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,
#2001
Rosemary Sage
#78086
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Rosemary Sage is a British professor of education with a focus on communication and special educational needs. She leads the programme for the practitioner doctorate at the University of Buckingham.
Go to Profile#2002
Gülsün Sağlamer
#67583
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Gülsün Sağlamer is a Turkish academic, the third female rector in Turkey. Life Sağlamer was born in 1945 in Trabzon. After finishing primary and secondary education in her home city she obtained her MS from the School of Architecture in Istanbul Technical University . She carried out her post-doctoral studies at the Martin Centre, Department of Architecture- University of Cambridge, UK 1975-1976.
Go to Profile#2003
Maria Porges
#151334
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Maria Porges is an American visual artist and writer living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her artwork, drawing and three-dimensional works in a variety of media has been exhibited nationally in solo shows and group exhibitions. The work often focuses on the complex relationship of text and image.
Go to Profile#2004
Daniela Philippi
#172216
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Daniela Philippi is a German musicologist with a research focus on Christoph Willibald Gluck, Antonín Dvořák and Czech music history and music of the 20th century. Life Born in Limburg an der Lahn, Philippi studied musicology, journalism as well as general and comparative literature at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz from 1985 to 1992. From 1985 to 1989, she also studied at the Episcopal Institute of Church Music of the Diocese of Mainz, where she graduated in 1989 with the church musician examination C. In 1992, she received her doctorate under Christoph-Hellmut Mahling at the Musico...
Go to Profile#2005
Barbara Zipser
#181747
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Barbara Zipser is a Historian of Greek medicine from antiquity to the Middle Ages. She is currently Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research has been primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Go to Profile#2006
Vidyavati
#149055
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Vidyavati, former Vice-Chancellor, Kakatiya University, Warangal, Telangana, India was born on 15 September 1939, in Goud community. She is President of Phycological Society of India. She was honored by Telangana State Government as Eminent Women on 8 March 2017, on the occasion of "International Women's Day" celebrations.
Go to Profile#2007
Caroline Blanvillain
#188161
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Caroline Blanvillain is a French veterinarian and conservationist who works in French Polynesia for the Ornithological Society of Polynesia. Blanvillain was born in Paris. She studied veterinary science at the École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort, completing a thesis on Contribution à la compréhension de la stratégie de reproduction de l'oryx d'Arabie face aux conditions désertiques : application à la conservation de l'espèce. After working in zoos and the Museum of Natural History, she moved to French Polynesia in 1997. She worked on saving the Tahiti monarch and Ultramarine lorikeet.
Go to Profile#2008
Ilene Segalove
#119853
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Ilene Segalove is an American conceptual artist working with appropriated images, photography and video. Her work can be understood as a precursor to The Pictures Generation. Career Early life and education Segalove was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, United States. She studied Fine Arts at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1968. While studying there she met Billy Adler and John Margolies, who became her collaborators and professors and introduced her to the concept that one's personal narrative could be strong material for art. She collaborated with them on Telethon...
Go to Profile#2009
Julia Galloway
#138059
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Julia Galloway is a Montana-based studio potter and professor of ceramics at the University of Montana-Missoula. Early life and education Julia Galloway was raised in Boston, Massachusetts and started throwing pots in high school, buying her first wheel with babysitting money. She kept her wheel in her bedroom and carried her pots to school in a shoe box to be fired. She obtained MFA at the University of Colorado at Boulder and BFA at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
Go to Profile#2010
Sharon Lockhart
#43908
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Sharon Lockhart is an American artist whose work considers social subjects primarily through motion film and still photography, often engaging with communities to create work as part of long-term projects. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1991 and her MFA from Art Center College of Design in 1993. She has been a Radcliffe fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and a Rockefeller fellow. Her films and photographic work have been widely exhibited at international film festivals and in museums, cultural institutions, and galleries around the world. She was an associate professo...
