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,
#8101
Peter Michael Hawkey
#126931
Overall Influence
#8102
Eddy M-p Decuypere
#126944
Overall Influence
#8103
Yuk Kwan Clare Cheng
#126947
Overall Influence
#8104
Lawrence R. Heaney
#115655
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Lawrence Richard Heaney is an American mammalogist, ecologist and biogeographer. His research focus is the mammals of the Philippines. Career From June 1967 to June 1971, Heaney was a helper and museum technician at the Department of Mammals at the Smithsonian Institution. From June 1971 to September 1971, Heaney worked as a collector for the Delaware Museum of Natural History. From June 1972 to June 1975 he was a curator and research associate at the University of Minnesota. From June 1973 to August 1975 he was field and research assistant at the Smithsonian Institution. In June 1975, Heaney earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota.
Go to Profile#8105
Meghan Duffy
#103230
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Meghan Anne Duffy is an American biologist and the Susan S. Kilham Collegiate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. She focuses on the causes and consequences of parasitism in natural populations of lake populations. In 2019, she created a task force to examine factors that influence the mental health and well-being of graduate students at the University of Michigan.
Go to Profile#8106
Luis Sequeira
#126963
Overall Influence
#8107
R. Palovich Michael
#126972
Overall Influence
#8108
Ze'ev Ronai
#126090
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Ze’ev Ronai is an Israeli-American cancer research scientist and Chief Scientific Advisor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla. Education Ze’ev Ronai was born in Haifa in 1956. He attended Hugim High School in Haifa, and received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#8109
Keith Burridge
#119295
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Keith Burridge is a British researcher and Kenan distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research on focal adhesions includes the discovery of many adhesion proteins including vinculin, talin and paxillin, and ranks him in top 1% of the most cited scientist in the field of molecular biology and genetics. Burridge has published more than 200 peer reviewed articles.
Go to Profile#8110
Lisa Ainsworth
#101828
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Anna Ainsworth is an American plant physiologist currently employed by the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service . She also is an adjunct professor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was awarded the 2018 Crop Science Society of America Presidential Award. She is known for her work concerning the effects of specific atmospheric pollutants, including ozone and carbon dioxide, on the productivity of selected major crops such as corn and soybeans.
Go to Profile#8111
Lars Werdelin
#89169
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Lars Werdelin is a Swedish paleontologist specializing in the evolution of mammalian carnivores. One area of interest has been the evolutionary interaction of carnivores and hominins in Africa. He received his Ph.D. from Stockholm University in 1981.
Go to Profile#8112
Abílio Fernandes
#123311
Overall Influence
1906 - 1994 (88 years)
Abílio Fernandes , was a Portuguese botanist and taxonomist from the Botanical Institute at the University of Coimbra who was married to Rosette Mercedes Saraiva Batarda , another Portuguese botanist and taxonomist. Fernandes was a student of Aurélio Quintanilha , botanist and geneticist.
Go to Profile#8113
Jean-pierre Lexington Kinet
#127013
Overall Influence
#8114
Louis J. Guillette Jr
#100672
Overall Influence
Louis J. Guillette Jr., Ph.D. was an American professor of embryology. Dr. Guillette received the 17th Annual Heinz Award with special focus on the environment in 2011. Early life
Go to Profile#8115
Sarah M. Assmann
#122747
Overall Influence
Sarah M. Assmann is an American biologist known for her research on plants and signal transduction. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Education and career Assmann undergraduate degree is from Williams College . She earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1986. Following her Ph.D., she was a postdoc at the University of California, Riverside until she joined the faculty at Harvard University in 1987. In 1993 she moved to Pennsylvania State and was promoted to professor in 1997. In 2002, Assmann was named the Waller Professor of Biology at ...
Go to Profile#8116
Stephen G. Holtzman
#127044
Overall Influence
#8117
Jian-kang Zhu
#127056
Overall Influence
#8118
Keith A. Kelly
#127074
Overall Influence
#8119
Meena Upadhyaya
#92343
Overall Influence
Meena Upadhyaya OBE, FRCPath, FLSW is an Indian-born Welsh medical geneticist and an honorary distinguished professor at Cardiff University. Her research has focused on the genes that cause various genetic disorders, in particular neurofibromatosis type I and facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.
Go to Profile#8120
John Stuart Soeldner
#127096
Overall Influence
#8121
John Hooper
#77827
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
John N.A. Hooper is an Australian marine biologist and writer on science. He is the current Head of Biodiversity & Geosciences Programs at the Queensland Museum. His research has included studying the possible medical benefits of marine sponges, including beta blockers for heart disease, and for compounds to combat illnesses like gastro-intestinal disease and cancer. In 2007 he was a member of the Discussion Panel On Marine Genetic Resources for the eighth annual United Nations Informal Consultative Process for Oceans and the Law of the Sea .
Go to Profile#8122
Jurgenne H. Primavera
#109264
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Jurgenne Honculada-Primavera is a widely cited Filipina marine scientist. For her research in mangrove ecosystem conservation she was honored as one of Time magazine's Heroes of the Environment for 2008. She was inducted into the National Academy of Science and Technology in 2015.
