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

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Biology,

#3301

Pierrette Gaudreau

#152023

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Pierrette Gaudreau is a Canadian scientist specializing in aging studies. She received the 2016 Prix Acfas Adrien-Pouliot for her work establishing Canada-France research partnerships. Career Gaudreau is mostly known for her work on growth hormone–releasing hormone , but her research interests encompass all factors that play a role in human health and aging.

#3302

Juliana Machado Ferreira

#114683

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Juliana Machado Ferreira is a Brazilian scientist, a conservation geneticist, and an activist against wildlife trafficking. She is a founding member and current executive director of Freeland Brasil , whose mission is "to conserve biodiversity by ending wildlife trafficking" through the combination of scientific research, education and awareness, and public policy. She is a TED Senior Fellow.

#3303

Elizabeth E. Hood

#184661

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Elizabeth E. Hood is a plant geneticist and the Lipscomb Distinguished Professor of Agriculture at Arkansas State University. In 2018 she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3304

Beulah Garner

#184315

Overall Influence

Beulah Garner FRES is an entomologist in the United Kingdom. She is Senior Curator at the Natural History Museum, London and is an expert of beetles, in particular the ground beetles . Education and career Garner grew up in Norfolk and was educated at the University of East Anglia where she graduated with a BSc in ecology in 1998. She worked at Rothamsted Research as a Senior Scientific Officer, before studying an MA in Museology back at UEA, graduating in 2008. During her Masters she worked as Assistant Curator at Norfolk Museums Service and then moved to the Horniman Museum, in 2010 she m...

#3305

Arlette Lefebvre

#106636

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Arlette Marie-Laure Lefebvre, , known by her patients as "Dr. Froggie" is a child psychiatrist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Born in Montreal, Quebec, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964 from the Université de Caen and a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1970 from the University of Toronto. Lefebvre is also an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

#3306

Mary E. Clark

#112235

Overall Influence

1927 - 2019 (92 years)

Mary Eleanor Clark was an American biologist. She was named the first National Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. In 1978, she was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3307

Janet Tobias

#80492

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Janet Tobias is a media executive specializing in healthcare as well as an Emmy Award-winning director, producer, and writer. She directed Fauci, and also No Place On Earth in 2012, a docudrama about two caves in the Ukraine in which three dozen Jews escaping the Holocaust successfully hid for a total of 511 days. Her screenplay, co-written with Paul Laikin, was a finalist for the 2014 Award for Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.

#3308

Jennifer Mordue

#171058

Overall Influence

A. Jennifer Mordue FRES is an entomologist in the United Kingdom. She is Emeritus Professor of Zoology at the University of Aberdeen, the first female professor of zoology at the university. Education and career Mordue was educated at the University of Sheffield graduating with a BSc in Zoology.

#3309

Kate Moran

#120904

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Kathryn Moran is an ocean engineer and Professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Victoria. She is president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada. Education Kate Moran grew up in Pennsylvania, where she first became interested in the ocean. Moran completed a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She spent some time working at Procter and Gamble before joining a new program in Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island. After receiving a job offer from the Atlantic Geoscience Centre, she moved to Nova Scotia. She received her PhD in 1995 fr...

#3310

Kate R. Rosenbloom

#181647

Overall Influence

Kate R. Rosenbloom is a member of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Consortium. She is a Tech Project Manager and Software Developer at the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz , USA. She has been a member of the scientific advisory board to the human proteome project and contributed data integration and visualisation within the GTEx consortium, an international project aiming to understand how genetic variation shapes variation between human tissues.

#3311

Helen Petousis-Harris

#160071

Overall Influence

Helen Aspasia Petousis-Harris is a New Zealand vaccinologist and associate professor in the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland. She has been involved in research related to vaccination in New Zealand since 1998, with her main areas of focus being vaccine safety and effectiveness. Petousis-Harris has had a variety of lead roles in New Zealand and international organisations that focus on vaccination and is a regular media spokesperson in this field, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

#3312

Mkunde Chachage

#182861

Overall Influence

Mkunde Chachage is a lecturer and researcher in immunology at University of Dar es Salaam Mbeya College of Health and Allied Sciences . She is also a researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mbeya medical research centre . She conducts research in clinical immunology as well as infectious diseases of human including Tuberculosis , HIV and helminths infections.

#3313

Charlotte Goodding Reeder

Charlotte Goodding Reeder

#184750

Overall Influence

1916 - 2009 (93 years)

Charlotte Goodding Reeder was an American agrostologist who was active in identifying the flora of Arizona. The abbreviation C.O.Goodd. has also been used. Biography Reeder was born on July 26, 1916, in Flagstaff, Arizona. She was the daughter of accomplished botanist Leslie Newton Goodding. Picking up from her father, she began to help him identify species in Arizona. She attended the University of Wyoming, earning her M.A. in 1939 for her thesis on Muhlenbergia. She then took classes at Oregon State University where she met John R. Reeder. The two married in 1941. With her husband conscrip...