Go to Profile#2011
Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler
#94370
Overall Influence
Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler is an American archivist who has served as the Chief of the Conservation Laboratory at the National Archives and Records Administration since 1985. Education Ritzenthaler received her undergraduate degree in English from Wayne State University. She also attended Wayne State for her Master's in Library Science, with a concentration in archives administration.
Go to Profile#2012
Lisa Corinne Davis
#132645
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Lisa Corinne Davis is an American visual artist known for abstract paintings and works on paper that suggest maps and other encoded forms of knowledge. She employs abstraction as a means of rendering the complexities of contemporary experience—including her own as an African-American woman—often questioning preconceived notions about identity, classification, and rationality versus subjectivity. Her densely layered, colorful work merges contrasting schemas, visual elements and formal languages, blurring distinctions between figuration and abstraction, real and fictive spaces and concepts, and microcosmic or macrocosmic reference.
Go to Profile#2013
Elizabeth Toomey
#169146
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Elizabeth Toomey is a New Zealand law academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Canterbury. Education Toomey completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Otago, followed by an LLM at the University of Canterbury.
Go to Profile#2014
Geraldine McGinty
#110887
Overall Influence
Geraldine McGinty M.D., MBA, FACR, is an Irish and American physician. She served as Chair of the American College of Radiology Board of Chancellors from 2019-2020. She is the first woman to hold this post. Previously, she served as Chair of the American College of Radiology Commission on Economics.
Go to Profile#2015
Makarena Dudley
#145744
Overall Influence
Makarena Diana Dudley, also known as Margaret Dudley, is a New Zealand clinical psychologist, neuropsychologist and academic, specialising in neuropsychology, dementia and Māori health psychology research. She is currently one of the co-directors of the clinical psychology programme at the University of Auckland. In 2016, Dudley became the first permanent Māori clinical psychology lecturer employed at the University of Auckland. Dudley's iwi include Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Kahu.
Go to Profile#2016
Lygia Pape
#23165
Overall Influence
1927 - 2004 (77 years)
Lygia Pape was a Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, engraver, and filmmaker, who was a key figure in the Concrete movement and a later co-founder of the Neo-Concrete Movement in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s. Along with Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, she was an important artist in the expansion of contemporary art in Brazil and pushed geometric art to include aspects of interaction and to engage with ethical and political themes.
Go to Profile#2017
Barbara Tate
#39657
Overall Influence
1927 - 2009 (82 years)
Barbara Tate was a British artist and writer, perhaps best known for her bestselling book West End Girls, which was published shortly after her death. Career in Art Born in Uxbridge as Barbara June Peddle, her father Charles Jonathan Peddle was a carpenter and lorry-driver. A violent man, he once tied a noose around her neck when she was aged 3 and balanced her on her toes until she was rescued hours later when her mother came home. Abandoned soon after by her mother Elsie Irene, née Williams , she was brought up by her maternal grandparents. In 1944 aged 17 she won a scholarship to Ealing S...
Go to Profile#2018
Suellen Rocca
#92219
Overall Influence
1943 - 2020 (77 years)
Suellen Rocca was an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art. She exhibited with them at the Hyde Park Art Center from 1966 through 1969. She was curator of the art collection and director of exhibitions at Elmhurst College.
Go to Profile#2019
Izzy Jayasinghe
#95303
Overall Influence
Izzy Jayasinghe is a senior lecturer in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at the University of Sheffield and the leader of the Applied Biophotonics Group. Her research focuses on super resolution microscopy, biophysics, cardiac muscle and microscopy instrument development. In addition to her scientific research and teaching, she is a strong advocate for gender equality and diversity in academia.
