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,
#10301
Derek A. Ratcliffe
#143688
Overall Influence
#10302
Hirokazu Tsukaya
#143706
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#10303
Kentaro Inoue
#143723
Overall Influence
#10304
Hirofumi Hamada
#143724
Overall Influence
#10305
Iruka Okeke
#123078
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Iruka Okeke is a Nigerian microbiologist who studies the genetics of enteric disease-causing bacteria such as E. coli. She also researches ways to improve microbiology laboratory practices in Africa. She is a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Sciences and the African Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#10306
Jürgen Bauhus
#143734
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#10307
Anders Rane
#143738
Overall Influence
#10308
Heikkia Henttonen
#143741
Overall Influence
#10309
Aribert Rothenberger
#143743
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
#10310
Barbara E. Ehrlich
#97132
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Barbara E. Ehrlich is Professor of Pharmacology and of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale University working on the biophysics of membrane ion channels. Recent research investigates the function of polycystin-2, the inositol trisphosphate receptor, and the ryanodine receptor.
Go to Profile#10311
Richard Dennis Sontheimer
#143749
Overall Influence
#10312
Yinsheng Wang
#143751
Overall Influence
#10313
Robbert A. Schilperoort
#143759
Overall Influence
#10314
Heinrich Höfler
#143761
Overall Influence
#10315
Michael J. Hynes
#143778
Overall Influence
#10316
Alexander L. Greninger
#141301
Overall Influence
Alexander L. Greninger is assistant director of the UW Medicine Clinical Virology Laboratory and a UW assistant professor of Laboratory Medicine. His research is focused on genomic and proteomic characterization of a variety of human viruses and bacteria, with a focus on respiratory viruses and human herpesviruses.
Go to Profile#10317
Jun Zhu
#72930
Overall Influence
Jun Zhu is a statistician and entomologist who works as a professor in the Departments of Statistics and Entomology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research interests involve the analysis of spatial data and spatio-temporal data, and the applications of this analysis in environmental statistics.
Go to Profile#10318
Roger L. Kitching
#143796
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
#10319
Robert Burne
#104898
Overall Influence
Robert A. Burne is an American microbiologist focusing on molecular mechanisms governing the ability of bacteria that are capable of causing diseases in humans to modulate their virulence in response to environmental influences. As of 2017 he was a Distinguished Professor at University of Florida.
Go to Profile#10320
John Robert Macey
#143807
Overall Influence
#10321
Samuele Cortese
#143810
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#10322
Joseph Verghese
#143819
Overall Influence
#10324
Andrea L. Graham
#143861
Overall Influence
Andrea L. Graham is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and a former co-director of the Global Health Program at Princeton University. She works in immunoparasitology to understand the evolutionary ecology of host defenses and parasite transmission strategies. In 2018, she was named a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow, and in 2020 she was elected as a Fellow of AAAS. From 2006 to 2010, she was awarded a BBSRC David Phillps Fellowship to investigate immune responses to co-infection while at the University of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#10325
James Champoux
#96686
Overall Influence
1942 - 2019 (77 years)
James J. Champoux was an American microbiologist who worked at University of Washington and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Education He earned his B.S. at University of Washington and his Ph.D. at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#10326
Steven A McCarroll
#143866
Overall Influence
#10327
Michael Tamm
#143877
Overall Influence
#10328
Zakri Abdul Hamid
#117438
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Tan Sri Zakri bin Abdul Hamid has had a distinguished career in science as a researcher, educator, administrator and diplomat. Awarded the federal honorific title "Tan Sri" by Malaysia's head of state in 2014, he served until 2016 as the founding Chair at the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services , as the Science Advisor to Malaysia's Prime Minister, and was one of 26 members of the UN Secretary-General's Scientific Advisory Board.
Go to Profile#10329
Margreet Vissers
#139537
Overall Influence
Margreet Catherina Maria Vissers is a New Zealand biochemistry academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a PhD titled 'The Effects of neutrophil oxidants and proteinases on the degradation of glomerular basement membrane : implications for inflammatory tissue damage ' at the University of Otago, Vissers joined the staff, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#10330
Patrick De Deckker
#143907
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#10331
Robert Joseph Willis
#143909
Overall Influence
#10332
Jeanne M. Nerbonne
#143922
Overall Influence
#10333
Neelima Sinha
#141091
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Neelima Roy Sinha is an American botanist. She is a professor at the University of California Davis. Early life and education Neelima Sinha was born on March 26, 1954, in a small town near New Delhi, India. She earned her masters in Botany from Lucknow University in 1975 after which she worked for nine years as a bank manager before returning to academia, first moving to Waco, Texas in 1985 for a one year masters in environmental studies and then in 1986 entered the University of California, Berkeley where she was the first student to join the lab Sarah Hake a maize geneticist at the Plant Gene Expression Center.
