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.
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#20251
Heinrich Klebahn
1859 - 1942 (83 years)
Heinrich Klebahn was a German mycologist and phytopathologist. In 1884 he obtained his PhD from the University of Jena, afterwards working as a schoolteacher in Bremen and Hamburg . From 1905 onward, he was associated with the botanical gardens at Hamburg. From 1921 to 1934 he was an honorary professor and lecturer of cryptogamy and soil biology at the Institut für Allgemeine Botanik in Hamburg.
Go to Profile#20252
Karel Cejp
1900 - 1979 (79 years)
Karel Cejp was a Czech botanist and mycologist. After finishing highschool , he worked with Bohuslav Horak, an expert in the flora of the Balkan Peninsula and the Mediterranean. Later, he studied at Charles University in Prague with Josef Velenovský. In 1933 he was appointed an associate professorship, and in 1948 became a full professor. Cejp became the editor of the mycological journal Czech Mycology in 1948. Fungal taxa named in his honour include Cejpia, Cejpomyces , and Cejpomycetaceae .
Go to Profile#20253
Jean Beauverie
1874 - 1938 (64 years)
Jean Beauverie was a French botanist and mycologist. In 1894 he obtained his degree in natural sciences, followed by work as a botanical préparateur, then a lecturer, at the University of Lyon. In 1912 he was a lecturer at the faculty of sciences in Nancy, where he eventually became an associate professor. Later he gained a professorship at Clermont-Ferrand, and in 1923 returned as a professor to Lyon.
Go to Profile#20254
Stavros Zurukzoglu
1896 - 1966 (70 years)
Stavros Zurukzoglu was an influential Swiss eugenicist. In 1927 he got his Ph.D. in Medicine, he later became professor of bacteriology and hygiene at the University of Bern. In 1956 he was appointed honorary professor of social hygiene and eugenics.
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Georg Friedrich Nicolai
1874 - 1964 (90 years)
Georg Friedrich Nicolai was a German physiologist. Biography He was born in 1874 in Berlin. He studied at the University of Berlin, and later practiced medicine at the Charité in Berlin. He admired the works of physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, and with internist Friedrich Kraus, he published a book on electrocardiography titled Das Elektrokardiogramm des gesunden und kranken Menschen.
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Pieter Nicolaas van Kampen
1878 - 1937 (59 years)
Pieter Nicolaas van Kampen was a Dutch zoologist. In 1904 he received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam, where he was a student and assistant to Max Carl Wilhelm Weber. From 1905 to 1911 he was based in the Dutch East Indies, during which time, he was assigned to the Aru Islands and participated in an expedition to Netherlands New Guinea . In 1911 he returned to Amsterdam as a zoological assistant at the university. From 1917 to 1931 he served as a professor at the University of Leiden.
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Mary K. Bryan
1877 - 1926 (49 years)
Mary Katherine Bryan was an American botanist and phytopathologist. Much of her research involved leaf spots and cankers caused by bacteria. Life and career Bryan was born in Prince George's County, Maryland, on February 13, 1877. She earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1908. She worked at the Bureau of Plant Industry in the United States Department of Agriculture as a scientific assistant and assistant pathologist from 1909 to 1918.
Go to Profile#20258
Charles Pérez
1873 - 1952 (79 years)
Charles Pérez was a French zoologist best known for his research of marine invertebrates and insects. His father, Jean Pérez , was a zoology professor at Bordeaux, and his father's sister was married to Belgian malacologist Paul Pelseneer .
Go to Profile#20259
Jesse Jarue Mark
1906 - 1971 (65 years)
Jesse Jarue Mark was one of the first African-Americans to gain a PhD in botany, and likely to be the first at Iowa State University, where he joined the faculty. He was also a Rockefeller Agriculture Fellow.
Go to Profile#20260
Jean Abel Gruvel
1870 - 1941 (71 years)
Jean Abel Gruvel was a French marine biologist known for his research of cirripedes. Biography In 1894 he obtained his doctorate in sciences, and later taught classes in zoology for three years at the faculty of sciences at Bordeaux. In 1902 he founded the Société d'études et de vulgarisation de la zoologie agricole in Bordeaux. Later on, he was a professor at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, and was chair of the commission for the regulation of whaling for French West Africa and of the committee for the protection of colonial fauna and flora.
