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,
#5501
Virginia Man-Yee Lee
#85040
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Virginia Man-Yee Lee is a Chinese-born American biochemist and neuroscientist who specializes in the research of Alzheimer's disease. She is the current John H. Ware 3rd Endowed Professor in Alzheimer's Research at the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and the director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. She received the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences.
Go to Profile#5502
Henning Scheich
#29783
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Henning Scheich is a German brain researcher and psychiatrist. He was director of the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology until 2010 and head of the institute department until 2013. Since 2014 he serves as the chairman of an emeritus group at the institute. He has made substantial contributions to the field of brain research, in particular on the mechanisms of perception, behaviour and their adaptability. Within the framework of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Science Association he has exerted a lasting influence on the German community of researchers.
Go to Profile#5503
Julius S. Schachter
#105415
Overall Influence
#5504
C. Richard Robins
#64032
Overall Influence
1928 - 2020 (92 years)
Charles Richard Robins was an American academic, environmentalist and ichthyologist. Early life and university Robins was born on November 25, 1928, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Helen Ayers Robins and Claude Revere Robins, a jewellery wholesaler , who was their third and final child. As a child Robins developed an interest in natural history, particularly birds. This early ornithological interest was apparently encouraged by George M. Sutton, the Pennsylvania State Ornithologist. Robins enjoyed the writings of the celebrated ornithologist Arthur Augustus Allen of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Go to Profile#5505
George Morgan Hughes
#105420
Overall Influence
#5506
Lynne Isbell
#28619
Overall Influence
Lynne A. Isbell is an American ethologist and primatologist, professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis. Isbell has served as president of the American Society of Primatologists and is the originator of the snake detection theory, which suggests that snakes have contributed to the evolution of the visual system of primates.
Go to Profile#5507
Hsu Su-ming
#103189
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Hsu Su-ming is a Taiwanese pathologist. Hsu studied medicine at National Taiwan University and split his residency between National Taiwan University Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital. He remained in the United States, first working for the National Institutes of Health, then teaching at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and later the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He returned to Taiwan in 1995 to teach at NTU. From 1985, Hsu was an ISI highly cited researcher.
Go to Profile#5508
David Norman Van Goeddel
#105439
Overall Influence
#5509
Marlene Zuk
#76406
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Marlene Zuk is an American evolutionary biologist and behavioral ecologist. She worked as professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside until she transferred to the University of Minnesota in 2012. Her studies involve sexual selection and parasites.
Go to Profile#5510
Helmut Bertalanffy
#62017
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Helmut Bertalanffy is the director of the Department of Vascular Neurosurgery, at the International Neuroscience Institute in Hanover. Career Bertalanffy completed his studies of human medicine at the Albert Ludwig's University of Freiburg/Breisgau in 1983. He received his doctorate in 1986 and has been a specialist of neurosurgery since 1990. From 1990-1992, he was scientifically active as a scholarship holder of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in Tokyo at Keio University. In 1992 he returned to Germany and took over the position of senior physician of the Department of the Neurosurgical Clinic at the RWTH Aachen University.
Go to Profile#5511
Eugene Rosenberg
#105446
Overall Influence
#5512
Daria Hazuda
#38084
Overall Influence
Daria J Hazuda is a biochemist known for discovering the first HIV Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors and leading the development of the first HIV integrase inhibitor to gain FDA approval, Isentress . Her lab also determined these inhibitors' mechanism of action and ways the virus could develop resistance to them. Hazuda has also performed extensive research and led the development of antivirals for Hepatitis C Virus including Elbasvir and Grazoprevir. She currently serves as Vice President for Infectious Diseases Discovery for Merck and Chief Scientific Officer of their MRL Cambridge Exp...
Go to Profile#5513
Graham F. Carpenter
#105464
Overall Influence
#5514
Murray A. Falconer
#105475
Overall Influence
#5515
Patricia Wiltshire
#68144
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Professor Patricia Wiltshire , is a forensic ecologist, botanist and palynologist. She has been consulted by police forces and industry in almost 300 investigations in several countries and has been instrumental in solving several high-profile crimes, including the killings of Sarah Payne and Millie Dowler, the cold case of Christopher Laverack, the Soham murders, and the Ipswich serial murders.
Go to Profile#5516
Gerald F. Jr. Combs
#105485
Overall Influence
#5517
Eske Willerslev
#56880
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Eske Willerslev is a Danish evolutionary geneticist notable for his pioneering work in molecular anthropology, palaeontology, and ecology. He currently holds the Prince Philip Professorship in Ecology and Evolution at University of Cambridge, UK and the Lundbeck Foundation Professorship in Evolution at Copenhagen University, Denmark. He is director of the Centre of Excellence in GeoGenetics, a research associate at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, and a professorial fellow at St John's College, Cambridge. Willerslev is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences and holds the...
