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

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List of the most influential people in Biology,

#14651

Katrina Forest

#142137

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Katrina T. Forest is an American biologist who is the EB Fred Professor of Bacteriology and Chair in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research considers the use of structural biology to better understand pathogenesis. Forest is a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology.

#14652

Ann Gargett

#148161

Overall Influence

Ann Gargett is a Canadian oceanographer known for her research on measuring turbulence and its impact on biological processes in marine ecosystems. Education and career Gargett has B.Sc. in mathematics and physics from the University of Manitoba and Ph.D. in physics from the University of British Columbia . Subsequently she held a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Oceanography and was a Green's Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She has held multiple positions at the Institute of Ocean Sciences and as of 2008 is an Emerita Senior Scientist. In 2001, she joined Old Dominion University as a professor and transitioned into emerita professor in 2008.

#14653

Daniel Friedman

#176403

Overall Influence

#14654

Sonia Kéfi

#138268

Overall Influence

Sonia Kéfi is a network scientist and systems ecologist who studies ecosystem dynamics and the resilience of ecosystems to climate change and human land use. She works for the French National Centre for Scientific Research in the Institut des Sciences de l’Evolution de Montpellier, associated with the University of Montpellier, and is also affiliated as an external professor with the Santa Fe Institute.

#14655

David Riches

#140694

Overall Influence

David Riches is a British anatomist. He is Emeritus Professor of Anatomy at Queen Mary University of London and a Fellow and Director of Studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is noted for research on dermatology, particularly the basement membrane zone and bullous disorders. He has formerly been Dean of Medical Sciences at the International Medical University in Kuala Lumpur.

#14656

Jeffrey Wilusz

#176420

Overall Influence

Jeffrey Wilusz is an American microbiologist currently at Colorado State University, Editor-in-Chief of Wiley's Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His published research includes mRNA metabolism's regulation on mammalian cells, affects by Dengue and rabies and the relationship between RNAi, viral infections and nanoparticulate matter deposition. Published paper highs are 936, 388 and 318.

#14657

Caitilyn Allen

#151008

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Caitilyn Allen is an American plant pathologist, specializing in phytobacteriology . She is an internationally recognized expert on bacterial wilt and has received several awards for her work. Education and career Caitilyn Allen grew up in the USA's Midwest. She studied from 1975 to 1978 at Swarthmore College and then worked on a farm growing organic vegetables, but the venture was unprofitable. She studied for the academic year 1980–1981 at the University of Maine at Orono, where she graduated with a B.S. in botany. In 1987 she graduated with a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

#14658

Charles Kennedy

#176430

Overall Influence

#14659

Frank Pitelka

#168255

Overall Influence

1916 - 2003 (87 years)

Frank Alois Pitelka was an American ornithologist. He was the 2001 recipient of the Cooper Ornithological Society’s Loye and Alden Miller Research Award, which is given in recognition of lifetime achievement in ornithological research. In 1992, Dr. Pitelka received the Eminent Ecologist Award from the Ecological Society of America.

#14660

Peter L. Hurd

#124463

Overall Influence

Peter L. Hurd is an academic specialising in biology. He is an Associate Professor aligned to the Department of Psychology's Biocognition Unit, and the University's Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Alberta. His research primarily focuses on the study of the evolution of aggressive behaviour, including investigation of aggression, communication and other social behaviour which takes place between animals with conflicting interests. Major tools for this research are mathematical modeling . He is also interested in how the process of sexual differentiation produces individual differen...

#14661

Deepti Gurdasani

#55851

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Deepti Gurdasani is a British-Indian clinical epidemiologist and statistical geneticist who is a senior lecturer in machine learning at the Queen Mary University of London. Her research considers the genetic diversity of African Populations. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Gurdasani has provided the public with her analysis of the evolving situation mainly on the Twitter platform.

#14662

Joseph Edward Laferrière

#170532

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Joseph Edward Laferrière is an American botanist with a particular interest in ethnobotany. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona in 1991 with a dissertation titled "Optimal use of ethnobotanical resources by the Mountain Pima of Chihuahua, Mexico". Among other institutions, he has held professional positions at Washington State University, Biosphere 2, and the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos .

#14663

Robert Rosen

#138143

Overall Influence

1934 - 1998 (64 years)

Robert Rosen was an American theoretical biologist and Professor of Biophysics at Dalhousie University. Career Rosen was born on June 27, 1934, in Brownsville , in New York City. He studied biology, mathematics, physics, philosophy, and history; particularly, the history of science. In 1959 he obtained a PhD in relational biology, a specialization within the broader field of Mathematical Biology, under the guidance of Professor Nicolas Rashevsky at the University of Chicago. He remained at the University of Chicago until 1964, later moving to the University of Buffalo — now part of the State ...