#3314

Ashleigh Whiffin

#172339

Overall Influence

Ashleigh Whiffin is an entomologist in the UK. She is a curator at the National Museum of Scotland and a specialist in carrion beetles . Education and career Whiffin studied BSc in forensic science at the University of Derby, during which she specialised in forensic entomology. She moved on to do MSc Entomology at Harper Adams University, and then started as a research technician at the University of Edinburgh working on burying beetles in Jacob Moorad's lab.

#3315

Hui Zhang

#185158

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Hui Zhang is a professor of Pathology at Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in analysis of glycoproteins and other protein modifications on the proteome scale. Her most cited article is Identification and quantification of N-linked glycoproteins using hydrazide chemistry, stable isotope labeling and mass spectrometry.

#3316

Sally McCormick

#184582

Overall Influence

Sally Priscilla Anna McCormick is a New Zealand biochemistry academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 1992 PhD thesis titled 'Hypobetalipoproteinaemia and truncated forms of human apolipoprotein B' at Lincoln University, she moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor in 2016.

#3317

Ilga Winicov

#187419

Overall Influence

Ilga Winicov is an American biologist and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#3318

Helen Bronte-Stewart

#183759

Overall Influence

Helen M. Bronte-Stewart is a neurologist and an assistant professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also the director of the Stanford Movement Disorders Center.

#3319

Mavis Davidson

#187356

Overall Influence

1910 - 2004 (94 years)

Mavis Melville Davidson was a New Zealand zoologist, biologist and mountaineer. Biography Davidson was born in Te Karaka, Poverty Bay, the seventh of nine children of Thomas James and Dagmar Martha Melville Gedye . She attended primary school in Gisborne and then Wairoa High School, followed by a year at a commercial college in Auckland. After completing her studies, she worked in Auckland and Wellington as a shorthand typist and clerk. During World War II, she served in the Women's Royal Army Corps as a subaltern for four years.

#3320

Karina Yaniv

#187503

Overall Influence

Karina Yaniv is an Israeli scientist who is best known for her contributions to the field of vascular development. She is a Professor of Vascular Disease in the Department of Biological Regulation at the Weizman Institute of science, Rehovot, Israel. She has three kids, and lives in the Weizmann Institute.

#3321

Naomi Fraga

#186712

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Naomi Suzanne Fraga is an American botanist who is the Director of Conservation at the California Botanic Garden and research assistant professor of botany at Claremont Graduate University. She has focused her career on the conservation, monitoring and habitat restoration of rare plants across California. She was awarded the 2021 Center for Biological Diversity E.O. Wilson Award for Outstanding Science in Biodiversity Conservation. In 2023, Fraga received the Peter Raven Award from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. This award is given annually to a plant systematist who has made exce...

#3322

Carin Ashjian

#187013

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Carin Jessica Ashjian is an American biological oceanographer who is an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She studies how the physical environment influences the distribution of plankton in the Beaufort Sea.

#3323

Maria Vorontsova

#172835

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Maria Sergeevna Vorontsova is a Russian-born botanist, specializing in the taxonomy of Poaceae . She was responsible for authoring the taxon for Solanum agnewiorum and Solanum umtuma. She is a member of the Accelerated Taxonomy department at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She is one of the co-authors and maintainers of GrassBase, and is an editor of the journal, Phytotaxa.

#3324

Priscilla Wehi

#176243

Overall Influence

Priscilla M. Wehi is a New Zealand ethnobiologist and conservation biologist. As at July 2021 she is an associate professor at the University of Otago and on the first of that month officially undertook the role of director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, a centre of research excellence in complex systems and data analytics. During the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand Te Pūnaha Matatini scientists have developed mathematical models of the spread of the virus across the country that influence the New Zealand government's response to the outbreak. In 2021 Wehi was awarded the Hill Tinsley Medal.

#3325

Lynn Ponton

#153529

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Dr. Lynn Elisabeth Ponton is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of the books The Sex Lives of Teenagers and The Romance of Risk. Her work in the area of adolescent risk-taking has had a high profile at a time of newfound sexual conservatism. Her media publications include MTV, Salon.com, 60 Minutes, and many more.

#3326

Rebecca Yahr

#187231

Overall Influence

Rebecca Yahr is an American lichenologist who works at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Scotland. She was President of the British Lichen Society from 2019 until 2022. Early life and education Rebecca Yahr was born in the United States and grew up near the Appalachian Mountains. She studied botany at University of California, Davis for her B. Sc. degree, awarded in 1994. She gained her doctorate from Duke University in 2004 for research into how the relationship between the fungi and algae within a lichen evolve over time.

