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.
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#19151
Stuart W. Frost
1891 - 1980 (89 years)
Stuart W. Frost was a professor of entomology at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania. He was born in Tarrytown, New York, and graduated from Cornell University. He was a specialist in leaf-mining flies . The Frost Entomological Museum at Penn State was named in his honor.
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Friedrich Wilhelm Zahn
1845 - 1904 (59 years)
Friedrich Wilhelm Zahn was a German-Swiss pathologist born in Germersheim. His eponyms include Zahn infarct and lines of Zahn. Life Zahn studied medicine at the University of Strasbourg under Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen , becoming an associate professor of pathological anatomy in Geneva in 1876.
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Hattie Alexander
1901 - 1968 (67 years)
Hattie Elizabeth Alexander was an American pediatrician and microbiologist. She earned her M.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1930 and continued her research and medical career at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Alexander became the lead microbiologist and the head of the bacterial infections program at Columbia-Presbyterian. She occupied many prestigious positions at Columbia University and was well honored even after her death from liver cancer in 1968. Alexander is known for her development of the first effective remedies for Haemophilus influenzae infection, as well as being one of the first scientists to identify and study antibiotic resistance.
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Masamitsu Ōshima
1884 - 1965 (81 years)
Masamitsu Ōshima was a Japanese herpetologist and ichthyologist. He received his Master's from Stanford University. He is noted for studies of the fish species of Taiwan and on snakes. Taxon described by him See :Category:Taxa named by Masamitsu ŌshimaSqualidus iijimae Named in honor of zoologist Isao lijima.Pungtungia shiraii Named in honor of Kunihiko Shirai.Aphyocypris kikuchii Named in honor of Yonetaro Kikuchi , collector for the Taipei Museum in Formosa , who collected the type specimen.Barbodes snyderi Snyder's barb.Oncorhynchus masou formosanusSpinibarbus hollandi Named in honor of zoologist-paleontologist William J.
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Rutger Sernander
1866 - 1944 (78 years)
Johan Rutger Sernander was a Swedish botanist, geologist and archaeologist. He was one of the founders of the study of palynology which would later be developed by Lennart von Post, as well as a pioneer in the early Swedish natural conservation and ecology movements. He was among other societies a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities and Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Sernander was one of the founders of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in 1909, as well as its chairman during a number of the first ...
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Gerrit van Iterson
1878 - 1972 (94 years)
This page was created from the Dutch Wikipedia with the aid of automatic translation Gerrit van Iterson Jr was a Dutch botanist and professor who developed a mathematical approach to plant growth .
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George Karsten
1863 - 1937 (74 years)
George Karsten was a German botanist born in Rostock. In 1885 he earned his doctorate from the University of Strasbourg, and in 1892 received his habilitation in botany at the University of Leipzig. Later on, he served as an associate professor at the Universities of Kiel and Bonn . In 1909 he became a professor at the University of Halle and was appointed director of the botanical garden. With Heinrich Schenck , he was editor of a popular journal of botany called Vegetationsbilder. Karsten is remembered for his studies of phytoplankton, and among his written works are publications on phyto...
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Willem Hendrik de Vriese
1806 - 1862 (56 years)
Willem Hendrik de Vriese was a Dutch botanist and physician born in Oosterhout, North Brabant. Education Willem Hendrik de Vriese studied medicine at the University of Leiden, earning his doctorate in 1831.
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Hans Kniep
1881 - 1930 (49 years)
Karl Johannes Kniep was a German botanist who was a native of Jena. He studied medicine at the University of Kiel, and botany in Jena with Christian Ernst Stahl , where in 1904 he received his doctorate. Afterwards, he worked as an assistant to Robert Hippolyte Chodat in Geneva, to Wilhelm Pfeffer at Leipzig, and under Friedrich Oltmanns in Freiburg. Later, he conducted physiological research of algae in Bergen.
