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,
#10451
Keith B. J. Franklin
#144773
Overall Influence
#10452
Thomas Bergan
#144774
Overall Influence
#10453
David A. Greenberg
#144780
Overall Influence
#10454
David E. Schteingart
#144785
Overall Influence
#10455
Claude Degott
#144795
Overall Influence
#10456
J. Martyn Bailey
#144798
Overall Influence
#10457
Neva Haites
#107762
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Neva Haites OBE FRSE FMedSci is a scientist and physician who investigates molecular genetics and diseases in humans and specialises in cancer genetics; she has more than 90 publications in genetics concerning inherited predisposition to cancer, retinitis pigmentosa, hereditary motor neuropathy and sensory neuropathy.
Go to Profile#10458
Takeshi Kaneko
#144839
Overall Influence
#10459
Arvind Varsani
#144871
Overall Influence
#10460
L. F.m. Angelici Luiselli
#144881
Overall Influence
#10461
Elizabeth A. McMahan
#125520
Overall Influence
1924 - 2009 (85 years)
Elizabeth Anne McMahan , known as Betty, was a Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 26 years. She had a distinguished and varied career as an entomologist, psychologist, cartoonist, writer of children's books, and world traveler. She worked in the parapsychology lab of J. B. Rhine at Duke for several years, but left for graduate work in entomology at the University of Hawaiʻi and subsequent research on the feeding, foraging, and social behavior of termites and some of their associate and predator species. Her field work in entomology took her to Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Ecuador, Australia, and India.
Go to Profile#10462
Mark Ohman
#144875
Overall Influence
Mark D. Ohman is an American Biological Oceanographer. He is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. He is Director and Lead Principal Investigator of the California Current Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research site, supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Go to Profile#10463
Samantha Joye
#86106
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Samantha "Mandy" Joye is an American oceanographer who is well known for her work studying the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. She is a professor at the University of Georgia in the Department of Marine Sciences. Joye has made fundamental contributions in ocean biogeochemistry and microbial ecology, and is also regularly called upon by scientific and policy agencies as well as the media for expert commentary on ocean ecology. She was the expedition scientist and a lead science advisor for The Deep episode, part of the BBC's Blue Planet II, and is featured in production videos including Brine Pools: Exploring an Alien World for Blue Planet II and Future of the Oceans.
Go to Profile#10464
James Francis Roche
#144924
Overall Influence
#10465
Randall W. Burt
#144925
Overall Influence
#10466
Robert L. Trelstad
#144928
Overall Influence
#10467
Louis J. Muglia
#113900
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Louis J. Muglia is an American medical geneticist, endocrinologist and pediatrician noted for his research on premature birth and prenatal testing. Muglia was the A. Graeme Mitchell Chair and Directory of the Division of Human Genetics and Vice Chair for Research at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. He was also the director of the Center for the Prevention of Preterm Birth at Cincinnati. In January 2020, Muglia became the President and CEO of the biomedical research foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.
Go to Profile#10468
Lisa Monteggia
#130179
Overall Influence
Lisa M. Monteggia is an American neuroscientist who is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Psychiatry & Psychology as well as the Barlow Family Director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Monteggia probes the molecular mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders and has made critical discoveries about the role of the neurotrophins in antidepressant efficacy, the antidepressant mechanisms of Ketamine, as well as the epigenetic regulation of synaptic transmission by MeCP2.
Go to Profile#10469
Kent Sahlin
#144949
Overall Influence
#10470
Marie D. Burdick
#144957
Overall Influence
#10471
Stephanos J. Hadziyannis
#144959
Overall Influence
#10472
Jamie S. Foster
#75003
Overall Influence
Jamie S. Foster is an American astrobiologist, microbiologist, and academic. She is a professor at the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, and Genetics and Genomes Graduate Program at the University of Florida.
Go to Profile#10473
Hubert Schrezenmeier
#144977
Overall Influence
#10474
Freda D. Miller
#144978
Overall Influence
#10475
Kazuhir 0. Imai
#144980
Overall Influence
#10476
Mark Wilkinson
#144994
Overall Influence
#10477
Renzhi Ma
#145012
Overall Influence
#10478
Sakol Panyim
#145015
Overall Influence
#10479
Richard Harding
#145018
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
#10480
Pierre Pollak
#145019
Overall Influence
#10481
Carsten F. Dormann
#145024
Overall Influence
#10482
Barry Sinervo
#136083
Overall Influence
1960 - 2021 (61 years)
Barry R. Sinervo was a behavioral ecologist and evolutionary biologist. He was a full professor at University of California Santa Cruz where his research interests included game theory, climate change, herpetology, and animal behavior. One of his major discoveries was of a rock-paper-scissors game in side-blotched lizard mating behaviour. He also discovered evidence of the Baldwin effect in the side-blotched lizard. Sinervo was born in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, and educated at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, and the University of Washington, Seattle. He died from cancer at age 60 on Ma...
Go to Profile#10483
Kenneth Ira Berns
#145052
Overall Influence
#10484
Gary D. V. Hankins
#145056
Overall Influence
#10485
Karen H. Black
#94083
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Karen H. Black, born about 1970, is a palaeontologist at the University of New South Wales. Black is the leading author on research describing new families, genera and species of fossil mammals. She is interested in understanding faunal change and community structure in order to gain new understandings of past, current and future changes in biodiversity which are driven by climate.
Go to Profile#10486
R. Eric Miller
#145074
Overall Influence
#10487
Shigeru Matsukura
#145077
Overall Influence
#10488
Philip J. Steer
#145090
Overall Influence
#10489
Quentin Blane Bone
#145091
Overall Influence
#10490
James D. Potter
#145095
Overall Influence
#10491
Michael D. Tokach
#145113
Overall Influence
#10492
Nathalie Jetté
#145114
Overall Influence
#10493
Hanns Kreisel
#115829
Overall Influence
1931 - 2017 (86 years)
Hanns Kreisel was a German mycologist and professor emeritus. He was born in Leipzig in 1931. Kreisel was a professor at the University of Greifswald. His field was the classification of fungi, where he has studied this group of organisms not only in Germany but in almost all continents, as in Brazil, Seychelles, Vietnam, Cuba and Syria. He had succeeded with his first collaboration to develop a scientifically sound and current fungal flora of Yemen. Kreisel also specialized in the fungal groups of gut fungi.
Go to Profile#10494
Bernhard Kuster
#145119
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#10495
Hans Kindahl
#145121
Overall Influence
#10496
Harald Wajant
#145129
Overall Influence
#10497
Margaret Adebisi Sowunmi
#105110
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Margaret Adebisi Sowunmi is a Nigerian botanist and environmental archaeologist. She was Professor of Palynology and Environmental Archaeology at the University of Ibadan. She pioneered the study of environmental archaeology and palaeoethnobotany in Nigeria and is the founder and president of the Palynological Association of Nigeria.
Go to Profile#10498
Michael R. Willig
#145148
Overall Influence
#10499
Gerard C. Chaouat
#145176
Overall Influence
#10500
Nicholas J. Lowe
#145182
Overall Influence
