Search People Result | Academic Influence

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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Biology,

#4251

Clive A. Edwards

#92237

Overall Influence

#4252

Antoine Bechara

#86899

Overall Influence

Antoine Bechara is an American neuroscientist, academic and researcher. He is currently a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Southern California. Education Bechara studied at the University of Toronto, and earned his Doctoral degree in 1991. He then completed his Fellowship in Behavioral Neurology from the University of Iowa in 1996.

#4253

Larry Katz

#89601

Overall Influence

1956 - 2005 (49 years)

Lawrence C. Katz was an American neurobiologist. He was an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His lab was located in Duke University Medical Center, where he was the James B. Duke Professor of Neurobiology.

#4254

Cheryl Arrowsmith

#71806

Overall Influence

Cheryl H. Arrowsmith is a Canadian structural biologist and is the Chief Scientist at the Toronto laboratory of the Structural Genomics Consortium. Her contributions to protein structural biology includes the use of NMR and X-ray crystallography to pursue structures of proteins on a proteome wide scale.

#4255

Gerhard Lang

#65201

Overall Influence

1924 - 2016 (92 years)

Gerhard Lang was a German botanist with a research focus on vegetation ecology, geobotany, and vegetation history of the Quaternary. Personal life and academic career During his high school years in Ravensburg, Lang was one of the students of Karl Bertsch. He started his studies on botany and zoology with minors in chemistry and physics at the University of Freiburg in 1946 and changed to the University of Göttingen where he received the PhD degree in Biology in 1952 for his study on the late-glacial history of the vegetation and flora of southwestern Germany, supervised by Franz Firbas. Bet...

#4256

Richard A. Murphy

#61296

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Richard A. Murphy was an American neuroscientist. Biography Murphy was the chair of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Alberta from 1986 to 1992. He then ran the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University from 1992 to 2000, the Salk Institute from 2000 to 2007, and was the interim president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine from 2007 to 2008.

#4257

Pierre Zalloua

#51648

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Pierre Zalloua is a Lebanese biologist. His contributions to biology include numerous researches in genetic predisposition to diseases such as type 1 diabetes and β-thalassemia. He is most noted for taking part in the National Geographic Society's Genographic Project.

#4258

J. Alan Holman

#88064

Overall Influence

1931 - 2006 (75 years)

J. Alan Holman was an American paleontologist, herpetologist, professor and Michigan State University Museum curator well known for his 1995 work called Pleistocene Amphibians and Reptiles in North America which was published by Oxford Press. He graduated from Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana in 1953 with a degree of "Distinction in Biology" and a passion for research and field work. He went on to earn his MS and PhD degrees from the University of Florida at Gainesville in 1957 and 1961, respectively. Holman spent his career as an educator and researcher. He was named Emeritus Professor of...

#4259

Khalid Iqbal

#92334

Overall Influence

#4260

Edward Mcauley

#92340

Overall Influence

#4261

Elad Levy

#33818

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Elad I. Levy is an American neurosurgeon, researcher, and innovator who played a major role in the development and testing of thrombectomy, which improved quality of life and survival of stroke patients. He has focused his career and research on developing evidence based medicine and literature showing the benefits of thrombectomy for the treatment of stroke. He is currently Professor of Neurosurgery and Radiology, and the L. Nelson Hopkins, MD Professor Endowed Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Buffalo .

#4262

Kay Tye

#51860

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Kay M. Tye is an American neuroscientist and professor and Wylie Vale Chair in the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences. Her research has focused on using optogenetics to identify connections in the brain that are involved in innate emotion, motivation and social behaviors.

#4263

Ton Bisseling

#86835

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Ton Bisseling is a Dutch molecular biologist. He is a professor at Wageningen University and Research Centre. In 1975 Bisseling obtained a degree in biology from the Radboud University Nijmegen. Five years later he earned his PhD in molecular biology at Wageningen University. In 1998 Bisseling became professor and head of the molecular biology laboratory at the same institution. During his career Bisseling has done research on the symbiosis between root nodules and rhizobia bacteria.

