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).
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#13901
Barrie Frost
#161908
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Barrie James Frost was a New Zealand-born Canadian psychologist and neuroscientist. Born in Nelson, New Zealand, Frost was educated at Nelson College from 1953 to 1956. He initially trained as a primary school teacher, and then earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Canterbury, followed by a PhD from Dalhousie University in 1967. Frost then taught at Queen's University at Kingston. Over the course of his career, Frost was granted fellowship into the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund, and received a Humboldt Research Award.
Go to Profile#13902
Pedro Trebbau
#54619
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
Pedro Trebbau was a German-born Venezuelan zoologist. His career was characterized by the promotion and preservation of Venezuelan wildlife and nature. His research and collaboration with the herpetologist Peter Pritchard produced the still-extant reference book on The Turtles of Venezuela.
Go to Profile#13903
Maureen A. Donnelly
#151643
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Maureen Ann Donnelly is an American herpetologist based at Florida International University. Education and career She received her B.A. degree from California State University, Fullerton in 1977 and graduated from the University of Miami with her doctorate degree in 1987. Following her Ph.D., she held postdoctoral positions at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Miami. She joined the faculty of Florida International University in 1994 and, as of 2022, is a professor in the biological sciences department.
Go to Profile#13904
Michelle Kelly
#127406
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Michelle Kelly , also known as Michelle Kelly-Borges, is a New Zealand scientist who specialises in sponges, their chemistry, their evolution, taxonomy, systematics, and ecology. Early life and education Born in Otago in 1961, Kelly lived in Papua New Guinea with her family from 1970 to 1980, and was educated at The Correspondence School. From 1980, she studied at the University of Auckland, and completed a Bachelor of Science degree in 1983, and a Master of Science with honours in 1987. Her masterate research, supervised by Patricia Bergquist, was an investigation of the systematics and ecology of the sponges of Motupore Island in Papua New Guinea.
Go to Profile#13905
Andrew W. Murray
#169577
Overall Influence
#13906
Marysia Placzek
#81590
Overall Influence
Marysia Placzek is a Wellcome Trust Investigator and Professor of Developmental Neurobiology in the Department of Biomedical Science, The University of Sheffield. In 2012, Placzek was one of ten women to receive a Suffrage Science award from the Medical Research Council London Institute of Medical Sciences.
Go to Profile#13907
Heok Hui Tan
#101161
Overall Influence
Heok Hui Tan is a Singaporean ichthyologist at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum of the National University of Singapore. Dr. Tan's main interest lies in the systematics of Southeast Asian freshwater fishes, encompassing taxonomy, ecology and biogeography. His primary areas of research focus on neglected and de novo habitats such as peat swamp forests, swamp forests, and rapids.
Go to Profile#13908
Lester J. Reed
#123802
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
Lester J. Reed was an American biochemist, having been the Ashbel Smith Professor Emeritus at University of Texas at Austin , and also a National Academy of Sciences member. He received his Bachelor of Science from Tulane University in 1943, where he worked with William Shive, and earned his doctorate from the University of Illinois in 1946 at the age of 21. He then moved to Cornell University Medical School for a two-year postdoctorate in the laboratory of Vincent du Vigneaud from 1946 to 1948. Having worked at UTA since 1948, the Lester J. Reed Professorship was named in his honor in 1997 and the current holder is Dean R.
Go to Profile#13909
Johan Carlsson
#169664
Overall Influence
#13910
James Q. Del Rosso
#169666
Overall Influence
#13911
Virginia Minnich
#73281
Overall Influence
1910 - 1996 (86 years)
Virginia Minnich was an American molecular biologist and hematology researcher known for discovering hemoglobin E, an abnormal form of hemoglobin that can cause blood disorders, and for working out the glutathione synthesis pathway. She was a noted blood morphologist and teacher and helped set up hematology laboratories around the world. She was the first person without a PhD or MD to be appointed a Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#13912
Kalipada Pahan
#127623
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Kalipada Pahan is a professor of Neurological Sciences, Biochemistry and Pharmacology, and the Floyd A. Davis, M.D., Endowed Chair in Neurology at the Rush University Medical Center. He is also a research career scientist at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. He is an eminent Indian American neuroscientist involved in translational research on multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and Batten disease. He is well known for his research on statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs. He first explored the application of statins in suppressing the inflammatory events in microglia, astroglia and macrophages.
