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 …
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#4201
Isabelle M. Germano
#38431
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Isabelle M. Germano is a neurosurgeon and professor of neurosurgery, neurology, and oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Germano works with image-guided brain and spine surgery.
Go to Profile#4202
Ulrike Protzer
#88614
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Ulrike Protzer is a German virologist who has been a professor at the Chair of Virology at the Technical University of Munich since 2007. Her primary field of study is virus-host interactions of the hepatitis B virus and her work is focused on developing new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection and related secondary diseases. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the novel virus SARS-CoV-2 has also been one of her research areas, and she has been a prominent voice in German media on this topic.
Go to Profile#4203
Jin Li
#41875
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Jin Li is a Chinese geneticist and academic administrator, currently serving as president of Fudan University since 2021. Jin joined Fudan University from the University of Cincinnati in 2003 to serve as dean of the Fudan University School of Life Sciences. He previously served as the university's executive vice president from 2019 to 2021, vice president from 2007 to 2019, and dean of the Graduate School from 2007 to 2011.
Go to Profile#4204
Angus W. Thomson
#91632
Overall Influence
Angus W. Thomson is a British/American immunologist currently Distinguished Professor of Surgery and Immunology at Starzl Institute, University of Pittsburgh. Education He earned his BSc, PhD and Doctor of Science at The University of Aberdeen, his MSc in Immunology at The University of Birmingham and a second DSc at Birmingham.
Go to Profile#4205
Mark Wayne Chase
#76993
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Mark Wayne Chase is a US-born British botanist. He is noted for work in plant classification and evolution, and one of the instigators of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group-classification for flowering plants which is partly based on DNA studies. In particular he has researched orchids, and currently investigates ploidy and hybridization in Nicotiana.
Go to Profile#4206
Benita Katzenellenbogen
#91310
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Benita S. Katzenellenbogen née Schulman is an American physiologist and cell biologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has studied cancer, endocrinology, and women's health, focusing on nuclear receptors. She also dedicated efforts to focusing on improving the effectiveness of endocrine therapies in breast cancer.
Go to Profile#4207
Helgi Valdimarsson
#38260
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Helgi Valdimarsson was a professor of immunology at the University of Iceland. He established the first Immunology laboratory of Iceland in 1983. He was a senior lecturer at St Mary's Hospital Medical school, London, England, from 1975 to 1981 and a visiting professor at St. Mary's from 1981 to 1990. He has published over 180 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, and for his work on psoriasis he has received several research grants, including European Commission Grant and a Fogarty Scholarship in 2003.
Go to Profile#4208
Colin Cooper
#49315
Overall Influence
Colin S. Cooper is a leading cancer researcher who is currently Professor of Cancer Genetics at Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia. Cooper studied science at the University of Warwick and completed his PhD in biochemistry at the University of Birmingham in 1978. He formerly worked at the Institute of Cancer Research, and was Chair of Molecular Biology at the University of London.
Go to Profile#4209
David Ish-Horowicz
#78706
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
David Ish-Horowicz FRS is a British scientist. He is currently a Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at University College London . Between 1987 and 2013, he was a Principal Scientist and Head of the Developmental Genetics Laboratory at Cancer Research UK . He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2002 and won the Waddington Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology in 2007. He is a former member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. He has been a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization since 1985.
Go to Profile#4210
David Ross Robertson
#76560
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#4211
Jianguo Wu
#91106
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Jianguo "Jingle" Wu is a Dean's Distinguished Professor of Sustainability Science at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. He is also known internationally for his research in landscape ecology and urban ecology. His areas of expertise include landscape ecology, biodiversity, sustainability science, ecosystem functioning and urban ecology. He is the author of over 300 publications, 14 books and has translated 1 book from English to Chinese. He has been awarded multiple awards and honors, including being elected as a Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007 and an Ecological Society of America fellow in 2019.
Go to Profile#4212
Helen Battle
#73816
Overall Influence
1903 - 1994 (91 years)
Helen Irene Battle was a pioneering Canadian ichthyologist and marine biologist. She was the first Canadian woman to earn a PhD in marine biology and she was also one of the first zoologists to engage in laboratory research . She was an emeritus professor of zoology at the University of Western Ontario from 1972.
Go to Profile#4213
Mark P. Witton
#59089
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Mark Paul Witton is a British vertebrate palaeontologist, author, and palaeoartist best known for his research and illustrations concerning pterosaurs, the extinct flying reptiles that lived alongside dinosaurs. He has worked with museums and universities around the world to reconstruct extinct animals, including as consultant to the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs franchise, Planet Dinosaur, and Prehistoric Planet, and has published several critically acclaimed books on palaeontology and palaeoart.
