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
#29251
Arthur P. Bochner
#29262
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Arthur P. Bochner is an American communication scholar known for his research and teaching on intimate relationships, qualitative inquiry, narrative, and autoethnography. He holds the rank of Distinguished University Professor at the University of South Florida. Bochner is the former President of the National Communication Association and former Vice-President of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Among his publications are two books, two edited collections, and more than 100 book articles, chapters, and essays on communication theory, family and interpersonal communication, ...
Go to Profile#29252
Kevin K. Washburn
#29263
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Kevin K. Washburn is an American law professor, former dean of the University of New Mexico School of Law, and current Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law. He served in the administration of President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior from 2012 to 2016. Washburn has also been a federal prosecutor, a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, and the General Counsel of the National Indian Gaming Commission. Washburn is a member of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, a federally-recognized Native American tribe.
Go to Profile#29253
Mahmoud Torabinejad
#29264
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Mahmoud Torabinejad is an Iranian Professor of endodontics and the Director of the Advanced Specialty Education Program in Endodontics at Loma Linda University School of Dentistry in Loma Linda, California.
Go to Profile#29254
George A. Bekey
#29265
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
George A. Bekey is an American roboticist and the Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. Bekey was born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1928 before immigrating at the beginning of WW2 to Bolivia before moving to the United States five years later at the age of 17 in 1945.
Go to Profile#29255
David Bawden
#29266
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
David Allen Bawden , who took the name Pope Michael, was an American conclavist claimant to the papacy. Bawden believed that the Catholic Church had apostatized from the Catholic faith since Vatican II, and that there had been no legitimate popes elected since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. In 1990 he was elected pope by a group of six laypeople, including himself and his parents. In 2011, he was ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop by an Independent Catholic bishop.
Go to Profile#29256
David Smith
#29267
Overall Influence
1933 - 2022 (89 years)
Sir David Iser Smith was an Australian public servant. He was the Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia between 1973 and 1990, in which capacity he served Sir Paul Hasluck, Sir John Kerr, Sir Zelman Cowen, Sir Ninian Stephen and Bill Hayden.
Go to Profile#29257
Jürgen Gmehling
#29268
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Jürgen Gmehling is a retired German professor of technical and industrial chemistry at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Biography His career started with an apprenticeship as a laboratory assistant at the Duisburg copper works before he studied chemical engineering at the engineering school in Essen and then chemistry in Dortmund and Clausthal. He received his diploma from the University of Dortmund in 1970 and his PhD in 1973. After this he worked as a scientific coworker in Dortmund before he became a private lecturer and, after his habilitation, an assistant professor.
Go to Profile#29258
Hilda Kuper
#29269
Overall Influence
1911 - 1992 (81 years)
Hilda Beemer Kuper was a social anthropologist most notable for her extensive work on Swazi culture. She started studying the Swazi culture and associating with the Swaziland's royal family after she was awarded with a grant by the International African Institute of London. She studied and illustrated Swazi traditions embodied in the political vision of King Sobhuza II, who later became a close friend. King Sobhuza II personally awarded Kuper with Swazi citizenship in 1970.
Go to Profile#29259
Zhou Ji
#29270
Overall Influence
Zhou Ji is the "Changjiang Scholar" distinguished Professor, at the School of Materials Science & Engineering, of Tsinghua University, China He received a B.S. from Jilin University, Changchun in 1983, a M.S. from Changchun Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science in 1986, and a Ph.D. from Peking University, Beijing in 1991. He was then a Post-doctoral Research Fellow, at Tsinghua University, Beijing from 1991-1993, and then Research Associate, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology 1993-1995 followed by a year as Material Scientist, AEM, Inc., USA. He was appointed Associate P...
Go to Profile#29260
Sundaraja Sitharama Iyengar
#29271
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Sundaraja Sitharama Iyengar is an Indian-born American computer scientist and the Distinguished University Professor, Ryder Professor and Director of Computer Science at Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA. He also founded and directs the Robotics Research Laboratory at Louisiana State University . He has been a visiting professor or scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, and has been awarded the Satish Dhawan Visiting Chaired Professorship at the Indian Institute of Science, the Homi Bhaba Visiting Chaired Professor...
