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,
#4551
Carin Bondar
#57227
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Carin Bondar is a Canadian biologist, writer, filmmaker, speaker and television personality. She is a host of Outrageous Acts of Science, Stephen Hawking's Brave New World, and Worlds Oddest Animal Couples.
Go to Profile#4552
Matt Lamanna
#68785
Overall Influence
Matthew Carl Lamanna is a paleontologist and the assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where he oversees the dinosaur collection. Education Lamanna graduated from Hobart College in Geneva, New York in 1997. He received high honors in biology and geology. Lamanna went on to get his M.A. and Ph.D. in earth and environmental science from the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#4553
Samuel Gershon
#95610
Overall Influence
#4554
Montserrat Aguadé
#95617
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Montserrat Aguadé Porres is a professor emeritus of genetics at University of Barcelona and member of the Institut d'Estudis Catalans. Aguadé is internationally recognized for her research in the fields of evolution and population genetics, and together with Richard R. Hudson and Martin Kreitman, she co-developed the HKA test, a statistical test used in genetics to evaluate the predictions of the neutral theory of molecular evolution.
Go to Profile#4555
Timothy E. Hewett
#95647
Overall Influence
#4556
Alice Auersperg
#65272
Overall Influence
Alice Auersperg is an Austrian cognitive biologist specializing in the evolution of intelligence in birds. Her research is primarily focused on the physical cognition, play behavior, problem-solving and tool-making abilities in parrots and corvids. Since 2011, she has managed the Goffin Lab of Comparative Cognition at the Messerli Research Institute of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna in Austria, where she has extensively studied the intelligence of the Tanimbar corella, also known as the Goffin's cockatoo.
Go to Profile#4557
Timothy Behrens
#82141
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Timothy E.J. Behrens is a British neuroscientist. He is Deputy Director of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroscience Professor of Computational Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and Honorary Lecturer at, Wellcome Centre for Imaging Neuroscience, University College London.
Go to Profile#4558
Arthur P. Arnold
#95675
Overall Influence
#4559
Carsten Carlberg
#82771
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Carsten Carlberg is a German biochemist. He is professor of nutrigenomics at the Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Olsztyn, Poland. Biography Carlberg was born in Hamburg, Germany. He attended school at Bremen, Germany, graduating in 1981 with Abitur at the Gymnasium an der Bördestrasse. From 1982 to 1987, he studied Physics and Biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, finishing with a diploma in biochemistry. Thereafter he worked in the team of Burghardt Wittig and in 1989 received his PhD for his studies on the interactio...
Go to Profile#4560
Stephen Oliver
#62267
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Stephen George Oliver is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. Education Oliver was educated at the University of Bristol gaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology in 1971 followed by a PhD from the National Institute for Medical Research in 1974.
Go to Profile#4561
Douglas Emlen
#74122
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Douglas Emlen is an evolutionary biologist and Professor of Biology at the University of Montana. He has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, multiple research awards from the National Science Foundation, and the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists. His research provides insights into the development and evolution of exaggerated male weaponry, such as the horns found in scarab beetles. He combines approaches from behavioral ecology, genetics, phylogenetics, and developmental biology to understand how evolution has shaped these bizarre structures.
Go to Profile#4562
Stuart Gitlow
#37630
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Stuart Gitlow is a general, forensic, and addiction psychiatrist and Past President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Biography Gitlow was born on November 29, 1962. Following completion of his bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he earned an M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Pittsburgh and Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Rhode Island . His psychiatric and public health training were at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Harvard Unive...
Go to Profile#4563
Norman T. J. Bailey
#95708
Overall Influence
#4564
Malcolm B. Carpenter
#95718
Overall Influence
#4565
Francine Ratner Kaufman
#57552
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Francine Ratner Kaufman is an American endocrinologist, professor, author, researcher, consultant, and corporate officer in the medical field of diabetes mellitus. She is the author of Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America. She is currently serves as chief medical officer for Senseonics, Inc.
Go to Profile#4566
Jacques-emile Dumont
#95743
Overall Influence
#4567
Robert Roy Recker
#95756
Overall Influence
#4568
Vineet Bafna
#76448
Overall Influence
Vineet Bafna is an Indian bioinformatician and professor of computer science and director of bioinformatics program at University of California, San Diego. He was elected a Fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology in 2019 for outstanding contributions to the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics. He has also been a member of the Research in Computational Molecular Biology conference steering committee.
