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,
#12001
Alfred Jost
#155801
Overall Influence
#12002
Gary A. Lamberti
#155809
Overall Influence
#12003
David J. Varricchio
#133918
Overall Influence
#12004
Wolf-karsten W.-k. Hofmann
#155822
Overall Influence
#12005
Peter Waterhouse
#106172
Overall Influence
Peter Michael Waterhouse is a British-Australian plant virologist and geneticist. He is a professor at the Queensland University of Technology and a Chief Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture.
Go to Profile#12006
Moshe Arditi
#155843
Overall Influence
#12007
Anthony van den Pol
#123437
Overall Influence
1949 - 2020 (71 years)
Anthony N. van den Pol was Professor of Neurosurgery at Yale University. van den Pol received his PhD from Yale in 1977 and did postdoctoral work at Oxford University, Semmelweis University, and Stanford University. He did research in neuropharmacology, neuroanatomy, and neurophysiology, seeking to understand the basic cellular mechanisms of the normal and diseased brain, and thereby find the treatments of brain disorders.
Go to Profile#12008
James Metcalfe
#155854
Overall Influence
#12009
Richard A. Calderone
#155860
Overall Influence
#12010
Romina Vidal-Russell
#155862
Overall Influence
Romina Vidal-Russell is an Argentinean botanist who works in the areas of phytogeography, phylogeny, and parasitic plants, and on which she has written extensively. Her papers on the phylogeny of parasitic plants are cited on the APG website, and elsewhere and her collaborations are international. She currently works at the National University of Comahue in Argentina. She earned a Ph.D. at SIUC with Daniel L. Nickrent as supervisor.
Go to Profile#12011
Markus Ralser
#154179
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Markus Ralser is an Italian biologist. His main research interest is metabolism of microorganisms. He is also known for his work on the origin of metabolism during the origin of life, and proteomics.
Go to Profile#12012
David Kabat
#155865
Overall Influence
#12013
Terence David Allen
#155879
Overall Influence
#12014
David Moreira
#155896
Overall Influence
#12015
Catherine Blish
#143403
Overall Influence
Catherine Blish is a translational immunologist and professor at Stanford University. Her lab works on clinical immunology and focuses primarily on the role of the innate immune system in fighting infectious diseases like HIV, dengue fever, and influenza. Her immune cell biology work characterizes the biology and action of Natural Killer cells and macrophages.
Go to Profile#12016
Mikael Skurnik
#155919
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#12017
Alvin Francis Poussaint
#29247
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Alvin Francis Poussaint is an American psychiatrist well known for his research on the effects of racism in the black community. He is a noted author, public speaker, and television consultant, and dean of students at Harvard Medical School. His work in psychiatry is influenced greatly by the civil rights movement in the South, which he joined in 1965.
Go to Profile#12018
Hirotaro Narabayashi
#155941
Overall Influence
#12019
Marina Bentivoglio
#155981
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#12020
Ronald J. Konopka
#151822
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ronald J. Konopka was an American geneticist who studied chronobiology. He made his most notable contribution to the field while working with Drosophila in the lab of Seymour Benzer at the California Institute of Technology. During this work, Konopka discovered the period gene, which controls the period of circadian rhythms.
Go to Profile#12021
Jonas Obleser
#132088
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Jonas Obleser is a German psychologist and neuroscientist. Academic career Jonas Obleser studied psychology at the University of Konstanz and received his diploma in psychology in 2001. In 2004 he was awarded a doctorate from the University of Konstanz.
Go to Profile#12022
Olov Sterner
#156007
Overall Influence
#12023
Charles Edgar Ganote
#156010
Overall Influence
#12024
Moshe Shachak
#156019
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Moshe Shachak is an ecologist at the Ben Gurion University. Shachak’s research focuses on ecosystem engineers, organisms that modulate the abiotic environment. Most of his studies were conducted in arid and semi arid ecosystems.
