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,
#5601
Alan Frederick Hofmann
#106145
Overall Influence
#5602
Kim Lewis
#105179
Overall Influence
Kim Lewis is an American researcher, author and academic. He is a University Distinguished Professor and the director of Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University. Lewis' research is focused on antimicrobial tolerance which limits the ability of antibiotics to eradicate an infection; and on antimicrobial drug discovery.
Go to Profile#5603
Philip S. Corbet
#98139
Overall Influence
1929 - 2008 (79 years)
Philip Steven Corbet was a British entomologist whose work focused largely on aquatic insects and dragonflies. He co-authored and authored several books on the subject, which established him as a world expert on the order Odonata. He is also noted for his interest in biological controls as a substitute for synthetic pesticides in agriculture.
Go to Profile#5604
Sylvan Wittwer
#78573
Overall Influence
1917 - 2012 (95 years)
Sylvan Harold Wittwer was an American agronomist who served as director of the agricultural experiment station at Michigan State University. Wittwer was born in 1917 in Hurricane, Utah. He received his bachelor's degree at Utah State University and his doctors degree from the University of Missouri. He was inducted into the Alumni Hall of Honor of the College of Agriculture and Applied Science at Utah State University, 2003.
Go to Profile#5605
Frederick Hecht
#106179
Overall Influence
#5606
Leslie Michael Shaw
#106193
Overall Influence
#5607
Yuan Longping
#63377
Overall Influence
1930 - 2021 (91 years)
Yuan Longping was a Chinese agronomist and inventor. He was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering known for developing the first hybrid rice varieties in the 1970s, part of the Green Revolution in agriculture. For his contributions, Yuan is known as the "Father of Hybrid Rice".
Go to Profile#5608
Louise Burke
#77304
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Louise Mary Burke, is an Australian sports dietitian, academic and author. She was the head of sports nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport throughout its existence from 1990 to 2018 and in 2018 was appointed Chief of AIS Nutrition Strategy. Since 2014, she holds the chair in sports nutrition in the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University.
Go to Profile#5609
Abul k. Abbas
#106199
Overall Influence
#5610
George G. Somjen
#106213
Overall Influence
#5611
Nelson M. Butters
#106216
Overall Influence
#5612
Eve Johnstone
#88240
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Eve Cordelia Johnstone CBE FRCP FRCPE FRCPGla FRCPsych FMedSci FRSE is a Scottish physician, clinical researcher, psychiatrist and academic. Her main research area is in the field of schizophrenia and psychotic illness. She is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Honorary Assistant Principal for Mental Health Research Development and Public Understanding of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. She is best known for her 1976 groundbreaking study that showed brain abnormalities in schizophrenic patients compared to a control group.
Go to Profile#5613
Elijah Ateka
#66474
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Elijah Miinda Ateka is a Professor of Plant Virology at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology. He is involved with the diagnosis and characterisation of the sweet potato virus and the cassava virus, and is part of the Cassava Virus Action Project .
Go to Profile#5614
Noris Salazar Allen
#39588
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Noris Salazar Allen is a bryologist from Panama, who is Professor of Botany at the University of Panama and an associate researcher at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Salazar Allen was the first Panamanian to research bryophytes, and was instrumental in expanding the University of Panama's bryological collection to 10,000 specimens. In 2013 she received the Riclef Grolle Award for Excellence in Bryodiversity Research from the International Association of Bryologists.
Go to Profile#5615
Michael W. W. Adams
#106257
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#5616
Wolfgang K. (bill) Joklik
#106258
Overall Influence
#5617
D. P. P. Salmon
#106264
Overall Influence
#5618
Hazel Sive
#83048
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Hazel L. Sive is a South African-born biologist and educator. She is Dean of the College of Science, and Professor of Biology at Northeastern University. Sive is a research pioneer, award-winning educator and innovator in the higher education space who was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in November 2021. Prior to June 2020, she was a Member of Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Sive studies development of the ver...
