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).
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List of the most influential people in Biology,
#4301
Andrei Monin
#31536
Overall Influence
1921 - 2007 (86 years)
Andrei Sergeyevich Monin was a Soviet and Russian geophysicist, mathematician, and oceanographer. Monin was known for his contributions to statistical theory of turbulence and atmospheric physics. He served as the Director of the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union. He was instrumental in developing the Shirshov Institute into one of the largest scientific centers for ocean and earth science studies.
Go to Profile#4302
Ben Sheldon
#91708
Overall Influence
Ben C. Sheldon is the Luc Hoffmann Chair in Field Ornithology and Director of the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology of the University of Oxford's Department of Zoology. He was Head of the Department of Zoology between 2016 and 2021.
Go to Profile#4303
Jessica Polka
#73988
Overall Influence
Jessica Polka is a biochemist and the Executive Director of ASAPbio , a non-profit initiative promoting innovation and transparency via preprints and open peer review. She was one of the organizers of a recent meeting they held on scholarly communication.
Go to Profile#4304
Ernest Charles Nelson
#44165
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Charles Nelson is a botanist who specialises in the heather family, Ericaceae, especially Erica, and whose past research interests included the Proteaceae especially Adenanthos. He is the author or editor of over 24 books and more than 150 research papers . He was honorary editor of Archives of Natural History between 1999 and 2012 and remains closely linked with the journal as one of the Associate Editors, and was honorary editor of Heathers for 23 years until 2017.
Go to Profile#4305
Angharad Gatehouse
#72955
Overall Influence
Angharad M. R. Gatehouse is an entomologist in the UK. Gatehouse is Professor of Invertebrate Molecular Biology at Newcastle University, is on the Council of the International Congress of Entomology, and is the Director of Expertise for BioEconomy.
Go to Profile#4306
James R. Redmond
#87944
Overall Influence
1928 - 2020 (92 years)
James R. Redmond was Emeritus Professor of Zoology in the Iowa State University department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology. He received his B.S., 1949, Cincinnati; Ph.D., 1954, California , and is known for his research with Nautilus; he was a researcher at McMurdo Station. He was the author of the chapter on Respiratory Biology in Nautilus: The Biology and Paleobiology of a Living Fossil / He also wrote Comparative crystallography of vertebrate otoconia Transport of Oxygen by the Blood of the Land Crab, Gecarcinus lateralis The respiratory function of hemocyanin in crustacea
Go to Profile#4307
Giulio Superti-Furga
#85403
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Giulio Superti-Furga is an Italian molecular and systems biologist based in Vienna, Austria. He is the Scientific Director of CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences , and Professor of Medical Systems Biology at the Medical University of Vienna.
Go to Profile#4308
A. Carl Leopold
#92845
Overall Influence
#4309
Larry Kwak
#44224
Overall Influence
Larry Kwak is an American cancer researcher who works at City of Hope in Duarte, California and is the Director of the Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center at City of Hope. Dr. Kwak formerly worked at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He was included on Time's list of 2010's most influential people.
Go to Profile#4310
Boris Kholodenko
#88791
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Boris Kholodenko is a Russian professor of Systems Biology at Systems Biology Ireland and Conway Institutes at University College Dublin, Ireland. He is also an adjunct professor at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia where his group was behind the development of the first model of Epidermal growth factor receptor.
Go to Profile#4311
Byron Barnard Lamont
#90800
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Byron Barnard Lamont is a Western Australian botanist. He is currently a senior researcher within the Department of Environmental Biology of Curtin University of Technology. A specialist in ecology of the flora of the South West Botanic Province, he has published hundreds of papers.
Go to Profile#4312
Sonja Vernes
#47221
Overall Influence
Sonja Catherine Vernes is a neuroscientist who is, as of 2022, the head of the Neurogenetics of Vocal Communication Research Group at the University of St Andrews. She holds a UK Research and Innovation future leaders fellowship. Her research investigates vocal communication between mammals. She was a laureate for the 2022 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists.
