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,
#6301
Todd Rose
#39627
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Larry Todd Rose is a scientist, author, professor and social entrepreneur. He is known for being the co-founder and CEO of Populace, a Boston-based think tank. Prior to Populace, Rose was a professor at the Harvard University where he served as the faculty director of the Mind, Brain, and Education program, as well as led the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality.
Go to Profile#6302
Hara P. Misra
#112479
Overall Influence
#6303
Subir Kumar Ghosh
#49341
Overall Influence
1932 - 2008 (76 years)
Subir Kumar Ghosh was an Indian structural geologist and an emeritus professor at Jadavpur University. He was known for his studies on theoretical and experimental structural geology and was an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, and the Indian Academy of 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 Earth, Atmosphere, Ocean, and Planetary Sciences in 197...
Go to Profile#6304
Ralf T. Voegele
#60815
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ralf Thomas Voegele is a German Biologist, specialising in Microbiology. He is Professor of Phytopathology and Dean of the Agricultural Science Faculty at the University of Hohenheim. Life and work After primary school in Gottmadingen Ralph Voegele attended the Friedrich-Wöhler-Gymnasium in Singen, taking his school-leaving examinations in 1983. He studied biology at the University of Constance, obtained a further qualification in microbiology, and started work as a scientist in 1987.
Go to Profile#6305
Argyrios N. Theofilopoulos
#112508
Overall Influence
#6306
Raissa Berg
#27838
Overall Influence
1913 - 2006 (93 years)
Raissa L'vovna Berg was a Russian geneticist and evolutionary biologist. Early life Raissa Berg was born in St. Petersburg, the second child of Lev Semyonovitch Berg and Polina Abramovna Kotlovker, both natives of Bendery, within the Jewish Pale. In order to study at Moscow University, Lev Berg chose to convert to Lutheranism and became a noted geographer and ichthyologist.
Go to Profile#6307
Paul Racey
#103515
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Paul Adrian Racey is the Regius Professor of Natural History emeritus at the University of Aberdeen. He retired 2009 to leave the chair unoccupied for five years when Christopher John Secombes succeeded him. He is a leading authority on bats. The species Pipistrellus raceyi was named after him.
Go to Profile#6308
Stephan Patrick Swinnen
#112513
Overall Influence
#6309
Rainer W. Bussmann
#107102
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Rainer W. Bussmann is a German botanist and vegetation ecologist, specializing in ethnobotany and ethnobiology, wild food plants, wild crop relatives, climate change, gastronomic botany and preservation of traditional knowledge in the Andes, the Caucasus and the Himalayas. He has worked at the University of Bayreuth, University of Hawaii, University of Texas, the Missouri Botanical Garden, Ilia State University and the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe; he has founded several international non-governmental organizations, including Nature and Culture International, Saving Knowledge, an...
Go to Profile#6310
Brian Fisher
#85128
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Brian L. Fisher is a field biologist who works on the systematics of arthropods, with a particular focus on ants. He has discovered over 1000 species, including 900 species of ants in Madagascar. He mainly conducts field work in Madagascar and Africa.
Go to Profile#6311
Daniel M. Knowles
#112536
Overall Influence
#6312
Philip Palmer Green
#72661
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Philip Palmer Green is a theoretical and computational biologist noted for developing important algorithms and procedures used in Gene mapping and DNA sequencing. He earned his doctorate from Berkeley in mathematics in 1976 with a dissertation on C*-algebra under the direction of Marc Rieffel, but transitioned from pure mathematics into applied work in biology and bioinformatics. Green has obtained numerous important results, including in developing Phred, a widely used DNA trace analyzer, in mapping techniques, and in genetic analysis. Green was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in ...
Go to Profile#6313
E. Lovell Becker
#112541
Overall Influence
#6314
Denise Montell
#109853
Overall Influence
Denise Johnson Montell is an American biologist who is the Duggan Professor of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research considers the oogenesis process in Drosophila and border cell migration. She has served as president of the Genetics Society of America and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Go to Profile#6315
Rut Carballido Lopez
#105830
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Rut Carballido Lopez also spelled Carballido-Lopez is a Spanish-born microbiologist and research team leader in France. She won an Irène-Joliot-Curie Prize in 2015. Biography Carballido Lopez left her home in Spain for Lyon, France, at the age of 17 and became part of the first graduating class of Eurinsa, the European section of the INSA Lyon First Cycle. .