Go to Profile#5518
Geoffrey Chang
#78091
Overall Influence
Geoffrey Chang is a professor at the University of California, San Diego's Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine. His laboratory focuses on the structural biology of integral membrane proteins, particularly exploring X-ray crystallography techniques for solving the tertiary structures of membrane proteins that are notoriously resistant to crystallization. The laboratory has specialized in structures of multidrug resistance transporter proteins in bacteria. In 2001, while a faculty member of The Scripps Research Institute, Chang...
Go to Profile#5519
Hilmar Bading
#86952
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Hilmar Bading is a German physician and neuroscientist. He is a member of the German National Academy of Science Leopoldina. Education and career Hilmar Bading studied medicine from 1978 to 1984 at Heidelberg University and carried out his MD Thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg on calcium transport ATPase in skeletal muscle. He received postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany and at Harvard Medical School, Boston, US . From 1993 to 2001 he was a staff scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK.
Go to Profile#5520
Sevvandi Jayakody
#37468
Overall Influence
Sevvandi Jayakody is a conservationist and echinodermologist from Sri Lanka, who is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Aquaculture & Fisheries at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka. Career Jayakody has a BSc in Zoology from the University of Kelaniya and a PhD in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen. She also has a diploma in Wildlife Management and Conservation from the Wildlife Institute of India. She joined the Sri Lankan Department of Wildlife Conservation as an Assistant Director in 1997, followed post-doctoral research at institutions in Scotland, Canada and Australia. She joined the Department of Aquaculture & Fisheries at the Wayamba University of Sri Lanka in 2001.
Go to Profile#5521
Riin Tamm
#69040
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Riin Tamm is an Estonian geneticist and a science popularizer. She is the head of the Department of Youth and Talent Policy within the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. She has previously served as the director of University of Tartu Youth Academy.
Go to Profile#5522
Peter Ten Ten Dijke
#105557
Overall Influence
#5523
Jane Memmott
#100502
Overall Influence
Jane Memmott is an ecologist and entomologist from the United Kingdom. She is professor of ecology at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on community ecology and she is an expert on the interactions between insect pollinators and plants.
Go to Profile#5524
Douglas C. Rees
#73114
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Douglas Charles "Doug" Rees is an American biochemist, biophysicist, and structural biologist. Rees graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in 1974 and received a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University in 1980. In 1982 he went to the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1989, he became a professor of chemistry at Caltech. There he is Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson Professor and Dean of graduate studies. From 1997 onwards, he has been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He served as the editor or co-editor of the Annual Review of Biophysics and Biomolecul...
Go to Profile#5525
Yves-Alain Barde
#104223
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Yves-Alain Barde is a professor of Neurobiology at Cardiff University. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2017. Barde was awarded the IPSEN prize, the Ameritec Foundation Award and the Perl-UNC Prize. He is a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization and External Member of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology.
Go to Profile#5526
Vulimiri Ramalingaswami
#49916
Overall Influence
1921 - 2001 (80 years)
Vulimiri Ramalingaswami was an Indian medical scientist, pathologist and medical writer. His pioneering research on nutrition got him elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of London.
Go to Profile#5527
Walter Birchmeier
#105590
Overall Influence
#5528
Lori Passmore
#93878
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Lori Anne Passmore is a Canadian/British cryo electron microscopist and structural biologist who works at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge. She is known for her work on multiprotein complexes involved in gene expression and development of new supports for cryo-EM.
Go to Profile#5529
Kenneth E. Moore
#105626
Overall Influence
#5530
Eugenia del Pino
#55454
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Eugenia María del Pino Veintimilla is a developmental biologist at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Ecuador in Quito. She was the first Ecuadorian citizen to be elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences . She was awarded the 2019 Prize of the Latin American Society for Developmental Biology for her strong contributions to research in Ecuador, and in general to promoting Developmental Biology in Latin America.
Go to Profile#5531
Karl Heinz Rechinger
#77216
Overall Influence
1906 - 1998 (92 years)
Professor Karl Heinz Rechinger HonFRSE was an Austrian botanist and phytogeographer. Life Karl Heinz Rechinger was born in Vienna on 16 October 1906. He was the son of Dr Karl Rechinger, then assistant at the Department of Botany in the Imperial Natural History Museum, and Rosa Elisabeth Rechinger. Karl Heinz was raised in a refined, well-to-do Viennese family surrounded by art, music and science. He attended the prestigious Schottengymnasium in Vienna. Importantly, his father introduced him to botany, specimen collecting and how to carefully observe nature - activities that would shape his ...
