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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List of the most influential people in Biology,

#15251

Catherine Hartley

#170917

Overall Influence

Catherine Hartley is an American psychologist and an Associate Professor of Psychology within the Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science at New York University in New York City. Hartley's research explores how brain development impacts the evaluation of negative experiences, decision-making, and motivated behavior. Her work has helped to elucidate how uncontrollable aversive events affect fear learning and how learning to control aversive stimuli can improve emotional resilience.

#15252

Radovan Karadžić

Radovan Karadžić

#63134

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Radovan Karadžić is a Bosnian Serb politician who was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia . He was the president of Republika Srpska during the Bosnian War.

#15253

Lisa Frenkel

#181255

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Lisa M. Frenkel is an American pediatrician currently Professor at University of Washington and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Education She earned her B.A. at University of Kansas from 1973–77 and her M.D. at University of Kansas Medical Center from 1977-81.

#15254

Dana Lepofsky

#166648

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Dana Sue Lepofsky is a Canadian archaeologist and ethnobiologist. She is a professor at Simon Fraser University, a former president of the Society of Ethnobiology, and received the Smith-Wintemberg Award in 2018. Her research focuses on the historical ecology of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

#15255

Arlette Nougarède

#175349

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Arlette Nougarède, wife Lance, born in 1930 in Narbonne, is a cell biologist specializing in plant development from embryogenesis to flowering. She was Professor Emeritus at Pierre and Marie Curie University from 1992 to 2013. She has been a corresponding member of the French Academy of sciences since 1987.

#15256

Horacio de la Iglesia

#145431

Overall Influence

Dr. Horacio de la Iglesia is a researcher in chronobiology and professor of biology at the University of Washington. After his formal education, he started the De La Iglesia Lab, at the University of Washington to conduct research on how neural systems encode time and generate rhythmic physiological and behavioral outputs to adapt to the environment. His most impactful research has contributed to the knowledge of sleep in adolescents and unhoused individuals.

#15257

Rob Morrison

#109984

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Robert Gwydir Booth Morrison, CF is an Australian zoologist and science communicator. He co-hosted The Curiosity Show which aired on television from 1972 to 1990. He has written or co-written 48 books about science for the general public.

#15258

Cornelia Ulrich

#94892

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Cornelia "Neli" Ulrich is executive director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Huntsman Cancer Institute , Jon M. and Karen Huntsman Presidential Professor in Cancer Research, and former Division Chief of Cancer Population Sciences in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Utah. Ulrich oversees HCI's academic consortium of nearly 200 cancer research teams. She leads efforts to advance the impact of HCI's research in laboratory, clinical and population science, with the goal of improving cancer prevention and treatment. Prior to joining HCI, she was the director ...

#15259

Laura Miller

#38940

Overall Influence

Laura A. Miller is an American mathematical biologist, known for her research in biomechanical applications of fluid dynamics including insect flight, jellyfish propulsion, and blood flow in embryonic hearts. She works at the University of Arizona as a professor of mathematics.

#15260

Douwe Van Sinderen

#182196

Overall Influence

#15261

Leslie Fowden

#136213

Overall Influence

1925 - 2008 (83 years)

Sir Leslie Fowden was a British organic chemist and plant scientist, notable for his pioneering research on phytochemistry and plant amino acids, as well as for his role in promoting agricultural research in the UK.

#15262

Robert Wayne Alexander

#153867

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Robert Wayne Alexander was an American biologist and cardiologist known for research in the fields of atherosclerosis, hypertension, and vascular biology. Early life and education Robert Wayne Alexander was born on March 19, 1941, in Memphis, Tennessee. After he graduated high school, Alexander was accepted to the University of Mississippi where he graduated in 1962. Alexander then attended classes at Emory University in Atlanta. While at Emory, Alexander was a regular at the Emory faculty's Saturday Morning Clinical Cardiology at Grady Memorial Hospital. In 1967 he obtained from Emory University his M.S Degree and a year later he obtained his Ph.D.

#15263

James H. Speer

#169997

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

James H. Speer is a professor of geography and geology at Indiana State University. He is a past president of the Tree-Ring Society and the Geography Educator's Network of Indiana. He has been the organizer for the North American Dendroecological Fieldweek since 2003.

