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).
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#16251
Daniel Johnston
#192294
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Daniel Johnston is an American neuroscientist, having held the Karl Folkers Chair in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research at University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#16252
Aleksander Pototski
#192303
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#16253
María Amelia Torres
#192322
Overall Influence
1934 - 2011 (77 years)
María Amelia Torres was an Argentine botanist and agrostologist. She was an authority on the Poaceae family of grasses with an emphasis on the Nassella and the Stipa genera. The Amelichloa genus was named in her honour.
Go to Profile#16254
Sheritta A. Strong
#181848
Overall Influence
Sheritta A. Strong is an American adult psychiatrist and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Strong is a leader in education and advocacy at UNMC, and is the co-director of Medical Student Education in the Department of Psychiatry as well as the Interim Director for Inclusion at UNMC. As a psychiatrist, Strong focuses her clinical attention on treating patients with chronic and persistent mental illness. She is also dedicated to reducing barriers to healthcare access for marginalized populations and she mentors underrepresented scientists and physicians to increase their retention in healthcare.
Go to Profile#16255
Robin Rönnlund
#192328
Overall Influence
Robin Rönnlund is the Wenner-Gren fellow at the University of Thessaly for the department of History, Archaeology, and Social Anthropology. Rönnlund is best known for his role as director of the survey at Thessalian Vlochos in Greece. The survey focused on mapping the ruins of the ancient city and determining when the city was established and why it was abandoned.
Go to Profile#16256
Josephine Kane
#184656
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Josephine Kane is a British academic and historian of architecture and the built environment. Publications The architecture of pleasure: British amusement parks 1900-1939 . Ashgate Press.
Go to Profile#16257
Davangere Devanand
#179024
Overall Influence
Davangere P. Devanand is Division Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Neurology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Go to Profile#16258
John Ascher
#190051
Overall Influence
John S. Ascher is an American entomologist. He specializes in the study of Apoidea and has been described as "one of the world's leading native bee taxonomists." While they get less publicity than the industrious honeybee, bees indigenous to the Americas play a crucial "role in pollinating crops such as tomatoes, cranberries, alfalfa and squash, experts say. They are often more effective than honeybees as pollinators, and more resistant to problems that have decimated honeybees in the U.S. and Europe, several studies show.”
Go to Profile#16259
John Ning-Yuean Lee
#177213
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Professor John Ning-Yuean Lee, KHS is a Taiwanese biologist and former president of Fu Jen Catholic University. At present, he is the chair professor of Beijing Normal University Zhuhai campus. He obtained the bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree at National Taiwan University. Afterward, he served as professor at the National Taiwan Sport University, the 1st dean of College of Human Ecology and university president at Fu Jen, dean of College of Living Technology at Tainan University of Technology.
Go to Profile#16260
Maria Luisa Figueira
#90948
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Maria Luisa Figueira is a Portuguese Consultant psychiatrist, psychiatrist and academic known for her research in clinical and experimental psychopathology and psychopharmacology, particularly in relation to bi-polar disorders and schizophrenia. She is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Lisbon Faculty of Medicine and Head of the Psychiatric Department at the Hospital de Santa Maria in Lisbon.
Go to Profile#16261
George Traut Austin
#192392
Overall Influence
1943 - 2009 (66 years)
#16262
Frederick R. Maxfield
#160367
Overall Influence
Frederick R. Maxfield is a biochemist and Vladimir Horowitz and Wanda Toscanini Horowitz Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience, Biochemistry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is one of the top highly cited researchers according to webometrics.
Go to Profile#16263
Trond Berg
#190129
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Trond Berg is a Norwegian cell physiologist. He hails from Svensby in Ullsfjord. After attending Troms Landsgymnas and the University of Oslo, he took his PHD at Rutgers University in 1968. He became a professor at the University of Tromsø and the University of Oslo; professor emeritus from 2004. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and won the Fridtjof Nansen Prize for Outstanding Research in 2008.