Go to Profile#29261
H. J. Woodall
#29272
Overall Influence
Herbert J. Woodall was a British mathematician. In 1925 Lt.-Col. Allan J.C. Cunningham and Woodall gathered together all that was known about the primality and factorization of such numbers and published a small book of tables. "These tables collected from scattered sources the known prime factors for the bases 2 and 10 and also presented the authors' results of thirty years' work with these and the other bases."
Go to Profile#29262
Jacques Berlinerblau
#29273
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Jacques Berlinerblau is a professor of Jewish Civilization at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has doctorates in Ancient Near Eastern languages and literature and theoretical sociology . He has published ten books on a wide variety of scholarly subjects with special attention to secularism, secular aesthetics, Jewish-American literature , African-American and Jewish-American relations and biblical literature. Berlinerblau has also written about professors and their discontents in Campus Confidential: How College Works, Or Doesn't, For Professors, Stud...
Go to Profile#29263
José Ramos-Horta
#29274
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
José Manuel Ramos-Horta GCL GColIH is an East Timorese politician currently serving as president of East Timor since 2022. He previously served as president from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2006 and Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007. He is a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, for working "towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor".
Go to Profile#29264
Andrew Collier
#29275
Overall Influence
1944 - 2014 (70 years)
Andrew Collier was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He is known for his work on objectivity in the social sciences. Biography Born in 1944 in Enfield, London, Collier studied at Bedford College, London and completed his M.Phil. on Sartre at the University College London in 1971. He taught philosophy at the University of Warwick, University of Sussex, and the Bangor University, before taking up a post at the University of Southampton in 1988.
Go to Profile#29265
Taiaiake Alfred
#29276
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Gerald Taiaiake Alfred is an author, educator, and activist, born in Montreal, Quebec in 1964 and raised in the community of Kahnawake. Alfred is an internationally recognized Kanien’kehá:ka professor. Alfred grew up in Kahnawake and received a B.A. in History from Concordia University, an M.A. and Ph.D. from Cornell University. He served in the US Marine Corps in the 1980s. Alfred was the founding director of the University of Victoria’s Indigenous Governance Program (serving from 1999 until 2015) and was awarded a Canada Research Chair 2003–2007, in addition to a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in education.
Go to Profile#29266
Tom Flanagan
#29277
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Thomas Eugene Flanagan is an American-born Canadian author, conservative political activist, and former political science professor at the University of Calgary. He also served as an advisor to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper until 2004.
Go to Profile#29267
Marian Kamil Dziewanowski
#29278
Overall Influence
1913 - 2005 (92 years)
Marian Kamil Dziewanowski was a historian of Poland, Russia and modern Europe. Life Born in Zhytomir, Russian Empire , Dziewanowski was the son of Kamil and Zofia Dziewanowski. He grew up and studied in interwar Poland at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1937–39 he was a foreign correspondent in Berlin, covering the Anschluss with Austria, the Munich Conference, and the German occupation of the Sudetenland.
Go to Profile#29268
Wilfred Reilly
#29279
Overall Influence
Wilfred Reilly is an American political scientist. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Kentucky State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Southern Illinois University and a J.D. degree from the University of Illinois College of Law. Reilly's research focuses on empirical testing of political claims.
Go to Profile#29269
Thomas G. Dietterich
#29280
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Thomas G. Dietterich is emeritus professor of computer science at Oregon State University. He is one of the pioneers of the field of machine learning. He served as executive editor of Machine Learning and helped co-found the Journal of Machine Learning Research. In response to the media's attention on the dangers of artificial intelligence, Dietterich has been quoted for an academic perspective to a broad range of media outlets including National Public Radio, Business Insider, Microsoft Research, CNET, and The Wall Street Journal.
Go to Profile#29270
Denny Borsboom
#29281
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Denny Borsboom is a Dutch psychologist and psychometrician. He has been a professor of psychology at the University of Amsterdam since 2013. His work has included applying network theory to the study of mental disorders and their symptoms. In 2018 he presented the Paul B. Baltes Lecture at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
Go to Profile#29271
Hal Holbrook
#29282
Overall Influence
1925 - 2021 (96 years)
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. was an American actor. He first received critical acclaim in 1954 for a one-man stage show that he developed called Mark Twain Tonight! while studying at Denison University. He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1966 for his portrayal of Twain. He continued to perform his signature role for over 60 years, only retiring the show in 2017 due to his failing health. Throughout his career, he also won five Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on television and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in film.
