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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Clear Form

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#10501

David E. Metzler

#130948
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
David E. Metzler was a professor of biochemistry who spent most of his research career at Iowa State University. Early life and education Metzler was born on August 12, 1924, in Palo Alto, California, and was raised in Fresno. He attended the California Institute of Technology as an undergraduate, where Linus Pauling was his major professor. He was a pacifist, and a conscientious objector during World War II, and was obligated to pause his studies for public service, which included fighting forest fires and working as an analytical chemist. After completing his studies at Caltech, Metzler began his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, where he received his Ph.D.
Go to Profile
#10502

Jacqueline Cramer

#93275
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jacqueline Marian Cramer is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party and biologist. Cramer was Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment in the Fourth Balkenende cabinet for the PvdA. Previously she was a professor of sustainable entrepreneurship at Utrecht University and professor of environmental management at Erasmus University. She is member of the board of directors at Royal Dutch Shell and a member of the Social-Economic Council. Eisenhower Fellowships selected Jacqueline Cramer in 1992 to represent The Netherlands.
Go to Profile
#10503

David Lewis Davies

#145192
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10504

Naoyuki Takahashi

#145202
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10505

Patrick A. Berche

#145211
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10506

Peter O. Yates

#145218
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10507

Bernhard Dobberstein

#145220
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10508

Yasuyuki Nomura

#145224
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10509

George Garratty

#145225
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10510

Alexey G. Murzin

#145227
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10511

Zhang Xiangtong

#119536
Overall Influence
1907 - 2007 (100 years)
Zhang Xiangtong , also romanized as Hsiang-Tung Chang, was a Chinese neurophysiologist and an academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences . Career He carried out fundamental studies on the structure and function of the central nervous system. Chang was one of the pioneers in the study of dendritic potentials and among the first to recognize the functional significance of dendrites in the central nervous system. He was the first to propose a fundamental distinction between axosomatic and axodendritic synapses.
Go to Profile
#10512

Karen Mossman

#129994
Overall Influence
Karen Louise Mossman is a Canadian virologist who is a professor of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University. Mossman looks to understand how viruses get around the defence mechanisms of cells. She was part of a team of Canadian researchers who first isolated SARS-CoV-2.
Go to Profile
#10513

Yvonne Cossart

#104909
Overall Influence
1934 - 2014 (80 years)
Yvonne Edna Cossart was an Australian virologist, who discovered the parvovirus B19 in 1975. Cossart graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Science in 1957 and MB BS in 1959. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours for "service to medicine as a specialist in infectious diseases, especially in the areas of virological research, epidemiology and disease prevention, and to education".
Go to Profile
#10514

Gary Maartens

#145272
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10515

Elizabeth H. Head

#145280
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10516

Richard A. Nichols

#91866
Overall Influence
Richard Alan Nichols FLS is Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at Queen Mary University of London. He is known for the Balding–Nichols model. He graduated with a first-class degree in zoology from University College London in 1981 and completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia in 1984 under the supervision of Godfrey Hewitt.
Go to Profile
#10517

Ülo Langel

Ülo Langel
#145296
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Go to Profile
#10518

D. Annesley Williams

#145297
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10519

H. David Wilson

#145298
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10520

Karl-j. Lackner

#145309
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10521

James W. Moulder

#127982
Overall Influence
1921 - 2011 (90 years)
James William Moulder was an American microbiologist. Biography Moulder graduated from the University of Chicago with a bachelor's degree in 1941 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1944. From 1944 to 1945 he was a research associate in malaria at an Office of Scientific Research and Development project in Chicago. In the early part of his career he did research on the biochemistry and immunology of Plasmodium and Trypanosoma. At the University of Chicago he was an instructor from 1946 to 1947 and was appointed to an assistant professorship in 1947. He was eventually promoted to a full professorship and retired as professor emeritus in 1986.
Go to Profile
#10522