#3327

Ameenah Gurib-Fakim

#124877

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Dr. Bibi Ameenah Firdaus Gurib-Fakim GCSK is a Mauritian politician and biodiversity scientist who served as the sixth president of Mauritius from 2015 to 2018. In December 2014, she was selected to be the presidential candidate of the Alliance Lepep. After Kailash Purryag resigned on 29 May 2015, both Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth and Leader of the Opposition Paul Berenger positively welcomed her nomination, which was unanimously approved in a vote in the National Assembly.

#3328

Margaret S. Morley

#187670

Overall Influence

1938 - 2016 (78 years)

Margaret S. Morley , was a New Zealand malacologist, illustrator and museum curator. A self-trained researcher, Morley joined the Auckland Shell Club in 1980 and became one of the leading experts in the identification of New Zealand micromollusc species. A prolific researcher, Morley published over 119 papers, most of which featured her own illustrations, and in 2004 published A Photographic Guide to Seashells of New Zealand.

#3329

Christine Rollier

#186332

Overall Influence

Christine Rollier is a French-British immunologist who is a professor at the University of Surrey. She focusses on the development of viral vector vaccines to treat infectious diseases. In particular, Rollier has focussed on the development of vaccinations to eliminate the plague.

#3330

Mira Zore-Armanda

#182038

Overall Influence

1930 - 2012 (82 years)

Mira Zore-Armanda was a Croatian oceanographer. She was a senior scientist at the Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries in Split, where her research focused on the Adriatic Sea. She published about 150 research papers before her retirement in 1989.

#3331

Melissa S. Cline

#178640

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Melissa Suzanne Cline is an American biologist. She is an Associate Research Scientist at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute Between June 2001 and December 2004 she was a staff scientist at Affymetrix, Inc. in Emeryville, California where she was involved in developing ANOSVA, a "statistical method to identify alternative spicing from expression data," during which she "analyzed the effects of alternative splicing on protein transmembrane and signal peptide regions". Subsequently, she moved to UC Santa Cruz, where she wrote on genome browsing. According to the Thomson Reuters report, she wa...

#3332

Beth Kaplin

#151179

Overall Influence

Beth Kaplin is a Canadian conservation scientist, professor and researcher. She is professor of conservation science in the College of Science and Technology at the University of Rwanda. She is also a research professor in the School for the Environment and a senior fellow at the Centre for Governance and Sustainability, both at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

#3333

Susan G. Conard

#177502

Overall Influence

Susan G. Conard is an American scientist whose expertise focuses on wildland fires in Northern California and Taiga. During the 1980s and 1990s, Conard worked as a research and project leader for the United States Forest Service, publishing pieces on fire management and carbon sequestration. She is currently the editor for the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

#3334

Leah J. Dickstein

#132258

Overall Influence

1934 - 2019 (85 years)

Leah Joan Dickstein was an American psychiatrist. She was the president of the American Medical Women's Association, Vice President of the American Psychiatric Association, and Founder and President of the Association of Women Psychiatrists.

#3335

Lynn McDonald

#99049

Overall Influence

Marilyn R. McDonald is an American academic and social worker. She works as a senior scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, and University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is also a consultant for the United Nations.

#3336

Sarah S. Richardson

#77106

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Sarah S. Richardson is an American philosopher and historian who is a professor at the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. She is the author of The Maternal Imprint: The Contested Science of Maternal-Fetal Effects and Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome.

#3337

Lisa Robinson

#182567

Overall Influence

Lisa Robinson is a clinician-scientist. She is a University of Toronto professor in the Department of Paediatrics and the Vice Dean Strategy and Operations at the Faculty of Medicine, former Head of the Division of Nephrology at The Hospital for Sick Children, a Senior Scientist at the SickKids Research Institute, and the first-ever Chief Diversity officer for the Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto.

#3338

Natalia Gomez-Ospina

#172928

Overall Influence

Natalia Gomez-Ospina is a Colombian physician-scientist who studies genetic disorders and lysosomal storage disorders. She was born in Medellín, Colombia. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and of Pediatrics at Stanford University and works at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. She is a member of Stanford Bio-X.

#3339

Suzanne Urverg-Ratsimamanga

#172720

Overall Influence

1928 - 2016 (88 years)

Suzanne Urverg-Ratsimamanga was a French-Malagasy Ashkenazi Jewish physician and biochemist. She was married to Albert Rakoto Ratsimamanga, with whom she founded the . Early life and education Suzanne was born in Paris, France, on 18 June 1928. She received her Bachelor of Science in 1953, Doctor of Medicine in 1954, and Diploma and Master of Science in Industrial Hygiene and Medicine in 1955, all from the University of Paris.

