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

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#5901

Henry Jay Forman

#69014

Overall Influence

Henry Jay Forman is both Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry at the University of California, Merced. and Research Professor Emeritus of Gerontology at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. He is a specialist in free radical biology and chemistry, antioxidant defense, and pioneered work in redox signaling including the mechanisms of induced resistance to oxidative stress.

#5902

Kevin D. Lafferty

#108920

Overall Influence

#5903

John Rodney Guest

#107886

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

John Rodney Guest, FRS is a British molecular microbiologist. He was born the son of Sidney Ramsey Guest in Leeds, West Yorkshire and educated at the University of Leeds and Trinity College, Oxford .

#5904

Pierre Jollès

#108933

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (99 years)

#5905

Joyce Lambert

#66797

Overall Influence

1916 - 2005 (89 years)

Joyce Mildred Lambert was a British botanist and ecologist. She is credited with proving that the Norfolk Broads were man-made. Early life Joyce Lambert was born on 23 June 1916 at 50 Oakbank Grove, Herne Hill, London. She was the daughter of Loftus Sidney Lambert, clerk for an electrical supply company, and later estate agent, and his wife, Mildred Emma, née Barker. She was brought up in Brundall, Norfolk, and was educated at Norwich High School for Girls.

#5906

Raul Andino

#103015

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Raul Andino is a virologist and professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is noted for leading a team of researchers that developed the first new oral polio vaccine in 50 years.

#5907

B. Gunnar Wallin

#108955

Overall Influence

#5908

Mustafa Djamgoz

#57598

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Prof. Mustafa Bilgin Ali Djamgoz is Professor of cancer biology at Imperial College London and chairman of the College of Medicine’s Science Council. Biography Djamgoz was born in Nicosia, Cyprus to a Turkish Cypriot family. He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1970 for his studies. Djamgoz studied at the Imperial College London, where he became a Professor of Neurobiology, and then Professor of Cancer Biology. His scientific consultancies and granting agencies include the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. In 2002, Djamgoz established the Pro Cancer Research Fund as a regist...

#5909

Anne E. Carpenter

#83008

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Anne E. Carpenter is an American scientist in the field of image analysis for cell biology and artificial intelligence for drug discovery. She is the co-creator of CellProfiler, open-source software for high-throughput biological image analysis, and a co-inventor of the Cell Painting assay, a method for image-based profiling. She is an Institute Scientist and Senior Director of the Imaging Platform at the Broad Institute.

#5910

Johan Wilhelm Heinrich Giess

#103069

Overall Influence

1910 - 2000 (90 years)

Johan Wilhelm Heinrich Giess aka Willi Giess is noted for having started an official herbarium at Windhoek, his extensive collection of Namibian plants and generally furthering botanical knowledge of the territory.

#5911

Lynnette Ferguson

#48301

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Lynnette Robin Ferguson is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2021 is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland. Ferguson has been a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi since 2016. Academic career Ferguson says she initially wanted to be a hairdresser, until a stint at hairdressing school showed her she did not have the talent or interest for it.

#5912

Elaine K. Perry

#108991

Overall Influence

#5913

David Clement Whitcomb

#108992

Overall Influence

#5914

Grady Webster

#87259

Overall Influence

1927 - 2005 (78 years)

Grady Linder Webster was a plant systematist and taxonomist. He was the recipient of a number of awards and appointed to fellowships of botanical institutions in the United States of America. Webster's research included study of the diverse family Euphorbiaceae , on which he produced many papers, and he lectured on plant systematics, biogeography, and the ecology of pollination. Webster's career as a plant systematist was distinguished by the field research he undertook in remote tropical areas.

#5915

Christian Cambillau

#59428

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Christian Cambillau is a French scientist for the CNRS in Structural Biology. He received the CNRS Silver Medal for his work on structural biology, especially the structures of human lipase/colipase, lectins and the development of moleculargraphics software.

#5916

Earl Evans

#57326

Overall Influence

1910 - 1999 (89 years)

Earl Alison Evans was the chairman of the biochemistry department at the University of Chicago for 30 years, during which time he pioneered several techniques whose use is now widespread. Evans was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1940 he collaborated with Louis Slotin in using the university's cyclotron to produce enough carbon-11 and carbon-14 for early studies in radiobiology. This led to his demonstration that animal cells are capable of fixing carbon dioxide to synthesize carbohydrates, a work which earned him both the 1941 Eli Lilly Award, and in 1942, the chairmanship of the department.

