The Most Influential People Across History
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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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#15751
Patrick Tam
#71700
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Patrick Ping Leung Tam He is an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society , Australian Academy of Science, Royal Society of Biology and Society of Biology. He is a cited pioneer in his field for studying mouse embryos, cells and biology.
Go to Profile#15752
Noam Ross
#184205
Overall Influence
Noam Ross is an experienced disease ecologist and R expert working out of New York. Education In 2006, Noam Ross received his Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies from Brown University. Ross continued his education at the University of California, Davis, where he received a Ph.D. in ecology in 2015. During his time at UC Davis, he gave multiple presentations at the Ecological Society of America Annual Meeting that covered "Modeling forest disease using a macroparasite framework" and "Optimal control of disease with individual-based models".
Go to Profile#15753
James McCaw
#187100
Overall Influence
James M. McCaw is an Australian mathematical biologist. He is professor of Mathematical Biology in the School of Mathematics and Statistics and in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne, where he is also Associate Dean .
Go to Profile#15754
C Daniel Salzman
#187115
Overall Influence
#15755
Jennifer Mordue
#171058
Overall Influence
A. Jennifer Mordue FRES is an entomologist in the United Kingdom. She is Emeritus Professor of Zoology at the University of Aberdeen, the first female professor of zoology at the university. Education and career Mordue was educated at the University of Sheffield graduating with a BSc in Zoology.
Go to Profile#15756
Fabio Terribile
#184836
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Fabio Terribile is an Italian agricultural scientist and professor at the University of Naples Federico II. He is a pedologist and coordinator of the EU project Landsupport. Life and work After completing his degree in agricultural sciences at the University of Naples Federico II , he earned a doctorate in philosophy in soil science at the University of Aberdeen with a research thesis in pedology with his dissertation on the characterization of two Italian vertisoles with a focus on light and Electron Microscopy, Clay Mineralogy, and Image Analysis . This was followed by activities as a res...
Go to Profile#15757
Sanford Jackson
#76886
Overall Influence
Sanford Jackson was a Canadian biochemist. Jackson graduated from the University of Toronto in chemical engineering and pathological chemistry. He was research biochemist and biochemist-in-chief at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children 1937–1974.
Go to Profile#15758
John A. Pollock
#152349
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
John A. Pollock, is a Full Professor of Biological Science at Duquesne University Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, where he researches and teaches molecular neurobiology. He is Principal Investigator for The Partnership in Education, a non-profit multidisciplinary health literacy and informal science education project at Duquesne University funded primarily through a Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, a component of the National Institutes of Health.
Go to Profile#15759
Kate Moran
#120904
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Kathryn Moran is an ocean engineer and Professor in the Faculty of Science at the University of Victoria. She is president and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada. Education Kate Moran grew up in Pennsylvania, where she first became interested in the ocean. Moran completed a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. She spent some time working at Procter and Gamble before joining a new program in Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island. After receiving a job offer from the Atlantic Geoscience Centre, she moved to Nova Scotia. She received her PhD in 1995 fr...
Go to Profile#15760
Kate R. Rosenbloom
#181647
Overall Influence
Kate R. Rosenbloom is a member of the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements Consortium. She is a Tech Project Manager and Software Developer at the Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz , USA. She has been a member of the scientific advisory board to the human proteome project and contributed data integration and visualisation within the GTEx consortium, an international project aiming to understand how genetic variation shapes variation between human tissues.
Go to Profile#15761
Christopher I. Moore
#86118
Overall Influence
Christopher I. Moore is a neuroscientist at Brown University. Early life and education Moore studied philosophy and neuroscience at Oberlin College, where he received his A.B., and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his Ph.D.
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Edvard Hauff
#122246
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Edvard Hauff is a Norwegian psychiatrist and Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the University of Oslo. He is known for his research on psychological trauma, forced migration, immigrants' mental health and global mental health. He spent years in Cambodia and is credited with building a psychiatric health service in the country.
