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,
#4901
Manuel Isaías López
#73459
Overall Influence
1941 - 2017 (76 years)
Manuel Isaías López was a prominent child psychiatrist, trained in Philadelphia. Many consider Manuel Isaías López to be the father of Mexican Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. In 1972, he founded the first Child and Adolescent Psychiatry subspecialty program in Mexico, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico . He also founded and was the first president of AMPI in 1975. He was the training director of the only child and adolescent psychiatry training program in Mexico, at UNAM, from 1972 until 1998.
Go to Profile#4902
Kat Holt
#89322
Overall Influence
Kathryn "Kat" Elizabeth Holt is an Australian computational biologist specializing in infectious disease genomics. She is a professor at Monash University's Department of Infectious Diseases and a professor of Microbial Systems Genomics at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine . Her current research focuses on investigating the evolution and dissemination of antimicrobial resistance. In 2015, Holt received the L'Oréal-UNESCO International Rising Talent Award.
Go to Profile#4903
Fritz Hans Schweingruber
#99588
Overall Influence
#4904
John Nkengasong
#50315
Overall Influence
John N. Nkengasong is a Cameroonian-American virologist serving as the Global AIDS Coordinator in the Biden administration since 2022 and Senior Bureau Official for Global Health Security and Diplomacy since 2023. He previously worked as the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 to 2022, as well as at the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nkengasong was appointed the WHO Special Envoy for Africa.
Go to Profile#4905
J. D. Ew Morrow
#99616
Overall Influence
#4906
Eckhard Boles
#78639
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Eckhard Boles is a German microbiologist and biotechnologist. Since 2002 he is professor of microbiology at the Goethe University Frankfurt with a focus on the physiology and genetics of lower eukaryotes. He works mainly on the optimization of yeasts for industrial biotechnology.
Go to Profile#4907
Konrad F. W. Messmer
#99636
Overall Influence
#4908
Robert H. Wurtz
#99639
Overall Influence
#4909
Stefan Koelsch
#65017
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Stefan Koelsch is a German-American-Norwegian psychologist, neuroscientist, and bestselling author. Biography Stefan Koelsch studied instrumental and vocal music at the University of Arts Bremen, and then psychology as well as sociology at Leipzig University. He graduated in 1994 with an artistic degree, 1998 with a diploma in psychology, and 2000 with a diploma in sociology. With his thesis Brain and Music: A contribution to the investigation of central auditory processing with a new electrophysiological approach, which was compiled at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, he was awarded with a PhD at Leipzig University.
Go to Profile#4910
Susan Band Horwitz
#99661
Overall Influence
#4911
Meinhart H. Prof Zenk
#99664
Overall Influence
#4912
Henry S. Horn
#84404
Overall Influence
1941 - 2019 (78 years)
Henry S. Horn was a natural historian and ecologist. He was an emeritus professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at Princeton University. He worked on a wide variety of topics including the following:the geometrical structure of forestspatterns of forest successionwind dispersal of seedsspatial patterns of competitionsocial behavior of butterflies
Go to Profile#4913
Michael Kjaer
#99673
Overall Influence
#4914
Julian Rayner
#87979
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Julian Charles Rayner is a New Zealand malaria researcher, and the Director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, part of the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. He is also Director of Wellcome Connecting Science. He was previously a member of academic Faculty at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
Go to Profile#4915
Erik van Nimwegen
#91076
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Erik van Nimwegen is a Dutch computational biologist and Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, Switzerland. Life Erik van Nimwegen studied theoretical physics at the University of Amsterdam. He performed his PhD studies at the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe New Mexico, receiving his PhD from the Faculty of Biology at Utrecht University in 1999. This was followed by a year of post-doc studies at the SFI, and three years as a fellow at the Center of Studies in Physics and Biology at the Rockefeller University, New York. Since 2003 he is Professor of Computational Biology at...
