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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Biology,
#6451
Antonina Polozhy
#85481
Overall Influence
1917 - 2003 (86 years)
Antonina Polozhy was a Russian botanist, geneticist, taxonomist, plant breeder and specialist in Russian cultivated plants. Biography Life Antonina was born on May 12, 1917, in the city of Tomsk. Graduating from Tomsk State University in “Systematics of Lower Plants” in 1939, she became an assistant at the Department of Morphology and Systematics of Higher Plants at TSU three years later. In 1941 she became an assistant professor, then in 1961 she became head of the Botany Department. Continuing in the department as a professor in 1966 she was also the Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Soil.
Go to Profile#6452
Muntaser Ibrahim
#106992
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Muntaser Eltayeb Ibrahim is a Sudanese geneticist and professor of molecular biology at the University of Khartoum, where he leads its Institute of Endemic Diseases. Science described him as "one of Sudan's most distinguished living scholars". His research focuses on human genetic diversity in Africa, human genetic variation contributing to susceptibility to infectious diseases such as malaria and leishmaniasis, and cancer genetics.
Go to Profile#6453
Laurent Mottron
#51430
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Laurent Mottron, born June 13, 1952, in France, is a psychiatrist, researcher, and a professor at Montreal University. He is a specialist in cognitive neuroscience research in autism at the University of Montreal.
Go to Profile#6454
Krishnan Venkataramanand Lakshman Rajagopalan
#113720
Overall Influence
#6455
Tony E. Hugli
#113729
Overall Influence
#6456
Elizabeth McClintock
#76675
Overall Influence
1912 - 2004 (92 years)
Elizabeth May McClintock was a botanist who was born in San Jacinto, California, United States, and grew up near the San Jacinto Mountains. She earned a Bachelor's degree in 1937 and a Master's degree in 1939 from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in botany in 1956 from the University of Michigan. She specialized in taxonomy and distribution of flowering plants, and focused on California natives. She documented invasive plants in California, and compiled information on toxicity of poisonous plants cultivated in the state.
Go to Profile#6457
Magnus Bruze
#113750
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#6458
Jeffrey Alan Sosman
#113759
Overall Influence
#6459
William Reid
#64257
Overall Influence
William H. Reid is an American forensic psychiatrist based in Texas. Reid has given expert witness testimony on several high-profile legal cases and has contributed to various academic publications. Early life Reid graduated with a B.A. in psychology in 1966 and completed his M.D. medical degree in 1970, both at the University of Minnesota. He undertook a psychiatric residency at the University of California, Davis, between 1970 and 1975, interrupted for military service. He then obtained a Master of Public Health qualification from the University of California, Berkeley in 1975.
Go to Profile#6460
Jesper Lagergren
#113773
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#6461
Yechezkiel Stein
#113780
Overall Influence
#6462
Peter J. Mumby
#113793
Overall Influence
#6463
Anthony F. Lever
#113795
Overall Influence
#6464
Hervé Bazin
#113798
Overall Influence
#6465
Maria Olech
#101252
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Maria Agata Olech is a Polish Antarctic researcher, known for her work on lichenology and mycology of the Antarctic and Arctic. Olech was base leader for the Henryk Arctowski Polish Antarctic Station and the Olech Hills in the Three Sisters point area of Antarctica was named in her honour.
Go to Profile#6466
Ralph E. Comstock
#112698
Overall Influence
1912 - 1999 (87 years)
Ralph Ernest Comstock was an American statistician and geneticist known for his work in quantitative genetics. Early life and education Comstock was born on July 19, 1912, in Spring Valley, Minnesota. He received his bachelor's, master's, and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota in 1934, 1936, and 1938, respectively.
Go to Profile#6467
Andrea Ballabio
#113811
Overall Influence
#6468
Ronald Oremland
#113568
Overall Influence
1946 - 2021 (75 years)
Ronald Oremland was an American microbiologist, astrobiologist, and emeritus senior scientist at the United States Geological Survey. He authored over 200 papers on the microbiology of extreme habitats.
Go to Profile#6469
David L. Garbers
#113822
Overall Influence
#6470
Upulie Divisekera
#66042
Overall Influence
Upulie Pabasarie Divisekera is an Australian molecular biologist and science communicator. She is a doctoral student at Monash University and is the co-founder of Real Scientists, an outreach program that uses performance and writing to communicate science. She has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, Crikey and The Guardian.
Go to Profile#6471
Derek Yalden
#81251
Overall Influence
1940 - 2013 (73 years)
Derek William Yalden was an eminent British zoologist and academic. He was an Honorary Reader at the University of Manchester. After obtaining a 1st Class B.Sc. University College London in 1962, he completed his PhD on carpal bones in mammals at Royal Holloway College, under Prof. P. M. Butler, in 1965. He then worked as an Assistant Lecturer, and eventually Senior Lecturer, at the University of Manchester, School of Biological Sciences, teaching vertebrate zoology. He retired from there in 2005, after 40 years' service.
