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,
#9851
Riccardo Cortese
#139848
Overall Influence
#9852
Craig C. Malbon
#139861
Overall Influence
#9853
Bruce A. Hungate
#139866
Overall Influence
#9854
Gerald M. Pohost
#139867
Overall Influence
#9855
Curtis Michael. Lively
#139869
Overall Influence
#9856
Jinsuke Kageyama
#53843
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
is a Japanese psychiatrist. His specialties are criminal psychopathology, psychiatric history, clinical psychiatry and mental health studies. He is Professor Emeritus at Tokyo Institute of Technology and a winner of the Prize of the Japanese Association of Criminology .
Go to Profile#9857
André Russowsky Brunoni
#139880
Overall Influence
#9858
Eliezer Huberman
#139882
Overall Influence
#9859
Gerhard Flachowsky
#139884
Overall Influence
#9860
Roshan Cools
#127675
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Roshan Cools is a Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry at Radboud University Nijmegen. She is interested in the motivational and cognitive control of human behaviour and how it is impacted by neuromodulation. She was elected to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.
Go to Profile#9861
John E. McCosker
#96562
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
John Edward McCosker is an American ichthyologist and as has been part of expeditions to many countries such as Antarctic, Australia, and the Galapagos. After extensive study and ten expeditions he is one of the foremost experts on the Galapagos. He has been featured in various different television documentaries as well as working with filmmakers and other documentary programs off screen.
Go to Profile#9862
Wilfrid Butt
#62818
Overall Influence
1922 - 2006 (84 years)
Wilfrid Roger Butt was an English biochemist and reproductive endocrinologist. He pioneered the isolation and purification of several hormones, particularly follicle-stimulating hormone , from cadavers, and used his isolates of FSH to treat female infertility.
Go to Profile#9863
Frances Platt
#116439
Overall Influence
Frances Mary Platt is a British biochemist and pharmacologist who is a professor at the University of Oxford. Her research investigates rare genetic disorders known as lysosomal storage diseases, progressive conditions that lead to neurodegeneration. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2021.
Go to Profile#9864
Merlin Sheldrake
#75224
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
#9865
Andre I. Calin
#139935
Overall Influence
#9866
David T. Purtilo
#139959
Overall Influence
#9867
Anton Mclachlan
#139970
Overall Influence
#9868
Christian Sonne
#139973
Overall Influence
#9869
Noel Beadle
#114343
Overall Influence
1914 - 1998 (84 years)
Noel Charles William Beadle was an Australian botanist and plant ecologist who spent most of his working life at the University of New England in Armidale. Early life Noel Beadle was born in Sydney to parents Emma and Arthur Beadle and spent his early life in the suburb of Chatswood. Living close to bushland, he enjoyed exploring the bush. He developed an appreciation for horticulture in his boyhood, learning the Latin names of plants from his horticulturally trained father.
Go to Profile#9870
Elizabeth M. Mcnally
#140022
Overall Influence
#9871
Amiya K. Banerjee
#140045
Overall Influence
#9872
Richard J. Bandler
#140054
Overall Influence
#9873
Marty Crump
#105426
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Martha L. "Marty" Crump is a behavioral ecologist in the Department of Biology and the Ecology Center at Utah State University who studies amphibians and reptiles. Crump was the first individual to perform a long-term ecological study on a community of tropical amphibians, and did pioneering work in the classification of variability in amphibian egg size as a function of habitat predictability. She has co-authoried one of the most popular modern herpetology textbooks, Herpetology as well as the memoir In Search of the Golden Frog and a number of other books for both adults and children. In ...
Go to Profile#9874
Lubna Tahtamouni
#126102
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Lubna Hamid Tawfiq Tahtamouni is a Jordanian biologist known for her work in developmental biology and cancer research. She is the head of the Department of Biology and Biotechnology at Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan. She has won multiple awards for her work on breast cancer, and is known as an advocate for allowing young women in the Arab world to choose a career in science. In 2016, she was named one of BBC's 100 Women.
Go to Profile#9875
Léia Scheinvar
#107615
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Léia Akcelrad Lerner de Scheinvar is a Brazilian-Mexican botanist. She has dedicated her work to studying and protecting Mexico's cacti. Early life and education Scheinvar was born in Brazil on 30 September 1954.
Go to Profile#9876
Alison Power
#134444
Overall Influence
Alison G. Power is an American biologist. She is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Her research investigates disease ecology in plant communities, both natural and agricultural, across the U.S., Central America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
Go to Profile#9877
Michael Ray Kearney
#140091
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
#9878
David J. Manners
#140096
Overall Influence
#9879
Douglas M. Stocco
#140107
Overall Influence
#9880
Leo P. Renaud
#140116
Overall Influence
#9881
J. Clive Ellory
#140125
Overall Influence
#9882
David Allan Young
#111779
Overall Influence
1915 - 1991 (76 years)
David Allan Young Jr. , was an American entomologist who specialized in the taxonomy of the Cicadellidae and authored a comprehensive treatment of the family with numerous genera and species described and named by him. This work in three parts Taxonomic Study of the Cicadellinae covered 292 genera.
Go to Profile#9883
Swang N. Thung
#140133
Overall Influence
#9884
Poul Nissen
#140150
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#9885
Linda Karen Medlin
#140171
Overall Influence
#9886
John W. Sedat
#140178
Overall Influence
#9887
Paul Stephen Foster
#140192
Overall Influence
#9888
Andrew Wilkie
#134423
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Andrew Oliver Mungo Wilkie is a clinical geneticist who has been the Nuffield professor of Pathology at the University of Oxford since 2003. Education Wilkie was educated at Arnold House School, Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1980 and a Master of Arts degree in 1984. He moved to Merton College, Oxford, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1983 and subsequently a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1992.
Go to Profile#9889
Maevia Noemí Correa
#51374
Overall Influence
1914 - 2005 (91 years)
Maevia Noemí Correa was an Argentine botanist, researcher, botanical curator, and professor. She studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum Studies at the National University of La Plata, and in 1953 completed a doctorate in natural sciences at the same university, with a dissertation titled, "Las Orquídeas Argentinas de la Tribu Polychondreae Schltr., subtribu Spiranthinae Pfitzer", under the direction of Dr. Ángel Lulio Cabrera. Between 1956 and 1957, the American Association of University Women sponsored her study at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1956 to 1958, she...
Go to Profile#9890
John S. March
#140212
Overall Influence
#9891
David. A. Gewirtz
#140216
Overall Influence
#9892
Benjamin Weiss
#140217
Overall Influence
#9893
Alice Cheung
#132016
Overall Influence
Alice Cheung is an American biochemist who is a professor of molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research considers the molecular and cellular biology of polarization. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2020.
Go to Profile#9894
Toshio Kuroki
#140226
Overall Influence
#9895
Laurence John Garey
#140233
Overall Influence
#9896
Wolfram Weckwerth
#140234
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
#9897
Nicholas Katsanis
#140240
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#9898
Shunji Natori
#140243
Overall Influence
#9899
Gertrude Falk
#84184
Overall Influence
1925 - 2008 (83 years)
Gertrude Falk was an American physiologist, who was Professor of Physiology at University College London, and the first woman to work in her field at UCL Medical School. Born to immigrant parents in the United States, she was the first in her family to enroll at University, earning Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Falk worked at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, University of Washington and UCL Medical School. She and neuroscientist Paul Fatt researched cellular biophysics to find how the retina converts light into electrical signals, and later worked along...
Go to Profile#9900
Shigeo Koyasu
#140246
Overall Influence