#5917

Renee Wegrzyn

#82178

Overall Influence

Renee Diane Wegrzyn is an American applied biologist who has served as the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health since October 2022. Education Wegrzyn earned a Bachelor of Science and PhD in applied biology from Georgia Tech.

#5918

Hirosi Kuriyama

#109055

Overall Influence

#5919

Mathieu Blanchette

#102454

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Mathieu Daniel Blanchette is a computational biologist and Director of the School of Computer Science at McGill University. His research focuses on developing new algorithms for the detection of functional regions in DNA sequences.

#5920

Chicita F. Culberson

#89572

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Chicita Frances Culberson was an American lichenologist. Education She graduated with a B.S. from the University of Cincinnati in 1953, where she also met her future husband, Bill Culberson. In 1954, she received an M.S. from the University of Wisconsin, and in 1959 she received a Ph.D. from Duke University.

#5921

Glen Owens Gabbard

#109069

Overall Influence

#5922

Eric E. Schadt

#109071

Overall Influence

#5923

Sarah P. Gibbs

#105069

Overall Influence

1930 - 2014 (84 years)

Sarah P. Gibbs was Emeritus Professor of Biology at McGill University in Canada, where she was initially appointed as an assistant professor on tenure track in September 1966. She was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she received the 2003 Gilbert Morgan Smith medal for research on algae.

#5924

Sharad Kumar

#109084

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#5925

Ralph Slatyer

#55739

Overall Influence

1929 - 2012 (83 years)

Ralph Owen Slatyer was an Australian ecologist, and the first Chief Scientist of Australia from 1989 to 1992. He was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1929, and was educated at Perth Modern School and Wesley College, Perth, then the University of Western Australia from which he graduated with Bachelor’s Master’s and Doctoral degrees in agricultural science.

#5926

Keith Dalziel

#81029

Overall Influence

1921 - 1994 (73 years)

Professor Keith Dalziel F.R.S. was a British biochemist. Life Dalziel was born in Salford, the youngest of four children of Gilbert and Edith Dalziel. His father, born in Dumfries, Scotland, worked as a mechanic, lorry driver and chauffeur. He was the first of his family to enter higher education. He married Sallie Farnworth in 1945, and the couple had two daughters, born in 1947 and 1952. He died on 7 January 1994. The name Dalziel is of Scottish origin and it is pronounced [dɪj'el] with only slightly more stress on the second syllable, essentially like the prefix in -lactic acid.

#5927

William A. Petri

#98170

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

William A. Petri is a physician-scientist at the University of Virginia School of Medicine and the Wade Hampton Frost Professor of Epidemiology. He is a member of the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, both medical honor societies recognizing distinguished physicians. Petri is the past president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. He developed an FDA-approved test to detect amebiasis, and later, with significant funding from NIH, developed a vaccine program.

#5928

Maria Dornelas

#44107

Overall Influence

Maria Dornelas FRSE is a researcher in biodiversity and professor of biology based at St. Andrew's University. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021. Her research into biodiversity change has challenged previous views, on the growth and decline of coral reefs to understanding global biodiversity with data analysis on how species or ecosystems are changing in the Anthropocene.

#5929

Albert Zlotnik

#109157

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

#5930

Daria D. Mochly-rosen

#109173

Overall Influence

#5931

Jonathan Stone

#109175

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

#5932

Franz Oberwinkler

#97889

Overall Influence

1939 - 2018 (79 years)

Franz Oberwinkler was a German mycologist, specialising in the fungal morphology, ecology and phylogeny of basidiomycetes. Oberwinkler earned his PhD in 1965 at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich studying under Josef Poelt. From 1967 to 1974 he was a research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Munich, becoming professor in 1972. Between 1968–1969 Oberwinkler was Scientific Expert of the Food and Agriculture Organization at the Instituto Forestal Latino-Americano in Mérida, Venezuela.

#5933

James W. Fawcett

#109183

Overall Influence

#5934

Scott Hocknull

#71608

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Scott Hocknull is a vertebrate palaeontologist and Senior Curator in Geology at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane. He was the 2002 recipient of the Young Australian of the Year Award. He is the youngest Australian to date to hold a museum curatorship and has described and named 10 new species and four new genera.

#5935

Tse Wen Chang

#81544

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Tse Wen Chang is an immunology researcher, whose career spans across academia and industry. His early research involving the Immunoglobulin E pathway and antibody-based therapeutics lead to the development of omalizumab , a medication that has been approved for the treatment of severe allergic asthma and severe chronic spontaneous urticaria. Chang is a cofounder of Tanox, a biopharmaceutical company specialized in anti-IgE therapies for the treatment of allergic diseases. After Tanox's tripartite partnership with Genentech and Novartis was forged in 1996, Chang returned to his alma mater, the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and served as the Dean of the College of Life Sciences.

