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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Person Name

School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#6351

Tessa M. Hill

#72934

Overall Influence

Tessa Michelle Hill is an American marine geochemist and oceanographer. She is a professor at the University of California, Davis, and a resident professor at its Bodega Marine Laboratory. She is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, and in 2016 was named a Leshner Public Engagement Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In that year she also received the US Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers .

#6352

Eva-Maria Mandelkow

#98283

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Eva-Maria Mandelkow is a German neuroscientist and Alzheimer's disease researcher at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases , Bonn. Biography Eva-Maria Mandelkow studied medicine in Hamburg and Heidelberg, qualifying in 1968. After three years of medical internships, she began doctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Heidelberg, investigating the enzyme kinetics of the motor protein myosin. She graduated in 1973 with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, then undertook postdoctoral training at Brandeis University in Massachusetts researching cytoskeletal proteins. She c...

#6353

Nina Bhardwaj

#112910

Overall Influence

#6354

Alexander H. Leighton

#26063

Overall Influence

1908 - 2007 (99 years)

Alexander H. Leighton was a sociologist and psychiatrist of dual citizenship . He is best known for his work on the Stirling County Study and his contributions to the field of psychiatric epidemiology. Leighton died at the age of 99 at his home in Digby, Nova Scotia.

#6355

Guenther H. Boden

#112916

Overall Influence

#6356

David Veesler

#94037

Overall Influence

David Veesler is a French biochemist and an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington, where his group focuses on the study the structural biology of infectious diseases. His team recently helped determine the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein using Cryo-EM techniques, and it is currently trying to identify neutralizing antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 that could be used as a preventative treatment against COVID-19 or as a post-exposure therapy using X-ray crystallography. Veesler is Howard Hughes Medical Investigators.

#6357

Max A. Listgarten

#112926

Overall Influence

#6358

Lam Berto Maffei

#112927

Overall Influence

#6359

Richard D. Norris

#112939

Overall Influence

#6360

Fred Prof. Dr. Lembeck

#112950

Overall Influence

#6361

John H. Growdon

#112968

Overall Influence

#6362

Eldad Melamed

#112981

Overall Influence

#6363

Patricia G. Gensel

#58332

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Patricia Gabbey Gensel is an American botanist and paleobotanist. Life Gensel was born in Buffalo, New York, and attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan, earning a B.A. in 1966. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1972 from the University of Connecticut. As of 2011, Gensel was on the faculty of the Biology Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

#6364

Karla Kirkegaard

#85521

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Karla Kirkegaard is the Violetta L. Horton Research Professor of genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She was the chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology from 2006 to 2010. She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on virology.

#6365

Alick Walker

#65936

Overall Influence

1925 - 1999 (74 years)

Alick Donald Walker was a British palaeontologist, after whom the Alwalkeria genus of dinosaur is named. He was born in Skirpenbeck, near York and attended Pocklington School from 1936 to 1943. He began a degree course in engineering at Cambridge, but dropped out in 1944. In 1948 he returned to university after national service, reading Geology at the University of Bristol. On graduation, he joined the research group of Professor Stanley Westoll at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, working on the fossil reptiles of the Late Triassic found in Elgin. He was appointed Lecturer in Geology in...

#6366

Cecil Terence Ingold

#44239

Overall Influence

1905 - 2010 (105 years)

Cecil Terence Ingold CMG was "one of the most influential mycologists of the twentieth century". He was president of the British Mycological Society where he organised the first international congress of mycologists. An entire class of aquatic fungi within the Pleosporales, the Ingoldian fungi, were named after him, although recent DNA studies are changing the scientific names.

#6367

Carla Dove

#38410

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Carla J. Dove is an American researcher who specializes in identifying birds that have gotten trapped in airplane engines, known as bird strikes. She is currently the Program Manager for Feather Identification Lab in the Division of Birds at the National Museum of Natural History. Her work helps promote wildlife safety, as well as pave the way for the development of preventative measures that will decrease the chance of wildlife impacting airplanes. She has published over 40 articles on her research so far.

#6368

Eran Elinav

#104063

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Eran Elinav is an Israeli immunologist and microbiota researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the DKFZ. He is an international scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a senior fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advance Research .

#6369

Heinrich R. Schelbert

#113009

Overall Influence

#6370

Allen M. Gown

#113014

Overall Influence

#6371

Timothy Schedl

#102948

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Timothy Schedl is a professor of genetics at Washington University in St. Louis. Biography Early life and education Timothy Bruce Schedl was born in 1955 to University of Iowa chemistry professor Harold Schedl and professor of art Naomi Schedl. He has two brothers, Andrew Schedl and Paul Schedl. He received his degree from Lawrence University in 1977.

#6372

Tomoh Masaki

#113019

Overall Influence

#6373

Joel S. Greenberger

#113022

Overall Influence

#6374

Tohru Funahashi

#113027

Overall Influence

#6375

Ben A. Penninger Oostra

#113028

Overall Influence

#6376

Elma González

#41651

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Elma L. González is a Mexican-born American plant cell biologist. She is Professor Emerita of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1974, she was appointed professor of cell and molecular biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. At the time, she was the only Mexican American woman scientist in the University of California system faculty. Professor Martha Zúñiga at the University of California, Santa Cruz, appointed in 1990, was the second. In 2004, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science rec...

