke–NUS Medical School focuses on the evolution of viruses.

#2891

Denisa Wagner

#78268

Overall Influence

Denisa D. Wagner is an American scientist currently the Edwin Cohn Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital , Harvard Medical School. Wagner first arrived in the United States in 1975 as a refugee from Czechoslovakia. She received her PhD in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught at the University of Rochester and Tufts University before joining the Harvard faculty in 1994.The Wagner Lab contributes in the fields of vascular biology, inflammation, and thrombosis. Her Lab focuses on how blood cells and endothelial cells respond to vascular injury. Also her lab has been studying NETs for more than a decade.

#2892

Barbara J. Collins

#82016

Overall Influence

1929 - 2013 (84 years)

Barbara Jane Collins was an American writer, ecologist, geologist, botanist, and professor. She was the founder of the Barbara Collins Arboretum at the campus of California Lutheran University where she was a professor for 50 years. She was instrumental in the preservation of Wildwood Mesa and received a commendation from the Mayor of Thousand Oaks, California for her preservation efforts. At Cal Lutheran, she created a website which cataloged over 3,000 plant species and was the sole member of the Interdisciplinary Major Committee for thirty years. She was among the first faculty at both California Lutheran University and California State University, Northridge .

#2893

Sidonia Făgărășan

#52642

Overall Influence

Sidonia Făgărășan is a Romanian biological scientist who is a professor at the Riken Institute in Japan. Her research considers the molecular mechanisms that underpin processes in gut microbioata and the mucosal barrier. In 2020, she was awarded the Kobayashi Foundation Award.

#2894

Katie Bentley

#117897

Overall Influence

Katie Bentley is a British computer scientist who is group leader in the Cellular Adaptive Behaviour Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute and an academic at King's College London. Her research considers computational simulations of cellular interactions.

#2895

Valerie Harwood

#178391

Overall Influence

#2896

Eleni Nastouli

#172667

Overall Influence

Eleni Nastouli is a Greek clinical virologist who works at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Great Ormond Street Hospital. At UCLH, Nastouli leads the Advanced Pathogen Diagnostics Unit, where she develops technologies for genome sequencing as well as studying how viruses are transmitted around hospitals. During the COVID-19 pandemic Nastouli led an investigation into infection rates amongst healthcare workers.

#2897

Cathrin Brisken

#170844

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Cathrin Brisken is a German and Swiss medical doctor, researcher, and professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne . Her research focuses on the mechanisms of hormonal control in breast cancer development.

#2898

Margaret A. Phillips

#176807

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Margaret A. Phillips is an American biologist who is the Sam G. Winstead and F. Andrew Bell Distinguished Chair in Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

#2899

Patricia Majluf

#174278

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Patricia Majluf Chiok is a Peruvian biologist, zoologist, researcher and conservationist. She founded the Center for Environmental Sustainability at the Cayetano Heredia University in 2006. She is currently the Vice President in Peru of Oceana, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the oceans.

#2900

Karen Osborn

#176428

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Karen Joyce Osborn is a marine scientist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History Invertebrate Zoology department. She is known for her work in marine biology specializing in mid-water invertebrates.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions