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,
#6851
Anita Buma
#46823
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Anita Gerry Johanna Buma is a Dutch Antarctic researcher, best known for her work on ecophysiology of marine microalgae. She was the first Dutch female researcher in Antarctica. Early life and education Buma obtained her Biology master's degree at the University of Groningen . She then moved to the Royal Institute for Sea Research where she began her PhD research on Antarctic phytoplankton growth and species composition. Upon invitation by Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar und Meeresforschung Bremerhaven, Germany, she participated in two field campaigns to the Fram Strait, high Arctic, in 1985, where she studied phytoplankton abundance and species composition.
Go to Profile#6852
Lewis J. Feldman
#86672
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Lewis Jeffrey Feldman is a professor of plant biology at the University of California, Berkeley, Director of the University of California Botanical Garden and previously Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Natural Resources. He is in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. Feldman has taught at Berkeley since 1978. He received Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1996. Feldman's research focuses on regulation of development in meristems/stem cells, root gravitropism, and redox regulation of plant development.
Go to Profile#6853
Leendert Bosch
#87845
Overall Influence
1924 - 2017 (93 years)
Leendert Bosch was a Dutch biochemist. He was a professor of biochemistry at Leiden University from 1964 to 1990. Bosch was born on 13 November 1924 in Appingedam. He obtained his title of Doctor at Delft University of Technology in 1955, with a dissertation titled "Biochemische en endocrinologische onderzoekingen van normaal en neoplastisch weefsel : de stofwisseling van oestrogeen producerende ovariumtumoren" . In 1961 Bosch was named lector of biochemistry in extraordinary service at Leiden University. In 1963 he became a regular lector, and in 1964 he was named professor.
Go to Profile#6854
David Archer
#65483
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
David Edward Archer is a computational ocean chemist, and has been a professor at the Geophysical Sciences department at the University of Chicago since 1993. He has published research on the carbon cycle of the ocean and the sea floor. He has worked on the history of atmospheric concentration, the expectation of fossil fuel over geologic time scales in the future, and the impact of on future ice age cycles, ocean methane hydrate decomposition, and coral reefs. Archer is a contributor to the RealClimate blog.
Go to Profile#6855
John M. Lowenstein
#117089
Overall Influence
#6856
Elisabeth Peveling
#103708
Overall Influence
1932 - 1993 (61 years)
Elisabeth Peveling was a German botanist. Her scientific research was largely specialized in the cytology and ultrastructure of lichens. Early life and education Peveling was born on 31 March 1932 in . She studied botany, zoology, mathematics and physics at the universities of Münster, Innsbruck and Göttingen, earning a master's degree in 1958 and a PhD in 1960. Both of her theses dealt with karyology in the plant family Cucurbitaceae. She was a research assistant at the Botanical Institute in the University of Münster.
Go to Profile#6857
Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan
#89491
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Anusuya Chinsamy-Turan is a South African vertebrate paleontologist known for her expertise and developments in the study of the microstructure of fossil teeth and bones of extinct and extant vertebrates. She was the head of the Department of Biological Sciences , at the University of Cape Town from 2012 to 2015 .
Go to Profile#6858
Rolf Kemler
#117114
Overall Influence
#6859
Nathalie Cabrol
#52501
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Nathalie A. Cabrol is a French American astrobiologist specializing in planetary science. Cabrol studies ancient lakes on Mars, and undertakes high-altitude scientific expeditions in the Central Andes of Chile as the principal investigator of the "High Lakes Project" funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute . There, with her team, she documents life's adaptation to extreme environments, the effect of rapid climate change on lake ecosystems and habitats, its geobiological signatures, and relevance to planetary exploration.
Go to Profile#6860
Frédéric Baret
#117130
Overall Influence
#6861
Maurizio Pompili
#117131
Overall Influence
#6862
Luis Glaser
#117146
Overall Influence
#6863
Maria Jasin
#117155
Overall Influence
#6864
Michael P. Cummings
#117167
Overall Influence
#6865
Anna Macleod
#70274
Overall Influence
1917 - 2004 (87 years)
Anna MacGillivray Macleod was a Scottish biochemist and academic, an authority on brewing and distilling. She was a professor at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. She was the world's first female Professor of Brewing and Biochemistry.
