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,
#8351
Claude Maurice Fauquet
#128875
Overall Influence
#8352
Gideon Schreiber
#128883
Overall Influence
#8353
Frank S. Walsh
#128895
Overall Influence
#8354
Brian Duerden
#99015
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Brian Ion Duerden is a British microbiologist. Duerden graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1972, subsequently lecturing in bacteriology there. In 1979 he obtained his MD from the University of Edinburgh with a thesis entitled, “The characterization and occurrence of clinically important gram-negative anaerobic bacilli”. He then lectured at the University of Sheffield, where he was appointed Professor of Medical Microbiology in 1983, and became consultant microbiologist to Sheffield Children's Hospital.
Go to Profile#8355
Mujibur Rahman
#74164
Overall Influence
1919 - 2015 (96 years)
Mujibur Rahman was a Bangladeshi medical scientist. He established the first blood transfusion center at the Institute of Post Graduate Medicine and Research . He was awarded Ekushey Padak in 2014 by the Government of Bangladesh for his contribution to social service.
Go to Profile#8356
Wayne Winterrowd
#84230
Overall Influence
1941 - 2010 (69 years)
Wayne Rudolf Winterrowd was an American gardening expert and designer who wrote extensively on the subject. The garden covering at his Vermont home became a tourist attraction to visitors from around the world.
Go to Profile#8357
Anissa Abi-Dargham
#77201
Overall Influence
Anissa Abi-Dargham is an American psychiatrist and researcher. She is a psychiatry professor and vice-chair of research at Stony Brook University and professor emerita at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Go to Profile#8358
Arnold De Loof
#128926
Overall Influence
#8359
Meg E. Morris
#128929
Overall Influence
#8360
František Moravec
#107954
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
František Moravec is a Czech parasitologist who specialises on the Nematodes, especially the nematodes parasites of fishes. His research is mainly in the field of taxonomy of the Nematoda. Education and career Moravec was born on 1 January 1939 in Velká Bystřice. He was in high school in Olomouc then was a student in the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic . For his Masters in 1962, he studied the parasitic worms of reptiles of Czechoslovakia. After graduation, he worked at the Institute of Parasitology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in České Budějovice, and in 1970 completed his thesis on nematodes parasites in fish.
Go to Profile#8361
Ronald V. Maier
#128945
Overall Influence
#8362
G. Erard Venema
#128948
Overall Influence
#8363
Robert H. Silverman
#128953
Overall Influence
#8364
Charles Bixler Heiser
#128958
Overall Influence
1920 - 2010 (90 years)
Charles Bixler Heiser Jr. was a professor of botany, known as a leading expert on the sunflower genus Helianthus. He is also noteworthy as the author of a "series of popular books that did much to promote botany to the general public."
Go to Profile#8365
Arne Forsgren
#128959
Overall Influence
#8366
Mario Armando Luna
#128960
Overall Influence
#8367
W. T. Williams
#75381
Overall Influence
1913 - 1995 (82 years)
William Thomas Williams FAA OBE was an English and Australian botanist and plant taxonomist, known for his work on algorithms for numerical taxonomy. Biography Williams was born 18 April 1913 in Fulham, London, England, the only child of a Welsh coal miner. He went to the Stationers' Company's School in London and then to the Imperial College of Science and Technology, also in London, from which he earned a bachelor's degree 1933, a PhD and diploma in 1940, and a D.Sc. in 1956. While studying for his PhD, Williams taught at Imperial College from 1933 to 1936, and at Sir John Cass Technical Co...
Go to Profile#8368
Frederick R. Singer
#128974
Overall Influence
#8369
David George Huntsman
#128976
Overall Influence
#8370
Nigel W Bunnett
#129015
Overall Influence
#8371
Michael G. Bissell
#129016
Overall Influence
#8372
Itai Yanai
#110172
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Itai Yanai is an American-Israeli biomedical scientist and Founding Director of the Institute for Computational Medicine at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is also a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU.
Go to Profile#8373
Steven Amstrup
#99511
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Steven C. Amstrup is an American zoologist who studies bears, especially polar bears. He is the 2012 recipient of the Indianapolis Prize. Early life Steven Amstrup was born in Fargo, North Dakota, where he took an interest in bears at an early age. He attended the University of Washington as an undergraduate, receiving his bachelor's degree in forestry in 1972. In 1975, he graduated from the University of Idaho with a master's degree in wildlife management. He studied black bears in central Idaho for his master's thesis. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in...
