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,
#4801
Jörn Köhler
#79803
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jörn Köhler is a German herpetologist. He studied biology at the University of Bonn and received a Ph.D. in zoology in 2000, being associated with the Zoologische Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Bonn. His main research focus is on taxonomy, systematics, phylogeny, biogeography and ecology of tropical amphibians and reptiles, mainly in South America and Africa. He is founder of BIOPAT in 1999. From 2007 to 2013 he was member of the steering committee of the German Herpetological Society and is Chief Editor of SALAMANDRA - German Journal of Herpetology. Since 2005 he has worked as researche...
Go to Profile#4802
James Van Remsen Jr.
#72478
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
James Vanderbeek "Van" Remsen Jr. is an American ornithologist. His main research field is the Neotropical avifauna. In 1999, he founded the South American Classification Committee. In 2013, he was honored with the Brewster Medal of the American Ornithologists' Union.
Go to Profile#4803
Nancy Ip
#23882
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Nancy Chu Ip Yuk-yu , as known as Nancy Y. Ip in academic publications, is a Hong Kong neuroscientist. She is serving as the 5th President of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology since 19 October 2022. She had served as the Vice-President of Research and Development, the Morningside Professor of Life Science, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience at the HKUST. Since December 2022, Ms. Ip has also served as the a deputy from the Hong Kong delegation to the National People's Congress and received the largest number of votes from the 1273 member Electo...
Go to Profile#4804
Thomas Kunz
#72274
Overall Influence
1938 - 2020 (82 years)
Thomas H. Kunz was an American biologist specializing in the study of bats. He was credited with coining the study of aeroecology; additionally, he wrote several fundamental textbooks and publications on bat ecology.
Go to Profile#4805
Fred W. Turek
#57494
Overall Influence
Fred W. Turek is the Director of the Center for Sleep & Circadian Biology and the Charles E. & Emma H. Morrison Professor of Biology in the Department of Neurobiology, both at Northwestern University. Turek received his Ph.D from Stanford University. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1991.
Go to Profile#4806
Suman Kumar Dhar
#85261
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Suman Kumar Dhar is an Indian molecular biologist and a professor at the Special Centre for Molecular Medicine of Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is known for his studies on the DNA replication and cell cycle regulation in Helicobacter pylori and Plasmodium falciparum, two pathogens affecting humans. An elected fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India, Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences, he is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Department of Biotechnology in 2010. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Re...
Go to Profile#4807
Stephen Bustin
#80370
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Stephen Andrew Bustin is a British scientist, former professor of molecular sciences at Queen Mary University of London from 2004 to 2012, as well as visiting professor at Middlesex University, beginning in 2006. In 2012 he was appointed Professor of Allied Health and Medicine at Anglia Ruskin University. He is known for his research into polymerase chain reaction, and has written a book on the topic, entitled A-Z of Quantitative PCR. This book has been called "the bible of qPCR."
Go to Profile#4808
Marisol Aguilera
#25679
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Marisol Aguilera Meneses is a Venezuelan biologist whose research involves the ecology of vertebrates. She is the president of the Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Organization Interciencia, which brings together associations for the advancement of science from all over the Americas.
Go to Profile#4809
Uwe B. Sleytr
#87786
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Uwe B. Sleytr is an emeritus professor of microbiology and the former head of the Department of Nanobiotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. He is a full member of the Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and has published approximately 420 scientific papers, 5 books and several patents.
Go to Profile#4810
Jeffrey Wade Harper
#98537
Overall Influence
#4811
Jenny Morton
#74467
Overall Influence
Anne Jennifer Morton, , known as Jenny Morton, is a New Zealand neurobiologist and academic, specialising in neurodegenerative diseases. She has been a Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, since 1991 and a Professor of Neurobiology at the University of Cambridge since 2009. Her current research is focused on Huntington's disease, and she is using sheep as a large animal model for the disease. This research has led her to discover that sheep can recognise human faces.