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George Hampson
1860 - 1936 (76 years)
Sir George Francis Hampson, 10th Baronet was an English entomologist. Hampson studied at Charterhouse School and Exeter College, Oxford. He travelled to India to become a tea-planter in the Nilgiri Hills of the Madras presidency , where he became interested in moths and butterflies. When he returned to England he became a voluntary worker at the Natural History Museum, where he wrote The Lepidoptera of the Nilgiri District and The Lepidoptera Heterocera of Ceylon as parts 8 and 9 of Illustrations of Typical Specimens of Lepidoptera Heterocera of the British Museum. He then commenced work on...
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Augusto Napoleone Berlese
1864 - 1903 (39 years)
Augusto Napoleone Berlese was an Italian botanist and mycologist. He was the brother of entomologist Antonio Berlese 1863–1927, with whom he founded the journal Rivista di patologia vegetale in 1892.
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Koki. Horikoshi
#19163
Wilhelm Otto Dietrich
1881 - 1964 (83 years)
Wilhelm Otto Dietrich was a German paleontologist who took a special interest in the study of Tertiary and Quaternary mammals. He was a curator of paleontology at the Natural History Museum, Berlin.
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Henri Théophile Bocquillon
1834 - 1883 (49 years)
Henri Théophile Bocquillon was a French botanist. In Paris, he successively worked as an instructor at the Lycée Napoleon , Lycée Louis-le-Grand , Lycée Henri-IV and Lycée Fontanes . At the latter two schools he served as chair of natural sciences.
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Wanda Zabłocka
1900 - 1978 (78 years)
Wanda Zabłocka was a Polish botanist, phytopathologist and mycologist. She was a professor at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń . Zabłocka was the author of mycology and phytopathology works, including mycorrhiza of Viola . She is also the author of several books about fungi for the general public.
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Daniel Frederik Eschricht
1798 - 1863 (65 years)
Daniel Frederik Eschricht was a Danish zoologist, physiologist, and anatomist known as an authority on whales. He was born in Copenhagen, and studied medicine at Frederiks Hospital, graduating in 1822. He was a student of François Magendie in Paris from 1824-1825, composing a thesis on cranial nerves, after which he studied with prominent European naturalists and anatomists, including Georges Cuvier. He joined the University of Copenhagen in 1829, becoming Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in 1836. The gray whale genus Eschrichtius was named for him a year after his death. In 1861, Eschricht dissected an orca and found thirteen common porpoises and fourteen seals inside.
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Augustin Friedrich Walther
1688 - 1746 (58 years)
Augustin Friedrich Walther was a German anatomist, botanist and physician who was a native of Wittenberg. He was the son of theologian Michael Walther the Younger . In 1712 he earned his degree of philosophy from the University of Wittenberg, and in the following year received his medical doctorate from the University of Leipzig. At Leipzig he became a professor of anatomy , pathology and therapy . In 1730 he became director of the Leipzig Botanical Gardens, and in 1737 was rector at the university.
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William Murrill
1869 - 1957 (88 years)
William Alphonso Murrill was an American mycologist, known for his contributions to the knowledge of the Agaricales and Polyporaceae. In 1904, he became the assistant Curator at the New York Botanical Garden . He, along with the NYBG, founded the journal Mycologia and was its first editor for 16 years. Murrill was known to travel extensively to describe the mycota of Europe and the Americas. He traveled along the East Coast, Pacific Coast, Mexico and the Caribbean. Although Murrill was a very influential person at the NYBG, having worked his way up to become assistant director in 1908, his rather eccentric personality caused problems with his job.
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William Warde Fowler
1847 - 1921 (74 years)
William Warde Fowler was an English historian and ornithologist, and tutor at Lincoln College, Oxford. He was best known for his works on ancient Roman religion. Among his most influential works was Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic . H. H. Scullard, in the introduction to his 1981 book on a similar topic, singled out Fowler's book as a particularly valuable resource despite its age, writing, "I have not been so presumptuous as to attempt to provide an alternative."
