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,

#16051

Sumihiko Hatusima

#190066

Overall Influence

1906 - 2008 (102 years)

Sumihiko Hatsushima was a Japanese botanist. In scholarly works using the Latin alphabet, his name is generally romanised as "Sumihiko Hatusima" following the "Kunrei" system. Hatsushima was born in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan in 1906. His tertiary studies and early lectureship was at Kyushu Imperial University, where he was awarded a doctorate in 1942. He accompanied Ryōzō Kanehira on a collecting expedition in New Guinea in 1940. Hatsushima returned to Austronesia in a collecting expedition to the Philippines in 1964.

#16052

Annettee Nakimuli

#188498

Overall Influence

Annettee Olivia Nakimuli is a Ugandan obstetrician, gynecologist, medical researcher, academic and academic administrator. Since 17 February 2021, she serves as the Dean of Makerere University School of Medicine, the oldest medical school in East Africa. She concurrently serves as the Head of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the same medical school, a role she has served in since 2016. She is also the President of the East, Central and Southern Africa College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

#16053

D. Jade Simon

#188515

Overall Influence

D. Jade Simon is an American paleontologist, scientific communicator, and disability rights advocate. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, where she studies the paleobiology of oviraptorosaur dinosaurs.

#16054

Mercè Durfort i Coll

#180248

Overall Influence

1943 - 2022 (79 years)

Mercè Durfort i Coll was a Spanish biologist and professor. She was a member of Institute for Catalan Studies from 1989 until her death.

#16055

Hamid Ghodse

#67338

Overall Influence

1938 - 2012 (74 years)

Abdol Hamid Ghodse CBE was an academic in the field of substance abuse and addiction. Career Positions held at time of death Professor of Psychiatry and of International Drug Policy, University of London President of European Collaborating Centres for Addiction Studies Member of the International Narcotics Control Board Member of the Executive Committee of the Federation of Clinical Professors Director of the Board of International Affairs and Member of the Council, Royal College of Psychiatrists Member of the Scientific Committee on Tobacco and Health Non-executive director of the National ...

#16056

Beth Gott

#182735

Overall Influence

1922 - 2022 (100 years)

Margaret Beth Gott was an Australian plant physiologist, ethnobotanist and academic who specialised in the use of indigenous plants in south-east Australia. Academic career Born Margaret Beth Noye, , Gott won a Trinity College Council Non-Resident Exhibition in 1940, and completed a BSc in botany at the University of Melbourne with first class honours as well as being awarded the Caroline Kay Scholarship in Botany for 1943. She then studied at London University, where her research was the life-cycle of rye cereals. She later undertook research on Australian wheat varieties at the University ...

#16057

Ashwani Kumar

#189669

Overall Influence

Ashwani Kumar is an Indian microbiologist and the Senior Principal Scientist at the Institute of Microbial Technology . He is known for his studies on Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis. His laboratory focuses on understanding the reasons for drug tolerance observed in humans. His laboratory hypothesizes that tuberculosis is a biofilm infection, so its treatment needs the administration of multiple drugs for at least six months. The Department of Science and Technology has awarded him Swarnajayanti Fellowship for 2016–2017. Department of Biotechnology has awarded him the National Bioscience Prize .

#16058

Theodor Anton Neagu

#174901

Overall Influence

1932 - 2017 (85 years)

Theodor Anton Neagu was a Romanian micropaleontologist, stratigrapher, and, since 2001, titular member of the Romanian Academy. Neagu specialized in Upper Cretaceous foraminifera found in strata of the Carpathian Mountains.

#16059

Barry Cross

#178333

Overall Influence

1925 - 1994 (69 years)

Sir Barry Albert Cross was a British biologist. He was a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was knighted in 1989.

#16060

Keqin Gao

#190030

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

#16061

Estela V. Welldon

Estela V. Welldon

#67066

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Estela V. Welldon, MD DSc F.R.C.Psych Hon. Memb. A.Psa.A. BPC, is an honorary consultant psychiatrist in forensic psychotherapy at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. Biography Born in Mendoza, Argentina, she studied medicine at Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. She founded of the International Association for Forensic Psychotherapy in 1991.

