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).

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#6901

Joyce Harper

#105488

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Joyce Harper is Professor of Reproductive Science at the Institute for Women's Health, University College London where she heads the Reproductive Science and Society group. She is director of the Embryology and PGD Academy and Global Women Connected.

#6902

Carsten Rahbek

#117463

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

#6903

George E Fox

#117464

Overall Influence

#6904

Sebastian Peter Grossman

#117481

Overall Influence

#6905

Michael Y. Galperin

#117482

Overall Influence

#6906

Annette Beck-Sickinger

#84631

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Annette Gabriele Beck-Sickinger is a German chemist and biologist. She has been a full professor of Biochemistry and Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of Leipzig since 1999. Career Annette G. Beck-Sickinger studied chemistry and biology at the University of Tübingen and received her Ph.D. under the supervision of Günther Jung .

#6907

Gerald F. Fitzgerald

#117491

Overall Influence

#6908

Susan D. Healy

#27658

Overall Influence

Susan Denise Healy FRSE professor of biology at the University of St. Andrews, specialist in cognitive evolution and behavioural studies of birds and understanding the neurological basis of this. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.

#6909

Juliana Denekamp

#117503

Overall Influence

#6910

Gerrit Lohmann

#117505

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

#6911

Olav Vadstein

#112276

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Olav Vadstein is a Norwegian professor of Microbial Ecology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. According to his web page, Vadstein is interested in aquatic ecosystems "both natural and unnatural . Besides basic aspects, I’m interested in applied microbial ecology, which can be placed under the heading Environmental Biotechnology."

#6912

Philipp Gerhardt

#117517

Overall Influence

#6913

Andrew Marks

#72035

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Andrew Robert Marks , is an American cardiologist and molecular biologist. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Founding Director of the Clyde and Helen Wu Center for Molecular Cardiology, and a Wu Professor of Medicine.

#6914

John Stamatoyannopoulos

#107342

Overall Influence

John A. Stamatoyannopoulos a Greek-American physician-scientist in molecular biology and epigenomics. He is a professor of genome sciences and medicine at the University of Washington, where he heads the Stam Lab and led UW Medicine's participation in the ENCODE project. John is the son of Greek geneticist George Stamatoyannopoulos. Stamatoyannopoulos currently serves as scientific director at the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences.

#6915

Roland S. Johansson

#117530

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

#6916

Ellen Leibenluft

#113661

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Ellen Leibenluft is an American psychiatrist and physician-scientist researching the brain mechanisms mediating bipolar disorder and severe irritability in children and adolescents. She is a senior investigator and chief of the mood dysregulation and neuroscience section at the National Institute of Mental Health.

#6917

Melanie Wall

#106880

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Melanie Marie Wall is an American psychiatric biostatistician, psychometrician, and mental health data scientist who works at Columbia University as a professor in the departments of biostatistics and psychiatry, and as director of Mental Health Data Science, a joint project of the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, and New York State Psychiatric Institute. Her research has included topics such as grief and depression, eating disorders, marijuana use and abuse, and correlations between school performance and athletic activity, studied using latent variable models, spatial analysis, and longitudinal data.

#6918

Katie Ewer

#94837

Overall Influence

Katie Jane Ewer is a British immunologist and Professor of Vaccine Immunology at the University of Oxford's Jenner Institute. Early life and education When she did not get into medical school, Ewer pursued a career in biomedical science and became interested in infectious diseases. She was interested in a career in biology for she was "fascinated by seemingly endless processes that occur in our cells and organs every second of our lives without us knowing about it. Ewer earned an undergraduate degree in biomedical science, which included a year of microbiology training. She then began working ...

#6919

Andreas Matouschek

#86036

Overall Influence

Andreas Matouschek is a biochemist at The University of Texas at Austin, where he is a professor in the College of Natural Sciences. His graduate work with Alan Fersht resulted in the seminal application of phi-value analysis to the study of barnase, a bacterial RNAse used in many protein folding studies. Development of phi value analysis in combination with extensive protein engineering enabled an understanding of the kinetic intermediates during protein folding of barnase. In subsequent postdoctoral work at the University of Basel, he studied how mitochondria refold proteins after importing them.

#6920

Xavier Estivill i Pallejà

#117611

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

#6921

Alexandr Sergeevich Spirin

#117614

Overall Influence

#6922

Klaus Schulze‐osthoff

#117618

Overall Influence

#6923

Peter D. Mitchell

#117620

Overall Influence

#6924

Albert Heyman

#117626

Overall Influence

#6925

Nina Fefferman

#24105

Overall Influence

Nina H. Fefferman is an American evolutionary biologist, epidemiologist, and ecologist at the University of Tennessee for the Departments of Ecology and Evolution & Mathematics. Her research focuses on the mathematics of epidemiology, evolutionary & behavioral ecology, and conservation biology. She studies how individual behaviors can affect an entire population.

#6926

Teun Boekhout

#117631

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

#6927

Christer Erséus

#110214

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Christer Erséus, born 1951 in Borås, is a Swedish zoologist. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1980 at the University of Gothenburg, where in 1991 he became professor of zoology and director of studies in zoomorphology and systematics.