Go to Profile#4916
Carol Gross
#91628
Overall Influence
Carol A. Gross is a molecular biologist and professor of cell and tissue biology at the University of California San Francisco . Her research focuses on transcriptional regulation in bacteria. Research and career At UCSF Dr. Carol A. Gross runs a lab that takes genetic, biochemical, and systems approaches to study regulatory mechanisms of E. coli stress responses, protein interactions in the bacterial transcription apparatus, and genome-wide control of gene expression. She is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of th...
Go to Profile#4917
Gary Strobel
#58020
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Gary A. Strobel is an American microbiologist and naturalist. He was co-contributor to the discovery that somaclonal variation occurs in plants and can be used for plant improvement. The discovery of the Ri plasmid in Agrobacterium rhizogenes also originated in his laboratory. He examined endophytic fungi and bacteria for their novel bioactive compounds and their unique biology. Forbes magazine called him the "Indiana Jones of fungus hunters" for his expeditions, collections, and research into fungi.
Go to Profile#4918
Tamio Yamakawa
#45702
Overall Influence
1921 - 2018 (97 years)
Tamio Yamakawa was a Japanese biochemist, the first to report the presence of glycosphingolipids on cell membranes. Yamakawa graduated from the University of Tokyo, was an emeritus professor at Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, and a member of the Japanese Academy of Sciences. The molecule was found on horse red blood cells and first called Hematoside. Further testing by Yamakawa led to the discovery that ABO blood group antigens are glycosphingolipids located in the erythrocytes.
Go to Profile#4919
Stuart H. Yuspa
#99727
Overall Influence
#4920
Robert E. Blankenship
#83156
Overall Influence
Robert E. Blankenship is an American chemist. Blankenship earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1970, and obtained a doctorate in the subject at University of California, Berkeley in 1975. Upon completing postdoctoral research at the University of Washington in 1979, Blankenship began his teaching career as an assistant professor at Amherst College in 1979. He assumed an associate professorship at Arizona State University in 1985, and was promoted to full professor in 1988. Blankenship chaired the ASU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 2002 to his retirement from the university in 2006, when he was granted emeritus status.
Go to Profile#4921
Steven Sharfstein
#32114
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Steven Samuel "Steve" Sharfstein is an American psychiatrist. He was secretary of the American Psychiatric Association from 1991 to 1995, its vice president from 2002 to 2004, and president from 2005 to 2006. Sharfstein also received the Human Rights Award from the American Psychiatric Association in 2007.
Go to Profile#4922
Felicity Huntingford
#96140
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Felicity Anne Huntingford FRSE is an aquatic ecologist known for her work in fish behaviour. Career Huntingford's research interests include the aggression in sticklebacks and the welfare of farmed fish.
Go to Profile#4923
María Teresa López Boegeholz
#74929
Overall Influence
1927 - 2006 (79 years)
María Teresa López Boegeholz was a Chilean oceanographer and academic. She was considered a pioneer in the field of marine sciences. Biography She was born in La Unión. She moved to Santiago in 1948 and studied biology and chemistry at the Instituto Pedagógico de la Universidad de Chile. In 1952, she began working as a teaching assistant at the Liceo Manuel de Salas. She subsequently worked as a researcher at the Instituto Pedagógico and at the Centro de Investigaciones Zoológicas. In 1966, she became a professor of zoology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. During this period, her interest was mainly focused on organisms in aquatic environments.
Go to Profile#4924
John Ruben
#95512
Overall Influence
John A. Ruben is a researcher in Zoology and Vertebrate paleontology at the Oregon State University in Corvallis. Much of his published research is focused on studying the respiratory system in birds, in order to contradict the theory of theropodan ancestry of birds, as well as their metabolism.
Go to Profile#4925
Richard Gordon
#58215
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Richard "Dick" Gordon is an American theoretical biologist. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, the eldest son of Jack Gordon, a salesman and American handball champion, and artist Diana Gordon. He is married to retired scientist Natalie K Björklund with whom he co-wrote his second book and several academic publications. He has three sons, Leland, Bryson and Chason Gordon and three stepchildren Justin, Alan and Lana Hunstad. Gordon was a professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba from 1978 to 2011. He is retired and currently volunteers as a scientist for the Gulf Specimen M...
