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 Virology,
#101
Michael M. C. Lai
#21582
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Michael Ming-Chiao Lai is a Taiwanese virologist. A native of Tainan born on 8 September 1942, Lai graduated from National Tainan First Senior High School and studied medicine at National Taiwan University. After completing his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973, Lai joined the University of Southern California faculty, where he remained until 2003. While teaching at USC, Lai was elected a member of Academia Sinica in 1992 and a fellow of the American College of Microbiology in 2002. From 1990, Lai was a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. Upon his return to Taiwan in 2003, Lai was named a distinguished fellow of Academia Sinica.
Go to Profile#102
Isidore S. Edelman
#104448
Overall Influence
#103
Richard Jude Samulski
#104676
Overall Influence
#104
Robin Weiss
#41794
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Robert Anthony "Robin" Weiss is a British molecular biologist, Professor of Viral Oncology at University College London and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Research His research has focussed on retroviruses, initially as a means of understanding T-cell leukemia and other cancers, which may be caused by retroviruses. A break-through discovery in 1971 was that the retroviral genome in chickens follows the rules of Mendelian inheritance. Later his work moved on to HIV, also a retrovirus, and made several new important discoveries, most notably identifying CD4 on lymphocytes as the...
Go to Profile#105
Polly Roy
#77159
Overall Influence
Polly Roy OBE is a professor and Chair of Virology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She attended a number of schools which included Columbia University Medical School, Rutgers University, University of Alabama, and University of Oxford. In 2001 she became a part of The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and, along with being the chair of Virology, is also the co-organiser of the medical microbiology course. The virus that she has dedicated most of her career to is Bluetongue disease that affects sheep and cattle. She became interested in this virus after atte...
Go to Profile#106
Herbert W. Virgin
#93976
Overall Influence
Herbert W. "Skip" Virgin was the Edward Mallinckrodt Professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology & Immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is best known for establishing murine norovirus as a model system for studying norovirus biology, for identifying host phenotypes associated with persistent viral infections, for defining alterations to the human virome in the context of different diseases, and for elucidating the roles of autophagy and interferon-stimulated genes during viral infection.
Go to Profile#107
Frank Kirchhoff
#106097
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#108
Ulrike Protzer
#88614
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Ulrike Protzer is a German virologist who has been a professor at the Chair of Virology at the Technical University of Munich since 2007. Her primary field of study is virus-host interactions of the hepatitis B virus and her work is focused on developing new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection and related secondary diseases. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the novel virus SARS-CoV-2 has also been one of her research areas, and she has been a prominent voice in German media on this topic.
Go to Profile#109
Fred Brown
#71945
Overall Influence
1925 - 2004 (79 years)
Fred Brown was a British virologist and molecular biologist. Early life He was born in Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire and lived in neighbouring Burnley, where he was educated at Burnley Grammar School and played cricket for Burnley Cricket Club. He went on to study at Manchester University, where he graduated B.Sc. in chemistry in 1944 and received a Ph.D. in 1946.
Go to Profile#110
James. D. Cherry
#106440
Overall Influence
#111
Heinz Feldmann
#102514
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Heinz Ulrich Feldmann is a German-American virologist who currently serves as the chief of the laboratory of virology at Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID and heads the Disease Modelling and Transmission section. His research focuses on highly pathogenic viruses that require strict biocontainment, including those that cause viral hemorrhagic fever such as Ebola and Lassa. He has been responsible for the development of timely viral countermeasures including the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine , development of vaccines and drugs against SARS-CoV-2, and epidemiology of SARS-CoV.
Go to Profile#112
Kari Juhani Syrjänen
#107211
Overall Influence
#113
Ion Gresser
#107885
Overall Influence
#114
Angela Rasmussen
#25659
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Angela Lynn Rasmussen is an American virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Education and early career During graduate school, Rasmussen worked in the laboratory of Vincent Racaniello where she developed a mouse model of rhinovirus infection in order to better understand the pathogenesis of illnesses caused by the virus, such as the common cold.
Go to Profile#115
Ho Wang Lee
#49905
Overall Influence
1928 - 2022 (94 years)
Ho Wang Lee was a South Korean physician, epidemiologist, and virologist. He was the first person in the history of medicine to be the one chiefly responsible for all 3 of the following steps: discovery of the virus causing a human disease, development of a method of diagnosis for the disease, and development of a vaccine against the disease.
