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,
#6501
Hiroshi Handa
#138497
Overall Influence
#6502
Sam Francis
#5443
Overall Influence
1923 - 1994 (71 years)
Samuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker. Early life Sam Francis was born in San Mateo, California, the son of Katherine Lewis Francis and Samuel Augustus Francis Sr. The death of his mother in 1935, who had encouraged his interest in music affected him deeply, but he later developed a strong bond with his stepmother, Virginia Peterson Francis. He attended San Mateo High School in the early 1940s.
Go to Profile#6503
Mehrdad Saif
#138527
Overall Influence
#6504
Kaibin Huang
#138528
Overall Influence
#6505
Rengaswamy Sankaranarayanan
#138553
Overall Influence
#6506
Masahito Yamada
#138557
Overall Influence
#6507
Gunilla Borgefors
#127769
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Gunilla Borgefors is a Swedish computer scientist specializing in image processing, including distance transforms, topological skeletonization, and edge detection. She is a professor emerita in the Department of Information Technology at Uppsala University, associated with the Centre for Image Analysis.
Go to Profile#6508
Patrick Tso
#138565
Overall Influence
#6509
Robert A. Shanks
#138569
Overall Influence
#6510
David Taubman
#99746
Overall Influence
David Taubman is an electrical engineer at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for his contributions to image and video communications. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2023.
Go to Profile#6511
Gihan Wikramanayake
#96674
Overall Influence
1960 - 2018 (58 years)
Gihan Nilendra Wikramanayake, FBCS, CITP was a Sri Lankan academic. He was a Senior Professor in Computer Science and attached to the Department of Information Systems Engineering. He was the Director of the University of Colombo School of Computing from 24 May 2010 to 31 May 2016. He was the Head of the Department of Information Systems Engineering from September 2002 to September 2005. He also served as the deputy director of the UCSC from 2003 to 2006.
Go to Profile#6512
Zhu Han
#86317
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Zhu Han is a John and Rebecca Moores Professor of electrical engineering at the University of Houston. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for contributions to resource allocation and security in wireless communications.
Go to Profile#6513
Susan Bee
#44029
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Susan Bee is an American painter, editor, and book artist, who lives in New York City. In 2015, "Photograms and Altered Photos from the 1970s" were exhibited at Southfirst Gallery in Brooklyn. She had one solo show at Accola Griefen Gallery and nine solo shows at A.I.R. Gallery in New York. She has a B.A. from Barnard College and a M.A. in Art from Hunter College. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts MFA in Art Criticism and Writing program. Bee has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Pratt Institute. In 2014, Susan Bee was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.
Go to Profile#6514
Andrzej Piotr Wierzbicki
#138604
Overall Influence
#6515
Søren Møller
#138605
Overall Influence
#6516
Issa Yavari
#138612
Overall Influence
#6517
Luca Ridolfi
#138614
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#6518
Deborah J. Bowen
#138615
Overall Influence
#6519
Ton Lisman
#138628
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#6520
Nada Lavrač
#138631
Overall Influence
#6521
Akihiko Yamagishi
#138633
Overall Influence
#6522
Kiyofumi Yamada
#138661
Overall Influence
#6523
Mark A. Pallansch
#138662
Overall Influence
#6524
Michael J Baum
#138676
Overall Influence
#6525
Baptiste Gault
#138677
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#6526
Efstathios Kastritis
#138685
Overall Influence
#6527
Barry Horwitz
#138686
Overall Influence
#6528
Jan Claassen
#138699
Overall Influence
#6529
Santiago Álvarez
#138701
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#6530
Klaus Pfizenmaier
#138737
Overall Influence
#6531
Matt Bishop
#138743
Overall Influence
#6532
Al Mok
#115159
Overall Influence
Aloysius "Al" Mok is an American computer scientist, currently the Quincy Lee Centennial Professor at University of Texas at Austin, and also a published author.
Go to Profile#6533
Richard Neil Taylor
#138760
Overall Influence
#6534
Xipeng Xu Yanfei Qiu
#138761
Overall Influence
#6535
Ralf Dringen
#138799
Overall Influence
#6536
Namrata Sharma
#138809
Overall Influence
#6537
Jon G. Rokne
#138822
Overall Influence
#6538
Jianyong Ouyang
#138835
Overall Influence
#6539
Hiroyuki Uchida
#138837
Overall Influence
#6540
George Danezis
#92486
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
George Danezis, FBCS is a computer scientist and Professor of Security and Privacy Engineering at the Department of Computer Science, University College London where he is part of the Information Security Research Group, and a fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. He co-founded Chainspace, a sharded smart contract platform, and was Head of Research before it was acquired by Facebook. After leaving Facebook he co-founded MystenLabs and is one of the designers of the Sui Blockchain. He currently works part-time as a Professor at University College London and as Chief Scientist at MystenLabs.
Go to Profile#6541
Dominique Turck
#138842
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#6542
Kiri Wagstaff
#125281
Overall Influence
Kiri Lou Wagstaff is an American computer scientist and planetary scientist whose research involves the use of machine learning in the analysis of data and autonomous control of planetary rovers and other space probes. She is a senior instructor in electrical engineering and computer science at Oregon State University.
Go to Profile#6543
Sajad Jafari
#138847
Overall Influence
#6544
Yuying Yan
#138857
Overall Influence
#6545
Francisco Cervantes
#138861
Overall Influence
#6546
Angelos Dennis Keromytis
#138884
Overall Influence
#6547
Jagdev Singh
#138904
Overall Influence
#6548
Bing Xue
#138916
Overall Influence
#6549
Sebastiaan A. L. M. Kooijman
#138917
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
#6550
Ali Mortazavi
#138938
Overall Influence