Go to Profile#15763
Helen Petousis-Harris
#160071
Overall Influence
Helen Aspasia Petousis-Harris is a New Zealand vaccinologist and associate professor in the Department of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland. She has been involved in research related to vaccination in New Zealand since 1998, with her main areas of focus being vaccine safety and effectiveness. Petousis-Harris has had a variety of lead roles in New Zealand and international organisations that focus on vaccination and is a regular media spokesperson in this field, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to Profile#15764
Mohamed Mahgoub Azooz
#186896
Overall Influence
Mohamed Mahgoub Azooz is an Egyptian Professor of Plant Physiology in Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt. He is the Dean of Faculty of Science and one of the "Top 100 Scientists” published by International Biographical Centre, Cambridge-UK in 2011.
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Mkunde Chachage
#182861
Overall Influence
Mkunde Chachage is a lecturer and researcher in immunology at University of Dar es Salaam Mbeya College of Health and Allied Sciences . She is also a researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mbeya medical research centre . She conducts research in clinical immunology as well as infectious diseases of human including Tuberculosis , HIV and helminths infections.
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Akhouri Sinha
#179408
Overall Influence
Akhouri Sinha is a professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the University of Minnesota. The United States has named a mountain in Antarctica in honour of Sinha, Mt Sinha. Mr Sinha's native place is Churamanpur, a village in the state of Bihar in the eastern part of India.
Go to Profile#15767
Christian Müller
#157336
Overall Influence
1921 - 2013 (92 years)
Christian Müller was a teacher, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and Swiss writer from the canton de Vaud. See also Enquête de Lausanne External links Christian Müller Biography
Go to Profile#15768
Ronald Heifetz
#36454
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Ronald Heifetz is an academic and author. He is the King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership, Founding Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, and co-founder of Cambridge Leadership Associates.
Go to Profile#15769
Hugh Wilson
#124948
Overall Influence
1943 - 2018 (75 years)
Hugh Daniel Wilson was an American botanist and plant taxonomist. He was a professor at Texas A&M University and was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Biography Wilson attended Alliance High School in Alliance, Ohio, where he ran track and played football. He attended college after serving for four years in the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. He earned a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in botany, both from Kent State University. He completed a Ph.D. in botany and anthropology from Indiana University Bloomington. He jo...
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Charlotte Goodding Reeder
#184750
Overall Influence
1916 - 2009 (93 years)
Charlotte Goodding Reeder was an American agrostologist who was active in identifying the flora of Arizona. The abbreviation C.O.Goodd. has also been used. Biography Reeder was born on July 26, 1916, in Flagstaff, Arizona. She was the daughter of accomplished botanist Leslie Newton Goodding. Picking up from her father, she began to help him identify species in Arizona. She attended the University of Wyoming, earning her M.A. in 1939 for her thesis on Muhlenbergia. She then took classes at Oregon State University where she met John R. Reeder. The two married in 1941. With her husband conscrip...
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Mark Murphy
#187315
Overall Influence
#15772
Robert E. Page Jr.
#186217
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Robert E. Page Jr. is one of the foremost honey bee geneticists in the world and a Foundation Chair of Life Sciences of Arizona State University. An author of more than 250 research papers and articles, his work on the self-organizing regulatory networks of honey bees has been outlined in his book, "The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution," published by Harvard University Press in 2013. Page currently holds the titles of Arizona State University Provost Emeritus and Regents Professor Emeritus. He is also chair and professor emeritus at the University of California-Davis a...
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Ashleigh Whiffin
#172339
Overall Influence
Ashleigh Whiffin is an entomologist in the UK. She is a curator at the National Museum of Scotland and a specialist in carrion beetles . Education and career Whiffin studied BSc in forensic science at the University of Derby, during which she specialised in forensic entomology. She moved on to do MSc Entomology at Harper Adams University, and then started as a research technician at the University of Edinburgh working on burying beetles in Jacob Moorad's lab.
Go to Profile#15774
S. C. Gupta
#187345
Overall Influence
#15775
Bin Liu
#187376
Overall Influence
#15776
Aliasger K. Salem
#112928
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Aliasger K. Salem is the Associate Vice President for Research at the University of Iowa and Bighley Chair and Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Iowa College of Pharmacy. Salem's academic appointment at the University of Iowa is based in the College of Pharmacy, with additional secondary appointments in the College of Dentistry, Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Chemistry, and the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. Prior to joining the University of Iowa in 2004, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the J...
