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,
#6751
Sidarta Ribeiro
#78556
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Sidarta Tollendal Gomes Ribeiro is a Brazilian neuroscientist, writer, science communicator, and deputy director of the Brain Institute at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte , which he joined in 2008 as full professor.
Go to Profile#6752
Tamsin Ford
#95774
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Tamsin Jane Ford CBE, FRCPsych, FMedSci is a British psychiatrist specialising in children's mental health. Since 2019 she has been based at the University of Cambridge where she is now Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Fellow of Hughes Hall. She has been heavily involved with the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme, created by Carolyn Webster-Stratton, which aims to raise and improve children's mental health in primary schools across Devon. Her work also ties in with the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire , cre...
Go to Profile#6753
Gian‐franco Bottazzo
#116328
Overall Influence
#6754
Frank Michael Laferla
#116339
Overall Influence
#6755
Oliver Hobert
#116340
Overall Influence
#6756
Olivier C. Rieppel
#116353
Overall Influence
#6757
Anil Grover
#93623
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Anil Grover is an Indian molecular biologist, professor and the head of the Department of Plant Molecular Biology at the University of Delhi. He also heads the Anil Grover Lab of the department, serving as the principal investigator. Known for his research in the field of molecular biology of plants, Grover is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies namely the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy as well as the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The Department of Biotechnology of the Gover...
Go to Profile#6758
Sarah Hake
#114554
Overall Influence
Sarah Hake is an American plant developmental biologist who directs the USDA's Plant Gene Expression Center in Albany, CA. In 2009 she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#6759
James B. Grace
#116167
Overall Influence
James Benjamin Grace, aka James Grace, Jim Grace is a senior research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Formerly he was a professor at Louisiana State University and associate professor at the University of Arkansas. He is an ecologist whose work has focused on science methodology, particularly the use of structural equation modeling as a means of investigating complex, system-level hypotheses.
Go to Profile#6760
Klaus Hahlbrock
#116382
Overall Influence
#6761
Pierre Vogel
#116386
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
#6762
John Darsee
#26414
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
John Roland Darsee is an American physician and former medical researcher. After compiling an impressive list of publications in reputable scientific journals, he was found to have fabricated data for his publications.
Go to Profile#6763
Claudio A. Hetz
#116408
Overall Influence
#6764
Peter Horby
#81112
Overall Influence
Sir Peter William Horby is a British physician, epidemiologist, Moh Family Foundation Professor of Emerging Infections and Global Health, and Director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford. He is the founder, and former director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Hanoi, Vietnam which was founded in 2006. In 2014, Horby established the Epidemic Research Group Oxford . ERGO incorporates a number of international projects such as the European Commission funded PREPARE, the African coaLition for Epidemic Research, Response and Training , and the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium .
Go to Profile#6765
David H. Cushing
#116424
Overall Influence
#6766
Elward David Crawford
#116436
Overall Influence
#6767
Melanie Stiassny
#114643
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Melanie Lisa Jane Stiassny is the Axelrod Research Curator of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History. Her research interests focus on freshwater biodiversity documentation and systematic ichthyology in the Old World tropics, including tropical Africa and Madagascar. She has published broadly on the biogeography conservation and systematics of teleosts.
Go to Profile#6768
Roland Eils
#116441
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
#6769
Bernard Scatton
#116443
Overall Influence
#6770
Stanley D. Glick
#116446
Overall Influence
#6771
Andrea Giustina
#116459
Overall Influence
#6772
Luis Horacio Toledo-pereyra
#116461
Overall Influence
#6773
Rosa Beddington
#99492
Overall Influence
1956 - 2001 (45 years)
Rosa Susan Penelope Beddington FRS was a British biologist whose career had a major impact on developmental biology. Education and early life Beddington was born on 23 March 1956, the second daughter of Roy and Anna Beddington . She was raised with her elder sister, Pippa Beddington. She attended Sherborne School for Girls where she not only excelled in academics, but in her arts and sports programs as well. She later attended Brasenose College, Oxford; from 1974, obtaining a First in Physiological Sciences in 1977. Beddington embarked on the study of anterior-posterior axial patterning in m...
Go to Profile#6774
Éric A. Cohen
#106938
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Éric A. Cohen is a Canadian molecular virologist whose research is focused on human immunodeficiency virus -host interactions that govern viral replication and persistence. Education and Training Cohen graduated from Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf of Montréal in 1977 with a college diploma in Health Sciences. He received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from McGill University in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Université de Montréal in 1987.
Go to Profile#6775
Nicholas Fisk
#93409
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Nicholas M. Fisk is an Australian maternal-fetal medicine specialist, academic and researcher. As an obstetrician, Fisk is known for inventing the natural caesarean operation, also referred to as the family centred caesarean section.
Go to Profile#6776
Melania Cristescu
#65569
Overall Influence
Melania Elena Cristescu is a Romanian–Canadian biologist and ecologist. She is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair in Ecological Genomics at McGill University and the Co-Editor of Genome.
Go to Profile#6777
Ian Crawford
#36444
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Ian Andrew Crawford is a British professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London in the United Kingdom. Education and early life Born in Warrington, Cheshire, Crawford was educated at North Cestrian Grammar School in Greater Manchester from 1972 to 1979. Crawford studied Astronomy at University College London followed by Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Newcastle University . He was awarded a PhD in Astrophysics from University College London in 1988 for research on the interstellar medium.
