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,
#8901
Edward T. H. Yeh
#132948
Overall Influence
#8902
Enrico Smeraldi
#132955
Overall Influence
#8903
Louis A. Chedid
#132956
Overall Influence
#8904
Stephen William Scheff
#132979
Overall Influence
#8905
Yves Boirie
#132990
Overall Influence
#8906
Jack W. Lawler
#133005
Overall Influence
#8907
Dale L. Greiner
#133011
Overall Influence
#8908
Ellen J. Baron
#133035
Overall Influence
#8909
Hans Winkler
#133045
Overall Influence
#8910
Frank Ewert
#127747
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Frank Ewert is a German agricultural scientist, Scientific Director of the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research and Professor of Crop Production at the University of Bonn. His areas of expertise include crop science, production ecology, systems analysis, and plant growth modelling. His work focuses on sustainability and impact assessments of the influence of climate change on crop production systems, food security, and resource conservation.
Go to Profile#8911
Bernadette Modell
#91154
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Professor Bernadette Modell is a British geneticist, specialising in the study of thalassaemia. Modell attended a convent school, and then graduated in zoology, with genetics and embryology from the University of Oxford, in 1955. She then undertook a doctorate in developmental biology at Cambridge University, qualifying in 1959. She next studied medicine at Cambridge and at University College Hospital, qualifying in 1964.
Go to Profile#8912
Frederick Grinnell
#68253
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Frederick Grinnell is an American cell biologist, also known for his work in bioethics and science education. Currently, he is a Distinguished Teaching Professor and the Robert McLemore Professor of Medical Science in the department of cell biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Grinnell took his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Clark University and Ph.D. in biochemistry at Tufts New England Medical Center . Subsequently, he moved to Dallas for postdoctoral work in the UTSW Biochemistry Department. In 1972, he joined the UTSW faculty in the Department of Cell Biolog...
Go to Profile#8913
William Russell Miller
#133054
Overall Influence
#8914
John D. Turnidge
#133060
Overall Influence
#8915
Giomar Helena Borrero-Pérez
#117374
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Giomar Helena Borrero-Pérez is a Colombian marine biologist. In 2012 she became the sixth Colombian scientist to be awarded a L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award. Her work considers the conservation of sea cucumbers.
Go to Profile#8916
James D. Mauseth
#133106
Overall Influence
James D. Mauseth is an American botanist and botanical author. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. Born in 1948 in Washington, he did his undergraduate and PhD studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. He joined the University of Texas at Austin in 1975, where he remained until his retirement in 2017. His research has focused on plants with unusual forms, like cacti and parasitic plants. He has authored the widely used textbooks Plant Anatomy and Botany: An Introduction to Plant Biology.
Go to Profile#8917
Nadia Waloff
#126491
Overall Influence
1909 - 2001 (92 years)
Nadejda "Nadia" Waloff FRES was a Russian-born English entomologist. She worked on the biology of locusts, flight and dispersal of the Hemiptera, and taught at Imperial College, Silwood Park campus.
Go to Profile#8918
Howard P. Baden
#133129
Overall Influence
#8919
Keewaydinoquay Peschel
#43589
Overall Influence
1919 - 1999 (80 years)
Keewaydinoquay Pakawakuk Peschel was a scholar, ethnobotanist, herbalist, medicine woman, teacher and author. She was an Anishinaabeg Elder of the Crane Clan. She was born in Michigan around 1919 and spent time on Garden Island, a traditional Anishinaabeg homeland.
Go to Profile#8920
Bruce C. Kone
#75976
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Bruce C. Kone is an American professor, nephrologist and molecular biologist. He is also a World Aquatics Masters Swimming world record holder, United States Masters Swimming national record holder, twenty-three-time USMS national champion, and eight-time FINA Masters world's top-ranked age group swimmer. He is currently a tenured professor of medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston .
Go to Profile#8921
Nyawira Muthiga
#127478
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Nyawira A. Muthiga is an African conservation zoologist who is Director of the Western Indian Ocean Marine Science Association Marine Programme in Kenya. She is a conservation scientist for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Go to Profile#8922
Daria Nina Love
#94409
Overall Influence
1946 - 2001 (55 years)
Daria Nina Love was an Australian veterinary microbiologist and educator. She was the first woman to be awarded the University of Sydney Medal for Veterinary Science and the first woman in the Faculty of Veterinary Science to be awarded a PhD , for her thesis entitled ‘Studies on virus host-cell relationships of a feline calicivirus’. She was also the first woman to become an associate professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Science, although her bids to become a full professor were unsuccessful. In 1988, she became the first woman in Australia to be awarded a Doctor of Veterinary Science on ...
Go to Profile#8923
Dian Donnai
#78159
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Professor Dian Donnai is a British medical geneticist. Biography Donnai studied at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, then trained in paediatrics at St Mary's Hospital, Northwick Park Hospital and in Sheffield.
Go to Profile#8924
Carmen Birchmeier
#133178
Overall Influence
#8925
Yoshiaki Fujii‐kuriyama
#133188
Overall Influence
#8926
Ernst Fernando Lopes Da Silva Niedermeyer
#133192
Overall Influence
#8927
Ellen Wright Clayton
#91900
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Ellen Wright Clayton is an American Rosalind E. Franklin Professor of genetics and chairwoman of the Institute of Medicine Board at the Population Health and Public Health Practice who became a 2013 recipient of the David Rall Medal.
