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,

#13651

Cheryl Lyn Walker

#156181
Overall Influence
Cheryl Lyn Walker is an American molecular biologist. Early life and education Walker was born and raised in Oak Cliff of South Dallas, Texas. Her father was an entrepreneur who opened the first Spaghetti Warehouse restaurant. Upon graduating high school, she majored in molecular biology at the University of Colorado Boulder before earning her PhD in molecular biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She then enrolled at Baylor College of Medicine for her medical degree.
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#13652

Gordon L. Fain

#167479
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
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#13653

Igor Stepanovich Kulaev

#167480
Overall Influence
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#13654

L. László A. Polgár

#167490
Overall Influence
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#13655

Hilary Dobson

#167510
Overall Influence
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#13656

Warren Dewayne Heston

#167518
Overall Influence
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#13657

Marlys Koschinsky

#145881
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Marlys Laverne Koschinsky is a Canadian cardiovascular researcher. , she is the executive director at the University of Western Ontario's Robarts Research Institute. Koschinsky formally served as Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Windsor.
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#13658

Lawrence S. Kaminsky

#167526
Overall Influence
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#13659

Finn Cilius Nielsen

#167537
Overall Influence
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#13660

Mine Harada

#167552
Overall Influence
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#13661

Robert B. Goldberg

#167558
Overall Influence
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#13662

Robert L. Evans

#167561
Overall Influence
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#13663

Johan Arild Aarli

#167566
Overall Influence
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#13664

David Titley

David Titley
#95670
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
David William Titley is a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University and the founding director of their Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. He was also NOAA's chief operating officer from 2012 to 2013. Before assuming these positions, he was a rear admiral in, and the chief oceanographer of, the U.S. Navy, in which he served for 32 years. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
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#13665

Surajit K. De Datta

#167576
Overall Influence
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#13666

Lude Franke

#167585
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
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#13667

James P. Collins

#167588
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
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#13668

Donald Robertson

#167594
Overall Influence
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#13669

Marianne Holmer

#167604
Overall Influence
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#13670

Didier Fontenille

#167605
Overall Influence
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#13671

Charles Gerard Costello

#167608
Overall Influence
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#13672

Dawn Bowdish

#155239
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Dawn M. E. Bowdish, is a Canadian immunologist and currently a professor in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. She is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Aging & Immunity. She is known for several discoveries including the immunomodulatory properties of the antimicrobial peptide LL-37, how MARCO signalling complex recognizes Mycobacterium tuberculosis, age-associated inflammation and its effects on clearing pneumococcal pneumonia and how the aging gut microbiome drives age-associated inflammation.
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#13673

Gary John Schiller

#167637
Overall Influence
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#13674

Joachim Prof. Dr. Bonn De Bargon

#167641
Overall Influence
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#13675

Julia K. Terzis

#167643
Overall Influence
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#13676

Moninya Roughan

#110418
Overall Influence
Moninya Roughan is a professor of Oceanography at the University of New South Wales Australia,. Roughan is the head of the Coastal and Regional Oceanography Lab and is an authority on the oceanography of the East Australian Current. She has led major projects for industry, government, the Australian Research Council and the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment. She has held leadership roles in Australia's Integrated Marine Observing System since 2007.
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#13677

Barbara Ann Whitlock

#108752
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Barbara Ann Whitlock is a botanist, who earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University, with her dissertation Systematics and evolution of chocolate and its relatives , an interest which continues. She has been working in the Department of Biology, University of Miami from at least 2015, where she works on tropical biology, and ecology and evolutionary biology.
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#13678

Lynne Quarmby

Lynne Quarmby
#150526
Overall Influence
Lynne Quarmby is a Canadian scientist, activist, and politician. She is a professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia. She was a candidate for the Green Party of Canada in Burnaby North—Seymour in the 2015 federal election, and is the Green Party of Canada's Science Policy Critic.
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#13679

Peter Henry St. George-hyslop

#167679
Overall Influence
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#13680

Christian Marescaux

#167680
Overall Influence
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#13681

Friedhelm Hummel

#164084
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Friedhelm Christoph Hummel is a German neuroscientist and neurologist. A full professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, he is the Defitech Chair of Clinical Neuroengineering, and the head of the Hummel Laboratory at EPFL's School of Life Sciences. He also is an associate professor of clinical neuroscience at the University of Geneva.
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#13682

Jean‐franc¸ois Dubremetz

#167693
Overall Influence
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#13683

Robert R. Sciacca

#167696
Overall Influence
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#13684

Steen Honoré Hansen

#167699
Overall Influence
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#13685

Gerhard Wiche

#167700
Overall Influence
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#13686

Elizabeth Murchison

#107201
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Elizabeth Murchison is a British-Australian geneticist, Professor of Comparative Oncology and Genetics at the University of Cambridge, UK. The ongoing research of her group focuses on the known existing clonally transmissible cancers arising in mammals. These are cancers that can be passed on between individuals by the transfer of living cancer cells that somehow manage to evade the immune system of their hosts.
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#13687

Craig A. Rosen

#167708
Overall Influence
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#13688

Kimball Atwood

Kimball Atwood
#11869
Overall Influence
Kimball C. Atwood IV is an American medical doctor and researcher from Newton, Massachusetts. He is retired as an assistant clinical professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and anesthesiologist at Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
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#13689

Joseph W. Harding

#167709
Overall Influence
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#13690

Zuzana Kečkéšová

#137796
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Zuzana Kečkéšová is a Slovak-American molecular biologist at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences. She investigates the reasons that certain organs are protected from cancer.
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#13691

Martin Egelhaaf

#167723
Overall Influence
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#13692

John H. Mills

#167724
Overall Influence
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#13693

Eduardo Arzt

#159815
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Eduardo Arzt is an Argentine molecular biologist, Master in Experimental Biology, Doctor from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry . Currently, he is a senior researcher at CONICET, distinguished professor of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and director of the Biomedicine Research Institute of Buenos Aires – CONICET – Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society.
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#13694

David I. Gibson

#167737
Overall Influence
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#13695

Sergei Pitirimovitch Sorokin

#167740
Overall Influence
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#13696

Björn Lemmer

#167745
Overall Influence
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#13697

Tatsuhiko Tsunoda

#167753
Overall Influence
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#13698

Elizabeth A. Fulton

#150502
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Elizabeth A. Fulton , also known as Beth Fulton, is an Australian ecosystem modeller, who was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2022. She is a Research Group Leader at CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere in Hobart, Tasmania.
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#13699

Willem F. J. Vermaas

#167754
Overall Influence
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#13700

Barry J. Gurland,

#167759
Overall Influence
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