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 …
List of the most influential people
Mohamed Omar is a mathematician interested in combinatorics, and algebra. Omar is currently an Associate Professor of Mathematics and the Joseph B. Platt Chair in Effective Teaching at Harvey Mudd College.
Go to Profile#52
Rachel Levy
1968 - Present (56 years)
Rachel Levy is an American mathematician and blogger. She currently serves as the inaugural Executive Director of the North Carolina State University Data Science Academy. She was a 2020-21 AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, serving in the United States Senate and sponsored by the American Mathematical Society. From 2018-2020 she served as deputy executive director of the Mathematical Association of America. As a faculty member at Harvey Mudd College from 2007-2019 her research was in applied mathematics, including the mathematical modeling of thin films, and the applications of fluid mechanics to biology.
Go to ProfileMelissa Erin Chase is an American cryptographer known for her research on attribute-based encryption, digital credentials, and information privacy. She works at Microsoft Research. Education Chase graduated in 2003 from Harvey Mudd College, with a senior thesis in mathematics about the shortest path problem, advised by Ran Libeskind-Hadas. She earned a Ph.D. from Brown University with Anna Lysyanskaya as her doctoral advisor.
Go to ProfileMichael J. Sailor is a nanotechnology researcher and professor at the University of California, San Diego. Sailor is best known for his research on porous silicon, a nanostructured material that is prepared by electrochemical corrosion of crystalline silicon wafers.
Go to ProfileVivien Zapf is an American research scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory pulsed field facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Biography Zapf received her bachelor's degree in physics with computer science from Harvey Mudd College in 1997 and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, San Diego in 2003. Zapf studies Multiferrics and Quantum Magnetism. She served as a Millikan post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology from 2004-2005 and as a Director's fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 2005-2006.
Go to ProfileShelly Lynn Miller is an American mechanical engineer who is a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research investigates indoor air quality and urban air pollution. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miller studied the spread of COVID-19 and how to minimize the spread of coronavirus.
Go to Profile#59
Eric B. Kim
1954 - Present (70 years)
Eric B. Kim is a Korean American businessman in the technology field. Life Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1954. At the age of 11, his family moved to Los Angeles, in the United States. He majored in physics at Harvey Mudd College, and went on to earn a master's in engineering at UCLA and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.
Go to Profile#60
Joseph Costello
1953 - Present (71 years)
Joseph Ball Costello is an American executive in the electronic design automation industry. He was president and COO of SDA Systems from 1987–1988 and CEO of Cadence Design Systems, which became the largest EDA company under his tenure, from 1988–1997.
Go to Profile#61
Henry E. Riggs
1935 - 2015 (80 years)
Henry E. Riggs was an early Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a professor of engineering and vice president at Stanford University, president of Harvey Mudd College, and founding president of Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences at the Claremont Colleges. His areas of specialization included financial analysis and control, management technology, technical strategy, and new venture management. Riggs was a popular professor who taught for over 45 years and published multiple books. He started the large-scale academic fund-raising efforts that are now widely used by major institutions, ...
Go to Profile#62
Rachel Mayeri
1969 - Present (55 years)
Racheli Mayeri is an American contemporary artist. Life Mayeri was born in 1969 in Berkeley, California. Mayeri received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of California, San Diego. She lives in Los Angeles where she is a full professor of Media Studies at Harvey Mudd College.
Go to Profile