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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List of the most influential people in Biology,

#14701

Nora Fisher McMillan

#169331

Overall Influence

1908 - 2003 (95 years)

Born Eleanor Fisher, the first of Ernest and Janet Fisher's two daughters, in Belfast on 16 March 1908, but known even then as "Nora", Nora Fisher McMillan, as she became, was a larger-than-life self-taught expert in natural history, especially conchology, specialising in post-glacial fresh-water Mollusca, but with broad academic interests in the history of natural history, geology and other areas, as well as being a keen amateur botanist, naturalist and local historian. She wrote prolifically, with over 400 publications to her name.

#14702

Theodore Sourkes

#118369

Overall Influence

1919 - 2015 (96 years)

Theodore Lionel Sourkes, was a Canadian biochemist and neuropsychopharmacologist who helped advance the treatment of Parkinson's disease and hypertension. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Sourkes received a Bachelor of Science degree in Nutritional Sciences from McGill University in 1939. Unable to fight in Canadian Army during World War II due to his poor eyesight, he worked in a chemical engineering factory in Toronto during the war. After the war, he received a Master of Science degree from McGill studying under Earle Wilcox Crampton. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1948 working with James B.

#14703

Eugene N. Kozloff

#134023

Overall Influence

1920 - 2017 (97 years)

Eugene Nicolas Kozloff was an American marine biologist and botanist at Shannon Point Marine Center on Fidalgo Island, Washington. He was an emeritus professor of the Friday Harbor Laboratories, University of Washington, and is best known for writing field guides for the Pacific Northwest Region of the United States.

#14704

Susan Dymecki

#170195

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Susan M. Dymecki is an American geneticist and neuroscientist and director of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences PhD Program at Harvard University. Dymecki is also a professor in the Department of Genetics and the principal investigator of the Dymecki Lab at Harvard. Her lab characterizes the development and function of unique populations of serotonergic neurons in the mouse brain. To enable this functional dissection, Dymecki has pioneered several transgenic tools for probing neural circuit development and function. Dymecki also competed internationally as an ice dancer, placing 7th in the 1980 U.S.

#14705

William T. Starmer

#135620

Overall Influence

William Thomas Starmer is an emeritus professor of biology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. Starmer is known for his work on population genetics, specifically the ecological genetics of the interactions between cactus, yeast, and fruit flies . Species of Drosophila and yeast have been named in his honor.

#14706

Nadine Barrie Smith

#101391

Overall Influence

1962 - 2010 (48 years)

Nadine Barrie Smith was an American biomedical researcher in the field of therapeutic ultrasound and non-invasive drug delivery. She was also an educator and mentor, especially to women students. Personal life Smith was born in Chicago, Illinois to Jean and Barron Smith. The family has deep roots in Japan , associated with the Sekiguchi and Asaki clans. She has two sisters, Arnette Bosch and Jolene Smith. She graduated from Chicago’s Lane Tech High School in 1980. She was married to Andrew Webb in New Zealand. Outside of her scientific career, she was an accomplished sports photographer, equestrian, and mountaineer.

#14707

Anne Salomon

#138981

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Anne Katherine Salomon is a Canadian applied marine ecologist. She is an associate professor with the School of Resource and Environmental Management in the Faculty of Environment at Simon Fraser University. In 2019, Salomon was elected a Member of the College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada.

#14708

Leif Tibell

#175454

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Leif Tibell is a Swedish lichenologist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Uppsala. He is known for his expertise on calicioid lichens. He was awarded the Acharius Medal in 2012 for lifetime achievements in lichenology.

#14709

Dorothy Yeboah-Manu

#124732

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Dorothy Yeboah-Manu is a microbiologist and Professor at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at the University of Ghana. She studies host and pathogen interactions and epidemiology. She won the 2018 Royal Society Africa Prize.

#14710

Nancy Minshew

#103928

Overall Influence

Nancy Minshew is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Pittsburgh. She directs the Center of Excellence in Autism Research and is an internationally known expert in the cognitive, neurological, and genetic bases of autism. Minshew was trained as a behavioral child neurologist, and she received an M.D. from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

#14711

Mark Rasenick

#176903

Overall Influence

Mark Rasenick is an American biologist focusing on G protein signaling in the nervous system, the relationship of neurotransmitter activation to rapid modification of the cytoskeleton, how G proteins and the cytoskeleton work in concert to modify synaptic shape and form a molecular basis for depression and the action of antidepressant drugs.

#14712

Leonard Katz

#176918

Overall Influence

#14713

Naomi Miller

#116381

Overall Influence

Naomi Miller is an archaeobotanist who works in western and central Asia. Miller is based at the University of Pennsylvania. Biography Miller completed her Ph.D. dissertation in 1982 in the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan on archaeobotanical evidence for the economy and environment of third millennium BC Malyan in southern Iran.

