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,
#12501
Larry M. Wahl
#159407
Overall Influence
#12502
Robert K. Swihart
#159418
Overall Influence
#12503
Antonio Uccelli
#159445
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#12504
Masahiko Tsujii
#159458
Overall Influence
#12505
Ryuji Kaji
#159471
Overall Influence
#12506
Robert C. Liddington
#159478
Overall Influence
#12507
Ellen Solomon
#159479
Overall Influence
#12508
Stanley Jensen Gill
#159480
Overall Influence
#12509
Andreas Ströhle
#159498
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#12510
Trevor Raymond Morris
#159515
Overall Influence
#12511
Michael Perricaudet
#159525
Overall Influence
#12512
Pierre‐marie Lledo
#159526
Overall Influence
#12513
Jane B. Trepel
#159532
Overall Influence
#12514
Katriona Shea
#146610
Overall Influence
Katriona Shea is a British-American ecologist. She is currently the endowed Alumni Chair of Biology Science at Eberly College of Science, Pennsylvania State University. Education Shea studied physics at New College, Oxford, and graduated in 1990. She joined Imperial College London where she completed a Natural Environment Research Council sponsored PhD in population ecology. Her thesis, Matrix Models in Population Ecology, was supervised by Michael Hassell.
Go to Profile#12515
Sanjeeva Nayaka
#141549
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Sanjeeva Nayaka is an Indian lichenologist. He is a Chief Scientist at CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute , Lucknow. He is in charge of the lichenology laboratory. He serves as managing editor of the journal Cryptogam Biodiversity and Assessment, and editor of ILS eLetters, both published by the Indian Lichenological Society.
Go to Profile#12516
John McNeill
#151915
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
John McNeill is a British and Canadian botanist and museum director who has worked particularly on the plant order Caryophyllales. In 1960, he received a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh for his thesis on “Taxonomic studies in the Alsinoideae”. As a nomenclature specialist, he has provided editorial guidance for journals and book series, and has served as a member of the Editorial Committee of the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants since the XIII International Botanical Congress in 1981. He has served as Vice-rapporteur and Rapporteur-general for several botanical congresses, including at Melbourne .
Go to Profile#12517
Charles E. Ribak
#159560
Overall Influence
#12518
Solomon Faine
#61091
Overall Influence
1926 - 2021 (95 years)
Solomon Faine was a New Zealand-born microbiologist known for his research on leptospirosis. With Dr. Leopold Kirschner, Faine made early epidemiologic descriptions of leptospirosis as an occupational disease of dairy farmers in New Zealand. The intermediate Leptospira species Leptospira fainei is named in his honor.
Go to Profile#12519
Sashwati Roy
#159569
Overall Influence
#12520
Juan Enrique Mezzich
#159570
Overall Influence
#12521
Alexandre Antonelli
#159573
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
#12522
Harald Tschesche
#159577
Overall Influence
#12523
Shioko Kimura
#153014
Overall Influence
Shioko Kimura is a Japanese-American biochemist specialized in endocrinology and the physiology and pathogenesis of diseases including thyroid and lung cancers. She heads the endocrinology section in the laboratory of metabolism at the National Cancer Institute.
Go to Profile#12524
Hajo Delius
#159621
Overall Influence
#12525
John A. Bissonette
#159630
Overall Influence
#12526
Thomas Keith Borg
#159631
Overall Influence
#12527
James Vivian Leonard
#159634
Overall Influence
#12528
I⋅tvan Vermes
#159644
Overall Influence
#12529
Hiroyuki Matsuda
#159660
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#12530
M. Margaret Abercrombie
#159671
Overall Influence
#12531
Stefano Aliberti
#159677
Overall Influence
#12532
Christina Smolke
#96264
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Christina Smolke is an American synthetic biologist whose primary research is in the use of yeast to produce opioids for medical use. She is a Full Professor of Bioengineering and of Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. She is the editor of The metabolic pathway engineering handbook . She is an advisory board member for Integrative Biology.
Go to Profile#12533
Akos Vertes
#143060
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Akos Vertes is a Hungarian-American professor of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology at the George Washington University and a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Early life and career Vertes was born in Budapest, Hungary. He graduated from the Veres Pálné Gimnázium in 1971 and then got his B.S. and Ph.D. in chemistry from the Eötvös Loránd University in 1974 and 1979 respectively. In 1979 he was appointed research associate at the Hungarian Central Research Institute for Physics and in 1987 was promoted to senior research associate; from 1986 to 1989 he served as its Deputy Head.
Go to Profile#12534
Werner K. Maas
#159697
Overall Influence
#12535
Harry Bryden
#125547
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Harry Leonard Bryden, FRS is an American physical oceanographer, professor at University of Southampton, and staff at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. He is best known for his work in ocean circulation and in the role of the ocean in the Earth's climate.
Go to Profile#12536
Martin A. Taubman
#159700
Overall Influence
#12537
Yolarnie Amepou
#39959
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
Yolarnie Amepou is a zoologist and conservationist from Papua New Guinea. She is known for her work to protect the Papuan softshell turtle in Kikori. In 2017 she was a Youth Champion for the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. She was also received a Pride of Papua New Guinea Award for Environment in 2015.
Go to Profile#12538
Alexander Joseph Mcdonald
#159704
Overall Influence
#12539
Nevill Willmer
#127024
Overall Influence
1902 - 2001 (99 years)
Nevill "E.N." Willmer, FRS was a British academic who was Professor of Histology at Cambridge University from 1966-69. Biography Willmer was born in Birkenhead in 1902. He was the son of Arthur Washington Willmer, a cotton broker, and married Henrietta "Penny" Rowlatt in 1939; they had two sons and two daughters. He was educated at Birkenhead School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford . Then he became a demonstrator at Manchester University before being elected a Fellow of Clare College in 1936. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1960 and became Professor Emeritus in 1969.
Go to Profile#12540
C. C. Wang
#159715
Overall Influence
#12541
Thomas l. Rothstein
#159717
Overall Influence
#12542
Ronald C. Beavis
#159724
Overall Influence
#12543
Jacob Valk
#159741
Overall Influence
#12544
Kousuke Shimamoto
#159745
Overall Influence
#12545
Philipp Strittmatter
#159752
Overall Influence
#12546
Richard J. Zarbo
#159758
Overall Influence
#12547
Andrea C. Gore
#159775
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#12548
Guy J.t. Delespesse
#159776
Overall Influence
#12549
Kimberly Ritchie
#157951
Overall Influence
Kimberly B. Ritchie is an American marine biologist. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. Her research is focused on marine microbiology and how microbes affect animal health in hosts such as corals and sharks.
Go to Profile#12550
Hannah A. Valantine
#159795
Overall Influence
