The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#5451
Amy Bastian
#53981
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Amy Jo Bastian is an American neuroscientist, who has made important contributions to the neuroscience of sensorimotor control. From 2011 she has been a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. In 2015 Bastian was appointed Chief Science Officer at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Bastian is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#5452
Janice Limson
#46712
Overall Influence
Janice Leigh Limson is a South African Professor of Biotechnology, former Chairperson the School of Biotechnology at Rhodes University and the SARChI Chair in Biotechnology Innovation & Engagement at Rhodes University. She is founder and editor-in-chief of the magazine Science in Africa, the first popular online science magazine for Africa. Her research focuses on topics ranging from the development of nanotechnology biosensors for cancer diagnostics, drug delivery, detection of pathogens in food to the design of fuel cell technology.
Go to Profile#5453
Brian Spratt
#104956
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#5454
Don Melnick
#41778
Overall Influence
1953 - 2019 (66 years)
Don J. Melnick was an environmental biologist and conservationist. He held the position of Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Conservation Biology at Columbia University, where he was also professor of anthropology and biological sciences.
Go to Profile#5455
Richard J. B. Stein
#104964
Overall Influence
#5456
Johanna Schmitt
#70492
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Johanna Schmitt is an evolutionary ecologist and plant geneticist. Her research is notable for its focus on the genetic basis of traits in ecologically valuable plants and on predicting how such plants will respond and adapt to environmental change such as climate warming. She has authored over 100 articles and her works have been cited over 7900 citations. She is honored with being the first female scientist at Brown University to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#5457
Jørn Hurum
#58430
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Jørn Harald Hurum is a Norwegian paleontologist and popularizer of science. He is a vertebrate paleontologist and holds an associate professor position at the Natural History Museum of the University of Oslo. He has studied dinosaurs, primitive mammals and plesiosaurs.
Go to Profile#5458
David Seymour Latchman
#104989
Overall Influence
#5459
Torbjörn von Schantz
#105000
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Torbjörn Åkesson von Schantz is a Swedish professor of zoology and the former rector magnificus of Lund University. Between 2013 and 2014 he was pro-rector of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and he then became rector of Lund University.
Go to Profile#5460
Ivan Valiela
#105002
Overall Influence
#5461
Pierre Gloor
#105006
Overall Influence
#5462
Nesrin Özören
#98938
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Nesrin Özören , is a Turkish molecular biologist researching vaccines, apoptosis, innate immune signaling, Behçet's disease, and melanomas. She is a professor at Boğaziçi University. Early life and education Nesrin Özören was born on July 25, 1972, in the in Silistra Province, Bulgaria. In 1995, she completed a B.S. in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Boğaziçi University where she graduated second in her class.
Go to Profile#5463
Elliot S. Gershon
#26921
Overall Influence
Elliot S. Gershon is a professor of psychiatry and human genetics at the University of Chicago in the United States. He served as chair of its department of psychiatry from 1998 to 2004, and chief of the Clinical Neurogenetics branch of the NIMH. He held a NARSAD distinguished investigator grant from 1998 to 2006, and won the 1996 Falcone prize for Outstanding Achievement in Affective Disorders Research.
Go to Profile#5464
Jellemer Jolles
#105046
Overall Influence
#5465
Karl Banse
#81641
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Karl A. Banse, born 1929 in Koeningsberg, Germany, is an American oceanographer, marine biologist, and professor emeritus at the University of Washington. He obtained his Ph.D. in oceanography at the University of Kiel in 1955. In 1960 he became an assistant professor at the University of Washington, Seattle, and a full professor in 1966. He was a visiting professor at Scripps Inst. of Oceanography, Univ. of California, 1972-1973, and at Skidaway Inst. of Oceanography, University System of Georgia, 1980-1981. In 1985, he got the Summer Faculty Fellowship of NASA-ASEE at the NASA-Goddard Space...
Go to Profile#5466
Kathleen Taylor
#30883
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Kathleen E. Taylor is a popular science author and a research scientist in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford. In July 2012 she was appointed as a Science Fellow of the Institute for Food, Brain and Behaviour.