Go to Profile#5532
Lorne Allan Ben Babiuk
#105653
Overall Influence
#5533
M. Brock Fenton
#105669
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#5534
Jenny P. Y. Ting
#103174
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jenny Pan-Yun Ting is a Taiwanese-American immunologist and microbiologist at University of North Carolina. She is a highly cited researcher who studies the role of NLR genes in regulating inflammation and how nanoparticles and microparticles can be used as vaccine adjuvants. She was president of the American Association of Immunologists from 2020 to 2021.
Go to Profile#5535
Howard Lewis Mcleod
#105673
Overall Influence
#5536
Edgar Lederer
#105674
Overall Influence
#5537
Patrick J. Keeling
#93489
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Patrick John Keeling is a biologist and professor in the Department of Botany at the University of British Columbia. His research investigates the phylogeny, genomics and molecular evolution of protists and his work has led to numerous advances in assembling the eukaryotic tree of life. He has also identified several cases of horizontal gene transfer.
Go to Profile#5538
David Nalin
#37734
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
David R. Nalin is an American physiologist, and Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research and Prince Mahidol Award, a.k.a. Mahidol Medal winner. Nalin had the key insight that oral rehydration therapy would work if the volume of solution patients drank matched the volume of their fluid losses, and that this would drastically reduce or completely replace the only current treatment for cholera, intravenous therapy. Nalin led the trials that first demonstrated ORT works, both in cholera patients, and more significantly, also in other dehydrating diarrhea illnesses. Nalin's discoveries have been e...
Go to Profile#5539
W. Trevor Cooke
#105684
Overall Influence
#5540
Ami Bhatt
#78098
Overall Influence
Ami Bhatt is an American physician-scientist who studies the link between blood cancers and the human gut microbiome. She holds associate professorships in Genetics and Medicine at Stanford University. She is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute , and Stanford ChEM-H. In addition, Bhatt is the co-founder of Global Oncology Inc., a nonprofit focused on providing quality oncologic treatment in resource-constrained settings.
Go to Profile#5541
Giorgio De Bernardi
#105724
Overall Influence
#5542
Jeffrey L. Benovic
#105735
Overall Influence
#5543
W. Hardy Eshbaugh
#96478
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
William Hardy Eshbaugh III is Professor Emeritus of Botany at Miami University, known primarily for his research on chili peppers and one of three authors of the seminal work covering the flora and biogeography of the Bahamas.
Go to Profile#5544
Dominique Bergmann
#102647
Overall Influence
Dominique C. Bergmann is a plant scientist with a specific focus on developmental biology and plant biology. Correspondingly, she is a professor of Biology at Stanford University and is in association with the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Additionally, Bergmann is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Go to Profile#5545
Harald W. Krenn
#95465
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Harald W. Krenn is an Austrian biologist and a professor for integrative zoology at the Fakultät für Lebenswissenschaften at the University of Vienna. Life Harald W. Krenn studied biology and earth science from 1977 to 1978 and zoology and botany at the University of Vienna. He finished a study of lectureship and environmental science and received his PhD in 1987 in zoology and botany. Next to his work as a teacher of biology and as a product manager in the pharmaceutical industry Krenn became assistant professor in 1993 at the Institut für Zoologie at the University of Vienna. After his habi...
Go to Profile#5546
Rikard Holmdahl
#94875
Overall Influence
Rikard Holmdahl is a Swedish physician and immunologist. He was appointed as a full professor and the head of Medical Inflammation Research unit at Lund University in 1993. In 2008, Rikard and his whole research group were recruited to Karolinska Institute. His team was the first to discover and positionally clone a single nucleotide polymorphism at the Ncf1 gene causing susceptibility to autoimmune diseases in rat models. Rikard was an adjunct member of the Nobel Committee for physiology or medicine between 2016 and 2021, and was ranked 2nd among the top immunology scientists in Sweden in 20...
Go to Profile#5547
Dionicia Gamboa
#66872
Overall Influence
Dionicia Gamboa is a Peruvian parasitologist and professor at Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander von Humboldt, Cayetano Heredia University. Her research focusses on Plasmodium vivax, a major malaria parasite species in South America .
Go to Profile#5548
Stevan J. Arnold
#105190
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Stevan James Arnold is an American evolutionary biologist. He is Professor Emeritus of Integrative Biology and was Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles at Oregon State University, Corvallis until his retirement. He has served as president of the Society for the Study of Evolution and the American Society of Naturalists.
Go to Profile#5549
Alain Berthoz
#105761
Overall Influence
#5550
Rosa Rademakers
#94054
Overall Influence
Rosa Rademakers is an American neurogeneticist and professor within the Department of Neuroscience at the Mayo Clinic. Her research centers on the genetic basis of neurodegenerative diseases, such as identifying causal genes and their function, exploring familial risk factors, and the mechanism of the degeneration. Her neurodegenerative diseases of focus include "Alzheimer's disease , frontotemporal dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ." She received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology, a Master of Arts in Biochemistry, and a Ph.D. in Science, all from the University of Antwerp. Originally f...
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