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,
#6701
Andreas K. Engel
#82605
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Andreas Karl Engel is a German neuroscientist. He is the director of the Department of Neurophysiology and Pathophysiology at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf . Life Andreas Engel studied medicine and philosophy at Saarland University, Homburg, at the Technical University of Munich, and at the Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany. After his medical exams , he received his Doctor of Medicine from the Technical University Munich in 1987.
Go to Profile#6702
Hermann Schägger
#115890
Overall Influence
#6703
Laurence Alfred Mound
#115649
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Laurence Alfred Mound is an entomologist, who works mostly on the biology and systematics of Thysanoptera , an area in which he is considered a world authority. His zoological author abbreviation is Mound.
Go to Profile#6704
Richard J. Blandau
#115893
Overall Influence
#6705
Yael Niv
#80020
Overall Influence
Yael Niv is a neuroscientist who studies human and animal reinforcement learning and decision making. She is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University. Niv is known for her research contributions and for her visible advocacy work fighting against gender bias in neuroscience. Niv is founder of biaswatchneuro.com, a website that tracks statistics in an effort to combat sexism in science.
Go to Profile#6706
Peter J. Davies
#89993
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Peter John Davies is a professor emeritus of Plant Physiology in the Departments of Plant Biology and Horticulture at Cornell University who is notable for his work on plant development, plant hormones, and in educating the public on agricultural technology and genetically modified organisms as a Jefferson Science Fellow from 2011 to 2014. As a Jefferson Science Fellow Davies monitored developments in agriculture and food security, monitored the status of biotech crops in Europe, and provided input to promote the acceptance of these crops on a scientific basis.
Go to Profile#6707
Clarence J. Peters
#115941
Overall Influence
#6708
Peter G. W. Plagemann
#115954
Overall Influence
#6709
Christine Vogel
#110007
Overall Influence
Christine Vogel is a German-American molecular biologist who is an associate professor at the New York University. Her research considers quantitative proteomics. She is particularly interested in protein expression patterns and how these are related to human disease.
Go to Profile#6710
Lonnie Ingram
#106496
Overall Influence
1947 - 2020 (73 years)
Lonnie O'Neal Ingram was an American microbiologist who focused on microbial biotechnology. He was a Distinguished Professor at University of Florida and an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and Society of Industrial Microbiology.
Go to Profile#6711
Henning Beck‐nielsen
#115960
Overall Influence
#6712
Leor Weinberger
#94540
Overall Influence
Leor S. Weinberger is an American virologist and quantitative biologist. He is credited with discovering the HIV virus latency circuit, which provided the first experimental evidence that stochastic fluctuations in gene expression are used for cell fate decisions. He has also pioneered the concept of therapeutic interfering particles, or “TIPs”, which are resistance-proof antivirals. His TED talk on this novel antiviral approach 20 years in the making has been called a "highlight" of TED and received a standing ovation from the live audience.
Go to Profile#6713
Henry Jarecki
#35086
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Henry George Jarecki is a German-born American academic, psychiatrist, entrepreneur, producer and philanthropist. Early life and career Henry Jarecki was born into a German-Jewish family in Stettin , the son of Max Jarecki, a physician, and Gerda Kunstmann, the scion of a shipping family. As a child, he fled Nazi Germany with his family for the United Kingdom and subsequently the United States. His wealthy family was able to transfer their wealth from occupied Poland.
Go to Profile#6714
Hans A. Kretzschmar
#115979
Overall Influence
#6715
Suranganie Dharmawardhane
#112493
Overall Influence
Suranganie Dharmawardhane Flanagan is a Sri Lankan molecular biologist and biochemist. She is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine. Education In 1980, Dharmawardhane completed a B.S. at University of Colombo. She earned a M.S. at Northeastern University in 1984. She completed a Ph.D. at University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1987. Her dissertation was titled Light-stimulated transplasmalemma electron transport in oat mesophyll cells. She conducted postdoctoral training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine under .
Go to Profile#6716
Catherine E. Badgley
#111720
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Catherine E. Badgley is an American paleontologist and professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The focus of Badgley's research is the evolution and fossil history and biodiversity of mammals, especially the role of mountains in driving biodiversity patterns. She has also pursued research on organic agriculture and global food supplies, for which she has received considerable public attention. Badgley has also authored a children's book, Pippa's First Summer, with artist Bonnie Miljour.
Go to Profile#6717
Daniela Schiller
#85840
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Daniela Schiller is a neuroscientist who leads the Affective Neuroscience Lab at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She is best known for her work on memory reconsolidation, and on modification of emotional learning and memory.
Go to Profile#6718
Wayne Goodman
#45599
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Wayne Goodman is an American psychiatrist and researcher who specializes in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder . He is the principal developer, along with his colleagues, of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale .
Go to Profile#6719
Richard Winfield Hanson
#116016
Overall Influence
#6720
Viviana Gradinaru
#77419
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Viviana Grădinaru is a Romanian-American neuroscientist who is a Professor of Neuroscience and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. She develops neurotechnologies including optogenetics CLARITY tissue clearing, and gene delivery vectors. She has been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award. In 2019 she was a finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. In 2020 she was awarded a Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science by the Vilcek Foundation.
Go to Profile#6721
Alice F. Tryon
#108762
Overall Influence
1920 - 2009 (89 years)
Alice Faber Tryon was an American botanist who specialized in the systematics of ferns and other spore-dispersed plants . She had two general areas of interest in her work, first incorporating the use of spore surface patterns into the understanding of fern diversity and systematics, and second the fern family Pteridaceae.
Go to Profile#6722
Jean Bouillon
#84602
Overall Influence
1926 - 2009 (83 years)
Jean Bouillon was a Belgian marine biologist and expert on Hydrozoa. Biography Jean Bouillon was born in Uccle, Belgium. He worked from 1955 to 1991 as a professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He was both Director of the Laboratory of Zoology and Marine Biology at the University.