Go to Profile#10334
Tan Tin Wee
#105935
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Tan Tin Wee is a Singaporeanean bioinformatician and university lecturer. He is an associate professor at the Department of Biochemistry at the National University of Singapore and Chief Executive of the National Supercomputing Center Singapore. As the inventor and founder of multilingual internationalized domain names and a pioneer of the Internet, he was inducted into the Internet Society of 2012 along with the founding fathers of the Internet in the first Internet Hall of Fame. He is well known in Singapore and the region for his work on propagating and developing the Internet.
Go to Profile#10335
Katherine L Nathanson
#143959
Overall Influence
#10336
Erich Grotewold
#143964
Overall Influence
#10337
Eli Keshet
#140312
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Eli Keshet is an Israeli biochemist and professor of molecular biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the laureate of the 2021 Israel Prize for Life Sciences. Biography Keshet completed his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His post-doctoral work included studies in the laboratory of Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin . In 1982 he began teaching at the Hebrew University, becoming an associate professor in 1986 and a full professor in 1993. In 2006 he won the EMET Prize, in 2014 the Rothchild award and 2015 the NAVBO Benditt Meritorious Award
Go to Profile#10338
Douglas G. Stuart
#143967
Overall Influence
#10339
Chonnettia Jones
#103922
Overall Influence
Chonnettia Jones is an American geneticist and developmental biologist. She has served as the executive director of Addgene since 2022. Jones was previously the vice president of research at the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the director of Insight & Analysis at the Wellcome Trust.
Go to Profile#10340
David R. Jones
#96259
Overall Influence
1941 - 2010 (69 years)
David Robert Jones, was a British born zoologist and biologist. He was educated at Bristol Cathedral School, the University of Southampton and the University of East Anglia He then worked at the University of Bristol, and joined the Zoology Department of the University of British Columbia in 1969 where he spent the remainder of his career ultimately becoming Killam Research Scholar and Professor Emeritus. During his career he was awarded the Fry Medal of the Canadian Society of Zoologists, the Killam Research Prize, the Flavelle Medal of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellowship of the Royal...
Go to Profile#10341
Clyde F. Barker
#143992
Overall Influence
#10342
Ernst Epstein
#144010
Overall Influence
#10343
Øyvind Hammer
#144012
Overall Influence
#10344
Thomas Detre
#53252
Overall Influence
1924 - 2010 (86 years)
Thomas P. Detre, M.D. was a psychiatrist, academic, and senior administrator at the University of Pittsburgh, eulogized as the "visionary" leader most responsible for the transformation the university's teaching hospitals into the currently construed University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and elevating the stature of the university's six schools of health sciences through increased emphasis on research.
Go to Profile#10345
Zoe G. Cardon
#77785
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Zoe G. Cardon is an American ecosystems ecologist focused on observing and understanding ecosystem interactions in the rhizosphere. She has also played an integral role in developing systems to better study the rhizosphere without digging it up and interfering with the ecosystems using stable isotopes and mathematical modeling. Cardon is currently a senior scientist at the Marine Biology Laboratory at the Ecosystems Center and an adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University. She is credited with helping to establish the National Microbiome Initiative at the White H...
Go to Profile#10346
Vincenzo Pirrotta
#128942
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Vincenzo Pirrotta is a biologist known for his work on Drosophila and polycomb group proteins. Born in Palermo, Italy, Pirotta migrated to the United States and enrolled at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he obtained undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral fellowships in physical chemistry and molecular biology. He later moved to Europe where he began studying gene regulation in bacteriophages and Drosophila . He was appointed assistant professor at the University of Basel in 1972. Pirotta returned to the United States, earning a full professorship at the Baylor College of Medicine in 1992.
Go to Profile#10347
Jean‐pierre Cartron
#144045
Overall Influence
#10348
Robert Cashner
#51047
Overall Influence
1940 - 2018 (78 years)
Robert C. Cashner is an American ichthyologist and retired academic administrator. He was the first to describe the Stippled studfish and the bluefin stoneroller . Cashner was a faculty member at the University of New Orleans for many years. He was dean of UNO's graduate school from 1996 to 2008 and vice chancellor for research from 2001 to 2008. He was elected as president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in 1997.
Go to Profile#10349
Austen Fox Riggs
#144060
Overall Influence
#10350
Eugene S. Morton
#144063
Overall Influence
