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,

#8201

Madhabananda Sar

#127699
Overall Influence
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#8202

Bruno Allolio

#127710
Overall Influence
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#8203

Edward l. Squires

#127717
Overall Influence
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#8204

Silvia Paracchini

#79206
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Silvia Paracchini FRSE is a geneticist who researches the contribution of genetic variation to neurodevelopmental traits such as dyslexia and human handedness. Education As an undergraduate, Paracchini studied Biological Sciences at the University of Pavia, Italy. During this time she undertook an ERASMUS scholarship project at the Technical University of Denmark. She obtained her DPhil in Human Genetics from the University of Oxford in 2003.
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#8205

Shunzaburo Iwatsuki

#127743
Overall Influence
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#8206

Nenad Sestan

#97592
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Nenad Šestan is Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience and professor of comparative medicine, genetics and psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. He received his MD from the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb in 1995 and his PhD from Yale School of Medicine in 1999.
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#8207

Sarah Wyatt

Sarah Wyatt
#121917
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Sarah Wyatt is an American, plant molecular biologist. She is a Professor in the Department of Environmental and Plant Biology at Ohio University, as well as director of the Ohio University Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Wyatt's research interests include molecular biology, genomics, and signaling events. She is considered one of the world's experts on gravitational signaling in plants, and some of her recent research includes an experiment on board the International Space Station .
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#8208

Tsuneyoshi Kuroiwa

#127770
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
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#8209

Yoshikuni Mizuno

#127776
Overall Influence
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#8210

Jane Grimwood

#96391
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Jane Grimwood is a British microbiologist. Early life and education Grimwood was born in England. Her father was a chemist, and she always wanted to be a scientist as a child. Grimwood was awarded her B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. She did postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, University of San Francisco and Dartmouth College.
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#8211

Clyde Thornsberry

#127782
Overall Influence
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#8212

Diane E. Pataki

#103491
Overall Influence
Diane E. Pataki is a Foundation Professor and Director of the School of Sustainability at Arizona State University. She is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the Ecological Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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#8213

Salomón Bartnicki-garcía

#127797
Overall Influence
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#8214

Hollis N. Erb

#127815
Overall Influence
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#8215

Dale Scott Ridley

#127825
Overall Influence
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#8216

Christopher L. Corless

#127829
Overall Influence
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#8217

Toshiaki Katada

#127856
Overall Influence
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#8218

Richard W. Traxler

#122241
Overall Influence
1928 - 2010 (82 years)
Richard Warwick Traxler was an American environmental microbiologist known for pioneering research in petroleum-degrading bacteria, methane-producing bacteria, and microbiological biotechnology. Biography Traxler was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on 25 July 1928 to Ralph N. and Mabel Traxler. He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He served in the US Army during the Korean War and retired as a major after twenty-three years of reserve service in the military. He married Carolyn Cain in 1952, and they had three daughters, Marla, Suzanne, and Caro...
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#8219

Robert w. Finberg

#127890
Overall Influence
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#8220

Pieter Dirk A. G. Johnen Nieuwkoop

#127896
Overall Influence
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#8221

Gloria Montenegro

#115629
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Gloria del Carmen Montenegro Rizzardini is a botanist, biologist, academic and scientist. She is Professor of Botany at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She won the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science in 1998. She has undertaken pioneering work in botany and conservation of native flora, using scientific approaches to protect plant ecosystems.
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#8222

Fenner A. Chace Jr.

#110648
Overall Influence
1908 - 2004 (96 years)
Fenner Albert Chace Jr. was an American carcinologist. Life Fenner Albert Chace Jr. was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. He attended Harvard University, and received his doctorate in 1934, and became a curator at that university's Museum of Comparative Zoology. After the start of World War II, he worked as a civilian for the Army Air Force oceanographic group, and later commissioned as an officer. His unit was dismantled, and he was reassigned to the US Navy Hydrographic Office. He worked to produce cloth survival charts to be used by aviators lost at sea. After the war, he succeeded Waldo L.
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#8223

Michael L. Sr. Blute

#127908
Overall Influence
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#8224

Jerrold F. Rosenbaum

#127918
Overall Influence
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#8225