#15264

Karen Wishner

#181401

Overall Influence

Karen Frances Wishner is an American oceanographer currently at University of Rhode Island and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her interests include coastal shelf and zooplankton behavior and environment, and has published her findings.

#15265

Nassir Ghaemi

#36616

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Nassir Ghaemi is an academic psychiatrist, author, and Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine and Lecturer on Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston. He has written several books on mental illness and mood disorders, and has contributed to many scientific journals and other published works. Among his other views, Ghaemi is a proponent of the concept of manic depressive illness in the original Kraepelinian sense, an advocate for lithium therapy, and a critic of the DSM diagnostic system, which he views as largely unscientific and invalid.

#15266

Patricia Casey

#45734

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Patricia Rosarie Casey is an Irish psychiatrist, academic, journalist and conservative commentator on social issues. She is Professor of Psychiatry at University College Dublin and consultant psychiatrist at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin. She is known for her regular column with the Irish Independent newspaper, and her conservative views on a variety of social issues.

#15267

Shu Hongbing

#156297

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Shu Hongbing is a Chinese cytologist and immunologist. He became a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2011 and TWAS in 2012. Shu is mainly known for his work on cell signal transduction related to immunity.

#15268

Kafui Dzirasa

#82339

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Kafui Dzirasa is an American psychiatrist and Associate Professor at Duke University. He looks to understand the relationship between neural circuit malfunction and mental illness. He was a 2019 AAAS Leshner Fellow and was elected Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.

#15269

John E. Lisman

#173246

Overall Influence

1944 - 2017 (73 years)

John E. Lisman was the Zalman Abraham Kekst Chair in Neuroscience at the Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He was Professor of Biology, noted for his research on amplification and switching in signal transduction, memory, and neurological diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. For his research, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013.

#15270

Jon Levine

#176300

Overall Influence

Jon David Levine is an American neuroscientist known for his research on pain and analgesia, particularly in the field of placebo studies. He is a professor of Medicine, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, and Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco .

#15271

Trisha Davis

#170274

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Trisha Nell Davis is an American biochemist, the current Earl Davie/ZymoGenetics Chair of the department of biochemistry at the University of Washington. Her early research focused on Calmodulin, though the primary focus of her lab has since shifted to the molecular machinery of cell division in budding yeast, especially the microtubule organizing centers and the kinetochores.

#15272

Matthew O. Schrenk

#182336

Overall Influence

Matthew Schrenk is an associate professor in geomicrobiology at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the diversity, distribution, and activities of microorganisms in the deep subsurface biosphere. His work couples molecular biological approaches and geochemical analyses to investigate microbial ecosystems. Schrenk investigates high pH environments fueled by underground serpentinization reactions between water and certain rock types and hydrothermal vent systems along the ocean floor that are driven by volcanic activity.

#15273

Ann Bucklin

#175656

Overall Influence

Ann Bucklin is Professor Emeritus of Marine Sciences at the University of Connecticut known for her work using molecular tools to study zooplankton. Bucklin was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1995.

#15274

Elisa G. Nicora

#181949

Overall Influence

1912 - 2001 (89 years)

Elisa Gernaela Juana Raquel Nicora de Panza was an Argentinian botanist noted for her research on grasses, especially Malpighiaceae, Caryophyllaceae, Gramineae. She was a founding member of the Argentine Society of Botany, and was a curator at two herbaria. In the course of her career, she described over sixty species and gathered thousands of specimens.

#15275

Udo Reichl

#151328

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Udo Reichl a German bioengineer, is leader of the Research Group Bioprocess Engineering at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg and Chair of Bioprocess Engineering at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg.

#15276

Mel Thomson

#174477

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Dr. Melanie Thomson is a microbiologist and science communicator based in Victoria . She is the General Manager of Education, Skills and Events at the Medical Technologies and Pharmaceuticals Growth Centre.

#15277

Barbara Barratt

#181402

Overall Influence

Barbara Ingeborg Patricia Barratt is a New Zealand entomologist and biocontrol expert. In 2022 she was elected as fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi. Early life and education Barratt was born in England and has recalled that an interest in science was influenced by her father and a teacher who took her on nature walks to collect "creepy crawlies". At this stage she knew she wanted to get involved in natural history, particularly involving insects. She completed her PhD at Durham University in 1975, with a thesis on the sex pheromones of the drugstore beetle. She arrived in New Zealand as ...