Go to Profile#4926
Colin Spedding
#87379
Overall Influence
1925 - 2012 (87 years)
Sir Colin Raymond William Spedding was a British biologist, agricultural scientist and animal welfare expert. Spedding founded or worked for numerous agricultural agencies, including the Farm Animal Welfare Council, Assured Food Standards and the UK Register of Organic Food Standards. He also held academic posts at the University of Reading and the Grassland Research Institute, and was a prolific author of books on wildlife and agriculture.
Go to Profile#4927
William C Sessa
#99823
Overall Influence
#4928
Alain Viel
#79122
Overall Influence
Alain Viel is the director of Northwest Undergraduate Laboratories and senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. Early life and education Viel received a PhD in molecular and cellular biology of development in 1990 from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France for a thesis "Les particules ribonucleoproteiques dans le oocytes de xenopus laevis. mise en place du systeme de synthese proteique" and did postdoctoral work at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#4929
Harvey R. Herschman
#99851
Overall Influence
#4930
Carl-Philipp Heisenberg
#80570
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Carl-Philipp Heisenberg is a German developmental biologist specializing in embryology, cell biology, and biophysics. He is the grandson of the physicist Werner Heisenberg and nephew of biologist Martin Heisenberg. He was born in Munich, Germany.
Go to Profile#4931
T. C. Narendran
#99890
Overall Influence
1944 - 2013 (69 years)
Thekke Curuppathe Narendran was an Indian entomologist specializing in the systematics of parasitic wasps in the superfamily Chalcidoidea . Narendran received a Janakiammal National Award for Taxonomy and was a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and the Indian Entomology Academy, Chennai.
Go to Profile#4932
Nancy Atkinson
#61689
Overall Influence
1910 - 1999 (89 years)
Nancy Atkinson, was an Australian bacteriologist. In the 1950s, she was recognised as one of the world's leading authorities on bacteriology, and led research on Salmonella bacteria, antibiotic and vaccine development, and the isolation of the poliovirus.
Go to Profile#4933
David Herman Maclennan
#99911
Overall Influence
#4934
Martinez Hewlett
#36909
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Martinez "Marty" Joseph Hewlett is Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Arizona. He received his PhD in 1973 and served in David Baltimore's laboratory. His specialty is researching Bunyaviridae. He is an adjunct professor at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology of the Graduate Theological Union and a lay member of the Dominican Order. Hewlett has written two books on the relationship between science and religion with Ted Peters, as well as the novel Sangre de Cristo: A Novel of Science and Faith, republished as Divine Blood.
Go to Profile#4935
Kai-Markus Mueller
#53766
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Kai-Markus Müller is a German neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and professor. He is Professor of Consumer Behavior at HFU Business School in Villingen-Schwenningen, Germany. Müller previously acted as founder and CEO of The Neuromarketing Labs, a consumer neuroscience research company based in Aspach, Germany. He is known for having developed an EEG-based research technique for measuring willingness to pay. He is an alumnus of consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners.
Go to Profile#4936
Antonio M. Jr. Gotto
#99946
Overall Influence
#4937
Wilson R. Lourenço
#50311
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Wilson R. Lourenço is a French-Brazilian arachnologist specializing in scorpions. Biography Wilson R. Lourenço gained his PhD in evolutionary biology in 1978 from the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, and a doctorate in population biology there in 1985. Since 1971 he has worked on the taxonomy, general biology, biogeography, and ecology of scorpions. He is an emeritus research fellow at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle of Paris. He has published over 600 papers on scorpions, and books including the 2002 Scorpions of Brazil.
Go to Profile#4938
Alan Swain Mcneilly
#99949
Overall Influence
#4939
Sankar Ghosh
#73732
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Sankar Ghosh is an Indian-American immunologist, microbiologist, and biochemist, who is the Chair and Silverstein & Hutt Family Professor of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Ghosh is best known for his pioneering research on the activation of cellular responses via NF-κB, a transcription factor that plays a critical role in regulating the expression of a large number of genes involved in the mammalian immune system. Ghosh's research led to the first cloning and characterization of NF-κB and IkB proteins, including the demonstration of th...
