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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Person Name

School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#15351

Indira Raman

#183068

Overall Influence

#15352

Heidi Steltzer

#112798

Overall Influence

Heidi Steltzer is a German-born American scientist of arctic and alpine ecology and professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado teaching Biology and Environment and Sustainability. Steltzer is known for her work on snow melt and how it affects ecosystems in the surrounding areas.

#15353

Daniel E. Wonderly

#176728

Overall Influence

1922 - 2004 (82 years)

Daniel E. Wonderly was an American biologist and old-earth creationist who taught at Grace College, where he helped to establish the biology department. Biography Wonderly was born on April 21, 1922, in Mountain Lake Park, Maryland, to Earl and Gustava Wonderly. After graduating from Oakland High School in Oakland, Maryland in 1940, he attended the Southeastern Bible College for two years. He was then drafted into the United States Army, in which capacity he served in both Japan and Europe during World War II. After the war, he returned to the United States to attend Wheaton College, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology in 1949.

#15354

Robert H. Jr. Brown

#183083

Overall Influence

#15355

Frederick Keith Barker

#182700

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#15356

Zuleyma Tang-Martínez

#134866

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Zuleyma Tang-Martínez is an emeritus professor of biology at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Earlier in her career she published under her former married name, Zuleyma Tang Halpin. Early life and education Tang-Martínez was born in Venezuela on March 9, 1945. She and her family lived in ethnically segregated camps that were operated by an American oil company. Her father was a company accountant, permitting Tang-Martínez to be among the very few Venezuelans to be raised and attend school in the American camps. In 1960, she was sent by her parents to attend a Catholic, all-girls, boarding high school in Tampa FL because the oil camp schools did not go beyond the 8th grade.

#15357

Michael Lardon

#84477

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Michael Theodore Lardon is an American sport psychiatrist. Lardon is an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and is the author of two books, "Mastering Golf's Mental Game" and "Finding Your Zone: 10 Core Lessons for Peak Performance in Sports and Life" .

#15358

Cornelis Van Breemen

#183111

Overall Influence

#15359

Hiroshi Itoh

#183112

Overall Influence

#15360

Jan E. Lovie-Kitchin

#122221

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Jan E. Lovie-Kitchin is an Australian optometrist, former professor at Queensland University of Technology and founder of the university's Vision Rehabilitation Centre. She was the co-developer of the Bailey-Lovie visual acuity chart.

#15361

Helen Mason

#182481

Overall Influence

Helen Mason is a British endocrinologist who specialises in reproductive endocrinology and is deputy head of Biomedical Sciences at St. Georges . She graduated from Aston University and Imperial College London, and is now a director of PCOS UK, which provides support for health-care professionals dealing with polycystic ovary syndrome. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. Mason also specialized in reproductive functions of patients with eating disorder and has published several papers and contributed to a number of books on the subject.

#15362

Georgette D. Kanmogne

#179434

Overall Influence

Georgette D. Kanmogne is a Cameroonian American geneticist and molecular virologist and a full professor and vice chair for resource allocation and faculty development within the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neurosciences at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. Kanmogne's research program focuses on exploring the pathogenesis of neuroAIDS by deciphering the mechanisms underlying blood brain barrier dysfunction and viral entry into the central nervous system. Her research also addresses the lack of HIV therapies that cross the blood brain barrier and has...

#15363

Qiang Yu

#183149

Overall Influence

#15364

Sarah Romans

#111119

Overall Influence

Sarah E. Romans FRANZCP is a New Zealand academic psychiatrist and Emerita Professor at the University of Otago. Academic career Romans holds a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine from the University of Otago. She moved to the University of Toronto where she researched gender differences and depression. She returned to the University of Otago and was appointed a full professor, effective 1 February 2011. As of 2020 she is Professor Emerita at the University of Otago and also conducts a private psychiatric practice for adults.

#15365

Rebecca Woodgate

#181190

Overall Influence

Rebecca Woodgate is a professor at the University of Washington known for her work on ocean circulation in polar regions. Education and career Woodgate has a B.A. from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from the University of Oxford . Following her Ph.D., she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. In 1999, she moved to the University of Washington and, as of 2022, she is a professor at the University of Washington.