#6377

Stuart J. Schnitt

#113036

Overall Influence

#6378

Michael R. Liebowitz

#113050

Overall Influence

#6379

Helene Marsh

#71378

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Professor Helene Denise Marsh is an Australian scientist who has provided research in the field of Environmental Science, more specifically Zoology and Ecology. The focal point of her research has been the biology of dugongs, with particular foci in the areas of population ecology, history, reproduction, diet, and movements. She is the Dean of Graduate Research Studies and the Professor of Environmental Science at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and also a Distinguished Professor in the College of Marine and Environmental Science. Marsh is also a program leader for the Marine and Tropical Research Science Facility.

#6380

Junying Yu

#64998

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Junying Yu is a Chinese stem cell biologist. She is a researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Biography Yu was born in 1975 in Zhejiang, China. In 1997, Yu graduated from the Department of Biology of Peking University. She then went to the United States to continue her research and obtained a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2003.

#6381

Daven Presgraves

#109288

Overall Influence

Daven Presgraves is University Dean's Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Rochester. Education and career Presgraves earned his B.S. and an M.S. at the University of Maryland at College Park and a second M.S. and a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Rochester. After completing his Ph.D, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Munich and an NIH-NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University.

#6382

Catherine Abbott

#96477

Overall Influence

Catherine Abbott, Lady Bird is a professor of molecular genetics at the University of Edinburgh. Education Abbott completed her BSc degree in 1983 at the University of Reading. She earned a PhD in biochemical genetics from the University of Reading and the Medical Research Council from Harwell in 1987.

#6383

Lawrence Michael Dill

#113086

Overall Influence

#6384

Gerald C. Mueller

#113093

Overall Influence

#6385

Thomas Park

#107409

Overall Influence

1908 - 1992 (84 years)

Thomas Park was an American zoologist, recognized for transforming the field of ecology into a science with quantification and controlled experiments. He was a professor at the University of Chicago and served in 1960 as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#6386

Harold Gainer

#113098

Overall Influence

#6387

Olivera Finn

#107244

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Olivera J. Finn is a Yugoslav-American immunologist who is a distinguished professor and former chair of the department of immunology at the University of Pittsburgh and former director of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute . She was president of the American Association of Immunologists from 2007 to 2008 and served on the AAI Council from 2002 to 2006.

#6388

Bart Muys

#107786

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Bart Muys is a Belgian professor of forest ecology and forest management at the KU Leuven. His research focuses on the ecosystem functioning of tree diversity, the ecology of forest restoration and the evaluation of sustainability in forests and bioenergy systems. He is one of the most cited scientists internationally in the field of silviculture and forest management.

#6389

Peter Svensson

#113135

Overall Influence

#6390

Antônio Brescovit

#68724

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Antônio Domingos Brescovit is a Brazilian arachnologist. His first name, Antônio may also be spelt António . He develops academic activities at the 'arthropodae laboratorium' at the Butantan Institute, and he is a specialist in Neotropical Arachnida.

#6391

Maciej Gliwicz

#49448

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Maciej Gliwicz is a Polish biologist, evolutionist and professor at the University of Warsaw who specializes in the field of hydrobiology. Life and scientific career He graduated from the Faculty of Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Warsaw in 1962. He obtained his doctoral degree in 1969 and became a Professor of Natural Sciences in 1988. Between 1987 and 1990 he worked as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Warsaw. Since the mid-1980 until 2009, he also worked as head of the Department of Hydrobiology at his alma mater. He has been collaborating with a nu...

#6392

Donald P. Becker

#113182

Overall Influence

#6393

Edward Buckler

#109256

Overall Influence

Edward S. Buckler is a plant geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and holds an adjunct appointment at Cornell University. His work focuses on both quantitative and statistical genetics in maize as well as other crops such as cassava. He originated the concept of Nested association mapping and created the first population designed for this type of quantitative genetic analysis. Buckler was elected an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2012. In 2014, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2017, he received the NAS prize in Food and Agr...

#6394

Jerold Chun

#113183

Overall Influence

#6395

Josh Willis

#57186

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Joshua K. Willis is an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His area of expertise is current sea level rise, as well as measuring ocean temperatures. When sea level fell from 2010 to 2011, Willis stated that this was due to an unusually large La Niña transferring more rainfall over land rather than over the ocean as usually happens. In addition, Willis is the project scientist for Jason-3.

#6396

Yukihide Iwamoto†

#113215

Overall Influence

#6397

Susan McCouch

#103792

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Susan Rutherford McCouch is an American geneticist specializing in the genetics of rice. She is the Barbara McClintock Professor of Plant Breeding and Genetics at Cornell University, and since 2018 a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2012, she was awarded the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities.

#6398

Barbara E. Jones

#59565

Overall Influence

Barbara E. Jones was an American-Canadian neuroscientist whose research concerns the chemical and neurological basis for the circadian alternation between sleep and wakefulness. Jones has been described as "a central contributor to our understanding of the brain basis of REM sleep". She was a professor emerita in the McGill University Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, associated with the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital.

#6399

Jolyon H. Hendry

#113235

Overall Influence

#6400

Robert Douglas Wells

#113245

Overall Influence

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