Go to Profile#16264
Odd Stokke Gabrielsen
#192426
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Odd Stokke Gabrielsen is a Norwegian biochemist. He studied at the University of Oslo, taking the cand.mag. degree in 1973 and cand.real. in 1977. He was a research fellow from 1977 to 1983 under Tordis Øyen, became an associate professor in January 1992 and professor in May 1993. He is a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Go to Profile#16265
Vladimir Pyankov
#192450
Overall Influence
1954 - 2002 (48 years)
Vladimir Ivanovich Pyankov was a Russian phytophysiologist, professor of the Ural State University. Great contribution in studies of structural and functional methods of the ecological studies of photosynthesis has been made by V. I. Pyankov. He successfully developed the idea of academician Adolf Mokronosov about the unity of structure and function in the evolution of photosynthesis.
Go to Profile#16266
Robert Loftin
#187774
Overall Influence
1938 - 1993 (55 years)
Robert Wayne Loftin was an American environmentalist, ornithologist, and philosopher. He was a professor at the University of North Florida, where he founded the Sawmill Slough Conservation Club and designed the campus's nature trails. The trails on UNF's campus were subsequently renamed the Robert Loftin Nature Trails in his memory on August 31, 1993.
Go to Profile#16267
Johann Georg Christian Lehmann
1792 - 1860 (68 years)
Johann Georg Christian Lehmann was a German botanist. Born at Haselau, near Uetersen, Holstein, Lehmann studied medicine in Copenhagen and Göttingen, obtained a doctorate in medicine in 1813 and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena in 1814. He spent the rest of his life as professor of physics and natural sciences, and head librarian, at the Gymnasium Academicum in Hamburg.
Go to Profile#16268
Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich
1815 - 1877 (62 years)
Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich was a German physician, pioneer psychiatrist, and medical professor. He is known for his measurement of mean normal human body temperature of 37 °C , now known more accurately to be about 36.8 °C .
Go to Profile#16269
Cardale Babington
1808 - 1895 (87 years)
Charles Cardale Babington was an English botanist and archaeologist. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1851. Babington was the son of Joseph Babington and Cathérine née Whitter, and a nephew of Thomas Babington Macaulay. He was educated at Charterhouse and St John's College, Cambridge, obtaining his Bachelor of Arts in 1830 and his Master of Arts in 1833. He overlapped at Cambridge with Charles Darwin, and in 1829 they argued over who should have the pick of beetle specimens from a local dealer. He obtained the chair of botany at the University of Cambridge in 1861 and wrote several papers on insects.
Go to Profile#16270
Sydney Howard Vines
1849 - 1934 (85 years)
Sydney Howard Vines FRS was a British botanist and academic. He was Sherardian Professor of Botany at Oxford University from 1888 to 1919, and served as president of the Linnean Society of London from 1900 to 1904. He directed the publication of the Annals of Botany from 1887 to 1899.
Go to Profile#16271
Paul Clemens von Baumgarten
1848 - 1928 (80 years)
Paul Clemens von Baumgarten was a German pathologist. Biography Paul Clemens was the son of a physician. He studied under Christian Wilhelm Braune and Ernst Leberecht Wagner at the University of Leipzig, and with Ernst Neumann at the University of Königsberg. He obtained his medical doctorate at Leipzig in 1873, and later that year began work in the anatomical institute in Leipzig as an assistant to Braune and Wilhelm His, Sr. . From 1874 to 1879, he served as prosector at the pathological-anatomical institute in Königsberg. In 1877 he earned his habilitation, and several years later became an associate professor of pathological anatomy .
Go to Profile#16272
Ludwig von Graff
1851 - 1924 (73 years)
Ludwig Graff de Pancsova , known as Ludwig von Graff, was an Austrian zoologist born in Pancsova. In 1871, he received his medical degree in Vienna, afterwards studying zoology at the University of Graz. In 1872, he was an assistant at the zoological institute in Strasbourg, where he worked closely with Eduard Oscar Schmidt . In 1873, he relocated to Munich as an assistant to Karl Theodor Ernst von Siebold , gaining his habilitation during the following year. In 1876, he became a professor at the Academy of Forestry in Aschaffenburg, and from 1884 was a professor of zoology at the University of Graz.
Go to Profile#16273
Boris Rohdendorf
1904 - 1977 (73 years)
Boris Borisovich Rohdendorf was a Soviet entomologist and curator at the Zoological Museum at the University of Moscow. He attained the position of head of the Laboratory of Arthropods, Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Moscow. A student of Andrey Martynov, he was a prolific taxonomist who described numerous new taxa, including fossil Diptera, and published important syntheses on fossil insects. His work is being extensively revised by the current generation of Russian paleoentomologists.
