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,
#8551
Thomas M. Ulbright
#130305
Overall Influence
#8552
Anna Traveset
#124428
Overall Influence
Anna Traveset is a Spanish ecologist, particularly known for her work on ecological interactions between plants and animals, especially on islands. Traveset is a Research Professor at the Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies – IMEDEA based in Mallorca, and Collaborating Professor at the University of the Balearic Islands . In 2017, she received the Rey Jaime I Award for Environmental Protection . Furthermore, she currently holds the position of Institutional Representative of the CSIC in the Balearic Islands.
Go to Profile#8553
Guoping Feng
#122886
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Guoping Feng is a Chinese-American neuroscientist. He is the Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and member of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute. He is most notable for studying the synaptic mechanisms underlying psychiatric disease. In addition to developing many genetic-based imaging tools for the study of molecular mechanisms in the brain, he has generated and characterized rodent models of obsessive-compulsive disorder, autism spectrum disorders, and schizophrenia.
Go to Profile#8554
Ian c. m. Maclennan
#130312
Overall Influence
#8555
Alan R. Shuldiner
#130319
Overall Influence
#8556
Geoffrey J. Barton
#130334
Overall Influence
#8557
Walter Kennedy Dodds
#130338
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#8558
Juha P. Risteli
#130346
Overall Influence
#8559
Robin Allshire
#122140
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Robin Campbell Allshire is Professor of Chromosome Biology at University of Edinburgh and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow. His research group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology focuses on the epigenetic mechanisms governing the assembly of specialised domains of chromatin and their transmission through cell division.
Go to Profile#8560
Shozo Yamamoto
#130350
Overall Influence
#8561
Carolien Kroeze
#130359
Overall Influence
#8562
Zahir Amoura
#130360
Overall Influence
#8563
Lewis A. Opler
#130363
Overall Influence
#8564
James I. Ausman
#130379
Overall Influence
#8565
Martine Dorais
#107432
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Martine Dorais, is a researcher with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada specializing in plant physiology. She is recognized around the world for her research on organic greenhouse production. Dorais has authored over 200 academic publications, which have been cited over 4,300 times, resulting in an h-index and i10-index of 32 and 78 respectively.
Go to Profile#8566
David B. Peakall
#130389
Overall Influence
#8567
Lewi. C. Krey
#130401
Overall Influence
#8568
Laurie Godfrey
#110312
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Laurie R. Godfrey is an American paleontologist and physical anthropologist. She is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research has focused on the evolutionary history of the present-day lemur populations of Madagascar. An outspoken critic of creationism and advocate for the teaching of evolution in schools, she has edited three books on the subject: Scientists Confront Creationism , What Darwin Began: Modern Darwinian and Non-Darwinian Perspectives on Evolution , and Scientists Confront Intelligent Design and Creationism .
Go to Profile#8569
C. Richard Grau
#130436
Overall Influence
#8570
Judith K. Brown
#130439
Overall Influence
Judith K. Brown is an American phytopathologist noted for study of viruses that affect plants. In particular geminiviruses and Whitefly involved viruses. She has a PhD from the University of Arizona and teaches there. She was an associate editor of Phytopathology for three years and in 2003 a delegate for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers in Science Symposium in Istanbul. In 2015 she became an American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow.
Go to Profile#8571
Munira A. Basrai
#126222
Overall Influence
Munira Adnan Basrai is an American geneticist researching genome stability and cell cycle regulation in yeast and human cancers. She is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Education Basrai received a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee. Her 1992 dissertation was titled, Modes of nutrient uptake in Candida albicans: peptide transport and fluid phase endocytosis. Basrai's doctoral advisor was Jeffrey M. Becker. She completed postdoctoral research with Philip Hieter in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#8572
Erkki Korpimäki
#130447
Overall Influence
#8573
Randy Wayne
#121848
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Randy O. Wayne is an associate professor of plant biology at Cornell University. Along with his former colleague Peter K. Hepler, Wayne established the role of calcium in regulating plant growth. Their 1985 article Calcium and Plant Development was awarded the "Citation Classic" award from Current Contents magazine. They researched how plant cells sense gravity through pressure, the water permeability of plant membranes, light microscopy, as well as the effects of calcium on plant development. Wayne authored two textbooks, including Plant Cell Biology: From Astronomy to Zoology and Light and V...
