Search People Result | Academic Influence

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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#14351

Alexandre Fedorovich Bannikov

#172715

Overall Influence

#14352

Tracy Ainsworth

#103037

Overall Influence

Tracy Ainsworth is a marine biologist and Scientia Professor at the University of New South Wales, working on coral reefs, and the biology of the Great Barrier Reef. Her research covers the biology of stresses, cells, disease, immunity and symbiosis. She was awarded the Dorothy Hill Medal for science, from the Australian Academy of Science, for research on coral reef, stresses and impacts of temperature on coral health.

#14353

Carly Stevens

#166937

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Carly Stevens is a professor of plant ecology and soil biogeochemistry at University of Lancaster, UK. Her work focuses on how changes in the atmospheric nitrogen cycle affect plant communities, particularly grasslands.

#14354

Edward Wild

#104597

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Edward Wild, also known as Ed Wild, is a British neurologist and neuroscientist in the field of Huntington's disease and an advocate for scientific outreach to the public. He co-founded the Huntington's research news platform HDBuzz in 2010. He is a professor of neurology at UCL Institute of Neurology and is an associate director of the UCL Huntington's Disease Centre. He is also a consultant neurologist at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.

#14355

Anne-Brit Kolstø

#135978

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Anne-Brit Kolstø is a Norwegian microbiologist. She took her dr.philos. degree in biochemistry at the University of Tromsø, and is now a professor of microbiology at the Department of Pharmaceutical Biosciences, University of Oslo. From 2002 to 2005 she served as prorector of the University of Oslo.

#14356

Hitoshi Ida

#169580

Overall Influence

#14357

Gudrun Kadereit

#156996

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Gudrun Kadereit is a German botanist, the Princess Therese von Bayern Chair of Systematics, Biodiversity and Evolution of Plants at the Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich and the director of both the Botanical Garden Munich-Nymphenburg and the Botanical State Collection Munich. Her research focuses on angiosperm phylogenetics, systematics and biogeography, in particular on the families Amaranthaceae, Melastomataceae, Crassulaceae, Aizoaceae and Zygophyllaceae but also on the evolution of C4 photosynthesis and Crassulacean Acid Metabolism and the evolution of seed traits.

#14358

Adina Merenlender

#169109

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Adina Merenlender is a Professor of Cooperative Extension in Conservation Science at University of California, Berkeley in the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, and is an internationally recognized conservation biologist known for land-use planning, watershed science, landscape connectivity, and naturalist and stewardship training.

#14359

Roy Herbert Reinhart

#149601

Overall Influence

1919 - 2005 (86 years)

Roy Herbert Reinhart was a zoologist, geologist, and paleontologist. He is especially remembered for his research on Sirenia and the discovery of the order Desmostylia. Life Reinhart earned his B.S. at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1941. He met is wife, Betty J. while an undergraduate student at Miami.

#14360

Michael J. Frank

#141134

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Michael Joshua Frank is a neuroscientist who has played a leading role in emerging field of computational psychiatry. He is currently the Edgar L. Marston Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences at Brown University and Director of the Center for Computational Brain Science at Brown's Carney Institute for Brain Science. Other honors include: Kavli Fellow , the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award , and the Janet T Spence Award for early career transformative contributions .

#14361

Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke

#124862

Overall Influence

Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke, FMedSci is an English cell biologist who has made significant contributions to the understanding of the cellular and molecular biology of the tumour microenvironment and in particular angiogenesis. She is Professor of Angiogenesis and the Tumour Microenvironment and Deputy Institute Director of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London. In 2015 she was awarded the Hooke medal from the British Society for Cell Biology and EMBO membership.

#14362

Philip A. Rea

#171871

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Philip A. Rea is a British biochemist, science writer and educator, who is currently Professor of Biology and Rebecka and Arie Belldegrun Distinguished Director of the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management at the University of Pennsylvania. His major contributions as a biochemist have been in the areas of membrane transport and xenobiotic detoxification, and as a science writer and educator in understanding the intersection between the life sciences and their implementation. In 2005, he and Mark V. Pauly founded the Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management between ...