#14714

Ian Fairlie

#53230

Overall Influence

Ian Fairlie is a U.K. based Canadian consultant on radiation in the environment and former member of the three person secretariat to Britain’s Committee Examining the Radiation Risks of Internal Emitters . He is a radiation biologist who has focused on the radiological hazards of nuclear fuel and he has studied radioactive releases at nuclear facilities since before the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

#14715

Lynn Zechiedrich

#147905

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Lynn Zechiedrich is a professor in the department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine. Her laboratory's research considers the structure-function properties of DNA and DNA topoisomerases. She was elected to the National Academy of Inventors in 2017.

#14716

Tamir Tuller

#175881

Overall Influence

Tamir Tuller is an Israeli engineer, a computer scientist, and a systems and synthetic biologist. He is a professor and the director of Tel Aviv University's Laboratory of Computational Systems and Synthetic Biology. As of February 2022, Tuller has authored over 150 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and hundreds of additional types of publications and patents. In addition, he is the founder and primary instructor of the International Genetically Engineered Machine program at Tel Aviv University and an entrepreneur.

#14717

Peggy Lemaux

#176968

Overall Influence

Peggy Goodenow Lemaux is an American plant biologist. She won a 2003 Dennis R. Hoagland Award. She graduated from Miami University, and University of Michigan, She studied with Stan Cohen. She was a research scientist at DeKalb Genetics. She is a Professor of Cooperative Extension at the University of California, Berkeley. She won a grant from the Gates Foundation to study sorghum. She developed genetically modified varieties of barley, wheat and sorghum. She opposed an anti-GMO ballot initiative in California. She has several patents.

#14718

Bernard Weiss

#176980

Overall Influence

#14719

Sonya Legg

#79251

Overall Influence

Sonya Legg is a British oceanographer who is an Associate Director of the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System at Princeton University. She studies the physical and dynamical processes of ocean circulation. Legg is involved with various initiatives to improve the representation of women in geoscience. She was Chair of the Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention and is the co-chair of the Scientific Steering Group that directs the work of CLIVAR.

#14720

Caroline Genco

#101225

Overall Influence

Caroline Attardo Genco is an American microbiologist and academic administrator. She is the provost of Tufts University. Life Genco was born to Rita Galletti and Charles Attardo. She completed a B.S. in biology at State University of New York at Fredonia in 1981. She earned a M.S. and Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Rochester.

#14721

Marja Timmermans

#173069

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Marja Timmermans is a Dutch plant geneticist. Her research focuses on how leaves in plants develop on a molecular biological level. Timmermans studied biology at Rutgers University and Yale University. From 1998 she was affiliated with the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she became an assistant professor in 2001 and a full professor in 2009. In 2015 she received a Humboldt Professorship and moved to the University of Tübingen.

#14722

B. Mario Pinto

#72855

Overall Influence

Dr. B. Mario Pinto is a Canadian chemical biologist, academic and the former President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada . Prior to his appointment at NSERC, Pinto served as a chemistry professor and as the Vice-President of Research at Simon Fraser University. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Chemical Institute of Canada and the American Chemical Society.

#14723

Anders Fjell

#92015

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Anders Martin Fjell is a Norwegian psychologist, neuroscientist and Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Oslo. Together with his wife, fellow neuroscientist Kristine Beate Walhovd, he established the Centre of Lifespan Changes in Brain and Cognition at the University of Oslo, which was given the status of "world leading research environment" by the Government of Norway in 2015. He and his wife shared the Fridtjof Nansen Prize in 2007. He was elected as a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 2017. According to Google Scholar, he has been cited around 14,0...

#14724

Maruja Carrasco

#107793

Overall Influence

1944 - 2018 (74 years)

María Andrea Carrasco de Salazar, best known as Maruja Carrasco , was a Spanish botanist and academic. She had a key role in the modernization of herbaria in Spain. In 1967 she graduated in Biological Section Sciences, from the Complutense University of Madrid. A daughter of teachers, she always had an interest in teaching and, from that moment, began her relationship as a teacher, since she was hired as a teacher of practical classes, while the compatibility with a grant in the "Nuclear Energy Board". The following year, in 1968, she decided to leave for the United States, where she was hired by the University of Chicago for two years.

#14725

Carol Stepien

#176265

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Carol Ann Stepien is an American ecologist at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2016.

