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,
#7851
Tomas L. Kirchhausen
#125067
Overall Influence
#7852
Richard A. Firtel
#125069
Overall Influence
#7853
Len A. Pennacchio
#119557
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Len A. Pennacchio is an American molecular biologist, the head of the Genetic Analysis Program and the Genomic Technologies Program at the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California. Pennacchio did his undergraduate studies at Sonoma State University and then went on to graduate studies at Stanford University, receiving a Ph.D. in genetics in 1998. He became a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1999, and joined the Joint Genome Institute in 2003. He retains his Lawrence Berkeley affiliation as well.
Go to Profile#7854
Alessandro Minelli
#123344
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Alessandro Minelli is an Italian biologist, formerly professor of zoology in the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the University of Padova mainly working on evo-devo subjects.
Go to Profile#7855
Jessica Hellmann
#67367
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jessica Hellmann is a Professor of Ecology and the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. She is recognized as "one of the nation’s leading researchers on global change ecology and climate adaptation". Hellmann was one of the first to identify that living with climate change is "just as crucial to the future of humanity and Earth’s ecosystems as slowing and stopping greenhouse gas emissions". Her lab uses mathematical models, genomic techniques to identify the impact of climate change on ecology and evolution. Jessica Hellmann also has a spouse, Larry LaTa...
Go to Profile#7856
Karl‐anders Karlsson
#125112
Overall Influence
#7857
Richard Battarbee
#99741
Overall Influence
Richard William Battarbee FRS is a British palaeoecologist, and director of the Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London. Works Richard W. Battarbee, Heather A. Binney Natural climate variability and global warming: a Holocene perspective, Wiley-Blackwell, 2008,
Go to Profile#7858
Peter John Hudson
#125159
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#7859
Lora Hooper
#62609
Overall Influence
Lora V. Hooper is an American biologist, currently the Jonathan W. Uhr Distinguished Chair in Immunology and Nancy Cain and Jeffrey A. Marcus Scholar in Medical Research at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In 2015, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#7860
Thaddeus P. Dryja
#125183
Overall Influence
#7861
Con Stough
#87721
Overall Influence
Con Stough is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, director of the Swinburne Centre for Neuropsychology and director of the newly formed National Institute of Complementary Medicine Collaborative Centre for the study of herbal and natural medicines for neurocognition.
Go to Profile#7862
Rajvir Dahiya
#125191
Overall Influence
#7863
Serap Aksoy
#43859
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Fatma Serap Aksoy is a Turkish–American medical entomologist. Early life and education Aksoy was born in Fatih, Istanbul in 1955. After graduating from Robert College, she moved to the United States for her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Vassar College. Following this, she earned a PhD in Biology from Columbia University and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship the Yale School of Public Health.
Go to Profile#7864
Mary Bernheim
#90007
Overall Influence
1902 - 1997 (95 years)
Mary Lilias Christian Bernheim was a British biochemist best known for her discovery of the enzyme tyramine oxidase, which was later renamed as monoamine oxidase. Bernheim discovered the enzyme system of tyramine oxidase during her doctorate research at the University of Cambridge in 1928, and her research has been referred to as "one of the seminal discoveries in twentieth century neurobiology".
Go to Profile#7865
Herbert Budka
#125202
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#7866
Henry Oswald Jackson Collier
#125213
Overall Influence
#7867
Jan Vijg
#98168
Overall Influence
Jan Vijg is the Lola and Saul Kramer Chairperson in Molecular Genetics at the Department of Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York City, United States. Prior to this appointment, he was a professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging .
Go to Profile#7868
Jonathan Metzl
#24233
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Jonathan Michel Metzl is an American psychiatrist and author. He is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, where he is also Director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society. He is the author of multiple books, including The Protest Psychosis, Prozac on the Couch, Against Health: How Health Became the New Morality, and Dying of Whiteness.
Go to Profile#7869
Richard J. Miller
#125218
Overall Influence
#7870
Joseph Terwilliger
#77454
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Joseph Douglas Terwilliger is an American geneticist and professor of neurobiology at the Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. In addition to his scientific research, he is known for accompanying retired basketball player Dennis Rodman on his visits to North Korea, where he has said that he serves as Rodman's translator. He began his involvement in Rodman's trips to the country after winning a basketball game with him at an auction.
Go to Profile#7871
George L. Gerstein
#125242
Overall Influence
#7872
Gregor Schöner
#95577
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Gregor Schöner is a German computational neuroscientist. He is professor for the theory of cognitive systems at the Ruhr University Bochum, as well as the director of the Institute for Neuroinformatics located there.
Go to Profile#7873
Liran Carmel
#101979
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Liran Carmel is an Israeli scientist, professor of computational biology at the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Carmel is the Snyder Granadar Chair for Genetics, and is the 2021 Massry Prize laureate for his studies in the field of ancient DNA.
Go to Profile#7874
Geeta Kashyap Vemuganti
#66269
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Geeta Kashyap Vemuganti is an Indian ocular pathologist and the head of the department at the Ophthalmic Pathology Service and Stem Cell Laboratory of the L. V. Prasad Eye Institute . She is also a dean and professor at the school of medical sciences of the University of Hyderabad.