Go to Profile#13913
Christina Enroth-Cugell
#168389
Overall Influence
1919 - 2016 (97 years)
Christina Alma Elisabeth Enroth-Cugell , was a vision scientist who was a professor at Northwestern University for 31 years, was a founding faculty member and one of the first women to teach at the McCormick School of Engineering and chaired the Department of Neurobiology at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences from 1984 to 1986. Her husband David Cugell was a professor at the Feinberg School of Medicine for 58 years, the longest tenure in the school’s history.
Go to Profile#13914
Martin Baehr
#154243
Overall Influence
1943 - 2019 (76 years)
Martin Baehr was a German entomologist who mostly worked on ground beetles , but also spiders, grasshoppers and other taxa. He described and named more than 2.000 species, mostly from Southeast Asia and Australia. He studied biology at the university of Tübingen. Initially, his doctoral thesis was supervised by Willi Hennig, who, however, died before Baehr´s graduation. Baehr was curator at the Zoologische Staatssammlung München, at first in charge of Heteroptera and Orthoptera, later of Coleoptera. For many years he worked as the managing editor of the zoological journal Spixiana. One of his most comprehensive taxonomic revisions treated the subfamily Pseudomorphinae.
Go to Profile#13915
James Roger King
#147409
Overall Influence
1927 - 1991 (64 years)
James Roger King was an American ornithologist, specializing in avian physiology. Biography After graduating from Santa Clara High School, King served in the U.S. Army from 1945 to 1946. He then matriculated at San Jose State College, where he graduated in 1950 with a B.A. in biological and physical sciences. King became a graduate student at Washington State College, where he graduated in zoology with an M.A. in 1953 and a Ph.D. in 1957. His doctoral thesis, supervised by Donald S. Farner, dealt with "premigratory adiposity in the White-crowned Sparrow". From 1957 to 1960 King was an assistant professor in experimental biology at the University of Utah.
Go to Profile#13916
Ingrith Johnson Deyrup-Olsen
#111769
Overall Influence
1919 - 2004 (85 years)
Ingrith Johnson Deyrup-Olsen was an American zoologist, an expert on slugs, and a science professor interested in improving science education. Early life and education Ingrith Johnson Deyrup was born in Englewood, New Jersey. Her father was Alvin Saunders Johnson, first president of the New School for Social Research. She earned a degree in zoology from Barnard College in 1940, and a PhD in physiology from Columbia University in 1944. All six of her siblings also attended either Barnard or Columbia.
Go to Profile#13917
Kate Robb
#135612
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Kate Robb is an Australian marine mammalogist who, along with colleagues, declared in 2011 a new species of the genus Tursiops, and formally named it the Burrunan dolphin, Tursiops australis. She is the Founding Director and Head of Research at the Marine Mammal Foundation in Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria. With nearly 20 years experience researching dolphins across southern Australia, Robb achieved a Bachelor of Science with a double major in Freshwater and Marine Ecology and Zoology and a Doctor of Philosophy . She is the former President of the Australian Marine Sciences A...
Go to Profile#13918
Joseph Hickey
#84706
Overall Influence
1907 - 1993 (86 years)
Joseph James Hickey was an American ornithologist who wrote the landmark Guide to Bird Watching and was instrumental in the activism that led to bans on organochlorine pesticides through his research work on the peregrine falcon. He was a professor of wildlife management at the University of Wisconsin where he obtained his master's degree under the guidance of Aldo Leopold.
Go to Profile#13919
Lucy Collinson
#146566
Overall Influence
Lucy Collinson is a microbiologist, electron microscopist and scientist working at the Francis Crick Institute in London. She is the head of electron microscopy. Early career In 1998, Collinson completed a PhD in molecular microbiology at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Go to Profile#13920
David Hirsh
#169794
Overall Influence
#13921
Johanna Mappes
#169107
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Riitta Johanna Mappes is an evolutionary ecologist based in Finland. Her research focuses on interspecific interactions, such as those between predators and prey. She is known for her work on the evolution of aposematic signals and mimicry in chemically defended prey, the evolution of signal polymorphism, the evolution of bacterial virulence, and the evolution of sexual and asexual reproduction. Her main study species include the wood tiger moth , vipers , the Colorado potato beetle and the drumming wolf-spider .