#14726

Caesar Korolenko

Caesar Korolenko

#86087

Overall Influence

1933 - 2020 (87 years)

Caesar Petrovich Korolenko was a Russian psychiatrist. His scientific work was mainly on addictive disorders. He died from COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia. Membership in scientific societies The New York Academy of Sciences, a full memberAnthropology & Medicine, a member of the editorial boardDuring the period of 1964–2006 Caesar Korolenko held the chair of psychiatry in the Novosibirsk Medical Institute.

#14727

Tomida Yukimitsu

#177102

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

is a Japanese vertebrate palaeontologist. A student of Shikama Tokio, he did his graduate work at the University of Arizona under Everett H. Lindsay, with mentorship also from George Gaylord Simpson. The curator of Mammalian Palaeontology at the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, from 1981 until his retirement in 2015, he has published on a wide range of terrestrial and marine mammals, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, crocodilians, and bird tracks, with a special focus on smaller mammals — lagomorphs and rodents — and on the fossil record of Japan. His descriptions and studies of Pliopentalagus spp.

#14728

Sea Rotmann

#175031

Overall Influence

Sea Rotmann is a New Zealand-based marine biologist. She was a spokesperson and organiser for the Wellington chapter of environmental advocacy group Extinction Rebellion Aotearoa New Zealand. Biography Rotmann was born and raised in Austria. When she was 20, she moved to Australia and studied marine biology at James Cook University, Queensland. Her PhD thesis was in marine ecology and environmental studies, and focused on human-induced environmental impacts on coral reefs, including field research in Papua New Guinea.

#14729

Barbara A. Ambrose

#175197

Overall Influence

Barbara Ambrose is a botanist working in the field of Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology . As the Director of Laboratory Research at the New York Botanical Garden, Ambrose is a prolific scholar and leader and mentor in her field who is interested in patterns in plant diversity on macro and micro scales.

#14730

Dinah Singer

#147954

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Dinah Schiffer Singer is an American immunologist specialized in the regulation of transcription in cancer, gene expression, and molecular immunology. She is the deputy director for scientific strategy and development at the National Cancer Institute . Singer was previously director of the NCI division of cancer biology from 1999 to 2019.

#14731

Arne Semb-Johansson

#170269

Overall Influence

1919 - 2001 (82 years)

Arne Semb-Johansson was a Norwegian zoologist. He was born in Kristiania. He chaired the Norwegian Entomological Society from 1950 to 1953. He was assigned as a professor of zoology at the University of Oslo from 1959. Among his early works were studies of the nervous system and endocrine system of insects. He edited the six volume encyclopedia Cappelens Dyreleksikon, published 1979–1981. He was decorated Knight, First Class of the Order of St. Olav in 1987.

#14732

Maria Servedio

#176919

Overall Influence

Maria R. Servedio is a Canadian-American professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research spans a wide range of topics in evolutionary biology from sexual selection to evolution of behavior. She largely approaches these topics using mathematical models. Her current research interests include speciation and reinforcement, mate choice, and learning with a particular focus on evolutionary mechanisms that promote premating isolation. Through integrative approaches and collaborations, she uses mathematical models along with experimental, genetic, and comparative techniques to draw conclusions on how evolution occurs.

#14733

Peter Dallos

#154275

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Peter Dallos is the John Evans Professor of Neuroscience Emeritus, Professor Emeritus of Audiology, Biomedical Engineering and Otolaryngology at Northwestern University. His research pertained to the neurobiology, biophysics and molecular biology of the cochlea. This work provided the basis for the present understanding of the role of outer hair cells in hearing, that of providing amplification in the cochlea. After his retirement in 2012, he became a professional sculptor.

#14734

Amin Azzam

#25481

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Amin Azzam is a clinical professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. He is also a clinical professor at the University of California, Berkeley, the associate director of the UC Berkeley – UCSF Joint Medical Program, and the director of the program's "Problem-Based Learning" curriculum, besides being the director of Open Learning Initiatives and Faculty Engagement coordinator at Osmosis Medical Company. He is known for teaching an elective class for fourth year medical students that consists entirely of editing Wikipedia articles about medical topics.

#14735

Anna J. Phillips

#132428

Overall Influence

Anna J. Phillips is an American Research Zoologist and curator of Clitellata and Cestoda at the National Museum of Natural History's Department of Invertebrate Zoology. As a parasitologist her research focuses on leeches and tapeworms, by studying their diversity, relationships, and host associations. She has traveled all over the world with her fieldwork to study the diversity of these invertebrates on a long range.

#14736

Nell I. Mondy

#117477

Overall Influence

1921 - 2005 (84 years)

Nell I. Mondy was an American biochemist known for her expertise regarding the potato. She spent the majority of her profession at Cornell University where in 1953 she earned a PhD in biochemistry and subsequently served as faculty there for nearly fifty years. In 1997, she received the first Elizabeth Fleming Stier Award.