#14363

Paul S. Cederna

#139228

Overall Influence

Paul S. Cederna is an American plastic surgeon who is Robert Oneal Professor of Plastic Surgery, Chief of the Section of Plastic Surgery, and Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan.

#14364

Paul Krutak

#77660

Overall Influence

1934 - 2016 (82 years)

Paul Russell Krutak was an eminent American micropaleontologist. He received his Bachelor's and master's degrees in Geology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, as well as a Ph.D. in Geology at LSU in 1963. His dissertation was entitled Structure, Stratigraphy, and Provincial Relationships of Sierra de la Gavia, Coahuila, Mexico.

#14365

David A. Greenberg

#173784

Overall Influence

#14366

Elsa Matilde Zardini

#167942

Overall Influence

1949 - 2020 (71 years)

Elsa Matilde Zardini was an Argentinian/Paraguayan botanist, teacher, curator, and explorer. She made botanical expeditions in the US, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay. Three botanical taxon names were authored by Zardini. Her specialization was the flora of the Plata basin, with an emphasis on that of Paraguay.

#14367

Di McCarthy

#134660

Overall Influence

Dianne Christine McCarthy is a New Zealand scientist and professional director, who was the chief executive of the Royal Society of New Zealand between 2007 and 2014. She lives in Blenheim. Education McCarthy completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and music, followed by a Master of Science degree at the University of Auckland. She also completed a PhD in experimental psychology at the university in 1979. The title of her doctoral thesis was A behavioural analysis of signal-detection performance.

#14368

Terri H. Finkel

#77575

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Terri H. Finkel is an American pediatric rheumatologist and immunologist who is the Children's Foundation of Memphis Endowed Chair and tenured professor of pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Previously, she was the pediatrician-in-chief, chair of pediatrics and chief scientific officer at Nemours Children's Hospital. She is known for her research into autoimmunity, AIDS, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and cancer. Her work has been recognized in more than 200 publications, 10 U.S. patents, and 4 licensed technologies.

#14369

Sophie Schwartz

#172338

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Sophie Schwartz is a Swiss neuroscientist who is a professor at the University of Geneva. She studies the neural mechanisms that underpin experience-dependent changes in the human brain. Early life and education Schwartz is from Switzerland. She was an undergraduate student at the University of Geneva, where she majored in biology. She moved to Lausanne as a graduate student, working toward a second bachelor's degree in psychology. She studied dreams through neurophysical investigations at the University of Lausanne. After completing her doctorate, Schwartz joined the Institute of Cognitive Ne...

#14370

David A. Brent

#94752

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

David A. Brent is an American psychiatrist with expertise in child and adolescent psychiatry and suicidology. He is Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics & Epidemiology and Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, as well as the academic chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

#14371

Melissa Trainer

#116667

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Melissa G. Trainer is an American astrobiologist who in 2004 demonstrated empirically that life could have formed on Earth through the interaction of methane, carbon dioxide and ultraviolet light . She is Assistant Chief for Science, Operations, and Strategic Planning in the Planetary Environments Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

#14372

Michael A. Mallin

#143727

Overall Influence

Michael A. Mallin is an American biologist. He is currently a Research Professor at University of North Carolina Wilmington and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2007. His highest cited paper, Solution-phase synthesis of sub-10 nm Au− Ag alloy nanoparticles, has been cited 409 times, according to GoogleScholar. His current research interests are environmental and ocean management and pollution.

#14373

Sue VandeWoude

#114588

Overall Influence

Susan VandeWoude is an American veterinarian and researcher specializing in viral diseases of cats. She is currently serving as the Dean of Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

#14374

Keity Souza Santos

#129907

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Keity Souza Santos is an immunologist working at the allergy and immunology department of the University of São Paulo's school of medicine. Santos stated that she was the first person in her family to express interest in science as a career. She was inspired to become a biologist by the story of Dolly the sheep, the first mammal clone. She received her bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of São Paulo in 2003, and her doctorate in Allergy and Immunopathology in 2008 from the same institution. During her doctorate, she worked to find an anti-venom for the sting of Apis m...

