The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Biology,
#19751
Johannes van Horne
1621 - 1670 (49 years)
Johannes van Horne, Joannis van Horne was a Dutch anatomist best known for his illustrated atlas of myology. He was a professor of anatomy and surgery at Leiden University where his students included Nicolaus Steno.
Go to Profile#19752
Carmel Humphries
1909 - 1986 (77 years)
Carmel Humphries MRIA B.Sc. M.Sc. PhD D.Sc. was an Irish zoologist, specialist in fresh water Chironomidae. She was the first female professor of zoology and head of department in Ireland, and devised a technique for the identification of chironomid flies that is still employed today.
Go to Profile#19753
Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart
1856 - 1920 (64 years)
Sir Thomas Peter Anderson Stuart was a Scottish-born professor of physiology, founder of the medical school at the University of Sydney. Early life Stuart was born in Dumfries, Scotland in 1856, son of Alexander Stuart, a master clothier & tailor, a magistrate and a member of the town council; and his wife Jane, née Anderson. Stuart was educated at Dumfries Academy until 14 years of age and was then apprenticed to a pharmacist. Stuart soon passed the preliminary examination of the Pharmaceutical Society, and at 16 the minor examination which entitled him to registration as a chemist when he t...
Go to Profile#19754
William Benham
1860 - 1950 (90 years)
Sir William Blaxland Benham was a New Zealand zoologist. Biography He was born in Isleworth, Middlesex, England, on 29 March 1860. He studied at Marlborough College and London University and taught at Bedford College, London before moving to New Zealand in 1898. He was a member of the 1907 Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition. From 1905 to 1911 he was the Governor in Council of the Board of Governors of the New Zealand Institute.
Go to Profile#19755
Eduard Palla
1864 - 1922 (58 years)
Eduard Palla was an Austrian botanist and mycologist of Moravian descent. As a botanist he specialized in research of Cyperaceae , of which he was the taxonomic authority of many species. From 1883 to 1887 he studied natural sciences at the University of Vienna, receiving his doctorate with a dissertation on the anatomy and systematics of Cyperaceae. Following graduation he worked as an assistant to Gottlieb Haberlandt at the University of Graz, where in 1891 he obtained his habilitation in botany. In 1900–01 he conducted investigations of sedges and tropical fungi on Java and Sumatra of the Dutch East Indies.
Go to Profile#19756
Giuseppe Oronzo Giannuzzi
1838 - 1876 (38 years)
Giuseppe Oronzo Giannuzzi was an Italian physiologist. His most important discovery is one of the serous demilunes, or crescents: cellular formations that are on some submaxillary salivary glands. After graduating in medicine in Pisa in 1861, he studied at Claude Bernard's laboratory in Paris. In 1864 he moved to Berlin in the school of Rudolf Virchow under the leadership of Wilhelm Kühne. He was also at Carl Ludwig's laboratory in Leipzig. In 1867 he became professor of Physiology at the University of Siena where he carried out original research.
Go to Profile#19757
Eli Ives
1779 - 1861 (82 years)
Eli Ives was an American physician. He was son of Dr Levi and Lydia Ives, and was born in New Haven, Connecticut, February 7, 1779. He graduated from Yale University in 1799. The two years after his graduation he spent as Rector of the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven, at the same time studying medicine partly with his father and partly with Dr. Aeneas Munson. At a subsequent period he attended in Philadelphia the lectures of Drs Benjamin Rush and Caspar Wistar. In 1801 he began to practice his profession in New Haven, and was continuously engaged in a widely extended field, during a per...
Go to Profile#19758
Lydia DeWitt
1859 - 1928 (69 years)
Lydia Maria DeWitt was an American pathologist and anatomist. Early life and education Lydia Maria Adams was born in Flint, Michigan to Oscar and Elizabeth Adams, the second of three children. Her father was an attorney. Elizabeth died when Lydia was five, leaving her sister, who later married Oscar, to raise Lydia and her siblings.
Go to Profile#19759
Jan Valckenier Suringar
1864 - 1932 (68 years)
Jan Valckenier Suringar was a Dutch botanist. His surname is spelled "Valckenier Suringar" with the name "Valckenier" being his mother's maiden name. He was the son of botanist Willem Frederik Reinier Suringar 1832–1898.
Go to Profile#19760
Friedrich August Flückiger
1828 - 1894 (66 years)
Friedrich August Flückiger was a Swiss pharmacist, chemist and botanist. He was born in Langenthal, canton of Bern, on 15 May 1828 and died on 11 December 1894. Flückiger studied chemistry at the University of Berlin , afterwards teaching pharmacy classes in Solothurn. In 1850 he studied botany at the University of Geneva, followed by studies at the University of Heidelberg. He was the author of the botanical name Boswellia sacra, a tree native to Somalia, Oman, and Yemen that is a major source of frankincense.