Go to Profile#16274
Herbert Mayo
1796 - 1852 (56 years)
Herbert Mayo, M.D. , was a British physiologist, anatomist and medical writer. Biography Mayo was born in Queen Anne Street, London, the third son of John Mayo. He entered Middlesex Hospital as a surgical pupil on 17 May 1814, and was a pupil of Sir Charles Bell . He also studied at the Leyden University, where he graduated with a D.M. degree. He became house-surgeon at Middlesex Hospital in 1818, and M.R.C.S. in 1819.
Go to Profile#16275
Arvid Lindau
1892 - 1958 (66 years)
Arvid Vilhelm Lindau was a Swedish pathologist and bacteriologist born in Malmö. Lindau studied medicine at the University of Lund and received his training in bacteriology at the University of Copenhagen and at Harvard . In 1933 he succeeded John Forssman as chair of general pathology, bacteriology and general health science at Lund.
Go to Profile#16276
Carl Henrik Boheman
1796 - 1868 (72 years)
Carl Henrik Boheman was a Swedish entomologist. Boheman studied at Lund University and trained as an officer, participating in the invasion of Norway in 1814. He had been an enthusiastic entomologist since childhood, and was called by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1841 to the position of professor and keeper of the Department of Entomology of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. He had been made a member of the Academy in 1838. He retired from the Museum in 1867.
Go to Profile#16277
Mikhail Stepanovich Voronin
1838 - 1903 (65 years)
Mikhail Stepanovich Voronin was a prominent Russian biologist, a botanist with particular expertise in fungi. Education Voronin was born in St Petersburg on 21 June 1838 into the family of a rich merchant, which was subsequently ennobled. He received an excellent home education. One of his teachers was Nikolay Chernyshevsky . M.S. Voronin had a perfect command of three foreign languages: French, German and English. In 1854 Voronin entered Saint Petersburg State University in the Department of Natural Sciences. Professor Lev Semionovich Tsenkovsky excited in him an interest in investigating the lower plants, among which fungi were placed that time.
Go to Profile#16278
Khachatour Koshtoyants
1900 - 1961 (61 years)
Khachatour Koshtoyants was a Soviet and Russian physiologist, Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union , Member of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences , Professor at the Lomonosov Moscow State University , Doktor Nauk in Biological Sciences .
Go to Profile#16279
James Bell Pettigrew
1832 - 1908 (76 years)
James Bell Pettigrew was a Scottish anatomist and noted naturalist, aviation pioneer and museum curator. He was a distinguished naturalist in Britain, and Professor of Anatomy at St Andrews University from 1875 until his death.
Go to Profile#16280
Johannes Theodor Schmalhausen
1849 - 1894 (45 years)
Johannes Theodor Schmalhausen was a Russian botanist of German descent, known for his studies of East-European plants. Early life and education Johannes Theodor Schmalhausen was born in St Petersburg. His father was a librarian at the Russian Academy of Sciences. After attending the Gymnasium, Schmalhausen studied botany at the University of St. Petersburg graduating with a magister degree in 1874. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the University for the botanical essay "On plant hybrids. Observations from St. Petersburg", was selected for a Professorial career and sent abroad from 1874 to 1876.
Go to Profile#16281
Edward Newman
1801 - 1876 (75 years)
Edward Newman was an English entomologist, botanist and writer. Newman was born in Hampstead into a Quaker family. Both his parents were keen naturalists, and he was further encouraged to take an interest in the natural world at his boarding school in Painswick. He left school at sixteen to join his father's business in Guildford, moving to Deptford in 1826 to take over a rope-making business. Here he met many of the leading entomologists of the day, including Edward Doubleday, and was a founder member of the Entomological Club. In 1832 he was elected as editor of the club's journal, The Ento...