Go to Profile#6316
Gaetano T. Montelione
#106472
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Gaetano T. Montelione is an American biophysical chemist, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Constellation Endowed Chair in Structural Bioinformatics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.
Go to Profile#6317
Tamás F. F. Freund
#112606
Overall Influence
#6318
Wilhelm Gruissem
#112613
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#6319
John Marshall Harlan
#112623
Overall Influence
#6320
Judith Wright
#12222
Overall Influence
1915 - 2000 (85 years)
Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award. Biography Judith Wright was born in Armidale, New South Wales. The eldest child of Phillip Wright and his first wife, Ethel, she spent most of her formative years in Brisbane and Sydney. Wright was of Cornish ancestry. Following the early death of her mother, she lived with her aunt and then boarded at New England Girls' School after her father's remarriage in 1929. After graduating, Wright studied philosophy, English, psychology and history at the University of Sydney.
Go to Profile#6321
John Cambier
#112641
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John C. Cambier is an American immunologist and microbiologist, currently a Distinguished Professor at Anschutz Medical Campus, and also a published author.
Go to Profile#6322
Charles Bangham
#102472
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Charles Bangham holds the Chair in Immunology at Imperial College London. Education Bangham was educated at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford where he was awarded a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery . He completed his PhD on immune responses to respiratory syncytial virus while working at the National Institute for Medical Research in 1987.
Go to Profile#6323
Benoit Coulombe
#93058
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Benoit Coulombe is a Canadian scientist whose research focuses on the mechanisms by which regulated protein–protein, protein–DNA and protein–RNA interactions control the activity of RNA polymerase II, the molecular machine that synthesizes all messenger RNA and some small-nuclear RNA in eukaryotes.
Go to Profile#6324
Thomas B. Shows
#112654
Overall Influence
#6325
Alec Sehon
#92820
Overall Influence
1924 - 2018 (94 years)
Alec Herman Sehon was a Romanian-born Canadian immunologist. Sehon was born in Blejoi, Prahova County, Romania and attended the Victoria University of Manchester, earning bachelor's and advanced degrees in chemistry. Sehon moved to Canada in 1952 and began teaching at McGill University. In 1963, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He joined the University of Manitoba in 1969, where he founded Canada's first standalone immunology department. In 1977, the Royal Society of Canada presented Sehon with the Thomas W. Eadie Medal. He died at the age of 93 on 3 February 2018 in Ottawa, Ontario, Can...
Go to Profile#6326
Steven I. Reed
#112673
Overall Influence
#6327
Lyn R. Griffiths
#86771
Overall Influence
Lyn Robyn Griffiths is an Australian academic who serves as Distinguished Professor of molecular genetics at Queensland University of Technology, where she is director of the Centre for Genomics and Personalised Health, the Genomics Research Centre and the BridgeTech Programs. Griffiths is internationally renowned for her work in the discovery of the genetics of migraine headaches.
Go to Profile#6328
Melanie Ott
#104425
Overall Influence
Melanie Ott is a German virologist who is a senior investigator of The Ott Lab, Director the Gladstone Institute of Virology, and Senior Vice President of Gladstone Institutes. She is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Go to Profile#6329
Mathew Alpern
#75483
Overall Influence
1920 - 1996 (76 years)
Mathew Alpern was an American physiologist known for his research on color vision and color blindness. He was born in Akron, Ohio. He graduated from University of Florida in 1946 and from Ohio State University in 1950 with a PhD supervised by Glenn A. Fry. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1991. He died on May 16, 1996, at the University of Michigan Health System of congestive heart failure.
Go to Profile#6330
Sharon Y. Strauss
#111789
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Sharon Y. Strauss is an American evolutionary ecologist. She is a Professor of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Early life and education Strauss was born in 1956 in New York. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University before enrolling in the University of Minnesota and Florida State University for her MA and PhD. While attending Florida State University, she received the 1987 Murray F. Buell Award for Excellence in Ecology from the Ecological Society of America.
