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,
#11001
Philippe W. Shaul
#148948
Overall Influence
#11002
Robby Stoks
#148954
Overall Influence
#11003
Karl Olov Hedberg
#123734
Overall Influence
1923 - 2007 (84 years)
Prof. Karl Olov Hedberg of Västerås was a botanist, taxonomist, author, professor of systematic botany at Uppsala University from 1970 to 1989, and an Editor of the Flora of Ethiopia. Career Professor Hedberg was a pioneer in scientific knowledge on the afroalpine vegetation. Our present knowledge of this biosystem owes much to the research he and his wife Inga did on the Rwenzori and other high mountains in East Africa. His breakthrough views were based on their systematic fieldwork in the late 1940s. 'Features of Afroalpine Plant Ecology' remains a landmark in equatorial alpine ecological r...
Go to Profile#11004
Paul Khavari
#131300
Overall Influence
Paul A. Khavari is the Carl J. Herzog Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Founding Co-Director of the Stanford Program in Epithelial Biology. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
Go to Profile#11005
Domenico Rubello
#148985
Overall Influence
#11006
Rui-Ming Xu
#76179
Overall Influence
Rui-Ming Xu , is a Chinese physicist, biophysicist and molecular biologist. He is a leading bioresearcher in China. Biography Early years Xu entered the Department of Physics at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China in 1980, and obtained his B.Sc. in physics in 1984. In 1984, Xu joined the China-U.S. Physics Examination and Application and was qualified and awarded a fellowship, so that he could pursue his further study in physics in the United States.
Go to Profile#11007
Carl Boettiger
#149023
Overall Influence
#11008
Galen B. Toews
#149024
Overall Influence
#11009
Bruce Caterson
#149028
Overall Influence
#11010
Sadao Imamura
#149033
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
#11011
Nicholas T. Zervas
#149059
Overall Influence
#11012
Sophie Charlotte Ducker
#106469
Overall Influence
1909 - 2004 (95 years)
Sophie Charlotte Ducker was a German-born Australian botanist. She was awarded the Mueller Medal in 1996. Early life and education Sophie Charlotte von Klemperer was born in Berlin on 9 April 1909. She was the daughter of Victor von Klemperer, a Jewish German who converted to Christianity upon marriage, and his wife Sophie von Klemperer .
Go to Profile#11013
William J. Koopman
#149073
Overall Influence
#11014
Kenta Nakai
#149081
Overall Influence
#11015
Barbara Jean Knowlton
#149082
Overall Influence
#11016
Hiroshi Ohno
#149083
Overall Influence
#11017
Leonardo Punzi
#149105
Overall Influence
#11018
J. W. Ii Fenton
#149110
Overall Influence
#11019
Renate E. Gay
#149115
Overall Influence
#11020
Joel Anthony Huberman
#149121
Overall Influence
#11021
Roger M. Nitsch
#149127
Overall Influence
#11022
Francisco Bozinovic
#104090
Overall Influence
1959 - 2023 (64 years)
Francisco Bozinovic Kuscevic was a Chilean-Croatian biologist and academic, mainly active in the field of evolutionary biology. Life and career Born in Punta Arenas, Bozinovic graduated in Biology at the University of Chile in 1983 and got a PhD in Science in the same university in 1988. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. A member of the Chilean Academy of Sciences, he served as full professor at the Faculty of Biological Sciences of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. An author and co-author of over 350 scientific publications and a...
Go to Profile#11023
David Shinar
#149136
Overall Influence
#11024
Robert Irving Fox
#149140
Overall Influence
#11025
Eustace Conway
#41668
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Eustace Robinson Conway IV is an American naturalist and the subject of the book The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert. He has also been the subject of Adventures in the Simple Life by Sarah Vowell on the weekly radio show This American Life with Ira Glass. He is the owner of the Turtle Island Preserve in Boone, North Carolina. He is one of the featured personalities on the History channel show Mountain Men.
Go to Profile#11026
Nicole Prause
#119943
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Nicole Prause is an American neuroscientist researching human sexual behavior, addiction, and the physiology of sexual response. She is also the founder of Liberos LLC, an independent research institute.
Go to Profile#11027
Joachim Gross
#149146
Overall Influence
#11028
Charles Faiman
#149149
Overall Influence
#11029
Richard James Cote
#149150
Overall Influence
#11030
John Case Nemiah
#74368
Overall Influence
1918 - 2009 (91 years)
John C. Nemiah was an American psychiatrist. Nemiah was born on November 30, 1918, in Cheshire, Connecticut, and later on moved with his family to Hanover, New Hampshire, when he was young. During his childhood, while at Hotchkiss School, he decided to pursue a career in psychiatry while reading Sigmund Freud. He attended Yale University, where he served on the business staff of The Yale Record, the campus humor magazine. After Yale, he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1943 he obtained an internship at Boston City Hospital and was a resident in at Yale General Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Go to Profile#11031
Regina Sullivan
#135494
Overall Influence
Regina Sullivan is an American developmental behavioral neuroscientist, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and senior research scientist in the Emotional Brain Institute at The Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.
Go to Profile#11032
Douglas A. Landis
#149179
Overall Influence
#11033
David Apirion
#149180
Overall Influence
#11034
Thomas D. Albright
#149185
Overall Influence
#11035
Herbert S. Siegel
#149188
Overall Influence
#11036
Jose Fernando Bazan
#149189
Overall Influence
#11037
John M. Drake
#149195
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#11038
Abdeltif Amrane
#149201
Overall Influence
#11039
B. Pushpa Singh
#149211
Overall Influence
#11040
Lynn T. Landmesser
#149238
Overall Influence
#11041
Wilfried Α. König
#149242
Overall Influence
#11042
Thomas Boston Clarkson
#149244
Overall Influence
#11043
Alasdair P. Macgowan
#149271
Overall Influence
#11044
Bruce Kaplan
#149272
Overall Influence
#11045
Aydın Arıcı
#149284
Overall Influence
#11046
Oliver Werz
#149293
Overall Influence
#11047
Eduard Meine van Zinderen-Bakker
#95838
Overall Influence
1907 - 2002 (95 years)
Eduard Meine van Zinderen Bakker was a Dutch-born South African palynologist who made significant contributions to the fields of plant ecology, palynology and palaeo-ecology of Africa. After obtaining a PhD in botany from the University of Amsterdam he taught biology in Apeldoorn. In 1947 he emigrated to South Africa with his wife and 2 sons. He served as the Netherlands' Honorary Consul for 20 years, an office for which he received the Order of Oranje-Nassau.
Go to Profile#11048
Stephen B. Shohet
#149300
Overall Influence
#11049
Charles R. Mcclain
#149306
Overall Influence
#11050
Stephane R. B. Heymans
#149314
Overall Influence