Go to Profile#20261
Janina Hurynowicz
1894 - 1967 (73 years)
Janina Hurynowicz was a Polish medical doctor, neurophysiologist and neurologist. She was the author of many works on Chronaxie and the influence of insulin on the autonomic nervous system and became a professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.
Go to Profile#20262
Tomitaro Makino
1862 - 1957 (95 years)
Tomitaro Makino was a pioneer Japanese botanist noted for his taxonomic work. He has been called "Father of Japanese Botany", having been one of the first Japanese botanists to work extensively on classifying Japanese plants using the system developed by Linnaeus. His research resulted in documenting 50,000 specimens, many of which are represented in his Makino's Illustrated Flora of Japan. Despite having dropped out of grammar school, he eventually attained a Doctor of Science degree, and his birthday is remembered as Botany Day in Japan.
Go to Profile#20263
Franz Werner
1867 - 1939 (72 years)
Franz Josef Maria Werner was an Austrian zoologist and explorer. Specializing as a herpetologist and entomologist, Werner described numerous species and other taxa of frogs, snakes, insects, and other organisms.
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Carl Brühl
1820 - 1899 (79 years)
Carl-Bernhard Brühl was an Austrian physician and anatomist known for his work in the field of comparative osteology. He studied medicine in Vienna, later spending several years as a practicing physician. In 1857 he was appointed professor of zootomy and comparative anatomy in Krakow. In 1861 he became a professor of zootomy in Vienna, where in 1863, he was named director of the zootomic institute.
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Mikhail Zavadovsky
1891 - 1957 (66 years)
Mikhail Mikhailovich Zavadovsky was a Russian and Soviet biologist who specialized in the reproductive biology of livestock. A professor at Moscow University, he conducted experiments on sex hormones, the control of sexual characters and hormonal cycles. He noted that there was a balance between the sex hormones and was able to produce male or female characteristics during development by altering the balance experimentally. He termed them plus-minus interactions. Zavadovsky introduced the term "biotechnology" in 1932. His brother Boris Mikhailovich also worked on endocrinology.
Go to Profile#20266
Joseph Conrad Chamberlin
1898 - 1962 (64 years)
Joseph Conrad Chamberlin was an American arachnologist who studied mainly pseudoscorpions. A native of Utah, he studied primarily at Stanford University while working most of his career in Oregon for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Several species are named in his honor.
Go to Profile#20267
Franz Theodor Doflein
1873 - 1923 (50 years)
Franz Theodor Doflein was a German zoologist known for his studies of animal ecology. Biography He studied medicine and zoology at the University of Munich, where he was influenced by Richard Hertwig. In 1895–96 he worked as an auxiliary assistant to Alexander Götte at the University of Strasbourg, followed by research of fish diseases at Munich as an assistant under Bruno Hofer. In 1898, on behalf of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, he took part in a study trip to the West Indies, Mexico and California. After his return to Germany, he served as an assistant at the Zoologischen Staatssammlun...
Go to Profile#20268
Max Walker de Laubenfels
1894 - 1960 (66 years)
Max Walker de Laubenfels was an American spongiologist. He received his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College and his doctorate from Stanford University. He was among the most prolific identifiers of new species of Caribbean sponges, describing 60 species from 1932 to 1954.
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Gustav Steinmann
1856 - 1929 (73 years)
Johann Heinrich Conrad Gottfried Gustav Steinmann was a German geologist and paleontologist. He performed various studies in the Ural Mountains, North America, South America, the Caucasus and the Alps. Steinmann had a large number of scientific publications. He made contributions to the Theory of Evolution and to the study of the structural geology and orogeny of the Andes.
Go to Profile#20270
George Washington Carver
1864 - 1943 (79 years)
George Washington Carver was an American agricultural scientist and inventor who promoted alternative crops to cotton and methods to prevent soil depletion. He was one of the most prominent black scientists of the early 20th century.
Go to Profile#20271
Helen Hart
1900 - 1971 (71 years)
Helen Hart was an American plant pathologist, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Hart was the first woman president of the American Phytopathological Society, and was instrumental in making the University of Minnesota's Department of Plant Pathology a world-leader in stem rust.
