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,
#4851
Vera Meyer
#95292
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Vera Meyer is a German biotechnologist and professor at the Technical University of Berlin. She is head of the department for Applied and Molecular Microbiology. Her main scientific field is the research of fungi and their potential use for a sustainable circular economy. Meyer also works as a visual artist, combining her scientific knowledge in microbiology with artistic creation.
Go to Profile#4852
David H. Ingvar
#99039
Overall Influence
#4853
William A. Clemens Jr.
#94107
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
William Alvin Clemens Jr. was a paleontologist at the University of California at Berkeley. He was faculty of the Department of Paleontology from 1967, then the Department of Integrative Biology from 1994 to his retirement and curator of the UC Museum of Paleontology. Clemens was also director of the museum and chair of the Department of Paleontology . He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship , a U.S. Senior Scientist Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Romer-Simpson Medal , and was made a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#4854
Ross Piper
#76242
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ross Piper is a British zoologist, entomologist, and explorer. Biography Piper's fascination by animals began at a young age through early encounters with a violet ground beetle and the caterpillar of an elephant hawk moth. This early interest led to a degree in zoology from Bangor University and a PhD in insect ecology from the University of Leeds. Piper has travelled widely in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Southeast Asia, searching for interesting and elusive beasts. Although his focus is arthropods, the sheer diversity of animal forms and lifestyles is a continual source of fascination.
Go to Profile#4855
Carol Fierke
#89867
Overall Influence
Carol A. Fierke is an American biochemist who is the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Brandeis University. Her research considers biological catalysts and understanding biofunction. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Go to Profile#4856
Victoria Chan-Palay
#68338
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Victoria Lye-Hua Chan-Palay is a Singaporean-born neuroscientist who has worked in the United States and Switzerland. Early life and education Chan is the second daughter of noted Singaporean swimming coach Dr. Chan Ah Kow. Among her four brothers and two sisters is Patricia Chan, who represented Singapore in swimming at the Southeast Asian Games in the 1960s and 1970s. As a young woman, Chan excelled at school in science, and herself represented Singapore in international swimming competitions as well.
Go to Profile#4857
William Andrew Bonner
#99114
Overall Influence
#4858
Ronald M. Atlas
#99130
Overall Influence
#4859
Thomas James White
#99166
Overall Influence
#4860
Scott Doney
#97732
Overall Influence
Scott Doney is a marine scientist at the University of Virginia known for his work on biogeochemical modeling. Doney is the Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professor in Environmental Change, a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, the American Association for the Advancement of Science., and the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography. He is currently serving as the Assistant Director for Ocean Climate Science and Policy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Go to Profile#4861
Martha Merrow
#79651
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Martha Merrow is an American chronobiologist. She currently chairs the Institute of Medical Psychology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her career focuses primarily on investigating the molecular and genetic mechanisms of the circadian clock. Since joining the Ludwig Maximilian University in 1996, Merrow has investigated molecular and genetic mechanisms of the circadian clock as well as daily human behavior and medical psychology.
Go to Profile#4862
Zhe-Xi Luo
#94605
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Zhe-Xi Luo is an American paleontologist of Chinese origin, specializing in vertebrate paleontology, particularly mammal evolution, morphology, and systematics. Background Born in China in 1958, he came to the United States in 1982 as one of the first Chinese students. Under the Sino-US agreement, students were expected to return to their homeland after graduation, but after the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, US President George H. W. Bush agreed that around 80,000 Chinese students would remain in the United States. Zhe-Xi Luo and his wife were in this group.
Go to Profile#4863
David J. Burke
#99206
Overall Influence
#4864
Zeyaur Khan
#89514
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Zeyaur R. Khan is a professor and the principal scientist at International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology . He has dedicated his 30-year career as an international agricultural scientist to advancing the science and practice of agriculture by studying and applying chemical ecology, behavior, plant-plant and insect-plant interactions to improve farm productivity to combat poverty and food insecurity in Africa. He is responsible for the discovery and wide scale implementation of a pro-poor scientific innovation for enhancing food security and environmental sustainability in Africa]. Thi...
Go to Profile#4865
Manjula Reddy
#88849
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Manjula Reddy is an Indian bacterial geneticist. She is the chief scientist at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India. In 2019, she won the Infosys Prize in Life Sciences for her work on bacterial cell wall structure and synthesis. She is a Fellow of the Telangana Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#4866
Giora G. Z. Feuerstein
#99227
Overall Influence
#4867
Julia Morton
#69347
Overall Influence
1912 - 1996 (84 years)
Julia Frances McHugh Morton was an American author and botanist. She was research professor of biology, and director of the Morton Collectanea at the University of Miami. She was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London in 1974. Well known as a lecturer on toxic, edible and otherwise useful plants, she wrote 10 books and 94 scientific papers, and contributed to an additional 12 books and 27 papers.