Go to Profile#13922
Erich Gerhards
#133371
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Erich Gerhards is a German biochemist and pharmacologist, who was noted for his research on endocrinological topics. He was a senior researcher and head of department at Schering AG, and a professor of biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin.
Go to Profile#13923
Helen Y. Chu
#137231
Overall Influence
Helen Y. Chu is an American immunologist who is an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington. Her research considers maternal immunization, with a focus on influenza and respiratory syncytial virus. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chu was the first physician to recognise community transmission of the coronavirus disease within the United States.
Go to Profile#13924
Ralph Siegel
#103503
Overall Influence
1958 - 2011 (53 years)
Ralph Mitchell Siegel, a researcher who studied the neurological underpinnings of vision, was a professor of neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, in the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience. He died September 2, 2011, at his home following a long illness.
Go to Profile#13925
Haruhiko Akiyama
#169850
Overall Influence
#13926
Richard T. Walker
#169872
Overall Influence
#13927
Charles Ellington
#132890
Overall Influence
1952 - 2019 (67 years)
Charles Porter Ellington FRS was a British zoologist, emeritus Fellow Downing College, Cambridge, and professor emeritus at University of Cambridge. Education Ellington was educated at Duke University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1973. He moved to Cambridge where he was awarded a Master of Arts degree in 1979 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1982.
Go to Profile#13928
Preben Hertoft
#30430
Overall Influence
1928 - 2017 (89 years)
Preben Hertoft , was a Danish psychiatrist and professor in medical sexology, senior doctorate in medicine. After the death of his mentor Kirsten Auken, Hertoft worked over 40 years as a sexologist doing research, treatment, counseling and education. In 1986 he founded the first medical centre for sexology in Denmark. Most of the time he had heterosexual and homosexual patients with sexual problems in therapy, but he also treated and counselled transvestites and pedophiles.
Go to Profile#13929
Juliet Osborne
#155192
Overall Influence
Juliet Osborne is an entomologist and ecologist in the UK. She is professor of applied ecology at the University of Exeter and she looks at the health of social insects and how they pollinate plants.
Go to Profile#13930
Frank Leslie Howard
#113986
Overall Influence
1903 - 1997 (94 years)
Frank Leslie Howard was a prominent American mycologist. Biography Frank L. Howard was born on June 11, 1903, in Los Angeles and died on January 11, 1997. He lived 93 years. His parents were George W. and Henrietta Howard. In 1925, he studied at the Oregon State University and received a bachelor's degree in science. During his bachelor's degree he had positive influence from plant mycologist Howard Barss and he had an interest in plant pathology and mycology. He received a PhD degree in mycology from the University of Iowa in 1930. The title of his doctoral research was "The Life History of Physarum polycephalum" with George Willard Martin as his advisor.
Go to Profile#13931
John Moran
#125231
Overall Influence
John Moran is an American geneticist and former Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, currently on the faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School, where he is a professor of Human Genetics.
Go to Profile#13932
Molly Marples
#103611
Overall Influence
1908 - 1998 (90 years)
Mary Joyce Marples was a microbial ecologist/medical mycologist who spent most of her career conducting research and teaching at the University of Otago in New Zealand from her appointment in 1946 until her retirement in 1967. She is noted as an early proponent of the theory that skin provides an ecosystem that supports a diversity of microorganisms.
Go to Profile#13933
Siri Leknes
#105897
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Siri Graff Leknes is a Norwegian neuroscientist and Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oslo, where she directs the Leknes Affective Brain Lab, which is funded by a European Research Council grant.
Go to Profile#13934
Kristen Kroll
#71001
Overall Influence
Kristen Kroll is an American developmental and stem cell biologist and Professor of Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine. Her laboratory studies transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of brain development and its disruption to cause neurodevelopmental disorders.
Go to Profile#13935
Xiaofeng Cao
#169730
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Cao Xiaofeng is a Chinese plant scientist who researches epigenetics in plants using model species in the genus Arabidopsis and rice plants. She is an elected member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the US National Academy of Sciences
Go to Profile#13936
Kelly A. Frazer
#126672
Overall Influence
Kelly A Frazer is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Medical School at the University of California, San Diego, Chief of the Division of Genome Information Sciences and Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine.
