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,

#1101

Rebecca Campbell

#128470
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Rebecca Campbell is a professor of psychology at Michigan State University. She is known for her research pertaining to sexual assault and violence against women and children and the effects of treatment by law enforcement and medical staff on victims' psychological and physiological well-being. Campbell has been involved in criminal justice research on the investigation of Detroit's untested rape kits, wherein DNA evidence obtained in thousands of rape kits was left in storage and not analyzed. She has received numerous awards for her work including the Society for the Psychological Study of...
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#1102

Misty Blowers

#125140
Overall Influence
Misty Blowers is the Chief Technology Officer of the US Marine Corps, an American computer scientist and professor of blockchain technologies at George Mason University. She was awarded the 2018 Early Achievement Award from SPIE.
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#1103

Francesca Aloisi

#164438
Overall Influence
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#1104

Noémie Elhadad

#156844
Overall Influence
Noémie Elhadad is an American data scientist who is an associate professor of Biomedical Informatics at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. As of 2022, she serves as the Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics. Her research considers machine learning in bioinformatics, natural language processing and medicine.
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#1105

Paola Rogliani

#164591
Overall Influence
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#1106

Rosa Maria Rodrigues Pereira

#164697
Overall Influence
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#1107

Elizabeth Catlett

Elizabeth Catlett
#11286
Overall Influence
1915 - 2012 (97 years)
Elizabeth Catlett, born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett, also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora was an African American sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the 20th century, which often focused on the female experience. She was born and raised in Washington, D.C., to parents working in education, and was the grandchild of formerly enslaved people. It was difficult for a black woman at this time to pursue a career as a working artist. Catlett devoted much of her career to teaching. However, a fellowship awarded to her in 1946 allowed her to t...
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#1108

Eike Steinmann

#164814
Overall Influence
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#1109

Lynn Morris

#164876
Overall Influence
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#1110

Michela Taufer

#144776
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Michela Taufer is an Italian-American computer scientist and holds the Jack Dongarra Professorship in High Performance Computing within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is an ACM Distinguished Scientist and an IEEE Senior Member. In 2021, together with a team al Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, she earned a R&D 100 Award for the Flux workload management software framework in the Software/Services category.
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#1111

Emilia Bagiella

#165185
Overall Influence
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#1112

Helene Muri

#49951
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Helene Muri is a Norwegian climate scientist. She is a senior researcher for the Industrial Ecology Programme at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology , an interdisciplinary research programme specializing in environmental sustainability analysis. The programme aims to «provide high quality research and education in the field of industrial ecology for supporting the global community in realizing the Sustainable Development Goals.» Muri is also a researcher at SFI Smart Maritime. Her research interests include assessing the climate and environmental effects of various mitigation options in the maritime sector.
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#1113

Silvia Giordano

#165270
Overall Influence
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#1114

Liliana Schaefer

#165328
Overall Influence
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#1115

Bonnie Seeman

#31067
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Bonnie Seeman is known for her ceramic work. Early life and education She received a BFA in ceramics in 1991 from the University of Miami and an MFA in ceramics in 1996 from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
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#1116

Gillian Dobbie

#124245
Overall Influence
Gillian Christine Dobbie is a New Zealand computer scientist. She is a professor at the University of Auckland and the Director of the Auckland ICT Graduate School. She is also a visiting professor at National University of Singapore and on the advisory board of the Victoria University of Wellington.
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#1117

Debora Fino

#165527
Overall Influence
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#1118

Paola Bonizzoni

#125688
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Paola Bonizzoni is an Italian computer scientist. She is a professor of computer science at the Università di Milano-Bicocca. Her research areas include computational complexity, graph algorithms, computational biology, and bioinformatics.
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#1119

Therese Biedl

#126983
Overall Influence
Therese Charlotte Biedl is an Austrian computer scientist known for her research in computational geometry and graph drawing. Currently she is a professor at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Education Biedl received her Diploma in Mathematics at the Technical University of Berlin, graduating in 1996 and earned a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1997 under the supervision of Endre Boros.
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#1120

Elizaveta Kon

#165894
Overall Influence
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#1121

Birgit Penzenstadler

Birgit Penzenstadler
#138304
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (43 years)
Birgit Penzenstadler is a German associate professor of Software Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology and adjunct docent at Lappeenranta University of Technology. She is well known for her work on environmental sustainability in software engineering and for being one of the founders of the sustainability design initiative, which seeks to advance the research on sustainability in technical disciplines such as computer science and software engineering.
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#1122

Kerenza Hood

#166035
Overall Influence
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#1123

Taravat Talepasand

#54290
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Taravat Talepasand is an Iranian-American contemporary artist, activist, and educator. She is known for her interdisciplinary painting practice including drawing, sculpture and installation. As an Iranian-American woman, Talepasand explores the cultural taboos that reflect on gender and political authority. Her approach to representation and figuration reflects the cross-pollination, or lack thereof, in our Western Society. Talepasand previously held the title of the chair of the painting department at San Francisco Art Institute . She is a Tenure-Track professor in Art Practice at Portland S...
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#1124