Go to Profile#4313
Mark Burgman
#79513
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Mark A. Burgman is an Australian ecologist, Professor in Risk Analysis & Environmental Policy and former Director of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Conservation Biology. He was Director of the Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis , latterly CEBRA, and Adrienne Clarke Chair of Botany at the University of Melbourne until 2017. He co-led The SWARM Project at the University of Melbourne.
Go to Profile#4314
Anders Lundberg
#92916
Overall Influence
#4315
Innes Cuthill
#81955
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Innes C. Cuthill is a professor of behavioural ecology at the University of Bristol. His main research interest is in camouflage, in particular how it evolves in response to the colour vision of other animals such as predators.
Go to Profile#4316
Morris F. White
#92945
Overall Influence
#4317
Stephen Thesleff
#92956
Overall Influence
#4318
Janet Siefert
#63688
Overall Influence
Janet Louise Siefert received her PhD from the University of Houston and is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Statistics at Rice University since January, 1998. She is an origin of life researcher who received her training from Dr. George E. Fox, co-discoverer of the third domain of life.
Go to Profile#4319
William S. Hoar
#77528
Overall Influence
1913 - 2006 (93 years)
William S. Hoar, was a professor and head of department of zoology at the University of British Columbia. He received an Order of Canada award on June 26, 1974. He also had several other degrees and diplomas, some of which were honorary , and others of which were earned the old-fashioned hard-work way . He was, first and foremost, a grandfather, husband and father. A patient man who was very involved with his family, he was also very well known in the zoology world, and has a series of lectures named after him, that are given every year at UBC.
Go to Profile#4320
Dietrich Büsselberg
#49569
Overall Influence
Dietrich Büsselberg is a physiologist, academic, and author. He is an associate dean and professor of physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar. Büsselberg's research interests are metal toxicology, pharmacology, cell signaling, and anti-cancer drugs. In addition, he is the author of the book Effects of Lead on Neuronal Membrane Currents and Synaptic Plasticity and Experiencing Tanzania: Reflections of a Medical Service Learning Trip Through the Eyes of Aspiring Physicians.
Go to Profile#4321
Kanagaratnam Shanmugaratnam
#38119
Overall Influence
1921 - 2018 (97 years)
Kanagaratnam Shanmugaratnam was a Singaporean histopathologist considered Singapore's "father of pathology". He was known for his research on nasopharyngeal carcinoma and founded the Singapore Cancer Registry.
Go to Profile#4322
Nicholas Hughes
#42455
Overall Influence
1962 - 2009 (47 years)
Nicholas Farrar Hughes was a British and American fisheries biologist known as an expert in stream salmonid ecology. Hughes was the son of the American poet Sylvia Plath and English poet Ted Hughes, and the younger brother of artist and poet Frieda Hughes. He and his sister were public figures as small children due to the circumstances of their mother's widely publicized suicide.
Go to Profile#4323
Donald Raymond Helinski
#93034
Overall Influence
#4324
Ernest Edward Williams
#50352
Overall Influence
1914 - 1998 (84 years)
Ernest Edward Williams was an American herpetologist. He coined the term ecomorph based on his research on anoles. Taxa named in honor of Ernest E. Williams The following species are named in honor of Ernest E. Williams.Lygodactylus williamsi Anolis eewi Erythrolamprus williamsi Strophurus williamsi Pelusios williamsi Dipsas williamsi Anolis ernestwilliamsi Phrynops williamsi Sphaerodactylus williamsi Lepidoblepharis williamsi Cynisca williamsi Pristimantis ernesti Anolis williamsmittermeierorum
Go to Profile#4325
Arthur R. Grossman
#83777
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Arthur Robert Grossman is an American biologist whose research ranges across the fields of plant biology, microbiology, marine biology, phytochemistry, and photosynthesis. He has been a staff scientist at Carnegie Institution for Science’s Department of Plant Biology since 1982, and holds a courtesy appointment as professor in the Department of Biology at Stanford. He has mentored more than fifteen PhD students and more than thirty post-doctoral fellows. Grossman was the recipient of the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal in 2009 and the Darbaker Prize for work on microalgae in 2002. He is co-edito...