Go to Profile#20272
Bénédict Pierre Georges Hochreutiner
1873 - 1959 (86 years)
Bénédict Pierre Georges Hochreutiner was a Swiss botanist and plant taxonomist. A native of Saint-Gall, he studied theology and natural sciences in Geneva. In 1896 he was an assistant to John Isaac Briquet at the Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques at Geneva. In 1901 he made a scientific trip to Algeria, and in 1903–05 was associated with the botanic gardens at Buitenzorg in the Dutch East Indies. In 1906 he was named curator of the Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques, where in 1931 he was appointed director. In 1919 he became a professor of botany.
Go to Profile#20273
Humphrey Gilbert-Carter
1884 - 1969 (85 years)
Humphrey Gilbert-Carter was a British botanist and the first scientific director of the Cambridge Botanic Garden , being succeeded by John Gilmour. The second son of the colonial governor Sir Thomas Gilbert-Carter and Susan Laura Hocker he was educated at Tonbridge School and Edinburgh University. After further studies at Marburg University and Cambridge University, he served as a botanist on the Botanical Survey of India during the First World War.
Go to Profile#20274
Johannes Abraham Bierens de Haan
1883 - 1958 (75 years)
Johan Abraham Bierens de Haan was a Dutch biologist and ethologist. He was born in Haarlem, and died in Siena, Italy.
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Anna Charlotte Ruys
1898 - 1977 (79 years)
Anna Charlotte Ruys or Charlotte Defresne-Ruys was a Dutch professor of bacteriology and epidemiology. She became a proponent of hygiene in public health and an activist against biological warfare. Early life and education Ruys was born in Dedemsvaart as a daughter of Bonne Ruys and Engelina Gijsberta Fledderus. Her younger sister, Mien, became a landscape architect and carried on their father's work.
Go to Profile#20276
Richard Kuhn
1900 - 1967 (67 years)
Richard Johann Kuhn was an Austrian-German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins". Biography Early life Kuhn was born in Vienna, Austria, where he attended grammar school and high school. His interest in chemistry surfaced early; however he had many interests and decided late to study chemistry. Between 1910 and 1918 he was a schoolmate of Wolfgang Pauli, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1945. Beginning in 1918, Kuhn attended lectures at the University of Vienna in chemistry. He finished his chemistry studies a...
Go to Profile#20277
Elmer Ivan Applegate
1867 - 1949 (82 years)
Elmer Ivan Applegate was an American botanist. Biography Elmer Applegate was born in Ashland, Oregon, on March 31, 1867. He started to take botany seriously in 1894, when he started to attend San Jose Normal School, and later, in Stanford University, in 1895. Between 1896 and 1898, he spent 5 months a year, under supervision of Frederick Coville of the US Department of Agriculture, where he did plant surveys in the Cascade Mountains, that can range from Klamath Falls to Portland. During the winter of last year, his job was to organize a plant collections, in Washington, D.C.
Go to Profile#20278
Ilmari Välikangas
1884 - 1959 (75 years)
Ilmari Välikangas born Buddén was a Finnish hydrobiologist and ornithologist who worked as a professor of zoology at the University of Helsinki. He was also curator of the zoological museum of the university.
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Giuseppe Colosi
1892 - 1975 (83 years)
Giuseppe Colosi was an Italian zoologist. He specialized in the study of crustaceans and mysids in particular. Colosi was born in Petralia Sottana. From 1920 to 1924, he taught in Turin, and he was the head of the zoological institute of the University of Florence from 1940 to 1962. He died in Florence, aged 83.
Go to Profile#20280
Fritz Zweigelt
1888 - 1964 (76 years)
Friedrich Zweigelt was an Austrian entomologist and phytologist. Zweigelt was one of the most influential and internationally renowned figures in Austrian vine growing between 1921 and 1945. He was Head of State Vine Cultivation during the period of the First Austrian Republic and also acted as Director of the School of Viticulture and Horticulture in Klosterneuburg near Vienna. The grape variety "Blauer Zweigelt" is named after him. Blauer Zweigelt is grown across an area of some 6,400 hectares in Austria, making it by far the most significant red wine grape cultivated in the country. Zweig...
Go to Profile#20281
Kaarlo Linkola
1888 - 1942 (54 years)
Kaarlo Linkola was a Finnish botanist and phytogeographer. Linkola was docent of botany at Helsinki University 1919–1922. He was professor of botany at University of Turku from 1922, and at Helsinki University from 1925 . He was head of the botanical institute from 1926, dean of the Faculty of Science for two periods and rector of Helsinki University 1938–1941.