Go to Profile#2020
Rebecca Morris
#135131
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Rebecca Morris is an abstract painter who is known for quirky, casualist compositions using grid-like structures. In 1994 she wrote Manifesto: For Abstractionists and Friends of the Non-Objective, a tongue-in-cheek but sincere response to contemporary criticism of abstract painting. She is currently a professor of painting and drawing at UCLA. Prior to that, she lectured at numerous colleges including Columbia University, Bard College, Pasadena City College, USC's School of Fine Arts, and the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#2021
Jackie Tileston
#186244
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Jackie Tileston is an American artist and painter. She is associate professor of fine arts in the School of Design at The University of Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of the 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in painting and the 2004 Pew Fellowship in the Arts.
Go to Profile#2022
Lucie Doležalová
#189190
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Lucie Doležalová is a Czech medievalist, philologist, literary scholar, and translator. She specializes in Latin literature and manuscript culture of the late Middle Ages, particularly the manuscripts by the Czech scribe Crux of Telč , mnemonics , colophons, and obscure texts.
Go to Profile#2023
Judith Eisler
#119608
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Judith Eisler is an artist based in Vienna, Austria and Warren, CT. Eisler received her BFA from Cornell University in 1984. She gathers source imagery for her paintings from watching films and photographing stills from the footage. Her works typically have glossy surfaces and feature blurred imagery and light defined as substance. Descended from Pop art and Photorealism, her fluid paint-handling incorporates elements of James Rosenquist’s billboard fuzziness and Marilyn Minter’s bracing aggressiveness. Since 2009, Eisler has been a professor of painting at the University of Applied Arts Vie...
Go to Profile#2024
Emily Mason
#72374
Overall Influence
1932 - 2019 (87 years)
Emily Mason was an American abstract painter and printmaker. Mason developed her individual approach to the Abstract Expressionist and color field painting traditions with her veils of color and spontaneous gestural mark. Mason was born and raised in New York City, where she lived and worked until her death.
Go to Profile#2025
Ursula Rothe
#188475
Overall Influence
Ursula Rothe is an Australian archaeologist specialising in Roman dress. Career Ursula Rothe gained her doctorate from the University of Manchester in 2007 and then worked at the University of Edinburgh, first as a teaching associate, then as a Leverhulme postdoctoral research fellow with a project titled 'Dress and identity in the Danube provinces: ideal vs reality'. After working at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen in Germany, in 2012 she moved to the Open University as the Baron Thyssen lecturer. Rothe has been a co-editor of the peer-reviewed journal Archaeological Textiles Review since 2014. Sh...
Go to Profile#2026
Maria Paz Bertoglia
#170846
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Maria Paz Bertoglia is a Chilean epidemiologist who works in public health research, teaching, and science communication in social media. Early life and career Maria Paz Bertoglia Arredondo, the daughter of a paediatrician mother and an otorhinolaryngologist father, grew up in the Chilean cities of Copiapó and Valparaiso
Go to Profile#2027
Stefanie Jacomet
#169936
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Stefanie Jacomet is professor of archaeobotany at Basel University. Her research focuses on investigating wetland sites in Central Europe and developing archaeobotanical methodologies. Biography Jacomet was born in 1952. She studied botany at Basel, receiving a PhD in 1979 on the subject of plant remains from Neolithic lake shore settlements in Zurich.
Go to Profile#2028
Ruth Fine
#125162
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Ruth Fine is a professor of Spanish and Latin-American literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Biography Ruth Fine chairs the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She served as Director of the European Forum and of the Institute of Western Cultures at the same academic institution. Fine also was founder and first president of the Association of Hispanists in Israel. She is presently the President of the International Association of Hispanists and vice-president of the International Association of Cervantistas. She was awarded with the Orden del Mérito Civil by Spain.
Go to Profile#2029
Azila Talit Reisenberger
#122456
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Dr. Azila Talit Reisenberger is Le Professeur Distinqué; and a distinguished author, the Head of the Hebrew Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, a champion of Women's Rights and Gender Equality, and an acting Rabba.