#16062

Elizabeth K. Cahoon

#171319

Overall Influence

Elizabeth "Lisa" Khaykin Cahoon is a Georgian-born American epidemiologist researching cancer and precancer risks conferred by environmental sources of radiation exposure. She is a Stadtman investigator at the National Cancer Institute.

#16063

Lai-Ming Ching

#188186

Overall Influence

Lai-Ming Ching is a New Zealand cellular biology academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After gaining a PhD in 1978 and producing a doctoral thesis titled 'Analysis of clones of cytotoxic lymphocytes' at the University of Auckland, Ching joined the staff, rising to full professor.

#16064

Graciela Piñeiro

#189820

Overall Influence

Graciela Helena Piñeiro Martínez is a Uruguayan biologist and paleontologist. Her work led to the discovery of Mesosaurus fossils in Uruguay.

#16065

Shifu Chen

#190197

Overall Influence

#16066

Li Zhang

#189348

Overall Influence

Li Zhang is a biologist currently working at University of Texas at Dallas. She is a professor of Biological Sciences and the Cecil H. and Ida Green Distinguished Chair in Systems Biology Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. During her 20+ years of independent research, Li Zhang has made major contributions to the understanding of Heme signaling and function in gene regulation, neuronal differentiation and survival, and lung cancer bioenergetics.

#16067

Rosalind Coggon

#188834

Overall Influence

Rosalind Mary Coggon is an English scientist who is a Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. She is the co-editor of the 2050 Science Framework, which guides multidisciplinary subseafloor research. She was awarded the 2021 American Geophysical Union Asahiko Taira International Scientific Ocean Drilling Research Prize.

#16068

Katharina T. Huber

#130234

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Katharina Theresia Huber is a German applied mathematician and mathematical biologist whose research concerns phylogenetic trees, evolutionary analysis, their mathematical foundations, and their mathematical visualization. She is an associate professor in the School of Computing Sciences at the University of East Anglia in England, and the school's director of postgraduate research.

#16069

Jane Wilhelms

#188462

Overall Influence

Jane Patricia Wilhelms was an American biologist and computer scientist known for her contributions to computer graphics, including work on anatomical simulation of humans and animals and collision detection in computer animation, and isosurfaces and volume rendering in scientific visualization. She was a professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

#16070

Nils Johan Lavik

#130391

Overall Influence

1931 - 2011 (80 years)

Nils Johan Lavik was a Norwegian psychiatrist and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oslo. He was known for his work on psychological trauma among refugees. He graduated as a medical doctor in 1958, became a specialist in psychiatry in 1965 and earned his PhD at the University of Oslo in 1976. His dissertation compared youth in rural and urban areas. In 1978 he was appointed by the King-in-Council as Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oslo, and he became Professor Emeritus in 2000. From 1990 to 2000 he was also Director of the Psychosocial Centre for Refugees at the University of Oslo.

#16071

Jean Fleming

#188905

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Jean Sutherland Fleming is a New Zealand reproductive biologist, science communication advocate and environmentalist. She has been a professor emerita in science communication since her retirement from the University of Otago in 2014.

#16072

Hirohisa Saito

#190251

Overall Influence

#16073

Paul Broks

#53791

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Paul Broks is an English neuropsychologist and science writer. Career Broks trained as a clinical psychologist at Oxford University and went on to specialize in neuropsychology. He followed a career combining both clinical practice with the National Health Service , and basic research, with academic posts at the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham and Plymouth. He turned to freelance writing after entering a popular science writing competition organised by New Scientist magazine, which resulted in a book deal. The resulting book, Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology , published b...

#16074

Jeffrey E. Barlough

#164755

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Jeffrey E. Barlough is an American biologist, veterinarian, and novelist. In 1986, Barlough was a lecturer at the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. He is also the author of several dark fantasy novels that comprise his Western Lights series, set in an alternate world in which the last ice age never ended.

#16075

Mariah Carbone

#175832

Overall Influence

Mariah Suzanne Carbone is an American geophysicist who is a professor of Geosciences at the Center for ecosystem science and society, Northern Arizona University. She studies terrestrial ecosystems and how they respond to environmental change.