Go to Profile#7875
Malcolm Maden
#125269
Overall Influence
#7876
Jack Windsor Lewis
#19869
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Jack Windsor Lewis was a British phonetician. He is best known for his work on the phonetics of English and the teaching of English pronunciation to foreign learners. His blog postings on English phonetics and phoneticians are prolific and widely read.
Go to Profile#7877
Robert P. Elde
#125278
Overall Influence
#7878
Allen Kerr
#98670
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Allen Kerr AO, FRS, FAA is a Scottish-born Australian biologist. He served as Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Adelaide. His most significant work was his study of crown gall - a plant cancer induced by Agrobacterium tumerfaciens.
Go to Profile#7879
David G. Drubin
#125282
Overall Influence
#7880
Yoshiyuki Suzuki
#125301
Overall Influence
#7881
Kamel Khalili
#125305
Overall Influence
#7882
Scott E. Kern
#125308
Overall Influence
#7883
Karsten Kristiansen
#125324
Overall Influence
#7884
Carl Barker Jørgensen
#125327
Overall Influence
#7885
Henry H. Balfour
#125328
Overall Influence
#7886
Peter Hirsch
#88727
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Peter Hirsch is a microbiologist who received his doctorate from the University of Hamburg. After spending nine years in the US he was asked to found an Institute of General Microbiology at the university of Kiel, Germany. He has made many contributions to the study of microbiology. The genus Hirschia, a type of hyphal bacteria, is named after him.
Go to Profile#7887
Mir S. Mulla
#125336
Overall Influence
#7888
Merrill D. Benson
#125350
Overall Influence
#7889
Roberta F. Colman
#62782
Overall Influence
1938 - 2019 (81 years)
Roberta F. Colman , born Roberta Fishman, was an American biochemist. Early life Roberta Fishman was from New York City, the daughter of William and Esther Fishman of Brooklyn. As a student at Forest Hills High School in 1955, she received a Westinghouse Science Talent Search Award, and met president Dwight D. Eisenhower. Colman earned her bachelor's degree at Radcliffe College in 1959, and completed doctoral studies at Harvard University in 1962, with Frank Westheimer as her advisor. She held post-doctoral fellowships at the National Institutes of Health and the Washington University School o...
Go to Profile#7890
Evan Forde
#59396
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Evan B. Forde is an American oceanographer at the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) with the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He was the first African-American scientist to perform research in a submersible. Forde is widely considered an expert on the formation of submarine canyons and his recent research uses satellite sensors to analyze atmospheric conditions related to hurricane formation.
Go to Profile#7891
Mark Williamson
#101096
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Mark Herbert Williamson is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of York, England. He is an expert on biological invasions. Williamson attended Christ Church, University of Oxford where he gained a BA degree in 1950 and received a D.Phil. in 1958, having been a Departmental Demonstrator in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford since 1952.
Go to Profile#7892
Josef Berger
#101973
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Josef Berger is a Czech scientist. He is a full professor at the University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic. His areas are biomodel development and information gaining. Career Berger is a graduate of the Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science . He worked as a scientist and professor at the Institute for Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University Hospital in Hradec Králové, University of Pardubice, Masaryk University in Brno. He is a author of 16 books, about 100 scientific papers , three hundred popular-science articles and the first Czech University ranking . He prep...
Go to Profile#7893
Volker Grimm
#125390
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#7894
Michael Wakelam
#98566
Overall Influence
1955 - 2020 (65 years)
Michael John Owen Wakelam was a British molecular biologist and director of the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England. Biography Wakelam received a BSc in medical biochemistry and a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Birmingham. After post-doctoral training at the University of Konstanz , he joined the Department of Biochemistry of Imperial College London in 1983. In 1985, he joined the Biochemistry department of the University of Glasgow as a Lecturer , Senior Lecturer and Reader . He became a Professor of molecular pharmacology at the University of Birmingham in 1993. In 2007,...
Go to Profile#7895
Stefan Niewiarowski
#125396
Overall Influence
#7896
Mauro Galetti
#104462
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Mauro Galetti. is a Brazilian ecologist and conservation biologist. He is a full professor in the Department of Biodiversity at the Universidade Estadual Paulista, Rio Claro, São Paulo and has worked at Stanford University , Aarhus University and the University of Miami . He also holds a position as a Courtesy Associated Professor at Florida International University, Miami, FL. Galetti's work has centered on the analysis of the ecological and evolutionary consequences of defaunation. He was awarded by WWF in 1998 and was a Tinker Fellow at Stanford University and a visiting professor at Aar...
Go to Profile#7897
Michael H. Ebert
#125406
Overall Influence
#7898
Leo Lefrançois
#125419
Overall Influence
#7899
Kavita Shah
#118413
Overall Influence
Kavita Shah is an Indian environmental biotechnologist at the Institute of Environmental and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University. She is one of the six directors and the only woman director of Banaras Hindu University . She is known for her role in the area of Environmental Biotechnology, Health and water Resource Management.
Go to Profile#7900
Gareth Leng
#125440
Overall Influence
