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,
#19551
Jisaburo Ohwi
1905 - 1977 (72 years)
was Japanese botanist. He was a distinguished member of the Faculty of Science of Kyoto Imperial University. He is perhaps best known for his 1953 Flora of Japan. Species named after Ohwi Carex ohwii Masam. Cyperus ohwii Kük. Clerodendrum ohwii Kaneh. & Hatus. Isodon × ohwii Okuyama Rabdosia × ohwii , Hara Medinilla ohwii Nayar. Epipactis ohwii Fukuy. Lecanorchis ohwii Masam. Oreorchis ohwii Fukuy. Panicum ohwii Sasa ohwii Koidz. Prunus ohwii Kaneh. & Hatus. Ophiopogon ohwii Okuyama Saxifraga ohwii Tatew.
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David Moore
1808 - 1879 (71 years)
David Moore was a Scottish botanist who served as director of the Irish National Botanic Gardens for over 40 years. Early life David Moore was David Moir born in Dundee, Scotland on 23 April 1808. His parents were Charles, a gardener, and Helen Moir . He was one of 9 children, with 7 surviving to adulthood. He had 5 brothers and one sister. The family changed their name from Moir to Moore in 1830. Moore sometimes went by the name David Muir. He was known to hide his Scottish origins, but not his accent. He received his initial botanical training from conservator of the Dundee Rational Institution Museum, Douglas Gardiner.
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Karl Grünberg
1878 - 1931 (53 years)
Karl Grünberg was a German entomologist specialising in Lepidoptera. Karl Grünberg was a professor at the University of Rostock. He wrote the Palearctic Notodontidae section of Adalbert Seitz's Die Gross-Schmetterlinge der Erde and named several African butterflies.
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Petrus Houttuyn
1648 - 1709 (61 years)
Petrus Houttuyn , often cited as Peter Hotton, was a Dutch botanist and medical professor of medicine and botany at Leiden University. As professor of botany, he was ex officio supervisor of the university's botanic garden and was given an official residence and an allowance for foreign correspondence and the exchange of seeds and plants.
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Clive Holmes
#19556
Robert P. Freckleton
#19557
Annette Frances Braun
1884 - 1978 (94 years)
Annette Frances Braun was an American entomologist and leading authority on microlepidoptera, a grouping of mostly small and nocturnal moths. Her special interest was leaf miners: moths whose larvae live and feed from within a leaf.
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Charles Bocquet
1918 - 1977 (59 years)
Charles Bocquet was a French biologist, Professor of the University of Paris and an expert on crustaceans.
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William Brown
1881 - 1952 (71 years)
William Brown FRCP was a British psychologist and psychiatrist. Biography Brown was born in Slinfold, Sussex. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. He took medical training at King's College London and graduated MBBCh in Oxford in 1914. He worked as a neurologist in France where he helped develop a treatment for shell-shock in WW1 persons, and later returned to his post at King's College London where he earned a DM in 1918, MRCP in 1921 and was elected FRCP in 1930.
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Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein
1753 - 1816 (63 years)
Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein was a German zoologist. He was the father of Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein . He studied theology, philosophy, natural history and Oriental studies in Helmstadt, Göttingen and Leipzig, and from 1782 onwards, was rector of the Johanneum in Hamburg. In 1794, he also took on the job of city librarian. Later, he relocated to the University of Helmstedt, where he served as a professor of theology and Greek language .
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John Edwin Treherne
#19562
Robert C. Cook
1898 - 1991 (93 years)
Robert Carter Cook was an American geneticist and demographer. He was editor of the Journal of Heredity for 40 years, a lecturer in medical genetics and biology at George Washington University, and director, then president, of the Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. He was involved with the eugenics movement of the first half of the 20th century, and an authority on population policy and the effects of population growth on the environment.
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Henrietta Hooker
1851 - 1929 (78 years)
Henrietta Edgecomb Hooker was an American botanist and professor at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary . She was the second female doctoral graduate in botany at Syracuse University, which made her one of the first women to earn a Ph.D. in botany from any U.S. university.
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George James Peirce
1868 - 1954 (86 years)
George James Peirce was an American botanist known for his work on plant physiology. He was an active member of the Palo Alto, California community for over 50 years. Early life Peirce was born on March 13, 1868, in Manila, Philippines, to American parents George Henry and Lydia Ellen Peirce .