Myron I. Cybulsky

#145320
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10523

David Samuel Wilcove

#145323
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10524

Peter A. Jumars

#145330
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10525

Ajaikumar Bahulayan Kunnumakkara

#145333
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10526

Eric James Denton

#145335
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10527

Godfried D. Vogels

#145336
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10528

Gerald V. Gibbs

#145346
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10529

Martin L. Lipkin

#145372
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10530

Michael C. Berndt

#145375
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10531

Robert A. Mueller

#145385
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10532

Hiba Mohamed

#133266
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Hiba Salah-Eldin Mohamed is a Sudanese molecular biologist who works at the University of Khartoum. She won the 2007 Royal Society Pfizer Award. Early life and education Hiba studied zoology at the University of Khartoum, earning a Bachelors in 1993 and a Masters in 1998. She moved to the University of Cambridge Institute for Medical Research for her PhD in 2002. Her doctoral research, "The role of Host Genetics in Susceptibility to Kala-azar in The Sudan", was under the supervision of Jenefer Blackwell. She remained at the CIMR as a postdoctoral fellow.
Go to Profile
#10533

William A. Pulsinelli

#145410
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10534

Tetsuya Mizoue

#145414
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10535

Masamichi Satoh,

#145435
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10536

N. Balakrishnan Nair

#101750
Overall Influence
1927 - 2010 (83 years)
Narayana Balakrishnan Nair was a marine biologist, ecologist and the founder president of Kerala Science Congress. He was known for his advocacy of trawling ban during monsoon seasons which was later accepted and imposed by the Government of Kerala. A Jawaharlal Nehru fellow, Nair was an elected fellow of all the major Indian science academies as well as the Zoological Society of London. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1971, for his contributions to biological sciences.
Go to Profile
#10537

Thomas L. Lentz

#145462
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10538

Lerner B. Hinshaw

#145464
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10539

Christian Beste

#145474
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10540

Denise Albe-fessard

#145480
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10541

Andreas Jochen Fallgatter

#145484
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10542

Yi-Fang Tsay

#64322
Overall Influence
Yi-Fang Tsay is a Taiwanese botanist. She is a distinguished research fellow at the Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica. Education For high school she attended Taipei First Girls' High School. She received her bachelor's and master's degree from Department of Botany, National Taiwan University. In 1990 she completed her PhD in biological sciences at Carnegie Mellon University.
Go to Profile
#10543

Charles R. Werth

Charles R. Werth
#117110
Overall Influence
1947 - 2001 (54 years)
Charles Richard Werth was an American botanist who studied the evolution of numerous plant taxa through isozyme analysis. Background Born in Seoul, Korea, Werth and his family moved to Falls Church, Virginia in 1950, where he grew up and graduated from high school in 1965. Werth began his post-secondary education at the University of Virginia, which granted him a BA in biology in 1969. He taught middle school science and mathematics at various schools in Virginia from 1969 to 1976. During this time, he received an MA in secondary education in 1973 and subsequently received another MA in biolo...
Go to Profile
#10544

Janet L. Smith

Janet L. Smith
#115189
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Janet Louise Smith is the Margaret J. Hunter Collegiate Professor in the Life Sciences Institute, director of the Center for Structural Biology at the University of Michigan, professor of biological chemistry and biophysics at the University of Michigan, and research professor in the Life Sciences Institute. Additionally, she is the scientific director of The General Medical Sciences and Cancer Institutes’ structural biology facility at the Advanced Photon Source .
Go to Profile
#10545

David Robinson Goodlett

#145518
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10546

Hideyo Yamaguchi

#145523
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Go to Profile
#10547

Irwin P. Ting

#145534
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10548

Marcello Siniscalco

Marcello Siniscalco
#114918
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
Marcello Siniscalco was an Italian scientist at the forefront of the development of the nascent field of genetics. A contemporary of Watson and Crick, he spent a significant part of his international career heading the Department of Somatic Cell Genetics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, but throughout his life maintained ties to his home country of Italy. Siniscalco pioneered the study of population and molecular genetics through his research on the population of Sardinia, analyzing the genes responsible for thalassemia and G6PD deficiency syndrome, among others. Sinis...
Go to Profile
#10549

Peter Mombaerts

#145546
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#10550

Lucrecia Covelo

#103700
Overall Influence
1920 - 2000 (80 years)
Lucrecia Covelo de Zolessi was a Uruguayan entomologist, curator and film-maker, who taught at the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences at the University of the Republic, where she was Chair of the Entomology department.
Go to Profile