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,
#8501
Özlem Türeci
#115559
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Özlem Türeci is a German physician, scientist and entrepreneur. In 2008, she co-founded the biotechnology company BioNTech, which in 2020 developed the first messenger RNA-based vaccine approved for use against COVID-19. Türeci has served as BioNTech's chief medical officer since 2018. Since 2021, she has been Professor of Personalized Immunotherapy at the Helmholtz Institute for Translational Oncology and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Türeci and her spouse, Uğur Şahin, have won a number of awards.
Go to Profile#8502
Darrel Parthipan Francis
#130006
Overall Influence
#8503
Jean G. Riess
#130012
Overall Influence
#8504
Chen Lan-bo
#126417
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Chen Lan-bo is a Taiwanese biotechnologist. He was a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School between 1977 and 2004 and is the author of over 250 publications. He is also a member of Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in the department of cancer and biology and a member of the Academia Sinica of Taiwan.
Go to Profile#8505
Lars T. Angenent
#118930
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Largus Theodora Angenent is an American environmental biotechnologist. He is a Humboldt Professorship in applied microbiology at the University of Tübingen, Germany's largest monetary international research prize.
Go to Profile#8506
Richard L. Witter
#130020
Overall Influence
#8507
Richard Y. Morita
#130022
Overall Influence
#8508
Emilie Rissman
#123287
Overall Influence
Emilie Rissman is an American professor in the Biological Sciences department at North Carolina State University. Her research focuses on estrogens modulate sex differences in behavior. Her research also looks at the effect of parental exposure to Bisphenol A on offspring behavior in mice.
Go to Profile#8509
Birgitte Kiær Ahring
#97216
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Birgitte Kiær Ahring is a Danish biologist and researcher in biofuel. Since 2008, she has been employed as a professor at the Department of Chemistry and Bioscience at Aalborg University Copenhagen.
Go to Profile#8510
Constantin E. Sekeris
#128416
Overall Influence
1933 - 2009 (76 years)
Constantin Sekeris was a Greek biochemist and molecular biologist. Early life He was born in Nafplio, the first capital of Greece and his paternal family home. During World War II, he accompanied his parents to Egypt, South Africa, and finally the United States , where his father held ministerial posts in the Greek Government in exile. The family stayed in the U.S. until 1944, when, following the liberation of Greece after the defeat of Nazi Germany, they returned permanently to Greece. After his secondary education at the 8th Gymnasium of Athens, he graduated from the Medical School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 1956.
Go to Profile#8511
Gerhard Gries
#114732
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Gerhard J. Gries is a full professor of Animal Communication Ecology at the Department of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Education and career Gries graduated from the Duderstadt Gymnasium in 1974. After serving 15 months in the German Army he studied forestry at the University of Gottingen. In 1984, Gries obtained his Ph.D. in forest entomology and became a postdoc at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and two years later joined laboratory of John Borden at the Simon Fraser University. Following the expiration of his grant in 1988, he became a tenure-track faculty member in 1991 and only by the year 2000 became full professor.
Go to Profile#8512
Christian Messier
#130038
Overall Influence
#8513
Shantanu Chowdhury
#88444
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Shantanu Chowdhury is an Indian structural biologist and a professor at Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He is known for developing a mechanism for gene regulation mediated by DNA Secondary-Structure in diverse cellular contexts. An elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, he is a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology in 2010. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awa...
Go to Profile#8514
Richard L. Anderson
#130040
Overall Influence
#8515
Cirilo Rozman
#130046
Overall Influence
#8516
Yanlan Mao
#115676
Overall Influence
Yanlan Mao is a British biologist who is a professor at University College London. Her research considers cell biology and the molecular mechanism that underpin tissue formation. She was awarded the Royal Microscopical Society Medal for Life Sciences in 2021.
Go to Profile#8517
John Timothy Greenamyre
#130053
Overall Influence
#8518
Robert H. Kretsinger
#130066
Overall Influence
#8519
Charalabos H. Pothoulakis
#130076
Overall Influence
#8520
Selin Kara
#71080
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Selin Kara is a Turkish-born chemist and biotechnologist. She is currently a full professor and head of Industrial Biotechnology section at Aarhus University. She studies biocatalysis and has been recognized for her work about deep eutectic solvents and her research regarding cofactor regeneration in biotransformations.
Go to Profile#8521
Ammar Al-Chalabi
#126259
Overall Influence
Ammar Al-Chalabi is Professor of Neurology and Complex Disease Genetics at the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute at King's College London, where he is also head of the Department of Basic and Clinical Neuroscience and Director of the King's Motor Neuron Disease Research Centre. In 2020, he received the Forbes Norris Award from the International Alliance Of Als/Mnd Associations and was a co-winner of the Healey Center International Prize for Innovation in ALS. His other awards include the Sheila Essey Award from the American Academy of Neurology and the Charcot Young Investigator Award from the Motor Neurone Disease Association.
Go to Profile#8522
Simon Thrush
#119212
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Simon Francis Thrush FRSNZ is a New Zealand marine scientist and current Director of the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Auckland. He graduated from the University of Otago with a first class BSc in Zoology in 1980, and completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia in 1985. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and in 2010 was awarded the New Zealand Marine Sciences Life Time Achievement Award.
Go to Profile#8523
Brian A. Whitton
#130104
Overall Influence
#8524
G. O. Contributors Aspinall
#130105
Overall Influence
#8525
Elvira Cuevas
#114241
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Elvira Cuevas Viera is a Puerto Rican ecologist. She is a professor in the department of biology at University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where she serves as director of the Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation.