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Diego De Leo
#19566
Bernhard Christian Otto
1745 - 1835 (90 years)
Bernhard Christian Otto was a German doctor, professor of medicine, naturalist and economist. Otto was born in Niepars near Stralsund to Pastor Gotthard Joachim Jacob Otto of Niepars and his wife Agnese Regina, daughter of Pastor Dionisius Casper Droysen of Dersekow. He studied medicine at the University of Göttingen and received a doctorate in 1771. In 1772 he became a teacher at the Greifswald medical faculty where he gave lectures in surgery and delivery for midwives and surgeons. From 1776 he also offered lectures in natural history and became a professor of natural history and economics in 1781, while also managing the botanical garden.
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Richard Henry Yapp
1871 - 1929 (58 years)
Richard Henry Yapp was an English botanist and an early ecologist, who held the Chair of Botany in Queen's University, Belfast, and the Mason Professorship of Botany at the University of Birmingham.
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August Cramer
1860 - 1912 (52 years)
Johann Baptist August Cramer was a Swiss-German neuropathologist and psychiatrist who was a native of the canton St. Gallen. He studied medicine in Marburg and Freiburg, earning his medical doctorate in 1887. In 1889 be began work at a mental asylum in Eberswalde, and in 1895 received his habilitation in psychiatry at the University of Göttingen, where he subsequently became a professor and director of the psychiatric clinic. At Göttingen he helped establish the Provinzial-Jugendheim, an institution for treatment and education of psychopathic youth.
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Yakov Gakkel
1901 - 1965 (64 years)
Yakov Yakovlevich Gakkel was a Soviet and Russian oceanographer, doctor of geographical sciences , professor, director of the geography department of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, son of scientist Yakov Modestovich Gakkel.
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John Percy Moore
1869 - 1965 (96 years)
John Percy Moore was an American zoologist who specialized in the research of leeches. Biography Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1869, Moore was educated at the Central High School of Philadelphia, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1886. A student at the University of Pennsylvania, he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree there in 1892 and his Doctor of Philosophy in 1896.
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Berthold Benecke
1843 - 1886 (43 years)
Berthold Adolph Benecke was a German anatomist and embryologist. He made contributions in diverse subjects such as photomicrography and fish farming. Beginning in 1861 he studied medicine at the University of Königsberg, where his influences were surgeon Albrecht Wagner and botanist Robert Caspary. From 1870 to 1877 he served as an instructor and prosector at the anatomical institute in Königsberg. In 1877 he was appointed to the chair of topographical anatomy at the university.
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Pierre Grabar
1898 - 1986 (88 years)
Pierre Grabar was a French biochemist and immunologist, born in Russia. He was the founding president of the Société Française d'Immunologie. He studied antigen-antibody reactions and developed a "carrier" theory of antibody function. His award-winning development of Immunoelectrophoresis made it possible to identify specific bodily proteins, opening new avenues in medical research.
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George Thomas Bethune-Baker
1857 - 1944 (87 years)
George Thomas Bethune-Baker was an English entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera, especially those in the family Lycaenidae of butterflies. His collection is partly in the Museum of Zoology Cambridge University and partly in the Natural History Museum, London.
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Charles Russell Bardeen
1871 - 1935 (64 years)
Charles Russell Bardeen was an American physician and anatomist and the first dean of the University of Wisconsin Medical School. Early years Bardeen was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1871, and grew up in Syracuse, New York. His father, Charles William Bardeen, was an educator and publisher. He attended the Teichmann School in Leipzig, Germany, then completed his B.A. at Harvard University in 1893. By virtue of being in the first medical school class at Johns Hopkins University, and having a last name at the beginning of the alphabet, Bardeen was the first person ever to receive an M.D. fro...
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Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen
1873 - 1943 (70 years)
Hanna Marie Resvoll-Holmsen was a Norwegian botanist – a female pioneer in Norwegian natural history education and nature conservation together with her sister, Thekla Resvoll. Life Hanna Resvoll-Holmsen suffered much from illness in her childhood and school attendance after her 12th year was sporadic. She took a high school exam in 1902, at which time she had also an unhappy marriage behind her. She studied natural history at the Royal Frederik's University in Kristiania and graduated in botany in 1910. From 1921, she was docent in plant geography at the same university, a position she held...
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Edward Waller Claypole
1835 - 1901 (66 years)
Edward Waller Claypole was a British American geologist and paleobotanist. Claypole was born in England and educated at the University of London, where he received the degrees of A.B. in 1862, S.B. in 1864, and Sc.D. in 1888. He came to America in 1872 and served as Professor of Natural Sciences in Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Ohio, from 1873 to 1881. For two years he was paleontologist to the Pennsylvania Geological Survey. From 1883 to 1898 he was Professor of Natural Sciences in Buchtel College at Akron. On account of the failing health of his wife, he resigned this position and sought a southwestern climate.