Go to Profile#4214
June Lascelles
#77986
Overall Influence
1924 - 2004 (80 years)
June Lascelles was an Australian microbiologist. She is best known for pioneering work in microbial photosynthesis. Early life and education June Lascelles was born in 1924 and grew up in Sydney. She began her research career in microbiology, a field in which she remained for her entire life. She attended the University of Sydney and received a BSc in biochemistry in 1944. She remained there as a research scholar and teaching fellow and later, a Linnaean Macleay fellow, receiving her MSc in 1947. Her initial research was focused on the metabolism of molecular hydrogen in E. coli.
Go to Profile#4215
Jean‐pierre Fryns
#91780
Overall Influence
#4216
Kent E. Carpenter
#79504
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dr. Kent E. Carpenter is a professor of biological sciences at Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, Virginia, who is notable for having two fish species named in his honor, Paracheilinus carpenteri Randall and Lubbock 1981, popularly known as "Carpenter's flasher wrasse", and Meganthias carpenteri Anderson 2006, popularly known as Carpenter's Yellowtop Jewelfish.
Go to Profile#4217
Lothar H. Wieler
#60923
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Lothar Heinz Wieler is a German veterinarian and microbiologist who served as president of the Robert Koch Institute from 2015 to 2023. In this capacity, he advised the German Federal and State Governments on topics of public health, especially infection hazards, and on the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Go to Profile#4218
Ray F. Weiss
#91817
Overall Influence
#4219
Bill Harris
#83979
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
William Anthony Harris FRS FMedSci is a Canadian-born neuroscientist, Professor of Anatomy at Cambridge University, and fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. He was head of the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience since its formation in 2006 until his retirement in 2018.
Go to Profile#4220
Brian D. Sykes
#91845
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#4221
Heather M. Ferguson
#47695
Overall Influence
Heather Margaret Ferguson FRSE, Professor of Medical Entomology and Disease Ecology, at Glasgow University; a specialist in researching mosquito vectors that spread malaria, in global regions where this is endemic, aiming to manage and control a disease which the World Health Organization estimates killed over 400,000 people in 2020. Ferguson co-chairs the WHO Vector Control Advisory Group and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2021.
Go to Profile#4222
Brian Wandell
#63990
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Brian A. Wandell is the Isaac and Madeline Stein Family Professor at Stanford University, where he is Director of the Stanford Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging, and Deputy Director of the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute. He was a founding co-editor of the Annual Review of Vision Science.
Go to Profile#4223
Helga Kolb
#91864
Overall Influence
#4224
Angela E. Douglas
#87226
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Angela Elizabeth Douglas is a British entomologist who researches insect nutrition, and is known for her research on symbiotic relationships between insects and microorganisms. She has been the Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor of Insect Physiology and Toxicology at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, since 2008, and previously held a chair at the University of York .
Go to Profile#4225
Pekka T. Lehtinen
#74276
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Pekka T. Lehtinen is a Finnish arachnologist and taxonomist. He is known for his works in systematics and for the many expeditions in which he has participated. Biography Lehtinen was born on 5 April 1934 in a small village, Pargas, in the archipelago of southwestern Finland. He graduated from a senior high school in Turku in 1952. In the same year he entered the University of Turku and was awarded an MSc degree in February 1955, two and a half years later.
Go to Profile#4226
Jeffrey M. Isner
#91948
Overall Influence
#4227
Gunther Köhler
#62345
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Gunther Köhler is a German herpetologist. His research is primarily focused in Central America and in the West Indies. Career In 1995, Köhler received a doctorate in natural sciences at the Goethe University Frankfurt with his thesis on the systematics and ecology of black iguanas . Since November 1995, he is curator at the department of herpetology and since 2004 acting director of the department of terrestrial zoology at the Senckenberg Research Institute.
Go to Profile#4228
Ana Belén Elgoyhen
#76509
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Ana Belén Elgoyhen is an Argentine scientist, professor of pharmacology at the University of Buenos Aires and independent researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council . She is internationally recognized for her contributions to the understanding of the molecular basis of hearing . Her work could be useful to treat auditory deficiencies and other hearing pathologies.
Go to Profile#4229
Jay Tischfield
#69097
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Jay Tischfield is MacMillan Distinguished Professor and the Founding Chair of the Department of Genetics at Rutgers University. He is also Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at Rutgers. He is currently Director of the Human Genetics Institute of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#4230
David Kelly
#10583
Overall Influence
1944 - 2003 (59 years)
David Christopher Kelly was a Welsh scientist and authority on biological warfare . A former head of the Defence Microbiology Division working at Porton Down, Kelly was part of a joint US-UK team that inspected civilian biotechnology facilities in Russia in the early 1990s and concluded they were running a covert and illegal BW programme. He was appointed to the United Nations Special Commission in 1991 as one of its chief weapons inspectors in Iraq and led ten of the organisation's missions between May 1991 and December 1998. He also worked with UNSCOM's successor, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and led several of their missions into Iraq.