Go to Profile#6866
Walter Dobrogosz
#103076
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Walter Dobrogosz is a Professor Emeritus of North Carolina State University, best known for his discovery and further research on the probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus reuteri. Professional life Dobrogosz was born on September 3, 1933, in Albion, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and received his B.S., Masters, and Ph. D. degrees in bacteriology and biochemistry from Penn State University. In 1960-62, Dobrogosz held an NIH-supported postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and afterwards began teaching at N.C. State University. He became a full Professor of Microbiology at N.
Go to Profile#6867
Kyuya Kogure
#117184
Overall Influence
#6868
Read Montague
#45708
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Pendleton Read Montague, Jr. is an American neuroscientist and popular science author. He is the director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab and Computational Psychiatry Unit at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC in Roanoke, Virginia, where he also holds the title of the inaugural Virginia Tech Carilion Vernon Mountcastle Research Professor. Montague is also a professor in the department of physics at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia and professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#6869
Erich Schröger
#88247
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Erich Schröger is a German psychologist and neuroscientist. Biography Erich Schröger studied philosophy and psychology at the Munich School of Philosophy and at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. In 1982, he earned a Baccalaureat in Philosophy, in 1986 he earned a Diploma in Psychology, and in 1991 he was awarded a PhD from the LMU for his work on loudness constancy. After research stays at the Cognitive Brain Research unit of the University of Helsinki and a stint of teaching at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt , Schröger achieved his Habilitation in psychology in ...
Go to Profile#6870
Martin Hetzer
#78266
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Martin Hetzer is an Austrian-born molecular biologist and President of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria . He is holder of the Jesse and Caryl Philips Foundation Chair in Molecular Cell Biology. His research focuses on fundamental aspects of organismal aging with a special focus on the heart and central nervous system. His laboratory has also made important contributions in the area of cancer research and cell differentiation.
Go to Profile#6871
Christopher Klein
#117231
Overall Influence
#6872
Richard T. Corlett
#117238
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#6873
Anne Bertolotti
#104844
Overall Influence
Anne Bertolotti is a French biochemist and cell biologist who works as Programme Leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. In 2022 she was appointed Head of the MRC LMB's Neurobiology Division. She is known for her research into the cellular defences against misfolded proteins and the mechanisms underlying their deposition, the molecular problem causative of neurodegenerative diseases.
Go to Profile#6874
Sam Giles
#94301
Overall Influence
Sam Giles is a palaeobiologist at the University of Birmingham. Her research combines modern imaging with fossils to understand the evolution of life, in particular that of early fish, and in 2015 "rewrote" the vertebrate family tree. She was a 2017 L'Oréal-UNESCO Rising Star and won the 2019 Geological Society of London Lyell Fund.
Go to Profile#6875
Vladimir Parpura
#100807
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Vladimir Parpura, MD, PhD is a Croatian-American neurobiologist who is currently a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#6876
Robert A. R. Wallace
#117255
Overall Influence
#6877
Jay Dunlap
#113854
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Jay Dunlap is an American chronobiologist and photobiologist who has made significant contributions to the field of chronobiology by investigating the underlying mechanisms of circadian systems in Neurospora, a fungus commonly used as a model organism in biology, and in mice and mammalian cell culture models. Major contributions by Jay Dunlap include his work investigating the role of frq and wc clock genes in circadian rhythmicity, and his leadership in coordinating the whole genome knockout collection for Neurospora. He is currently the Nathan Smith Professor of Molecular and Systems Biology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.
Go to Profile#6878
Frank S. Walsh
#101129
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Frank S. Walsh PhD, DSc FMedSci, FKC, corrFRSE is a British-born neuroscientist. He is best known for his work on the understanding of the role of cell adhesion molecules in the development and regeneration of the nervous system. He is the author of over 250 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Go to Profile#6879
Suresh T. Chari
#117275
Overall Influence
#6880
Alberto Luini
#117276
Overall Influence
#6881
Richard R. Facklam
#117285
Overall Influence
#6882
Virendra Nath Pandey
#60227
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Virendra Nath Pandey is an Indian geneticist, molecular virologist and enzymologist, known for his studies on the DNA recombinase enzyme complex. He is an associate professor at the New Jersey Medical School of the Rutgers University and a former scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Center. 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, in 1991, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Go to Profile#6883
Howard Griffiths
#115354
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Howard Griffiths is a physiological ecologist. He is Professor of Plant Ecology in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He formerly worked for the University of Dundee in the Department of Biological Sciences. He applies molecular biology techniques and physiology to investigate the regulation of photosynthesis and plant water-use efficiency.