Go to Profile#19761
Richard Helms
1842 - 1914 (72 years)
Richard Helms was a German-born Australian naturalist whose work in botany, zoology, geology, and ethnology covered various parts of Australia and New Zealand. He arrived in Australia in 1858 and worked for a cousin in a Melbourne cigar shop. He travelled to Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1862 and in 1876 began practicing as a dentist in Nelson, New Zealand. He married in 1879 and opened a watchmaking business in Greymouth.
Go to Profile#19762
Edward Laurens Mark
1847 - 1946 (99 years)
Edward Laurens Mark was an American zoologist, Hersey Professor of Anatomy and Director of the Zoological Laboratory of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. In his landmark cytological monograph published in 1881, Mark also conceived the parenthetical referencing for citation, also known as Harvard referencing.
Go to Profile#19763
Jacob Gijsbertus Samuël van Breda
1788 - 1867 (79 years)
Jacob Gijsbertus Samuël van Breda was a Dutch biologist and geologist. Jacob was the son of Jacob van Breda, a Dutch physician, physicist and politician, and Anna Elsenera van Campen. His mother died when he was two years old. He studied medicine and physics at the University of Leyden, where he obtained his degree in medicine and philosophy in 1811, afterwards he travelled to Paris. In 1816 he became professor of botany, chemistry and pharmacy at the University of Franeker. In this period he benefitted from the newly peaceful conditions in Europe by visiting places of scientific interest to him, e.g.
Go to Profile#19764
John Henry Leech
1862 - 1900 (38 years)
John Henry Leech was an English entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. His collections from China, Japan, and Kashmir are in the Natural History Museum, London. These also contain insects from Morocco, the Canary Islands, and Madeira.
Go to Profile#19765
Aldo Perroncito
1882 - 1929 (47 years)
Aldo Perroncito was an Italian pathologist. He was the son of parasitologist Edoardo Perroncito . He is known for research involving regeneration of peripheral nerves, kinetic behavior of the Golgi apparatus during mitosis, and studies of pellagra.
Go to Profile#19766
Giuseppe Vincenzo Ciaccio
1824 - 1901 (77 years)
Giuseppe Vincenzo Ciaccio was an Italian anatomist and histologist. His name is associated with accessory lacrimal glands known as "Ciaccio's glands". In 1845, he earned his degree in medicine and surgery in Naples, afterwards opening a medical practice in Catanzaro, where in 1855 he attained the chair of theoretical surgery and obstetrics at the royal university-school. In 1860 he relocated to Turin, subsequently receiving a scholarship to study and work abroad. In London, he met with Thomas Spencer Wells and Lionel Smith Beale , who was an important influence to Ciaccio in his decision to dedicate himself to microscopic anatomy.
Go to Profile#19767
Alphonse Malaquin
1868 - 1949 (81 years)
Alphonse Malaquin was a French zoologist born in the village of Cambrésis. He is known for his research of Polychaeta . In 1888 he began work as an assistant at the zoological laboratory at the Faculté des Sciences in Lille. In 1895 he defended his doctorate with a highly regarded thesis on the annelid family Syllidae, titled Recherches sur les Syllidiens. Morphologie. Anatomie Reproduction. Développement.
Go to Profile#19768
Edmund Murton Walker
1877 - 1969 (92 years)
Edmund Murton Walker was a Canadian entomologist. He described the genus Grylloblatta in 1914 which he then considered as a member of the Orthoptera and later placed it in a separate order Grylloblattodea but which are now included in the order Notoptera.
Go to Profile#19769
Hermann Lehmann
#19770
Chester Dewey
1784 - 1867 (83 years)
Chester Dewey was an American botanist, antislavery activist, clergyman and educator. Early life Chester Dewey was born in Sheffield, Massachusetts, on October 25, 1784, to Elizabeth Owen and Stephen Dewey. He studied for the ministry at Williams College, graduated in 1806, and officiated at Tryingham, Massachusetts. Even though he gave up preaching as his primary profession after only a few months, he never really retired from the pulpit. He also assisted his brother, Loring D. Dewey in his efforts to create a school of U.S. Blacks. For the remainder of his life he accepted frequent invita...
Go to Profile#19771
Harrison Gray Dyar Jr.
