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,
#12651
Robert L. Beschta
#160348
Overall Influence
#12652
Hugo Oscar Besedovsky
#160352
Overall Influence
#12653
Eberhard Bassenge
#160356
Overall Influence
#12654
Evan Anthony Jones
#160357
Overall Influence
#12655
Andrew Pomiankowski
#160358
Overall Influence
#12656
P.-j. Craig Kung
#160365
Overall Influence
#12657
Bruce Marshall
#119034
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Bruce Anders Marshall is a New Zealand taxonomist and malacologist. He is an expert on New Zealand mollusca and has named hundreds of species and genera. Academic career He is a self-taught malacologist and started working at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in 1976.
Go to Profile#12658
Magdalena Borsuk-Białynicka
#128526
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Maria Magdalena Borsuk-Białynicka is a Polish paleontologist and phylogeneticist born in 1940 in Warsaw, Poland. She received both her Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Warsaw University, before completing her Doctor of Science at Jagiellonian University. In 2001 she became an official Professor in Paleontology. Borsuk-Białynicka has taught alternately at Warsaw University and University of Adam Mickiewicz , while also supervising MSc and PhD students at both universities and the Silesian University. Her current PhD students are Marec Dek, Piotr Skrzycki and Dawid Surmik, who specialize in agnathan fishes, Triassic lungfish and Triassic marine reptiles respectively.
Go to Profile#12659
Marianne Fillenz
#160380
Overall Influence
#12660
Wolfgang H. Jost
#160386
Overall Influence
#12661
Lo Tung-bin
#58657
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Lo Tung-bin , also known as T. B. Lo, was a Taiwanese biochemist. A pioneer in the research on proteins in Taiwan, he was elected an academician of Academia Sinica in 1986. He served as Dean of the College of Sciences of National Taiwan University and Vice President of Academia Sinica .
Go to Profile#12662
Celia A. Schiffer
#160395
Overall Influence
#12663
Antonius Jozef Maria Berns
#160396
Overall Influence
#12664
Pierre Goloubinoff
#61387
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Pierre A. Goloubinoff is a Swiss-Israeli biochemist, author and activist for Yemeni immigration and the preservation of Yemeni heritage. He is also known by the pen names David Hamami or Daoud Hamami.
Go to Profile#12665
Zohar Amar
#46422
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Zohar Amar is a professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies at the religious-Zionist Bar-Ilan University, whose research specialties are: natural history in ancient times; the identification of the flora of the Land of Israel and identification of the fauna of the Land of Israel according to descriptions in classical Jewish sources; the material culture and realia of daily life in the Middle Ages as reflected in agriculture and commerce; the history of medicine and ethno-pharmacology. His research integrates diverse fields of knowledge, including branches of natural science, history...
Go to Profile#12666
Eduardo Bonilla
#160414
Overall Influence
#12667
Betül Kırdar
#126925
Overall Influence
Betül Kırdar is a Turkish molecular and systems biologist researching design strategies of microorganisms, metabolic engineering, and biological networks. She is a professor in the department of chemical engineering at Boğaziçi University.
Go to Profile#12668
Aaron J. Ridley
#147419
Overall Influence
Aaron J. Ridley is an American atmospheric researcher and Professor at the University of Michigan. He is known for his works on magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling. Ridley is a winner of NASA Group Achievement Award .
Go to Profile#12669
Frank Bellivier
#160432
Overall Influence
#12670
Owen M. Wolkowitz
#160435
Overall Influence
#12671
Dennis E. Hruby
#160436
Overall Influence
#12672
Bo-hyun Yoon
#160437
Overall Influence
#12673
Benoit I. Giasson
#160438
Overall Influence
#12674
Jacques Fantini
#160459
Overall Influence
#12675
Andrew J. Calder
#160469
Overall Influence
#12676
Terry J. Crow
#160475
Overall Influence
#12677
Romina Goldszmid
#153680
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Silvana Romina Goldszmid is an Argentine-American biologist researching tumor immunology. She is an NIH Stadtman Investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Education Romina Goldszmid completed a M.S. in biochemistry and a Ph.D. in tumor immunology working on dendritic cell-based vaccines for melanoma immunotherapy from the University of Buenos Aires, part of which was performed as a visiting scholar in the laboratory of Ralph M. Steinman at the Rockefeller University. In 2004, she came to the National Institutes of Health to conduct postdoctoral research in infectious disease immunology wi...
Go to Profile#12678
Udo Schumacher
#160491
Overall Influence
#12679
Kjell A. M. Carlström
#160492
Overall Influence
#12680
Tim Berra
#130602
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Tim M. Berra is academy professor and professor emeritus of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State University. He received his MS and PhD in biology from Tulane University in 1969. He is a three-time recipient of Fulbright Fellowships to Australia in 1969, 1979, and 2009. He taught at the University of Papua New Guinea before joining the faculty of OSU in 1972. He has spent over 11 years doing fieldwork in Australia. He is known for his ichthyological research and biographies of Charles Darwin, Darwin's children and naturalist William Beebe. Berra has researched and written ...
Go to Profile#12681
Sara Sawyer
#141614
Overall Influence
Dr. Sara Lea Sawyer is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. She has received national and international prizes in virology. In 2011 she was as awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by President Barack Obama at the White House. She serves as a Senior Editor at the journal eLIFE, and as a government consultant on the topic of pandemic preparedness. In 2020, she co-founded Darwin Biosciences, an infectious disease diagnostics company located in Boulder, Colorado. In 2022, she was awarded the National Institutes of Health Director’s “Pioneer” award.
Go to Profile#12682
Pierre‐olivier Couraud
#160496
Overall Influence
#12683
Victor A. Kabanov
#160499
Overall Influence
#12684
Amytis Towfighi
#101163
Overall Influence
Amytis "Amy" Towfighi is Professor of Neurology, Director of Neurological Services and Innovation for Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and Chief of Neurology and Associate Medical Director of Neurological Services at LAC+USC Medical Center.
Go to Profile#12685
Adriana Fiorentini
#160523
Overall Influence
#12686
Michael Hemann
#160535
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Michael Timotee Hemann is an American cancer geneticist and associate professor in the David H. Koch Institute for Integrated Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The research in Hemann's laboratory focuses on identification and characterization of genes involved in tumor formation, cancer progression, and chemotherapeutic response.
Go to Profile#12687
Joseph Heller
#108182
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Joseph Alexander Heller is an Israeli zoologist-malacologist. Heller is an Associate Professor Emeritus at the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior in the Silverman Institute of Life Sciences, Faculty of Science, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Go to Profile#12688
Mark Alan Levine
#160544
Overall Influence
#12689
Ronald M. Levy
#160552
Overall Influence
#12690
Michael Cashel
#160557
Overall Influence
#12691
Axel Steiger
#160567
Overall Influence
#12692
Nico E. Koedam
#160569
Overall Influence
#12693
Robert J. Ferrante
#160581
Overall Influence
#12694
Frederick S. Vom Saal
#160602
Overall Influence
#12695
Ridha Joober
#160611
Overall Influence
#12696
Joseph Arditti
#160613
Overall Influence
#12697
Stephen Oroszlan
#160617
Overall Influence
#12698
Marc Bonneville
#160620
Overall Influence
#12699
Alfred J. Crowle
#160641
Overall Influence
#12700
Michael E. Baker
#160652
Overall Influence