Go to Profile#13937
Jean-Luc Vayssière
#79876
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Jean-Luc Vayssière is a French professor, specializing in genetics and cell biology. He has been president of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University from April 2012 to 2016. Biography Training Jean-Luc Vayssière was trained in biochemistry at Paris Diderot University. He received his doctorate in the molecular biology of eukaryotic organisms in the same university. On 9 April 2001, he qualified to manage research, cellular and molecular aspects of apoptosis, at Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University.
Go to Profile#13938
Gloria Choi
#143052
Overall Influence
Gloria Choi is an American neuroscientist and neuroimmunologist and the Samuel A. Goldblith Career Development Professor in the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Choi is known for elucidating the role of the immune system in the development of autism spectrum disorder-like phenotypes. Her lab currently explores how sensory experiences drive internal states and behavioural outcomes through probing the olfactory system as well as the neuroimmune system.
Go to Profile#13939
Heather Cameron
#150557
Overall Influence
Heather A. Cameron is an American neuroscientist who researches adult neurogenesis and diseases involving the hippocampus. She is the chief of the neuroplasticity section at the National Institute of Mental Health.
Go to Profile#13940
Rebecca Vega Thurber
#168804
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Rebecca Vega Thurber is an American microbial ecologist and coral reef scientist. She is the Pernot distinguished chair of microbiology at Oregon State University since 2020. She is a team leader of the Tara Pacific expedition and co-producer of the coral reef documentary Saving Atlantis.
Go to Profile#13941
Wayne Bowen
#168009
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Wayne Bowen is an American pharmacologist and biologist, currently the Upjohn University Professor of Pharmacology at Brown University.
Go to Profile#13942
David Kupfer
#169998
Overall Influence
#13943
Wladimir Wertelecki
#91335
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Wladimir Wertelecki is a Pediatrician and Medical Geneticist who in 1974 established one of the first free-standing Departments of Medical Genetics at the new South Alabama University College of Medicine in Mobile, Alabama, U.S.A. Since 1996 and following his retirement as Chairman and Emeritus Professor of Medical Genetics, Pediatrics, and Pathology, he has continued his investigations of developmental anomalies and their prevention as a Project Scientist at the Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego. Since 1996, his research has focused mainly on alcohol and ionizing radiation impacts on congenital anomalies.
Go to Profile#13944
E. R. Ørskov
#169999
Overall Influence
#13945
Walter Salzburger
#170001
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Walter Salzburger is an Austrian-Swiss zoologist and evolutionary biologist and Professor at the Zoological Institute, Department of Environmental Sciences, of the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Go to Profile#13946
Yashpal Singh Malik
#170003
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Yashpal Singh Malik is an Indian virologist. Currently he is the Dean of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. He has worked on coronaviruses, Japanese encephalitis virus, and rotavirus. Malik is serving the World Society for Virology as Secretary and Indian Virological Society as Secretary General.
Go to Profile#13947
David E. Davis
#115451
Overall Influence
1913 - 1994 (81 years)
David E. Davis was an ecologist and animal behaviorist noted for being the "founder of modern rat studies". Early life and education Davis was born in Chicago and raised in Wilmette, Illinois. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Swarthmore College in 1935, then a Master of Science and PhD at Harvard University in 1939. Davis completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, where he studied the behavior of chickens under L. V. Domm.
Go to Profile#13948
Robert Corillion
#77102
Overall Influence
1908 - 1997 (89 years)
Robert J. Corillion was a French botanist.
Go to Profile#13949
Bruce Campbell
#104640
Overall Influence
1912 - 1993 (81 years)
Bruce Campbell was an English ornithologist, writer and broadcaster, closely associated with the British Trust for Ornithology . Life Campbell was born in Southsea, Hampshire on 15 June 1912. As a young boy, he was influenced by his father, an army officer, birds-nester and egg-collector, who later became the British Army's Inspector of Physical Training. After education at Winchester College, he studied at the University of Edinburgh, obtaining a BSc in biology. He later gained a doctorate in comparative bird studies, so becoming one of the first field naturalists to also be a trained scientist.
Go to Profile#13950
Hans Trass
#50387
Overall Influence
1928 - 2017 (89 years)
Hans-Voldemar Trass was an Estonian ecologist and botanist. He was a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences since 1975 and president of the Estonian Naturalists' Society from 1964 to 1973 and 1985 to 1991. In 1992, Trass was awarded the Acharius Medal by the International Association for Lichenology.
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