#14664

Laurel Haak

#71635

Overall Influence

Laurel L. Haak, known as Laure, was the founding Executive Director of ORCID, an international non-profit which generates and maintains unique identifiers for individuals to participate in the research lifecycle.

#14665

Jessica Green

#121698

Overall Influence

Jessica Green is an American entrepreneur, engineer, and ecologist. She is CEO of Phylagen, Inc., a biotech startup developing tools to monitor the microbiology of air. Prior to Phylagen, she was a Professor of Biology at the University of Oregon and co-founding director of the Biology and Built Environment Center. Green’s two talks at the TED Conferences on the Microbiomes of the built environment have received over 1.7 million views.

#14666

Alan W. Archer

#175882

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Alan W. Archer is a mycologist and taxonomist. He is currently an honorary research associate at Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney. He uses chemotaxonomy as well as morphological features in taxonomy and to devise keyss, most recently for the genus Pertusaria in the Australasia region.

#14667

Asunción Linares

#114912

Overall Influence

1921 - 2005 (84 years)

Asunción Linares Rodríguez was a Spanish paleontologist who excelled in teaching and research. She earned a degree in Natural Sciences at the Complutense University of Madrid, obtaining her doctorate in 1952 under the direction of . She became the Chair of Paleontology at the University of Granada in 1961, being the first woman to obtain such a position on a science faculty in Spain, and the second to become a full professor after the Civil War. Regarding her academic relevance, she stood out for the direction of numerous doctoral works over her career.

#14668

Antonios Antoniadis

#78156

Overall Influence

Antonios Antoniadis is a professor emeritus of the Medical School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki . For 14 years he was the director of the Α΄ Microbiology laboratory of the same School and Head of the “WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Arbovirus and Hemorrhagic Fever Viruses” which he himself created in 1996.

#14669

Aimee Dunlap

#172191

Overall Influence

Aimee Dunlap is a North American cognitive ecologist and associate professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. She is known for her work on the role of environmental variability in the evolution and ecological function of cognition.

#14670

Kelly Ten Hagen

#103803

Overall Influence

Kelly Greig Ten Hagen is an American glycobiologist and head of the developmental glycobiology section at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. She studies O-glycosylation regulation and its relationship to human disease.

#14671

Melissa A. Wilson

#169988

Overall Influence

Melissa A. Wilson is an evolutionary and computational biologist and assistant professor at Arizona State University who studies the evolution of sex chromosomes. Personal life and education Wilson was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, and lived there until she was five, then moving to Garland, Texas, then Tempe, Arizona, then to Syracuse, Nebraska. She graduated from Syracuse High School in Nebraska and received her B.S. in Medical Mathematics with Honors in May 2005 from Creighton University under Lance Nielsen.

#14672

Tikam Singh Rana

#174790

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Tikam Singh Rana , is an Indian plant biologist, specializing in Plant Taxonomy, Conservation Biology, and Molecular Systematics. He is presently working as Chief Scientist, Head and Area Coordinator of the Plant Diversity, Systematics and Herbarium Division at CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute , Lucknow. Rana’s contributions to understanding the taxonomy and phylogeny of taxonomically complex and economically important taxa like Murraya sp., Chenopodium sp., Ocimum sp., Jatropha curcas, Taxus sp., Ephedra sp., Acorus calamus, Ficus sp., Sapindus sp., Bergenia sp., Betula sp., Uraria sp., Gymnema sp., etc.

#14673

Caroline Tiemessen

#175043

Overall Influence

Caroline Tiemessen is a virologist and researcher involved in HIV related research. She heads the Cell Biology Research Laboratory within the Centre for HIV and STIs at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and is a research Professor in the School of Pathology at the University of the Witwatersrand . Her research interests include the study of HIV vaccines and the search for an HIV cure in both children and adults. In 2018 she was part of the research team involved with the transplantation of a liver from an HIV-positive woman to her HIV-negative child.

#14674

Dipshikha Chakravortty

#59569

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Dipshikha Chakravortty is an Indian microbiologist, molecular pathologist and a professor at the department of Microbiology and Cell Biology at the Indian Institute of Science. Known for her studies on Salmonella and antibacterial resistance, Chakravortty is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India awarded her the National Bioscience Award for Career Development, one of the highest Indian science awards, for her contributions to biosciences, in...

