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,
#10701
Ralph A. Tripp
#146806
Overall Influence
#10702
Dimitris Tzanoudakis
#123114
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Dimitris Tzanoudakis is a Greek botanist. He studied biology at the University of Patras. He is currently employed as a Professor of plant taxonomy and biogeography, at the University of Patras. He has published on topics like cytogenetics, phylogenetics, taxonomy, conservation and geography of plants, with emphasis on the genera Allium and Paeonia.
Go to Profile#10703
Hermann Steller
#132497
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Hermann Steller is the head of the Strang Laboratory of Apoptosis and Cancer Biology at The Rockefeller University, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Steller pioneered the use of Drosophila as a genetic model for cell death research. He described and characterized the first cell death genes in the fly, Reaper and Hid, and the first Drosophila caspase.
Go to Profile#10704
Donald J. Woodward
#146833
Overall Influence
#10705
Jay D. Amsterdam
#146834
Overall Influence
#10706
Michele Swanson
#138843
Overall Influence
Michele S. Swanson is an American biologist who is a professor of microbiology at the University of Michigan. She has investigated the water-borne pathogen Legionella pneumophila. Swanson is interested in the metabolic cues that underpin the virulence of L. pneumophila and how it is transmitted to humans. She served as president of the American Society for Microbiology in 2018.
Go to Profile#10707
Michael James. Wynne
#146841
Overall Influence
#10708
John A. Widdows
#146844
Overall Influence
#10709
Pieter Johannes Slootweg
#146873
Overall Influence
#10710
T. J. Biscoe
#146876
Overall Influence
#10711
Giorgio Maria Innocenti
#146877
Overall Influence
#10712
Dana Bergstrom
#106259
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Dana Michelle Bergstrom is a senior researcher at the Australian Antarctic Division most notable for her work on identifying and mitigating risks against Antarctic and Sub Antarctic Ecosystems. Early life and education Bergstrom is from Sydney, Australia. She went to Hunters Hill High School and undertook her undergraduate study at Macquarie University . Her postgraduate study was also Macquarie University, where she completed a master's degree. Bergstrom travelled to Macquarie Island in 1983 for her Masters fieldwork, this made her one of the earliest female scientists to go south in the Australian Antarctic program for sustained field work.
Go to Profile#10713
Siegfried Hoyer
#146911
Overall Influence
#10714
Priyanka Joshi
#114593
Overall Influence
Priyanka Joshi is a biochemist who is a research fellow at University of California, Berkeley, where she studies calorie restriction and its effect upon lifespan. Previously, she was an Everitt Butterfield research fellow at Downing College, Cambridge, where she worked at the university's Centre for Misfolding Diseases studying the metabolic precursors which influence the aggregation of proteins such as amyloid beta, which are thought to cause Alzheimer's disease. In 2018, she was listed in the Forbes "30 under 30" list of innovators in science and healthcare and the Vogue 25 list of influent...
Go to Profile#10715
Olivier Honnay
#146924
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#10716
Achim Hoerauf
#146930
Overall Influence
#10717
Peter Rudge
#146942
Overall Influence
#10718
Joseph David Brain
#146954
Overall Influence
#10719
Wolfhard Almers
#146955
Overall Influence
#10720
A. M. Shenkin
#146956
Overall Influence
#10721
Jamie Howard Price
#146957
Overall Influence
#10722
Paul Henry Saenger
#146960
Overall Influence
#10723
Carlo Pozzilli
#146968
Overall Influence
#10724
Clifford E. Brubaker
#80323
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Clifford E. Brubaker is Dean of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. Brubaker is also a professor at that institution and an adjunct professor at both Xian Jiaotong University and Carnegie Mellon University.