#15278

Marilyn Gunner

#116987

Overall Influence

Marilyn Gunner is a physics professor at the City College of New York and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. She is known for her work on molecular biophysics and structural biology. Education Gunner received her B.A. from the State University of New York . She completed her Ph.D. in 1988 at the University of Pennsylvania, where she worked on topics such as electron transfer in proteins with Leslie Dutton.

#15279

Marie-Agnès Letrouit-Galinou

#181533

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Marie-Agnès Letrouit-Galinou is a French botanist, mycologist, and lichenologist, known for her contribution to revolutionizing the scientific understanding of ascomycete development and classification.

#15280

Pamela Rickard

#145081

Overall Influence

1928 - 2002 (74 years)

Professor Pamela Athalie Deidre Rickard was an Australian biochemist, serving as head of the University of New South Wales School of Biological Sciences from 1981 to 1988. Born in Sydney, she worked for a few years at the Daily Telegraph newspaper, before completing a TAFE course and entering Sydney University as a mature age student. She then gained a master's in biochemistry at the New South Wales University of Technology, writing her thesis on the "iron-containing pigments of certain fungi" under Professor Bernhard Ralph and Dr Frank Moss, and graduating in 1961. She then began a PhD in London on the biosynthesis of porphyrins under Professor Claude Rimington, finishing in 1963.

#15281

Alex A.R. Webb

#182364

Overall Influence

Professor Alex A.R. Webb is a plant biologist whose computational, genetic, and physiological studies center around plant chronobiology. He currently serves as the head of the Circadian Signal Transduction Group in the University of Cambridge's Department of Plant Sciences researching circadian pathways and what regulates them.

#15282

Anne Madden

#179242

Overall Influence

Anne Arnold Madden is an American biologist, inventor, and science communicator who advocates for finding "microbial solutions to human problems." Madden’s research on microscopic life is often featured in the press, particularly her studies on the microbial community of food, using advanced DNA techniques to create the first atlas of arthropods in USA homes, investigating the microscopic life in dust, and using insect yeasts for ethanol production and beer brewing.

#15283

Ann Sakai

#182159

Overall Influence

Ann Kiku Sakai is a plant biologist at the University of California, Irvine known for her work on plant breeding and speciation. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#15284

Mauricio De la Maza-Benignos

#175371

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Mauricio de la Maza-Benignos is a Mexican conservationist, naturalist and zoologist. He is also a member of Mexico's National System of Researchers. In addition to his work in ichthyology, he is an agronomist and zootechnician, a jurist, an administrator, and an editor.

#15285

Mark Moss

#161891

Overall Influence

Mark B. Moss is an American neurobiologist currently the Waterhouse Professor at Boston University.

#15286

Rae Wynn-Grant

#170529

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Rae Wynn-Grant is a large-carnivore ecologist and a fellow with National Geographic Society. She is best known for her research of the human impact on the behavior of black bears in Montana and is an advocate for women and people of color in the sciences.

#15287

Howard Sachs

#139664

Overall Influence

1926 - 2011 (85 years)

Howard Sachs , was a biochemist who helped pioneer the study of neuroendocrinology. His discoveries concerning the production of the hormone vasopressin laid the foundation for the field of hormone biosynthesis.

#15288

Graziela Barroso

#182433

Overall Influence

1912 - 2003 (91 years)

Graziela Maciel Barroso was a Brazilian botanist who has known as a leading expert of the flora of Brazil, as well as a specialist of Compositae. She was Chairman and Professor of the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Brasília, and has published three volumes of Sistemática de Angiospermas do Brasil.

#15289

Burkhard Becher

#178730

Overall Influence

Burkhard Becher is a German immunologist, biomedical researcher and academic. He is a Professor and Chair of the Institute of Experimental Immunology at the University of Zurich. Becher’s has authored over 270 publications. His early work focused his research on the role of microglia cells as brain-resident myeloid cells capable of instructing self-reactive T cells in the context of autoimmune neuro-inflammation. His contributions for over the past 25 years to the field of Neuroinflammation have had implications toward understanding Neurodegeneration and tissue loss in Multiple Sclerosis, Alzheimer disease and brain cancer.