1866 - 1929 (63 years)
Harrison Gray Dyar Jr. was an American entomologist. Dyar's Law, a pattern of geometric progression in the growth of insect parts, is named after him. He was also noted for eccentric pursuits which included digging tunnels under his home. He had a complicated personal life and along with his second wife he adopted the Baháʼí Faith.
Go to Profile#19772
William Lawrence Tower
1872 - Present (154 years)
William Lawrence Tower was an American zoologist, born in Halifax, Massachusetts. He was educated at the Lawrence Scientific School , the Harvard Graduate School, and the University of Chicago , where he taught thereafter, becoming associate professor in 1911.
Go to Profile#19773
William Hillhouse
1850 - 1910 (60 years)
William Hillhouse was the first Professor of Botany at the University of Birmingham . He was one of the first professors appointed to the Mason Science College in Birmingham in 1882 and, prior to that appointment, was University Lecturer in Botany at the University of Cambridge and Lecturer in Botany at Newnham College, Cambridge and Girton College, Cambridge. During the first year of his tenure at Mason, Hillhouse spent time in Bonn in the laboratory of Professor Strasburger who was then one of the most famous botanists of the time. In 1887 he collaborated with Professor Strasburger on a tr...
Go to Profile#19774
John L. Jinks
1929 - 1987 (58 years)
John Leonard Jinks CBE FRS was a British geneticist. His untimely death at 57 cut short a distinguished career with many contributions in the fields of microbial genetics, cytoplasmic inheritance, and biometrical genetics.
Go to Profile#19775
Bertram Windle
1858 - 1929 (71 years)
Sir Bertram Coghill Alan Windle, was a British anatomist, administrator, archaeologist, scientist, educationalist and writer. Biography He was born at Mayfield Vicarage, in Staffordshire, where his father, the Reverend Samuel Allen Windle, a Church of England clergyman, was vicar. He attended Trinity College, where he graduated B.A. in 1879. He also served as Librarian of the University Philosophical Society in the 1877–78 session.
Go to Profile#19776
James Douglas
1675 - 1742 (67 years)
James Douglas was a Scottish physician and anatomist, and Physician Extraordinary to Queen Caroline. Life and works One of the seven sons of William Douglas and his wife, Joan, daughter of James Mason of Park, Blantyre, he was born in West Calder, West Lothian, in 1675. His brother was the lithotomist John Douglas .
Go to Profile#19777
Arnold Ashley Miles
1904 - 1988 (84 years)
Sir Arnold Ashley Miles CBE FRS was the Director of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine and Professor of Experimental Pathology in the University of London from 1952 to 1971. Early life He was born in York, Yorkshire, England. He was the second of three children and only son of Harry Miles, a draper, and his wife, Kate Elizabeth Hindley. He was educated at Bootham School, a Quaker foundation in York. However, from the age of 12, no amount of persuasion would make him conform to religious observance which he found unacceptable. From there he won an exhibition to King's College, Cambridge, to read medicine.
Go to Profile#19778
Eugen von Daday
1855 - 1920 (65 years)
Eugen von Daday or Jenő von Daday was a ethnic Romanian professor of zoology in Hungary in the late 19th and early 20th century. Daday was an expert on aquatic invertebrates, particularly crustaceans. Daday collected and identified many species and genera within the borders of the Hungarian empire, and received samples of invertebrates from collectors around the world. After his death in 1920, Daday's collection of crustaceans was acquired by the Hungarian Natural History Museum.
Go to Profile#19779
Hussein Karim Manji
#19780
Karl Georg Herman Lang
1901 - 1976 (75 years)
Karl Georg Herman Lang was a Swedish zoologist, specialising in crustaceans, especially harpacticoid copepods and tanaids. He was born in Malmö and gained a doctoral degree from the Lund University in 1924. He spent much of his early career working as a teacher in elementary schools in Eslöv, Lund and Stockholm. From 1947 to 1967, Lang worked at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, eventually reaching the position of head of the Section of Invertebrate Zoology. As well as many papers on Harpacticoida up to 1965, and many papers on Tanaidacea throughout his life, Lang also published on Priapulida and Kinorhyncha, and a single paper on isopod crustaceans.
Go to Profile#19781
Adam Lonicer
1528 - 1586 (58 years)
Adam Lonicer, Adam Lonitzer or Adamus Lonicerus was a German botanist, noted for his 1557 revised version of Eucharius Rösslin's herbal. Lonicer was born in Marburg, the son of a theologian and philologist. He studied at Marburg and the University of Mainz, and obtained his Magister degree at sixteen years of age. He became professor of Mathematics at the University of Marburg in 1553 and Doctor of Medicine in 1554, becoming the city physician in Frankfurt am Main. His true interest though was herbs and the study of botany. His first important work on herbs, the Kräuterbuch, was published in 1557, a large part dealing with distillation.