Go to Profile#8574
Carol Kumamoto
#124533
Overall Influence
Carol Kumamoto is an American microbiologist who is Professor of Molecular Biology & Microbiology at Tufts University. She investigates the filamentous growth of Candida albicans, a fungal pathogen that causes several diseases. She is also interested in how C. albicans interacts with its host during colonisation and invasive diseases. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Go to Profile#8575
Anslem de Silva
#93655
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Kongahage Anslem Lawrence de Silva is a Sri Lankan biologist and herpetologist recognised as a pioneer of modern herpetology in Sri Lanka. His career spanned for more than five decades; de Silva has contributed to the field of zoology with much research and numerous publications particularly on crocodiles, snakes and lizards.
Go to Profile#8576
Ramaswamy Govindan
#130462
Overall Influence
#8577
O. Roger Anderson
#130483
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
#8578
Ian Ramsay. Sibbald
#130492
Overall Influence
#8579
Keith A Johnson
#130508
Overall Influence
#8580
Stefanie Schwab
#130511
Overall Influence
#8581
María Belén Orlowski
#130512
Overall Influence
#8582
John Shepherd
#120652
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
John A. Shepherd is an American physicist, professor of epidemiology and population sciences and director of the Shepherd Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is an expert in the use of dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry for quantitative bone and soft tissue imaging, and pioneered the use of 3D optical imaging of the whole body for quantifying body composition and associated diseases including cancer risk, obesity, diabetes, and frailty. In 2016, he was the President of the Board of the International Society for Clinical Densitometry.
Go to Profile#8583
Erik Rauch
#98504
Overall Influence
1974 - 2005 (31 years)
Erik Rauch was an American biophysicist and theoretical ecologist who worked at NECSI, MIT, Santa Fe Institute, Yale University, Princeton University, and other institutions. Rauch's most notable paper was published in Nature and concerned the mathematical modeling of the conservation of biodiversity.
Go to Profile#8584
Heinz Lehmann
#30828
Overall Influence
1911 - 1999 (88 years)
Heinz Edgar Lehmann was a German-born Canadian psychiatrist best known for his use of chlorpromazine for the treatment of schizophrenia in 1950s and "truly the father of modern psychopharmacology."
Go to Profile#8585
Philip W. Boyd
#130553
Overall Influence
#8586
Chandler S. Robbins
#130563
Overall Influence
#8587
Robert Oostenveld
#130576
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#8588
Nick Loman
#121121
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Nicholas James Loman was co-founder of the Gamer Network with his brother Rupert, which they started under the name Eurogamer Network in 1999. Nick left the business in 2004 to pursue a career in medicine.
Go to Profile#8589
Louis Appleby
#130595
Overall Influence
#8590
Val J. Lowe
#130622
Overall Influence
#8591
Cedric A. Mims
#130633
Overall Influence
#8592
Etheresia Pretorius
#130645
Overall Influence
#8593
Norman M. Weinberger
#130653
Overall Influence
#8594
Mark van der Giezen
#116148
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Mark van der Giezen is Professor of Biological Chemistry, Centre for Organelle Research, University of Stavanger, Norway. He holds Dutch nationality and is married with three children. Early life and education Van der Giezen was born on 24 May 1968. His primary and secondary education was in Assen, The Netherlands. He studied biology, with graduate-level molecular genetics and immunology, at the University of Groningen, remaining to obtain a PhD in 1997 in mathematical and natural sciences, supervised by Rudolf Prins, in the Department of Microbiology. His PhD thesis was entitled The evolution...
Go to Profile#8595
Yasuhiro Anraku
#130662
Overall Influence
#8596
Arnold G. Herman
#130666
Overall Influence
#8597
Olof Nyrén
#130674
Overall Influence
#8598
James L. Linzell
#130683
Overall Influence
#8599
Richard Gibbs
#70185
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Richard Alexander Gibbs, , is an Australian geneticist. He is currently the Wofford Cain Chair and Professor of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In 1996, he founded the Human Genome Sequencing Center at BCM, which was one of five worldwide sites selected to complete the final phase of the Human Genome Project.
Go to Profile#8600
Ulf T. Brunk
#130690
Overall Influence
