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,
#7951
Joseph E. Coleman
#125864
Overall Influence
#7952
Philippe Kourilsky
#125902
Overall Influence
#7953
Alan S. Weakley
#124445
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Alan Stuart Weakley is an American botanist with expertise in the systematics, ecology, and conservation of the flora of the Southeastern United States. Weakley is the director of the UNC Herbarium at the North Carolina Botanical Garden and an adjunct associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Flora of the Southern & Mid-Atlantic States, a manual covering the approximately 7000 vascular plants found in the Southeastern United States.
Go to Profile#7954
Anthony Herrel
#125921
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
#7955
David F. Hardwick
#82871
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
David Francis Hardwick MD, FRCPC, FCAP was a Canadian medical academic and researcher in the field of paediatric pathology. Hardwick was involved with The University of British Columbia for more than sixty years as a student, professor, and Professor Emeritus. His research included the first description of histopathologic implications of differential survival of Wilms' Tumors to pathogenesis of L-methionine toxicity and administrative/management research.
Go to Profile#7956
Ryusuke Kakigi
#125932
Overall Influence
#7957
Dirk Albert Hooijer
#85917
Overall Influence
1919 - 1993 (74 years)
Dirk Albert Hooijer was a Dutch paleontologist. Hooijer was born in Medan on Sumatra, but spent his youth in Bogor on Java. In 1932, his family moved to The Hague where he finished his high school education at Dalton Den Haag school in 1937. Subsequently, he studied geology on the University of Leiden. In 1941 he joined the staff of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden, where he was especially interested in fossil rhinoceroses and hippopotami. In 1946, he became curator of the Dubois collection. In the same year he promoted under Professor Hilbrand Boschma with his dissertation Prehistoric and fossil Rhinoceroses from the Malay Archipelago and India.
Go to Profile#7958
Michael Bernd Ranke
#125941
Overall Influence
#7959
Theodor Max Fliedner
#125969
Overall Influence
#7960
Tadeusz Wieloch
#121405
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Tadeusz Wieloch is a Swedish neuroscientist and entrepreneur, professor at Lund University, Sweden. Tadeusz Wieloch, son of Krystyna and Antoni Wieloch, Polish immigrants to Sweden in 1945. He received his PhD in 1981 in medical- and physiological chemistry at Lund University. In 1993 he was promoted to professor of Neurobiology. Since 1981 his research aims to study mechanisms of brain injury and repair and to find new stroke therapies This research is conducted at the Wallenberg Neuroscience Center at Skåne University Hospital and in Lund.
Go to Profile#7961
Alan R. Longhurst
#125993
Overall Influence
#7962
Shoji Tsuji
#126009
Overall Influence
#7963
Susan Riechert
#121457
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Susan Elise Riechert is an American behavioral ecologist known for her research in evolutionary biology, evolutionary game theory and the behavior of spiders. She is also known for her "biology in a box" teaching materials, used by hundreds of thousands of elementary and secondary school students in Tennessee.
Go to Profile#7964
Pablo Tamayo
#126029
Overall Influence
#7965
Gert Lubec
#126037
Overall Influence
#7966
David Maechtlen Phillips
#126046
Overall Influence
#7967
Don Mason
#110942
Overall Influence
1934 - 2021 (87 years)
Donald W. Mason was a British immunologist and professor of immunology in the MRC Cellular Immunology Unit at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford. Professor Mason is best known for his work on regulatory T cells and their role in preventing autoimmunity. His distinction was recognised by his election in 2017 to honorary life membership of the British Society for Immunology.
Go to Profile#7968
Joseph William Depierre
#126063
Overall Influence
#7969
Kim Fleischer Michaelsen
#126064
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#7970
Hans-curt Flemming
#126069
Overall Influence
#7971
Judith Breuer
#110842
Overall Influence
Judith Breuer is a British virologist who is professor of virology and director of the Pathogen Genomics Unit at University College London. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019. Breuer is part of the United Kingdom genome sequencing team that looks to map the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019.
Go to Profile#7972
Manuela Giovannetti
#126095
Overall Influence
#7973
David H. Beach
#126106
Overall Influence
#7974
Roy E. Halling
#125818
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Roy Edward Halling is an American mycologist. Halling specializes in the study of mushroom-forming fungi, especially the taxonomy, ecology, and systematics of the Boletineae, a suborder of the Boletales, and is widely published in this area. He is currently emeritus curator of mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, and was an adjunct professor at Columbia University.
Go to Profile#7975
Wesley M. Knapp
#101063
Overall Influence
Wesley Martin Knapp is a regional botanist with the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program. Originally from New Hampshire, Knapp is an expert in North American plants belonging to the Cyperaceae and Juncaceae . Knapp has published research in journals including: Systematic Botany, the Botanical Research Institute of Texas , Evansia, and Opuscula Philolicheum.