Go to Profile#19782
Feliks Paweł Jarocki
1790 - 1865 (75 years)
Feliks Paweł Jarocki was a Polish zoologist and entomologist. Life Jarocki was a Doctor of Liberal Arts and Philosophy. He organized and managed the Zoological Cabinet of the Royal University of Warsaw from 1819 to 1862. The collection was based on that of Baron Sylwiusz Minckwitz, which included over 20,000 specimens. Jarocki built up this collection through purchases and scientific expeditions to eastern Poland. He also acquired many important books for the zoological library. When he retired the zoological collection included 65,690 specimens, and the library had 2,000 volumes. He was succ...
Go to Profile#19783
Wilmar Maarten Wiersinga
#19784
Oskar Langendorff
1853 - 1908 (55 years)
Oskar Langendorff was a German physician and physiologist known primarily for his experiments on the isolated perfused heart, the so-called Langendorff Heart apparatus. In addition, he is credited with discoveries in respiration and in the conduction of impulses in the sympathetic and peripheral nervous system. His work has served as the basis for the use of retrograde perfusion in science and medicine.
Go to Profile#19785
Paolo Panceri
1833 - 1877 (44 years)
Paolo Panceri was an Italian naturalist. Panceri graduated in medicine at the University of Pavia where he began his research. In 1861 he took the Chair of Comparative anatomy at the University of Naples, where he directed the Zoology Museum. Panceri was cautious about the scientific validity of evolutionary theories but was instrumental in the foundation of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn . His findings on the bioluminescence of marine invertebrates and studies of Amphioxus led to fame in Italy and abroad. In 1874 he sold his books and scientific papers to Biblioteca Universitaria di Napoli to pay for an expedition to Egypt.
Go to Profile#19786
Alice Haskins
1880 - 1971 (91 years)
Alice Crane Haskins Swingle was an American government botanist. With her husband, botanist Deane Bret Swingle , she co-authored the 1928 book A Textbook of Systematic Botany. Life and career Haskins was born on 24 April 1880, in Acton, Massachusetts to Helen A. Crane and John R. Haskins. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Smith College in 1903. Haskins worked as a research assistant in the Plant Pathology Laboratory of the United States Department of Agriculture from 1903 to 1906.
Go to Profile#19787
Elsie M. Burrows
1913 - 1986 (73 years)
Elsie May Burrows was an English botanist who made significant contributions to British postwar phycology. Her primary area of research was macroalgal ecology, focusing particularly on Fucus, a genus of brown algae, and Chlorophyta, a division of the green algae.
Go to Profile#19788
John George Jack
1861 - 1949 (88 years)
Professor John George Jack was an American dendrologist. Biography The son of Robert and Annie Jack, John Jack was born at Châteauguay, Quebec, Canada. His father was a blacksmith-turned-farmer of Scottish descent, his mother a horticulturist of English descent who wrote articles under the title Garden News. Jack was educated at his local protestant school as well as at home with his horticulturalist mother teaching him. His father was also an early botanical influence teaching him about pruning and grafting. His mother was also active in finding him mentors, corresponding with John William Dawson for assistance with this.
Go to Profile#19789
Jean Jacques Kickx
1842 - 1887 (45 years)
Jean Jacques Kickx was a Belgian botanist. His father, Jean Kickx , and grandfather, also named Jean Kickx , were both botanists. He was educated in Ghent and Bonn, obtaining his doctorate of sciences in 1863. In 1867 he was appointed professor of botany at the University of Ghent as well as director of the botanical garden and school of horticulture. In 1879 he became president of the Société royale de botanique de Belgique, and in 1887 was named rector of the university.
Go to Profile#19790
Vladimir Pravdich-Neminsky
1879 - 1952 (73 years)
Vladimir Pravdich-Neminsky was Ukrainian and then Soviet physiologist who published the first EEG and the evoked potential of the mammalian brain. He was a representative of Kyiv Physiological School. He was a victim of Soviet repressions.
Go to Profile#19791
Wade Fox
1920 - 1964 (44 years)
Rufus Wade Fox Jr. , was an American zoologist and herpetologist from the University of California, Berkeley. He specialized in the anatomy of snakes and the systematics of the western garter snakes.
