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,
#8251
Tannishtha Reya
#84990
Overall Influence
Tannishtha Reya is an Indian-born American cell and developmental biologist working in cancer research at Columbia University in New York. She has received numerous awards, including an NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2009 and an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award in 2015. Reya is particularly known for co-authoring an influential publication in 2001 coining the term "cancer stem cell" to describe a cancer cell that mirrors the properties of stem cells of healthy organs in the context of leukaemias or solid tumours.
Go to Profile#8252
Petr Šmilauer
#128132
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#8253
Martin F. Kagnoff
#128147
Overall Influence
#8254
David Adamski
#108767
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
David Adamski is an American entomologist working as a research associate at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and a support scientist in the Systematic Entomology Laboratory , United States Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C. He obtained a PhD degree from the Mississippi State University, Department of Entomology in 1987 after defending a dissertation, titled "The Morphology and evolution of North American Blastobasidae ". His research interests focus on alpha taxonomy, life histories and morphology of moths. Over the years, Adamski produced more than ...
Go to Profile#8255
Donald Jay Mcmahon
#128157
Overall Influence
#8256
Bruce R. Zetter
#128158
Overall Influence
#8257
Jonathan Alan King
#128170
Overall Influence
#8258
Christopher Wills
#110741
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Christopher J. Wills is Professor Emeritus of Biology at UCSD. He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. As a Guggenheim Fellow, he worked at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, on protein chemistry and evolution.
Go to Profile#8259
George Scott Boyd
#128176
Overall Influence
#8260
George McGavin
#101559
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
George C. McGavin is a British entomologist, author, academic, television presenter and explorer. Background McGavin attended Daniel Stewart's College, a private school in Edinburgh, then studied Zoology at the University of Edinburgh from 1971 to 1975, followed by a PhD in entomology at Imperial College, London. He went on to teach and research at the University of Oxford. He is Honorary Research Associate at Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Department of Zoology of Oxford University, where he lists his interests as "Terrestrial arthropods especially in tropical forests, caves and savannah.
Go to Profile#8261
Amit‐ Bar‐or
#128188
Overall Influence
#8262
Julie Denslow
#127517
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Julie Sloan Denslow is an American botanist, ecologist and biologist. She grew up in South Florida, and always loved nature. She graduated from Coral Gables Senior High School in 1960. She has contributed to the field of ecology through her work with and research of tropical ecosystems. Earlier in her career, she spent significant time in the field in tropical locations such as Costa Rica and Panama, as well as in temperate locations in Louisiana. and later on in her career she worked more in the office and classroom, but still spent the occasional day in the field. She has focused on resea...
Go to Profile#8263
Helen Muir
#128202
Overall Influence
#8264
Hirofumi Yasue†
#128217
Overall Influence
#8265
Elisabeth A. Murray
#128226
Overall Influence
#8266
George Langford
#110576
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
George Malcolm Langford is a Professor of Biology, Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences, and a distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences in Syracuse, New York. He is known for his work on the cell and molecular biology of the actin cytoskeleton in health and disease.
Go to Profile#8267
Lotte Søgaard-Andersen
#125258
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Lotte Søgaard-Andersen is a Danish microbiologist and molecular geneticist who researches cell signaling and regulation of the cell cycle. She works at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology as director and is an elected member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and American Academy of Microbiology.
Go to Profile#8268
Hilton H. Mollenhauer
#128257
Overall Influence
#8269
Lisa Beal
#75439
Overall Influence
Lisa M. Beal is a professor at the University of Miami known for her work on the Agulhas Current. She is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans. Education and career Beal grew up in the United Kingdom, and was first attracted to aeronautical engineering as an undergraduate at University of Southampton before changing to oceanography. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Southampton working on the Agulhas Current. Following her Ph.D. she did postdoctoral work at Columbia University and Scripps Institution of Oceanography before moving to the University of Miami in 2003.
Go to Profile#8270
John Oldham
#47437
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
John M. Oldham is an American psychiatrist who is a distinguished emeritus professor at the Baylor College of Medicine. Education He received as Bachelor of science degree from Duke University, a Master of Science in Engineering and a Master of Medicine in neuroendocrinology from the Baylor College of Medicine. He also worked as an intern at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and received his postgraduate training at Columbia University and the New York Presbyterian Hospital. John would also receive psychoanalytic training at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center. Oldham also has a diplo...
Go to Profile#8271
George G. Rowe
#128294
Overall Influence
#8272
Samuel a. Wickline
#128296
Overall Influence
#8273
Ulrich h. Koszinowski
#128301
Overall Influence
#8274
Michael Kopelman
#31244
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Michael David Kopelman is a British researcher of memory disorders, having contributed for more than 30 years to the development of cognitive neuropsychology and cognitive neuropsychiatry. Until his retirement in 2015, he was lead clinician at the Neuropsychiatry and Memory Disorders Clinic at St Thomas' National Health Service teaching hospital in Central London. Beginning in 1981, he also served as an expert witness in legal proceedings, including high-profile cases.
