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,
#851
Mahta Moghaddam
#75890
Overall Influence
Mahta Moghaddam is an Iranian-American electrical and computer engineer and William M. Hogue Professor of Electrical Engineering in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering. Moghaddam is also the president of the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society and is known for developing sensor systems and algorithms for high-resolution characterization of the environment to quantify the effects of climate change. She also has developed innovative tools using microwave technology to visualize biological struct...
Go to Profile#852
Vivienne Sze
#122232
Overall Influence
Vivienne Sze is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist whose research focuses on low-power electronics and on the trade-offs between energy use and computing power in the combined design of software and hardware, for applications including video coding and deep neural networks. She is an associate professor in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where she heads the Energy-Efficient Multimedia Systems Group.
Go to Profile#853
Sorelle Friedler
#74940
Overall Influence
Sorelle Alaina Friedler is an American computer scientist who is an Associate Professor at Haverford College. She is the co-founder Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency. Her research seeks to prevent discrimination in machine learning.
Go to Profile#854
Gillian Arnold
#133907
Overall Influence
Gillian Arnold is a British Information technology leader. She is a BCS Vice President and the Past Chair of the BCSWomen Specialist Group that supports women in the IT industry. In 2015, she was identified as the 9th Most Influential Women in UK IT 2015, by Computer Weekly. In 2016, Arnold was again identified as one of the 50 most influential women in UK IT 2016 by Computer Weekly.
Go to Profile#855
Patrizia Burra
#140927
Overall Influence
#856
Amira Abdelrasoul
#37300
Overall Influence
Amira Abdelrasoul is a researcher and associate professor at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, where she is the principal investigator of the Hemodialysis Membrane Science and Nanotechnology Research Centre. She is also a membrane technology leader in Canada, and her interdisciplinary research program focuses on solving existing hemodialysis system problems.
Go to Profile#857
Haitao Zheng
#36210
Overall Influence
Haitao "Heather" Zheng is Chinese-American computer scientist and electrical engineer. She is the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. She was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for "contributions to dynamic spectrum access and cognitive radio networks". She was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to wireless networking and mobile computing".
Go to Profile#858
Wang-Chiew Tan
#122116
Overall Influence
Wang-Chiew Tan is a Singaporean computer scientist specializing in data management and natural language processing. Her work in data management includes data provenance and data integration. She is currently a Research Scientist at Facebook AI, and was previously the Director of Research at Megagon Labs in Mountain View, California.
Go to Profile#859
Phyllida Barlow
#34343
Overall Influence
1944 - 2023 (79 years)
Dame Phyllida Barlow was a British visual artist. She studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Slade School of Art . She joined the staff of the Slade in the late 1960s and taught there for more than forty years. She retired from academia in 2009 and in turn became an emerita professor of fine art. She had an important influence on younger generations of artists; at the Slade her students included Rachel Whiteread and Ángela de la Cruz. In 2017 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
Go to Profile#860
Katherine St. John
#119302
Overall Influence
Katherine St. John is a professor at the CUNY Graduate Center Department of Computer Science and at Lehman College Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. She is a faculty member at the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology. In 2007 she was selected to be an AWM/MAA Falconer Lecturer where she gave a presentation on "Comparing Evolutionary Trees". She is also a former American Mathematical Society Council member at large.
Go to Profile#861
Maria Inês Schmidt
#141719
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
#862
Solange Inês Mussatto
#141792
Overall Influence
#863
Julia Schnabel
#116149
Overall Influence
Julia A. Schnabel is Professor in Computational Imaging and AI in Medicine at Technische Universität München, Director of the Institute of Machine Learning in Biomedical Imaging at Helmholtz Zentrum München , and Chair of Computational Imaging at the School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences at King's College London. Previously, she was Associate Professor in Engineering Science at University of Oxford where she became Full Professor of Engineering Science in 2014.
Go to Profile#864
Kim Hoeckele
#30327
Overall Influence
Kim Hoeckele is a multimedia artist living in New York, New York whose mediums include performance art, photography, found objects and video art. Early life and education Kim Hoeckele received her B.F.A. in Photography from Georgia State University and received her M.F.A. in studio art from Hunter College in New York, in 2012.
Go to Profile#865
Nancy Lin
#92974
Overall Influence
Nancy Lin is an American oncologist who works at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Her research considers new diagnostic strategies and treatment pathways for HER2 positive breast cancer.