#4264

Rafael Yuste

#43517

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Rafael Yuste is a Spanish-American neurobiologist and one of the initiators of the BRAIN Initiative announced in 2013. He is currently a professor at Columbia University. Biography Yuste's interest in neuroscience arose early, inspired by books like Santiago Ramón y Cajal's Los Tónicos de la Voluntad: Reglas y consejos sobre investigación científica The Tonics of the Will: Rules and Advice on Scientific Research1982–19871985/861992

#4265

George V. Lauder

#87078

Overall Influence

George V. Lauder is a Professor of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He started his biology degree at Harvard in the early 1970s, graduating in 1976. This was followed with a Master's and PhD in 1979. Between 1979 and 1981 he worked as a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows Harvard University, and then he joined the University of Chicago as a member of faculty. Between 1986 and 1999 he was a faculty member in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

#4266

Michel Sadelain

#88651

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Michel Sadelain is an genetic engineer and cell therapist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, where he holds the Steve and Barbara Friedman Chair. He is the founding director of the Center for Cell Engineering and the head of the Gene Transfer and Gene Expression Laboratory. He is a member of the department of medicine at Memorial Hospital and of the immunology program at the Sloan Kettering Institute. He is best known for his major contributions to T cell engineering and chimeric antigen receptor therapy, an immunotherapy based on the genetic engineering of a patie...

#4267

Michel Loreau

#92425

Overall Influence

#4268

Nancy Lee Harris

#17328

Overall Influence

For the Irish playwright and screenwriter, see Nancy Harris. Nancy Lee Harris is an educator as well as a well-established medical professional. She currently serves as a professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. She is also a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an editor with the New England Journal of Medicine. She was trained at multiple different hospitals; however, the majority of her adult life has been spent working in Boston, Massachusetts. Throughout her life she has held many notable positions including but not limited to: Director of Hematopathology, Director of ...

#4269

David A. Keith

#57974

Overall Influence

David A. Keith is an Australian botanist / ecologist who works in the areas of vegetation dynamics, population and ecosystem modelling, and fire. He is currently professor of botany at the University of New South Wales. His work has led to his being a member of the Australian Threatened Species Scientific Committee and the standards committees for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems.

#4270

Richard W. Compans

#92492

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

#4271

Alexander Prof. Dr. Steinbüchel

#92495

Overall Influence

#4272

S. Heldon Penman

#92505

Overall Influence

#4273

Michiaki Takahashi

#43772

Overall Influence

1928 - 2013 (85 years)

Michiaki Takahashi was a Japanese virologist, best known for inventing the first chickenpox vaccine. He developed the "Oka" vaccine by producing v-Oka, a live-attenuated virus strain of varicella zoster virus.

#4274

Xiaoming Wang

#35482

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Xiaoming Wang is a Chinese-born American vertebrate paleontologist and geologist who lives and teaches in the United States. Areas of expertise Professor Wang specializes in the fossil evolution, systematics, and phylogeny of mammals of the Cenozoic. He has researched the biostratigraphy of Inner Mongolia and Asia as a whole, the geochronology of Asia, paleoenvironments of the Tibetan Plateau, and mammalian migrations between Eurasia and North America. Wang has also investigated the systematics and phylogeny of canids as well as Late Eocene through Pleistocene fossil mammals of Southern California and Mexico.

#4275

Basil Clifford Morson

#92541

Overall Influence

#4276

Hugues Duffau

#92543

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

#4277

David Mangelsdorf

#81142

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

David J. Mangelsdorf is an American biologist and chemist, currently the Alfred J. Gilman Distinguished Chair in Pharmacology, Raymond and Ellen Willie Distinguished Chair in Molecular Neuropharmacology at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In 2008, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He, along with Steven Kliewer, identified the ligands and physiologic functions of a number of orphan nuclear receptors that then discovered two new signaling pathways mediated by the endocrine factors FGF19 and FGF21, which has become a significant accomplishment in the field. He re...

#4278

Thomas Eugene Shenk

#92581

Overall Influence

#4279

Carol Prives

#88227

Overall Influence

Professor Carol L. Prives FRS is the Da Costa Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She is known for her work in the characterisation of p53, an important tumor suppressor protein frequently mutated in cancer.

#4280

J. Dennis O'Connor

#41013

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

John Dennis O'Connor is an American biologist and was the sixteenth chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh. Career In addition to the University of Pittsburgh, O'Connor has held executive positions at UCLA, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Smithsonian Institution, and the University of Maryland, College Park.