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Johan Reinhold Sahlberg
1845 - 1920 (75 years)
Johan Reinhold Sahlberg was a Finnish entomologist. Johan Reinhold Sahlberg was the son of Reinhold Ferdinand Sahlberg and grandson of Carl Reinhold Sahlberg. Both his father and grandfather were entomologists. He specialised in Coleoptera and Auchenorrhyncha. Johan Reinhold Sahlberg made expeditions to many parts of Finland, to Karelia, Siberia, the Mediterranean area, and to Central Asia..
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Lois Lampe
1896 - 1978 (82 years)
Lois Lampe was an American botanist and educator. She taught at various levels for nearly 50 years at the Ohio State University before retiring and becoming assistant professor emerita in 1966. She was a member of six scientific societies and four honors societies during her teaching career.
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Fanny Langdon
1864 - 1899 (35 years)
Fanny E. Langdon was an American zoologist known for her work with invertebrate sensory organs and nervous systems. Langdon was born in Plymouth, New Hampshire and attended a normal school, teaching for three years in New Hampshire before pursuing undergraduate studies in zoology and botany at the University of Michigan in 1891. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1896 and her master's degree in 1897. After earning her degrees, she became an instructor in botany and zoology at the University of Michigan, and researched at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1897. ...
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George Hudleston Hurlstone Hardy
1882 - 1966 (84 years)
George Hudleston Hurlstone Hardy was an entomologist who specialized in the biology of Diptera, especially Asilidae, Muscidae, Calliphoridae and Sarcophagidae. He was the eldest son of Matilda Margaret Hudleston and English engineer and amateur entomologist Major George Hurlstone Hardy, who wrote The Book of the Fly. Hardy grew up in the Old House on Park Road in Twickenham and his second cousin was composer William Yeates Hurlstone. Hardy studied engineering at the Northumberland Institute and abandoned his Roman Catholic faith after reading Darwin's On the Origin of Species.
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Nikolay Alekseyevich Bobrinski
1890 - 1964 (74 years)
Professor Count Nikolay Alekseyevich Bobrinski was a Russian zoologist and biogeographer. He was a student of M.A. Menzbier and was especially interested in the zoogeography of mammals. He published several influential textbooks including one on zoogeography.
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Wilmon Newell
1878 - 1943 (65 years)
Wilmon Newell was an American entomologist. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Iowa State University, along with an honorary doctorate in 1920. In 1903, he was named State Entomologist of Georgia. In 1904, he served as Secretary of the Louisiana Crop Pest Commission, where he is credited for making important discoveries controlling the cotton boll weevil using powdered lead arsenate.
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Carl Wilhelm Samuel Aurivillius
1854 - 1899 (45 years)
Carl Wilhelm Samuel Aurivillius was a Swedish planktologist and carcinologist. He was the brother of entomologist Per Olof Christopher Aurivillius . Beginning in 1872 he studied zoology at the University of Uppsala, receiving his doctorate in 1883. Later on, he worked as a lecturer of zoology at the university. From 1893 he was a member of the Svenska Hydrografiska Kommissionen .
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Lewellys Franklin Barker
#19585
John Pitkin Norton
1822 - 1852 (30 years)
John Pitkin Norton was an educator, agricultural chemist, and author. Biography Norton was born in Albany, New York, in 1822, where his father John Treadwell Norton, a successful farmer and engineer, owned a hardware store. His mother, Mary Hubbard Pitkin, married his father in 1821 and died in 1829. He and his father returned to Farmington, Connecticut, to live on land his father inherited from his grandfather John Treadwell, former governor of Connecticut.
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Sourindra Mohan Sircar
1908 - 1978 (70 years)
Sourindra Mohan Sircar was one of the greatest botanists of India, specializing in plant physiology and anatomy. Birth and early life Sourindra Mohan Sircar was born in a Bengali Mahishya family of Nadia on March 1, 1908. His father was Gourkrishna Sircar and mother Kusumkamini Debi. Sourindra was the youngest of seven siblings. He studied in Krishnagar CMS School and Alamdanga High School. Then He obtained a bachelor of science in Botany from Presidency College and a masters in Botany from Calcutta University. He moved to UK to do his doctoral study.
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Frans Hubert Edouard Arthur Walter Robyns
1901 - 1986 (85 years)
Frans Hubert Edouard Arthur Walter Robyns , known as Walter Robyns, was a Belgian botanist. His son, André Robyns , was also a botanist. Biography He received his doctorate in sciences at the University of Louvain. Robyns spent two long stays at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, travelled in central Africa and performed taxonomic work on many groups of tropical African plants, amongst others: Rubiaceae, grasses and legumes.