Go to Profile#19792
Vincenz Fohmann
1794 - 1837 (43 years)
Vincenz Fohmann was a German anatomist, born in Assamstadt, today located in Baden-Württemberg. He studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg, where under the guidance of Friedrich Tiedemann , he learned anatomy and physiology. For several years at Heidelberg, he served as an anatomical prosector. Working with cadavers, he mastered a process that involved injecting the lymphatic system with mercury. In 1827, he replaced Jean-Nicolas Comhaire as professor of anatomy at the University of Liège.
Go to Profile#19793
Arthur Humble Evans
1855 - 1943 (88 years)
Arthur Humble Evans FRSE was a British ornithologist. Life He was born in Scremerston on the Northumberland coast on 23 February 1855, the son of Rev Hugh Evans, the local vicar. He attended school in Durham and here befriended Henry Baker Tristram who instilled in him his first love of ornithology.
Go to Profile#19794
Otto Busse
1867 - 1922 (55 years)
Otto Emil Franz Ulrich Busse was a German pathologist. Busse was born in Gühlitz, Kingdom of Prussia. He studied medicine at the University of Greifswald, and subsequently became an assistant to Paul Grawitz , at Greifswald. Afterwards he moved to Posen , where in 1904 he became a professor of pathology. From 1911 until 1922 he was professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Zurich, where he died.
Go to Profile#19795
Louis Emberger
1897 - 1969 (72 years)
Louis Emberger was a French botanist and phytogeographer, at the University of Montpellier. Life Emberger was born at Thann, in Haut-Rhin, France in 1897, which was then part of German occupied Alsace. He developed an interest in Natural History, exploring the Rhine plain of Alsace, and the nearby Vosges mountains. At the age of 17, to avoid conscription into the German army, he escaped to Lyons, in France. There he began studies in biologie at the University of Lyons, and obtained a degree in sciences naturelles in 1918. He obtained his doctorate under Professor Marie Antoine Alexandre Guilliermond, then head of the Department of Agricultural Botany, at Lyons.
Go to Profile#19796
Johan Ernst Gunnerus
1718 - 1773 (55 years)
Johan Ernst Gunnerus was a Norwegian bishop and botanist. Gunnerus was born at Christiania. He was bishop of the Diocese of Nidaros from 1758 until his death and also a professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen.
Go to Profile#19797
Gerard Blasius
1627 - 1692 (65 years)
Gerard "Gerrit" Leendertszoon Blasius was a Dutch physician and anatomist. He was born in Amsterdam and was the eldest son of Leonard Blasius , who had worked as an architect in Copenhagen. Gerard started his studies there, but the family moved to Leiden, after his father died. Around 1655, he became a physician in Amsterdam. In October 1659, Blasius was appointed at the Athenaeum Illustre but without being paid. In the next year, he became the first Amsterdam professor in medicine. At his home or in the hospital, corpses were dissected. In 1661, he claimed the discovery of Stensen's duct by ...
Go to Profile#19798
Georg Matthias von Martens
1788 - 1872 (84 years)
George Matthias von Martens was a German lawyer, botanist and phycologist. He was the father of zoologist Eduard von Martens . He studied law at the University of Tübingen, where he also attended lectures by naturalist Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer and astronomer Johann Gottlieb Friedrich von Bohnenberger. From 1818 to 1821 he worked in Ulm, afterwards being based in Stuttgart, where in 1829 he became an official interpreter for Italian, Spanish and Portuguese at the Ministry of Justice and the Interior. From 1836 onward, he held the title of councilor.
Go to Profile#19799
David Cooper
1931 - 1986 (55 years)
David Graham Cooper was a South African-born psychiatrist and theorist who was prominent in the anti-psychiatry movement. Cooper graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1955. R.D. Laing claimed that Cooper underwent Soviet training to prepare him as an Anti Apartheid communist revolutionary, but after completing his course he never returned to South Africa out of fear that B.O.S.S. would eliminate him. He moved to London, where he worked at several hospitals. From 1961 to 1965 he ran an experimental unit for young people with schizophrenia called Villa 21, which he saw as a revolutionary 'anti-hospital' and a prototype for the later Kingsley Hall Community.
Go to Profile#19800
E. J. Conway
1893 - 1968 (75 years)
Edward Joseph Conway FRS was an Irish biochemist known for works pertaining to electrolyte physiology and analytical chemistry. Education Conway was born in Nenagh, North Tipperary and educated at Blackrock College and University College Dublin, graduating M.Sc.. After winning a studentship to the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he was awarded D.Sc., he returned to Ireland to become the first Professor of Biochemistry and Pharmacology at University College Dublin in 1932, a post he held until 1963.
Go to Profile