Go to Profile#8275
Robert Clancy
#90276
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Robert Llewellyn Clancy is a retired Australian clinical immunologist in the field of mucosal immunology. He is known for his research and development of therapies for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , commonly known as emphysema.
Go to Profile#8276
Laurie Marker
#77291
Overall Influence
Laurie Marker is an American zoologist, researcher, author, educator, and one of the world's foremost cheetah experts, who founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund in 1990. As executive director of CCF, among many endeavors, Marker helps rehabilitate cheetahs and reintroduce them to the wild, performs research into conservation, biology and ecology, educates groups around the world, and works toward a holistic approach to saving the cheetah and its ecosystems in the wild. Before her work with CCF, Marker's career started to take off at the Wildlife Safari in the U.S., where her interest with ca...
Go to Profile#8277
Richard William Young
#128315
Overall Influence
#8278
Daniel Mills
#56108
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Daniel Simon Mills, FRCVS is an English veterinarian and biologist and the UK's first Professor of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine based at the University of Lincoln, United Kingdom. He attended St Edmund's College, Ware before studying at the University of Bristol where he received his BVSc degree and completed his Ph.D. degree in animal behaviour from De Montfort University.
Go to Profile#8279
Frank Maley
#128321
Overall Influence
#8280
Bartley G. Hoebel
#128335
Overall Influence
#8281
Andrew R. Watkinson
#128342
Overall Influence
#8282
Jung‐hoon Yoon
#128347
Overall Influence
#8283
Witold Filipowicz
#128348
Overall Influence
#8284
James William Larrick
#128369
Overall Influence
#8285
Terry Jernigan
#92119
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Terry Lynne Jernigan is a neuropsychologist and the director of the Center for Human Development at University of California, San Diego. Education Jernigan graduated from University of California, Irvine with a bachelor's degree before earning a doctorate from University of California, Los Angeles. She interned and completed her postdoctoral research at Stanford University and Palo Alto VA Medical Center.
Go to Profile#8286
Barry Lester
#112040
Overall Influence
Barry Marshall Lester is an American professor of psychiatry & human behavior and pediatrics at Brown University's Alpert Medical School and Women & Infants Hospital. He is a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science and American Psychological Association.
Go to Profile#8287
Williams T. Norton
#128378
Overall Influence
#8288
Dorothy Warburton
#116685
Overall Influence
1935 - 2016 (81 years)
Dorothy Pamela Warburton was a Canadian geneticist whose research focused on fetal chromosomal abnormalities and reasons for miscarriage. She died at the age of 80 on 26 April 2016 at her home in Englewood, New Jersey.
Go to Profile#8289
O. T. Ouchterlony
#128427
Overall Influence
#8290
John Joseph Magnuson
#128428
Overall Influence
#8291
Margaret T. T. Wong‐riley
#128442
Overall Influence
#8292
Robert. E. Hecky
#128445
Overall Influence
#8293
Maureen Hanson
#123869
Overall Influence
Maureen Hanson is an American molecular biologist and Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. She is a joint member of the Section of Plant Biology and Director of the Center for Enervating Neuroimmune Disease. Her research concerns gene expression in chloroplasts and mitochondria, photosynthesis, and the molecular basis of the disease Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome .
Go to Profile#8294
Geraldine Thomas
#89913
Overall Influence
Geraldine Anne Thomas is a senior academic and Chair in Molecular Pathology at the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Surgery & Cancer, Imperial College London. She is an active researcher in fields of tissue banking and molecular pathology of thyroid and breast cancer. Thomas is also a science communicator and has written opinion editorial pieces and provided comment to the media following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In 2015 Thomas appeared in the TV documentary series Uranium - Twisting the Dragon's Tail and was called to appear before the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission in South A...
Go to Profile#8295
Pierre A. Maquet
#128464
Overall Influence
#8296
Joanna M. Kain
#119963
Overall Influence
1930 - 2017 (87 years)
Joanna M. Jones was a phycologist, marine biologist and diver. She researched kelp forest ecology adding to the scientific knowledge on its population, reproduction, competition and growth as well as descriptions of subcanopy seaweeds found in kelp forests. She was president of the British Phycological Society from 1987 to 1988.
Go to Profile#8297
Jack D. Keene
#94417
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Jack D. Keene is a James B. Duke Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University. Keene studies the regulation of RNA and the mechanisms of RNA-protein interactions. He identified RNA recognition motif proteins, which are the largest family of RNA-binding proteins. He isolated the first human autoimmune antigen. He formalized the posttranscriptional operon and regulon model to describe global gene regulation, and proposed the RNA regulon hypothesis to better understand post-transcriptional regulation of mRNAs encoding proteins. Keene introduced the RIP protocol for is...
Go to Profile#8298
Barbara D. Webster
#105846
Overall Influence
Barbara Donahue Webster is an American botanist and Professor Emerita at the University of California, Davis. She is a past president of the Botanical Society of America, of which she also served as first female treasurer, and a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society for Horticultural Science. She has served as editor of the journal Madroño.
Go to Profile#8299
Itamar Raz
#128495
Overall Influence
#8300
Kenneth Maiese
#128497
Overall Influence