#14737

Derrick Rossi

#172363

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Derrick J. Rossi , is a Canadian stem cell biologist and entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of the biotechnology company Moderna. Early life and education Rossi was born in Toronto as the youngest of five children of a Maltese immigrant family. His father Fred worked in auto body shops for 50 years and his mother Agnes co-owned a Maltese bakery.

#14738

Elizabeth Klerman

#177035

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Klerman is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School whose research focuses on applying circadian and sleep research principles to human physiology and pathophysiology. She also uses mathematical analysis and modeling to study human circadian, sleep, and objective neurobehavioral performance and subjective mood and alertness rhythms.

#14739

Raymond Gagné

#176298

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Raymond J. Gagné is an American entomologist whose work focuses on gall midges. He was born in Meriden, Connecticut, and earned degrees from University of Connecticut, Iowa State University, and University of Minnesota. He has authored at least 230 scientific publications and described 68 genera and 332 species. Most of his work has been done as part of the USDA Systematic Entomological Laboratory at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

#14740

Federico Venturi

#169003

Overall Influence

1940 - 2020 (80 years)

Federico Venturi was an Italian paleontologist. He is internationally known as a specialist of Early Jurassic ammonites. Professional life Federico Venturi graduated in Natural Sciences at the University of Perugia in 1969. From 1970 he studied geology and paleontology, and dealt with by Jurassic ammonites of the Central Apennines . From 1975 he was a lecturer of paleontology at the University of Perugia. In 1982 he was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences, and held the position until 2010. He published more than 60 research papers and two books.

#14741

Andrew Pask

#90447

Overall Influence

Professor Andrew John Pask is an epigeneticist and head of the Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research Laboratory at the School of BioSciences in the University of Melbourne. He is known for his work on the project to resurrect the extinct thylacine, a marsupial colloquially known as the "Tasmanian tiger".

#14742

Audrey van der Meer

#132404

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Audrey van der Meer is a Dutch-born Norwegian neuroscientist and Professor of Neuropsychology at the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology . With her husband, Professor of Cognitive Psychology Ruud van der Weel, she directs the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory at NTNU. Her research seeks to understand the underlying principles that guide development, learning, and cognitive ageing. She joined the psychology department at NTNU in 1996, in the same year fellow neuroscientists Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser joined the department; in 1997 she was promoted to full professor of neuroscience.

#14743

Maria Fadiman

#71018

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Maria Grace Fadiman is an American ethnobotanist and Professor of Geosciences at Florida Atlantic University. Biography Fadiman is the daughter of documentary filmmaker Dorothy Fadiman and psychologist and author James Fadiman. Clifton Fadiman was her granduncle, She is a distant cousin of Anne Fadiman and of William James Sidis, a child prodigy.

#14744

Artie L. Metcalf

Artie L. Metcalf

#141135

Overall Influence

1929 - 2016 (87 years)

Artie Lou Metcalf was an American malacologist. Family Metcalf was born in Dexter, Kansas, the son of Art and Lucile Metcalf. Education Metcalf completed his undergraduate work in 1956 at Kansas State University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Education/Zoology. He went on to earn a Master of Arts in Zoology in 1957 also from Kansas State. In 1964 Metcalf earned a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Kansas. Metcalf continued his education, earning a Master of Arts in Spanish in 1990 at the University of Texas at El Paso. In keeping with his biology background, his thesis is t...

#14745

Renny Kurnia Hadiaty

#174035

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#14746

Erich Rutschke

#177274

Overall Influence

1926 - 1999 (73 years)

Erich Rutschke was a German ornithologist and conservationist who specialized in wetland birds and their biology. Rutschke was responsible for making East Germany a signatory of the Ramsar Convention.

#14747

Elizabeth Canuel

#172289

Overall Influence

Elizabeth A. Canuel is a chemical oceanographer known for her work on organic carbon cycling in aquatic environments. She is the Chancellor Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary and is an elected fellow of the Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry.

#14748

Janice Lord

#177199

Overall Influence

Janice Marjorie Lord is a New Zealand academic, a plant evolutionary biologist, and as of 2020 is an associate professor at the University of Otago, where she is the curator of the Otago Regional Herbarium.

#14749

Ryuichi Kato

#177287

Overall Influence

#14750

Harald E. Esch

#169453

Overall Influence

1931 - 2017 (86 years)

Harald E. Esch was a German-American biologist and professor. He was a professor at the University of Notre Dame and an international authority on bee communication. Early life and education Esch was born on December 22, 1931, in Düsseldorf, Germany. His parents were Helene and Walter Esch.

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