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 female people in Computer Science,
#751
Elette Boyle
#77453
Overall Influence
Elette Boyle is an American and Israeli computer scientist and cryptographer, known for her research on secret sharing, digital signatures, and obfuscation. She is a professor of computer science at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, where she directs the Center for Foundations and Applications of Cryptographic Theory.
Go to Profile#752
Jessica Stockholder
#36440
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Jessica Stockholder is a Canadian-American artist known for site-specific installation works and sculptures that are often described as "paintings in space." She came to prominence in the early 1990s with monumental works that challenged boundaries between artwork and display environment as well as between pictorial and physical experience. Her art often presents a "barrage" of bold colors, textures and everyday objects, incorporating floors, walls and ceilings and sometimes spilling out of exhibition sites. Critics suggest that her work is informed by diverse artistic traditions, including abstract expressionism, color field painting, minimalism and Pop art.
Go to Profile#753
Sandhya Dwarkadas
#114719
Overall Influence
Sandhya Dwarkadas is a professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia. She was formerly the Albert Arendt Hopeman Professor of Engineering and Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Rochester. She is known for her research on shared memory and reconfigurable computing.
Go to Profile#754
Amber Settle
#104818
Overall Influence
Amber Settle is an American computer scientist and professor of education and theory in the department of Computer Science at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. She is known for her work in computer science education and her continuing service and leadership in Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education . She is also known for her work on computational thinking.
Go to Profile#755
Elena Tremoli
#129576
Overall Influence
#756
Katherine Esposito
#129628
Overall Influence
#757
Tatyana Sharpee
#92314
Overall Influence
Tatyana Sharpee is an American neuroscientist. She is a Professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where she spearheads a research group at the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, with the support from Edwin Hunter Chair in Neurobiology. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Physics at University of California, San Diego. She was elected a fellow of American Physical Society in 2019.
Go to Profile#758
Kjersti Engan
#37962
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Kjersti Engan is a Norwegian researcher in signal and image processing who works as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Stavanger. Engan was born in 1971 in Bergen. She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1994 from Bergen University College. She then moved to the University of Stavanger for graduate study, completing her doctorate in 2000. At Stavanger, she was promoted to full professor in 2008.
Go to Profile#759
Chris Stevenson
#37268
Overall Influence
1901 - 2014 (113 years)
Chris Stevenson was an author and professor of mental health nursing at Dublin City University, where she was also head of the School of Nursing. She was appointed in 2005, having begun her career as a psychiatric nurse.
Go to Profile#760
Ayellet Tal
#109255
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Ayellet Tal is an Israeli researcher in computational geometry and computer graphics who holds the Alfred and Marion Bar Chair in Engineering at the Technion. Research Tal's research interests include computational geometry, computer graphics, geometric modeling, and geometry processing. She has also studied the applications of computer vision to archaeology.
Go to Profile#761
Paola Flocchini
#129244
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Paola Flocchini is a Canadian computer scientist known for her research in distributed computing, pattern formation, self-organizing systems, swarm behavior, and cellular automata. She is University Research Chair on Intruder Agents and the Decontamination of Communication Networks at the University of Ottawa.
Go to Profile#762
Brigitte Jaumard
#122583
Overall Influence
Brigitte Jaumard is a computer scientist and expert on mathematical programming. She earned a doctorate in 2006 from ENSTA ParisTech under the supervision of Michel Minoux, after previously teaching at Polytechnique Montréal. She is a professor of computer science and software engineering at Concordia University, where she is the holder of an Honorary Concordia Research Chair in Optimization of Communication Networks.
Go to Profile#763
Andrea Russell
#53673
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Andrea Russell is an American chemist who is a professor at the University of Southampton. She is vice president of the International Society of Electrochemistry. Her research considers the use of spectroscopy to better understand the interface between electrodes and electrolytes.
Go to Profile#764
Hulda Swai
#58202
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Hulda Shaidi Swai, , is a Tanzanian researcher and professor in life sciences and bioengineering. She is a pioneer in nanomedicine research in the development of drugs against infectious diseases in Africa. Her work focuses in particular on the use of nanotechnology in antimalarial drugs.
Go to Profile#765
Allison Koenecke
#107598
Overall Influence
Allison Koenecke is an American computer scientist and an assistant professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. Her research considers computational social science and algorithmic fairness. In 2022, Koenecke was named one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science.