Go to Profile#15777
Hui Zhang
#185158
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Hui Zhang is a professor of Pathology at Johns Hopkins University. She specializes in analysis of glycoproteins and other protein modifications on the proteome scale. Her most cited article is Identification and quantification of N-linked glycoproteins using hydrazide chemistry, stable isotope labeling and mass spectrometry.
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Sally McCormick
#184582
Overall Influence
Sally Priscilla Anna McCormick is a New Zealand biochemistry academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 1992 PhD thesis titled 'Hypobetalipoproteinaemia and truncated forms of human apolipoprotein B' at Lincoln University, she moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor in 2016.
Go to Profile#15779
Herbert Zimmermann
#140894
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Herbert Zimmermann is a German neuroscientist who pioneered the studies on the biochemical, structural and functional heterogeneity of cholinergic synaptic vesicles from the electric organ of the electric ray Torpedo, and the functional and biochemical characterization of enzymes hydrolyzing extracellular nucleotides.
Go to Profile#15780
Lenny Seligman
#184716
Overall Influence
Maurice Leonard Seligman is an American molecular geneticist. He is the John P. and Magdalena R. Dexter Professor of Biology at Pomona College in Claremont, California. His work focuses on engineering homing endonucleases.
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Ilga Winicov
#187419
Overall Influence
Ilga Winicov is an American biologist and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Henry Kranzler
#180338
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Henry Richard Kranzler is an American psychiatrist who serves as a professor of psychiatry and Director of the Center for Studies of Addiction at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, where he has worked since 2010. He previously was Professor of Psychiatry and Genetics and Developmental Biology at the University of Connecticut. His research focuses on addiction medicine, especially genetic and pharmacological aspects of alcohol use disorder and other substance use disorders. He is the editor-in-chief of Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research, the official jo...
Go to Profile#15783
Max Hooper
#109140
Overall Influence
1934 - 2017 (83 years)
Max Dorien Hooper was an English naturalist and the inventor of "Hooper's rule" , which is used to estimate the age of a hedgerow. He received the Peter Scott Memorial Award. Selected publications Hedges. Collins New Naturalist series Nature Day and Night Nature Through the Seasons
Go to Profile#15784
Alberto Paniz-Mondolfi
#103757
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Alberto E. Paniz-Mondolfi MD, MSc, PhD, FFTM RCPS is a Venezuelan pathologist, epidemiologist, and molecular medicine researcher. Currently he is a pathologist and assistant professor in New York City and is affiliated with multiple hospitals in the area, including Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West Hospitals and Mount Sinai Hospital. Also, he is the Academic Director and Founder of The Venezuelan Science Incubator , a group focused on infectious diseases research and awareness based in Venezuela.
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Steven A. Narod
#187466
Overall Influence
#15786
Helen Bronte-Stewart
#183759
Overall Influence
Helen M. Bronte-Stewart is a neurologist and an assistant professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also the director of the Stanford Movement Disorders Center.
Go to Profile#15787
Mavis Davidson
#187356
Overall Influence
1910 - 2004 (94 years)
Mavis Melville Davidson was a New Zealand zoologist, biologist and mountaineer. Biography Davidson was born in Te Karaka, Poverty Bay, the seventh of nine children of Thomas James and Dagmar Martha Melville Gedye . She attended primary school in Gisborne and then Wairoa High School, followed by a year at a commercial college in Auckland. After completing her studies, she worked in Auckland and Wellington as a shorthand typist and clerk. During World War II, she served in the Women's Royal Army Corps as a subaltern for four years.
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Karina Yaniv
#187503
Overall Influence
Karina Yaniv is an Israeli scientist who is best known for her contributions to the field of vascular development. She is a Professor of Vascular Disease in the Department of Biological Regulation at the Weizman Institute of science, Rehovot, Israel. She has three kids, and lives in the Weizmann Institute.
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Naomi Fraga
#186712
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Naomi Suzanne Fraga is an American botanist who is the Director of Conservation at the California Botanic Garden and research assistant professor of botany at Claremont Graduate University. She has focused her career on the conservation, monitoring and habitat restoration of rare plants across California. She was awarded the 2021 Center for Biological Diversity E.O. Wilson Award for Outstanding Science in Biodiversity Conservation. In 2023, Fraga received the Peter Raven Award from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists. This award is given annually to a plant systematist who has made exce...
