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,
#6101
Onyema Ogbuagu
#70866
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Onyema Eberechukwu Ogbuagu is an American-born infectious diseases physician, educator, researcher, and clinical trial investigator, who was raised and educated in Nigeria. He is an associate professor at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, CT and is the director of the Yale AIDS Program clinical trials unit. His research contributions have focused on HIV/AIDS prevention and COVID-19 vaccination and treatment clinical trials. He switched his focus at the beginning of the 2019 COVID pandemic and participated as a principal investigator on the Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine trials and the Remdesivir SIMPLE trial in 2020 and 2021.
Go to Profile#6102
Steven M Reppert
#110738
Overall Influence
#6103
Maydianne Andrade
#46527
Overall Influence
Maydianne Andrade is a Jamaican-born Canadian ecologist. She is known for her work on the mating habits of spiders, in particular spiders belonging to the Latrodectus species. In 2007, she was named a Canadian Research Chair in Integrative Behavioural Ecology.
Go to Profile#6104
Shin‐ichi Nishikawa
#110743
Overall Influence
#6105
Emily Balskus
#73530
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Emily P. Balskus is an American chemical biologist, enzymologist, microbiologist, and biochemist born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1980. She has been on the faculty of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology department of Harvard University since 2011 and is currently the Morris Kahn Professor. She has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and three book chapters. Since 2012 she has been invited to give over 170 lectures, has held positions on various editorial boards, and served as a reviewer for ACS and Nature journals among others. Balskus also currently serves as a consultant for Novartis, Kint...
Go to Profile#6106
Carles Lalueza-Fox
#100127
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Carles Lalueza Fox is a Spanish biologist specialized in the study of ancient DNA. A doctor in Biology for the University of Barcelona, he worked in Cambridge and Oxford as well as in the private genetics company CODE Genetics of Iceland. Since 2008, he has served as a research Scientist in the Institute of Evolutionary Biology .
Go to Profile#6107
Hans E. Grossniklaus
#110788
Overall Influence
#6108
Stephen Macknik
#63387
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Stephen Louis Macknik is an American neuroscientist and science writer. He is a Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology & Pharmacology at the State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, where he directs the Laboratory of Translational Neuroscience. He directed laboratories previously at the Barrow Neurological Institute and University College London. He is best known for his studies on illusions, consciousness, attentional misdirection in stage magic, and cerebral blood flow.
Go to Profile#6109
Martin Giurfa
#93178
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Martin Giurfa is an Argentinean-French neurobiologist and neuroethologist , member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, and the Institut Universitaire de France . He is acknowledged for his work on the neural mechanisms of cognition in invertebrates, which he mostly explores using honeybees as models for understanding basic principles of learning and memory.
Go to Profile#6110
Tatyana Sharpee
#92314
Overall Influence
Tatyana Sharpee is an American neuroscientist. She is a Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where she spearheads a research group at the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, with the support from Edwin Hunter Chair in Neurobiology. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Physics at University of California, San Diego. She was elected a fellow of American Physical Society in 2019.
Go to Profile#6111
Seamus J. Martin
#110809
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#6112
Del Shankel
#102071
Overall Influence
1927 - 2018 (91 years)
Delbert Merrill Shankel was an American microbiologist and academic administrator. He served as the interim chancellor of the University of Kansas in 1994. Shankel, a microbiologist, was educated at Walla Walla College and University of Texas . He started teaching at the University of Kansas' Department of Microbiology in 1959. He retired in 1996 and was named professor and chancellor emeritus
Go to Profile#6113
Nieves López Martínez
#78515
Overall Influence
1949 - 2010 (61 years)
Nieves López Martínez was a Spanish paleontologist specializing in research on the vertebrate fossil record and part of a group of paleontologists who were responsible for the modernization of paleontological studies in Spain.
Go to Profile#6114
Edward M. Barrows
#85464
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Edward M. Barrows is a biologist who earned his BS in Botany and Zoology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1968, and his PhD in entomology, mentored by Charles Duncan Michener, at the University of Kansas, Lawrence in 1975. Further, he is a retired U.S. Army officer. He has had a lifetime interest in nature, science, and art. He performed research on bee nesting, predation, and reproductive behavior, for example, finding that female Lasioglossum zephyrus sweat bees have individual odors perceived by conspecific males. This was evidently the first discovery of invertebrate individual odors, as opposed to group or nest odors.
Go to Profile#6115
Stig Hagström
#28459
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Stig B. Hagström was a Professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Career He was trained at Uppsala University under the Nobel Laureate Kai Siegbahn. He received his B.Sc. in 1957, his M.Sc. in 1958, his licentiate in 1961 and his Ph.D. in 1964. After a period in 1964–1966 as a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he was appointed university lecturer and docent at Chalmers University of Technology in 1966. In 1969 he was appointed as a chaired full professor in Physics and vice chancellor at Linköping Ins...