Go to Profile#766
Anna Vittoria Mattioli
#130995
Overall Influence
#767
Polina Golland
#112649
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Polina Golland is an Israeli-American computer scientist specializing in medical image computing and biomedical image analysis. She is Henry Ellis Warren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , and heads the medical vision group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Go to Profile#768
Shanika Karunasekera
#97184
Overall Influence
Shanika Karunasekera is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. Dr. Karunasekera completed her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Cambridge, UK in 1995. Earlier she completed her B.Sc. in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
Go to Profile#769
Amalia Gastaldelli
#131810
Overall Influence
#770
Petra Marschner
#131884
Overall Influence
#771
Sylvie Thiébaux
#78507
Overall Influence
Sylvie Thiébaux is a French-Australian computer scientist, whose research in artificial intelligence focuses on automated planning and scheduling, diagnosis, and automated reasoning under uncertainty. She is a professor of computer science at the Australian National University, and co-editor-in-chief of the journal Artificial Intelligence.
Go to Profile#772
Anne L. Peters
#43543
Overall Influence
Anne Peters is a endocrinologist, diabetes expert, and professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. She runs diabetes centers in well-served Beverly Hills and under-resourced East Los Angeles. She teaches physicians and people with diabetes around the world how to better treat the condition, through lifestyle, medications and technology.
Go to Profile#773
Claudia Bolognesi
#131985
Overall Influence
#774
Maria Benedetta Donati
#132293
Overall Influence
#775
Johanna Pirker
#111131
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (36 years)
Johanna Pirker is an Austrian computer scientist, educator, and game designer at Graz University of Technology and professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with a focus on games research, virtual reality and data science. Pirker was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 Europe list in the category Science & Healthcare for her efforts in improving digital education with virtual reality environments and games. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Her dissertation was supervised by the Austrian e-learning expert Christian Gütl and MIT professor of physics John Winston Belcher. She is involved in various efforts to educate about the potential of video games.
Go to Profile#776
Hung Liu
#39031
Overall Influence
1948 - 2021 (73 years)
Hung Liu was a Chinese-born American contemporary artist. She was predominantly a painter, but also worked with mixed-media and site-specific installation and was also one of the first artists from China to establish a career in the United States.
Go to Profile#777
Gabriele Varani
#132474
Overall Influence
#778
Guoying Zhao
#132679
Overall Influence
#779
Emanuela Mazzon
#132708
Overall Influence
#780
Mary Wootters
#91249
Overall Influence
Mary Katherine Wootters is an American coding theorist, information theorist, and theoretical computer scientist. She is an assistant professor of computer science and electrical engineering and a member of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#781
Edna Shavit
#31972
Overall Influence
1935 - 2015 (80 years)
Edna Shavit was an Israeli professor affiliated with the theater department of Tel Aviv University. She was married to Yoram Gal between 1994 and 2003. In the 1960s, Shavit played Lucky in a local production of Waiting for Godot and went on to direct the play in the 1970s Shavit was the director of You and Me and the Next War, a satirical cabaret by Hanoch Levin with songs set to music by Alex Kagan and Beni Nagari.
Go to Profile#782
Leslie Weston
#33051
Overall Influence
Leslie A. Weston FAA, is a plant biologist, who was awarded a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2023, for her work on weed suppressing ground covers and pest management. She is a professor at Charles Sturt University, at Wagga Wagga, and researches botany, agronomy, weed control and horticulture.
Go to Profile#783
Kate Devlin
#108653
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Kate Devlin, born Adela Katharine Devlin is a Northern Irish computer scientist specialising in Artificial intelligence and Human–computer interaction . She is best known for her work on human sexuality and robotics and was co-chair of the annual Love and Sex With Robots convention in 2016 held in London and was founder of the UK's first ever sex tech hackathon held in 2016 at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London and is the author of Turned On: Science, Sex and Robo...
Go to Profile#784
Candace Sidner
#129637
Overall Influence
Candace Lee Sidner is an American computer scientist whose research has applied artificial intelligence and natural language processing to problems in personal information management, intelligent user interfaces, and human–robot interaction. She is a research professor of computer science at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and a former president of the Association for Computational Linguistics.
Go to Profile#785
Sue Leurgans
#85162
Overall Influence
Sue Ellen Leurgans is a biostatistician known for her work on disorders of human movement, including those caused by occupational injury and Parkinson's disease. She is a professor of neurological sciences at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
Go to Profile#786
Ana Paiva
#131052
Overall Influence
Ana Maria Severino de Almeida e Paiva is a full professor at the University of Lisbon. Her work is around artificial intelligence and robotics. She is an elected fellow of the European Association for Artificial Intelligence.
