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,
#9451
Victor John Morris
#137033
Overall Influence
#9452
Ian S. Trowbridge
#137037
Overall Influence
#9453
Bernard Lerer
#137041
Overall Influence
#9454
Marina Wolf
#124231
Overall Influence
Marina Elizabeth Wolf is an American neuroscientist and Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University. Previously she served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience in the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She has been a pioneer in studying the role of neuronal plasticity in drug addiction. Her laboratory is particularly interested in understanding why individuals recovering from substance use disorder remain vulnerable to drug craving and relapse even after long periods of abstinence.
Go to Profile#9455
Hagai Bergman,
#137056
Overall Influence
#9456
Alois Saria
#137062
Overall Influence
#9457
Vladimir Pešić
#136934
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Vladimir Pešić is a scientist from Montenegro, a biologist who is an expert on Hydrachnidiae, the water mites, and a co-author taxon authority for a new species of freshwater snail Valvata montenegrina Glöer & Pešić, 2008 . Pešić works in the Department of Biology at the University of Montenegro, at Podgorica.
Go to Profile#9458
Madhusudan Katti
#107174
Overall Influence
Madhusudan Katti is an Indian American environmental scientist who is an Associate Professor of Ecology at the North Carolina State University. His research studies the evolutionary ecology of vertebrate response to human modifications of habitats.
Go to Profile#9459
Paul Hardin
#120384
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Paul Hardin is an American scientist in the field of chronobiology and a pioneering researcher in the understanding of circadian clocks in flies and mammals. Hardin currently serves as a distinguished professor in the biology department at Texas A&M University. He is best known for his discovery of circadian oscillations in the mRNA of the clock gene Period , the importance of the E-Box in per activation, the interlocked feedback loops that control rhythms in activator gene transcription, and the circadian regulation of olfaction in Drosophila melanogaster. Born in a suburb of Chicago, Matte...
Go to Profile#9460
Hartwig Wolburg
#137066
Overall Influence
#9461
Bruno Mégarbane
#137067
Overall Influence
#9462
David Bellwood
#101399
Overall Influence
David Roy Bellwood is an Australian marine biologist. Bellwood studies the ecology, biogeography and evolution of marine fishes, and in 2016 was elected to the Australian Academy of Science. Early life Bellwood was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. He graduated from the University of Bath in 1980, with Honours, having studied the effects of cyanide as an anaesthetic for reef fishes. He worked on North Sea inshore fishing trawlers and trained in taxonomy at the Natural History Museum in London, under zoologist Geoffrey Boxshall.
Go to Profile#9463
Yvan Saeys
#137079
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#9464
Anne D. Yoder
#96963
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Anne Daphne Yoder is an American biologist, researcher, and professor in the Department of Biology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Yoder's work includes the study, preservation, and conservation of the multifarious biodiversity found in Madagascar. One of her main research topics focuses on the diverse lemur population found on the island. Specifically, Yoder's research concentrates on assorted geographic factors that lead to varying levels of biological differences in the speciation process. Her investigations utilize genome research to further understand the complex and unique degree of speciation that occurs in lemur populations.
Go to Profile#9465
Thomas F. Koetzle
#137083
Overall Influence
#9466
Raymond J. Deshaies
#110361
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Raymond Joseph Deshaies is an American biochemist and cell biologist. He is senior vice president of global research at Amgen and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology . Prior to that, he was a professor of biology at Caltech and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also the co-founder of the biotechnology companies Proteolix and Cleave Biosciences. His research focuses on mechanisms and regulation of protein homeostasis in eukaryotic cells, with a particular focus on how proteins are conjugated with ubiquitin and degraded by the proteasom...
Go to Profile#9467
Graham J. Edgar
#137098
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#9468
Jorma J. Isola
#137103
Overall Influence
#9469
Harold Rosenberg
#137104
Overall Influence
#9470
Giuseppe Banfi
#137107
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#9471
Deenan Pillay
#137120
Overall Influence
#9472
Isabelle Vernos
#137124
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Isabelle Vernos is an ICREA research professor at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. She received a PhD in biochemistry from the Autonomous University of Madrid followed by postdoctoral studies at Cambridge University. Between 1992 and 2005 she developed her research career at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Since 2005 she is an ICREA Research Professor at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona where she leads the group on Microtubule Function and Cell Division, the same year she also became a member of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Go to Profile#9473
Lesley Ann Hughes
#77163
Overall Influence
Lesley Ann Hughes is an Australian academic and climate scientist. Hughes is Distinguished Professor of Biology and Pro Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie University. She is also Director, Biodiversity Node, at the NSW Office of Environment & Heritage Climate Adaptation Research Hub and a Councillor at the independent Climate Council. From 2011 to 2013, she was a Commissioner of the Australian Government’s Climate Commission . Hughes was one of five Australian Lead Authors who worked on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth & Fifth Assessment Reports in 2007. She works at the Centre for Smart Green Cities.