Go to Profile#6116
Edward John Mcguire
#110845
Overall Influence
#6117
Walter R. Fehr
#110859
Overall Influence
#6118
Klaus Kubitzki
#102202
Overall Influence
1933 - 2022 (89 years)
Klaus Kubitzki was a German botanist. He was Emeritus professor in the University of Hamburg, at the Herbarium Hamburgense. He is known for his work on the systematics and biogeography of the angiosperms, particularly those of the Neotropics, and also the floristic record of the Tertiary era. His plant systematic work is referred to as the Kubitzki system. He was a member of the American Society of Plant Taxonomists.
Go to Profile#6119
Frédérique Vidal
#71043
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Frédérique Vidal is a Monegasque-born French-based biochemist, academic administrator, and politician who served as Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation in the government of Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and Jean Castex from 2017 to 2022. She was the president of the University of Nice from 2012 to 2017.
Go to Profile#6120
Kevin Campbell
#72103
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Kevin P. Campbell is an Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UI Foundation Distinguished Professor, the Roy J. Carver Chair of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, and head of the department; he is also professor of neurology and internal medicine at the University of Iowa.
Go to Profile#6121
Iain Donald Campbell
#66786
Overall Influence
1941 - 2014 (73 years)
Iain Donald Campbell was a Scottish biophysicist and academic. He was Professor of Structural Biology at the University of Oxford from 1992 to 2009. Early life and education Campbell was born on 24 April 1941 in Blackford, Perth and Kinross, Scotland. He was the son of Daniel Campbell and Catherine Campbell . He was educated at Perth Academy, a state school in Perth. He went on to study physics at the University of St Andrews, graduating in 1963. He remained at St Andrews to undertake post-graduate research and completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in physics. His doctoral advisor was Dirk Bijl, and he undertook research under John F.
Go to Profile#6122
Henry Spotnitz
#25253
Overall Influence
Henry M. Spotnitz is George H. Humphrey II Professor of Surgery, chairman of the Columbia University Medical Center Conflict of Interest Committee, co-chair of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Information Systems Clinical Advisory Committee, chair of the Information Technology Committee of the Faculty Practice Organization, and Vice-Chair for Research and Information Systems in the Department of Surgery.
Go to Profile#6123
Patricia Howlin
#97484
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Patricia Howlin is Professor of Clinical Child Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, whose principal research interests focus on autism and developmental disorders including Williams syndrome, developmental language disorders and Fragile X. Howlin had a specific interest in the adult outcomes for individuals with autism. She published and presented on this subject extensively.
Go to Profile#6124
Birendra Nath Mallick
#53746
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Birendra Nath Mallick is an Indian neurobiologist and a professor of neurobiology at the School of Life Sciences of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Known for his research on the Neuroscience of sleep, Mallick has authored and edited articles and in the first monograph on REM Sleep. He is a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Biotechnology and an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian Academy of Sciences, and Indian National Science Academy.
Go to Profile#6125
Heidi Johansen-Berg
#106524
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Heidi Johansen-Berg is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging at the University of Oxford. She studies brain plasticity in the context of stroke rehabilitation and aging.
Go to Profile#6126
William Blattner
#85196
Overall Influence
William A. Blattner is an American virologist and physician known for his pioneering studies on the epidemiology of human retroviruses. He is a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he co-founded the Institute of Human Virology with Robert Gallo and Robert R. Redfield in 1996. He subsequently helped found the Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria, which has screened over 1 million Nigerians for HIV/AIDS. He retired from his position as associate director of the IHV and director of its Division of Epidemiology and Prevention on January 31, 2016. He is als...
Go to Profile#6127
Jacques Géry
#60761
Overall Influence
1917 - 2007 (90 years)
Jacques Géry was a French ichthyologist and Doctor of Medicine. The most notable species he described are:Green neon tetra, Paracheirodon simulans Black neon tetra, Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi Royal tetra, Inpaichthys kerri Rummy-nose tetra, Hemigrammus bleheri Red phantom tetra, Hyphessobrycon sweglesi Brittanichthys axelrodi Brittanichthys myersi
Go to Profile#6128
Aubrey Gorbman
#110898
Overall Influence
#6129
Mauro Perretti
#110903
Overall Influence
#6130
Marek Michał Żabka
#94854
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Marek Michał Żabka is a Polish arachnologist. His main research area is the spider family Salticidae , especially their systematics and biogeography. He has produced nearly 80 scientific publications, popular science articles and a book. The World Spider Catalog lists 25 genus names or synonyms and 237 species names or synonyms of which he is either the sole author or a co-author. Nine jumping spider species and one ant spider species have been given the specific name zabkai.
Go to Profile#6131
Daphne Bavelier
#55151
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Daphné Bavelier is a French cognitive neuroscientist specialized in brain plasticity and learning. She is full Professor at the University of Geneva in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences. She heads the Brain and Learning lab at Campus Biotech in Geneva, Switzerland.