#14375

J. Ramsey Bronk

#173837

Overall Influence

1929 - 2007 (78 years)

John Ramsey Bronk was an American biologist, specialising in the study of intestinal transport. Bronk graduated from Princeton University in 1952, and then undertook a Rhodes Scholarship at Oriel College, Oxford University, conducting research under the supervision of Dr R B Fisher. He obtained his DPhil in biochemistry in June 1955.

#14376

Jean-Marie Géhu

#166781

Overall Influence

1930 - 2014 (84 years)

Jean-Marie Géhu was a French botanist. He received his BSc in Biology in 1952, his MSc in 1955, and his PhD in Botany in 1961 from Lille University. As professor of botany at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Lille, he founded in 1975, with his wife Jeanette Géhu-Franck, in Bailleul, the Centre régional de Phytosociologie, which was certified as a "Conservatoire botanique national de Bailleul" in 1991.

#14377

Gregor Cailliet

#151110

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Gregor Michel Cailliet is an American scientist who studies the ecology of marine fishes. He is professor emeritus at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, part of The California State University, having officially retired in 2009.

#14378

Jeffrey Blaustein

#155243

Overall Influence

Jeffrey Blaustein is a retired professor and the former head of the Behavioral Neuroscience Division at the University of Massachusetts Amherst , known for his research in behavioral neuroendocrinology. Before the Behavioral Neuroscience Division, he had served at UMass Amherst as the founding director of the Center for Neuroendocrine Studies and as the head of the Biopsychology department. He was named a National Institute of Mental Health Senior Scientist in 1997 and an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow in 2014. He has served as the president of the Society for Behav...

#14379

Karen L. Wiebe

#172880

Overall Influence

Karen L. Wiebe is a Canadian ornithologist and the Stuart and Mary Houston Professor of Ornithology in the Department of Biology at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Education Wiebe received her doctorate at the University of Saskatchewan in 1993.

#14380

Jeff Hawkins

#105786

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Jeffrey Hawkins is an American businessman, neuroscientist and engineer. He co-founded Palm Computing — where he co-created the PalmPilot and Treo — and Handspring. He subsequently turned to work on neuroscience, founding the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience in 2002. In 2005 he founded Numenta, where he leads a team in efforts to reverse-engineer the neocortex and enable machine intelligence technology based on brain theory.

#14381

Takenobu Kamada

#173869

Overall Influence

#14382

Katrin Meissner

#105822

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Katrin Juliane Meissner is a physical oceanographer and climate scientist known for climate models assessing the impact of abrupt climate change on terrestrial and marine biogeochemical cycling. Education and career Meissner grew up in Berlin, Germany, where she attended the Französisches Gymnasium Berlin. Meissner completed an engineering degree at the Ecole Centrale de Lille in 1995. Meissner moved to the Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France where she investigated the predictability of the West African monsoon based on ocean-atmosphere fluxes off the coast of Senegal. Meissner received her Ph.D.

#14383

Claire Haworth

#113726

Overall Influence

Claire Haworth is a reader in behavioural genetics and co-director of the Dynamic Genetics Lab at the University of Bristol. Education Haworth graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in experimental psychology. She completed her MSc and PhD at King's College London.

#14384

I. Leonard Bernstein

#173885

Overall Influence

#14385

Renae Ryan

#123928

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Professor Renae Monique Ryan is the academic director of the Science in Australia Gender Equity Program at the University of Sydney, and a researcher in neuroscience, pharmacology and membrane transport proteins. She argues for systemic change to increase academic diversity.

#14386

John G. Hodgson

#173892

Overall Influence

#14387

John Raymond Smythies

#86310

Overall Influence

1922 - 2019 (97 years)

John Raymond Smythies was a British neuropsychiatrist, neuroscientist and neurophilosopher. Biography Smythies was born on 30 November 1922 in Nainital, United Provinces, British India, where his father, Evelyn Arthur Smythies, a philatelist, was employed by the Department of Forests. His brother Bertram Evelyn Smythies became an ornithologist. His cousins on the Smythies side include Yorick Smythies, Richard Dawkins , Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood.