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Josef Augusta
1903 - 1968 (65 years)
Josef Augusta was a Czech paleontologist, geologist, and science popularizer. From 1921 to 1925 Augusta studied at the Masaryk University in Brno. Between 1933 and 1968 he held posts at the Charles University in Prague as lecturer, professor, and dean of the faculty.
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Pavel Grošelj
1883 - 1940 (57 years)
Pavel Grošelj was a Slovene biologist and literary historian who was involved in the establishment and planning of a Slovene university . He was noted for various contributions to zoology and botany.
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František Mareš
1857 - 1942 (85 years)
František Mareš was a Czechoslovak professor of physiology and philosophy, and a nationalist politician. He was rector of the Charles University in 1920–21, and a member of the National Democrats.
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Charles Eugène Bertrand
1851 - 1917 (66 years)
Charles Eugène Bertrand was a French botanist, paleobotanist and geologist. He is remembered for his research involving the formation of coal. He studied sciences in Paris, where he had as influences botanist Joseph Decaisne and plant physiologist Pierre Paul Deherain. In 1874 he obtained his doctorate in sciences, and was later appointed professor of botany at the University of Lille . From 1881 to 1887, he was head of the Archives botaniques du nord de la France.
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Henry Harold Welch Pearson
1870 - 1916 (46 years)
Henry Harold Welch Pearson was a British-born South African botanist, chiefly remembered for founding Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in 1913. Biography Pearson started his career as a chemist's assistant, but changed his interests after attending a lecture on plants by Albert Seward at Eastbourne in 1892. He taught for a while and was awarded a scholarship to Christ's College, Cambridge in 1896, obtaining a first class in the Natural Science Tripos.
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Maximilian von Frey
1852 - 1932 (80 years)
Maximilian Ruppert Franz von Frey was an Austrian-German physiologist who was born in Salzburg. He received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1877, and subsequently worked at Carl Ludwig's Physiological Institute in Leipzig. Later he was a professor of physiology at the Universities of Würzburg and Zurich.
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Harry S.N. Greene
1904 - 1969 (65 years)
Harry S.N. Greene, M.D. was an American pathologist. He was the Anthony N. Brady Professor and chairman of the department of pathology at the Yale School of Medicine. He joined the Yale faculty in 1943 and was named chair of the department in 1950. He remained chairman for nearly 20 years until his death in 1969 at the age of 64. He was a colorful and memorable teacher.
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D. Franklin Williams
#19178
Karl Beurlen
1901 - 1985 (84 years)
Karl Beurlen was a German paleontologist. Beurlen was born in Aalen. He attended University of Tübingen. He completed a PhD in 1923. Beurlen was a proponent of orthogenesis and saltational evolution. He used the term metakinesis to describe sudden changes of development in organisms. He also invented the term palingenesis as a mechanism for his orthogenetic theory of evolution.
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Elísio de Moura
1877 - 1977 (100 years)
Elísio de Moura Azevedo, was a Portuguese physician, professor, psychiatrist and the first president of the College of Physicians in 1939. Biography Elísio de Moura was notable for teaching and research in psychiatry and neurology. He contributed, in the beginning of the Republic, to keep the faculty of medicine at the University of Coimbra, which was at risk of moving to the new University of Lisbon and University of Porto.
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Ivan Đaja
1884 - 1957 (73 years)
Ivan Đaja was a Serbian biologist, physiologist, author and philosopher. He was founder of the Chair for physiology at the Serbian Institute for Physiology, rector of the University of Belgrade, and member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts. Đaja was a popularizer of biology, performed research in the role of the adrenal glands in thermoregulation, as well as pioneering work in hypothermia.
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Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn
1808 - 1878 (70 years)
Wilhelm Friedrich Georg Behn was a German anatomist and zoologist. For eight years he was president of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. From 1828 he studied medicine at the Universities of Göttingen and Kiel, afterwards continuing his education in Paris , where he made the acquaintanceship of famed scientists that included Dupuytren, Flourens, Poiseuille and Chevreul. In 1837 he was named an associate professor of anatomy and physiology as well as director of the anatomical institute and the zoological museum at Kiel.
