BIOLOGISTS from Türkiye

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Turkish Biologists of all time. This list of famous Turkish Biologists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography's online popularity.

1. Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783 - 1840)

With an HPI of 62.65, Constantine Samuel Rafinesque is the most famous Turkish Biologist.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages on wikipedia.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (French pronunciation: [kɔ̃stɑ̃tin(ə) samɥɛl ʁafinɛsk(ə)ʃmalts]) (October 22, 1783 – September 18, 1840) was a French polymath of the early 19th century. Born near Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, he was self-educated in France. As a young man, Rafinesque-Schmaltz traveled to the United States, eventually settling in Ohio in 1815. There, he made significant contributions to botany, zoology, and the study of prehistoric earthworks in North America. Beyond his previous extensive work in Europe, he also contributed to the study of ancient Mesoamerican linguistics. Rafinesque was an eccentric and erratic genius. He was an autodidact, who excelled in various fields of knowledge, as a zoologist, botanist, writer and polyglot. He wrote prolifically on such diverse topics as anthropology, biology, geology, and linguistics, but was honored in none of these fields during his lifetime. An outcast in the American scientific community, his submissions were automatically rejected by leading journals. Among his theories were that ancestors of Native Americans had migrated by the Bering Sea from Asia to North America, and that the Americas were populated by black indigenous peoples at the time of European contact. The standard author abbreviation Raf. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

2. Sabiha Kasimati (1912 - 1951)

With an HPI of 58.29, Sabiha Kasimati is the 2nd most famous Turkish Biologist.  Her biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Sabiha Kasimati (15 September 1912 – 26 February 1951) was an Albanian professor of biology and ichthyologist, cited as one of the first women scientists in Albania. She was arrested by the communist regime on 20 February 1951, after the bombing of the Soviet embassy, and a few days later was executed without trial along with 21 other intellectuals.

3. Asuman Baytop (1920 - 2015)

With an HPI of 50.84, Asuman Baytop is the 3rd most famous Turkish Biologist.  Her biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Asuman Baytop (27 March 1920 – 18 February 2015) was a Turkish botanist, plant collector, pharmacologist, and educator known for her research regarding the medicinal properties of the flora of Turkey. In 1964, she founded the Department of Pharmaceutical Botany at Istanbul University, and established the department's herbarium, to which she contributed more than 23,000 specimens. She is also noted for describing several species of crocus, and the species Allium baytopiorum and Colchicum baytopiorum are named in her honour. She was married to fellow botanist Turhan Baytop.