Go to Profile#4868
Stuart Firestein
#73877
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Stuart J. Firestein is the chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, where his laboratory is researching the vertebrate olfactory receptor neuron. He has published articles in Wired magazine, Huffington Post, and Scientific American. Firestein has been elected as a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his meritorious efforts to advance science. He is an adviser to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation program for the Public Understanding of Science. Firestein's writing often advocates for better science writing. In 2012 he released the ...
Go to Profile#4869
Lucien Jules Rubinstein
#99247
Overall Influence
#4870
Clark L. Anderson
#48920
Overall Influence
Clark Lawrence Anderson is an internist and immunologist. He is professor emeritus in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, Ohio State University , Columbus, Ohio, United States.
Go to Profile#4871
Sally J. Rogers
#49153
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Sally J. Rogers is professor of MIND Institute and department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, Davis. She is a scientist working on early diagnosis and interventions methods for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders. She is a pioneer in the field of autism treatment and pioneered the development of The Early Start Denver Model . She has published nearly two-hundred papers on the field of autism, early diagnosis and treatments.
Go to Profile#4872
Kenneth W. Cummins
#99284
Overall Influence
#4873
Paul Stewart
#90606
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Paul Michael Stewart FMedSci FRCP is Dean of Medicine and Health at the University of Leeds and an Honorary Consultant Endocrinologist at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He is also currently Vice President of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the editor-in-chief of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
Go to Profile#4874
Tito Fojo
#99297
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#4875
Lina M. Obeid
#76043
Overall Influence
1955 - 2019 (64 years)
Lina M. Obeid was an American physician and cancer researcher. Early life Lina Marie Obeid was born in New York and raised in Lebanon, the daughter of Dr. Sami Obeid, a renowned Lebanese surgeon, and Rosette Z. Obeid, a Palestinian writer and cookbook author. Obeid earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Rutgers University. She earned her medical degree at the American University of Beirut in 1983.
Go to Profile#4876
Lee Fitzgerald
#92438
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Lee Fitzgerald is Professor of Zoology and Faculty Curator of Amphibians and Reptiles in the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University. His biological specialty is the evolutionary ecology and conservation biology of amphibians and reptiles . Fitzgerald is a former editor of Herpetological Monographs.
Go to Profile#4877
Bert Poolman
#97228
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Berend Poolman is a Dutch biochemist, as specialist in bioenergetics of microorganisms and membrane transport. He is a professor of Biochemistry at the University of Groningen and an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2009. Poolman is a pioneer in the field of bottom-up synthetic biology, that is, the construction from molecular building blocks of functional metabolic networks and autonomously operating functional systems, which are typical of living cells. Poolman is a lecturer in membrane biology and synthetic biology.
Go to Profile#4878
Robert L. Rausch
#97195
Overall Influence
1921 - 2012 (91 years)
Robert Lloyd Rausch was an American parasitologist, mammalogist, and veterinary physician. Education Rausch began his academic studies at the Ohio State University, where in 1942 he earned a bachelor's degree in zoology and entomology and in 1945 he attained the title DVM, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. His continued studies of parasitology and wildlife management led him to complete a Master of Science at Michigan State University in 1946 and a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in 1949.
Go to Profile#4879
Lars Chittka
#83740
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Lars Chittka, FLS, FRES, FRSB is a German zoologist, ethologist and ecologist distinguished for his work on the evolution of sensory systems and cognition, using insect-flower interactions as a model.
Go to Profile#4880
M. Paul Smith
#70548
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
M. Paul Smith is a British palaeontologist, head of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and professor in Kellogg College. Previously he was Professor of Palaeobiology at the University of Birmingham, head of the university's School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, and Director of its Lapworth Museum of Geology. He received his BSc from the University of Leicester and his PhD from the University of Nottingham.
Go to Profile#4881
Henry R. Kranzler
#99360
Overall Influence
#4882
James McWha
#48898
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
James Alexander McWha is a botanist whose professional career was devoted to teaching, research and educational administration in New Zealand, Northern Ireland and Australia. He retired as Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Adelaide on 30 June 2012. In October 2013 he was appointed as Vice Chancellor of the newly created University of Rwanda. He retired from the University of Rwanda in October 2015.