Go to Profile#29272
Richard Wilson
#29283
Overall Influence
1926 - 2018 (92 years)
Richard Wilson was a British-American physicist. His original fields were nuclear and elementary particle physics but branched out into applications of physics in other disciplines. Most of his career he has been a physics professor at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#29273
Simone Biles
#29284
Overall Influence
1997 - Present (29 years)
Simone Arianne Biles Owens is an American artistic gymnast. She is the most decorated gymnast in history, and she is widely considered the greatest of all time. Her seven Olympic gymnastics medals are ninth-most of all time and tied with Shannon Miller for the most by a U.S. gymnast. She has won more Gymnastics World Championships medals than anyone else: 30, primarily gold.
Go to Profile#29274
Peter Brock
#29285
Overall Influence
1945 - 2006 (61 years)
Peter Geoffrey Brock , known as "Peter Perfect", "The King of the Mountain", or simply "Brocky", was an Australian motor racing driver. Brock was most often associated with Holden for almost 40 years, although he raced vehicles of other manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Volvo, Porsche and Peugeot. He won the Bathurst 1000 endurance race nine times, the Sandown 500 touring car race nine times, the Australian Touring Car Championship three times, the Bathurst 24 Hour once and was inducted into the V8 Supercars Hall of Fame in 2001. Brock's business activities included the Holden Dealer Team t...
Go to Profile#29275
Bruce Lahn
#29286
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Bruce Lahn is a Chinese-born American geneticist. Lahn came to the U.S. from China to continue his education in the late 1980s. He is the William B. Graham professor of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. He is also the founder of the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Tissue Engineering at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. Lahn currently serves as the chief scientist of VectorBuilder, Inc.
Go to Profile#29276
Jens Meierhenrich
#29287
Overall Influence
Jens Meierhenrich is a scholar of international relations at London School of Economics who directs the university's Centre for International Studies. Works
Go to Profile#29277
John Lott
#29288
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
John Richard Lott Jr. is an American economist, political commentator, and gun rights advocate. Lott was formerly employed at various academic institutions and at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank. He is the former president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, a nonprofit he founded in 2013. He worked in the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice under the Donald Trump administration from October 2020 to January 2021. Lott holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.
Go to Profile#29278
John Galbraith Graham
#29289
Overall Influence
1921 - 2013 (92 years)
The Reverend John Galbraith Graham MBE was a British crossword compiler, best known as Araucaria of The Guardian. He was also, like his father Eric Graham, a Church of England priest. Career Graham was born in Oxford, where his father, Eric Graham, held the post of dean of Oriel College. The family moved to a country rectory in Wiltshire. After attending St Edward's School, Oxford, he obtained a place to read classics at King's College, Cambridge, leaving to join the RAF when the Second World War began. After the war he returned to King's to read theology. In 1949 he joined the staff of St Chad's College, Durham as Chaplain and Tutor where he worked until 1952.
Go to Profile#29279
Brady J. Deaton
#29290
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Brady J. Deaton, is an American educator and the former chancellor of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. Early life and education Deaton was born on August 25, 1942. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Kentucky in 1966 and a Master's Degree in Diplomacy and International Commerce from the same institution in 1968. From there, he moved to the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a second master's degree in 1970 and, two years later, a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics. Deaton was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nan, Thailand from 1962-1964.
Go to Profile#29280
Bertha Becker
#29291
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Bertha Koiffmann Becker was a Brazilian geographer, author and professor emeritus at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She published more than 180 books, articles, and other works during her career. Much of her research dealt with issues affecting the Amazon rainforest and surrounding regions, as well as the political geography of Brazil. She helped develop new public policies for the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology. She spoke as a panelist at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 in 2012.
Go to Profile#29281
Patrick Parrinder
#29292
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Patrick Parrinder is an academic, formerly professor of English at the University of Reading who retired in 2008. Parringer was educated at Leighton Park School and King's College, Cambridge. He has written books of literary criticism on James Joyce and H. G. Wells, and was associate editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, focusing on literary authors in the period 1890–1920. He also edited texts of H. G. Wells published by Penguin Classics.