Go to Profile#8374
Willie Burgdorfer
#129041
Overall Influence
#8375
Anna Chao Pai
#54832
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Anna Chao Pai is an American geneticist and professor emerita at Montclair State University. Biography Anna Chao was born in Beijing, China. Her maternal grandfather was the Northeast China-based warlord Zhang Zuolin, who was assassinated by the Japanese in 1928. Following the Japanese invasion of Northeast China in 1931, Chao's parents fled the region, first to Beijing where she was born, and then to the United States. They would make only one more visit to China together as a family, in 1939, and after the Communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, her parents had no further desire to return to their country of birth.
Go to Profile#8376
Gerald J. Chader
#129046
Overall Influence
#8377
Yasuo Ihara
#129065
Overall Influence
#8378
Daniel A. Weintraub
#129067
Overall Influence
#8379
Nicholas John Dyson
#129070
Overall Influence
#8380
Barry L. Wanner
#129074
Overall Influence
#8381
Lennart Persson
#129078
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#8382
Digby Tantam
#17157
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Digby Tantam is a British psychiatrist, psychologist and psychotherapist. He is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Sheffield., and a director of the Septimus group. His main research interests are social and emotional wellbeing, emotional contagion, nonverbal communication, applied philosophy and autism spectrum disorders.
Go to Profile#8383
Lorraine Tyler
#124676
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Lorraine Komisarjevsky Tyler , is a British neuroscientist. She is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. Biography Tyler graduated with a BA in Psychology at the University of Leicester in 1966 and completed her PhD in Cognition and Communication at the University of Chicago in 1977. From 1980 to 1985 she was the senior scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics before, in 1990, joining Birkbeck College as Professor of Psychology. In 1998 Tyler joined the University of Cambridge as a MRC Research Professor before becoming taking up her current Professorship at the university in 2011.
Go to Profile#8384
Judson J. Van Wyk
#129093
Overall Influence
#8385
Jack Cohen
#17839
Overall Influence
1933 - 2019 (86 years)
Jack Cohen was a British reproductive biologist also known for his science books and involvement with science fiction. Life Cohen was born 19 September 1933 in Norwich, but grew up in Stoke Newington. His father was killed shortly after the end of the Second World War, 1 September 1945. His grandfather was a rabbi and Cohen was an observant Jew in his youth. He continued to attend the synagogue for cultural reasons. He was married three times, and had six children.
Go to Profile#8386
Lorina Naci
#112485
Overall Influence
Dr. Lorina Naci is an Albanian-Canadian psychologist and neuroscientist born in Tirana. She is a laureate of the "Young International Talent" scholarship of the L'Oréal-UNESCO program for women and science in 2017. In 2023 she was elected a fellow of Trinity College Dublin.
Go to Profile#8387
Susan Wijffels
#90143
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Susan Elizabeth Anne Wijffels is an Australian oceanographer employed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ; she formerly worked from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia. Wijffels specialises in quantifying global ocean change over the past 50 years, including its anatomy and drivers. She is recognised for her international and national leadership of the Global Ocean Observing System. She is regarded as an expert in the Indonesian Throughflow and its role in global climate.
Go to Profile#8388
Paul Emile Lambrechts
#129119
Overall Influence
#8389
Róbert Gábor Kiss
#129122
Overall Influence
#8390
Paul Brazeau
#129129
Overall Influence
#8391
Philip G. Haydon
#129133
Overall Influence
#8392
Per Ebbe Roland
#129143
Overall Influence
#8393
Claus Werning
#129150
Overall Influence
#8394
Nicholas C. Turner
#129154
Overall Influence
#8395
David Givol
#129173
Overall Influence
#8396
Cornelis Kalkman
#114711
Overall Influence
1928 - 1998 (70 years)
Cornelis Kalkman was a Dutch botanist.
Go to Profile#8397
J. E. H. Wilson
#129195
Overall Influence
#8398
Liisa Galea
#119561
Overall Influence
Liisa Ann Margaret Galea is a Canadian neuroscientist who is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. She is a member of the Centre for Brain Health and Director of the Graduate Programme in Neuroscience. Her research considers the impact of hormones on brain health and behaviour.
Go to Profile#8399
Joel Edward Kleinman
#129221
Overall Influence
#8400
Nirupa Chaudhari
#76021
Overall Influence
Nirupa Chaudhari is an American biologist who has shown that human and animal tongues have special receptors that respond to umami, the fifth taste. Chaudhari is a researcher at the University of Miami.
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