Go to Profile#5619
Charlotte Deane
#67190
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Charlotte Mary Deane is an English Professor of Structural Bioinformatics and the former Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford. Early life and education Charlotte Deane was born in May 1975. She completed her undergraduate education at University College, Oxford studying chemistry, completing her final year project in Graham Richards' group. She then went to the University of Cambridge to study structural bioinformatics supervised by Tom Blundell. In 2000 she published her thesis entitled "Protein structure prediction: amino acid propensities and comparative modell...
Go to Profile#5620
Kimitaka Itoh
#106297
Overall Influence
#5621
Alton Meister
#82811
Overall Influence
1922 - 1995 (73 years)
Alton Meister was an American biochemist who made pioneering contributions to the study of glutathione metabolism. Alton Meister was born in New York City to Morris Meister and Florence Glickstein Meister. He received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and an MD from Cornell University Medical College . He then moved to the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He remained there until 1955 when he became Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Tufts University. Meister returned to Cornell University Medical College in 1967 and served as chairman of its biochemistry department until 1991.
Go to Profile#5622
Charlie S. Decarli
#106327
Overall Influence
#5623
Mohamed r. Daha
#106329
Overall Influence
#5624
Julian P. Leff
#106332
Overall Influence
#5625
João Pedro de Magalhães
#58256
Overall Influence
Joao Pedro De Magalhaes is a Portuguese microbiologist. He studies aging through both computational and experimental approaches. His ultimate goal is to cure human aging. In 1999, he obtained his degree in Microbiology from Escola Superior de Biotecnologia. Under Olivier Toussaint, he obtained his PhD from the University of Namur in 2004. Then he did a postdoc in the George Church lab at Harvard Medical School from 2004 to 2008.
Go to Profile#5626
Margaret L. Kripke
#80177
Overall Influence
Margaret L. Kripke is an American immunologist. She is an expert in photoimmunology and the immunology of skin cancers. She earned a BS and MS in bacteriology, and a Ph.D in immunology, at the University of California at Berkeley.
Go to Profile#5627
Andrea Pauli
#103192
Overall Influence
Andrea Pauli is a developmental biologist and biochemist studying how the egg transitions into an embryo, and more specifically the molecular mechanisms underlying vertebrate fertilisations, egg dormancy, and subsequent egg activation. Her lab uses zebrafish as the main model organism. Andrea Pauli is a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology at the Vienna Biocenter in Austria.
Go to Profile#5628
John Francis Burke
#106390
Overall Influence
#5629
Graham Hatfull
#84733
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Graham F. Hatfull is the Eberly Family Professor of Biotechnology at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studies bacteriophages. He has been an HHMI professor since 2002, and is the creator of their SEA-PHAGES program.
Go to Profile#5630
Malcolm L. McCallum
#71845
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Malcolm L. McCallum is an American environmental scientist, conservationist, herpetologist, and natural historian and is known for his work on the Holocene Extinction. He is also a co-founder of the herpetology journal, Herpetological Conservation and Biology. He is a key figure in amphibian biology and his research has produced numerous landmark studies. His work has been covered by David Attenborough, Discover Magazine, and other media outlets.
Go to Profile#5631
Akira Takeshita
#106409
Overall Influence
#5632
Myron Arms Hofer
#85802
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Myron Arms Hofer is an American psychiatrist and research scientist, currently Sackler Institute Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. He is known for his research on basic developmental processes at work within the mother-infant relationship. Using animal models, he found unexpected neurobiological and behavioral regulatory processes within the observable interactions of the infant rat and its mother. Through an experimental analysis of these sensorimotor, thermal and nutrient-based processes, he has contributed to our und...
Go to Profile#5633
Jeffrey L. Price
#98861
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Jeffrey L. Price is an American researcher and author in the fields of circadian rhythms and molecular biology. His chronobiology work with Drosophila melanogaster has led to the discoveries of the circadian genes timeless and doubletime , and the doubletime regulators spaghetti and bride of doubletime .
Go to Profile#5634
David M. Brookline Livingston
#106421
Overall Influence
#5635
Tracy Bale
#100335
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Tracy Bale is an American neuroscientist and molecular biologist. Bale is a professor and Director of the Center for Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her research has centered on the role of parental, prenatal, and early life stress on the developing brain and subsequent behavior throughout the lifespan. She is also the current President of the International Brain Research Organization.