#14675

Gail Davey

#103311

Overall Influence

Gail Davey OBE is a professor of epidemiology at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, UK. Her work focuses on Neglected Tropical Diseases, particular podoconiosis. Career Davey specialises in neglected tropical diseases, especially ones that involve the skin. After taking an MBBChir degree in medicine, she trained in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, gaining Masters and MD degrees. She then worked at the School of Public Health, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia for almost a decade, developing training programmes in public health to doctora...

#14676

William Tyznik

#169903

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

Dr. William Tyznik was a professor of the department of Animal Science at Ohio State University where he taught for over 40 years. Tyznik invented Frosty Paws, a frozen treat for dogs, and TizWhiz animal feed.

#14677

Nancy Tuchman

#99856

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Nancy Tuchman is an American environmental scientist, educator, and activist. She specializes on human impacts on aquatic ecosystem function, with a focus on coastal Great Lake ecosystems. Tuchman is dedicated to raising public awareness about issues of global climate change and education. Her dedication is shown through her thirty years of educating students in environmental sciences at Loyola University Chicago. In 2013 she founded the Institute of Environmental Sustainability on Loyola University's campus - which later became the School of Environmental Sustainability in late 2020 - and is...

#14678

Evelyn Lessard

#120282

Overall Influence

Evelyn Lessard is a biological oceanographer and a professor at the University of Washington's School of Oceanography. Early life Growing up in Connecticut, Lessard graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, before completing further study in Oceanography at University of Rhode Island. Although she enjoyed science as a child, Lessard credits one of her biology university lecturers with inspiring her into the field of marine biology, and chose the field of Oceanography due to the potential for field work and travel.

#14679

Sophie Warny

#77132

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Sophie Warny is a Belgian Antarctic researcher, best known for her work on palynology. As an associate professor at Louisiana State University in the Department of Geology and Geophysics and one of the curators at the Museum of Natural Science, Warny studies past climate change patterns by examining fossilized pollen and spores. She is currently the vice president of the Gulf Coast Section of the Society for Sedimentary Geology .

#14680

Fred Huffman Wilt

#147095

Overall Influence

Fred Huffman Wilt is an American biologist who was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research currently includes the endoskeletal spicule of sea urchin embryos, and its biomineralization relative to its cellular and molecular foundation.

#14681

Werner Kunz

#176578

Overall Influence

1922 - Present (104 years)

#14682

Valina L. Dawson

#164831

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Valina L. Dawson is an American neuroscientist who is the director of the Programs in Neuroregeneration and Stem Cells at the Institute for Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She has joint appointments in the Department of Neurology, Neuroscience and Physiology. She is a member of the Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine and Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology.

#14683

Sonia Kleindorfer

#174742

Overall Influence

Sonia Kleindorfer is a bird ecology expert with a focus on organismal complexity and the impact animals have on evolutionary dynamics in birds and parasites. In 2016 she received the D. L. Serventy Medal from BirdLife Australia. She heads Grünau’s Core Facility Konrad Lorenz Research Station for Behaviour and Cognition and is Scientific Director of the Flinders Research Centre for Climate Adaptation and Animal Behaviour. Other related roles include: Treasurer of the Royal Society of South Australia after which she was promoted to Vice President. Kleindorfer has a Bachelors in Biological Basis...

#14684

Esta Sterneck

#174865

Overall Influence

Esta Sterneck is an Austrian molecular biologist researching the functions of the C/EBPδ][CEBPD transcription factor as tumor suppressor as well as tumor promoter in breast epithelial cells and cells of the tumor microenvironment. She is a senior investigator and head of the molecular mechanisms in development section at the National Cancer Institute.

#14685

David Heeger

#60037

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

David J. Heeger is an American neuroscientist, psychologist, computer scientist, data scientist, and entrepreneur. He is a professor at New York University, Chief Scientific Officer of Statespace Labs, and Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Epistemic AI.

#14686

John W. Taylor

#137607

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

John Waldo Taylor is an American scientist who researches fungal evolution and ecology. He is professor of the graduate school in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

#14687

Edward E. Louis Jr.

#169906

Overall Influence

Edward E. Louis Jr. is an American conservation geneticist who founded the Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership in 2010. He is both the Director of Conservation Genetics at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium and the General Director of the MBP. Louis attended the Texas A&M University receiving his DVM in 1994 and his Ph.D. in Genetics in 1996.