Go to Profile#6331
John Rinzel
#112716
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
#6332
Elias Lazarides
#112722
Overall Influence
#6333
Hiromitsu Nakauchi
#112732
Overall Influence
#6334
John H. Coote
#87308
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
John Haven Coote was a British physiologist. He was the Bowman Professor of Physiology then Professor Emeritus at the University of Birmingham. He was a Visiting Professor at University of Leicester and a Consultant in Applied Physiology, Royal Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine.
Go to Profile#6335
Megan Sykes
#112741
Overall Influence
#6336
Peter Horton
#112746
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#6337
Jean-marie A. Frère
#112750
Overall Influence
#6338
James Birchler
#106120
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
James A. Birchler is an American biologist who is currently Curators' Professor at University of Missouri where he studies gene dosage, polyploidy, and cytogenetics in both maize and drosophila. In 2002 he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. and in 2011 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2017 he was named the SEC Professor of the Year.
Go to Profile#6339
Rui Curi
#112768
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#6340
Oluwatoyin Asojo
#28392
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Oluwatoyin Asojo is Associate Professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Hampton University. She was formerly an Associate Professor of Pediatrics-Tropical medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine. She works at "the interface of math, chemistry, biology, computation." She is a crystallographer and interested in structural studies of proteins from neglected tropical disease pathogens.
Go to Profile#6341
H. Frederik Nijhout
#112788
Overall Influence
#6342
Michael Fitzgerald
#23889
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Michael Fitzgerald is an Irish professor of child and adolescent psychiatry, specialising in autism spectrum disorder . Career His research is in the area of epidemiology of child and adolescent psychiatry. He has been involved in research collaboration in 18 countries and in initiating master's degree programs at Irish universities. He has lectured including in London, at the Royal Society, British Academy, and the British Library and also in New York City, Buenos Aires, Tbilisi, Melbourne and many European countries as well as in China, Malaysia, Korea, and Hawaii. As of June 2005, he said ...
Go to Profile#6343
Tim Dalgleish
#112839
Overall Influence
#6344
Richard L. Jove
#112843
Overall Influence
#6345
Ronald DePinho
#101173
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ronald A. DePinho is an American physician and research scientist. He served as president of MD Anderson Cancer Center from 2011 to 2017. DePinho states that his concern for reducing the burden of cancer suffering became his life goal in 1998, when his father died of colon cancer.
Go to Profile#6346
Joseph Stephen Pagano
#112848
Overall Influence
#6347
Sara Imari Walker
#78059
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Sara Imari Walker is an American theoretical physicist and astrobiologist with research interests in the origins of life, astrobiology, physics of life, emergence, complex and dynamical systems, and artificial life. Walker is deputy director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University , associate director of the ASU-SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems and an associate professor at ASU. She is a co-founder of the astrobiology social network SAGANet, and on the board of directors for Blue Marble Space, a nonprofit education and science organization. ...
Go to Profile#6348
Matija Gogala
#85349
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Matija Gogala is a Slovene entomologist, working mainly in the fields of insect bioacoustics, physiology, and taxonomy. He studied biology at the University of Ljubljana where he graduated in 1960 and became an assistant at the Department of biology . He received his doctorate in 1964. Later, he became a docent at the department and began teaching animal physiology. He obtained full professorship in 1981.
Go to Profile#6349
Daniel Choquet
#57256
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Daniel Choquet is a French neuroscientist. Personal life and career Daniel Choquet is the son of the physicist Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat and the mathematician Gustave Choquet. He is the grandson of the physicist Georges Bruhat. He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1979, followed by a degree in bioengineering from École centrale Paris in 1984. He obtained his P.hD. in 1988 from Pierre and Marie Curie University and studied pharmacology at the Pasteur Institute. That year, he started working for the French National Centre for Scientific Research . From 1994 to 1996, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University.
Go to Profile#6350
Peter J. Quinn
#112871
Overall Influence