Go to Profile#6884
Chang Shan-chwen
#89309
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Chang Shan-chwen is a Taiwanese medical researcher and academic administrator. He convenes the advisory specialist panel of the Central Epidemic Command Center , which is associated with the Centers for Disease Control in Taiwan. Chang Shan-chwen is vice president of National Taiwan University and professor of medicine in the university's medical college.
Go to Profile#6885
Johan M. Thevelein
#117315
Overall Influence
#6886
Gordon James Mogenson
#117325
Overall Influence
#6887
Fyodor Urnov
#95092
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Fyodor Dmitriyevich Urnov is Russian-born biomedical researcher and who has played a leading role in the field of genome editing. He is a Professor of Genetics, Genomics, and Development at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of the Center for Translational Genomics at the university's Innovative Genomics Institute. In 2005 Urnov and his colleagues coined the term "genome editing" and demonstrated the first use of ZFNs to edit DNA in human cells. Urnov is considered a pioneering figure in the field of genome editing and his work has been cited widely.
Go to Profile#6888
Joseph M. Tager
#117336
Overall Influence
#6889
Daniel Aletaha
#117353
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
#6890
Neil Greenberg
#40728
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Neil Greenberg is an academic psychiatrist, who is a specialist in the understanding and management of psychological trauma, occupational mental ill-health and post traumatic stress disorder. Greenberg works with King's College London and served as the President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society from 2014 to 2017. He also runs the psychological health consultancy March on Stress. During the 2020 COVID pandemic, Greenberg was part of the NHS England and Improvement Wellbeing Team and contributed to the national response to protect the mental health of NHS workers.
Go to Profile#6891
Pieter B. Pelser
#115357
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Pieter B. Pelser is a lecturer in Plant Systematics and the curator of the herbarium at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. One research interest is the evolutionary history of the tribe Senecioneae, one of the largest tribess in the largest family of flowering plants. He wrote the most recent attempt to define and delimit this tribe and its problematic founding species Senecio. He also studies insects that eat these plants which contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids and what makes them choose which plants they eat.
Go to Profile#6892
Monty S. Losowsky
#117373
Overall Influence
#6893
Alan M. Jones
#92476
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Alan M. Jones is an American cell biologist. He is Kenan Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has a joint appointment with the Department of Pharmacology in the UNC School of Medicine. He is a past President of the American Society of Plant Biologists . He is a Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of American Society of Plant Biologists, and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow.
Go to Profile#6894
Charles Roberts Schuster
#117393
Overall Influence
#6895
Annette Oxenius
#115767
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Annette Oxenius is a Swiss scientist who is a professor of immunology at ETH Zurich. Her research considers host-pathogen interactions and how the immune system responds to pathogenic infections. She was awarded the Cloëtta Prize in 2022 and elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2023.
Go to Profile#6896
Marten Van Der Klei Veenhuis
#117414
Overall Influence
#6897
Lon Cardon
#97032
Overall Influence
Lon Ray Cardon is an American human geneticist who is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Jackson Laboratory. Previous to joining The Jackson Laboratory in 2021, he had roles as Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Scientific Strategy Officer at BioMarin Pharmaceutical and senior vice president at GlaxoSmithKline, where he worked to translate the results of genetic research regarding the causes of human diseases into improved medical treatments. Prior to his work in the pharmaceutical industry, he conducted academic research on the genetic basis of human diseases, serving as full profe...
Go to Profile#6898
David J. Loskutoff
#117420
Overall Influence
#6899
Julia K. Baum
#83783
Overall Influence
Julia Kathleen Baum is a Canadian marine biologist. In 2017, she was named to the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. She was awarded a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation in 2017 and an EWR Steacie Fellowship in 2018.
Go to Profile#6900
Nelson Kiang
#81282
Overall Influence
Nelson Yuan-Sheng Kiang was the founder and former director of the Eaton-Peabody Laboratory of Auditory Physiology at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and professor emeritus of Otology and Laryngology at the Harvard Medical School and also professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also emeritus in Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a trustee of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
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