#3340

Jessica L. Blois

#179881

Overall Influence

Jessica Lynn Blois is an American paleoecologist. Early life and education Blois attended Rio Mesa High School, where she graduated with a GPA of 4.67 and was named valedictorian. She was also the recipient of a National Merit Scholarship. From there, Blois attended the University of California, San Diego for her Bachelor of Science degree before moving to Arcata, California to attend Humboldt State University. She completed her education at Stanford University in 2009.

#3341

Cécile Gueidan

#187776

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Cécile Gueidan is a mycologist and lichenologist who applies morphological and molecular biological methods to the origin and taxonomy of fungi that live in lichen symbioses and within rocks. Early life and education Gueidan began working on lichens during her Maitrise and DEA qualifications from Université Louis Pasteur and National Museum of Natural History, France. This included practical fieldwork experience with Claude Roux.

#3342

Kathleen D. Gordon-Gray

#127644

Overall Influence

1918 - 2012 (94 years)

Kathleen Dixon Gordon-Gray was a South African botanist, plant collector, and educator noted for her expertise in the flora of Natal. She worked as both a lecturer and professor of botany at the University of Natal. In 1998 she was awarded the Senior Medal of the South African Association of Botanists. Her research publications primarily covered the taxonomy of Acacia, Cassia, Cyperaceae, and Gramineae.

#3343

Jennifer Miksis-Olds

#177126

Overall Influence

Jennifer Miksis-Olds is an American marine scientist known for her research using acoustics to track marine mammals. Education Miksis-Olds received an A.B. in biology from Harvard University , and during this time she volunteered in a primate lab which she credits as her introduction to acoustics. Miksis-Olds has an M.S. in biology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and spent time as a guest student at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution . She obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island in 2006, where she studied the connections between sound and manatees.

#3344

Nadine Provençal

#184093

Overall Influence

Nadine Provençal is an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University and Investigator at BC Children's Hospital Research Institute. In 2020, she was recognized by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research with an appointment to CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar.

#3345

Narel Y. Paniagua-Zambrana

#187305

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Narel Y. Paniagua-Zambrana is a Bolivian ethnobotanist. She investigates the use and protection of traditional knowledge of plants in indigenous communities, particularly in the Bolivian Andes. She is currently an Associated Researcher at the Herbario Nacional de Bolivia, Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Mayor de San Andres in Bolivia. Her goal is giving them the knowledge to participate in decision-making on the conservation of their intangible cultural heritage.

#3346

Elsa Nyholm

#153432

Overall Influence

1911 - 2002 (91 years)

Elsa Cecilia Nyholm was a Swedish botanist, in particular bryologist, and researcher at Lund University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History. Elsa Nyholm was born at a farm a in Nordanå in rural Scania, southernmost Sweden. Despite a strong interest in natural history, she was not allowed to attend grammar school. Instead, she went to handicraft and household schools and developed her interest in nature on the side. In 1932, she got a job as museum assistant at the Lund University botanical museum. There, she specialized in bryology and conceived the idea of a grand moss flora of Northern Europe.

#3347

Alicia Pérez-Porro

#184030

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Alicia R. Pérez-Porro is a Spanish marine biologist specialized in the study of marine sponges, an environmental activist and a feminist. Since 2018, she has presided over the Association of Spanish Scientists in the United States , from where she fights to break the glass ceiling in the scientific field and for women to occupy leadership positions.

#3348

Ayana Jordan

#129269

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Ayana Jordan is an American addiction psychiatrist and immunopathologist. She researches treatments for substance use disorders in marginalized communities. She is the Barbara Wilson Associate Professor of Psychiatry at NYU Langone Health and was a professor at Yale School of Medicine. She served as an attending psychiatrist in the Yale University Department of Psychiatry. She was elected to the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association in 2018. She attended Hampton University and received her MD and PhD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

#3349

Julia Kasper

#187511

Overall Influence

Julia Kasper is a New Zealand entomologist specialising in Diptera. As at 2022 she is the lead invertebrate curator at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa. As part of her work Kasper is assisting with a citizen science project informing a national mosquito census. Kasper has previously worked as the principal entomologist at the New Zealand Biosecure Laboratory. She has also undertaken work in forensic entomology assisting the New Zealand police and coroners with cases. Prior to living in New Zealand she worked at the Natural History Museum, Berlin. Kasper obtained her doctorate at Humbol...

#3350

Adriana Galván

#176720

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Adriana Galván is an American psychologist and expert on adolescent brain development. She is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles where she directs the Developmental Neuroscience laboratory. She was appointed the Jeffrey Wenzel Term Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience and the Dean of Undergraduate Education at UCLA.

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