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,
#7251
Winifred May Watkins
#120300
Overall Influence
#7252
David G. Davies
#99748
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
David G. Davies is a microbiologist and associate professor at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York . His interests lie specifically in the study of biofilms. He has a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Montana State University .
Go to Profile#7253
Charles E. Samuel
#120319
Overall Influence
#7254
Anne M. O. Griffiths
#120331
Overall Influence
#7255
Sarah K. England
#27284
Overall Influence
Sarah K. England is a physiologist and biophysicist and the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Washington University School of Medicine. England conducts research on cation channels in uterine smooth muscle to understand the biological correlates of preterm birth and is the Associate Program Director of the Prematurity Research Center at Washington University as well as the Vice Chair of Research for the Center for Reproductive Health Sciences. In 2005, England was selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow in the Office of Senator Hill...
Go to Profile#7256
Margaret Werner-Washburne
#73047
Overall Influence
Margaret Werner-Washburne is a molecular biologist and Regents' Professor Emeritus of Biology. at the University of New Mexico. She was previously the president of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science , which holds the largest broadly multidisciplinary and multicultural STEM diversity conference in the U.S. A pioneer in the genomics of the stationary phase of yeast, she is known for her innovative programs to attract and retain underrepresented minorities in STEM. Werner-Washburne has made great strides in the field of Genetics. She has done g...
Go to Profile#7257
James Ferrell
#88832
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
James Ellsworth Ferrell is an American systems biologist. He is a Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine. He was Chair of the Dept. of Chemical and Systems Biology from its inception in 2006 until 2011.
Go to Profile#7258
Eloise E. Clark
#106571
Overall Influence
1931 - 2017 (86 years)
Eloise Elizabeth "Betsy" Clark was an American biologist, best known for her long service as Assistant Director for Biological, Behavioral, and Social Sciences at the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Go to Profile#7259
David h. Persing
#120391
Overall Influence
#7260
Elizabeth Gould
#120403
Overall Influence
#7261
P. Hemachandra Reddy
#120411
Overall Influence
#7262
Eckhard Thiel
#120415
Overall Influence
#7263
Muzlifah Haniffa
#88425
Overall Influence
Muzlifah Haniffa is a Malaysian dermatologist and immunologist who focuses on the development of the immune system and the use of single-cell techniques to understand biology. Haniffa is a professor and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University.
Go to Profile#7264
Georg Jander
#103867
Overall Influence
Georg Jander is an American plant biologist at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Ithaca, New York. He has an adjunct appointment in the Plant Biology Section of the School of Integrative Plant Sciences at Cornell University. Jander is known for his molecular research identifying genes for biochemical compounds of ecological and agricultural importance, particularly those plant traits involved in resistance to insect pests.
Go to Profile#7265
Arnold J. Mandell
#45939
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Arnold J. Mandell is an American neuroscientist and psychiatrist. Born in 1934, in Chicago, Illinois, he received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1954 and his M.D. from Tulane University in 1958. Founding chairman in 1969 of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, he was, at the time of his appointment, the youngest physician ever appointed as a chairman of a medical school psychiatry program in the U.S. An early biological psychiatrist, the department was the first in the U.S. to be biologically oriented. After leaving UCSD, he has been involved in stu...
Go to Profile#7266
John M. Papadimitriou
#120424
Overall Influence
#7267
Patrick Hwu
#120427
Overall Influence
#7268
Doris C. Dahl
#120439
Overall Influence
#7269
Christopher Marshall
#90989
Overall Influence
1949 - 2015 (66 years)
Christopher John Marshall FRS FMedSci was a British scientist who worked as director of the Division for Cancer Biology at the Institute of Cancer Research. Marshall was distinguished for research in the field of tumour cell signalling. His track record includes the discovery of the N-Ras oncogene , the identification of farnesylation of Ras proteins, and the discovery that Ras signals through the MAPK/ERK pathway. These findings have led to therapeutic development of inhibitors of Ras farnesylation, MEK and B-Raf.
Go to Profile#7270
Günther Schütz
#120472
Overall Influence
#7271
Alexander Kekulé
#88535
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Alexander S. Kekulé is a German physician and biochemist. Since 1999 he has held the chair for Medical Microbiology and Virology of the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and Director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology of the Universitätsklinikum Halle .
Go to Profile#7272
Christos Ouzounis
#113433
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Christos A. Ouzounis is a computational biologist, a director of research at the CERTH, and Professor of Bioinformatics at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki. Education Ouzounis received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1987. He then received an M.Sc. in Biological Computation from the University of York in 1988 and went on to perform doctoral work with Chris Sander at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany receiving his PhD from the University of York in 1993.
Go to Profile#7273
Günther K.H. Zupanc
#89882
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Günther K.H. Zupanc is a neurobiologist, researcher, university teacher, book author, journal editor, and educational reformer. He is a Professor in the Department of Biology at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#7274
Louise D. Mccullough
#120508
Overall Influence
#7275
Holm-kjetil Holmsen
#120512
Overall Influence
#7276
Joseph P. Huston,
#120515
Overall Influence
#7277
Norman D. Weiner
#120517
Overall Influence
#7278
Harold Alan Pincus
#120521
Overall Influence
#7279
Constance Scharff
#113326
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Constance Scharff is a German zoologist and neuroethologist and Professor at the Free University of Berlin. She is particularly notable for her research on birdsong, neurogenesis and regeneration. Early life and education Scharff went to school in Lübeck, Germany and moved to Marburg, Germany, to study biology in 1979. She went on to study experimental neurobiology and neuroethology at Adelphi university in New York with Carol Diakow. From 1984, she worked with Fernando Nottebohm at Rockefeller University where she earned her degree of Ph.D. Studying bird song, the researchers were involved in a series of studies that showed the generation of new neurons in the adult brain.