#15290

Jan Frederik Veldkamp

#182060

Overall Influence

1941 - 2017 (76 years)

Jan Frederik Veldkamp was a Dutch botanist, plant taxonomist and grass specialist. He worked in the Rijksherbarium , he undertook various plant expeditions in Papua New Guinea. Which were documented between 1984- 2008 in Flora Malesiana Bulletin in about 400 publications. He was a student, friend and also Bridge partner of Dutch botanist Cornelis Gijsbert Gerrit Jan van Steenis .

#15291

Bryan Shaw

#120514

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Bryan F. Shaw is an American biochemist, inventor, and educator. He is a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Education Shaw grew up in Spokane, Washington. He earned an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry/Biophysics at Washington State University, and received his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University.

#15292

Mirela Delibegovic

#112581

Overall Influence

Mirela Delibegovic is a British pharmacologist/biochemist who is Dean for Industrial Engagement in Research & Knowledge Transfer and Director of Aberdeen Cardiovascular and Diabetes Centre. She holds a Personal Chair in Diabetes Physiology and Signalling at the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Delibegovic used artificial intelligence to develop technologies that would allow mass-screening for coronavirus disease 2019.

#15293

Arve Elvebakk

#182263

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Arve Elvebakk is a Norwegian mycologist and professor working from the Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø. He has published widely on Arctic biology, and climatology. Additionally, he collaborates with many mycologists across the world, and has published names for lichens in Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, and South America, and the Antarctic.

#15294

Christine Lambkin

#179111

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Christine Lynette Lambkin is an entomologist, scientific illustrator, and Curator of Entomology at the Queensland Museum. Career Lambkin began her career as a science teacher in Sydney and Brisbane after graduating from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Science and Diploma of Education in 1976. She became a Scientific Illustrator at the Queensland Museum in 1986, then with the CSIRO Division of Entomology, Long Pocket, Queensland in 1993. In 1994 Lambkin completed a Certificate of Visual Arts and Design at the Queensland College of Art.

#15295

Emmanuël Sérusiaux

#179328

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Emmanuël Sérusiaux is a Belgian lichenologist. His career, spanning more than four decades, has combined both lichenology research and political aspects of nature conservation. He spent several periods working as a researcher at the National Fund for Scientific Research and the University of Liège, the latter in which he accepted a faculty position as professor and head of the Plant Taxonomy and Conservation Biology unit. Sérusiaux also served for three non-consecutive appointments as Deputy Chief of Staff in the Government of Wallonia. He retired from both his academic and political position...

#15296

Carol Palmer

#110376

Overall Influence

Carol Palmer is a British anthropologist, environmental archaeologist and botanist. She is currently Director of the British Institute in Amman, an Honorary Fellow at Bournemouth University, and a part of the Thimar collective. Her primary research interests are in rural societies in the Arab world, changes in the practices of food production on the landscape and in society, and ethnobotany. She collaborates as Project Partner of the INEA project, which aims to examine archaeological site usage using phytolithic and geochemical evidence. She has also been a part of the Antikythera Survey Proje...

#15297

Chenghua Gu

#169365

Overall Influence

Chenghua Gu is a Professor of Neurobiology at the Harvard Medical School where her research focuses on the Blood–brain barrier. She is also part of the Harvard Brain Science Initiative and has won numerous awards for her groundbreaking research on the brain's vascular component.

#15298

Sigrid Veasey

#150500

Overall Influence

Sigrid Veasey is a physician and scientist affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. She specializes in medicine. Veasey is a professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology where she conducts research on sleep disorders and sleep disruption.

#15299

Akira Ito

#182571

Overall Influence

#15300

Kittie Fenley Parker

#179755

Overall Influence

1910 - 1994 (84 years)

Kittie Fenley Parker was a botanist for the National Museum of Natural History and author of An Illustrated Guide to Arizona Weeds. Biography Parker née Fenley was born in 1910. She attended the University of California, Berkeley and earned her PhD from the University of Arizona in 1946. She began her teaching career at the University of Arizona's School of Agriculture where she taught from 1949 through 1953. She went on to teach botany at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She was a research associate at the National Museum of Natural History from 1959 through 1989. Parker...

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