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,
#5901
Yutaka Kawakami
#132580
Overall Influence
#5902
Heiner Fangerau
#64294
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Heiner Fangerau is a German historian of medicine and medical ethicist at Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf. Teaching positions Since 2009 Heiner Fangerau held chairs in the history, philosophy and ethics of medicine at Ulm University , the University of Cologne and the Heinrich-Heine-University of Duesseldorf.
Go to Profile#5903
David Blair
#132590
Overall Influence
1947 - 2011 (64 years)
#5904
Yasuo Ohashi
#132605
Overall Influence
#5905
Richard H Myers
#132610
Overall Influence
#5906
Alexander Zarbock
#132616
Overall Influence
#5907
Tom Shales
#41856
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Thomas William Shales is an American writer and retired critic of television programming and operations. He was a television critic for The Washington Post from 1977 to 2010, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1988. He also writes a column for the television news trade publication NewsPro, published by Crain Communications.
Go to Profile#5908
Terry Bollinger
#109683
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Terry Benton Bollinger is an American computer scientist who works at the MITRE Corporation. In 2003 he wrote an influential report for the U.S. Department of Defense in which he showed that free and open source software had already become a vital part of the United States Department of Defense software infrastructure, and that banning or restricting its use would have had serious detrimental impacts on DoD security, research capabilities, operational capabilities, and long-term cost efficiency. His report ended a debate about whether FOSS should be banned from U.S. DoD systems, and in time helped lead to the current official U.S.
Go to Profile#5909
Max Qing-hu Meng
#132651
Overall Influence
#5910
Johanna W. Lampe
#132659
Overall Influence
#5911
P.f.a. Van Mieghem
#132661
Overall Influence
#5912
Hua Kuang
#132663
Overall Influence
#5913
Simon Rogerson
#92024
Overall Influence
Simon Rogerson is lifetime Professor Emeritus in Computer Ethics at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility , De Montfort University. He was the founder and editor for 19 volumes of the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. He has had two careers; first as a technical software developer and then in academia as reformer . He was the founding Director of CCSR, launching it in 1995 at the first ETHICOMP conference which he conceived and co-directed until 2013. He became Europe's first Professor in Computer Ethics in 1998. His most important research focuses on providing rigorously grounded practical tools and guidance to computing practitioners.
Go to Profile#5914
Marko Bohanec
#132674
Overall Influence
#5915
Guoying Zhao
#132679
Overall Influence
#5916
Rodney Scott
#132681
Overall Influence
#5917
Jef Raskin
#95433
Overall Influence
1943 - 2005 (62 years)
Jef Raskin was an American human–computer interface expert who conceived and initiated the Macintosh project at Apple in the late 1970s. Early life and education Jef Raskin was born in New York City to a secular Jewish family, whose surname is a matronymic from "Raske", Yiddish nickname for Rachel. He received a BA in mathematics and a BS in physics with minors in philosophy and music from Stony Brook University. In 1967, he received a master's degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State University, after having switched from mathematical logic due to differences of opinion with his advisor.
Go to Profile#5918
Kiyoharu Aizawa
#103536
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Kiyoharu Aizawa is a full professor at the Department of Information and Communication Engineering of the University of Tokyo. He was named a fellow of the Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for contributions to model-based coding and multimedia life logging.
Go to Profile#5919
Klaus Harms
#132704
Overall Influence
#5920
Emanuela Mazzon
#132708
Overall Influence
#5921
Toshihiro Tanaka
#132709
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5922
Rida Taji Farouki
#132716
Overall Influence
#5923
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#5924
Liqiang Nie
#132731
Overall Influence
#5925
Hugo Krawczyk
#132732
Overall Influence
#5926
Lorenzo Lo Muzio
#132736
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#5927
John Frankenheimer
#20020
Overall Influence
1930 - 2002 (72 years)
John Michael Frankenheimer was an American film and television director known for social dramas and action/suspense films. Among his credits were Birdman of Alcatraz , The Manchurian Candidate , Seven Days in May , The Train , Seconds , Grand Prix , French Connection II , Black Sunday , The Island of Dr. Moreau , and Ronin .
Go to Profile#5928
Ronald D. Schrimpf
#119658
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Ronald D Schrimpf is an American electrical engineer and scientist. He is the Orrin H. Ingram Chair in Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Vanderbilt University. where his research activities focus on microelectronics and semiconductor devices. He is affiliated with the Radiation Effects and Reliability Group at Vanderbilt University where he works on the effects of radiation on semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics at Vanderbilt. He is best known for his work in the field of ioniz...
Go to Profile#5929
Anant Bhardwaj
#67151
Overall Influence
#5930
Peter Kellman
#132780
Overall Influence
#5931
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#5932
Ladipo Ayodeji Banjo
#9171
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Ladipo Ayodeji Banjo, is a Nigerian Emeritus professor of English language, educational administrator, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria as well as former pro-chancellor of Ajayi Crowther University.
Go to Profile#5933
Geoffrey Ian Taylor
#132859
Overall Influence
#5934
Wu Jianping
#105675
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Wu Jianping , also known as Jian-Ping Wu, is a Chinese computer scientist. He is Professor and Chair of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University. He is also Chairman of the China Education and Research Network Technical Board and director of the CERNET center, and vice president of the China Internet Association.
Go to Profile#5935
Manish Rutgers Parashar
#132896
Overall Influence
#5936
Mitsuhiro Shibayama
#132897
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5937
Tom Skyhøj Olsen
#132899
Overall Influence
#5938
James L. Mills
#132904
Overall Influence
#5939
E. Mark Haacke
#132918
Overall Influence
#5940
Richard K. Leach
#132921
Overall Influence
#5941
Francesco Loreto
#132922
Overall Influence
#5942
Tetsuya Satoh
#132949
Overall Influence
#5943
Gabriele Gratton
#132957
Overall Influence
#5944
Willem Verboom
#132958
Overall Influence
#5945
Francis D. Pagani
#132973
Overall Influence
#5946
Gaurav Dhiman
#132996
Overall Influence
#5947
Klaus Pfeffer
#132998
Overall Influence
#5948
Rong Sun
#133022
Overall Influence
#5949
Mieczysław Klimek
#54874
Overall Influence
1913 - 1995 (82 years)
Mieczysław Klimek was a Polish specialist in electrical and thermal devices in textile applications, a former rector of Lodz University of Technology . In 1939, he graduated from Warsaw University of Technology, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. In 1939–1941, he was a prisoner of Nazi concentration camp. After the liberation in 1945, he joined the textile industry and became the chief engineer at the plant "Krusche and Ender" in Pabianice, and since 1947 the director of the Scientific and Research Institute of Textiles. Then he became a part of the organizing team at the Technical University of Lodz in Poland, the first Textile Faculty.
Go to Profile#5950
Tor Helleseth
#133033
Overall Influence