Go to Profile#5467
Avigad Vonshak
#101573
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Avigad Vonshak is a Professor Emeritus at the French Associates Institute for Agriculture and Biotechnology of Drylands at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel.
Go to Profile#5468
Dolly Montoya Castaño
#92356
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Dolly Montoya Castaño , also known as Dolly Montoya, is a Colombian university professor and scientist, and rector of the National University of Colombia. She was re-elected for the period 2021–2024, having already served in 2018–2021 when she became the first woman to hold the position.
Go to Profile#5469
Kimberly Noble
#21687
Overall Influence
Kimberly G. Noble is an American neuroscientist and pediatrician known for her work in socioeconomic disparities and children's cognitive development. She is Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director of the Neurocognition, Early Experience and Development Lab.
Go to Profile#5470
Angela Belcher
#38456
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Angela M. Belcher is a materials scientist, biological engineer, and the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. She is director of the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and a 2004 MacArthur Fellow. In 2019, she was named head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022.
Go to Profile#5471
Heinz A. Lowenstam
#68659
Overall Influence
1912 - 1993 (81 years)
Heinz Adolf Lowenstam was a German-born, Jewish-American paleoecologist celebrated for his discoveries in biomineralization: that living organisms manufacture substances such as the iron-containing mineral magnetite within their bodies. He is also renowned for his pioneering research on coral reefs and their influence on biologic processes in the geologic record.
Go to Profile#5472
Timothy V. P. Bliss
#105116
Overall Influence
#5473
Jacob Valentine Maizel
#105118
Overall Influence
#5474
Manfred Bayer
#87021
Overall Influence
1928 - 2015 (87 years)
Dr. Manfred E. Bayer was a medical doctor and a microscopist, best known for his research in bacterial and viral infrastructure using electron microscopy. He was the first person to visualize yellow fever virus in cultured cells and to obtain ultra-thin sections of the cell wall of E. coli by penicillin.
Go to Profile#5475
Mark Boguski
#92180
Overall Influence
Mark S. Boguski was an American pathologist specializing in computational analysis and structural biology, He was elected in 2001 to the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and was a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics .
Go to Profile#5476
Siouxsie Wiles
#47978
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Siouxsie Wiles is a British microbiologist and science communicator. Her specialist areas are infectious diseases and bioluminescence. She is based in New Zealand. She is the head of University of Auckland's Bioluminescent Superbugs Lab.
Go to Profile#5477
Ralph Buchsbaum
#46546
Overall Influence
1907 - 2002 (95 years)
Ralph Morris Buchsbaum was an American zoologist, invertebrate biologist, and ecologist. His book Animals Without Backbones, first published in 1938, was the first textbook in biology to be reviewed by Time and featured in Life. It has gone through several revisions and is still in print, and has been widely used as a textbook. It was still being used as of 2013.
Go to Profile#5478
Foo Yew Eddy Liew
#105126
Overall Influence
#5479
Man-fred L. Karnovsky
#105135
Overall Influence
#5480
Frederick Bayer
#63781
Overall Influence
1921 - 2007 (86 years)
Frederick Merkle Bayer was an emeritus curator of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, as well as a prominent marine biologist who specialized in the study of soft corals.
Go to Profile#5481
Boris Zhivotovsky
#105158
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#5482
Jon van Rood
#80976
Overall Influence
1926 - 2017 (91 years)
Johannes Joseph "Jon" van Rood was a Dutch immunologist. He founded Eurotransplant in 1967, a non-profit organization responsible for encouraging and coordinating organ transplants. Awards In 1977 van Rood was awarded the Robert Koch Prize. In 1978, he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Medicine, jointly with George D. Snell and Jean Dausset, "for his contribution to the understanding of the complexity of the HLA system in man and its implications in transplantation and in disease." Van Rood was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978. In 1989 he was awarded ...
Go to Profile#5483
H. Joachim J. Deeg
#105228
Overall Influence
#5484
Diane Lipscombe
#77517
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Diane Lipscombe is a British neuroscientist who is a professor of neuroscience and the Reliance Dhirubhai Ambani Director of Brown University’s Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Science. She served as the president of the Society for Neuroscience in 2019, the world’s largest organization for the study of the brain and nervous system.