Go to Profile#29282
Paul Merson
#29293
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Paul Charles Merson is an English former professional footballer, manager, commentator and sports television pundit for Sky Sports. Originally a forward, Merson found success as an attacking midfielder and playmaker later in his career. After making his debut for Arsenal in the 1986–87 season, Merson went on to play eleven seasons with the North London club. While with the Gunners, Merson was a key player in the club's success under Scottish manager George Graham, winning the Football League Championship twice, the FA Cup, the Football League Cup, and the European Cup Winners' Cup. In 1997, h...
Go to Profile#29283
Babak Azizzadeh
#29294
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Babak Azizzadeh, MD, FACS is the founder and president of the FPBPF , a non-profit organization committed to the treatment of individuals with facial nerve paralysis and Bell's palsy. Dr. Azizzadeh is co-director of the facial plastic and reconstructive surgery fellowship at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and co-chairman of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Annual Advances in Multispecialty Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Symposium. Besides his role in FPBPF, Dr. Azizzadeh is involved with several other non-profit / charity organizations such as the Global Smile Foundation, Operation of Hope, Face to Face and the R.O.S.E Fund.
Go to Profile#29284
Noah Carl
#29295
Overall Influence
Noah Carl is a British sociologist and intelligence researcher. He was investigated and subsequently dismissed from his position as a Toby Jackman Newton Trust Research Fellow at St Edmund's College, Cambridge after over 500 academics signed a letter repudiating his research and public stance on race and intelligence, calling it "ethically suspect and methodologically flawed", and stating their concern that "racist pseudoscience is being legitimised through association with the University of Cambridge." An investigation by the college concluded that Carl's work was "poor scholarship" which violated standards of academic integrity, and that Carl had collaborated with right-wing extremists.
Go to Profile#29285
Yury Luzhkov
#29296
Overall Influence
1936 - 2019 (83 years)
Yury Mikhailovich Luzhkov was a Russian politician who served as mayor of Moscow from 1992 to 2010. Before the election of Gavriil Popov as the first mayor of Moscow, he also headed the capital in 1990-1991 as chairman of the Mosgorispolkom. He was the vice-chairman and one of the founders of the ruling United Russia party. During Luzhkov's time, Moscow's economy expanded and he presided over large construction projects in the city, including the building of a new financial district. At the same time, he was accused of corruption, bulldozing historic buildings, and poor handling of traffic, as well as the city's smog crisis during the 2010 Russian wildfires.
Go to Profile#29286
William R. Sears
#29297
Overall Influence
1913 - 2002 (89 years)
William Rees Sears was an aeronautical engineer and educator who worked at Caltech, Northrop Aircraft, Cornell University , and the University of Arizona. He was an editor of the Journal of the Aeronautical Sciences from 1955 to 1963 and the founding Editor of the Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics in 1969.
Go to Profile#29287
Timur Eneev
#29298
Overall Influence
1924 - 2019 (95 years)
Timur Magomedovich Eneev was a Russian mathematician specializing in mechanics and control processes. A minor planet Eneev discovered in 1978 is named after him. He was the editor-in-chief of the journal Cosmic Research. He was a member of the Balkar ethnic group.
Go to Profile#29288
Philipp Lahm
#29299
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Philipp Lahm is a German former professional footballer who played as a full-back. Considered by many to be one of the greatest full-backs of all time, Lahm was the longtime captain of Bayern Munich, having led them to numerous honours including the 2013 UEFA Champions League as part of the Treble. He is also a former captain of his national team, which he led to win the 2014 FIFA World Cup, before retiring from international football.
Go to Profile#29289
Avanidhar Subrahmanyam
#29300
Overall Influence
Avanidhar Subrahmanyam is a professor and named chair at the University of California Los Angeles. He is an expert in stock market activity and behavioral finance, and has published a number of papers on financial markets.
Go to Profile#29290
Alan White
#29301
Overall Influence
1949 - 2022 (73 years)
Alan White was an English drummer, best known for his almost 50-year tenure in the progressive rock band Yes. He joined Yes in 1972 as a replacement for original drummer Bill Bruford. He was the longest-serving member of the band and the only member besides original bassist Chris Squire never to leave.