Go to Profile#4231
Percy M. Butler
#80949
Overall Influence
1912 - 2015 (103 years)
Percy Milton Butler was a British zoologist and palaeontologist. He proposed that dental characters are expressed in morphogenetic gradients along the dentition, which could therefore be used to study evolution. This became known as Butler's Field Theory. He was Professor of Zoology at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he was the Head of the Department of Zoology from 1956 to 1972, and where he established the first course on mammalogy in the UK.
Go to Profile#4232
Vilhelm A. Bohr
#92007
Overall Influence
#4233
Joe Leigh Simpson
#92042
Overall Influence
#4234
Michael F. Whiting
#77650
Overall Influence
Michael Frank Whiting is the director of the Brigham Young University DNA Sequencing Center and an associate professor in BYU's Department of Integrative Biology. Whiting received his bachelor's degree from BYU and his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Go to Profile#4235
Robert E. Hungate
#92049
Overall Influence
#4236
Michael Majerus
#86162
Overall Influence
1954 - 2009 (55 years)
Michael Eugene Nicolas Majerus was a British geneticist and professor of evolution at the University of Cambridge. He was also a teaching fellow at Clare College, Cambridge. He was an enthusiast in Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection and became a world authority in his field of insect evolutionary biology. He was widely noted for his work on moths and ladybirds and as an advocate of the science of evolution. He was also an enthusiastic educator and the author of several books on insects, evolution and sexual reproduction. He is best remembered as an ardent supporter and champion...
Go to Profile#4237
Rebecca Buckley
#46887
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Rebecca Hatcher Buckley is a medical doctor who has conducted research in pediatric immunological diseases. Biography Buckley graduated from Duke University in 1954 with a bachelor's degree. She received her Doctor of Medicine in 1958 from North Carolina School of Medicine, and training in pediatrics at Duke.
Go to Profile#4238
Ronald N.* Jones
#92084
Overall Influence
#4239
Frederick G. Hayden
#92089
Overall Influence
#4240
David Wallach
#52741
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
David Wallach is a full professor at the Department of Biological Chemistry at Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, laureate of the 2014 Emet Prize for Life Sciences. , and laureate of the 2018 The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize.
Go to Profile#4241
Daniel Jr. Porte
#92107
Overall Influence
#4242
David Harper
#78500
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
David A.T. Harper is a British palaeontologist, specialising in fossil brachiopods and numerical methods in palaeontology. He is Professor of Palaeontology in Earth Sciences at Durham University. In December 2014 he began his term as President of the Palaeontological Association.
Go to Profile#4243
Luciano Gattinoni
#92126
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
#4244
Anthony David Barnosky
#67857
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Anthony David Barnosky is an ecologist, geologist and biologist . He was Professor at the Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley until his retirement. His research is concerned with the relationship between climate change and mass extinctions.
Go to Profile#4245
Björn Vennström
#86461
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Björn Vennström is a Swedish molecular biologist. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 at Uppsala University with a thesis on RNA and in 1993, was appointed Professor of Developmental Biology at the Karolinska Institute. He is also a professor of molecular biology at the same institution. He was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, was awarded the Göran Gustafsson Prize in 1991, has served on the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine from 2001 to 2006, and is the Chairman of the Nobel Assembly.
Go to Profile#4246
Peter Strick
#92148
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Peter L. Strick is an American neurobiologist currently the Distinguished Professor, Thomas Detre Endowed Chair in Neuroscience & Chair of Neurobiology at University of Pittsburgh, formerly holding the Endowed Chair in Systems Neuroscience there, and also formerly George W. Perkins III Memorial Professor at State University of New York. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Sciences .
Go to Profile#4247
Patricia Wright
#32944
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Patricia Chapple Wright is an American primatologist, anthropologist, and conservationist. Wright is best known for her extensive study of social and family interactions of wild lemurs in Madagascar.
Go to Profile#4248
Joseph Phillip Vacanti
#92181
Overall Influence
#4249
Heather Koldewey
#39112
Overall Influence
Heather Koldewey is the co-founder of Project Seahorse and head of marine and freshwater for the Zoological Society of London-London Zoo Aquarium. She additionally serves as an honorary professor for University of Exeter and a National Geographic explorer. Her research interests focus on marine and freshwater conservation, seahorse biology and genetics, and the impact of the aquarium trade on wild populations of fish and aquatic invertebrates.
Go to Profile#4250
Éric Fombonne
#77895
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Éric Fombonne MD, FRCP, is a French psychiatrist and epidemiologist based in Montreal. Career Fombonne trained in Paris and was subsequently appointed as a career research scientist in Paris, at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale . In the early 1990s, he joined Pr. Rutter's MRC Child Psychiatry Unit at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London where he held a Senior Lecturer post and an Honorary Consultant position at the Maudsley Hospital. In 1997, he was promoted as Reader In Epidemiological Psychiatry at the Institute of psychiatry. In 2001, he was appointed at McGill University in Canada as tenured full professor in Psychiatry.
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