Go to Profile#5636
James. D. Cherry
#106440
Overall Influence
#5637
Andreas Karl Engel
#106441
Overall Influence
#5638
Wayne Maddison
#53389
Overall Influence
Wayne Paul Maddison , is a professor and Canada Research Chair in Biodiversity at the departments of zoology and botany at the University of British Columbia, and the Director of the Spencer Entomological Collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum.
Go to Profile#5639
Wilmer W. Tanner
#73233
Overall Influence
1909 - 2011 (102 years)
Wilmer Webster Tanner was an American zoologist, professor and curator. He was associated with Brigham Young University , in Provo, Utah for much of his life and published extensively on the snakes and salamanders of the Great Basin.
Go to Profile#5640
Angela Milner
#72135
Overall Influence
1947 - 2021 (74 years)
Angela Cheryl Milner was a British paleontologist who, in 1986 alongside Alan Charig, described the dinosaur Baryonyx. Early life Milner was born Angela Girven in Gosforth, daughter of Cyril and Lucia Girven. Her father was the county engineer for Northumberland. She attended Newcastle upon Tyne Church High School. She initially planned to focus on microbiology for her university degree, but inspiring lectures from Alec Panchen made her change to palaeontology. She gained a BSc in zoology at Newcastle University and stayed there in 1969 to take a PhD in palaeontology supervised by Panchen foc...
Go to Profile#5641
Han Nijssen
#95638
Overall Influence
1935 - 2013 (78 years)
Han Nijssen was a Dutch ichthyologist. Nijssen was born in Amsterdam and obtained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam in May 1970 with the dissertation Revision of the Surinam catfishes of the genus Corydoras. Later he was a curator at Zoölogisch Museum in Amsterdam. Nijssen worked extensively with fish from South America, and was the author of several species, e.g. Corydoras weitzmani and Corydoras xinguensis. Collaborating with Isaäc Isbrücker he described, among others, the group Hypancistrus and the species Hypancistrus zebra and Corydoras panda. He also collaborated with Sven O. Kulla...
Go to Profile#5642
Bernd Kaina
#95644
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bernd Kaina, born on 7 January 1950 in Drewitz, is a German biologist and toxicologist. His research is devoted to DNA damage and repair, DNA damage response, genotoxic signaling and cell death induced by carcinogenic DNA damaging insults.
Go to Profile#5643
Kenneth Blum
#62834
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Kenneth Blum is an American scientist who has studied neuropsychopharmacology and genetics. Until 1995 he was a professor of Pharmacology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Go to Profile#5644
Jonathan o. Dostrovsky
#106484
Overall Influence
#5645
Thoru Pederson
#106495
Overall Influence
#5646
Avril V. Somlyo
#106497
Overall Influence
#5647
Ludmil Alexandrov
#101825
Overall Influence
Ludmil B. Alexandrov is a Bulgarian-American scientist and an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego. Education Alexandrov received his PhD from University of Cambridge in 2014.
Go to Profile#5648
Carole Meredith
#41781
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Carole P. Meredith is an American grape geneticist and was a professor at the Department of Viticulture and Enology of University of California, Davis. Career Before she retired in 2003, Meredith and her research group pioneered the use of DNA typing to differentiate Vitis vinifera grape varieties and for elucidating their parentage, which gives insight into the varieties' history and place of origin. In 1996, Meredith and her research established the parentage of Cabernet Sauvignon, which was the first application of such techniques. Later, Chardonnay, Syrah, and Zinfandel followed. The research group showed that the varieties Zinfandel, Primitivo, and Crljenak Kaštelanski are identical.
Go to Profile#5649
Harald Thamdrup
#50015
Overall Influence
1908 - 1998 (90 years)
Harald Mogensen Thamdrup was a Danish biologist and science organizer. Thamdrup was a professor of zoology at Aarhus University 1959-1975 – the first in that chair. He also served as a director of the Natural History Museum, Aarhus 1941-1978 and founded the research station Mols Laboratory in 1941 and in 1949 the Wildlife Biological Station at Kalø which he led for 30 years.
Go to Profile#5650
Thomas D. Bird
#106518
Overall Influence