Go to Profile#4883
Alan Cowey
#69327
Overall Influence
1935 - 2012 (77 years)
Alan Cowey FMedSci, FRS was a British scientist and academic, and the Emeritus Professor of Physiological Psychology at the University of Oxford. His primary interest was in the way in which we interpret the visual world. He gained a BA from the University of Cambridge in 1957 and a PhD from Cambridge in 1961. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1988, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998. In 2000 he received an honorary DSc from the University of Durham, and in 2007 he presented the Royal Society's Ferrier Lecture.
Go to Profile#4884
Jeff Wrana
#99299
Overall Influence
Jeffrey L. Wrana is a Canadian cancer researcher. He is the CIBC Breast Cancer Research Scientist and Mary Janigan Research Chair in Molecular Cancer Therapeutic at Mount Sinai Hospital and University of Toronto . As a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Medical Genetics and Microbiology at U of T, Wrana was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Go to Profile#4885
Michael J. McPhaden
#99403
Overall Influence
#4886
Ronaldd J. A. Wanders
#99404
Overall Influence
#4887
Monica Justice
#95888
Overall Influence
Monica J. Justice is an American–Canadian developmental geneticist. She is the Canada Research Chair in Mammalian Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto and Program Head of Genetics and Genome Biology at SickKids Hospital.
Go to Profile#4888
Kenneth M. Merz Jr.
#86507
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Kenneth M. Merz Jr. is an American biochemist and molecular biologist currently the Joseph Zichis Chair and a distinguished university professor at Michigan State University and editor-in-chief of American Chemical Society's Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. A highly cited expert in his field, his research interests are in computational chemistry and biology and computer-aided drug design . His group has been involved in developing the widely using AMBER suite of programs for simulating chemical and biological systems and the QUICK program for quantum chemical calculations.
Go to Profile#4889
Rudolf K. Allemann
#62066
Overall Influence
Professor Rudolf Konrad Allemann is a Distinguished Research Professor and Pro Vice-Chancellor International and Student Recruitment and Head of the College of Physical Sciences and Engineering at Cardiff University. Allemann joined Cardiff University in 2005, after working at the University of Birmingham, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich and the UK MRC National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill. He was previously Head of the School of Chemistry at Cardiff University until April 2017.
Go to Profile#4890
Joseph Milic‐emili
#99468
Overall Influence
#4891
Hal V. Barron
#26967
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Hal V. Barron is an American clinician-scientist and drug developer who served as president of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline from March 2018 until 2022, when he resigned in order to join the cellular reprogramming venture Altos Labs in August of that year. Prior to this he served as president of research and development at Calico. He has served as executive vice president, head of global product development, and chief medical officer of Hoffman-La Roche.
Go to Profile#4892
Stewart Shuman
#99472
Overall Influence
#4893
William Alfred Weber
#60255
Overall Influence
1918 - 2020 (102 years)
William Alfred Weber was an American botanist and lichenologist. He was Professor Emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder and former curator of the University of Colorado Museum Herbarium .
Go to Profile#4894
Zoya Klyuchko
#88394
Overall Influence
1933 - 2016 (83 years)
Zoya Fedorivna Klyuchko was a Ukrainian entomologist, lepidopterist, zoologist, professor and doctor of biological sciences. She focused on the research of faunistics; morphology; taxonomy and phylogeny of the scoop family Noctuidae, value as pests in rural areas plants and the role in nature in rare and disappearing insects. Klyuchko worked at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, the I. I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology and the Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University and wrote between 130 and 160 scientific articles.
Go to Profile#4895
Brendon Stubbs
#99535
Overall Influence
#4896
Bill Rutherford
#90568
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Alfred William Rutherford is Professor and Chair in Biochemistry of Solar energy in the Department of Life sciences at Imperial College London. Education Rutherford was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School for Boys, Morpeth and the University of Liverpool where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry in 1976. He moved to University College London where he was awarded a PhD in 1979 for electron paramagnetic resonance studies of photosynthetic electron transport in purple bacteria supervised by Michael C.W. Evans.
Go to Profile#4897
Hazel Barton
#88398
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Dr. Hazel A. Barton is an English born microbiologist, geologist and cave diving explorer, interested in extremophile microorganisms. She is a Professor and Director of the Integrated Bioscience Program at the University of Akron and has appeared in several documentaries.
Go to Profile#4898
Bernard L. Strehler
#65662
Overall Influence
1925 - 2001 (76 years)
Bernard Strehler was an early biogerontologist. He published the book Time, Cells, and Aging. In 1949, he helped discover the firefly luciferin 2, which gives off light after being combined with ATP. In 1956, he switched to the field of aging. He joined the faculty of the University of Southern California as a professor of biology and director of biological research at the USC Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center.
Go to Profile#4899
Alexis Brice
#99558
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#4900
John L. R. Rubenstein
#99559
Overall Influence