Go to Profile#29291
Jeremy Travis
#29302
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Jeremy Travis is an American academic administrator who served as the fourth president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a senior college of the City University of New York, starting on August 16, 2004. On October 25, 2016, Travis announced that he would step down from his position as president the next year. In August 2017, he joined the Arnold Ventures LLC as Senior Vice President of Criminal Justice.
Go to Profile#29292
Christopher Evans
#29303
Overall Influence
1909 - 2012 (103 years)
Christopher Francis Evans was an English Anglican priest and theologian who became known as an authority on the New Testament. He also served as lecturer in theology at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford from 1948 to 1958 and was later made an Emeritus Fellow.
Go to Profile#29293
Reggie Wayne
#29304
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Reginald Wayne is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League . He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes, and was selected by the Colts in the first round of the 2001 NFL Draft with the 30th overall pick. A six-time Pro Bowl selection, Wayne was a member of the Colts' Super Bowl XLI. He ranks second in Colts' franchise history to Marvin Harrison in major receiving categories: receptions, receiving yards, targets, and receiving touchdowns. On December 14, 2014, Wayne played in both...
Go to Profile#29294
Anita Woolfolk Hoy
#29305
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Anita Woolfolk Hoy is an American psychologist who specializes in child education. Hoy was a professor in the college of educational psychology at Ohio State University from 1994 until her retirement in 2012. She is a professor emerita. She has been active in many areas of research and several other scientific works, in which she focuses on students perceptions of teachers, teacher's beliefs, students motivations and the effects of educational psychology when being applied In the classroom. Her text, Educational Psychology, which is in its 13th edition, was recognized as one of the most widel...
Go to Profile#29295
Roland Kuhn
#29306
Overall Influence
1912 - 2005 (93 years)
Roland Kuhn was a Swiss psychiatrist who discovered that the drug imipramine had antidepressant properties. he was born in Biel and died in Scherzingen. In 1957, Kuhn published the results of his observations of the antidepressant properties of Imipramine in the Schweizerische Medizinische Wochenschrift . More recently, it was discovered that he tested drugs on patients and children without informed consent and without proper approval by the authorities during his time at the psychiatric hospital in Münsterlingen , a practice that is highly unethical.
Go to Profile#29296
Joseph Cirincione
#29307
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Joseph Cirincione Career Cirincione was appointed president of Ploughshares Fund on March 5, 2008. He retired from the position on July 1, 2020. He joined the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft as a non-resident fellow in September 2020, and is an adjunct faculty member at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. He resigned from the Quincy Institute in August 2022 in protest of its dovish response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, which he described as "a completely unjustified, unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state".
Go to Profile#29297
Gerrit Berkhoff
#29308
Overall Influence
1901 - 1996 (95 years)
Gerrit Berkhoff was a Dutch chemist and the first rector magnificus of the University of Twente in The Netherlands. Education The son of primary school principal Gerrit Berkhoff and Martha Severs , Berkhoff studied chemistry at Leiden University where he obtained, in 1929, a doctor's degree with his PhD dissertation "Osmose van ternaire vloeistoffen" . As a student, he worked for four years as a laboratory assistant for inorganic chemistry.
Go to Profile#29298
Farshid Guilak
#29309
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Farshid Guilak is an American engineer and orthopedic researcher. He is the Mildred B. Simon Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University in St. Louis and director of research at Shriners Hospitals for Children. He is also on the faculty of the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and Developmental Biology at Washington University.
Go to Profile#29299
Hidé Ishiguro
#29310
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Hidé Ishiguro is a Japanese analytic philosopher and emeritus professor at Keio University, Tokyo. She is considered an expert on the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz on whom she has published many papers. She is also a Wittgenstein scholar.
Go to Profile#29300
W. Maxwell Cowan
#29311
Overall Influence
1931 - 2002 (71 years)
William Maxwell Cowan was a South African neuroscientist known for his work on developmental plasticity and neural connectivity. He is credited with helping to contribute to the growth of modern neuroanatomy through his use of novel anterograde tracing techniques which fundamentally transformed the field in the 1970s. From 1978–2002 Cowan was the founding editor of the Annual Review of Neuroscience. Cowan was vice-president and chief scientific officer of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1987 until his retirement in 2000.
Go to Profile