Go to Profile#4812
Kenneth Breslauer
#61847
Overall Influence
Kenneth Breslauer is the Linus C. Pauling Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University. He is the Founding Dean of the Division of Life Sciences and served as vice president for Health Science Partnerships. Kenneth Breslauer's research focuses on defining and characterizing the molecular forces that control communication between biological molecules, particularly those interactions that modulate and control gene expression, DNA damage repair, mutagenesis, and drug binding. Breslauer arrived at the university as an assistant professor in 1974.
Go to Profile#4813
Christopher Wood
#79430
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Christopher M. Wood FRSC is currently an Adjunct Professor of Zoology at the University of British Columbia and a Lifetime Distinguished University Professor, and Emeritus Professor of Biology at McMaster University. He is also a Research Professor at the University of Miami. His research is primarily concerned with Fish physiology and aquatic toxicology.
Go to Profile#4814
Roger D. Cone
#90402
Overall Influence
Roger D. Cone is the Mary Sue Coleman Director of the Life Sciences Institute and the Vice Provost for the Biosciences Initiative at the University of Michigan; a member of the editorial board for the journal Cell Metabolism; and a member of the National Academies of Sciences and Medicine. He is a noted researcher in the biological underpinnings of obesity, anorexia, cachexia and other eating and metabolic disorders.
Go to Profile#4815
Robert P. Higgins
#91712
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Robert Price Higgins was an American systematic invertebrate zoologist and ecologist, specializing in the unusual taxa of kinorhynchs and tardigrades. Early life and education Robert P. Higgins was born on 8 Oct 1932 in Denver, Colorado to Jay Higgins and Amy E Higgins, and he attended South High School in Denver, graduating in 1950. He attended the University of Colorado where he earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees studying in the laboratory of invertebrate zoologist Robert William Pennak, and on the advice of Pennak, he attended Duke University, as a James W. Duke Fellow, earning his Ph.D.
Go to Profile#4816
Antoine Triller
#74602
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Antoine Triller, born on 23 May 1952, is research director at the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale . He is a researcher in neurobiology. Biography Antoine Triller has a medical background at the university hospital centre of La Pitié Salpetrière . In Jean Scherrer's laboratory, he turned to neurophysiology and initiated research work on inhibitory synapses with Henri Korn, a specialist in the field.
Go to Profile#4817
Randolf Menzel
#98635
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
#4818
Janj Fahrenkrug
#98636
Overall Influence
#4819
Angelo M. Scanu
#98639
Overall Influence
#4820
David Ian Graham
#98658
Overall Influence
#4821
Richard Laws
#71686
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Richard Maitland Laws was Director of the British Antarctic Survey from 1973 to 1987; Master of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, from 1985 to 1996 and Secretary of the Zoological Society of London. Education and early life Laws was born in Whitley Bay, Northumberland and educated at Dame Allan's School, Newcastle upon Tyne and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, where he was an Open Scholar.
Go to Profile#4822
Jordi Agustí
#80369
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Jordi Agustí is a Spanish paleontologist at the Instituto de Paleoecología Humana y Evolución Social at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. His research is mainly focused on the evolution of mammal fossils in relation to changing climates in the last 10 million years. He has led investigations in Europe and in North Africa, and he was part of the team that discovered some of the oldest Eurasian hominids in Dmanisi, Georgia.
Go to Profile#4823
Robert Evan Kendell
#45603
Overall Influence
1935 - 2002 (67 years)
Robert Evan Kendell, was a British psychiatrist. He was Chief Medical Officer of Scotland 1991−96 and President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists 1996−99. Background He was born on 28 March 1935 in Yorkshire, the son of teachers and spent some of his childhood in Wales. He was educated at the Mill Hill School in London then won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he was awarded a Double First in the Natural Sciences Tripos. After further study at the King's College Hospital Medical School and a brief stint in internal medicine he joined the Maudsley Hospital and trained under Sir Aubrey Lewis.
Go to Profile#4824
Rexford S. Ahima
#71133
Overall Influence
Rexford Sefah Ahima is a Professor of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing; Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Diabetes at the Johns Hopkins Medical School; and the Director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Ahima's research focuses on central and peripheral actions of adipocyte hormones in energy homeostasis, and glucose and lipid metabolism.