William Earl Collins

#127933
Overall Influence
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#8226

Henry Gewurz

#127945
Overall Influence
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#8227

Peter Jezzard

#127952
Overall Influence
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#8228

Stephen John Kish

#127961
Overall Influence
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#8229

H. Bruce Bosmann

#127962
Overall Influence
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#8230

Yasuto Itoyama

#127965
Overall Influence
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#8231

James L. Gulley

#85116
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
James L. Gulley is an American cancer researcher and the Director of the Medical Oncology Service at National Cancer Institute. Early life and education He graduated from Loma Linda University, California and his M.D./Ph.D. Medical Scientist Training Program, at National Institutes of Health and his dissertation on tumor immunology. Later, Gulley did his residency in internal medicine at Emory University in 1998, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at the NCI.
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#8232

D. A. J. Brown

#127991
Overall Influence
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#8233

John William. Deluca

#127998
Overall Influence
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#8234

Rita Casadio

#124088
Overall Influence
Rita Casadio is an Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry/Biophysics in the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology at the University of Bologna. Career She earned her degree in Physics at the University of Bologna, Italy. In 1987, she began her academic career as an Assistant Professor of Biophysics at the University of Bologna, later becoming a full professor of Biochemistry/Biophysics in 2001. Her research primarily focuses on membrane and protein biophysics, as well as computer modeling of biological processes, including protein folding, stability and interactions.
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#8235

Thomas L. Perry

#128022
Overall Influence
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#8236

Richard Bateman

#89881
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Richard Mark Bateman is a British botanist and paleobotanist. He was awarded the Bicentenary Medal of the Linnean Society in 1994. He was awarded a DSc from University of London in 2001 for his work on plant phylogenetics and evolution, palaeobotany and palaeoenvironments.
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#8237

Phoebe S. Leboy

Phoebe S. Leboy
#121258
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
Phoebe Starfield Leboy was an American biochemist and advocate for women in science. Education Leboy earned a bachelor's degree in zoology from Swarthmore College in 1957 and a doctorate in biochemistry from Bryn Mawr College in 1962.
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#8238

Paul W. Sherman

#128058
Overall Influence
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#8239

Neil Osheroff

#128063
Overall Influence
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#8240

Laura Soucek

#112114
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Laura Soucek is a Group Leader at VHIO , Research Professor at ICREA, and CEO of Peptomyc S.L. She works on the Myc oncoprotein, the deregulation of which occurs during almost all cancers. Soucek has designed a dominant negative variant, Omomyc, which allows her to investigate the benefits of inhibiting Myc in cancer.
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#8241

Kari Cantell

#128069
Overall Influence
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#8242

Patricia Janak

#76104
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Patricia Janak is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies the biological basis of behavior through associative learning. Janak applies this research to pathological behaviors, such as addiction and posttraumatic stress disorder, to improve understanding of how stimuli affect relapse and responses.
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#8243

Martin Hermy

#128082
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
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#8244

Roger M. Nisbet

#128096
Overall Influence
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#8245

Bernard Dell

#121407
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Bernard Dell is an Australian botanist. He is a research director at Murdoch University developing strategic research partnerships with China and nearby countries. His research spans the disciplines of agriculture and forestry. He is the author of books and academic papers on these subjects and is the recipient of a Murdoch University Excellence in Research Award , the China Friendship Award and the Chiang Mai University Award .
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#8246

Göran Kronvall

#128102
Overall Influence
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#8247

Yang Fuyu

#71673
Overall Influence
1927 - 2023 (96 years)
Yang Fuyu was a Chinese biochemist, biophysicist and writer. He was the main founder of biomembrane study in China. He served as chief of the National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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#8248

Roger Hanlon

#117444
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Roger Thomas Hanlon is an American marine biologist, ethologist, and senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, as well as a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Brown University. He is known for his research on the behavior of cephalopods, particularly their camouflage abilities.
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#8249

Frank A. Pitelka

#128125
Overall Influence
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#8250

Adam M. Phillippy

#124926
Overall Influence
Adam M. Phillippy is an American bioinformatician serving as senior investigator and head of the Genome Informatics Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health. He is known for his work in that resulted in the first complete sequence of a human genome.
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