Go to Profile#2030
Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer
#66817
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer , is Professor of Jewish studies at the University of Freiburg. Biography After her education Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer worked as Teacher at the comprehensive school Kallern, at several junior high schools and at the Kantonsschule Rämibühl Zürich.
Go to Profile#2031
Sandra Sider
#139336
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Sandra Sider is an American quilt artist, author, and curator. She holds a PhD in comparative literature from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, specializing in Renaissance studies. She also holds an M.A. in art history from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.
Go to Profile#2032
Barbara Hillyer
#124127
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Barbara Hillyer or Hillyer-Davis was the founding director of the Women's Studies courses at the University of Oklahoma. Her 1993 book, Feminism and Disability was the 1994 Emily Toth Award winner for the best feminist publication of the year and was also named as Outstanding Academic Book by the Association of College and Research Libraries's Choice Magazine. Her work explored the response of the disability and feminist rights movements to aging, chronic illness, disability, and mental health.
Go to Profile#2033
Ivana Vostrovská
#192105
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (39 years)
#2034
Elisabeth Subrin
#86884
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Elisabeth Subrin is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, screenwriter, and visual artist. She is known for her interdisciplinary practice in the contemporary art and independent film worlds. She is a professor in Temple University's Department of Film and Media Arts. Her feature length narrative film A Woman, a Part; starring Maggie Siff, Cara Seymour, John Ortiz, and Khandi Alexander; premiered at The Rotterdam Film Festival in 2016. She is also the creator of the blog, Who Cares About Actresses, dedicated to actress Maria Schneider.
Go to Profile#2035
Brigitte Meijns
#173652
Overall Influence
Brigitte Leonie Isabelle Meijns is a Belgian medievalist, professor of Medieval History at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Meijns studied at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the University of Poitiers, obtaining her doctorate from Leuven in 1999 with a thesis on the reform of chapters of canons regular in the 11th and 12th centuries. This was published as Aken of Jeruzalem? Het ontstaan en de hervorming van de kanonikale instellingen in Vlaanderen tot circa 1155 .
Go to Profile#2036
Maria Lähteenmäki
#103724
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Maria Lähteenmäki is a researcher of history, Jutikkala Professor at the University of Eastern Finland and Docent of Finnish and Scandinavian history at the University of Helsinki. She has produced many scientific monographs and textbooks and written a great number of articles.
Go to Profile#2037
Wai-Hong Tham
#153848
Overall Influence
Wai-Hong Tham is a Malaysian professor at the University of Melbourne and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research , and joint head of the division of Infectious Disease and Immune Defense. She researches the molecular biology of the malaria parasite Plasmodium vivax.
Go to Profile#2038
Uche Azikiwe
#45904
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Uche Ewah Azikiwe , is a Nigerian academic, educator and author. She is the widow of former President of Nigeria Nnamdi Azikiwe. She is a professor in the Department of Educational Foundation, Faculty of Education at University of Nigeria, Nsukka. In 1999, she was appointed to the board of directors of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Go to Profile#2039
Melinda Tan
#51092
Overall Influence
Melinda Tan is an academic who is currently rector of the University of Central Lancashire campus in the UN Buffer Zone in Cyprus. Career Melinda Tan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English language and literature in 1991 from the National University of Singapore and a post graduate diploma in education from the same institution in 1992. She was awarded a Master of Arts degree in English language teaching and applied linguistics from the University of Nottingham in 1997. Tan remained with the university to study for a doctor of philosophy degree, lecturing there during this time. She received her doctorate in applied linguistics in 2000.
Go to Profile#2040
Leah DeVun
#151395
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Leah DeVun is an American contemporary artist and historian who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BA and PhD from Columbia University and is an associate professor at Rutgers University, where she teaches women's and gender history.
