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,
#7151
Christopher Polge
#119498
Overall Influence
#7152
Toshihiko Osawa
#119499
Overall Influence
#7153
Suzanne Marie Garland
#119506
Overall Influence
#7154
Martha Constantine-Paton
#98967
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Martha Constantine-Paton is a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research and a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
Go to Profile#7155
Charles R. Gerfen
#119513
Overall Influence
#7156
Jaco Vangronsveld
#119531
Overall Influence
#7157
Bob Brown
#30988
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Robert James Brown is an Australian former politician, medical doctor and environmentalist. He was a senator and the parliamentary leader of the Australian Greens. Brown was elected to the Australian Senate on the Tasmanian Greens ticket, joining with sitting Greens Western Australia senator Dee Margetts to form the first group of Australian Greens senators following the 1996 federal election. He was re-elected in 2001 and in 2007. He was the first openly gay member of the Parliament of Australia and the first openly gay leader of an Australian political party.
Go to Profile#7158
Ian R. Phillips
#119546
Overall Influence
#7159
Otto Kraus
#98982
Overall Influence
1930 - 2017 (87 years)
Otto Kraus was a German arachnologist and myriapodologist. He was director of the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum at the University of Hamburg from 1969 to 1995, where he also served as professor. He was a commissioner and president of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature . He published nearly 200 scientific papers and described nearly 500 species of myriapods and over 80 species of spiders. His works include contributions to the encyclopedia Grzimeks Tierleben and the German translation of Ernst Mayr's Principles of Systematic Zoology.
Go to Profile#7160
John W. B. Hershey
#119562
Overall Influence
#7161
Yehuda Carmeli
#119569
Overall Influence
#7162
Jerome R. Vinograd
#119575
Overall Influence
#7163
Richard M. Eakin
#92662
Overall Influence
1910 - 1999 (89 years)
Richard Marshall Eakin , was an American zoologist and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He was widely known for portraying prominent historical scientists during some of his lectures; dressing in costume and speaking in character to entertain and inform his students. A 1953 Guggenheim fellow, he wrote several books and more than 200 scientific papers. His research focused on eyes and vision in animals, especially the parietal eye or "third eye" of vertebrates, as well as animal embryology. He served as chairman of the UC Berkeley Department of Zoology for over 10 years, was...
Go to Profile#7164
George E. Bigelow
#119584
Overall Influence
#7165
Jianzhi Zhang
#119588
Overall Influence
#7166
Massimo Pagani
#119589
Overall Influence
#7167
Michael Eddleston
#119601
Overall Influence
#7168
Rodolfo Emilio Giuseppe Pichi-Sermolli
#115775
Overall Influence
1912 - 2005 (93 years)
Rodolfo Emilio Giuseppe Pichi-Sermolli was an Italian botanist. He was born in Florence, son of Giuseppe Pichi-Sermolli and Maria née Del Rosso. He graduated in natural history from the University of Florence in 1935. He married Carla Bernardini on 9 April 1942, and they went on to have two children.
Go to Profile#7169
Robert Klitzman
#63939
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Robert Klitzman is an American psychiatrist and bioethicist. Biography Early life Robert Klitzman was born on July 1, 1958. He attended Princeton University, where he studied with Clifford Geertz. He then worked for Dr. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, who had received the Nobel Prize for work on Kuru, a prion disease. Klitzman then conducted field research on Kuru in Papua New Guinea.
Go to Profile#7170
Garry M. Gray
#119629
Overall Influence
#7171
Elizabeth Anne Kellogg
#116332
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Elizabeth Anne Kellogg is an American botanist who now works mainly on grasses and cereals, both wild and cultivated. She earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1983, and was professor of Botanical Studies at the University of Missouri - St. Louis from September 1998 to December 2013. Since 2013 she has been part of the Kellogg Lab at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Missouri, where she is principal investigator In 2020 she was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#7172
Alberto Bardelli
#119162
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Alberto Bardelli is an Italian geneticist and cancer researcher, expert in the field of precision medicine. He is a full professor of histology at the Department of Oncology, University of Turin and Scientific Director of IFOM, the AIRC Institute of Molecular Oncology.
Go to Profile#7173
Pierre Viette
#80608
Overall Influence
1921 - 2011 (90 years)
Pierre E. L. Viette was a French entomologist. He attended university in Dijon during the German occupation of France in World War II and subsequently spent his entire career at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. He specialized in insect systematics, especially Lepidoptera. He had over 400 articles published.
Go to Profile#7174
Moı̈se Bendayan
#119659
Overall Influence
#7175
Victoria Sork
#114512
Overall Influence
Victoria Louise Sork is an American scientist who is Professor and Dean of Life Sciences at University of California, Los Angeles. She studies tree populations in California and the Eastern United States using genomics, evolutionary biology and conservation biology. Sork is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#7176
Georg Kreutzberg
#106092
Overall Influence
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
Georg W. Kreutzberg was a German neuromorphologist. Kreutzberg was long-serving director at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried near Munich. He remained active as emeritus director at that institute. His various research interests have included microglia cells, neuropathology and nerve regeneration following trauma , fraud in science, correct reporting of scientific research to laypeople and the history of neuroscience in Germany.