Go to Profile#866
A. J. Bernheim Brush
#99614
Overall Influence
Alice Jane Bernheim Brush is an American computer scientist known for her research in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing and computer supported collaborative work . She is particularly known for her research studying and building technology for homes as well as expertise conducting field studies of technology. She is the co-chair of CRA-W from 2014 to 2017.
Go to Profile#867
Adriana Zeevi
#142237
Overall Influence
#868
Simone Ferrero
#142424
Overall Influence
#869
Mary Ganguli
#142440
Overall Influence
#870
Sylvie Boldo
#73769
Overall Influence
Sylvie Boldo is a French mathematician and computer scientist. Her research combines automated theorem proving and computer arithmetic, focusing on the formal verification of floating-point arithmetic operations and of algorithms based on them. She is a director of research for the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation , affiliated with the Formal Methods Laboratory at Paris-Saclay University and the INRIA Saclay-Île-de-France Research Centre, where she co-leads the Toccata project for formally verified programs, certified tools and numerical computations. She is als...
Go to Profile#871
Manuela Simoni
#142553
Overall Influence
#872
Alexis Smith
#34394
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Alexis Smith is an American artist. She has worked in collage and installation. Biography Smith's father was a psychiatrist and she spent her childhood years living first on a citrus grove in Covina, California and then on the grounds of a mental hospital. "It was just off enough to be affecting," she later stated, "it had that edge of nonreality, of literal craziness".
Go to Profile#873
Donna Hoffman
#93148
Overall Influence
Donna Hoffman is the Louis Rosenfeld Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing at the School of Business at The George Washington University. She is the co-founder of eLab, an online laboratory for consumer behavior research and the Co-Director of the Center for the Connected Consumer.
Go to Profile#874
Simone Leigh
#29501
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Simone Leigh is an American artist from Chicago who works in New York City in the United States. She works in various media including sculpture, installations, video, performance, and social practice. Leigh has described her work as auto-ethnographic, and her interests include African art and vernacular objects, performance, and feminism. Her work is concerned with the marginalization of women of color and reframes their experience as central to society. Leigh has often said that her work is focused on “Black female subjectivity,” with an interest in complex interplays between various strands of history.
Go to Profile#875
Lubaina Himid
#17463
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Lubaina Himid is a British artist and curator. She is a professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. Her art focuses on themes of cultural history and reclaiming identities.
Go to Profile#876
My T. Thai
#87492
Overall Influence
My Tra Thai is an American computer science engineer, professor in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering department at the University of Florida, and Fellow of the IEEE. Early life and education Thai completed two bachelor's degrees in computer science and mathematics from Iowa State University in 1999 before enrolling at the University of Minnesota for her PhD.
Go to Profile#877
Gada Kadoda
#132702
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Gada Kadoda is a Sudanese Engineer and associate professor at Garden City College for Science and Technology. She teaches at the University of Khartoum, where she introduced a course in knowledge management. She has previously served as President of the Sudanese Knowledge Society. She was selected as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2019.
Go to Profile#878
Joanne Bechta Dugan
#119254
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Joanne Bechta Dugan is an American computer engineer whose research concerns fault tolerance in computer systems, fault tree analysis, and the dynamic fault tree method for the probabilistic analysis of fault tolerance. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia.
Go to Profile#879
Beth Plale
#141194
Overall Influence
Beth A. Plale is Michael A. and Laurie Burns McRobbie Bicentennial Professor of Computer Engineering at Indiana University. She is known for her work on open science, trust in artificial intelligence, and the policy implications of data science.
Go to Profile#880
Joan Francioni
#130863
Overall Influence
Joan Francioni is an American Professor of Computer Science who works at the Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. She received the first Ph.D. in Computer Science awarded by Florida State University in 1981. Francioni is noted for working with a number of community projects, including the Sustainable Foods Partnership and her work with visually impaired students.
Go to Profile#881
Oksana Lockridge
#143443
Overall Influence
#882
Iris Chi
#143457
Overall Influence
#883
Karin Klingel
#143574
Overall Influence
#884
Marina Davoli
#143824
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#885
Dimitra Markovitsi
#46122
Overall Influence
Dimitra Markovitsi is a Greek-French photochemist. She is currently an Emeritus Research Director at the French National Center for Scientific Research . She pioneered studies on the electronically excited states of liquid crystals and made significant advances to the understanding of processes triggered in DNA upon absorption of UV radiation. The two facets of her work have been the subject of a recent Marie Skodowska Curie European training network entitled "Light DyNAmics - DNA as a training platform for photodynamic processes in soft materials."