#16076

Allison Haywood

#190297

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Allison Joy Haywood is a planktonologist from New Zealand. Haywood completed her doctorate degree at the University of Auckland, focusing on molecular systematics. Her thesis project aimed to rapidly identify toxic algae which can cause serious food poisoning. The title of her 2002 doctoral thesis was Morphological and molecular systematics of unarmoured dinoflagellates from New Zealand.

#16077

Angélica M. Arambarri

#182843

Overall Influence

1945 - 2012 (67 years)

Angélica Margarita Arambarri was an Argentine botanist and mycologist. She was vice dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Museum of the National University of La Plata.

#16078

Eleanor Lyon Duke

Eleanor Lyon Duke

#189147

Overall Influence

1918 - 2013 (95 years)

Eleanor Lyon Duke was a professor of biology at the University of Texas at El Paso , known for her 78-year association with the school and for her sex-discrimination lawsuit against the university. In 1974 she was named UTEP's "Outstanding Ex".

#16079

Peter J. Schwendinger

#95802

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Peter J. Schwendinger is an Austrian arachnologist. He graduated from Innsbruck University in 1985, and in 1990 with a PhD, where he studied with Konrad Thaler. He was a lecturer at Innsbruck University, from 1989 to 1999. He taught at Chiang Mai University from 1996 to 1997. He is a curator at the Natural History Museum of Geneva. He is an editor of the journal Zootaxa.

#16080

Rebecca M. Calisi Rodriguez

Rebecca M. Calisi Rodriguez

#190194

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Rebecca M. Calisi Rodriguez is an American neuroendocrinologist, wildlife biologist, and National Geographic Explorer. She is an Associate professor of Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior in the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. Calisi leads a research team that studies how the brain controls sexual behavior, reproduction, and parental care, and how this changes under stress. As the Director for Science Communications at UC Davis, Calisi also studies science communication and advocates for inclusivity, equity, and diversity in STEM.

#16081

G. B. Edwards

#151481

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Glavis Bernard Edwards Jr. is an American taxonomic entomologist specializing primarily in spiders, with broader interests in butterflies, centipedes, millipedes, and thrips. He was the Curator of Arachnida and Myriapoda for the Florida State Collection of Arthropods , Division of Plant Industry, Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. His curatorial responsibilities included Arachnida : spiders, scorpions, harvestmen, and relatives; Crustacea : pillbugs, sowbugs; Myriapoda including centipedes, millipedes, and symphylans; Onychophora; and Thysanoptera. He has authored more than 100 scientific publications in his fields of research.

#16082

Christiane Ayotte

#99070

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Christiane Ayotte, O.C., is a Canadian scientist and academic from Quebec. She is currently the director of the Armand-Frappier Santé Biotechnologie Research Centre was formerly the President of the World Association of Anti‐Doping Scientists from 20162018.

#16083

Ira Pauly

#46827

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Ira Basil Pauly is an American psychiatrist who was an All American college football player at UCLA, and is known for his influential work on transsexualism. High school, college, and medical school Pauly attended grammar school in Beverly Hills, California, and then Beverly Hills High School.

#16084

Bradlee Heckmann

Bradlee Heckmann

#158310

Overall Influence

Bradlee L. Heckmann is an American biologist, pharmacologist. Heckmann holds academic appointments as a neuroimmunologist at the Byrd Alzheimer's Center and USF Health Neuroscience Institute and is assistant professor in molecular medicine at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine. Heckmann's research has been focused on understanding the regulation of inflammatory and metabolic processes in the central nervous system, with particular emphasis on neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease and the role of the autophagy machinery in this setting.

#16085

Antígona Segura

#128051

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Antígona Segura Peralta is a Mexican physicist and astrobiologist. Since 2006, she has been a researcher at the Institute of Nuclear Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and collaborator at the NASA Astrobiology Institute. As a feminist she actively advocates for the inclusion of women in the exact sciences, mathematics, and engineering. Segura has participated in several activities in and outside UNAM defending women's rights; she was awarded with the 2021 Hermila Galindo medal by the Congress of Mexico City.

#16086

Steven Earl Clemants

#189846

Overall Influence

1954 - 2008 (54 years)

Steven Earl Clemants was an American botanist and Vice President for Science at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He was a graduate faculty member of both Rutgers University and the City University of New York, and a long time member and former President of the Torrey Botanical Society.