Go to Profile#116
Yechiel Becker
#108176
Overall Influence
#117
John Coffin
#55877
Overall Influence
John Coffin is an American virologist. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, raised in Schenectady, New York, Coffin is a professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at Tufts University in Boston. He is also the former director of the HIV Dynamics and Replication Program of the National Cancer Institute and serves as special advisor to the director of the Center for Cancer Research at NCI. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a recipient of American Cancer Society professorship. He has advised policy committees at the national level regarding retrovirus-related matters. Coff...
Go to Profile#118
Purnell W. Choppin
#108360
Overall Influence
#119
Eva Harris
#34864
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Eva Harris is a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, and the founder and president of the Sustainable Sciences Institute. She focuses her research efforts on combating diseases that primarily afflict people in developing nations.
Go to Profile#120
Xavier Saelens
#56261
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Xavier Saelens is a Belgian scientist and currently his main research interest is finding a universal influenza vaccine. He is a lecturer in Virology and Group Leader of the Molecular Virology Unit at the University of Ghent .
Go to Profile#121
Paul Bieniasz
#95586
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Paul Darren Bieniasz is a British-American virologist whose main area of research is HIV/AIDS. He is currently a professor of retrovirology at the Rockefeller University. He received the 2015 KT Jeang Retrovirology Prize and the 2010 Eli Lilly and Company Research Award. Bieniasz has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2008.
Go to Profile#122
Susana López Charretón
#25098
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Susana López Charretón is a Mexican virologist specialized in understanding the mechanisms of infection of rotavirus. López Charretón has led a research program as principal investigator at the Biotechnology Institute in Cuernavaca, Mexico for over 25 years.
Go to Profile#123
Dharam Ablashi
#76507
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Dharam V. Ablashi was an American biomedical researcher born in Lahore. He is best known for his co-discovery of Human herpesvirus 6 , an immunosuppressive and neurotropic virus that can cause encephalitis and seizures during a primary infection or when reactivated from latency in immunosuppressed patients.
Go to Profile#124
Beatrice H. Hahn
#110342
Overall Influence
#125
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#126
Daniel W. Bradley
#28613
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Daniel W. Bradley is an important American virologist who, along with Michael Houghton, Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo at Chiron Corporation, worked to help isolate the Hepatitis C virus in 1989. He graduated from San José State University in 1964 before going on to receive a master's degree in biochemistry from the University of California and a doctorate from the University of Arizona. He worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention starting in 1971. He received the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award of the American Association of Blood Banks in 1992, the Robert Koch Prize in 1993, a...
Go to Profile#127
Norman l. Letvin
#110554
Overall Influence
#128
Anna Wald
#107435
Overall Influence
Anna Wald is an American epidemiologist and clinical virology researcher. She is the Head of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington School of Medicine . Education Wald attended Wesleyan University for her Bachelor of Arts degree, where she was encouraged by a professor to apply to medical school. Wald agreed and graduated from Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai with her MD degree in 1985. During her doctoral residency, she worked in inner-city hospitals and AIDS clinics. She moved to Seattle in 1989 and was hired by doctors Ann Collier and Lawrence...
Go to Profile#129
Alex J. Van Der Eb
#112241
Overall Influence
#130
Daniel M. Knowles
#112536
Overall Influence
#131
Joseph Stephen Pagano
#112848
Overall Influence
#132
Wolfgang Joklik
#63326
Overall Influence
1926 - 2019 (93 years)
Wolfgang Karl "Bill" Joklik was a virologist and James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at Duke University, from which he retired in 1993 after 25 years chairing the department. In 1981, he founded the American Society for Virology, the first scientific society specifically for virologists, and served a two-year term as its founding president. In the same year, he was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. He has been described as "one of the earliest molecular virologists" and is best known for his research on poxviruses and reoviruses, an...
Go to Profile#133
Kuan‐teh Jeang
#113560
Overall Influence
#134
Judy Lieberman
#74478
Overall Influence
Judy Lieberman is a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and holds an endowed chair in cellular and molecular medicine at Boston Children's Hospital. Early life Judy Lieberman was born in September 1947, in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in New Jersey with her parents and two sisters Phyllis and Donna.