Go to Profile#7976
W. Dalton Dietrich
#126124
Overall Influence
#7977
Harold Snieder
#120664
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Harold Snieder is a Dutch genetic epidemiologist and professor in the Department of Epidemiology of University Medical Center Groningen, where he also leads the Unit of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics.
Go to Profile#7978
Arthur K. Asbury
#126138
Overall Influence
#7979
Desmond. J. Fitzgerald
#126146
Overall Influence
#7980
Illana Gozes
#126147
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
#7981
Bart Vanhaesebroeck
#126152
Overall Influence
#7982
Wolf‐peter Trautwein
#126154
Overall Influence
#7983
Margaret Byrne
#101712
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Margaret Mary Byrne is senior principal research scientist and director of the Science Division within WA Dept of Parks and Wildlife. She is a member of the Board of Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network . Her research background is in population genetics and conservation genetics, with applications to choosing provenances for restoration as well as to understanding phylogeographic history. She has been a longstanding treasurer of Genetics Society of Australia, a society relevant to NCEEC.
Go to Profile#7984
Andrés O. M. Stoppani
#126157
Overall Influence
#7985
Fred Berlin
#33900
Overall Influence
Frederick "Fred" Saul Berlin is an American psychiatrist and sexologist specializing in sex offenses. Life and career Berlin studied psychology, earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1964, a master's degree from Fordham University in 1966, and a Ph.D. from Dalhousie University in 1972. He earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Dalhousie in 1974. Following a clerkship at Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he was an intern at McGill University School of Medicine, Jewish General Hospital, and Children's Hospital in Montreal. He completed a psychiatric r...
Go to Profile#7986
Viktor K. Jirsa
#101792
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Viktor K. Jirsa is a German physicist and neuroscientist, director of research at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique , director of the Institut de Neuroscience des Systèmes and co-director of the Fédération Hospitalo-Universitaire EPINEXT "Epilepsy and Disorders of Neuronal Excitability" in Marseille, France. He is workpackage leader in the Epinov project funded in the context of the RHU3 call and coordinated by Fabrice Bartolomei.
Go to Profile#7987
Ashwani Pareek
#107552
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Ashwani Pareek is Executive Director of NABI a prominent plant biologist and educator noted chiefly for his contribution in plant molecular biology and biotechnology. He is currently working as Professor of plant molecular biology and biotechnology at the School of Life Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia. He is a recipient of several honors including the Visitors award for Technology Development from the President of India for developing Stress Tolerant Rice of the Next Generation that has the potential to enhance the income of rice farmers.
Go to Profile#7988
Herbert Walter Levi
#126179
Overall Influence
#7989
Thomas A. Wehr
#126181
Overall Influence
#7990
Concetta DiRusso
#123141
Overall Influence
Concetta DiRusso is an American scientist and Professor of Biochemistry. She is best known for her work on transcriptional regulation of fatty acid metabolism in bacteria. Biography DiRusso received her B.A. from Hampshire College, and in 1982 she completed her Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Vermont. In 2015, she was invested with the George Holmes University Professorship in Biochemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln DiRusso is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2014, she served as Jefferson Science Fellow in the Gl...
Go to Profile#7991
Joseph A. Dipaolo
#126189
Overall Influence
#7992
Richard J. O’reilly
#126195
Overall Influence
#7993
Eli E. Sercarz
#126210
Overall Influence
#7994
Ann McDermott
#91918
Overall Influence
Ann E. McDermott is an American biophysicist who uses nuclear magnetic resonance to study the structure, function, and dynamics of proteins in native-like environments. She is currently the Esther Breslow Professor of Biological Chemistry and Chair of the Educational Policy and Planning Committee of the Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. She has also previously served as Columbia's Associate Vice President for Academic Advising and Science Initiatives in the Arts and Sciences. She is an elected member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences...
Go to Profile#7995
Wanda Wesołowska
#57871
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Wanda Wesołowska is a Polish zoologist known for her work with jumping spiders. She has described more species of jumping spider than any contemporary writer, and is second only to Eugène Simon in the history of arachnology. Originally a student of ornithology, she developed an interest in jumping spiders while still a student at the Siedlce University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in the 1970s.
Go to Profile#7996
Henrik Walter
#126225
Overall Influence
#7997
Christopher A. G. Mcculloch
#126229
Overall Influence
#7998
Angela Santoni
#126247
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#7999
Daniel H. Mathalon
#126251
Overall Influence
#8000
Michele Zappella
#25321
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Michele Zappella is an Italian psychiatrist and scholar of Child Neuropsychiatry. He is a native of Viareggio, Italy. Professional background Zappella graduated in 1960 in Medicine and Surgery in Rome, Italy. He initially relocated to London, where he worked with the Fountain Hospital of London from 1961 to 1963. He then moved back to Rome, where he worked in the medical field and specialized in Pediatrics. As winner of a Fulbright grant for the United States, he became a Fellow of Neurology in the Department of Child Neurology at Children's Hospital in Washington D.C., serving there from 1964 to 1965.
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