Go to Profile#8123
Kit Prendergast
#114354
Overall Influence
Kit Prendergast, nicknamed "The Bee Babette", is a wild bee ecologist from Perth, Western Australia. She studied at Curtin University and gained her PhD after researching the biodiversity of native bees and pollination networks in urban areas, along with how to conserve them and the impact of honeybees on native bees. Prendergast has also researched and written about urban area issues for bees, focusing on Perth and the south west of Western Australia.
Go to Profile#8124
Arnold Eskin
#112024
Overall Influence
Arnold Eskin was a professor of chronobiology at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. He attended Vanderbilt University, where he received a degree in physics. He later attended University of Texas at Austin, where he received his Ph.D. in zoology in 1969. He is recognized in the term Eskinogram, and has been a leader in the discovery of mechanisms underlying entrainment of circadian clocks.
Go to Profile#8125
Michel. Rohmer
#127136
Overall Influence
#8126
María Cordero Hardy
#61606
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Dr. María Cordero Hardy, M.D., a.k.a. Mary Hardy is a Puerto Rican physiologist, educator and scientist whose research on vitamin E helped other scientists understand how vitamins affect the human body.
Go to Profile#8127
Allen D. Elster
#127145
Overall Influence
#8128
Juan Carlos Castilla
#51701
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Juan Carlos Castilla Zenobi is a marine biologist. He received his PhD from the University of Wales. Since 1965, he has been a faculty member at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. In 1985, he published a paper on a study which focused on a part of the Chilean coastline from which humans had been excluded. He is a recipient of the 1996 TWAS Prize and the 2011 Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology.
Go to Profile#8129
Augusto Claudio Cuello
#47034
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Augusto Claudio G. Cuello is Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Charles E. Frosst/Merck Chair in Pharmacology at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Biography He obtained his Doctor of Medicine in 1965 from the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina, followed by a Doctor of Science at Oxford University in 1986 for outstanding contributions to the field of neuroscience.
Go to Profile#8130
Martin S. Dworkin
#127162
Overall Influence
#8131
Paul M. Grasby
#127173
Overall Influence
#8132
Kazuo Shizume
#127200
Overall Influence
#8133
Emmanuel S. Boss
#127203
Overall Influence
#8134
Eduardo G. Lapetina
#127209
Overall Influence
#8135
Barbara Tudek
#66090
Overall Influence
1952 - 2019 (67 years)
Barbara Tudek was a Polish biologist who served as president of the Polish section of the European Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society . In 2019, Tudek was a recipient of the Frits Sobels Award.
Go to Profile#8136
William Krivit
#127220
Overall Influence
#8137
Marla Sokolowski
#118904
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Marla B. Sokolowski is a University Professor in the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto. Sokolowski is a scientist whose work is widely considered to be groundbreaking, foundational for a variety of fields, and instrumental in refutations of genetic determinism, and has, according to the Royal Society of Canada, "permanently changed the way we frame questions about individual differences in behaviour". Sokolowski's comprehensive study of the fruit fly and other animal systems, including humans, has shaped fundamental concepts in behavioural evolution, plasticity, and genetic pleiotropy.
Go to Profile#8138
David Keays
#121793
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
David Anthony Keays is an Australian neuroscientist who studies magnetoreception and neurodevelopment. He is currently Chair of Organismal and Developmental Neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, and a Principle Research Associate at the University of Cambridge. He was formerly a group leader at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria,
Go to Profile#8139
Katherine Belov
#108923
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Katherine Belov is an Australian geneticist, professor of comparative genomics in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences and Pro Vice Chancellor of Global Engagement at the University of Sydney. She is head of the Australasian Wildlife Genomics Group and research expert in the area of comparative genomics and immunogenetics, including Tasmanian devils and koalas, two iconic Australian species that are threatened by disease processes. Throughout her career, she has disproved the idea that marsupial immune system is primitive, characterized the South American gray short-tailed opossum's...
Go to Profile#8140
Nicholas E. Geacintov
#127255
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
#8141
Rune Blomhoff
#127257
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#8142
Jonathan M. Chase
#127264
Overall Influence
#8143
Andrea Cossarizza
#127283
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#8144
Ignacio Melero
#127307
Overall Influence
#8145
Robert Thimme
#127323
Overall Influence
#8146
Douglas Mcintosh Fambrough
#127324
Overall Influence
#8147
Berton Zbar
#127330
Overall Influence
#8148
Louise H. Emmons
#110614
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Louise H. Emmons is an American zoologist who studies tropical rainforest mammals, especially rodents. She has conducted fieldwork in Gabon, Sabah , Peru, and Bolivia. Her best known work is the field guide, Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field Guide, first published in 1990, with a second edition in 1997.
Go to Profile#8149
S. Jeanne Reardon
#127352
Overall Influence
#8150
Tamir Gonen
#101580
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Tamir Gonen is an American structural biochemist and membrane biophysicist best known for his contributions to structural biology of membrane proteins, membrane biochemistry and electron cryo-microscopy particularly in electron crystallography of 2D crystals and for the development of 3D electron crystallography from microscopic crystals known as MicroED. Gonen is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, the founding director of the MicroED Imaging Center at UCLA and a Member of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
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