#14688

Harold Franklin Heady

#117204

Overall Influence

1916 - 2011 (95 years)

Harold Franklin Heady was an American forester, botanist, prairie ecologist, and expert on range management. Heady received in 1938 a B.S. from the University of Idaho and in 1940 an M.S. from the New York State College of Forestry in Syracuse. In 1942 he accepted a job teaching range management at Montana State University. Heady earned in 1949 a Ph.D. in plant ecology at the University of Nebraska under the prairie ecologist John Ernest Weaver and was, while working on his doctoral dissertation, on the faculty of Montana State University and then Texas A&M University.

#14689

Akito Y. Kawahara

#147608

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Akito Y. Kawahara is an American and Japanese entomologist, scientist, and advocate of nature education, and the son of the modern conceptual artist On Kawara. Kawahara is a Professor and Curator at the University of Florida and lead researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History's McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. He was named Director of the McGuire Center in August 2023. He also holds the position of Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History.

#14690

Colin Berry

#176652

Overall Influence

#14691

Holger Stark

#176659

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

#14692

Patrick Quilty

#148253

Overall Influence

1939 - 2018 (79 years)

Patrick Gerard Quilty was an Australian geologist and paleontologist who specialised in the surface and subsurface earth sciences of Antarctica. The Quilty Nunataks are named for his initial service in Antarctica, at which time he was connected to the University of Wisconsin. He later continued his Antarctic service with the University of Tasmania, rising to the position of chief scientist with the Australian Antarctic Division of the Australian Department of the Environment.

#14693

Gérard Lopez

#39317

Overall Influence

1949 - 2022 (73 years)

Gérard Lopez is a French psychiatrist. He was a pioneer in development of abuse and rape victim treatment, rape trauma syndrome, psychological trauma and the effects and aftermath of rape. He is president and founder of the Institut de Victimologie de Paris.

#14694

Denise Breitburg

#149998

Overall Influence

Denise Breitburg is an American marine ecologist specializing in the effects of deoxygenation on marine systems and organisms such as oysters and jellyfish. She is Scientist Emeritus, at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center .

#14695

Julie LaRoche

#119731

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Julie LaRoche is a Canadian marine biologist. She is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Marine Microbial Genomics and Biogeochemistry at Dalhousie University. Early life and education LaRoche was born in Quebec, Canada, in 1957. She earned her Bachelor of Science from McGill University and her PhD in Biological Oceanography at Dalhousie University. While earning her PhD at Dalhouse, she met her future husband Douglas Wallace.

#14696

Luis Alcalá

#164481

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Luis Alcalá Martínez is a Spanish paleontologist. Biography Dr. Luis Alcalá is a Spanish Paleontologist. He is the director of Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis, in Teruel, Spain. He is one of the discoverers of Turiasaurus riodevensis, together with Rafael Royo-Torres and Alberto Cobos.

#14697

Margarita Costa Tenorio

#155289

Overall Influence

1951 - 2012 (61 years)

Margarita Costa Tenorio was a Spanish biologist specialised in botany. She was a professor of the Complutense University of Madrid. Biography Margarita Costa Tenorio grew up in Vigo, moved with her family to Madrid and studied biology in the Complutense University of Madrid. In 1974 she joined the Plant Biology Department at the Faculty of Biology, in 1978 completed her PhD and continued working as a professor until her retirement in 2011.

#14698

Helen Elizabeth Shearburn Clark

#89463

Overall Influence

1936 - 2014 (78 years)

Helen Elizabeth Shearburn Rotman was a New Zealand expert on echinoderms, specifically starfish. She was born in Napier in 1936 and attended Nelson Park Primary School and Woodford House school . Education Her association with echinoderms began while developing a M.Sc. topic in Zoology at Victoria University in Wellington, supervised by Dr. H. B. Fell. This was after being told by a professor that he was "not having women in my department". This led to a focus on Southern Ocean asteroids . She completed her MSc at VUW in 1961 and her PhD was conferred at the same institution 1969–70. The P...

#14699

Collin Roesler

#155324

Overall Influence

Collin Roesler is an American oceanographer. She is known for her work on optical oceanography, including research on harmful algal blooms in the Gulf of Maine and green icebergs. Education Roesler earned her PhD at the University of Washington, where she studied satellite measurement of phytoplankton concentrations. She grew up in Colorado.

#14700

Mona Loutfy

#168693

Overall Influence

Mona R. Loutfy is a Canadian clinician-scientist and infectious disease specialist. Early life and education Loutfy earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Western Ontario and her medical degree from the University of Toronto. Following this, she completed her Internal Medicine Residency in 1999 and her Infectious Diseases Fellowship in 2001 at the University of Toronto. Loutfy then did a Master's of Public Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2002 and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at McGill University.

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