#16087

George Santangelo

George Santangelo

#187465

Overall Influence

George M. Santangelo is an American genomicist and data scientist. He is the director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis at the National Institutes of Health. Education and career Santangelo received his bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. from Yale University. In 2011, he was appointed as director of the newly formed Office of Portfolio Analysis at the National Institutes of Health. Santangelo oversees a team of analysts, data scientists, and software developers to enable data-driven decision-making.

#16088

Roberta Hamme

#61759

Overall Influence

Roberta C. Hamme is a Canadian chemical oceanographer at the University of Victoria. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Ocean Carbon Dynamics . Education, research and career She did her Phd and MSc at University of Washington and BA at Pomona College.

#16089

Olayinka Olusola Omigbodun

#95116

Overall Influence

Olayinka Olusola Omigbodun is the first Nigerian female professor of psychiatry. She is a Professor at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. She is also the first female provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan.

#16090

Christopher German

#118995

Overall Influence

Christopher Russell German MBE is a British-born American oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Early life and career Christopher German was born and raised in Rochester, England where his parents and grandparents used to work at the naval base. As a student at the University of Cambridge, he obtained B.S. in chemistry and geology and Ph.D. in marine geochemistry. For two years, from 1988 to 1990, Chris was a NATO postdoctoral researcher in the United States where he worked with John Edmond at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and took dives in DSV Alvin. In 2005 C...

#16091

Kevin Lala

#189110

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Kevin Neville Lala is an English evolutionary biologist who is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Educated at the University of Southampton and University College London, he was a Human Frontier Science Program fellow at the University of California, Berkeley before joining the University of St Andrews in 2002. He is one of the co-founders of niche construction theory and a prominent advocate of the extended evolutionary synthesis. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Society of Biology. He has also received a Eur...

#16092

Kathryn Stowell

Kathryn Stowell

#171168

Overall Influence

Kathryn Mary Stowell is a New Zealand academic. In November 2022 she was appointed professor emerita, having been a full professor from 2016 at the Massey University. Academic career Stowell joined Massey University in 1976, after a 1990 PhD titled 'Cloning and expression of the cDNA for human lactoferrin,' she rose to full professor in 2015.

#16093

Michael J. Campbell

#190503

Overall Influence

#16094

Laura Mays Hoopes

Laura Mays Hoopes

#183795

Overall Influence

Laura Mays Hoopes was an American biologist. She was the Halstead-Bent Emerita Professor of Biology at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She was dean of the college from 1993 to 1998, and was known for her advocacy of women in science. She was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#16095

Michael King

#190525

Overall Influence

#16096

David Pye

#186003

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

John David Pye is a British zoologist who is an Emeritus Professor of Queen Mary, University of London. Professor Pye is a specialist in animal ultrasound echolocation and light polarisation. He presented the 1985 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures on the theme of "Communicating" and has written the textbook Polarised Light in Science and Nature.

#16097

John Kirkpatrick

#190570

Overall Influence

#16098

Ian McGregor

#146451

Overall Influence

1922 - 2007 (85 years)

Sir Ian Alexander McGregor, was a Scottish malariologist. McGregor was born in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, Scotland. His father was a tailor, his mother a housewife. He was educated at Rutherglen Academy, then studied medicine at St Mungo's College and Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

#16099

Michelle G. Giglio

#189888

Overall Influence

Michelle Gwinn Giglio is an American biocurator specializing in genomics, transcriptomics, and metagenomics. At the University of Maryland School of Medicine, she is an associate professor in the department of medicine and the associate director of analysis at the institute for genome sciences.

#16100

Jennie Ponsford

#186075

Overall Influence

Jennie Louise Ponsford is an Australian neuroscience researcher at Monash University, Victoria who has a special interest in Traumatic Brain Injury . Jennie is a clinical neuropsychologist, whose work is focused on developing a deeper understanding of the negative consequences of TBI, particularly those related to fatigue, sleep disturbance, attentional, memory and executive problems, psychiatric and behavioural disturbances and sexuality, and the development of rehabilitation interventions to improve long term recovery and quality of life in individuals with TBI.

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