#4281

George Koob

#63222

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

George F. Koob is a Professor and former Chair of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at the Scripps Research Institute and Adjunct Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego. In 2014 he became the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

#4282

Donald D Price

#92611

Overall Influence

#4283

Simin Liu

#57954

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Simin Liu is an American physician researcher. He holds leadership positions internationally in the research of nutrition, genetics, epidemiology, and environmental and biological influences of complex diseases related to cardiometabolic health in diverse population. His research team has uncovered new mechanisms and risk-factors as well as developed research frameworks for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Liu's laboratory conducts research mainly in the United States, though the group has had research collaborations, teaching, and service activities in six of the Seven Continents.

#4284

Monte Buchsbaum

#86178

Overall Influence

Monte Buchsbaum is a Professor emeritus of Psychiatry and Radiology at the University of California at San Diego. He was also the founder and editor in chief of Psychiatry Research and Psychiatry Research Neuroimaging from 1979 to 2019. He is the son of Invertebrate Biologist and author Ralph Buchsbaum.

#4285

Zhang Dongju

#29185

Overall Influence

Zhang Dongju is a Chinese archeologist and an associate professor at the College of Earth and Environmental Sciences of Lanzhou University. Zhang's research determined that the Xiahe mandible found in the Baishiya Karst Cave on the Tibetan Plateau shared DNA with fossilized remains found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia. This moved to 120,000 years earlier the dates of earliest proven hominin activities in the Tibetan Plateau, and revealed for the first time that the Denisovan hominins had spread throughout Asia rather than being located only near the Denisova Cave. Zhang's work is considered likely to prompt reconsideration of other fossil remains using ancient protein analysis.

#4286

Pedro Cuatrecasas

Pedro Cuatrecasas

#39251

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Pedro Cuatrecasas is an American biochemist and an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology & Medicine at the University of California San Diego. Birth and education Pedro Cuatrecasas was born in 1936 in Madrid, Spain. He completed his A.B. from Washington University in St. Louis in 1958. He completed his M.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in 1962.

#4287

Bruce P. Luyendyk

Bruce P. Luyendyk

#64321

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

#4288

Judith Gay West

#81166

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Judith Gay West is an Australian scientist currently working as an executive director of the Australian National Botanic Gardens. West holds a doctor of philosophy by thesis on "A taxonomic revision of Dodonaea in Australia". She completed her PhD in 1981 from the University of Adelaide, South Australia.

#4289

Ronald h. Schwartz

#92718

Overall Influence

#4290

Francis J Keefe

#92726

Overall Influence

#4291

Sheng Yang He

#84163

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Sheng Yang He is a Chinese-American plant biologist. He was a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University before moving to Duke University in 2020. He has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2011. He served as President of the International Society for Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions from 2014 to 2016. Recognized for his research on plant pathology on the molecular level, he was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2015.

#4292

Piers Christopher Emson

#92739

Overall Influence

#4293

Dirk Bumann

#81728

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Dirk Bumann is a German infection biologist and professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland. Life Dirk Bumann studied chemistry and biology at the “Freie Universität” in Berlin. In 1994 he earned his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried followed by postdoc research at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA. From 1997 to 2004 Bumann was a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin and from 2004 till 2007 he taught and researched at the Hannover Medical School . Since 2007 Dirk Bumann is a ...

#4294

Alex Mogilner

#79143

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Alex Mogilner is an American professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Department of Biology at New York University. His major contribution to science are in the areas of cell motility and division and innovations in cell imaging.

#4295

James Sacra Albus

#92754

Overall Influence

#4296

Martin Keller

#69144

Overall Influence

Martin Keller is an American psychiatrist. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island. Career history Keller earned his BA in psychology at Dartmouth College; his MD at Weill Cornell Medical College; internship at Bellevue Medical Center; and residency in psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

#4297

Alexander Gintsburg

#43198

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Alexander Leonidovich Gintsburg is a Soviet and Russian microbiologist. Since 1997, he has been the director of the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. He is Jewish.

#4298

David H. Coy

#92769

Overall Influence

#4299

Joan Ruderman

#76964

Overall Influence

Joan V. Ruderman is an American molecular and cell biologist. She is a Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and Visiting Senior Biologist at Princeton University. She has researched cell division and embryo development, and more recently the effects of, and the public understanding of, environmental estrogens and other endocrine disruptors. She was elected as a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1998.

#4300

Valina Lynn Dawson

#92777

Overall Influence

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