Go to Profile#4326
Mary Bartlett Bunge
#56725
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Mary Bartlett Bunge is an American neuroscientist currently researching a cure for paralysis at University of Miami, where she is a Professor of Cell Biology. Early life Mary Bartlett was born on April 3, 1931, in New Haven, Connecticut, to George Chapman Bartlett and Margaret Elizabeth Reynolds Bartlett. Her father built and renovated houses, including the house in which she grew up, whereas her mother worked as a painter and decorator. Neither of her parents had a college education, and her father thought that a college education was useless for women. Their careers were filled with an artistic expression that Mary found appealing.
Go to Profile#4327
J. A. Dobbing
#93070
Overall Influence
#4328
Yasmine Belkaid
#63523
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Yasmine Belkaid is an Algerian immunologist and senior investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She is best known for her work studying host-microbe interactions in tissues and immune regulation to microbes. Belkaid currently serves as the director of the NIAID Microbiome program. On 29 March 2023, she was appointed as President of the Pasteur Institute for a six-year term, starting from January 2024.
Go to Profile#4329
D. James F. Morré
#93076
Overall Influence
#4330
Anirban Basu
#87872
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Anirban Basu is an Indian neurobiologist, who is primarily interested in neurovirology, a senior scientist at the National Brain Research Centre, a deemed to be university, located in Manesar, Gurgaon, Haryana. He is internationally known for his studies on Japanese encephalitis. Basu is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science Academies namely the Indian Academy of Sciences, the Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences, India as well as of the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology. The Department of Biotechnology of the Government of India aw...
Go to Profile#4331
Carmen Sandi
#91534
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Carmen Sandi is a Spanish and Swiss behavioral neuroscientist. She is a professor of neuroscience and director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics at the Brain Mind Institute . Early life and education Born and raised in Torrelavega , Spain, Sandi moved to Salamanca to obtain her BS and MS from the University of Salamanca in 1984 and further to Madrid for her PhD at the Cajal Institute and the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1988. She continued her postdoctoral research at INSERM, Bordeaux, France and Open University, UK .
Go to Profile#4332
Rosemary Grant
#89998
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
#4333
Snorri S. Thorgeirsson
#93147
Overall Influence
#4334
Miroslav Zei
#87987
Overall Influence
1914 - 2006 (92 years)
Miroslav Zei was a Slovene biologist, specialist in marine biology, oceanography and ichthyology. Zei was born in Nabrežina near Trieste in 1914. He studied Biology at the University of Ljubljana from 1932 to 1936. He specialized at the Oceanographic Institute in Split from 1937 to 1941 where he was also an assistant until 1941 and then senior scientific researcher until 1948 when he was appointed professor at the University of Ljubljana. He lectured until 1962 and then joined a United Nations FAO oceanographic project and worked in Ghana, Tunisia and the Western African coast from Morocco to Zaire until 1975.
Go to Profile#4335
Robert Malenka
#60306
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Robert C. Malenka is a Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He is also the director of the Nancy Friend Pritzker Laboratory in the Stanford Medical Center. He is a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Malenka's laboratory research with the National Alzheimer's Foundation has informed researchers aiming to find a neuronal basis for Alzheimer's disease. Malenka's main career is focused on studying the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity and the effect...
Go to Profile#4336
Philip Greenberg
#92547
Overall Influence
Philip Greenberg is a professor of medicine, oncology, and immunology at the University of Washington and head of program in immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. His research is centered around T cell biology and therapeutic cell therapies. He is a co-founder of Juno Therapeutics.