Go to Profile#7280
Leo Eitinger
#35496
Overall Influence
1912 - 1996 (84 years)
Leo Eitinger was a Norwegian psychiatrist, author and educator. He was a Holocaust survivor who studied the late-onset psychological trauma experienced by people who went through separation and psychological pain early in life only to show traumatic experience decades later. He devoted a long period studying posttraumatic stress disorder among Holocaust survivors, which had led Holocaust survivors including Paul Celan , Primo Levi and many others to commit suicide several decades after the experience. Eitinger was a pioneer of research into psychological trauma among refugees, and also la...
Go to Profile#7281
Kevin T. Mcvary
#120560
Overall Influence
#7282
William. S. Sly
#120576
Overall Influence
#7283
Sheila Dorothy King
#46674
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Sheila Dorothy King, CD was a Barbadian-born, Jamaican academic and physician. She was the second woman to be appointed as full professor at the University of the West Indies . She was the first woman appointed as a professor in the Faculty of Medicine in 1983, ten years after she was appointed as head of UWI's Microbiology Department. A specialist in infectious disease and viral epidemiology, she advised numerous national, regional and international departments and governmental agencies on such diseases as dengue, influenza, and typhoid. In 1998, she was honored as a Commander of the Order o...
Go to Profile#7284
William F. Perrin
#111975
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
William F. Perrin was an American biologist specializing in the fields of cetacean taxonomy, reproductive biology, and conservation biology. He is best known for his work documenting the unsustainable mortality of hundreds of thousands of dolphins per year in the tuna purse-seine fishery of the eastern tropical Pacific. This work became a primary motivation for the U.S. Marine Mammal Protection Act . His work on cetacean taxonomy was acknowledged in 2002 when a newly recognized species of beaked whale, Perrin's beaked whale , which was named in his honor .
Go to Profile#7285
Nikolaus Seiler
#120591
Overall Influence
#7286
Robert Day Allen
#120600
Overall Influence
#7287
J. Dennis Mcgarry
#120613
Overall Influence
#7288
Ekanem Ikpi Braide
#81208
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Ekanem Ikpi Braide is a Nigerian Parasitologist. She was a Vice-Chancellor of Cross River University of Technology , Calabar, and pioneer Vice-Chancellor of Federal University of Technology, Lafia. She is credited with a major contribution to the eradication of guinea worm in Nigeria. In 2020, she was made the first female President-elect of the Nigerian Academy of Science. Braide is Chairman of the Board of Trustees, The Leprosy Mission Nigeria. She is the Pro-Chancellor of Arthur Jarvis University, Akpabuyo, Nigeria. She is the first female President of the Nigerian Academy of Science.
Go to Profile#7289
Kimford J. Meador
#120619
Overall Influence
#7290
Gynheung An
#120624
Overall Influence
#7291
Henri Rochefort
#120628
Overall Influence
#7292
Owe Axelsson
#120640
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
#7293
Marisa Bartolomei
#94444
Overall Influence
Marisa Bartolomei is an American cell biologist, the Perelman Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and Co-Director of the Epigenetics Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers epigenetic processes including genomic imprinting. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
Go to Profile#7294
Etty Nadia Benveniste
#120668
Overall Influence
#7295
Laxmi Parida
#36119
Overall Influence
Laxmi Parida is an IBM Master Inventor and group leader in computational genomics at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center and Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York. Education Parida was educated at New York University where she was awarded a PhD in 1998 for research on algorithms for computational genomics supervised by Bud Mishra.
Go to Profile#7296
Celia White Tabor
#105267
Overall Influence
1918 - 2012 (94 years)
Celia White Tabor was an American biochemist and physician-scientist who was an expert on the biosynthesis of polyamines. She was a researcher at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases from 1952 until her retirement in 2005.
Go to Profile#7297
Scot R. Kimball
#120731
Overall Influence
#7298
Henry Harris
#120732
Overall Influence
#7299
Javier Mariátegui
#52664
Overall Influence
1928 - 2008 (80 years)
Javier Mariátegui Chiappe was a renowned Peruvian intellectual and psychiatrist. He was the last of the children of José Carlos Mariátegui and Anna Chiappe. Studied at the University of San Marcos where he also started teaching; he was also a founder of Cayetano Heredia University. He was also the founding director of the National Institute of Mental Health “Honorio Delgado - Hideyo Noguchi”. He died in Lima.
Go to Profile#7300
Brenda Wingfield
#107347
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Brenda D. Wingfield is a South African Professor of genetics and previous Deputy Dean of the University of Pretoria. She is known for her genetic studies of fungal tree pathogens. Biography Brenda D. Fairbairn was born in Zambia and educated in Zimbabwe. In High School, she found that she enjoyed genetics and went on to study at the University of Natal. She graduated with B.Sc.Hons Med from the University of Cape Town, Master's degree from the University of Minnesota and PhD from the University of Stellenbosch . In the late 1990s, she began to work at the University of Pretoria. She was one of...
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