Go to Profile#9474
Nina Rønsted
#68670
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nina Rønsted is a Danish botanist, who is Director of Science and Conservation at The National Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii. Career Following completion of her PhD in Pharmaceutical Science she worked as a postdoctoral and then international fellow at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew , including spending 16 months on secondment to the Department of Plant Biology, University of Minnesota US, before returning to work at the University of Copenhagen as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry . Since 2012 she has been at her current position as an associate professor and since 2015 full professor.
Go to Profile#9475
Yasuyoshi Ouchi
#137134
Overall Influence
#9476
Timothy S. Jr. Blackwell
#137141
Overall Influence
#9477
Alison Bailey
#99141
Overall Influence
Alison Bailey is a New Zealand farm management academic researching the economics of farming. Bailey completed both her undergraduate studies and PhD at University of Wales, Aberystwyth. After completing her PhD, she worked at Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh, University of Reading and Cranfield University. Appointed in 2015, she is currently professor of farm management at Lincoln University.
Go to Profile#9478
Nancy Cox
#76248
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Nancy J. Cox is an American virologist who has served as the director of the Influenza Division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2006 to 2014 and as director of the CDC's World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Surveillance, Epidemiology and Control of Influenza from 1992 to 2014. Cox served as the Chair and Co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council of GISAID, between the years 2008 and 2017 and is frequently recognized for having played an instrumental role in the success of GISAID.
Go to Profile#9479
Thordar Quelprud
#124266
Overall Influence
1901 - 1992 (91 years)
Thordar Fladmoe Quelprud was a Norwegian geneticist. Quelprud was a student of Kristine Bonnevie, who established the Institute for Genetic Research in 1916. Bonnevie sent him to Berlin in the 1920s, where he became fascinated with German scientific racism. He was appointed a professor of genetic studies at the University of Oslo during the Second World War, and he was removed from the position in 1945.
Go to Profile#9480
Bruno Falissard
#131965
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Bruno Falissard is a French mathematician, psychiatrist, and academic. He is a professor of Biostatistics at Paris-Saclay Medical University, the Director of the CESP , and the former President of the IACAPAP .
Go to Profile#9481
Pietro Attilio Tonali
#137153
Overall Influence
#9482
Julie Overbaugh
#134559
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Julie M. Overbaugh is an American virologist. She is a professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Overbaugh is best known for her translational approach to studying HIV transmission and pathogenesis and studies of how the antibody response evolves to recognize viruses. Her work in maternal and infant HIV transmission helped make clear the risk posed by breastfeeding and highlighted unique characteristics of an infant immune response that could inform vaccine development. Major scientific contributions to the understanding of HIV transmission and pathogenesis also include: identif...
Go to Profile#9483
Lisa Ballance
#116462
Overall Influence
Lisa Taylor Ballance is an American marine scientist who is Director Marine Mammal Institute and Endowed Chair for Marine Mammal Research at Oregon State University. Early life and education Ballance studied biology as an undergraduate student at the University of California, San Diego. Ballance completed her master's studies in marine science at San Jose State University. Her research considered the ecology and behavior of the bottlenose dolphin. She moved to University of California, Los Angeles for her doctoral research, where she studied the ecology of tropical seabirds in the Eastern Pacific.
Go to Profile#9484
Sally Archibald
#135129
Overall Influence
Sally Archibald is a South African scientist and Associate Professor at the University of Witwatersrand. Her research primarily focuses on savanna ecosystems within the context of global climate change as well as the exploration of fire ecology and earth-system feedbacks. Archibald was the recipient of the 2012 Mercer Award for her co-authorship of the paper "Tree cover in sub-Saharan Africa: Rainfall and fire constrain forest and savanna as alternative stable states".
Go to Profile#9485
Antonis Rokas
#137165
Overall Influence
#9486
Małgorzata Kossut
#95033
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Małgorzata Kossut is a Polish neuroscientist specializing in neuroplasticity and neural mechanisms of learning and memory, professor of natural sciences, Head of Department of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology and Laboratory of Neuroplasticity of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#9487
Elio García-Austt
#94377
Overall Influence
1919 - 2005 (86 years)
Elio García-Austt was a Uruguayan neuroscientist. Beginnings in Montevideo García-Austt's father was a professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine in Montevideo and was a member of the Parliament of Uruguay.
Go to Profile#9488
Peter Herscovitch
#137174
Overall Influence
#9489
Giuseppe Poli
#137176
Overall Influence
#9490
James A. Joseph
#137180
Overall Influence
#9491
Erich Franz Prof Dr Elstner
#137185
Overall Influence
#9492
Gary K. Schoolnik
#137191
Overall Influence
#9493
Vivien Marx
#137209
Overall Influence
#9494
Errol Zeiger
#137211
Overall Influence
#9495
Astrid Nehlig
#137213
Overall Influence
#9496
Anh Tuan Dinh-Xuan
#109067
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Anh Tuan Dinh-Xuan is a French researcher, doctor and university professor. He manages the hospital department of Physiology - Practical examinations at Cochin hospital in Paris. His research concerns the physiology of the respiratory system and the physiopathology of pulmonary diseases.
Go to Profile#9497
Bart Kempenaers
#137294
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#9498
Akira Ichihara
#137307
Overall Influence
#9499
David R. Foster
#137308
Overall Influence
#9500
Thomas Voets
#137311
Overall Influence