#14388

Lee A. Fuiman

#171853

Overall Influence

Lee Alan Fuiman is an American marine biologist, currently the Perry Richardson Bass Chair in Fisheries at University of Texas at Austin Education Ph.D., University of Michigan M.S., Cornell University B.S., Southampton College of Long Island University

#14389

C. Josh Donlan

#170768

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

C. Josh Donlan is ecologist and conservation practitioner who founded and leads Advanced Conservation Strategies . The environmental conservation NGO focuses on program design, sustainability sciences, and evaluation. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific and popular articles, some of them receiving widespread media attention. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. He splits his time between the Wasatch Mountains and Andalucia.

#14390

Douglass F. Hoese

#173858

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

#14391

John Thoday

#152346

Overall Influence

1916 - 2008 (92 years)

John Marion Thoday FRS was a British geneticist. He was the son of the botanist David Thoday. He was Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge University between 1959 and 1983 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1965.

#14392

Corinne Watts

#69146

Overall Influence

Corinne Hannah Watts is a New Zealand entomologist and ecologist. Specimens collected by Watts are held at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Education Watts graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a MSc in Ecology in 1999, and gained a PhD in Invertebrate Ecology from the University of Canterbury in 2006.

#14393

Shane O'Mara

#160579

Overall Influence

Shane O'Mara is a neuroscientist who currently is Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College Dublin. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Works O'Mara, Shane . Talking Heads: The New Science of How Conversation Shapes Our Worlds. Penguin. ISBN 978-1-8479-2648-7

#14394

Silvia Pressel

#172073

Overall Influence

Silvia Pressel is a botanist and head of the LS Algae, Fungi and Plants Division of the Natural History Museum, London. She is a joint recipient of the Linnean Society's 2008 Irene Manton Prize for the "best thesis in botany examined for a doctorate of philosophy during a single academic year" in the United Kingdom. She completed her PhD, Experimental studies of bryophyte cell biology, conservation, physiology and systematics, at Queen Mary University of London in 2007. She was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellow. She is also the recipient of the Linnean Society's Trail-Crisp Awa...

#14395

Hans J. Hofmann

#159545

Overall Influence

1936 - 2010 (74 years)

Hans J. Hofmann was a paleontologist, specializing in the study of Precambrian fossils using computer modelling and image analysis to quantify morphologic attributes. Born in Germany, Hofmann immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada and studied geology at McGill University, where he earned a Ph.D. under the supervision of T. H. Clark. He taught for three years at the University of Cincinnati and then worked at the Geological Survey of Canada. He was a professor in the geology department of the Université de Montréal for 31 years . He spent the last ten years of his life as a researcher in the ...

#14396

Nick Bouras

#105244

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Nick Bouras is a Greek professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience King's College London, United Kingdom. and Programme Director of Maudsley International that promotes developments in mental health around the world.

#14397

Sandra Escher

#55845

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

Alexandre Dorothée Marie Adriaan Charlotte Escher was a Dutch mental health advocate and researcher. Early life, family and education Sandra Escher was born in The Hague, the Netherlands. She trained at the School of Journalism in Utrecht.

#14398

Charles S. Apperson

#173989

Overall Influence

Charles S. Apperson is an American entomologist recognized for and interested in the biology of vectors, such as mosquitoes and ticks. He was elected to the Entomological Society of America in 2009 for his advancements in host-feeding. , Apperson has published 110 refereed research publications Apperson got his bachelor's degree from Humboldt State University and his master's degree and doctorate from the University of California, Riverside

#14399

Yocasta Brugal

#173994

Overall Influence

Yocasta Clara Brugal Mena is a Puerto Rican forensic pathologist and academic administrator. She is the president and dean of San Juan Bautista School of Medicine. Brugal leads the department of clinical pathology.

#14400

Margaret M. Davies

#142277

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Margaret Davies is an Australian herpetologist born on 8 November 1944. She worked at the University of Adelaide studying Australian frogs, retiring in 2002. Initially appointed to a teaching post at the university, she was inspired to research frog taxonomy and their ecology from the 1970s. She identified over 30 new species of frogs during her career. She has contributed to over 120 publications.

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