Go to Profile#4940
Andreas Radbruch
#99964
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#4941
Moi Meng Ling
#26011
Overall Influence
Sherry Moi Meng Ling is a Malaysian virologist, currently serving as a professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo. Her research focuses on innate immune system to mosquito-borne virus infection and field epidemiology.
Go to Profile#4942
Marc Galanter
#15785
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Marc Galanter is Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and has served as the Founding Director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. His studies have addressed family therapy for substance abuse, pharmacologic treatment for addiction, and Twelve Step recovery for addiction. He is an author of over 200 peer-reviewed articles. He chairs Twelve Step Interest Groups in AAAP, ASAM, and the International Society of Addiction Medicine and teaches at the New York University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#4943
Ten Feizi
#90347
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Ten Feizi is a Turkish Cypriot/British molecular biologist who is Professor and Director of the Glycosciences Laboratory at Imperial College London. Her research considers the structure and function of glycans. She was awarded the Society for Glycobiology Rosalind Kornfeld award in 2014. She was also awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2021.
Go to Profile#4944
Jean-Christophe Marine
#57763
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Jean-Christophe Marine is a Belgian molecular biologist and researcher at CME Ku-Leuven . He is head of the VIB Laboratory of Molecular Cancer Biology. His research interest is in the identification and characterization of cancer growth modulators, such as p53.
Go to Profile#4945
Irwin D. Mandel
#89905
Overall Influence
1922 - 2011 (89 years)
Irwin D. Mandel was an American biochemist and dentist who was known for his research on the biochemistry of saliva. He was a founder of the preventive dentistry movement and established the first department of preventive dentistry at an American university, the Columbia University College of Dental Medicine. In 1985, he became the first recipient of the Gold Medal for Excellence in Dental Research by the American Dental Association.
Go to Profile#4946
Henricus Gerardus Kuypers
#100003
Overall Influence
#4947
Walter Georg Kühne
#66473
Overall Influence
1911 - 1991 (80 years)
Walter Georg Kühne was a German paleontologist, known as a "legendary explorer of Mesozoic mammals". He graduated in March 1930 from reform boarding school Schule am Meer on the island of Juist in Prussia. In 1958 he founded the Institute for Paleontology of the Free University of Berlin. His studies focused specifically on mesozoic microfauna, seeking to bring to light the history of the oldest mammals, which until the 1960s was almost unknown. Before him, findings of species of small size in the continental Mesozoic deposits had been mostly random. His efforts were concentrated more in exca...
Go to Profile#4948
Terry Callaghan
#56710
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Terence Vincent Callaghan is a British biologist specialized in the ecology of the Arctic. Much of his work on arctic plants has taken place in Abisko in northernmost Sweden, based at the Abisko Scientific Research Station where he served as director. He was a lead author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Reports chapter on polar regions.
Go to Profile#4949
Marcela Contreras
#55011
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Dame Carmen Marcela Contreras Arriagada, DBE is a Chilean-born British leading blood expert, immunologist and university educator. Born in Curicó in central Chile and raised in Coelemu, she originally obtained her M.D. degree from the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, in 1968. As a recipient of a British Council scholarship, she went to the UK in 1972 to study immunology and has remained there ever since. She retired in February 2007 as national director for diagnostics, development and research for the National Blood Service after working for the organisation for over 20 years.
Go to Profile#4950
Marcello Ferrada de Noli
#9527
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Marcello Ferrada de Noli is a Swedish professor emeritus of epidemiology, and medicine doktor in psychiatry . He was research fellow and lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and was later head of the research group of International and Cross-Cultural Injury Epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute until 2009. Ferrada de Noli is known for his investigations on suicidal behaviour associated with severe trauma. He is the founder of the NGO Swedish Doctors for Human Rights, SWEDHR. He is also a writer, and painting artist.
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