Go to Profile#6472
Sergio R. Ojeda
#113847
Overall Influence
#6473
Leslie Rissler
#110359
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Leslie Jane Rissler is an American biologist best known for her work on amphibian and reptile biogeography, evolutionary ecology, systematics, and conservation, and for her strong advocacy of improving the public’s understanding and appreciation of evolution. She is currently Program Officer in the Evolutionary Processes Cluster of the Division of Environmental Biology and Directorate of Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
Go to Profile#6474
Nicole Soranzo
#101766
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nicole Soranzo is an Italian-British senior group leader in human genetics at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Cambridge. She is an internationally recognised Human Geneticist who has focused on the application of cutting edge genomic technologies to study the spectrum of human genetic variation associated with cardio-metabolic and immune diseases. She has led many large-scale discovery efforts including more than 1,000 novel genetic variants associated with cardio-metabolic diseases and their risk factors as well as establishing the HaemGen cons...
Go to Profile#6475
William A. Rutala
#113868
Overall Influence
#6476
Judith Bronstein
#111189
Overall Influence
Judith Lee Bronstein is an American ecologist and evolutionary biologist who researches mutualisms, or positive species interactions. She has edited multiple books and volumes, including Mutualism, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2016.
Go to Profile#6477
Florante A. Quiocho
#113878
Overall Influence
#6478
Robert John North
#113894
Overall Influence
#6479
Michel Le Moal
#113897
Overall Influence
#6480
David Goltzman
#113898
Overall Influence
#6481
Ronald W. Hodges
#94975
Overall Influence
1934 - 2017 (83 years)
Ronald William Hodges , known as Ron, was an American entomologist and lepidopterist. Hodges was born on August 7, 1934, and was raised in Michigan. He was educated at Michigan State University, obtaining first a BSc then an MSc. He obtained a PhD from Cornell University in 1961.
Go to Profile#6482
Allen J. Bailey
#113904
Overall Influence
#6483
Torsten Seemann
#113952
Overall Influence
#6484
Erika Holzbaur
#108935
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Erika L F. Holzbaur is an American biologist who is the William Maul Measey Professor of Physiology at University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Her research considers the dynamics of organelle motility along cytoskeleton of cells. She is particularly interested in the molecular mechanisms that underpin neurodegenerative diseases.
Go to Profile#6485
Alexander Jakob Boris Zehnder
#113963
Overall Influence
#6486
Alf A. Lindberg
#113964
Overall Influence
#6487
Christer Janson
#113971
Overall Influence
#6488
John Hildebrand
#113979
Overall Influence
John G. Hildebrand is an American neuroscientist, currently Honors Professor and Regents Professor at University of Arizona and has been elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, International Society for Neuroethology, Royal Entomological Society of London, American Association for the Advancement of Science and Entomological Society of America, awarded an honorary degree by Universitá degli Studi di Cagliari and named Einstein Professor at Chinese Academy of Sciences. In 1964 he received a BA in biology from Harvard University followed by a doctorate in biochemistry from Rockefeller University in 1969.
Go to Profile#6489
Walther Stoeckenius
#113980
Overall Influence
#6490
Ru-Chih Chow Huang
#80028
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Ru-Chih Chow Huang is a Taiwanese-American biology professor at Johns Hopkins University. She is a biochemist who worked with James F. Bonner and Doug Fambrough to characterize and discern functions for nuclear histones in the early 1960s when the field lacked a consensus on types and functions of individual histone proteins. Later she made discoveries about the molecular biology of cancer and of viral gene regulation.
Go to Profile#6491
Thomas Edward Adrian
#113984
Overall Influence
#6492
Terence Arthur Mansfield
#113985
Overall Influence
#6493
Gerard Kleywegt
#78441
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Gerard Jacob Kleywegt is a Dutch X-ray crystallographer and the former team leader of the Protein Data Bank in Europe at the EBI; a member of the Worldwide Protein Data Bank. Education Kleywegt obtained his PhD from the University of Utrecht in 1991.
Go to Profile#6494
Marjorie Hoy
#105746
Overall Influence
1941 - 2020 (79 years)
Marjorie Ann Hoy was an American entomologist and geneticist known for her work using integrated pest management and biological control in agriculture. She was Professor and Eminent Scholar at the University of Florida, Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Entomological Society of America. She was known as a pioneer in using genetic engineering to reduce the impact of agricultural pests, including developing pesticide resistant predators to control populations of destructive pests in areas where pesticides are applied.
Go to Profile#6495
Berton Charles Pressman
#113995
Overall Influence
#6496
Massimo Zeviani
#114003
Overall Influence
#6497
Alvin Rees Midgley
#114006
Overall Influence
#6498
Emma Lundberg
#27355
Overall Influence
Emma Lundberg is a Swedish cell biologist who is a professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Director of Cell Profiling at the Science for Life Laboratory. Her research considers spatial proteomics and cell biology, making use of an antibody-based approach to assess fundamental aspects of human biology. She looks to understand why certain variations in human proteins can cause disease.
Go to Profile#6499
Douglas G. McMahon
#94843
Overall Influence
Douglas G. McMahon is a professor of Biological Sciences and Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University. McMahon has contributed several important discoveries to the field of chronobiology and vision. His research focuses on connecting the anatomical location in the brain to specific behaviors. As a graduate student under Gene Block, McMahon identified that the basal retinal neurons of the molluscan eye exhibited circadian rhythms in spike frequency and membrane potential, indicating they are the clock neurons. He became the 1986 winner of the Society for Neuroscience's Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience for his work.
Go to Profile#6500
Richard Hill Waring
#114035
Overall Influence