Go to Profile#8526
Michael Joseph Crumpton
#86784
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Michael Joseph Crumpton CBE, FRS was Director of Research for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories based in London . Early life and education Michael Joseph Crumpton was born on 7 June 1929, as the son of Charles and Edith Crumpton. He was educated at Poole Grammar School in Poole, Dorset, England, and University College Southampton and obtained a BSc from the University of London . He then worked at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, obtaining a PhD, also from London University.
Go to Profile#8527
Bill Robert Brinkley
#130122
Overall Influence
#8528
Lynn Dicks
#104958
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Lynn Dicks is a conservation scientist and ecologist in the UK. She is Professor of Zoology at the University of Cambridge, and Honorary Reader at the University of East Anglia, and an expert in sustainable farming and insect conservation.
Go to Profile#8529
Wolfgang Maret
#130138
Overall Influence
#8530
Rainer Landgraf
#130139
Overall Influence
#8531
Anthony P. Pugsley
#130157
Overall Influence
#8532
Michael A. Beaven
#130159
Overall Influence
#8533
María Fernanda Ceriani
#70751
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
María Fernanda Ceriani is an Argentine biologist. She studies the neuronal mechanisms involved in the regulation of circadian rhythms, using Drosophila melanogaster as a biological model. She is the president of INIS Biotech, heads the Behavioral Genetics Laboratory at the Leloir Institute Foundation, and is a researcher with the National Scientific and Technical Research Council . Ceriani received her PhD from the University of Buenos Aires and did postdoctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute. She won a L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award in 2011.
Go to Profile#8534
Matteo Carandini
#94248
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Matteo Carandini is a neuroscientist who studies the visual system. He is currently a professor at University College London, where he co-directs the Cortical Processing Laboratory with Kenneth D Harris.
Go to Profile#8535
Roberto W. Pearcy
#130182
Overall Influence
#8536
Kálmán Vánky
#124503
Overall Influence
1930 - 2021 (91 years)
Kálmán Géza Vánky was a Székely-Hungarian mycologist with Swedish and Hungarian citizenship, who lived in Germany. He is considered to be the worldwide authority on the subject of smut fungi and has dominated the taxonomic study of Ustilaginomycetes for at least the past four decades.
Go to Profile#8537
Winifred Pennington
#102291
Overall Influence
1915 - 2007 (92 years)
Winifred Anne Tutin FRS was a British limnologist and biologist. Life Pennington was born in Barrow-in-Furness on 8 October 1915, the daughter of Albert Roger Pennington, Post Office supervisor, and his wife, Margaret. In 1938, she graduated from the University of Reading in botany. As an undergraduate she undertook published research on algae and the ecology of mosses. Supervised by Tom Harris, she was awarded her PhD in 1941 by the University of Reading for her thesis titled 'An investigation of some problems of freshwater algae, with special reference to the process of sedimentation'. In ...
Go to Profile#8538
Giancarlo Pepeu
#130221
Overall Influence
#8539
Niklaus Grunwald
#95062
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Niklaus J. Grünwald is a biologist and plant pathologist born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela of German and Swiss ancestry. He is currently a research scientist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, a Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University, and a Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology at Cornell University.
Go to Profile#8540
Prisca Liberali
#120821
Overall Influence
Prisca Liberali is an Italian chemist who is a senior group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research. Her research takes a systems biology approach to understand the behaviour of multi-cellular systems. She was awarded the EMBO Gold Medal and EMBO Membership in 2022.
Go to Profile#8541
Huub Schellekens
#130253
Overall Influence
#8542
Osamu Nureki
#130259
Overall Influence
#8543
Delane C. Kritsky
#107499
Overall Influence
Delane C. Kritsky is an American parasitologist who specialised on the Monogenea, a class of parasitic flatworms which are important ectoparasites of fishes. His research was mainly in the fields of taxonomy, faunistics, and phylogeny of the Monogenea.
Go to Profile#8544
E. Lloyd Du Brul
#87589
Overall Influence
1909 - 1996 (87 years)
E. Lloyd Du Brul was a world-renowned anatomist, physical anthropologist and educator, and the developer of the science of biomechanics of the head and neck. Du Brul, along with Harry Sicher, wrote the textbook Sicher's and Du Brul's Oral Anatomy, considered to be the definitive oral anatomy text . The book has been published in English, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Du Brul also authored or co-authored four other books and contributed to seven others, including writing the "Form and Function, Biological" section of the 15th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, 1974. He contribut...
Go to Profile#8545
Bissan Al-Lazikani
#108266
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Professor Bissan Al-Lazikani PhD FRSB MBCS is a data scientist and drug discoverer. She applies computational techniques to help solve critical bottlenecks in cancer drug discovery and development. Since 2021 she has been professor of genomic medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Go to Profile#8546
Michael S. Briley
#130273
Overall Influence
#8547
Nicholas Chiorazzi
#130283
Overall Influence
#8548
Barbara Bachmann
#96823
Overall Influence
1924 - 1999 (75 years)
Barbara Joyce Bachmann was a lecturer at Yale University, UC Berkeley, Columbia and NYU, and is best known as director of the E. coli Genetic Stock Center and for publishing editions of the standard E. coli K-12 genetic linkage map.
Go to Profile#8549
Montague Ullman
#19437
Overall Influence
1916 - 2008 (92 years)
Montague Ullman was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and parapsychologist who founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York and for over three decades promoted public interest in dreams and dream sharing groups.
Go to Profile#8550
Carl Victor Granger
#130295
Overall Influence