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Matthias Numsen Blytt
1789 - 1862 (73 years)
Matthias Numsen Blytt was a Norwegian botanist. He was born at Overhalla in Nord-Trøndelag, Norway. He attended the University of Christiania and the University of Copenhagen. Blytt was professor of botany at the University of Oslo.
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John Scouler
1804 - 1871 (67 years)
John Scouler was a Scottish naturalist. Life Scouler, the son of a calico-printer, was born in Glasgow on 31 December 1804. He received the rudiments of his education at Kilbarchan, but was sent very early to the University of Glasgow. When his medical course there was completed, he went to Paris and studied at the Jardin des Plantes.
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Frederick Keeble
1870 - 1952 (82 years)
Sir Frederick William Keeble, CBE, FRS was a British biologist, academic, and scientific adviser, who specialised in botany. He was Sherardian Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford from 1920 to 1927 and Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution from 1937 to 1941.
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Nikolay Sklifosovsky
1836 - 1904 (68 years)
Nikolai Vasilyevich Sklifosovsky was a Russian surgeon and physiologist of Moldavian origin. He was born near the town of Dubasari, which is now in Transnistria. Sklifosovsky was a professor of medicine in Saint Petersburg, Kiev, and Moscow. He was a founder of the «Clinical Town» at Devichye Pole.
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William Sargant
1907 - 1988 (81 years)
William Walters Sargant was a British psychiatrist who is remembered for the evangelical zeal with which he promoted treatments such as psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment, electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy.
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August Brauer
1863 - 1917 (54 years)
August Bernhard Brauer was a German zoologist. Brauer was born in Oldenburg. He studied natural sciences at the Universities of Bonn, Berlin and Freiburg, obtaining his doctorate in 1895 with a thesis on the ciliate- Bursaria truncatella titled Bursaria truncatella unter Berücksichtigung anderer Heterotrichen und der Vorticellinen. In 1892 he received his habilitation at the University of Marburg, where he subsequently worked as a lecturer. In 1894–95 he conducted scientific studies in the Seychelles.
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Alexander Cave
1900 - 2001 (101 years)
Alexander James Edward Cave was a British anatomist. Early life and education Cave was born in Manchester and was educated at Manchester High School. He then read medicine at the University of Manchester, graduating in 1923.
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Arthur Dendy
1865 - 1925 (60 years)
Arthur Dendy was an English zoologist known for his work on marine sponges and the terrestrial invertebrates of Victoria, Australia, notably including the "living fossil" Peripatus. He was in turn professor of zoology in New Zealand, in South Africa and finally at King's College London. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society.
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Fahire Battalgil
1902 - 1948 (46 years)
Fahire Battalgil was a Turkish ichthyologist who was one of the first women to be appointed as a professor at a university in Turkey. Name Battalgil was known as Fahire Akim Hanim during the early part of her life. The surname Battalgil was adopted by her family to comply with the Republic of Turkey's 1934 Surname Law and the spelling of this was changed to Battalgazi from 1943.
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Nicolae Leon
1862 - 1931 (69 years)
Nicolae Leon was a Romanian biologist. He was the elder half brother of the naturalist Grigore Antipa. Leon was born in Băiceni, a village in Curtești commune in Botoșani County. Starting in 1881 he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Iași. In 1884 he went to the University of Jena to study zoology, obtaining his degree in 1887. After returning to Iași, he became a professor at the Faculty of Medicine in 1889. Later on he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and then Rector of the University of Iași in 1918 and 1920-1921.