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Franz Heritsch
1882 - 1945 (63 years)
Franz Heritsch was an Austrian geologist and paleontologist, known for his studies of the Paleozoic of the Eastern Alps. From 1902 to 1906 he studied at the University of Graz, and following graduation, worked as a middle school teacher in Graz. In 1909 he obtained his habilitation, and later on, served as an associate , and full professor of geology and paleontology at the University of Graz. He was a member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
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Harcourt Morgan
1867 - 1950 (83 years)
John Harcourt Alexander Morgan was a Canadian-American entomologist, educator, and agricultural expert, who served as president of the University of Tennessee from 1919 until 1934. In 1933, he was appointed to the inaugural board of the Tennessee Valley Authority, with which he remained until 1948, including three years as chairman. In both capacities, he promoted a philosophy known as "the common mooring," which stressed a harmonious relationship between man and the environment, and consistently worked to introduce more efficient and less destructive farming techniques in the Tennessee Va...
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Carl Hamilton Browning
1881 - 1973 (92 years)
Carl Hamilton Browning LLD FRS FRSE was a Scottish bacteriologist and immunologist. He is especially remembered for his important work in Germany with Paul Ehrlich. He discovered the therapeutic qualities of acridine dyes.
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Boris Schischkin
1886 - 1963 (77 years)
Boris Konstantinovich Schischkin was a Russian botanist and from 1943 corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. His name was , with his surname sometimes transliterated as Shishkin.
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Basil Rapoport
#19593
Christopher Kennard
#19594
Wilhelm Ludwig Petermann
1806 - 1855 (49 years)
Wilhelm Ludwig Petermann , was a German botanist and agrostologist, professor of philosophy and botany, and curator of the Herbarium at the University of Leipzig. He is commemorated in the botanical genus Petermannia F.Muell.
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Carlotta Case Hall
1880 - 1949 (69 years)
Carlotta Case Hall was an American botanist and university professor who collected and published on ferns. She also co-authored a handbook on the plants of Yosemite National Park. Biography Carlotta Hall was born in Kingsville, Ohio, in 1880 to Adelaide Percy Case and Quincy A. Case. She studied botany at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with a B.S. in 1904. In 1910 she married the botanist Harvey Monroe Hall, with whom she had a daughter, Martha, in 1916.
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Franz Joseph Schelver
1778 - 1832 (54 years)
Franz Joseph Schelver was a German physician and botanist. He studied medicine at the University of Jena, and later obtained his doctorate at the University of Göttingen . In 1801 he qualified as a lecturer at the University of Halle, then from 1803 to 1806, worked as an associate professor at Jena. Afterwards, he was named a full professor of medicine at the University of Heidelberg, where from 1811 to 1827, he served as head of the botanical garden. He was a devotee of the "nature-philosophy" espoused by Friedrich Schelling and Lorenz Oken.
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Richard Greeff
1829 - 1892 (63 years)
Richard Greeff was a German zoologist. He studied medicine in Würzburg, Heidelberg and Berlin, receiving his medical doctorate in 1857. Following graduation, he worked as a hospital assistant in Danzig, returning to Elberfeld in 1859 as a physician. Soon afterwards he quit his medical practice in favor of zoological research, subsequently obtaining his habilitation for zoology at the University of Bonn in 1863. In 1871 he succeeded Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Claus as professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Marburg.
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August Förster
1822 - 1865 (43 years)
August Förster was a German anatomist. Biography He was born at Weimar, and educated at the University of Jena . He subsequently became an associate professor at the University of Göttingen , relocating to the University of Würzburg in 1858 as a full professor of pathological anatomy. His investigations on pathological histology and teratology were widely noted.
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Charles Curtis
1853 - 1928 (75 years)
Charles Curtis was an English botanist who was sent by James Veitch & Sons to search for new plant species in Madagascar, Borneo, Sumatra, Java and the Moluccas, before settling in Penang, where he became the first superintendent of the Penang Botanic Gardens.
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Jens Holmboe
1880 - 1943 (63 years)
Jens Holmboe was a Norwegian botanist, professor and author. Jens Holmboe was born at Tvedestrand in Aust-Agder, Norway. He was the oldest son of physician Michael Holmboe and his wife Eleonore Vogt . His grandfather Jens Holmboe was a prominent politician. He attended Oslo Cathedral School and studied botany at the University of Christiania .
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