Go to Profile#4569
Kathy Townsend
#95768
Overall Influence
Dr. Kathy Townsend is an academic marine biologist at the University of Queensland , Australia. Early life Kathy Townsend was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She enrolled in the University of Calgary in 1990, before moving to Australia in 1991 to pursue marine biology studies at the University of Queensland. She credits the Jacques Cousteau documentaries as the inspiration for her passion for marine biology.
Go to Profile#4570
Robert Michels
#47163
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Robert Michels is a Professor of Medicine and of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research.
Go to Profile#4571
Leif Ryvarden
#61962
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Leif Randulff Ryvarden is a Norwegian mycologist. Early life and education Leif Ryvarden was born in Bergen as a son of Einar Norberg Johansen and Hjørdis Randulff . He finished his secondary education at Berg in 1954 and took basic military education from 1957 to 1958 and in 1956 he changed his last name from Johansen to Ryvarden. He studied chemistry at the Norwegian Institute of Technology. In 1961 he ran for election as chairman of Student Society in Trondheim, albeit unsuccessfully. In 1963, he graduated with the siv.ing. degree , and later majored in botany at the University of Oslo, taking a cand.real.
Go to Profile#4572
Dino Moras
#87378
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Dino Moras, born on 23 November 1944, is a French biochemist, research director at the CNRS and co-director of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch-Graffenstaden until 2010.
Go to Profile#4573
Mark A. Lewis
#43008
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Mark Alun Lewis is a professor and Canada Research Chair of mathematical biology in the University of Alberta Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences and Department of Biological Sciences. Among other topics, he has written extensively on the Allee effect, invasive species, parasitism, and biological dispersal.
Go to Profile#4574
Konstantin K. Likharev
#95820
Overall Influence
#4575
James. S. Farris
#95852
Overall Influence
#4576
Amy Wagner
#55282
Overall Influence
Amy K. Wagner is an American neuroscientist. Early life and education Wagner completed her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Illinois State University in 1992 and her medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School in 1996.
Go to Profile#4577
Raquel Urtasun
#95877
Overall Influence
#4578
Graeme Ruxton
#90114
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Graeme Ruxton is a zoologist known for his research into behavioural ecology and evolutionary ecology. Life and work Ruxton received his PhD in Statistics and Modelling Science in 1992 from the University of Strathclyde. His studies focus on the evolutionary pressures on aggregation by animals, and predator-prey aspects of sensory ecology. He researched visual communication in animals at the University of Glasgow, where he was professor of theoretical ecology. In 2013 he became professor at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.
Go to Profile#4579
Ariel E. Lugo
#95878
Overall Influence
#4580
John Gray
#62616
Overall Influence
1918 - 2011 (93 years)
Sir John Archibald Browne Gray, was a British physiologist who served as secretary of the Medical Research Council from 1968 to 1977. Career The son of eminent dermatologist Sir Archibald Gray KCVO, John Gray was born in London and attended Cheltenham College before studying medicine at Clare College, Cambridge and University College Hospital. He began physiological research into the conditions faced by military personnel in battle conditions at the MRC's Armoured Fighting Vehicle Training School in 1943. After a spell at the National Institute for Medical Research, he became a surgeon-lieu...
Go to Profile#4581
Aubrey Levin
#14508
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Aubrey Levin is a South African-born Canadian psychiatrist and former Colonel in the South African Defence Force who used abusive procedures on homosexual army conscripts and conscientious objectors in an attempt to cure them of suspected same-sex attraction in apartheid era South Africa.
Go to Profile#4582
Juan S. Bonifacino
#95912
Overall Influence
#4583
David Klein
#56903
Overall Influence
1908 - 1993 (85 years)
David Klein was a Swiss human geneticist and ophthalmologist. Klein graduating from the University of Basel in 1934. After graduating, he worked at the Rheinau Psychiatric Clinic, Zurich. He moved to Geneva as scientific assistant to professor Adolphe Franceschetti at the ophthalmological clinic. In 1970 he was appointed full professor. He retired in 1978 with the status of professor emeritus. After retirement, he was active as consultant in human genetics at the ophthalmological clinic, Geneva, and the school of amblyopic and blind children in Baar, Switzerland.