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Aleksandr A. Chernov
1877 - 1963 (86 years)
Aleksandr A. Chernov was a geologist and paleontologist from the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. He was made a Hero of Socialist Labor in 1957, and granted the title of Honoured Scientist of the RSFSR in 1946.
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Hugo Frederik Nierstrasz
1872 - 1937 (65 years)
Hugo Frederik Nierstrasz was a Dutch zoologist, known for his research in the fields of malacology and carcinology. From 1892 he studied medicine at Utrecht University, but his interests switched to biology by way of influence from Ambrosius Hubrecht. In 1898 he conducted research of marine animals at the Stazione Zoologica in Naples, and in 1899/1900 took part in the Siboga Expedition to the Dutch East Indies. After his return to Europe, he taught biology classes in Amersfoort, and in 1904 began work as a lecturer in zoology at Utrecht University. In 1910 he succeeded Hubrecht as a professor of zoology, comparative anatomy and zoogeography at the university.
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Hamao Umezawa
1914 - 1986 (72 years)
Hamao Umezawa was a Japanese scientist who discovered several antimicrobial agents and enzyme inhibitors. Umezawa was born in Obama City, Fukui Prefecture, as the second son in a family of seven children. After graduating from Musashi Junior and Senior High School, he entered the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine in 1933, and completed his medical degree in 1937. After serving in the Japanese army during World War II, Umezawa did work on tuberculosis which led to his discovery, in 1955, of the aminoglycoside antibiotic kanamycin. By this stage Umezawa was heading the Institute of...
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Dmytro Zajciw
1897 - 1976 (79 years)
Dmytro Zajciw was a Ukrainian and Brazilian entomologist, notable for his collection and for his many beetle discoveries. He was born in Velyka Mykhailivka, Ukraine and died in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was the author of Two new genera and species of neotropical Longhorn beetles , 1957, Contribution to the study of Longhorn beetles of Rio de Janeiro , 1958, and was the first to describe the genera Adesmoides and Pseudogrammopsis, as well as the species Beraba angusticollis and Mionochroma subaurosum, among many others.
Go to Profile#20286
Zdravko Lorković
1900 - 1998 (98 years)
Zdravko Lorković was a Croatian biologist, entomologist, and geneticist. Lorković was a professor at the University of Zagreb, where he graduated in biology. He acquired a doctorate in biology in Ljubljana under Jovan Hadži. He studied the nucleus of cells and chromosomes, the origin and evolution of species and ecology.
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Max Fleischer
1861 - 1930 (69 years)
Richard Paul Max Fleischer was a German painter and bryologist. As a botanist, he is remembered for his work with Javan mosses. Biography He took art classes in Breslau, qualifying as an art teacher in 1881. He furthered his studies in Munich and Paris, where his interest in natural sciences grew. He subsequently moved to Zurich in 1892 in order to study geology. In the latter part of the 1890s, he was invited by botanist Melchior Treub to Java as an illustrator. On Java, along with his artistic duties, he collected regional botanical specimens and conducted investigations of the island's mosses.
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William John Sinclair
1877 - 1935 (58 years)
William John Sinclair was a geologist and vertebrate paleontologist, noteworthy for his collaboration with Walter W. Granger on stratigraphy in New Mexico and Wyoming. Sinclair received in 1904 his M.S. and Ph.D. from U. C. Berkeley, where John C. Merriam was his doctoral supervisor. After receiving his Ph.D., Sinclair went to Princeton University as a Teaching Fellow and was promoted in 1905 to Instructor in Geology, in 1916 to Assistant Professor, in 1928 to Associate Professor, and in 1930 to Professor.
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Girindrasekhar Bose
1887 - 1953 (66 years)
Girindrasekhar Bose was an early 20th-century Indian psychoanalyst, the first president of the Indian Psychoanalytic Society. Bose carried on a twenty-year dialogue with Sigmund Freud. Known for disputing the specifics of Freud's Oedipus complex theory, he has been pointed to by some as an early example of non-Western contestations of Western methodologies. Apart from this, he also started the first general hospital psychiatry unit in Asia at the R.G. Kar Medical College, Calcutta in 1933.
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Walther Schoenichen
1876 - 1956 (80 years)
Walther Schoenichen was a German biologist and a prominent proponent of nature conservation within Nazi Germany. Schoenichen studied natural sciences in Halle and obtained his doctorate in 1898. From 1898 to 1913, he worked as a teacher.