Go to Profile#787
Margitta Worm
#133787
Overall Influence
#788
Alison Holmes
#81764
Overall Influence
Alison Helen Holmes is a British infectious diseases specialist, who is a professor at Imperial College London and the University of Liverpool. Holmes serves as Director of the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance and Consultant at Hammersmith Hospital. Holmes is on the Executive Committee of the International Society of Infectious Diseases, and she serves on a variety of World Health Organization expert groups related to antimicrobial use, Antimicrobial Resistance , infection prevention and sepsis.
Go to Profile#789
María Luisa Bonet
#109017
Overall Influence
María Luisa Bonet Carbonell is a Spanish computer scientist interested in logic in computer science, including proof complexity and algorithms for the maximum satisfiability problem. She is a professor of computer science at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.
Go to Profile#790
Christine Bell
#37827
Overall Influence
Christine Bell, FBA, FRSE, is a legal scholar, specialising in human rights law. As of 2018, she is Professor of Constitutional Law and Assistant Principal at the University of Edinburgh. Life Bell graduated from Selwyn College, Cambridge, with her undergraduate law degree in 1988, before completing a master of laws degree at Harvard University in 1990. She qualified as a Barrister in that year and, after passing the New York bar examination, she worked at Debevoise & Plimpton. She was then Director of the Centre for International and Comparative Human Rights Law at Queen's University Belfast...
Go to Profile#791
Kim D. Pruitt
#96806
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Kim Dixon Pruitt is an American bioinformatician. She is chief of the information engineering branch at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Pruitt led the development of the RefSeq gene database.
Go to Profile#792
Bhramar Mukherjee
#105274
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Bhramar Mukherjee is an Indian-American biostatistician, data scientist, professor and researcher. She is the John D. Kalbfleisch Distinguished University Professor, John D. Kalbfleisch Collegiate Professor and the Chair of Department of Biostatistics, a professor of epidemiology and global public health at the University of Michigan. She serves as the associate director for Quantitative Data Sciences at University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center. Mukherjee holds a Senior Honorary Visiting Fellow position at the Biostatistics Unit of the Medical Research Council, working on the theme of population health at the University of Cambridge, UK.
Go to Profile#793
Agnès Varda
#17812
Overall Influence
1928 - 2019 (91 years)
Agnès Varda was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter, photographer, and artist. Her pioneering work was central to the development of the widely influential French New Wave film movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Her films focused on achieving documentary realism, addressing women's issues, and other social commentary, with a distinctive experimental style.
Go to Profile#794
Helen Purchase
#135069
Overall Influence
Helen C. Purchase is a researcher in information visualization, graph drawing, and human–computer interaction. She has held academic appointments at The University of Queensland , The University of Glasgow and Monash University .
Go to Profile#795
Carmela Troncoso
#110724
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (42 years)
Carmela González Troncoso is a Spanish telecommunication engineer and researcher specialized in privacy issues, and an LGBT+ activist. She is currently a tenure track assistant professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the head of the SPRING lab . Troncoso gained recognition for her leadership of the European team developing the DP-3T protocol that aims at the creation of an application to facilitate the tracing of COVID-19 infected persons without compromising on the privacy of citizens. Currently she is also member of the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force in the expert group on Digital Epidemiology.
Go to Profile#796
Ping Zhang
#63833
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Ping Zhang is a mathematician specializing in graph theory. She is a professor of mathematics at Western Michigan University and the author of multiple textbooks on graph theory and mathematical proof.
Go to Profile#797
Ruth Silverman
#91915
Overall Influence
1936 - 2011 (75 years)
Ruth Silverman was an American mathematician and computer scientist known for her research in computational geometry. She was one of the original founders of the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1971.
Go to Profile#798
Bonnie Dorr
#127139
Overall Influence
Bonnie Jean Dorr is an American computer scientist specializing in natural language processing, machine translation, automatic summarization, social computing, and explainable artificial intelligence. She is a professor and director of the Natural Language Processing Research Laboratory in the Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering at the University of Florida. Gainesville, Florida She is professor emerita of computer science and linguistics and former dean at the University of Maryland, College Park, former associate director at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine ...
Go to Profile#799
Olga Ciccarelli
#135686
Overall Influence
#800
Sharon Oviatt
#118985
Overall Influence
Sharon Oviatt is an internationally recognized computer scientist, professor and researcher known for her work in the field of human–computer interaction on human-centered multimodal interface design and evaluation.
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