Go to Profile#7177
Kenneth Kermack
#109924
Overall Influence
1919 - 2000 (81 years)
Kenneth A. Kermack was a British palaeontologist at University College London most notable for his work on early mammals with his wife, Doris Mary Kermack. Among Kermack's other significant contributions was the observation that Diplodocus could not have had an aquatic lifestyle because sheer water pressure alone on its chest would have prevented it breathing whilst submerged.
Go to Profile#7178
Lorraine J. Gudas
#119679
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
#7179
Mary Bownes
#114428
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Mary Bownes OBE FRSE FRES FRSB is an English molecular and developmental biologist; she is Vice Principal Community Engagement and Emerita Professor of Developmental Biology at the University of Edinburgh. She has taught genetics, molecular biology and developmental biology at all levels and was previously Head of the Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology at the University from 1998 to 2001.
Go to Profile#7180
Abraham Palmer
#78838
Overall Influence
Abraham A. Palmer is an American behavior geneticist and Professor & Vice Chair for Basic Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. In 2020, he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also a fellow of the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and received the IBANGS Distinguished Investigator Award in 2020.
Go to Profile#7181
Alan Chait
#119712
Overall Influence
#7182
Anna Epps
#75924
Overall Influence
1930 - 2017 (87 years)
Anna Cherrie Epps was an American microbiologist known for her immunology research as well as her efforts to promote the advancement of minorities within the sciences, specifically medicine. Early life and education In 1930, Epps was born in New Orleans to Ernest Cherrie Sr., a physician, and Anna Cherrie, a former schoolteacher. She attended Corpus Christi Elementary School and Xavier University Preparatory High School, both Catholic schools in New Orleans. Epps started studying at Howard University when she was 16. In 1951, at age 19, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology.
Go to Profile#7183
Giuseppe Argenziano
#119729
Overall Influence
#7184
Joyce Taylor-Papadimitriou
#95623
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Joyce Taylor-Papadimitriou FMedSci is a British molecular biologist and geneticist. She is Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor at King's College London specialising in the area of cellular, genetic and proteomic studies on patient breast tumour samples, and works within the Breast Cancer Biology Group. She was the first to identify that the action of interferon type 1 requires the synthesis of effector proteins.
Go to Profile#7185
Andrew Hendry
#119751
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Andrew Paul Hendry is a Canadian biologist and professor in the Department of Biology and the Redpath Museum at McGill University. He holds dual citizenship of both Canada and the United States. He has been named a tier 1 Canada Research Chair from 2018 to 2024.
Go to Profile#7186
Thomas C. Spelsberg
#119769
Overall Influence
#7187
A. R. Richens
#119772
Overall Influence
#7188
Thomas G. Whitham
#119791
Overall Influence
#7189
Daniel A. Goodenough
#119797
Overall Influence
#7190
Inger Nordal
#101402
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Inger Nordal is a Norwegian professor of botany. She was an associate professor at the University of Oslo from 1974, took the fil.dr. degree at Uppsala University in 1977 and became a professor in 1987. In 1990 she was admitted into the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. A few of her early papers were published under her then married name "Inger Nordal Bjørnstad".
Go to Profile#7191
Peter-anton Miescher
#119834
Overall Influence
#7192
Alan Eddy
#98964
Overall Influence
1926 - 2017 (91 years)
Professor Alfred Alan Eddy , usually known as Alan Eddy, was a biochemist who was Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology between 1959 and 1994.
Go to Profile#7193
Mark R. Haussler
#119847
Overall Influence
#7194
Malcolm Clarke
#92742
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Malcolm Roy Clarke was a British marine biologist. He is most well known for his extensive work on cephalopods and whales. Career Clarke did his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1948 to 1950.
Go to Profile#7195
Rainer Hedrich
#119850
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#7196
Kate Seers
#119856
Overall Influence
#7197
Christopher Galanos
#119858
Overall Influence
#7198
Martine Roussel
#119867
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Martine F. Roussel is a molecular oncologist in the United States. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Roussel works at the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Go to Profile#7199
Joseph Eichberg
#116173
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Joseph Eichberg is an American biologist specializing in signal transduction of the nervous system. He is a professor emeritus in the department of biology and biochemistry at University of Houston. Eichberg completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#7200
Thomas LaBean
#89142
Overall Influence
Thomas Henry LaBean is an American biochemist, bioengineer and professor at North Carolina State University. He was previously a research professor at Duke University. He is a leading researcher in the field of DNA nanotechnology.
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