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Carin Ashjian
#187013
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Carin Jessica Ashjian is an American biological oceanographer who is an associate scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She studies how the physical environment influences the distribution of plankton in the Beaufort Sea.
Go to Profile#15791
Guido Poppe
#186494
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Guido T. Poppe is a Belgian malacologist, shell dealer and author of more than 20 books and publications about shells, mainly about the families Volutidae and Trochidae. Biography The son of an enthusiastic sports fisherman, Guido became fascinated at a young age by marine life during yearly holidays in Brittany, France. His first diving experiences were in these cold waters in 1968.
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Maria Vorontsova
#172835
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Maria Sergeevna Vorontsova is a Russian-born botanist, specializing in the taxonomy of Poaceae . She was responsible for authoring the taxon for Solanum agnewiorum and Solanum umtuma. She is a member of the Accelerated Taxonomy department at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She is one of the co-authors and maintainers of GrassBase, and is an editor of the journal, Phytotaxa.
Go to Profile#15793
Benjamin Van Mooy
#187541
Overall Influence
Benjamin Van Mooy is an oceanographer and senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution located in Woods Hole, MA. His work primarily focuses on chemical oceanography, with a particular focus on the production and remineralization of marine organic matter.
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Priscilla Wehi
#176243
Overall Influence
Priscilla M. Wehi is a New Zealand ethnobiologist and conservation biologist. As at July 2021 she is an associate professor at the University of Otago and on the first of that month officially undertook the role of director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, a centre of research excellence in complex systems and data analytics. During the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand Te Pūnaha Matatini scientists have developed mathematical models of the spread of the virus across the country that influence the New Zealand government's response to the outbreak. In 2021 Wehi was awarded the Hill Tinsley Medal.
Go to Profile#15795
Charles Krauthammer
#187564
Overall Influence
#15796
Luc Brouillet
#182400
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Luc Brouillet is a Canadian botanist. He has focused his research on genetics of the Asteraceae family, flora of Quebec-Labrador and Newfoundland, and has been significantly involved in the Flora of North America project. In 2016 the Canadian Botanical Association awarded him the George Lawson Medal.
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Lynn Ponton
#153529
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Dr. Lynn Elisabeth Ponton is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of the books The Sex Lives of Teenagers and The Romance of Risk. Her work in the area of adolescent risk-taking has had a high profile at a time of newfound sexual conservatism. Her media publications include MTV, Salon.com, 60 Minutes, and many more.
Go to Profile#15798
Rebecca Yahr
#187231
Overall Influence
Rebecca Yahr is an American lichenologist who works at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh in Scotland. She was President of the British Lichen Society from 2019 until 2022. Early life and education Rebecca Yahr was born in the United States and grew up near the Appalachian Mountains. She studied botany at University of California, Davis for her B. Sc. degree, awarded in 1994. She gained her doctorate from Duke University in 2004 for research into how the relationship between the fungi and algae within a lichen evolve over time.
Go to Profile#15799
Ernest Lundelius
#148433
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Ernest L. Lundelius is a vertebrate paleontologist who has conducted research in the United States and Australia. Lundelius retired as professor emeritus at the Jackson School of Geosciences of the University of Texas. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in the mid 1950s, the earliest part of his career, to undertake research on geologically recent vertebrate fauna in Western Australia, examining and describing fossils from the Pleistocene epoch and later. In 2008 Lundelius was distinguished by the Texas Academy of Sciences as their scientist of the year.
Go to Profile#15800
Ameenah Gurib-Fakim
#124877
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Dr. Bibi Ameenah Firdaus Gurib-Fakim GCSK is a Mauritian politician and biodiversity scientist who served as the sixth president of Mauritius from 2015 to 2018. In December 2014, she was selected to be the presidential candidate of the Alliance Lepep. After Kailash Purryag resigned on 29 May 2015, both Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth and Leader of the Opposition Paul Berenger positively welcomed her nomination, which was unanimously approved in a vote in the National Assembly.
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