Go to Profile#16282
Rosa Smith Eigenmann
1858 - 1947 (89 years)
Rosa Smith Eigenmann was an American ichthyologist , as well as a writer, editor, former curator at the California Academy of Sciences, and the first librarian of the San Diego Society of Natural History. She "is considered the first woman ichthyologist in the United States." Eigenmann was also the first woman to become president of Indiana University's chapter of Sigma Xi, an honorary science society. She authored twelve published papers of her own between 1880 and 1893, and collaborated with her husband, Carl H. Eigenmann, as "Eigenmann & Eigenmann" on twenty-five additional works between 1888 and 1893.
Go to Profile#16283
Albert von Bezold
1836 - 1868 (32 years)
Albert von Bezold was a German physiologist born in Ansbach. He studied at Munich, Würzburg and Berlin, where he was an assistant to Emil Du Bois-Reymond . Later he was a professor of physiology at Jena and Würzburg .
Go to Profile#16284
August W. Eichler
1839 - 1887 (48 years)
August Wilhelm Eichler, also known under his Latinized name, Augustus Guilielmus Eichler , was a German botanist who developed a new system of classification of plants to reflect the concept of evolution. His author abbreviation in botany is Eichler.
Go to Profile#16285
Santiago Roth
1850 - 1924 (74 years)
Santiago Roth was a Swiss Argentine paleontologist and academic known for his fossil collections and Patagonian expeditions. Life Kaspar Jakob was born and raised in Herisau, Canton Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Switzerland, as the oldest of 12 children. He attended school in the nearby town of St. Gallen, where his teacher Bernhard Wartmann raised his interest in the science of nature. Wartmann was a well known botanist and director of the Museum of History of Nature in St. Gallen.
Go to Profile#16286
Charles Horton Peck
1833 - 1917 (84 years)
Charles Horton Peck was an American mycologist of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He was the New York State Botanist from 1867 to 1915, a period in which he described over 2,700 species of North American fungi.
Go to Profile#16287
John R. Napier
1917 - 1987 (70 years)
John Russell Napier, MRCS, LRCP, D.Sc. was a British primatologist, paleoanthropologist, and physician, who is notable for his work with Homo habilis and OH 7, as well as on human and primate hands/feet. During his life he was widely considered a leading authority on primate taxonomy, but is perhaps most famous to the general public for his research on Bigfoot.
Go to Profile#16288
Frederick Smith
1805 - 1879 (74 years)
Frederick Smith was a British entomologist who worked at the zoology department of the British Museum from 1849, specialising in the Hymenoptera. Smith was born near York to William Smith and went to school at Leeds. He then studied under landscape engraver W.B. Cooke along with his nephew William Edward Shuckard. Together they took an interest in insects, especially the ants and bees. In 1841, following the death of William Bainbridge, he became a curator of the collections and the library of the Entomological Society of London. As an engraver he produced copies based on the works of Turner, Constable and David Roberts.
Go to Profile#16289
Per Axel Rydberg
1860 - 1931 (71 years)
Per Axel Rydberg was a Swedish-born, American botanist who was the first curator of the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium. Biography Per Axel Rydberg was born in Odh, Västergötland, Sweden and emigrated to the United States in 1882. From 1884 to 1890, he taught mathematics at Luther Academy in Wahoo, Nebraska, while he studied at the University of Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and . He earned his graduate degree from Columbia University .
Go to Profile#16290
Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers
1821 - 1901 (80 years)
Félix Joseph Henri de Lacaze-Duthiers was a French biologist, anatomist and zoologist born in Montpezat in the department of Lot-et-Garonne. He was a leading authority in the field of malacology. He studied medicine in Paris, and worked at Necker Hospital under Armand Trousseau . Later on, with Jules Haime , he travelled to the Balearic Islands to study marine life. In 1854 he returned to Paris as an assistant to Henri Milne-Edwards , and soon afterwards became a professor of zoology in Lille.
Go to Profile#16291
John Gilbert Baker
1834 - 1920 (86 years)
John Gilbert Baker was an English botanist. His son was the botanist Edmund Gilbert Baker . Biography Baker was born in Guisborough in North Yorkshire, the son of John and Mary Baker, and died in Kew.
Go to Profile#16292
Henri Filhol
1843 - 1902 (59 years)
Henri Filhol was a French medical doctor, malacologist and naturalist born in Toulouse. He was the son of Édouard Filhol , curator of the Muséum de Toulouse. After receiving his early education in Toulouse, he moved to Paris, where he obtained doctorates in medicine and science. In 1879 he was appointed professor of zoology at the Faculty of Toulouse. From 1894 to 1902 he occupied the chair of comparative animal anatomy at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. In 1897 he became a member of the Académie des sciences.