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Johann Amman
1707 - 1741 (34 years)
Johann Amman, Johannes Amman or Иоганн Амман was a Swiss-Russian botanist, a member of the Royal Society and professor of botany at the Russian Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg. Notable work He is best known for his Stirpium Rariorum in Imperio Rutheno Sponte Provenientium Icones et Descriptiones published in 1739 with descriptions of some 285 plants from Eastern Europe and Ruthenia . The plates are unsigned, though an engraving on the dedicatory leaf of the work is signed "Philipp Georg Mattarnovy", a Swiss-Italian engraver, Filippo Giorgio Mattarnovi , who worked at the St. Petersburg ...
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John William Heslop-Harrison
1881 - 1967 (86 years)
Prof John William Heslop Harrison, FRS FRSE , was Professor of Botany at King's College, Durham University . He enjoyed a brilliant career, specialising in the genetics of moths, but is now best remembered for an alleged academic fraud.
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Spencer Le Marchant Moore
1850 - 1931 (81 years)
Spencer Le Marchant Moore was an English botanist. Biography Moore was born in Hampstead. He worked at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, from about 1870 to 1879, wrote a number of botanical papers, and then worked in an unofficial capacity at the Natural History Museum from 1896 until his death.
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Eleanor Anne Ormerod
1828 - 1901 (73 years)
Eleanor Anne Ormerod was a pioneer English entomologist. Based on her studies in agriculture, she became one of the first to define the field of agricultural entomology. She published an influential series of articles on useful insects and pests in the Gardeners' Chronicle and the Agricultural Gazette along with annual reports from 1877 to 1900. These annual reports were produced by summarizing information provided by her network of correspondents from across Britain. Belonging to the landed gentry, she worked as an honorary consulting entomologist with the Royal Agricultural Society of England and received no pay for any of her work.
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Eduard Paul Tratz
1888 - 1977 (89 years)
Eduard Paul Tratz was an Austrian zoologist. Ahnenerbe Tratz was the founder of Salzburg's Haus der Natur, one of the leading museums of natural history in Austria, in 1924. A member of the Nazi Party, he ensured significant funding for the museum after the Anschluss and spent much of it adding eight new areas dealing with such topics as eugenics and racial hygiene. He played a leading role in helping to popularise "Rassenkunde" in Austria and was also a departmental head in the Ahnenerbe .
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Rolf Nordhagen
1894 - 1979 (85 years)
Rolf Nordhagen was a Norwegian botanist. His greatest scientific efforts were in the area of plant sociology. Personal life Rolf Nordhagen was born in Kristiania as a son of artist Johan Nordhagen and Christine Magdalene, née Johansen . He was a brother of Olaf Nordhagen and Martha Gladtved-Prahl. In August 1925 in Oslo he married Elisabeth Marie Myhre . He was the father of art historian Per Jonas Nordhagen and computer scientist, Rolf Nordhagen .
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Hippolyte Lucas
1814 - 1899 (85 years)
Pierre-Hippolyte Lucas was a French entomologist. Lucas was an assistant-naturalist at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle. From 1839 to 1842 he studied fauna as part of the scientific commission on the exploration of Algeria.
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Kristian Horn
1903 - 1981 (78 years)
Kristian Horn was a Norwegian botanist and humanist. Biography He was born in Brandbu as a son of store owner Martinius Horn and Gina Kristoffersen . In 1932 he married Ester Jynge, a daughter of railway director Andreas Grimelund Jynge. Their son Per Kristian Horn became a scenographer, and was formerly married to Ellen Horn. Kristian Horn is also a grandfather of Anders Horn.
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Anton Wilhelm Plaz
1708 - 1784 (76 years)
Anton Wilhelm Plaz was a German physician and botanist. From 1723 he studied medicine at the universities of Leipzig and Halle, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution in 1728. In 1733 he became an associate professor of botany at Leipzig, where afterwards, he successively served as a full professor of botany , physiology , anatomy and surgery , pathology and therapy . From 1773 to 1784 he was dean to the medical faculty at the university. He was a member of the Römisch Kaiserlichen Akademie der Naturforscher.
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