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,
#6951
Toshikazu Takata
#142607
Overall Influence
#6952
Florian Dombois
#43547
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Florian Dombois is an artist who focuses on time, landforms, labilities, seismic and tectonic activity, as well as on their various representational and media formats. Dombois studied geophysics and philosophy in Berlin, Kiel and Hawaii, and wrote his PhD in Amsterdam and Berlin. After that, he has developed a concept of "Art as Research" to challenge modernism in art and scientific modes of expression. His oeuvre includes spatial and sound installations, but also happenings and performances. In 2003–2011, he was heading the Institute for Transdisciplinarity , and was president of the research council at Berne University of the Arts.
Go to Profile#6953
David Adam
#142661
Overall Influence
#6954
Peter Bürgisser
#95201
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Peter Bürgisser is a Swiss mathematician and theoretical computer scientist who deals with algorithmic algebra and algebraic complexity theory. Education and career Bürgisser received in 1990 his doctorate from the University of Konstanz with thesis Degenerationsordnung und Trägerfunktional bilinearer Abbildungen under the supervision of Volker Strassen. Bürgisser was a postdoc at the University of Bonn from 1991 to 1993 and then at the University of Zürich. He was a professor at the University of Paderborn and since 2013 a professor at the Technical University of Berlin .
Go to Profile#6955
Ophir Frieder
#142696
Overall Influence
#6956
Anastasios Tefas
#142703
Overall Influence
#6957
Gustavo Stolovitzky
#93524
Overall Influence
Gustavo A. Stolovitzky is an Argentine-American computational systems biologist. He is an IBM Fellow and the Director of the Translational Systems Biology and Nano-Biotechnology Program at IBM Research. He serves as the program director of the Thomas J. Watson Research Center's Translational Systems Biology and Nanobiotechnology Program, as well as an Adjunct professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. His research has been cited more than 20,000 times
Go to Profile#6958
Uri Michael Ascher
#142710
Overall Influence
#6959
Philippe Morice
#142722
Overall Influence
#6960
Hassen Aydi
#142735
Overall Influence
#6961
John Vissing
#142738
Overall Influence
#6962
Jason P Jue
#97158
Overall Influence
Jason P Jue is a professor of computer science and the director of the Advanced Networks Research Lab at the University of Texas at Dallas. Education Jue received his B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Science from University of California, Berkeley in 1990. He then received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles in 1991. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of California, Davis in 1999.
Go to Profile#6963
Eneko Agirre
#142749
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
#6964
Riichirou Mizoguchi
#142754
Overall Influence
#6965
Donna Hoffman
#93148
Overall Influence
Donna Hoffman is the Louis Rosenfeld Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Marketing at the School of Business at The George Washington University. She is the co-founder of eLab, an online laboratory for consumer behavior research and the Co-Director of the Center for the Connected Consumer.
Go to Profile#6966
Lev Korolyov
#92965
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Lev Nikolayevich Korolyov was a Russian / Soviet computer scientist, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was involved in the development of the first Soviet computers. Biography Korolev was born in Podolsk, Russia. After Army service, he graduated from Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Moscow State University in 1952. In 1953-1975 Korolev worked at the Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Engineering of academician S.A. Lebedev, and became his deputy. He died in Moscow in 2016 at the age of 89.
Go to Profile#6967
Stephanie Seneff
#142772
Overall Influence
#6968
Zhiyong Fan
#142773
Overall Influence
#6969
Edward L. Palmer
#54751
Overall Influence
1933 - 1999 (66 years)
Dr. Edward L. Palmer was a media educator, researcher, author, and advocate, with extensive international experience in media planning and applications. He was a native of Oregon, held a Ph.D. degree in Educational Measurement and Research Design from Michigan State University, and held university appointments at Florida State University, Harvard University, and the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#6970
Pierre Rochette
#142775
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#6971
Wei Song Shi
#142821
Overall Influence
#6972
Paramvir Victor Bahl
#142833
Overall Influence
#6973
Donald Kossmann
#142863
Overall Influence
#6974
Tapani Hovi
#142869
Overall Influence
#6975
Joakim Lundeberg
#142899
Overall Influence
#6976
Gaetano Ciancio
#41172
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Gaetano Ciancio is an Italian American surgeon at the University of Miami who specializes in kidney transplant. He is the chief medical and academic officer of the Miami Transplant Institute and the director of its Kidney & Kidney-Pancreas Programs. His most significant contributions to medicine are related to surgically treating kidney cancer once it has spread to the inferior vena cava and in optimizing the immunosuppression protocol after kidney transplant.