#15366

Mirit I. Aladjem

#177056

Overall Influence

Mirit I. Aladjem is an Israeli-American biologist researching cellular signaling pathways that regulate DNA synthesis. She is a senior investigator in the National Cancer Institute's developmental therapeutics branch and head of the DNA replication group.

#15367

Michael Weiss

#183191

Overall Influence

#15368

Barbara Harland

#182328

Overall Influence

1925 - 2020 (95 years)

Barbara F. Harland was a biologist, dietician, nutritionist, and professor of nutritional sciences at Howard University, within the College of Nursing and Allied Health Services. Harland was licensed as a dietician and nutritionist by the State of Maryland and worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a research biologist. In 1984, she accepted a faculty position at Howard University and served as a professor of nutritional sciences for over 30 years, where she was awarded tenure and joined the graduate faculty. She was also involved in supporting student aid and school supply funding, establishing the Dr.

#15369

Antonio Michele Stanca

#175445

Overall Influence

1942 - 2020 (78 years)

Antonio Michele Stanca was an Italian geneticist. He was born in Soleto, Italy. He graduated in University of Bari, majoring in agricultural science. He had been a professor at the University of Milan, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Piacenza, of Tunis, and the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

#15370

Peter de Lange

#182503

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Peter James de Lange is a New Zealand botanist at Unitec Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and has received the New Zealand Botanical Society Allan Mere award and the Loder Cup for his botanical work. Two species are named in his honour.

#15371

M. Elizabeth Tidball

M. Elizabeth Tidball

#172830

Overall Influence

1929 - 2014 (85 years)

Mary Elizabeth Tidball was an American physiologist. She was an advocate for women in academia and STEM and a supporter of women's colleges. Tidball was a longtime faculty member at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences where she became the institution's first woman appointed professor of physiology. Her research in the 1960s on the career outcomes of graduates from women's colleges versus those from coeducational institutions sparked discussions that continued for decades. Tidball was the first female president of the Cathedral Choral Society where she sang for a...

#15372

Maryam Shanechi

#115055

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Maryam M. Shanechi is an Iran-born American neuroengineer. She studies ways of decoding the brain's activity to control brain-machine interfaces. She was honored as one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators under 35 in 2014 and one of the Science News 10 scientists to watch in 2019. She is Professor and Viterbi Early Career Chair in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Viterbi School of Engineering, and a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Southern California.

#15373

Udelgard Körber-Grohne

#174559

Overall Influence

1923 - 2014 (91 years)

Udelgard Körber-Grohne was a German archaeobotanist. Early life and education Körber-Grohne was born in Hamburg. Her father Ernst Grohne was an archaeologist and museum curator in Bremen. She studied biology at university, graduating from Braunschweig Technical University in 1948.

#15374

Patrick Christie

#183247

Overall Influence

#15375

Christine Jasoni

#182546

Overall Influence

Christine Jasoni is an American-born New Zealand academic specialising in foetal neural development. She is a professor at the University of Otago and has been the director of the university's Brain Health Research Centre since 2016. In 2020 she was elected a Ngā Takahoa a Te Apārangi Companion of Royal Society Te Apārangi.

#15376

Ann Wylie

#176959

Overall Influence

1922 - Present (104 years)

Ann Philippa Wylie is a New Zealand botanist, and was an associate professor at the University of Otago before her retirement in 1987. Early life and family Wylie was born on 12 April 1922, the daughter of noted surgeon David Storer Wylie, who survived the sinking of the SS Marquette in 1915, and his second wife, Isobel Edith Wylie . She was educated at Nga Tawa Diocesan School near Marton, and went on to study at the University of Otago. She completed her Master of Science with first-class honours in botany in 1945, and a Diploma of Honours in zoology the following year. She began working at...

#15377

Tania Schoennagel

#177670

Overall Influence

Tania Schoennagel is an ecologist who specializes in wildfires and insect outbreaks. She is a research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder and has been involved with INSTAAR since 2011.