Go to Profile#4825
Jochem Marotzke
#72878
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Jochem Marotzke is a German physical oceanographer and climate scientist. He is director of the department of climate variability at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, and formerly served as the institute's managing director.
Go to Profile#4826
Amanda Fisher
#53468
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Dame Amanda Gay Fisher is a British cell biologist and Director of the Medical Research Council London Institute of Medical Sciences at the Hammersmith Hospital campus of Imperial College London, where she is also a Professor leading the Institute of Clinical Sciences. She has made contributions to multiple areas of cell biology, including determining the function of several genes in HIV and describing the importance of a gene's location within the cell nucleus.
Go to Profile#4827
Sarkis Mazmanian
#62717
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Sarkis Mazmanian is an American medical microbiologist who has served as a professor at the California Institute of Technology since 2006. He is currently the Luis & Nelly Soux Professor of Microbiology in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, and a board member of Seed. Prior to this, Mazmanian was affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the University of Chicago. In 2012, Mazmanian was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his pioneering work on the human microbiome.
Go to Profile#4828
Robin Patel
#96834
Overall Influence
Robin Patel is a Canadian born microbiologist and Elizabeth P. and Robert E. Allen Professor of Individualized Medicine, a Professor of Microbiology, and a Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic. She is widely recognized as a leader in the field of clinical microbiology and has held a variety of leadership positions including 2019–2020 President of the American Society for Microbiology and Director of the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group Laboratory Center of the National institutes of Health. She is currently the Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and...
Go to Profile#4829
Étienne de Harven
#66056
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Etienne de Harven was a Belgian-born pathologist and electron microscopist. Born in Brussels, he did most of his work in New York City, Paris and Toronto. He did pioneering research on viruses, mostly related to murine leukemia. He is former President of the Electron Microscopy Society of America .
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Jane Elith
#74720
Overall Influence
Professor Jane Elith is an ecologist in the School of Botany at the University of Melbourne. She graduated from the School of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Melbourne in 1977. She specialises in ecological models that focus on spatial analysis and prediction of the habitat of plant and animal species. Following graduation, she was a research assistant and tutor for three years, and then spent the following 12 years raising her children. She returned to the University of Melbourne in 1992 and later commenced a part-time PhD in the School of Botany. She was awarded her PhD in 2002 on 'Predicting the distribution of plants'.
Go to Profile#4831
Daniel C. Liebler
#98766
Overall Influence
#4832
Harold Norman Moldenke
#67600
Overall Influence
1909 - 1996 (87 years)
Harold Norman Moldenke, also known as simply Moldenke was an American botanist/taxonomist. His expertise is largely in the study of Verbenaceae, Avicenniaceae, Stilbaceae, Dicrastylidaceae, Symphoremaceae, Nyctanthaceae and Eriocaulaceae.
Go to Profile#4833
Alec James Coppen
#98792
Overall Influence
#4834
James Cheverud
#97052
Overall Influence
James M. Cheverud is an American biologist, focusing on evolutionary quantitative genetics, morphology, and the genetics of complex traits and diseases in mammals. He is currently the Chair of the Biology Department at Loyola University Chicago. He spent several years as a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is an Emeritus Professor in the departments of Anthropology and Anatomy & Neurobiology.
Go to Profile#4835
Antoinette Pirie
#73550
Overall Influence
1905 - 1991 (86 years)
Antoinette Pirie was a British biochemist, ophthalmologist, and educator. Biography Antoinette Patey was born in Bond Street, London. Her father was a botanist and pharmacist. She was educated at Wycombe Abbey School, and then achieved a first-class honours in natural sciences from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1932. She completed her PhD at the biochemical laboratory in Cambridge under the professorship of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins. She married fellow biochemist Norman Pirie in 1931. They had a son and a daughter.
Go to Profile#4836
Ladislav Mucina
#84895
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Ladislav Mucina is a vegetation scientist and Professor and Iluka Chair of Vegetation Science and Biogeography at the School of Biological Science of The University of Western Australia in Perth. He was born on 28 May 1956 in Piešťany, Slovakia.