Go to Profile#12025
Andrew Dillin
#118660
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Andrew George Dillin is a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and the Thomas and Stacey Siebel Distinguished Chair in Stem Cell Research at the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at Berkeley. His lab studies the loss of protein homeostasis in aging, particularly in Caenorhabditis elegans.
Go to Profile#12026
Philippe Ryvlin
#156033
Overall Influence
#12027
Jean‐christophe Renauld
#156043
Overall Influence
#12028
Donal A. Walsh
#156047
Overall Influence
#12029
Marwyn Brown
#156051
Overall Influence
#12030
Karl Julius Ullrich
#156057
Overall Influence
#12031
Sonia Gandhi
#125536
Overall Influence
Sonia Gandhi is a British physician and neuroscientist who leads the Francis Crick Institute neurodegeneration laboratory. She holds a joint position at the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms that give rise to Parkinson's disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gandhi was involved with the epidemiological investigations and testing efforts at the Francis Crick Institute.
Go to Profile#12032
Brigitte Gicquel
#156059
Overall Influence
#12033
Richard L. Gardner
#156067
Overall Influence
#12034
Leonard E. Jarrard
#156069
Overall Influence
#12035
Petr Starý
#156071
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
#12036
Matthew A. Wilson
#156073
Overall Influence
#12037
R. G. Miller
#156077
Overall Influence
#12038
Mary Ellen Jones
#114332
Overall Influence
1922 - 1996 (74 years)
Mary Ellen Jones was an American biochemist. She was notable for discovery of carbamoyl phosphate, a chemical substance that is key to the biosynthesis of arginine and urea, and for the biosynthesis of pyrimidine nucleotides. Jones became the first woman to hold a chair at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the first woman to become a department chair at the medical school. She was a member of the National Academy of Sciences. She was also president of the Association of Medical School Departments of Biochemistry, president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and president of the American Association of University Professors.
Go to Profile#12039
Roland Leclercq
#156088
Overall Influence
#12040
Marcos Soares Tatagiba
#156089
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#12041
Joan Mott
#144160
Overall Influence
1921 - 1994 (73 years)
Joan Mott was an English physiologist and zoologist who worked for most of her career at the University of Oxford's Nuffield Institute for Medical Research. Following wartime work on anti-fouling of ships her main research interest was in the circulatory system, especially the fetal renin–angiotensin system.
Go to Profile#12042
David W. Lea
#156116
Overall Influence
#12043
Simon Ferrier
#156118
Overall Influence
#12044
Ilene K. Gipson
#156136
Overall Influence
#12045
David Mindell
#156139
Overall Influence
David P. Mindell is an American evolutionary biologist and author. He is currently a senior researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Mindell's work is focused on the systematics, conservation and molecular evolution of birds, especially birds of prey. He is known for his 2006 book, The Evolving World in which he explained, for the general public, how evolution applies to everyday life.
Go to Profile#12046
Kennda Lynch
#113741
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Kennda Lian Lynch is an American astrobiologist and geomicrobiologist who studies polyextremophiles. She has primarily been affiliated with NASA. She identifies environments on Earth with characteristics that may be similar to environments on other planets, and creates models that help identify characteristics that would indicate an environment might host life. Lynch also identifies what biosignatures might look like on other planets. Much of Lynch's research on analog environments has taken place in the Pilot Valley Basin in the Great Salt Desert of northwestern Utah, U.S. Her work in that pa...
Go to Profile#12047
Thaddeus S. Stappenbeck
#156144
Overall Influence
#12048
Maurice Green
#98361
Overall Influence
1926 - 2017 (91 years)
Maurice Green was an American virologist. He is regarded as a pioneer in the study of animal viruses, in particular their role in cancer. Green founded the Institute of Molecular Virology at St. Louis University School of Medicine in the late 1950s, and later served as its chairman.
Go to Profile#12049
Helen R. Pearson
#156149
Overall Influence
#12050
Russ Hille
#156158
Overall Influence
