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,
#6751
Shu Man Fu
#140884
Overall Influence
#6752
Jintao Zhang
#140896
Overall Influence
#6753
Gillian Arnold
#133907
Overall Influence
Gillian Arnold is a British Information technology leader. She is a BCS Vice President and the Past Chair of the BCSWomen Specialist Group that supports women in the IT industry. In 2015, she was identified as the 9th Most Influential Women in UK IT 2015, by Computer Weekly. In 2016, Arnold was again identified as one of the 50 most influential women in UK IT 2016 by Computer Weekly.
Go to Profile#6754
Patrizia Burra
#140927
Overall Influence
#6755
Muhammad Imran
#140942
Overall Influence
#6756
Cristóbal Cobo
#77121
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Cristóbal Cobo is a senior education and technology specialist at the World Bank. Previously he was professor and researcher in new and educational technologies, who worked on projects in South America, North America and Europe. He currently is a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and associate at the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, part of the University of Oxford, England. His main theoretical contribution is the concept of “invisible learning,” promoting the idea that learning should be a result of action and interaction, rather than through instruction.
Go to Profile#6757
Jian-fei Cai
#140985
Overall Influence
#6758
Armin Kurtz
#140992
Overall Influence
#6759
Ken Wing Kuen Lee
#140993
Overall Influence
#6760
Avi Sadeh
#140994
Overall Influence
#6761
Dong‐yan Jin
#141010
Overall Influence
#6762
Sandro Mereghetti
#141023
Overall Influence
#6763
Jeffrey M. Voas
#141054
Overall Influence
#6764
Alvaro Morales
#88389
Overall Influence
Dr. Alvaro Morales, MD, FRCSC is a Colombian-Canadian urologist, surgeon and Member of the Order of Canada who is noted for his work in the fields of cancer research and testosterone deficiency. He is particularly known for his pioneering work using Bacillus Calmette–Guérin to treat bladder cancer, the first proven immunotherapy for cancer. A 2018 article in the Canadian Urological Association Journal said Morales' cancer research "changed the course of urology" and described him as a "living legend."
Go to Profile#6765
Marcin Woźniak
#141077
Overall Influence
#6766
John P. Wolfe
#141088
Overall Influence
#6767
Gert Cauwenberghs
#141090
Overall Influence
#6768
Ajit J. Thakkar
#141092
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#6769
Hiroki Shirato
#141094
Overall Influence
#6770
Martin Richard Tramèr
#141103
Overall Influence
#6771
Volker Gerke
#141106
Overall Influence
#6773
Bin Ren
#141126
Overall Influence
#6774
Julián Fiérrez
#141137
Overall Influence
#6775
Usman Baber
#141138
Overall Influence
#6776
Alain Sarasin
#141140
Overall Influence
#6777
David C. Stuckey
#141177
Overall Influence
#6778
Yutaka Suzuki
#141183
Overall Influence
#6779
Edoardo Amaldi
#141188
Overall Influence
#6780
Hiroaki Misawa
#141193
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#6781
Amira Abdelrasoul
#37300
Overall Influence
Amira Abdelrasoul is a researcher and associate professor at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, where she is the principal investigator of the Hemodialysis Membrane Science and Nanotechnology Research Centre. She is also a membrane technology leader in Canada, and her interdisciplinary research program focuses on solving existing hemodialysis system problems.
Go to Profile#6782
Felix Mahfoud
#141199
Overall Influence
#6783
Wilhelm Freddie
#44627
Overall Influence
1909 - 1995 (86 years)
Wilhelm Freddie, born Christian Frederik Wilhelm Carlsen was a Danish painter, sculptor and filmmaker. Initially working along a somewhat abstract line, he soon turned towards a more realistic surrealism, only to later return to abstract art. Some of his works were highly controversial and considered pornographic at their time, resulting in confiscation of the works and his imprisonment though his artistic merits were later recognized.
Go to Profile#6784
Luis Moroder
#131417
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Luis Moroder is an Italian peptide chemist, who pioneered research on the interactions between peptide hormones and cell membrane-bound hormone receptorss. He later expanded this research to other biological systems of medical relevance such as protein inhibitors, collagens, and synthetic proteins. A hallmark of his research is interdisciplinarity as reflected in his use and development of methods in organic chemistry, biophysics and molecular biology. He is a co-editor of the five-volume Houben-Weyl, Methods of Organic Chemistry, Synthesis of Peptides and Peptidomimetics. Since 2008 he is th...
Go to Profile#6785
Haitao Zheng
#36210
Overall Influence
Haitao "Heather" Zheng is Chinese-American computer scientist and electrical engineer. She is the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. She was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for "contributions to dynamic spectrum access and cognitive radio networks". She was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to wireless networking and mobile computing".
Go to Profile#6786
Steven De Feyter
#141231
Overall Influence
#6787
Yang Hao
#141242
Overall Influence
#6788
Yeshayahu Talmon
#141255
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
#6789
Laurent Meijer
#141266
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#6790
Guorui Jiang
#80702
Overall Influence
Guorui Jiang is a professor of Information Management and Information Systems, as well as an associate dean of the Economics and Management School at Beijing University of Technology, where he leads the multi-agent supply chain group in Business Intelligence Laboratory.
Go to Profile#6791
Daniele Prati
#141275
Overall Influence
#6792
Wang-Chiew Tan
#122116
Overall Influence
Wang-Chiew Tan is a Singaporean computer scientist specializing in data management and natural language processing. Her work in data management includes data provenance and data integration. She is currently a Research Scientist at Facebook AI, and was previously the Director of Research at Megagon Labs in Mountain View, California.
Go to Profile#6793
Phyllida Barlow
#34343
Overall Influence
1944 - 2023 (79 years)
Dame Phyllida Barlow was a British visual artist. She studied at Chelsea College of Art and the Slade School of Art . She joined the staff of the Slade in the late 1960s and taught there for more than forty years. She retired from academia in 2009 and in turn became an emerita professor of fine art. She had an important influence on younger generations of artists; at the Slade her students included Rachel Whiteread and Ángela de la Cruz. In 2017 she represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale.
Go to Profile#6794
Siamak Sabour
#141286
Overall Influence
#6795
Yoshikazu Tanaka
#141297
Overall Influence
#6796
John-jules Charles Meyer
#141314
Overall Influence
#6797
Paul J. M. Havinga
#141319
Overall Influence
#6798
Takashi Masuda
#114861
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
is a Japanese computer scientist. He was born in Hagi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1939. Masuda graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1963, and received his MS degree in 1956 there. From 1956 to 1977, he worked at Hitachi's Central Research Center and then Systems Laboratory, studying from 1969 at Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Science School on a sabbatical. He received his PhD from University of Tokyo. His doctorate thesis was on the "Analysis and Evaluation of the Computer System Which Uses Virtual Memory".
Go to Profile#6799
Otto Haller
#141336
Overall Influence
#6800
Judes Poirier
#141337
Overall Influence