Go to Profile#8928
Amy Gladfelter
#120649
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Amy S. Gladfelter is an American quantitative cell biologist who is interested in understanding fundamental mechanisms of cell organization. She is a Professor of Biology and the Associate Chair for Diversity Initiatives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she investigates cell cycle control and the septin cytoskeleton. She is also affiliated with the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and is a fellow of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA.
Go to Profile#8929
Shri Mohan Jain
#113552
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Prof. Dr. Shri Mohan Jain is an Indian-born plant biotechnology scientist. He worked several years for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. He has done research on genetically modified food, mutation breeding, ornamental plants, date palm, and tropical fruit, such as banana. He has edited 44 internationally sold books.
Go to Profile#8930
Thomas M. Wheeler
#133211
Overall Influence
#8931
Yashpal Singh. Kanwar
#133222
Overall Influence
#8932
Andia Chaves Fonnegra
#104871
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (125 years)
Andia Chaves Fonnegra is a Colombian marine biologist known for her research on the marine sponge Cliona delitrix. Education and career Chaves earned her bachelor's degree and her master's degree in marine biology from the National University of Colombia. In 2007 she taught at Colombia's Universidad Pedagogic Nacional before moving to the University of Alberta where she worked from 2007 to 2008. In 2009 she moved to Florida and became a graduate student at Nova Southeastern University, where she graduated in 2014 with a PhD in oceanography and marine biology. Fonnegra's dissertation was "Inc...
Go to Profile#8933
Kathryn H. Schmitz
#126595
Overall Influence
Mary Kathryn "Katie" Haltiwanger Schmitz is an American exercise physiologist. She is the Associate Director of Population Sciences at Penn State University College of Medicine and a Full Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#8934
John Hogeland Pemberton
#133249
Overall Influence
#8935
Michael J. Pabst
#133250
Overall Influence
#8936
Paul A. Tyler
#133269
Overall Influence
#8937
Tatsuo Utagawa
#109623
Overall Influence
1917 - 2006 (89 years)
Tatsuo Utagawa is a Japanese ornithologist and retired professor from Azabu University. A native of Tokyo, he graduated from Tokyo University in 1937 in veterinary medicine. He worked at Ueno Zoo. In 1958 he obtained his doctorate in science from Hokkaido University, on research in "A Comparative Study of chromosomes in birds". Later he became the Section Chief for Birds and Wild Animals at the Experimental Forestry Station for the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. In 1959 he was awarded the Ornithological Society of Japan Award and published various academic papers in the OSJ jo...
Go to Profile#8938
Kari Nadeau
#85733
Overall Influence
Kari C. Nadeau is the Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health and John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies. She practices Allergy, Asthma, Immunology in children and adults. She has published over 400+ papers, many in the field of climate change and health. Dr. Nadeau, with a team of individuals and patients and families, has been able to help major progress and impact in the clinical fields of immunology, infection, asthma and allergy. Dr. Nadeau is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the U.S. EPA Children’s Health Prote...
Go to Profile#8939
Kenneth B. Mccredie
#133281
Overall Influence
#8940
Richard A. Fuller
#133301
Overall Influence
#8941
Thomas A. Woolsey
#133308
Overall Influence
#8942
John W. Mason
#133347
Overall Influence
#8943
Jonathan Marchini
#103256
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Jonathan Laurence Marchini is a Bayesian statistician and professor of statistical genomics in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford, a tutorial fellow in statistics at Somerville College, Oxford and a co-founder and director of Gensci Ltd. He co-leads the Haplotype Reference Consortium.
Go to Profile#8944
Stephen Busby
#83059
Overall Influence
Stephen Busby FRS is a British biochemist, and professor at the University of Birmingham. He is the chair of the Biochemical Society. External links http://www.jic.ac.uk/corporate/about/organisation/scienceandimpactadvisoryboard.htmlhttp://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/Intro/SAB.htmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20120426002158/http://www2.bioch.ox.ac.uk/oubs/pastevents.php
Go to Profile#8945
Donald C. Goff
#133362
Overall Influence
#8946
Peter W. Halligan
#133366
Overall Influence
#8947
Sonia Altizer
#113884
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Sonia M. Altizer is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Ecology in the University of Georgia, Odum School of Ecology. Early life Altizer was born as the daughter of Jim and Chris Altizer of Watkinsville, Georgia. She grew up in York, Pennsylvania. Her passion for biology and the natural world began when she received a gift of a microscope and a grow-your-own-butterflies kit on her twelfth birthday.
Go to Profile#8948
Kurt Blaser
#133378
Overall Influence
#8949
Pauline Rudd
#104028
Overall Influence
Pauline Rudd is a British biochemist and Professor at the Microbiome Institute, University College Cork. She is a founder of Wessex Biochemicals, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and was awarded the James Gregory Medal in 2010.
Go to Profile#8950
Nobuyuki Itoh
#133383
Overall Influence
