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,
#11251
Bryce Vissel
#134753
Overall Influence
Bryce Vissel is an Australian neuroscientist who is a professor of neuroscience at the University of New South Wales. He is the Director of the Centre for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at St Vincent's Hospital Sydney. He is a specialist in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and the neural basis of learning, memory and movement.
Go to Profile#11252
Emmie de Wit
#122507
Overall Influence
Emmie de Wit is a Dutch-American virologist. She is chief of the molecular pathogenesis unit at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Her research combines pathogenesis studies with detailed molecular analyses to identify molecular determinants of severe respiratory tract disease within the virus and the host.
Go to Profile#11253
Gilbert Peter Waldbauer
#150750
Overall Influence
#11254
Olli-pekka Ruuskanen
#150764
Overall Influence
#11255
Bob Jolly
#139076
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Robert Dudley Jolly is a New Zealand veterinary academic, currently an emeritus professor at Massey University, specialising in animal pathology. Much of his research has been into animal models of human disease, including Batten's Disease and mannosidosis.
Go to Profile#11256
Dianna Mcgookey Milewicz
#150772
Overall Influence
#11257
Rolf Backofen
#150775
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#11258
Konrad Hochedlinger
#150781
Overall Influence
#11259
Jonathan Robert Lamb
#150788
Overall Influence
#11260
Jeffrey M. Becker
#148087
Overall Influence
Jeffrey Marvin Becker is an American microbiologist who is a retired faculty member from the University of Tennessee. Becker was the Director of the Graduate Program in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from 1979 to 1998, founding director of the UT-ORNL Graduate Program in Genome Science and Technology from 1997 to 2005 and Head of department for the Department of Microbiology from 2003 to 2016. Since 2016, he has been the Chancellor's Professor Emeritus. His primary research interests focus on the structure and function of peptides and their receptors/membrane transport in medic...
Go to Profile#11261
Giséle Guilbaud
#150794
Overall Influence
#11262
Kevin J. Lafferty
#150796
Overall Influence
#11263
Helen McGregor
#66506
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Helen McGregor is an Australian geologist and climate change researcher. She is currently a Fellow with the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University. Her areas of expertise include isotope geochemistry, palaeoclimatology, climate change processes, marine geology and Quaternary environments.
Go to Profile#11264
Stephen D. Bell
#150816
Overall Influence
#11265
Shigeo Yoshida
#150824
Overall Influence
#11266
Priya Rajasethupathy
#126500
Overall Influence
Priya Rajasethupathy is a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the Rockefeller University, leading the Laboratory of Neural Dynamics and Cognition. Education and early career Priya Rajasethupathy grew up in Brockport, New York. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in biology with a pre-medicine concentration from Cornell University in 2004. For her undergraduate thesis, she identified Aptamers that provided structural and functional insight into therapeutic compounds for epilepsy. Following her Bachelors, she moved to India for a year to work with people with mental illness, while also conducting neuroscience research at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore.
Go to Profile#11267
Robert R. L. Guillard
#150836
Overall Influence
#11268
Oliver Kohlbacher
#150837
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
#11269
Serge Planes
#150839
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#11270
David M. Reid
#150850
Overall Influence
#11271
André Tylee
#78326
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
André Tylee holds the Emeritus Chair of Primary Care Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. He used to oversee the primary care research program for the Institute and for the Maudsley Hospital in London, before retirement from the post of Academic Director for Mood and Personality Disorders at Kings Health Partners. He was a general practitioner from 1980-2001 in Sutton, Surrey, his main research interest was the recognition and management of clinical depression and anxiety in primary care, particularly in those with coronary heart di...
Go to Profile#11272
Tom Ivan Bonner
#150859
Overall Influence
#11273
Bruce E. Murdoch
#150860
Overall Influence
#11274
William. L. Weston
#150905
Overall Influence
#11275
Wadih Arap
#150915
Overall Influence
#11276
David G. Mcleod
#150916
Overall Influence
#11277
Amiram Eldor
#150925
Overall Influence
#11278
Lyn Gilbert
#146722
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Gwendolyn Lesley Gilbert , better known as Lyn Gilbert, is an Australian microbiologist who specialises in the control and prevention of infectious diseases, including COVID-19. Early life and education Gwendolyn Lesley Stewart-Murray was born in Melbourne in 1942. She was educated at Camberwell High School from 1954 to 1959 and was awarded dux of the school and won three scholarships for university. She graduated from the University of Melbourne in 1965 with an MBBS and returned to that university to complete her MD in 1991 with her thesis, "Infectious diseases in pregnancy and the newborn infant".
Go to Profile#11279
Gregory F. Erickson
#150926
Overall Influence
#11280
Jeffrey Townsend
#147185
Overall Influence
Jeffrey P. Townsend is an American biostatistician and evolutionary biologist. He is currently the Elihu Professor of Biostatistics and Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the Yale School of Public Health at Yale University.
Go to Profile#11281
Phyllis M. Wise
#150957
Overall Influence
#11282
Alfried P. Vogler
#150971
Overall Influence
#11283
Théodore Landis
#150972
Overall Influence
#11284
Scott Lephart
#150977
Overall Influence
Scott M. Lephart is an American sports medicine scholar currently the Dean of the University of Kentucky College of Health Sciences and also formerly a Distinguished Professor at University of Pittsburgh.
Go to Profile#11285
K. Richard Ridderinkhof
#150979
Overall Influence
#11286
Yardena Samuels
#91978
Overall Influence
Yardena Samuels or Samuels-Lev is an Israeli molecular biologist who is the Director of the Ekard Institute for Cancer Diagnosis Research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. Her research considers the genetic mutations of melanoma.
Go to Profile#11287
Massimo Santoro
#151001
Overall Influence
#11288
David E. Bradley
#151003
Overall Influence
#11289
Masasuke Yoshida
#151004
Overall Influence
#11290
Debra J. Gilbert
#151006
Overall Influence
#11291
Ferdinando Boero
#151021
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
#11292
Michael Louis Morrison
#151022
Overall Influence
#11293
Arne Traulsen
#151032
Overall Influence
#11294
Michael W. Davidson
#151048
Overall Influence
#11295
Bruno Reversade
#71966
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Bruno Reversade is an American human geneticist and developmental biologist . He is a Director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Genome Institute of Singapore at A*STAR and holds several faculty positions at other universities. Reversade is known for identifying mutated genes that cause Mendelian diseases, for his research on the genetics of identical twins and for the characterizations of novel hormones.
Go to Profile#11296
Manolo Gouy
#151069
Overall Influence
#11297
Mark A. Mcniven
#151074
Overall Influence
#11298
Hiroyuki Toh
#151075
Overall Influence
#11299
Wayne W. Grody
#151078
Overall Influence
#11300
Patricia Dowsey Limousin
#151079
Overall Influence