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Friedrich August Georg Bitter
1873 - 1927 (54 years)
Friedrich August Georg Bitter was a German botanist and lichenologist. Born in Bremen, he studied at the Universities of Jena, Munich and Kiel, earning his doctorate at the latter institution in 1896. Afterwards he performed assignments in Berlin. In his studies he was influenced by instructors such as Simon Schwendener , Friedrich Wilhelm Zopf and Johannes Reinke . In 1905 he was named director of the botanical garden in Bremen. During the later part of his career he served as director of the botanical garden in Göttingen.
Go to Profile#20292
Leonard Wild
1889 - 1970 (81 years)
Leonard John Wild was a New Zealand teacher, agricultural scientist, lecturer, principal, educationalist, and writer. Early life Born at Oraki near Riverton in Southland in 1889, he received his secondary education at Southland Boys' High School. He received his tertiary education from the University of Otago and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1910, a Bachelor of Science in 1917 and a Master of Arts in 1921. During the 1910s, he published several papers on geology in the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, which resulted in him being elected fellow of the Geologi...
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Lina Stern
1878 - 1968 (90 years)
Lina Solomonovna Stern was a Soviet biochemist, physiologist and humanist whose medical discoveries saved thousands of lives at the fronts of World War II. She is best known for her pioneering work on the blood–brain barrier, which she described as hemato-encephalic barrier in 1921.
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Ernst Bresslau
1877 - 1935 (58 years)
Ernst Ludwig Bresslau was a German zoologist. He was the son of historian Harry Bresslau. Life Ernst Ludwig Bresslau was born in 1877 in Berlin, Germany. His father, Harry Bresslau, was a professor of Medieval History at the University of Berlin. In 1890, the family moved to Strasbourg, and Ernst Bresslau started his studies in medicine and natural sciences in the University of Strasbourg.
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Paul Becquerel
1879 - 1955 (76 years)
Paul Becquerel was a French biologist who studied seeds, their metabolism, and viability. He was a nephew of the physicist Henri Becquerel and taught at the Faculty of Sciences in Nancy and at the University of Poitiers.
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Arika Kimura
1900 - 1996 (96 years)
was a Japanese botanist and specialist in the Salicaceae, or willow family. He was a professor of botany at the University of Tokyo and at Tohoku University. Kimura was also the first director of the Botanical Garden of Tohoku University. A species of spider, Heptathela kimurai, was named in his honour.
Go to Profile#20297
Elisabeth Ivanovna Steinberg
1884 - 1963 (79 years)
Elisabeth Ivanovna Steinberg was a Soviet botanist noted for studying the plants of North Asia, including Russia and Kazakhstan. She worked at Tomsk State University and St. Petersburg State University. During the siege of Leningrad in the Second World War, she was among those protecting the Peterhof Natural Science Institute.
Go to Profile#20298
Miquel Crusafont i Pairó
1910 - 1983 (73 years)
Miquel Crusafont i Pairó was a Spanish paleontologist, specializing in mammal bones. Life He obtained a degree in Pharmacy in the University of Barcelona in 1933, and a further degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Madrid in 1950. From 1945 he contributed to the Barcelona-based popular science magazine Ibérica.
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Johannes Meisenheimer
1873 - 1933 (60 years)
Johannes Meisenheimer was a German zoologist. He was a professor at the University of Leipzig. Bibliography Meisenheimer J. . Die Pteropoden der deutschen Sud-polar Expedition 1901-1903. In: Deutsche Sudpolar-Expedition 1901–1903. 9 , 1: 92-152, pl. 5–7.. Entwicklungsgeschichte der Tiere. Leipzig.. Weinbergschnecke Helix pomatia L. Leipzig.. Geschlecht und Geschlechter. Jena.. Die Vererbungslehre in gemeinverständlicher Darstellung ihres Inhalts. Jena.
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Louis Blaringhem
1878 - 1958 (80 years)
Louis Florimond Joseph Blaringhem was a French agronomist and botanist. Career From 1899 to 1903 he studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, where for several years he worked as an associate researcher in geology and botany . During this time period he served as an assistant in the laboratory of agriculture at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle under Julien Noël Costantin. He also conducted research at marine biological station in Wimereux with Alfred Giard, as well as at the marine laboratory in Tatihou with Edmond Perrier and at laboratory for plant biology in Fontainebleau under Gas...
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