Go to Profile#6723
Janet S. Butel
#54900
Overall Influence
Janet S Butel is the Chairman and Distinguished Service Professor in the molecular virology and microbiology department at Baylor College of Medicine. Her area of expertise is on polyomavirus pathogenesis of infections and disease. She has more than 120 publications on PubMed. She also has 6 publications in Nature, which is considered one of the most prestigious science journals. She is a member of 9 different organizations and has 13 honors and awards.
Go to Profile#6724
Hajime Nawata
#116055
Overall Influence
#6725
Dennis Gonsalves
#74933
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Dennis Gonsalves is an American phytopathologist. He has created with his team two virus-resistant papaya cultivars called SunUp and Rainbow, which rescued the papaya sector in Hawaii from the devastating effects of the papaya ringspot virus that hit in the late 1990s.
Go to Profile#6726
Richard Green
#100369
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Professor Richard Green was a British neuropharmacologist. Green obtained his PhD in 1969 under the supervision of Gerald Curzon, and then spent two years at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C.
Go to Profile#6727
Mark A. Gluck
#54983
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mark A. Gluck is a professor of neuroscience at Rutgers–Newark in New Jersey, director of the Rutgers Memory Disorders Project, and publisher of the public health newsletter, Memory Loss and the Brain. He works at the interface between neuroscience, psychology, and computer science, studying the neural bases of learning and memory. He is the co-author of Gateway to Memory: An Introduction to Neural Network Models of the Hippocampus and an undergraduate textbook Learning and Memory: From Brain to Behavior .
Go to Profile#6728
Erhard Geißler
#93380
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Erhard Geißler is a German biologist and geneticist. Biography Geißler achieved his Abitur in 1950 and then began studying biology at Leipzig University, becoming an intern for the Institute for Medicine and Biology at the Berlin-Buch campus in 1953. He was a professor for genetics at the University of Rostock, reaching full professor rank in 1965. Between 1965 and 1971 he was dean of the university. Subsequently, he was head of the bioethics research group at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, from 1992 until his retirement in 2000. The Stockholm International Peace Research Ins...
Go to Profile#6729
Sheila Nirenberg
#43691
Overall Influence
Sheila Nirenberg is an American neuroscientist and professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. She works in the field of neural coding, developing new kinds of prosthetic devices that can communicate directly with the brain, and new kinds of smart robots. She is a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award and has been the subject of, or featured in, several documentaries for her technology for treating blindness.
Go to Profile#6730
Vlad Ratziu
#116097
Overall Influence
#6731
Todd O. Yeates
#116102
Overall Influence
#6732
Milton Schlesinger
#113462
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Milton Schlesinger was a professor of molecular microbiology at the Washington University School of Medicine, known for his role in the study of heat shock proteins. Academic career Schlesinger attended Yale University as an undergraduate and received his bachelor's degree in physics in 1951. He then earned his master's degree in biophysics in 1953 from the University of Rochester and his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1959 from the University of Michigan. He spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, Italy, and three years as a research associate at the ...
Go to Profile#6733
Howard M. Prof. Goodman
#116107
Overall Influence
#6734
Bharat B. Biswal
#116113
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#6735
Glenn Northcutt
#105943
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Richard Glenn Northcutt is an American neuroscientist known for his work in comparative vertebrate neurobiology and evolutionary neuroscience. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Comparative Neurology, Journal of Morphology, Visual Neuroscience, and Zoologische Reike, and was editor in chief of Brain, Behavior and Evolution.
Go to Profile#6736
William Zev Rymer
#116141
Overall Influence
#6737
Kristen Knutson
#76315
Overall Influence
Kristen Knutson is an associate professor of neurology, working at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. With researchers from the University of Surrey, she studied the mortality rate of half a million people over 6.5 years and concluded that people who self identify as "definite evening type" had a 10 percent higher mortality rate than those who identified as "definite morning type". It was the first study of its type to look into the mortality rate of night owls.
Go to Profile#6738
Peter L. Collins
#116154
Overall Influence
#6739
Austin Gerard Smith
#109915
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Austin Gerard Smith is a professor at the University of Exeter and director of its Living Systems Institute. He is notable for his pioneering work on the biology of embryonic stem cells. Education Austin Smith obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1986.
Go to Profile#6740
Mary Lidstrom
#96206
Overall Influence
Mary E. Lidstrom is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Washington. She also holds the Frank Jungers Chair of Engineering, in the Department of Chemical Engineering. She currently is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bacteriology and FEMS Microbial Ecology.
Go to Profile#6741
James Andrew Eastham
#116184
Overall Influence
#6742
Michael W. Fox
#116208
Overall Influence
#6743
Galit Alter
#116130
Overall Influence
Galit Alter is an immunologist and virologist, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and group leader at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. She is known for her work on the expansion of particular natural killer cell subtypes in response to HIV-1 infection. She has also contributed to the understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers correlate with sustained humoral protection, including identifying coordinated immune cell-antibody signatures that may predict COVID-19 infection outcome.
Go to Profile#6744
Raymond D. Semlitsch
#116220
Overall Influence
#6745
D. J. Evans
#116245
Overall Influence
#6746
Nagasuma Chandra
#41123
Overall Influence
Nagasuma Chandra is an Indian structural biologist, biochemist and a professor at the department of biochemistry of the Indian Institute of Science. She is known for her studies on Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences in 2008.
Go to Profile#6747
Rodger P. Mcever
#116270
Overall Influence
#6748
Tavia Gordon
#116296
Overall Influence
#6749
Dr. David Heber
#116299
Overall Influence
#6750
Peter E. Thomas
#116302
Overall Influence
