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,
#11451
Hans Fritz
#152204
Overall Influence
#11452
Randall Ellis Morris
#152212
Overall Influence
#11453
John Angus Hickman
#152230
Overall Influence
#11454
Michael S. Krangel
#151052
Overall Influence
Michael Steven Krangel is an American immunologist. He is the Mary Bernheim Distinguished Professor of Immunology in the Department of Immunology at the Duke University School of Medicine. In 2010, Krangel was appointed chair of the Department of Immunology at Duke University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#11455
Howard D. Dorfman
#152234
Overall Influence
#11456
Frank l. Van De Veerdonk
#152237
Overall Influence
#11457
Erik Wilander
#152249
Overall Influence
#11458
Michael A. Vogelbaum
#152251
Overall Influence
#11459
Rudi A. J. O. Dierckx
#152254
Overall Influence
#11460
Alan Frazer Wright
#152272
Overall Influence
#11461
Christopher R. Margules
#152274
Overall Influence
#11462
John Carmon Briggs
#152282
Overall Influence
#11463
Randal J. Kaufman
#129233
Overall Influence
Randal J. Kaufman is the director and a professor of the Degenerative Diseases Program, Neuroscience and Aging Center at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and an adjunct professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#11464
Tuan Vo-Dinh
#54823
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Tuan Vo-Dinh is R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering and professor of Chemistry and director of the Fitzpatrick Institute for Photonics at Duke.
Go to Profile#11465
Frank Pasmans
#152297
Overall Influence
#11466
Julio F. Turrens
#152314
Overall Influence
#11467
Christopher H. van Dyck
#133737
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Christopher H. van Dyck , is the Founder and Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Unit at Yale University School of Medicine, where he is Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Neuroscience. His research uses brain imaging to learn about the progression of pathology in Alzheimer's disease, and to test potential new treatments for this disease.
Go to Profile#11468
Makoto Shoda
#152325
Overall Influence
#11469
Claude Ernest Dolman
#88434
Overall Influence
1906 - 1994 (88 years)
Claude Ernest Dolman was an English-born Canadian academic and microbiologist. Born in Porthleven, Cornwall, Dolman received his medical education from St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London. His teachers included Alexander Fleming and Almroth Wright. Fleming encouraged Dolman to conduct research into the Staphylococcus bacteria. In 1931, he moved to Canada and became a research assistant and clinical associate in Connaught Laboratories at the University of Toronto. In 1925, he moved to Vancouver. From 1936 to 1951, he was the head of the department of bacteriology and preventive medicin...
Go to Profile#11470
Jean Beagle Ristaino
#103888
Overall Influence
Jean Beagle Ristaino is an American scientist and William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology. She is best known for her work on the epidemiology and population genetics of Oomycete plant pathogens in the genus Phytophthora and her work on the population genomics of historic outbreaks of the Irish famine pathogen, Phytophthora infestans
Go to Profile#11471
Valery Mikhail Dembitsky
#152336
Overall Influence
#11472
Holger Kreft
#152344
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#11473
Alexander I. Roitbak
#136391
Overall Influence
1919 - 1991 (72 years)
Alexander Illich Roitbak was a Soviet and Georgiann physiologist. Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the International Brain Research Organization. Biography A. I. Roitbak graduated from the Kiev Medical Institute in 1941. In 1944 he joined the staff in the Institute of Physiology of the Georgian Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi under its founder and first director, Professor Ivane Beritashvili. He earned his first research degree under Beritashvili's direction, and remained his collaborator and friend for life. In 1960 he became head of the Laboratory of General Cerebral Cortex Physiology.
Go to Profile#11474
Antonio R. Pérez‐atayde
#152352
Overall Influence
#11475
Carolina Villagrán
#119883
Overall Influence
Carolina Villagrán Moraga is a Chilean biologist known for her work on Quaternary biogeography. Her works include models for the past extent of different altitudinal zonations in Chile and on the origin of the Chilean flora. She is part of the Faculty of Science for the University of Chile.
Go to Profile#11476
Marla Feller
#134530
Overall Influence
Marla Beth Feller is the Paul Licht Distinguished Professor in Biological Sciences and Member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. She studies the mechanisms that underpin the assembly of neural circuits during development. Feller is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#11477
Andrew Read
#119942
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Professor Andrew P. Read is a British medical geneticist. Read studied organic chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Once he had obtained his doctorate, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and at the University of Warwick.
Go to Profile#11478
Wolfgang Wagner
#152376
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
#11479
Gurvan V. Madec
#152378
Overall Influence
#11480
Sanford B. Krantz
#152380
Overall Influence
#11481
Wojciech Karlowski
#138447
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Wojciech Maciej Karlowski is a Polish biologist specializing in molecular biology and bioinformatics, and a full professor in biological sciences. He is Head of the Department of Computational Biology at the Faculty of Biology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. His major scientific interests include identification of non-coding RNAs, genomics, high-throughput analyses, and functional annotation of biological sequences.
Go to Profile#11482
Thomas M. Saba
#152391
Overall Influence
#11483
Charles David Stout
#152394
Overall Influence
#11484
Eugene F. Bernstein
#152397
Overall Influence
#11485
Bart G. Barrell
#152399
Overall Influence
#11486
Jamie Ward
#152404
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
#11487
Ivan G. Bodis-wollner
#152405
Overall Influence
#11488
Deepak Bhatnagar
#152420
Overall Influence
#11489
Marie‐france Carlier
#152433
Overall Influence
#11490
Heidar‐ali Tajmir‐riahi
#152436
Overall Influence
#11491
Emmanuel Van Obberghen
#152442
Overall Influence
#11492
Jayne A. Franklyn
#152453
Overall Influence
#11493
Edward John Wood
#152454
Overall Influence
#11494
Eivin Røskaft
#146782
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Eivin Røskaft is a Norwegian evolutionary biologist, academic, and author. He is a professor emeritus in evolutionary biology at the department of biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Røskaft's research is focused on the application of evolutionary biology to conservation, which has led to projects in Asia and Africa that pertain to human-wildlife conflict, animal population dynamics, and animal behaviour in relation to human activities. He has authored or co-authored several publications, including the books Conservation of Natural Resources: So...
Go to Profile#11495
O. J. Kronborg
#152457
Overall Influence
#11496
Hans H. Bennich
#152469
Overall Influence
#11497
William F. Hendry
#152473
Overall Influence
#11498
Michael R. Heithaus
#152478
Overall Influence
#11499
Jean‐marie Launay
#152501
Overall Influence
#11500
Wim Robberecht
#152506
Overall Influence