Go to Profile#4337
Oluwatoyin Ogundipe
#51835
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Oluwatoyin Temitayo Ogundipe is a Nigerian academic and a professor of botany. He served as the 12th vice chancellor of the University of Lagos from November 2017 to November 2022. Early life and education Ogundipe was born on 31 May 1960. He attended the University of Ife where he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Botany. He holds a master's degree in botany from the University of Ife and doctorate degree from the same university. He then obtained a master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Lagos.
Go to Profile#4338
Ali Cunningham Abbott
#93216
Overall Influence
#4339
Jürgen Brosius
#78760
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Jürgen Brosius in Saarbrücken Biography Early life and education Brosius studied chemistry and pharmacy at the Goethe University of Frankfurt and in 1974 graduated and completed the Staatsexamen in Pharmacy. Subsequently, he pursued his Ph.D. work in biochemistry and molecular biology at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin Dahlem in which Heinz-Günter Wittmann was department head. While determining the primary structures of several E. coli ribosomal proteins, he developed manual micro-methods for isolating peptides using two-dimensional separation on cellulose thin layer plates followed by dansyl-Edman degradation.
Go to Profile#4340
Guido Nonveiller
#54240
Overall Influence
1913 - 2002 (89 years)
Guido Nonveiller was a Croatian entomologist, FAO expert and professor at the University of Belgrade. He fought in the International Brigades and French Forces of the Interior during World War II. In 1989 he was inducted as a Commander of the l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques. He was known for his political and scientific activism and perhaps as the world authority for the African and Palaearctic Mutillidae .
Go to Profile#4341
Neil Kaplowitz
#93249
Overall Influence
#4342
David J. Waxman
#93256
Overall Influence
#4343
Roderic D. M. Page
#88835
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Roderic Dugald Morton Page is a New Zealand-born evolutionary biologist at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and the author of several books. he is professor at the University of Glasgow and was editor of the journal Systematic Biology until the end of 2007. His main interests are in phylogenetics, evolutionary biology and bioinformatics.
Go to Profile#4344
Kayo Inaba
#75332
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Kayo Inaba is a professor at Kyoto University where she heads the Graduate School of Biostudies. She is also the Vice-President for Gender Equality and the Director of the Centre for Women Researchers.
Go to Profile#4345
Daphne Osborne
#57728
Overall Influence
1930 - 2006 (76 years)
Daphne J. Osborne was a British botanist. Her research in the field of plant physiology spanned five decades and resulted in over two hundred papers, twenty of which were published in Nature. Her obituary in The Times described her scientific achievements as "legendary"; that from the Botanical Society of America attributed her success to "her wonderful intellectual style, combined with her proclivity for remarkable and perceptive experimental findings".
Go to Profile#4346
David J. Prof Baylink
#93310
Overall Influence
#4347
Thomas Moore
#9041
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Thomas Moore is a psychotherapist, former monk, and writer of popular spiritual books, including the New York Times bestseller Care of the Soul , a "guide to cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life". He writes and lectures in the fields of archetypal psychology, mythology, and imagination. His work is influenced by the writings of Carl Jung and James Hillman.
Go to Profile#4348
Moshe Abeles
#62480
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Moshe Abeles is an Israeli brain researcher and neurophysiologist. He is emeritus professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Life Science Faculty of Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan.
Go to Profile#4349
Louis H. Miller
#93386
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
#4350
Harry Harris
#74154
Overall Influence
1919 - 1994 (75 years)
Harry Harris FRS, FCRP , was a British-born biochemist. His work showed that human genetic variation was not rare and disease-causing but instead was common and usually harmless. He was the first to demonstrate, with biochemical tests, that with the exception of identical twins we are all different at the genetic level. This work paved the way for many well-known genetic concepts and procedures such as DNA fingerprinting, the prenatal diagnosis of disorders using genetic markers, the extensive heterogeneity of inherited diseases, and the mapping of human genes to chromosomes
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