Go to Profile#10725
Giovanni Barosi
#146983
Overall Influence
#10726
Vivian Li
#139698
Overall Influence
Vivian Li is a Hong Kong-born cell and developmental biologist working in cancer research at London's Francis Crick Institute. She has been researching how stem cells in the human bowel are programmed to ensure a healthy organ and what goes wrong when cancer develops. She is known for her work on the Wnt signalling pathway, discovering a new way that a molecule called Wnt is activated in bowel cancer. She won a Future Leaders in Cancer Research Prize in part for this discovery.
Go to Profile#10727
Xue-jun Jiang
#146993
Overall Influence
#10728
Evert Jacobsen
#147007
Overall Influence
#10729
Deborah K. Morrison
#115260
Overall Influence
Deborah Kay Morrison is an American cell biologist who is the chief of the Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Signaling at the National Cancer Institute. She conducts research characterizing the RAS pathway and the RAF family kinases and leads efforts to design new therapeutic strategies for cancer treatment.
Go to Profile#10730
Lyn Chitty
#126685
Overall Influence
Dame Lyn Susan Chitty is a British physician and Professor of Genetics and Fetal Medicine at University College London. She is the deputy director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. She is the 2022 president of the International Society for Prenatal Diagnosis. Her research considers non-invasive prenatal diagnostics. She was made a Dame in the 2022 New Year Honours.
Go to Profile#10731
R. D. G. Milner
#147037
Overall Influence
#10732
Sven O. E. Ebbesson
#147053
Overall Influence
#10733
Frank w. Sharbrough
#147057
Overall Influence
#10734
Lawrence R. Pomeroy
#123246
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Lawrence Richards Pomeroy was a zoologist, ecologist, and oceanographer. Biography His family lived in Watkins Glen, New York, until they moved in the mid 1930s to Pass-a-Grille, Florida. As a high school student at St. Petersburg High School, he wrote a nature column for the local newspaper and worked as a crew member of the commercial fishing boat Wye Goodie. At the University of Michigan he graduated in zoology with a B.S. in 1947 and an M.S. in 1948. At Rutgers University he received in 1951 a Ph.D. in marine science. His doctoral dissertation on the physiology of oysters was supervised by Harold Haley "Hal" Haskin .
Go to Profile#10735
Roger C. Bland
#147063
Overall Influence
#10736
Zvi Fuks
#147077
Overall Influence
#10737
Alison Van Eenennaam
#135809
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Alison L. Van Eenennaam is a Cooperative Extension Specialist in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis and runs the Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Laboratory. She has served on national committees such as the USDA National Advisory Committee on Biotechnology in the 21st Century and was awarded the 2014 Borlaug CAST Communication Award. Van Eenennaam writes the Biobeef Blog.
Go to Profile#10738
Stephan Ripke
#147088
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Stephan Ripke is a German statistical geneticist and Research Scientist in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also affiliated with the Broad Institute. He is a leader of the Statistical Analysis Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. He earned his Ph.D. cum laude from Utrecht University in 2014. He received the Sidney R. Baer, Jr., Prize for Innovative and Promising Schizophrenia Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation in 2014, and was awarded a Young Investigator Grant from them in 2015.
Go to Profile#10739
David H. Wasserman
#147098
Overall Influence
#10740
Ricardo Araya
#147111
Overall Influence
#10741
Suzanne Mary Prober
#147125
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Suzanne Mary Prober is an Australian botanist and ecologist. She received her Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Sydney in 1985 and a PhD in Vegetation Ecology from the Australian National University in 1990.
Go to Profile#10742
Eberhard G. Gwinner
#147131
Overall Influence
#10743
William H. Eaglstein
#147135
Overall Influence
#10744
Hans‐hilger Ropers
#147138
Overall Influence
#10745
Denny Sakkas
#147147
Overall Influence
#10746
Eitan Friedman
#147149
Overall Influence
#10747
David G. Mclone
#147177
Overall Influence
#10748
Arthur Zimmermann
#147179
Overall Influence
#10749
Dale Edward Edmondson
#147190
Overall Influence
#10750
Clive Russell Kennedy
#147211
Overall Influence