#5936

Richard L. Jenkins

#60158

Overall Influence

1903 - 1991 (88 years)

Richard Leos Jenkins was an American psychiatrist known for his work in child psychiatry and juvenile delinquency. Jenkins earned his A.B. from Stanford University in 1925 and his M.D. from University of Chicago.

#5937

Karl Heinrich Weisgraber

#109217

Overall Influence

#5938

Margaret L. Kripke

#109230

Overall Influence

#5939

Andreas Mackensen

#109242

Overall Influence

#5940

Gustav Gaudernack

#105571

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Gustav Gaudernack is a scientist working in the development of cancer vaccines and cancer immunotherapy. He has developed various strategies in immunological treatment of cancer. He is involved in several ongoing cellular and immuno-gene therapeutic clinical trials and his research group has put major efforts into the development of various T cell-based immunotherapeutic strategies.

#5941

Don B. Clewell

#109245

Overall Influence

#5942

Paul Patterson

#101005

Overall Influence

1943 - 2014 (71 years)

Paul H. Patterson was a neuroscientist and the Anne P. and Benjamin F. Biaggini Professor of Biological Sciences at the California Institute of Technology. Life and work Paul Patterson was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Paul and Marge Patterson. His uncle, Clair Patterson, was a scientist who influenced Paul’s future career. He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, moved to Minnesota during high school, and attended Grinnell College for his undergraduate studies. He completed his PhD in biology at Johns Hopkins University with William Lennarz in 1970. He then moved to Harvard University as a post...

#5943

Theodore L. Sourkes

#109257

Overall Influence

#5944

Jeremy Brockes

#106902

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Jeremy Patrick Brockes FRS is a British biochemist who worked as an MRC Research Professor at University College London until 2016. Early life and education Brockes was born in Haslemere, Surrey. He attended Winchester College, and then earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh , where he studied in the laboratory of the late Kenneth Murray and Noreen Murray. He did post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School with Zach Hall, and at University College London with Martin Raff.

#5945

Leo Brongersma

#56759

Overall Influence

1907 - 1994 (87 years)

Leo Daniel Brongersma was a Dutch zoologist, herpetologist, author, and lecturer. Brongersma was born in Bloemendaal, North Holland, and earned his PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 1934. He was probably best known for his scientific paper, "European Atlantic Turtles", which was published in 1972, but he also served as the director of the Natural History Museum, Leiden and lectured at Leiden University until he retired at age 65. In the 1950s he led several expeditions to collect zoological specimens in New Guinea. He described many new reptile species from the Indo-Australian Archipelago and New Guinea.

#5946

Jan Nedergaard

#109273

Overall Influence

#5947

Alex Kacelnik

#101000

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Alejandro "Alex" Kacelnik, FRS is an Argentine-British zoologist, professor of behavioural ecology at Oxford University and E.P. Abraham Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford. Kacelnik heads the Behavioural Ecology Research Group at Oxford. The author of more than 200 peer reviewed publications, his research focuses on the evolution of behaviour and mathematical modelling. His work uses an interdisciplinary approach, combining data and methods from zoology, psychology and economic theory. In 2011 Kacelnik was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society for his contributions to the field of animal cognition.

#5948

Julie Huber

#93829

Overall Influence

Julie Huber is a Senior Scientist in the Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry department at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She previously was an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University, an associate scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and the associate director of the MBL's Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution. She also serves as the associate director of the Center for Dark Energy Biosphere Investigations, a National Science Foundation-supported program headquartered at the Uni...

#5949

O. R. Kandler

#109289

Overall Influence

#5950

Nevzat Tarhan

#20135

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Kaşif Nevzat Tarhan is a Turkish psychiatrist and Psychological warfare expert and neuropsychology expert. Life He was born in Merzifon in 1952. He finished Kuleli Military High School in 1969 and graduated from Cerrahpaşa Medical School Istanbul University in 1975. Following his internship at GATA he worked in Cyprus and Bursa garrisons at different military medical institutions. In 1982 he became a specialist psychiatrist at GATA. After his clinical services as a specialist at Erzincan and Çorlu Hospitals, he became an assistant professor, an associate professor at GATA Haydarpaşa. He was promoted to colonel in 1993 and became a professor in 1996.

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