Go to Profile#6977
Robert Sabourin
#142917
Overall Influence
#6978
Meinard Müller
#142918
Overall Influence
#6979
James Duffin
#142926
Overall Influence
#6980
Simone Leigh
#29501
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Simone Leigh is an American artist from Chicago who works in New York City in the United States. She works in various media including sculpture, installations, video, performance, and social practice. Leigh has described her work as auto-ethnographic, and her interests include African art and vernacular objects, performance, and feminism. Her work is concerned with the marginalization of women of color and reframes their experience as central to society. Leigh has often said that her work is focused on “Black female subjectivity,” with an interest in complex interplays between various strands of history.
Go to Profile#6981
Eun Ha Choi
#142949
Overall Influence
#6982
Frank Nwachukwu Ndili
#36961
Overall Influence
Frank Nwachukwu Ndili was the 1st Nigerian Nuclear Physicist and the 7th Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He served as Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka from 1980 until he was succeeded by professor Chimere Ikoku in 1985. He left the office after a long and controversial investigation by the panel of inquiry. However, he is believed to have been forthright even where his predecessor Umaru Shehu threaded carefully. He is credited with being one of the most visionary Vice Chancellors of the University. During Professor Ndili's Vice-Chancellorship, effo...
Go to Profile#6983
John Carmack
#106406
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
John D. Carmack II is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and their sequels. Carmack made innovations in 3D computer graphics, such as his Carmack's Reverse algorithm for shadow volumes.
Go to Profile#6984
Luigi Pietro Maria Colombo
#142974
Overall Influence
#6985
Christoph Hiemke
#142980
Overall Influence
#6986
Nickolas Papadopoulos
#142995
Overall Influence
#6987
Minlie Huang
#143006
Overall Influence
#6988
Francesco Regoli
#143019
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#6989
Kazuhiko Seki
#143030
Overall Influence
#6990
Abraham Ginzburg
#52811
Overall Influence
1926 - 2020 (94 years)
Abraham Ginzburg was a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science. He served as Vice President of the Technion Institute, and President of the Open University of Israel Biography Ginzburg was born on 1 August 1926 in Navahrudak, Belarus. He began acquiring his education during World War II, after which he taught the children of Sh'erit ha-Pletah mathematics. In 1949, Ginzburg immigrated to Israel, and began studying in the Technion Faculty of Electrical Engineering, where he received his BSc summa cum laude. Three years later, he acquired a Master's degree in electrical engineering and in 1959, h...
Go to Profile#6991
Dan Halperin
#107073
Overall Influence
Daniel Halperin is an Israeli computer scientist specializing in computational geometry and robot motion planning. He is a professor of computer science at Tel Aviv University. Education and career Halperin completed his Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University in 1992, under the supervision of Micha Sharir. His dissertation was Algorithmic Motion Planning via Arrangements of Curves and of Surfaces. After postdoctoral research at Stanford University, he returned to Tel Aviv University as a faculty member in 1996.
Go to Profile#6992
David Edward Stallknecht
#143068
Overall Influence
#6993
Ken Herrmann
#143070
Overall Influence
#6994
Lubaina Himid
#17463
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Lubaina Himid is a British artist and curator. She is a professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. Her art focuses on themes of cultural history and reclaiming identities.
Go to Profile#6995
Udo Kaatze
#143094
Overall Influence
#6996
Corrado Tamburino
#143123
Overall Influence
#6997
Christian Peschel
#143131
Overall Influence
#6998
Murat Kantarcıoǧlu
#143136
Overall Influence
#6999
Bruce Sayers
#91095
Overall Influence
1928 - 2008 (80 years)
Bruce Mc Arthur Sayers was a British electrical engineer. He was a professor and served as head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and later head of the Department of Computing at Imperial College, London.
Go to Profile#7000
Johannes Roth
#143171
Overall Influence