Go to Profile#886
Betty Kirkwood
#133752
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Betty Rosamund Kirkwood FMedSci is Professor of Epidemiology & International Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her research is driven by a desire to improve the health of mothers and young children in low and middle-income countries . Her textbook, Essential Medical Statistics, co-authored with Professor Jonathan Sterne.
Go to Profile#887
Renata Basto
#70688
Overall Influence
Renata Homem de Gouveia Xavier de Basto is a researcher in cell and developmental biology. She is currently a team leader at the Institut Curie in Paris. She is also the deputy director of the CNRS research Unit UMR144 'Cell biology and cancer' at the Institut Curie which, comprises 14 research teams.
Go to Profile#888
Leonora Carrington
#3308
Overall Influence
1917 - 2011 (94 years)
Mary Leonora Carrington was a British-born surrealist painter and novelist. She lived most of her adult life in Mexico City and was one of the last surviving participants in the surrealist movement of the 1930s. Carrington was also a founding member of the women's liberation movement in Mexico during the 1970s.
Go to Profile#889
Jane Stout
#103692
Overall Influence
Jane Stout FRES is an Entomologist and Ecologist in Ireland. She is a professor of Ecology and Vice President for Biodiversity & Climate Action, at Trinity College Dublin, and is an expert in pollination ecology.
Go to Profile#890
Sabine Süsstrunk
#111634
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Sabine Süsstrunk is a computer scientist and professor at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, where she leads the Images and Visual Representation Lab in the School of Computer and Communication Sciences. Her research areas are in computational imaging and computational photography, color image processing and computer vision, and image quality and computational aesthetics. She is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and Society for Imaging Science and Technology and received the Society of Imaging Science and Technology and International Soci...
Go to Profile#891
Karrie Karahalios
#112778
Overall Influence
Kyratso G. Karahalios is an American computer scientist and professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is noted for her work on the impact of computer science on people and society, analyses of social media, and algorithm auditing. She is co-founder of the Center for People and Infrastructures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Go to Profile#892
Sandra C. Jones
#144417
Overall Influence
#893
Susan Lea
#38187
Overall Influence
Professor Susan Lea is a chartered psychologist and academic, and was Vice-Chancellor at the University of Hull from 2017 to 2022. Previously she was Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Greenwich.
Go to Profile#894
Melanie Rieback
#113423
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Melanie R. Rieback is a computer scientist, chiefly known for her work regarding the privacy and security of radio-frequency identification technology. Personal life Melanie Rieback was born in Cleveland, Ohio on October 26, 1978. and raised in Florida. Her parents are David John Rieback and Eileen Sharon Rieback who worked at Bell Labs.
Go to Profile#895
Mary Kelly
#24813
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Mary Kelly is an American conceptual artist, feminist, educator, and writer. Kelly has contributed extensively to the discourse of feminism and postmodernism through her large-scale narrative installationss and theoretical writings. Kelly's work mediates between conceptual art and the more intimate interests of artists of the 1980s. Her work has been exhibited internationally and she is considered among the most influential contemporary artists working today. Kelly is Judge Widney Professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design of the University of Southern California. She was previousl...
Go to Profile#896
Julie Chao
#144976
Overall Influence
#897
Tania Sorrell
#135541
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Tania Sorrell is an Australian infectious disease physician who is a Professor and Director of the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity at the University of Sydney. She serves as Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council Research Translation Faculty Steering Group on New and Emerging Health Threats. She is interested in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
Go to Profile#898
Verónica Bolón-Canedo
#133554
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (40 years)
Verónica Bolón-Canedo is a Spanish computer scientist whose research concerns feature selection in machine learning, with applications including medical diagnosis, oil spill detection, and automated educational assessment. She is a professor at the University of A Coruña.
Go to Profile#899
Gayle King
#29064
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Gayle King is an American television personality, author and broadcast journalist for CBS News, co-hosting its flagship morning program, CBS Mornings, and before that its predecessor CBS This Morning. She is also an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.
Go to Profile#900
Ayorkor Korsah
#116884
Overall Influence
G. Ayorkor Korsah is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Robotics at Ashesi University in Ghana. Early life and education Korsah grew up in Ghana and Nigeria, and as a child, she wanted to be an astronaut and an engineer.
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