Go to Profile#4837
Myron F. Weiner
#98884
Overall Influence
#4838
Nelson Michael
#50356
Overall Influence
Nelson L. Michael is an American infectious disease researcher. He has served for nearly 30 years in the United States Army and been directly involved with significant advancements in understanding the pathology of and vaccine development for diseases like HIV, Zika, Ebola and more. Much of his career has been spent at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.
Go to Profile#4839
Kira Makarova
#89400
Overall Influence
Kira S. Makarova is an Estonian-American evolutionary biologist known for her research on the biology of CRISPR and Cas9. She is a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Go to Profile#4840
Bernard La Scola
#98923
Overall Influence
#4841
David C. Queller
#98048
Overall Influence
David C. Queller is an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis. He received his BA from The University of Illinois in 1976, and his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1982. Queller became a faculty member at Rice University in 1989 and remained there until 2011 when he was named Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. Since the late 1980s, Queller has collaborated extensively with his wife and colleague Joan E. Strassmann. Empirically, Queller and Strassmann worked primarily with social insects until they made the switch to the soci...
Go to Profile#4842
Hannele Ruohola-Baker
#64759
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Hannele Ruohola-Baker is a Professor of Biochemistry and Associate Director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Her research focuses on the molecular biology of stem cells and on the use of Drosophila as model organisms for human diseases.
Go to Profile#4843
JoAnne Flynn
#96627
Overall Influence
JoAnne L. Flynn is an American microbiologist and immunologist. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where she researches mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis and immunology. She was president of the American Association of Immunologists.
Go to Profile#4844
Peter B. Moyle
#84932
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Peter B. Moyle is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis. He has studied the ecology and conservation of fishes in freshwater and estuarine habitats in California for over fifty years. He has a special interest in salmonid fishes and in the state's highly endemic freshwater and estuarine fish fauna. Moyle has authored or co-authored more than 270 peer-reviewed publications, including 10 books, and over 225 other publications, including ca. ...
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Tristan Bekinschtein
#24428
Overall Influence
Tristan Bekinschtein is biologist, Master in Neurophysiology and PhD in neuroscience, Buenos Aires University. He is a university lecturer and Turing Fellow at Cambridge University. Dr. Bekinschtein is primarily known for his work on variable states of consciousness and auditory feedback. He presently runs the Consciousness and Cognition Laboratory at Cambridge University.
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Bradley Bernstein
#84331
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Bradley E. Bernstein is a biologist and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. He is Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute and the Director of the Broad Institute's Gene Regulation Observatory. He is known for contributions to the fields of epigenetics and cancer biology.
Go to Profile#4847
Michael Katze
#91337
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Michael Katze was an American microbiologist. For over 35 years, he has researched host-virus interactions, incorporating systems biology approaches into infectious disease research. He was an international leader in the application of genome sequencing, animal models, and systems biology approaches to virology and immunology. Katze was formerly Professor of Microbiology at the University of Washington , and Associate Director for Molecular Sciences and a Core Staff Scientist at the Washington National Primate Research Center. In August 2017, Katze was fired from the University of Washington f...
Go to Profile#4848
K. S. Manilal
#47131
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Kattungal Subramaniam Manilal is an Emeritus of the University of Calicut, a botany scholar and taxonomist, who devoted over 35 years of his life to research, translation and annotation work of the Latin botanical treatise Hortus Malabaricus. This epic effort brought to light the main contents of the book, a wealth of botanical information on Malabar that had largely remained inaccessible to English-speaking scholars, because the entire text was in the Latin language.
Go to Profile#4849
Blaire Van Valkenburgh
#91334
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Blaire Van Valkenburgh is an American paleontologist and holds the Donald R. Dickey Chair in Vertebrate Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of California Los Angeles. She is a former president of Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Go to Profile#4850
Sucharit Bhakdi
#79503
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Sucharit Bhakdi is a retired Thai-German microbiologist. In 2020 and 2021 Bhakdi became a prominent source of misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that the pandemic was "fake" and that COVID-19 vaccines were going to decimate the world's population.
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