Go to Profile#4584
Hilton Briggs
#48520
Overall Influence
1913 - 2001 (88 years)
Hilton Marshall Briggs was an American animal scientist, educator and college administrator. Biography He was born in Cairo, Iowa, to John Weaver and Ethel Briggs. He attended Iowa State University where he received a B.S. in Animal Science , followed by a master's degree from North Dakota State University and a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Go to Profile#4585
Richard Lathe
#95952
Overall Influence
#4586
John Vandermeer
#83144
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
John Harry Vandermeer is an American ecologist, a mathematical ecologist, tropical ecologist and agroecologist. He is the Asa Gray Distinguished University Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1971. His research focuses on the ecology of agricultural systems, and he has operated a plot of coffee plants in Mexico for his research for more than fifteen years. In 2016, the symposium "Science with Passion and a Moral Compass" was held to honor his career as a scientist and activist. The symposium...
Go to Profile#4587
Martin Parniske
#93863
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Martin Parniske is a German biologist with a specialisation in genetics, microbiology and biochemistry. He is university professor and head of the Institute of Genetics at the Faculty of Biology of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Parniske's scientific focus is on the molecular interaction between plants and symbiotic and pathogenic organisms including bacteria, fungi, oomycetes and insects.
Go to Profile#4588
Tim G. Benton
#93343
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Tim G. Benton is a British biologist. He leads the energy, environmental and resource programs and is the lead researcher on emerging risks at Chatham House. Benton studied at the University of Oxford and received his PhD in 1990 from Cambridge , both in zoology. He joined Chatham House in 2016 as an Excellent Visiting Scholar while serving as Dean of Strategic Research Initiatives at the University of Leeds. He was Professor of Population Ecology at the University of Leeds School of Biology and UK Champion for Global Food Security.
Go to Profile#4589
Kenneth L. Lange
#95995
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#4590
Martin Ernst Schwab
#96002
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
#4591
Ariel G. Loewy
#92247
Overall Influence
1925 - 2001 (76 years)
Ariel Gideon Loewy was a biochemist and cell biologist who spent most of his career on the faculty at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania and was an adjunct professor at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine at the time of his death in 2001. Loewy was widely recognized for his research on the biochemistry of blood clotting and his identification of Factor XIII, an enzyme involved in the clotting pathway. He also played a major role in the development of the molecular biology and biochemistry curricula at Haverford.
Go to Profile#4592
Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum
#32634
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Jean-Jacques Muyembe is a Congolese microbiologist. He is the general director of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Institut National pour la Recherche Biomedicale . He was part of team at the Yambuku Catholic Mission Hospital that investigated the first Ebola outbreak, and was part of the effort that discovered Ebola as a new disease, although his exact role is still subject to controversy. In 2016, he led the research that designed, along with other researchers at the INRB and the National Institute of Health Vaccine Research Center in the US, one of the most promising treatment for Ebola, mAb114.
Go to Profile#4593
Luigi Naldini
#60712
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Luigi Naldini is an Italian gene therapist, professor of cell and tissue biology and of gene and cell therapy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, and the director of San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy in Milan, Italy. Often considered as "the father of the lentivirus gene therapy", he is globally known as the pioneer of "the development and applications of lentiviral vectors for gene transfer" that allowed the gene therapy treatment of several genetic diseases. He is also a scientific co-founder of three biotech start-up companies, Genenta in Milan and New York, Chroma Medicine in Milan and Boston, Genespire in Milan.
Go to Profile#4594
Keith H. Steinkraus
#85257
Overall Influence
1918 - 2007 (89 years)
Keith H. Steinkraus was an American food scientist who was well known in food fermentation which led to the growth of soy-based foods. He also was involved in bacterial diseases used in the control of European chafer and Japanese beetles in New York state.
Go to Profile#4595
Christopher. G. Goetz
#96051
Overall Influence
#4596
Patricia Baird
#63809
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Patricia Ann Baird, is a British medical geneticist active in Canada. Her research has specialized on the relationship between medical technology and ethics. Early life and education Patricia Baird was born in Littleborough, Lancashire, England, the daughter of Harold and Winifred Cainen Holt. She was educated at the Queen Mary School for Girls in Lytham, Lancashire. She emigrated to Canada at the age of 17 and was accepted to McGill University. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1959 and a M.D., C.M. in 1963 from McGill University in Montreal.
Go to Profile#4597
Lloyd A Greene
#96063
Overall Influence
#4598
Winston Patrick Kuo
#74061
Overall Influence
Winston Patrick Kuo is a Chinese-American computational biologist who specializes in utilizing translational technologies to solve biomedical related issues. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Developmental Biology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Director of the Laboratory for Innovative Translational Technologies.
Go to Profile#4599
Jed A. Fuhrman
#96084
Overall Influence
#4600
Keith Burridge
#96088
Overall Influence