Joan W. Conaway

#148455
Overall Influence
Joan Weliky Conaway is an American biochemist who researches gene transcription. She worked at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research from 2001 to 2021 and currently serves as vice provost and dean for basic research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
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#1125

Serena Dudek

#153393
Overall Influence
Dr. Serena M. Dudek , is an American neuroscientist known for her work on long-term depression and synaptic plasticity in the CA2 region of the hippocampus. Biography Dudek's father was an English professor at Fullerton College, and her mother was a clinical cytologist and medical technologist. In high school, she worked at Knott's Berry Farm, selling ice cream and popcorn. She was also on the drill team at Savanna High School.
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#1126

Jean F. MacCormack

#77783
Overall Influence
Jean F. MacCormack is the past president of the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, serving in the role from 2014 to 2017. MacCormack is the former Chancellor of University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where she led from 1999 to 2012.
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#1127

Dominique Bron

#166281
Overall Influence
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#1128

Mara Cercignani

#166306
Overall Influence
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#1129

Gabriella Pasi

#166396
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
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#1130

Christine Stadelmann

#166508
Overall Influence
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#1131

Nadia Maftouni

Nadia Maftouni
#11900
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Nadia Maftouni is an Iranian academic, philosophical author and artist. She is best known as a leading Researcher on Farabian, Avicennian and Suhrawardian philosophy with her modern reading of their works. She is also an established researcher in Jurisprudence and Islamic History. She is an associate professor at University of Tehran, where she is an alumna and a member of the department of Philosophy and Islamic Theology. She is a Senior Research Scholar at Yale Law School and she is on the board of History of Philosophy Quarterly. She is also famous for proposing to Iranian artist Hossein N...
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#1132

Joanne Weinberg

#166745
Overall Influence
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#1133

Pamela Cosman

Pamela Cosman
#153373
Overall Influence
Pamela Cosman is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. She has conducted a pioneering research on the quality of compressed images for application in medical diagnostic imaging. At UCSD, Cosman currently researches ways to improve wireless video transmission.
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#1134

Marina Ziche

#166799
Overall Influence
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#1135

Julie Williams

#166809
Overall Influence
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#1136

Karen Kay Briggs

#166859
Overall Influence
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#1137

Aileen Clarke

#166975
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
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#1138

Oksana Mont

#167160
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
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#1139

Beate Neumann

#167201
Overall Influence
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#1140

Perla Werner

#167649
Overall Influence
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#1141

Sandra Van Vlierberghe

#167664
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (43 years)
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#1142

Jutta Treviranus

Jutta Treviranus
#90494
Overall Influence
Jutta Treviranus is a full Professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto, Canada. She is the director and founder of the Inclusive Design Research Centre and the Inclusive Design Institute .
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#1143

Leila Takayama

Leila Takayama
#132950
Overall Influence
Leila A. Takayama is an associate professor of Human–computer interaction at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has previously held positions at Google X and Willow Garage. She was elected as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2013.
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#1144

Leah Findlater

#108533
Overall Influence
Leah K. Findlater is a Canadian-American computer scientist specializing in human-computer interaction, mobile computing, and computer accessibility. She is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Washington.
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#1145

Carol Steen

#71818
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Carol Steen is an artist, writer and curator who lives and works in New York. She has had over 20 solo gallery exhibitions, her first solo exhibition in 1973 was at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and her work has been in over 50 group exhibitions including shows at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Brookgreen Gardens Museum in South Carolina, the Cranbrook Museum in Michigan, and the DeCordova Museum in Massachusetts. Steen's work has also been exhibited at the Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn, NY, the Museum of Modern Art of Ukraine, and Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.
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#1146

Drude Berntsen

Drude Berntsen
#100022
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Drude Elisabeth Berntsen is a Norwegian computer scientist who was director of the Norwegian Computing Center from 1970 to 1990. It was unusual for a woman to hold such a high-ranking position at a time of male dominance in computing.
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#1147

Roselyn J. Eisenberg

#130909
Overall Influence
Roselyn J. Eisenberg is a professor at The University of Pennsylvania and a member of the University's School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Dental Medicine. The majority of Eisenberg's research is focused on the herpes simplex virus and the poxvirus and how they enter into susceptible cells. She also studies glycoproteins, vaccines, virology and microbiology.
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#1148

Amalia Amaki

#94388
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Amalia K. Amaki is an African-American artist, art historian, educator, film critic and curator who recently resided in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where she was Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa from 2007 to 2012.
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#1149

KC Claffy

KC Claffy
#113629
Overall Influence
Kimberly C. "KC" Claffy is director of the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis at the University of California, San Diego. In 2017 she was awarded the Jonathan B. Postel Service Award and inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2019.
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#1150

Martine Labbé

#94516
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Martine Labbé is a Belgian operations researcher known for her work on mathematical optimization, facility location, and road pricing. She is an honorary professor of graphs and mathematical optimization in the department of computer science at the Université libre de Bruxelles, editor-in-chief of the EURO Journal on Computational Optimization, and a former president of the Association of European Operational Research Societies .
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