#15378

David Bramwell

#123240

Overall Influence

1942 - 2022 (80 years)

David Bramwell MBE was an English botanist and taxonomist, director of the Jardín Botánico Canario Viera y Clavijo, Gran Canaria , and active in the conservation of insular floras. Education Bramwell was born in Ormskirk, near Liverpool, on 25 November 1942. He attended Old Hall Grammar School, Maghull, and studied botany at the University of Liverpool , with postgraduate study at the University of Seville . He completed his doctoral thesis on a "Revision of the genus Echium in Macaronesia" at the University of Reading .

#15379

Vladimir Viktorovich Dubatolov

#183292

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Vladimir Viktorovich Dubatolov is a Russian entomologist, lepidopterist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, full member of the Russian Entomological Society , member of the European Lepidopterological Society , curator of the insect collection of the Siberian Zoological Museum, leading researcher at the Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals SB RAS , leading researcher of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Zapovednoye Priamurye" .

#15380

Betty Kellett Nadeau

#129308

Overall Influence

1905 - 1999 (94 years)

Betty Kellett Nadeau , born Elizabeth Rosina Kellett, was an American paleontologist and micro-paleontologist who studied Palaeozoic ostracod. Numerous marine species were discovered due to the work she had done throughout her fruitful career. This work is evident to the genus Bekena named after her.

#15381

Bernhard Landwehrmeyer

#181045

Overall Influence

Georg Bernhard Landwehrmeyer FRCP is a German neurologist and neuroscientist in the field of neurodegeneration primarily focusing on Huntington's disease. Landwehrmeyer is a professor of neurology at Ulm University Hospital. He was one of the founders of the European Huntington's Disease Network in 2004 and was chairman of its executive committee until 2014.

#15382

Marjo S. Van Der Knaap

#183370

Overall Influence

#15383

Stephen Jackson

Stephen Jackson

#139047

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Sir Stephen Philip Jackson, FRS, FMedSci is the Frederick James Quick Professor of Biology. He is a senior group leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and associate group leader at the Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge.

#15384

Finn Wischmann

#171384

Overall Influence

1918 - 2011 (93 years)

Finn Wischmann was a Norwegian botanist. Graduating with a cand.mag. degree, Wischmann spent his entire professional life at the Botanical Museum and the Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo. He edited and translated a Swedish-language Flora entitled Norsk fargeflora, which was published in five editions before Wischmann's death in 2011. He also translated the German language encyclopedia Grosse Bilderlexikon der Pflanzen, which was published under the title by the publishing house Tanum in 1970.

#15385

Joel K Abraham

#181275

Overall Influence

Joel K. Abraham is an American ecologist and professor at California State University Fullerton. His work focuses on how plant traits and competition shape invasion success by non-native plant species in California.

#15386

Jon Harding

#182791

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Jonathan Sutherland Harding is a freshwater ecologist from New Zealand. He completed a doctorate at the University of Canterbury in 1994, with a thesis on New Zealand's lotic ecoregions. He is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Canterbury. Harding completed a DSc in 2018 at the University of Canterbury. He served as Dean of Postgraduate Research at Canterbury and was President of the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society. Harding is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the Ako Aotearoa Academy and an Honorary member of the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Soci...

#15387

Ellen S. Kappel

#168518

Overall Influence

Ellen Sue Kappel Berman is a science communicator in the area of oceanography. After earning her Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics, Kappel worked as program manager for the Ocean Drilling Program and later established a company helping to make the case for funding of geoscience programs. She has been the head editor of Oceanography since 2004.

#15388

Mark S. George

#70474

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Mark S. George is a Distinguished University Professor of psychiatry, radiology and neurosciences and is the director of the Medical University of South Carolina Center for Advanced Imaging Research as well as the Brain Stimulation Laboratory. As of June 2020, his research has been cited over 47,000 times, with an h-index of 113 and i-10 index of 404.

#15389

LuAnne Thompson

#175548

Overall Influence

LuAnn Thompson is the Walters Endowed Professor at the University of Washington. She is known for her work in modeling the movement of heat and chemicals via ocean currents. Education and career Thompson grew up in northern California and was interested in astrophysics. She received a B.S. in physics from the University of California, Davis , an M.A. in physics from Harvard University , and a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution . Following her Ph.D. she moved to the University of Washington first as a post-doctoral fellow, and then she joined the faculty in 1993.