#6928

Richard William Timm

Richard William Timm

#38909

Overall Influence

1923 - 2020 (97 years)

Richard William Timm was a Catholic Priest, educator, zoologist, and development worker. He was the Superior of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Dhaka and a member of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Province. He was also one of the founders of Notre Dame College in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was the 6th principal of Notre Dame College.

#6929

Allen M. Spiegel

#117652

Overall Influence

#6930

Gottfried Schlaug

#117657

Overall Influence

#6931

William Brumfitt

#117660

Overall Influence

#6932

Dyann Wirth

#86617

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Dyann F. Wirth is an American immunologist. She is currently the Richard Pearson Strong Professor of Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Wirth is one of the world's leading malariologists, dealing with how the genus Plasmodium has evolved in terms of population biology, drug resistance, and antigenicity. The Wirth laboratory combines the expertise of the Harvard School of Public Health, the Broad Institute, and international collaborators for malaria research and training in public health.

#6933

Brett Delahunt

#81157

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Brett Delahunt is a New Zealand professor emeritus of pathology and molecular medicine at the Wellington School of Medicine. He is an expert in urological pathology. Early life and family Born in Wellington on 20 February 1950, Delahunt was educated at Scots College. He studied at Victoria University of Wellington from 1969 to 1972, graduating BSc, and then at the University of Otago from 1973 to 1978, where he completed a BMedSc in 1976 and MB ChB in 1978.

#6934

Lei Stanley Qi

#92249

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Lei "Stanley" Qi is an associate professor in the department of bioengineering, and the department of chemical and systems biology at Stanford University. Qi led the development of the first catalytically dead Cas9 lacking endonuclease activity , which is the basis for CRISPR interference . His laboratory subsequently developed CRISPR-Genome Organization .

#6935

Alexander W. Clowes

#117677

Overall Influence

#6936

Paul Ahlquist

#104557

Overall Influence

Paul Ahlquist is an American virologist who is Professor of Oncology, Molecular Virology, and Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the Associate Director of Basic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center and the Director of the John and Jeanne Rowe Center for Research in Virology at the Morgridge Institute for Research.

#6937

Cynthia Moss

#31197

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Cynthia Jane Moss is an American ethologist and conservationist, wildlife researcher, and writer. Her studies have concentrated on the demography, behavior, social organization, and population dynamics of the African elephants of Amboseli. She is the director of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, and is the program director and trustee for the Amboseli Trust for Elephants .

#6938

Matthias Bethge

#117691

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

#6939

Samuel Donald Wright

#117711

Overall Influence

#6940

Steven P. Wise

#117714

Overall Influence

#6941

Per Brinck

#112923

Overall Influence

1919 - 2013 (94 years)

Per Simon Valdemar Brinck was a Swedish zoologist. Brinck began his career as a veterinarian but wrote a thesis on Plecoptera and later became a worldwide authority on Gyrinidae. He travelled extensively to Africa and Southeast Asia, among others co-publishing the fifteen-volume South African Animal Life between 1955 and 1973. He served as a professor of zoology at the Lund University from 1958 to 1986. Brinck edited the journal Oikos from 1965 to 1989, and since 2007 the journal has given out the Per Brinck Oikos Award.

#6942

Bil Clemons

#75610

Overall Influence

William "Bil" Clemons, Jr. is an American structural biologist and Professor of Biochemistry at Caltech. He is best known for his work solving the atomic structure of the ribosome with dissertation advisor, Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, Venki Ramakrishnan. He is also known for his work on the structure and function of proteins involved in membrane translocation and docking of proteins, including the membrane protein translocation channel SecY, chaperones involved in the targeting of tail-anchored membrane proteins in the Get pathway, and signal recognition proteins of the Twin-arginine translocation pathway.

#6943

E. Van Braak

#117739

Overall Influence

#6944

Patricia G. Spear

#117743

Overall Influence

#6945

Rainer Spanagel

#117752

Overall Influence

#6946

George F. Sprague

#106753

Overall Influence

1902 - 1998 (96 years)

George Frederick Sprague was an American geneticist and maize researcher. He was a faculty member at the Iowa State University and the University of Illinois and a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is credited with developing a genetically strong line of maize known as Iowa Stiff Stalk Synthetic. A recipient of the Wolf Prize in Agriculture, Sprague was also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

#6947

Claes Wahlestedt

#72594

Overall Influence

Claes Wahlestedt is a Swedish-American biomedical researcher and entrepreneur. He is a professor at the University of Miami. Education A native of Sweden, Wahlestedt obtained his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Lund. He pursued postdoctoral work at Kyoto University and Georgetown University. He grew up in Karlskrona, the son of Åke and Irena Wahlestedt. His father, a lawyer and a decorated former Swedish diplomat, had served in Berlin during the second world war.

#6948

Johnny M. Iii Grace

#117765

Overall Influence

#6949

Benjamin Blencowe

#113430

Overall Influence

Benjamin Joseph Blencowe is a British and Canadian molecular biologist, currently appointed as Professor and Banbury Chair in Medical Research at the University of Toronto. He also serves as Director of the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Sequencing Centre. He teaches in the Department of Molecular Genetics and his lab is part of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research.

#6950

Cheryl Kerfeld

#108583

Overall Influence

Cheryl Ann Kerfeld is an American bioengineer who is Hannah Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University. She holds a joint position at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research considers bioinformatics, cellular imaging and structural biology.

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