Go to Profile#6132
Deepak Gaur
#60336
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Deepak Gaur was an Indian molecular biologist, and a professor at the School of Biotechnology of Jawaharlal Nehru University. Known for his studies on Plasmodium falciparum, Gaur is a recipient of the N-Bios Prize. 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 in 2017.
Go to Profile#6133
Ian Macara
#104242
Overall Influence
Ian G. Macara is a British-American biologist, currently the Louise B. McGavock Chair at Vanderbilt University. He received his PhD from the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard University before moving to the University of Virginia, where he was the Harrison Distinguished Professor of Microbiology and Director of the Advanced Microscopy Facility. He was named the chair of the Vanderbilt Department of Cell and Developmental Biology in 2012. His research focuses on the molecules that establish Cell polarity in Epithelium, both in normal ce...
Go to Profile#6134
P. O. Andersen
#110961
Overall Influence
#6135
George C. Fahey
#110964
Overall Influence
#6136
George Billman
#48238
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
George Edward Billman is an American physiologist and professor at Ohio State University. After receiving a Ph.D from the University of Kentucky in 1980, Billman began his professional career at the University of Oklahoma. In 1984, he joined the Ohio State staff, where he became an associate professor in 1990 and a full professor in 1996.
Go to Profile#6137
Joe Leigh Simpson
#110976
Overall Influence
#6138
Jack Heslop-Harrison
#78442
Overall Influence
1920 - 1998 (78 years)
John Heslop-Harrison FRS FAAAS was a British soldier and botanist. Early life and education He was born in Middlesbrough to John William Heslop-Harrison and his wife Christian Henderson, the last of three children. His older brother was George Heslop-Harrison.
Go to Profile#6139
Peter Mcl. Black
#111009
Overall Influence
#6140
André Aptroot
#101496
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
André Aptroot is a Dutch mycologist and lichenologist. In 1993 he did his PhD at the University of Utrecht under the supervision of Robbert Gradstein . His dissertation was titled "Systematic studies on pyrenocarpous lichens and related fungi".
Go to Profile#6141
Karin Limburg
#80128
Overall Influence
Karin Limburg is a professor in the department of Environmental and Forest Biology at SUNY-ESF. Biography She graduated with a double AB degree in Ecology and Conservation from Vassar College, and then studied Systems Ecology under Howard T. Odum at the University of Florida, Gainesville for her MS degree. She completed her Ph.D. under the supervision of Simon Levin at Cornell University in 1994. A broadly trained ecologist, she has spent most of her career inferring water chemistry and fish ecology from careful examination of fish otoliths. Otoliths are small calcified structures that help fish to hear and balance, and they make excellent subjects for sclerochronology.
Go to Profile#6142
Veronica van Heyningen
#98826
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Veronica van Heyningen is an English geneticist who specialises in the etiology of anophthalmia as an honorary professor at University College London . She previously served as head of medical genetics at the MRC Human Genetics Unit in Edinburgh and the president of The Genetics Society. In 2014 she became president of the Galton Institute. she chairs the diversity committee of the Royal Society, previously chaired by Uta Frith.
Go to Profile#6143
Murray Moo‐young
#111029
Overall Influence
#6144
Andre Punt
#99589
Overall Influence
Andre Eric Punt is a South African fisheries scientist and mathematician, best known for his work on fisheries stock assessment. He received the K. Radway Allen Award in 1999 for his contributions to fisheries science.
Go to Profile#6145
Frank Wesley Fitch
#111039
Overall Influence
#6146
Bert Main
#98270
Overall Influence
1919 - 2009 (90 years)
Albert Russell Main CBE FAA FANZAAS was an Australian zoologist. Born in Perth, Western Australia, he studied zoology at The University of Western Australia. He served in the Australian Imperial Force and the Royal Australian Air Force during World War II, but later returned to zoology, qualifying as a Doctor of Philosophy in 1956, and becoming a Professor of Zoology in 1967.
Go to Profile#6147
Richard Carter
#96240
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Professor Richard Lawrance Carter CBE, FRCP, FRCPath is a British histopathologist. He graduated from Oxford University in 1960. He then worked as an histopathologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital. From 1974 to 2001 he was an Honorary Consultant and Reader at the Institute of Cancer Research.
Go to Profile#6148
Edward D. Thalmann
#51614
Overall Influence
1945 - 2004 (59 years)
Capt. Edward Deforest Thalmann, USN was an American hyperbaric medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the current United States Navy dive tables for mixed-gas diving, which are based on his eponymous Thalmann Algorithm . At the time of his death, Thalmann was serving as assistant medical director of the Divers Alert Network and an assistant clinical professor in anesthesiology at Duke University's Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology.
Go to Profile#6149
Roman Jerala
#91528
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Roman Jerala is a Slovenian biochemist and synthetic biologist, internationally best known as the leader of Slovenian teams that won the Grand prize at the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition several times.
Go to Profile#6150
Daniel L. Alkon
#111108
Overall Influence