#15390

David Robertson

#183445

Overall Influence

#15391

Molly R. Morris

#178389

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Molly R. Morris is an American behavioral ecologist who has worked with treefrogs and swordtail fishes in the areas of alternative reproductive tactics and sexual selection. Morris received a Bachelor of Arts from Earlham College and a PhD from Indiana University. As a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, her work with Mike Ryan demonstrated equal fitnesses between alternative reproductive tactics in a species of swordtail fish. She joined the faculty at Ohio University in 1997, where she is now a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.

#15392

Ann Fowler Rhoads

Ann Fowler Rhoads

#180515

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Ann Fowler Rhoads is an American botanist who worked as a plant pathologist at Morris Arboretum for 36 years, retiring in 2013. She is the co-founder of the Pennsylvania Flora Project of Morris Arboretum. In addition, Rhoads is a former Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a former Research Associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

#15393

Steve Irwin

#130643

Overall Influence

1962 - 2006 (44 years)

Stephen Robert Irwin , known as "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian zookeeper, conservationist, television personality, wildlife educator, and environmentalist. Irwin grew up around crocodiles and other reptiles and was educated regarding them by his father, Bob. He achieved international fame in the late 1990s from the television series The Crocodile Hunter, an internationally broadcast wildlife documentary series that he co-hosted with his wife, Terri. The couple also hosted the series Croc Files, The Crocodile Hunter Diaries, and New Breed Vets. They also co-owned and operated Australia Zoo, founded by Steve's parents in Beerwah, Queensland.

#15394

John E. Bowers

#183503

Overall Influence

#15395

Richard Frankham

#181444

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Richard Frankham is an Australian biologist, author, and academic. He is an Emeritus Professor in Biology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. Frankham's research interests are primarily in the evolutionary genetics of small populations, spanning the fields of quantitative genetics, animal breeding, conservation genetics, and conservation biology. He is the senior author of five textbooks, including Introduction to Conservation Genetics in 2002. A Primer of Conservation Genetics in 2004, Genetic Management of Fragmented Animal and Plant Populations in 2017, and A Practical Guide for Genetic Management of Fragmented Animal and Plant Populations in 2019.

#15396

Chavonda Jacobs-Young

#157812

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Chavonda J. Jacobs-Young is an American government executive who serves as the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Research, Education, and Economics. Jacobs-Young was previously the administrator of the Agriculture Research Service, first appointed in February 2014; she was the first female and person of color to lead the agency. In 1998, Jacobs-Young became the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in paper science.

#15397

Judith Sulzberger

#101404

Overall Influence

1923 - 2011 (88 years)

Judith Peixotto Sulzberger was an American physician and philanthropist. Her family has been associated with The New York Times since her grandfather Adolph Ochs purchased the paper in 1896. Early life and childhood Sulzberger was one of four children of Iphigene Sulzberger and Arthur Hays Sulzberger , the publisher of The New York Times from 1935-61.

#15398

Laufey Ámundadóttir

#182949

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Laufey Thora Ámundadóttir is an Icelandic cell biologist and geneticist who researches pancreatic cancer. She is a senior investigator in the laboratory of translational genomics at the National Cancer Institute. She was head of the division of cancer genetics at deCODE genetics from 1998 to 2007.

#15399

Maria Cardenas-Corona

#183553

Overall Influence

Maria Elena Cárdenas-Corona is an American geneticist and microbiologist specialized in cell signaling. She is a scientific review officer in the Center for Scientific Review. Cardenas-Corona is a research professor emeritus of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke University School of Medicine.

#15400

Han Jiahuai

#170379

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Han Jiahuai is a Chinese cell biologist and professor of the School of Life Sciences, Xiamen University. He was elected as a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2013. He is also a foreign member of the American Association of Immunologists and the American Society for Microbiology. Han is mainly known for his work in innate immune signaling, especially the discovery of p38 signaling pathway.

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