Go to Profile#5485
Roger A. Gorski
#105237
Overall Influence
#5486
Zhou Mingzhen
#83695
Overall Influence
1918 - 1996 (78 years)
Zhou Mingzhen , also known as Minchen Chow, was a Chinese paleomammalogist and vertebrate paleontologist. He was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a research professor for mammalian paleontology in the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing. He received the Romer-Simpson Medal in 1993.
Go to Profile#5487
René de Naurois
#50762
Overall Influence
1906 - 2006 (100 years)
Abbé René de Naurois was a French Catholic priest, chaplain, and ornithologist. Second World War During the Second World War Naurois assisted the French Resistance, helped organise the escape of Jews from occupied France to Switzerland and Spain. He himself escaped from Vichy via Barcelona, Gibraltar arriving at Liverpool, and was one of the 177 Kieffer Commandos who took part in the Normandy Landings on 6 June 1944. Honours received by de Naurois for his wartime activities include the Ordre de la Libération and the title of Righteous among the Nations.
Go to Profile#5488
Thomas Scott Edgington
#105265
Overall Influence
#5489
Sergey Gavrilets
#85177
Overall Influence
Sergey Gavrilets is a Russian-born American physicist turned theoretical biologist, and currently a Distinguished Professor at the University of Tennessee. He uses mathematical and computational models to study complex biological and social processes. He has made contributions to the study of speciation, sexual selection, fitness landscapes, sexual conflict, social complexity, evolutionary game theory, social norms, homosexuality, social norms, and cultural evolution. He is currently Associate Director for Scientific Activities at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis.
Go to Profile#5490
Vincent C. Hascall
#105271
Overall Influence
#5491
Pierre Taberlet
#105275
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#5492
Subrat Kumar Panda
#55276
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Subrat Kumar Panda is an Indian virologist, professor and Head Department of Pathology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi. Known for his researches in viral hepatitis, Panda is an elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Medical Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards for his contributions to Medical Sciences ...
Go to Profile#5493
Sarah Tabrizi
#43054
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Sarah Joanna Tabrizi FMedSci is a British neurologist and neuroscientist in the field of neurodegeneration, particularly Huntington's disease. She is a Professor and Joint Head of the Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the UCL Institute of Neurology; the founder and Director of the UCL Huntington's Disease Centre; a Principal Investigator at the UK Dementia Research Institute at UCL; and an Honorary Consultant Neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, where she established the Multidisciplinary Huntington's Disease Clinic. The UCL Hunti...
Go to Profile#5494
Gian Tommaso Scarascia Mugnozza
#97437
Overall Influence
1925 - 2011 (86 years)
Gian Tommaso Scarascia Mugnozza is an Italian agronomist and geneticist. He was born in Rome, Italy. After graduating in agriculture at the University of Bari in 1946, he started teaching there and became full professor in 1968. He was director of the ENEA Casaccia laboratory in Cesano, Rome. Other positions include; Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Bari, chairman of the Agriculture and Forestry Commission of the Italian National Research Council, and rector at Tuscia University at Viterbo. He was president of the Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze and was a fellow of several Italian and foreign academies.
Go to Profile#5495
Jesús Avila
#105311
Overall Influence
#5496
Patrik Vuilleumier
#105313
Overall Influence
#5497
Shmuel Razin
#105317
Overall Influence
#5498
Maria Harrison
#81370
Overall Influence
Maria Harrison is a plant biologist, William H. Crocker Scientist professor at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Science, and adjunct professor in the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University. Harrison's lab, including post-doctoral, graduate, undergraduate, and intern students, utilizes a combination of molecular, cell biology, genetic, and genomic techniques to investigate the developmental mechanisms underlying the symbiosis and phosphate transfer between arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and the roots of model legume Medicago truncatula. Among Harrison's most notable fin...
Go to Profile#5499
Tim Halliday
#83943
Overall Influence
1945 - 2019 (74 years)
Professor Timothy Richard Halliday was a British herpetologist and artist. He was born on 11 September 1945 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, to Edna who was a housemistress at Marlborough College, her husband, Jack Halliday was a biology teacher there.
Go to Profile#5500
Moshe Szyf
#105393
Overall Influence
