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 people in Computer Science,
#5701
Giovanni Biggio
#130320
Overall Influence
#5702
Richard Fleischner
#34762
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Richard Fleischner is a Providence, RI–based environmental artist. Born in New York in 1944, he received a BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and began working in the 1960s. Installations
Go to Profile#5703
Nicholas G. Feamster
#130347
Overall Influence
#5704
Alain Bonafé
#130356
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#5705
Kaori Togashi
#130358
Overall Influence
#5706
Nicholas Ayache
#98464
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Nicholas Ayache, born on 1 November 1958 in Paris, is a French computer scientist and Research Director at INRIA, Sophia Antipolis-Mediterranean Centre. Previously, he was Scientific Director of the Institut hospitalo-universitaire de Strasbourg and Visiting Professor at the Collège de France . He is also a member of the French Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#5707
Kotohiro Nomura
#130366
Overall Influence
#5708
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#5709
John Rex
#25761
Overall Influence
1925 - 2011 (86 years)
John Rex was a South African-born British sociologist. Born in Port Elizabeth, he was radicalised after working for the South African Bantu Affairs Administration and moved to Britain. He was a lecturer at the universities of Leeds , Birmingham , Durham , Warwick , Aston , Toronto , Cape Town and New York . He was also a member of the UNESCO International Experts' Committee on Racism and Race Prejudice and president of the International Sociological Association's Research Committee on Racial and Ethnic Minorities .
Go to Profile#5710
Robert D. Finn
#130429
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5711
Kenji Sunagawa
#130452
Overall Influence
#5712
Ramaswamy Govindan
#130462
Overall Influence
#5713
Hsiao-Wuen Hon
#61081
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Hsiao-Wuen Hon is a Taiwanese-US researcher in speech technology, and coauthor of the book Spoken Language Processing. He is Corporate Vice President of Microsoft and Chairman of Microsoft's Asia-Pacific R&D Group.
Go to Profile#5714
Ken Howard
#32630
Overall Influence
1932 - 2022 (90 years)
Kenneth Howard OBE RA was a British artist and painter. He was President of the New English Art Club from 1998 to 2003. Life and art Ken Howard was born in London. After attending Kilburn Grammar School, he studied at the Hornsey College of Art and the Royal College of Art . In 1958 he won a British Council Scholarship to Florence. He spent his National Service in the Royal Marines . In 1973 and 1978 he was the Official War Artist to Northern Ireland, and 1973–80 worked in various locations, including Hong Kong, Cyprus and Canada with the British Army. In 1983 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy .
Go to Profile#5715
Peter J Park
#130495
Overall Influence
#5716
Pasquale Striano
#130515
Overall Influence
#5717
Chen Guangxi
#71653
Overall Influence
1903 - 1992 (89 years)
Chen Guangxi was a Chinese engineer, computer scientist, and professor who founded the discipline of computer science at the Harbin Institute of Technology. Early life Chen Guangxi was born in Tongcheng, Anhui Province on May 21, 1903, with his ancestral hometown in Shangyu, Zhejiang. His father was a former Qing dynasty government official.
Go to Profile#5718
Gideon James Rubin
#130525
Overall Influence
#5719
Ravi Ramamoorthi
#130536
Overall Influence
#5720
Daniel K. Sodickson
#122954
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Daniel Kevin Sodickson is an American physicist and an expert in the field of biomedical imaging. A past president and gold medalist of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, he is credited with foundational work in parallel magnetic resonance imaging , in which distributed arrays of detectors are used to gather magnetic resonance images at previously inaccessible speeds. Sodickson is an elected Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors. He currently serves as Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Radiology at New York University Grossman School of Medic...
Go to Profile#5721
Masahira Hattori
#130564
Overall Influence
#5722
N. Asokan
#119358
Overall Influence
Nadarajah Asokan is a professor of computer science and the David R. Cheriton Chair in Software Systems at the University of Waterloo's David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science at Aalto University.
Go to Profile#5723
Erik Lykke Mortensen
#130591
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5724
Jason Mars
#101395
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Jason O. Mars is an American computer scientist, author, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his research into computer architecture and artificial intelligence, particularly in the design and deployment of conversational AI. The best-selling author of Breaking Bots: Inventing a New Voice in the AI Revolution, he has been involved in multiple AI initiatives and startups over the course of his career, including ZeroShotBot, Jaseci, Clinc, Myca, and ImpactfulAI.
Go to Profile#5725
Feng Xing
#130623
Overall Influence
#5726
Andrea Russell
#53673
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 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#5727
Henrik Enghusen Poulsen
#130668
Overall Influence
#5728
Anthony Stentz
#130672
Overall Influence
#5729
Siva Brata Bhattacherjee
#59880
Overall Influence
1921 - 2003 (82 years)
Siva Brata Bhattacherjee —sometimes spelt Sibabrata Bhattacherjee—was a professor of physics at the University of Calcutta. He studied with the physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose, under whose supervision he completed his doctoral thesis in solid-state physics at the University College of Science .
Go to Profile#5730
Mustafa Babanli
#31821
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Mustafa Babanlı , is an Azerbaijani scientist, Rector of the Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University. On September 3, 2015, Mustafa Babanli was appointed Rector of the Azerbaijan State University of Oil and Industry. He is a member of the International Association of University Presidents, serving as Regional Chair for Middle East, Caucasus & Central Asia.
Go to Profile#5731
Genesis P-Orridge
#38758
Overall Influence
1950 - 2020 (70 years)
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge was an English singer-songwriter, musician, poet, performance artist, visual artist, and occultist who rose to notoriety as the founder of the COUM Transmissions artistic collective and lead vocalist of seminal industrial band Throbbing Gristle. P-Orridge was also a founding member of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth occult group, and fronted the experimental pop rock band Psychic TV.
Go to Profile#5732
Hiroo Fukuda
#130721
Overall Influence
#5733
Colin G. Drury
#130724
Overall Influence
#5734
Ann Wennerberg
#130730
Overall Influence
#5735
Mitchell S. Cappell
#130731
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5736
Weihong Deng
#130738
Overall Influence
#5737
Dietrich Rothenbacher
#130745
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5738
Hulda Swai
#58202
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 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#5739
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#5740
Chung Owyang
#130774
Overall Influence
#5741
Kumar Wickramasinghe
#79347
Overall Influence
Hemantha Kumar Wickramasinghe is Nicolaos G. and Sue Curtis Alexopoulos Presidential Chair in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. Education He graduated from King's College London with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering in 1970 and a PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from University College London in 1974 where his advisor was Eric Ash.
Go to Profile#5742
Steven M. Seitz
#130788
Overall Influence
#5743
David S. Doermann
#130790
Overall Influence
#5744
Gerhard Widmer
#130841
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#5745
Xiaodong S. Lin
#130844
Overall Influence
#5746
Dhabaleswar K. D. K. Panda
#130849
Overall Influence
#5747
Kohei Uosaki
#130852
Overall Influence
#5748
Jens Limpert
#130866
Overall Influence
#5749
Pellegrino Musto
#130869
Overall Influence
#5750
Jarmo R. K. Virtamo
#130881
Overall Influence