Go to Profile#135
Raymond m. Welsh
#114536
Overall Influence
#136
Ian Gust
#48889
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ian David Gust AO, FRCPA, FRACP, MASM, FT is an Australian medical researcher, virologist, and former science administrator. Gust's area of work is in the development of drugs and vaccines against viral diseases and he is best known for the development of vaccines against the Hepatitis A virus. He currently serves as a non–executive company director and consultant.
Go to Profile#137
Isabella Eckerle
#55530
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Isabella Eckerle is a German virologist who is the co-Head of the Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases at the Geneva University Hospitals and the University of Geneva. Her research considers infectious diseases and the development of cell lines that allow a better understanding of their epidemiology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Eckerle studied the difference in response of adults and children to coronavirus disease.
Go to Profile#138
Clarence J. Peters
#115941
Overall Influence
#139
Peter G. W. Plagemann
#115954
Overall Influence
#140
Curtis A. Suttle
#97241
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Curtis A. Suttle is a Canadian microbiologist and oceanographer who is a faculty member at the University of British Columbia. Suttle is a Distinguished University Professor who holds appointments in Earth & Ocean Sciences, Botany, Microbiology & Immunology and the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. On 29 December, 2021 he was named to the Order of Canada. His research is focused on the ecology of viruses in marine systems as well as other natural environments.
Go to Profile#141
Peter L. Collins
#116154
Overall Influence
#142
Galit Alter
#116130
Overall Influence
Galit Alter is an immunologist and virologist, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and group leader at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard. She is known for her work on the expansion of particular natural killer cell subtypes in response to HIV-1 infection. She has also contributed to the understanding of how SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers correlate with sustained humoral protection, including identifying coordinated immune cell-antibody signatures that may predict COVID-19 infection outcome.
Go to Profile#143
Peter Horby
#81112
Overall Influence
Sir Peter William Horby is a British physician, epidemiologist, Moh Family Foundation Professor of Emerging Infections and Global Health, and Director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford. He is the founder, and former director of the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Hanoi, Vietnam which was founded in 2006. In 2014, Horby established the Epidemic Research Group Oxford . ERGO incorporates a number of international projects such as the European Commission funded PREPARE, the African coaLition for Epidemic Research, Response and Training , and the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium .
Go to Profile#144
Kanta Subbarao
#99409
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Kanta Subbarao is an Indian virologist, molecular geneticist, and physician-scientist. She is director of the World Health Organization collaborating centre for reference and research on influenza. Subbarao is also a professor at the Doherty Institute.
Go to Profile#145
William Blattner
#85196
Overall Influence
William A. Blattner is an American virologist and physician known for his pioneering studies on the epidemiology of human retroviruses. He is a professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he co-founded the Institute of Human Virology with Robert Gallo and Robert R. Redfield in 1996. He subsequently helped found the Institute of Human Virology, Nigeria, which has screened over 1 million Nigerians for HIV/AIDS. He retired from his position as associate director of the IHV and director of its Division of Epidemiology and Prevention on January 31, 2016. He is als...
Go to Profile#146
Patricia G. Spear
#117743
Overall Influence
#147
Larry J. Anderson
#114751
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Larry J. Anderson is an American virologist who served in leadership positions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more than three decades. He was director of the Division of Viral Diseases in the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC , and chief of the Respiratory and Enteric Viruses Branch of the CDC Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases . From 2003 to 2006, Anderson led the CDC’s Post-Outbreak SARS Program, and he served as a special advisor on smallpox in the Office of the Associate Director for Terrorism, Preparedness, and Response.
Go to Profile#148
Edward S. Mocarski
#119135
Overall Influence
#149
Jeffery Taubenberger
#44682
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Jeffery K. Taubenberger is an American virologist. With Ann Reid, he was the first to sequence the genome of the influenza virus which caused the 1918 pandemic of Spanish flu. He is Chief of the Viral Pathogenesis and Evolution Section, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. Taubenberger's laboratory studies a number of viruses, including influenza A viruses , which are the pathogens that cause yearly flu epidemics and have caused periodic pandemics, such as the 1968 outbreak that killed an estimated one million people.
Go to Profile#150
Lutz Prof. Dr. Gissmann
#120233
Overall Influence