Go to Profile#16293
Johann Hermann
1738 - 1800 (62 years)
Johann, or Jean-Frederic, Hermann, or Herrmann, was a French physician and naturalist. In 1769 he was appointed professor of medicine at the School of Public Health of Strasbourg, then, in 1778, professor of philosophy, before going on, in 1784, to succeed Jacob Reinbold Spielmann as chair of chemistry, natural history and materia medica. In 1794 he became professor of botany and materia medica in the new School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#16294
Robert Kaye Greville
1794 - 1866 (72 years)
Dr. Robert Kaye Greville FRSE FLS LLD was an English mycologist, bryologist, and botanist. He was an accomplished artist and illustrator of natural history. In addition to art and science he was interested in causes like abolitionism, capital punishment, keeping Sunday special and the temperance movement. He has a mountain in Queensland named after him.
Go to Profile#16295
Gottlieb August Wilhelm Herrich-Schäffer
1799 - 1874 (75 years)
Gottlieb August Wilhelm Herrich-Schäffer was a German entomologist and physician. He was born, and died, in Regensburg. Herrich-Schäffer studied and collected particularly butterflies and moths . He was chairman of the Regensburg Botanical Society from 1861 to 1871, and was awarded an honorary citizenship of Regensburg in 1871.
Go to Profile#16296
Johan Lange
1818 - 1898 (80 years)
Johan Martin Christian Lange was a prominent Danish botanist. He held the post of Librarian at the Botanical library of the University of Copenhagen from 1851 to 1858. He was Director of the Botanical Garden there from 1856 to 1876, the Reader of botany at the Danish Technical University from 1857 to 1862, and Reader of Botany at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University from 1858 to 1893, achieving full professor standing in 1892. He began editing the Flora Danica in 1858, and was its last editor. Together with Japetus Steenstrup, Johan Lange was the publisher of Flora Danica fasc. 44 .
Go to Profile#16297
John Burton Cleland
1878 - 1971 (93 years)
Sir John Burton Cleland CBE was a renowned Australian naturalist, microbiologist, mycologist and ornithologist. He was Professor of Pathology at the University of Adelaide and was consulted on high-level police inquiries, such as the famous Taman Shud Case in 1948 and later. He also studied the transmission of dengue virus by the mosquito Stegomyia fasciata .
Go to Profile#16298
H. Newell Martin
1848 - 1896 (48 years)
Henry Newell Martin, FRS was a British physiologist and vivisection activist. Biography He was born in Newry, County Down, the son of Henry Martin, a Congregational minister. He was educated at University College, London and Christ's College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1870, took the Part I Natural Sciences in 1873, and graduated B.A. in 1874. At the University of London, where he had graduated B.Sc. in 1870, he went on to become M.B. in 1871, and D.Sc. in 1872.
Go to Profile#16299
Mathias-Marie Duval
1844 - 1907 (63 years)
Mathias-Marie Duval was a French professor of anatomy and histology born in Grasse. He was the son of botanist Joseph Duval-Jouve . Biography He studied medicine in Paris, and later served as prosector in Strassburg. In 1873 he became agrégé, subsequently becoming director of the anthropological laboratory at the École des Hautes Etudes and an anatomy professor at the École Supérieur des Beaux-Arts. In 1885 he replaced Charles-Philippe Robin as professor of histology at the medical faculty in Paris. In 1892 he became a member of the Académie de Médecine. He was also a member of the Interna...
Go to Profile#16300
Friedrich Christian Rosenthal
1780 - 1829 (49 years)
Friedrich Christian Rosenthal was a German anatomist who was a native of Greifswald. He earned his doctorate from the University of Jena, and later opened a medical practice in Greifswald . In Greifswald he worked closely with naturalist Karl Asmund Rudolphi , earning his habilitation in 1807 from the local university with a treatise on olfaction. In 1810 he accepted an appointment to the University of Berlin, and in 1820 returned to Greifswald as a professor of physiology and anatomy. He died in 1829 at the age of 49 due to consequences from tuberculosis.
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