Go to Profile#6778
David Rowitch
#108161
Overall Influence
David Rowitch, FMedSci, FRS is an American physician-scientist known for his contributions to developmental glial biology and treatment of white matter diseases. He heads the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Cambridge and is an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco .
Go to Profile#6779
Rachael Lee Neve
#116569
Overall Influence
#6780
Ferdinando Palmieri
#116570
Overall Influence
#6781
Ronald Boellaard
#116573
Overall Influence
#6782
Richard Pankhurst
#112073
Overall Influence
1940 - 2013 (73 years)
Richard John Pankhurst was a British computer scientist, botanist and academic. From 1963 to 1966 he worked at CERN, then from 1966 to 1974 on computer-aided design at Cambridge University, and from 1974 to 1991 at the Natural History Museum as curator of the British herbarium. In 1991, he became a Principal Scientific Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#6783
Walter Kolch
#116590
Overall Influence
#6784
Sheena Josselyn
#86790
Overall Influence
Sheena Josselyn is a Canadian neuroscientist and a full professor of psychology and physiology at Hospital for Sick Children and The University of Toronto. Josselyn studies the neural basis of memory, specifically how the brain forms and stores memories in rodent models. She has made critical contributions to the field of Neuronal Memory Allocation and the study of engrams.
Go to Profile#6785
Yi Zuo
#112893
Overall Influence
Yi Zuo is a neuroscience professor and researcher born in China. She studies molecular, cellular and developmental biology. Zuo is currently an associate professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz , where she also heads a research lab.
Go to Profile#6786
Ricardo Asch
#56659
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ricardo Hector Asch is an obstetrician, gynecologist, and endocrinologist. He worked with reproductive technology and pioneered gamete intrafallopian transfer , as well as working on research linking fertility and marijuana usage, and investigated the use of GnRH analogues with Andrew Schally. In the mid-1990s he was accused of transferring ova harvested from women into other patients without proper consent at the University of California, Irvine's fertility clinic. Asch left the United States one year before a federal indictment was filed. He was tried and acquitted of all charges in Argentina in 2008.
Go to Profile#6787
Edwina Cornish
#77300
Overall Influence
Edwina Cecily Cornish, AO, FTSE is an Australian biologist and academic, specialising in biotechnology. Between 2012 and 2016 she was Provost and Senior Vice-President of Monash University. She was previously Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Adelaide and then at Monash University.
Go to Profile#6788
Kathryn North
#103375
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Kathryn Nance North is a paediatric physician, neurologist, and clinical geneticist. In 2013, she was appointed Director of the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and was named the David Danks Professor of Child Health Research at the University of Melbourne. In 2012, North was appointed chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council Research Committee. In 2014, she was appointed vice chair of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health and co-chair of its Clinical Working Group.
Go to Profile#6789
Polly Matzinger
#116637
Overall Influence
#6790
Dominic Dwyer
#96730
Overall Influence
Dominic E. Dwyer is an Australian microbiologist and Clinical Professor of Medicine for Immunology and Infectious Diseases at The University of Sydney's School of Medicine. He came from Saint Joseph's College school, that is also located at Sydney, before going to university.
Go to Profile#6791
Arun Garg
#66493
Overall Influence
1947 - 2018 (71 years)
Arun Garg is an Indo-Canadian physician in the province of British Columbia who is recognized for contributing linkages between Canada and India, his country of origin. Early life Garg was born in the Indian city of Agra. His reputation for academic excellence started at an early age. When he was six years old, he entered school at a Grade 4 level. By age 16, he graduated from Agra University with a Master's in Chemistry. Being too young to enter medical school in India, Garg emigrated to the prairie province of Saskatchewan in Canada.
Go to Profile#6792
Manuel Barange
#99170
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Manuel Barange is a biologist. He is the director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He is an honorary professor at the University of Exeter. Barange was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Director of Science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the chair of the scientific committee of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. From 2000-2010 he was the Director of the International Project Office of GLOBEC Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics, one of the first ever large programmes working on climate change ...
Go to Profile#6793
Marie-geneviève Mattéi
#116665
Overall Influence
#6794
Joshua D Rabinowitz
#116674
Overall Influence
#6795
Georges Chapouthier
#18193
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Georges Chapouthier is a French neuroscientist and philosopher. Biography Georges Chapouthier is the son of Odette Mazaubert and Fernand Chapouthier . Fernand Chapouthier was a classicist and archeologist who was deputy director of the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris. Odette Mazaubert was known under the pseudonym of "Carquelin" for her Saintongeais writings. Chapouthier attended the Lycée Montaigne and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He then followed the "Classes Préparatoires aux Grandes Écoles" at the Lycée Saint-Louis and subsequently enrolled at the Ecole normale supérieure in 1964....
Go to Profile#6796
Bernd Fritzsch
#116681
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#6797
William Fletcher Hoyt
#116693
Overall Influence
#6798
Larry J. Siever
#116695
Overall Influence
#6799
Hermann Gonçalves Schatzmayr
#114028
Overall Influence
1936 - 2010 (74 years)
Hermann Gonçalves Schatzmayr was a Brazilian virologist and researcher of Austrian descent. He was the head of the Department of Virology at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz for 30 years and was the president of the institution from 1990 to 1992. He was one of the most important virologists from Brazil.
Go to Profile#6800
Charles G. Mullighan
#116702
Overall Influence