Go to Profile#2041
Angele Botros Samaan
#96591
Overall Influence
1923 - 2011 (88 years)
Angele Botros Samaan was an Egyptian academic and translator. Biography Dr Angele Botros Samaan was born the 3rd of October 1923 in Marsa Matrouh and she died the 22nd of November 2011 in Cairo. She obtained a BA and MA degree from the Faculty of Arts Department of English Literature and Language in Cairo University. She obtained her PhD from London University in 1962, with a thesis untitled The Novel of Utopianism and Prophecy From Lytton to Orwell With Special Reference to Its Reception. Her supervisor was Professor Tillotson. She then returned to Cairo and worked at Cairo University for many years in the Department of English Literature and Language.
Go to Profile#2042
Hubertine Rose Éholie
#119259
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Hubertine Rose Éholie was an Ivorian academic. Specialising in chemistry, she had a long career at the University of Abidjan. She retired by 2015 and was a critic of the gender gap of women in academia.
Go to Profile#2043
Alice L. Miller
#49811
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Dr. Alice Lyman Miller is a researcher, writer, and professor known for her analysis of Chinese history, politics, and foreign policy. She completed her gender transition in 2006. Career Born and raised in upstate New York, Miller then attended Princeton University and received a PhD from George Washington University in 1974 with a doctoral dissertation on Qing dynasty politics. She worked as an analyst at Central Intelligence Agency, from 1974 to 1990. From 1980 to 2000, she taught at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Washington, D.C., first as a lecturer and then as associate professor of China studies and director of the China Studies Program.
Go to Profile#2044
Peju Layiwola
#82857
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Peju Layiwola is an art Historian and visual artist from Nigeria who works in a variety of media and genre. She is listed as a "21st Century Avant-Garde" in the book Art Cities of the Future published by Phaidon Press She is currently a Professor of Art and Art history at the University of Lagos and has been described as a "multitalented artist." Her works can be found in the collection of Microsoft Lagos, Yemisi Shyllon Museum, Pan Atlantic, Lagos and homes of private collectors such as JP and Ebun Clark and the Obi of Onitsha.
Go to Profile#2045
Kate Just
#185258
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Kate Just is an American-born Australian feminist artist. Just is best known for her inventive and political use of knitting, both in sculptural and pictorial form. In addition to her solo practice, Just often works socially and collaboratively within communities to create large scale, public art projects that tackle significant social issues including sexual harassment and violence against women.
Go to Profile#2046
Beth Kelly
#34964
Overall Influence
Beth Kelly is an American political theorist and feminist. Kelly is a professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Irish Studies at DePaul University. From 1997 to 2003, Kelly served as director of the department of Women's and Gender Studies at DePaul, and was a founder of DePaul's LGBT studies program. Since March 2010, Kelly has been chairperson of the Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, one of eight advisory councils to the Commission on Human Relations for the City of Chicago. Kelly received her PhD from Rutgers University.
Go to Profile#2047
Judy Radul
#173801
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Judy Radul is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist, writer and educator. She is known for her performance art and media installations, as well as her critical writing. Biography She has exhibited her work around the world, and recently participated in the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst program in Berlin. She is currently a professor at Simon Fraser University, in the School for Contemporary Arts and is represented by the Catriona Jeffries Gallery.
Go to Profile#2048
Elina Kahla
#153826
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Elina Kahla is a Finnish philologist and academic who works at the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki. She was the former President of the St. Petersburg EUNIC in 2015-2016 and Director of the Finnish Institute in St. Petersburg in 2012–2016.
Go to Profile#2049
Lauren K Dobson
#192135
Overall Influence
#2050
Tiara Moore
#177153
Overall Influence
Tiara Moore works at the Washington state branch of The Nature Conservancy. She is known for her leadership in organizing the Black in Marine Science week and her work in social activism. Early life and education Moore is from Greenwood, South Carolina, and has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Winthrop University. After getting a master's at Hampton University in Virginia, Moore went on to earn a Ph.D. in Biology from UCLA, where she published a thesis on algal blooms in estuaries. As of 2021, she is a postdoctoral fellow at The Nature Conservancy.
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