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,
#7201
Thomas W. Bauer
#144888
Overall Influence
#7202
Eli Fromm
#73425
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Eli Fromm is professor emeritus and Electrical and Computer Engineering Leroy A. Brothers Professor in the College of Engineering at Drexel University. Dr. Fromm received a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Drexel in 1962, a Masters in Engineering also from Drexel in 1964, and his Ph.D. from Jefferson Medical College in 1967. He worked as in engineer in the Missile and Space Division of General Electric in 1962, then at the Applied Physics Laboratory at DuPont Company in Wilmington Delaware, 1963; he began working at Drexel as an assistant professor in 1967. In 2002 he became the fir...
Go to Profile#7203
Chris Wiggins
#52624
Overall Influence
Chris Wiggins is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University. In 2010 he co-founded hackNY, a nonprofit organization focused on connecting students with startups in New York City. Since 2014, he has been the Chief Data Scientist at The New York Times.
Go to Profile#7204
Hideo Kimura
#144902
Overall Influence
#7205
Shigenobu Shibata
#144913
Overall Influence
#7206
Panos Kalnis
#111719
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Panagiotis Kalnis is a Greek academic who specializes in cloud computing and databases. Biography After earning undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Patras in Greece, Kalnis completed a PhD at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Go to Profile#7207
Mary Kelly
#24813
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Mary Kelly is an American conceptual artist, feminist, educator, and writer. Kelly has contributed extensively to the discourse of feminism and postmodernism through her large-scale narrative installationss and theoretical writings. Kelly's work mediates between conceptual art and the more intimate interests of artists of the 1980s. Her work has been exhibited internationally and she is considered among the most influential contemporary artists working today. Kelly is Judge Widney Professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design of the University of Southern California. She was previousl...
Go to Profile#7208
Hiroshi Ueda
#144935
Overall Influence
#7209
Mohd Javaid Javaid
#144946
Overall Influence
#7210
Lawrence Matthies
#144953
Overall Influence
#7211
Jian-dong Li
#144961
Overall Influence
#7212
Ian Max Møller
#144970
Overall Influence
#7213
Guido Stoll
#144975
Overall Influence
#7214
Julie Chao
#144976
Overall Influence
#7215
Svend Erik Mathiassen
#144992
Overall Influence
#7216
Hayao Kobayashi
#145000
Overall Influence
#7217
Aaron Swartz
#95396
Overall Influence
1986 - 2013 (27 years)
Aaron Hillel Swartz was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. As a programmer, Swartz helped develop the web feed format RSS; the technical architecture for Creative Commons, an organization dedicated to creating copyright licenses; the website framework web.py; and Markdown, a lightweight markup language format. Swartz was involved in the development of the social news aggregation website Reddit until he departed from the company in 2007. He is often credited as a martyr and a prodigy, and his work focused on civic awareness and ...
Go to Profile#7218
Bo Nilsson
#145038
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#7219
Cheon, Jung Hee
#134981
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Cheon, Jung Hee is a South Korean cryptographer and mathematician whose research interest includes computational number theory, cryptography, and information security. He is one of the inventors of braid cryptography, one of group-based cryptography, and approximate homomorphic encryption HEAAN. As one of co-inventors of approximate homomorphic encryption HEaaN, he is actively working on homomorphic encryptions and their applications including machine learning, homomorphic control systems, and DNA computation on encrypted data. He is particularly known for his work on an efficient algorithm on strong DH problem.
Go to Profile#7220
Tania Sorrell
#135541
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Tania Sorrell is an Australian infectious disease physician who is a Professor and Director of the Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity at the University of Sydney. She serves as Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council Research Translation Faculty Steering Group on New and Emerging Health Threats. She is interested in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.
Go to Profile#7221
Antonio Iera
#145060
Overall Influence
#7222
Hiroshi Nojima
#145116
Overall Influence
#7223
Trevor Nunn
#16382
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn is an English theatre director. He has been the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal Haymarket. He has directed dramas for the stage, like Macbeth, as well as opera and musicals, such as Cats and Les Misérables .
Go to Profile#7224
Naomichi Matsumoto
#145200
Overall Influence
#7225
Chenyang Lu
#145205
Overall Influence
#7226
Michael Makris
#145216
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#7227
Peter Bossier
#145217
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#7228
Anthony Caro
#4104
Overall Influence
1924 - 2013 (89 years)
Sir Anthony Alfred Caro was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using 'found' industrial objects. He began as a member of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moore early in his career. He was lauded as the greatest British sculptor of his generation.
Go to Profile#7229
Steven P. Reiss
#145229
Overall Influence
#7230
Jeroan J. Allison
#145240
Overall Influence
#7231
Hideaki Miyake
#145244
Overall Influence
#7232
Beat Lutz
#145247
Overall Influence
#7233
Kazuhide Inoue
#145260
Overall Influence
#7234
Koji Otsuka
#145265
Overall Influence
#7235
Verónica Bolón-Canedo
#133554
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Verónica Bolón-Canedo is a Spanish computer scientist whose research concerns feature selection in machine learning, with applications including medical diagnosis, oil spill detection, and automated educational assessment. She is a professor at the University of A Coruña.
Go to Profile#7236
Steven Jacobson
#145270
Overall Influence
#7237
Jian Huang Lai
#145290
Overall Influence
#7238
Alfred Singer
#145306
Overall Influence
#7239
Michael D. Ernst
#145328
Overall Influence
#7240
Zhai Wanming
#128266
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Zhai Wanming is a Chinese scientist who is a professor at Southwest Jiaotong University. He was a delegate to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Biography Zhai was born into a family of farming background in Jingjiang, Jiangsu, in August 1963. He was the second of three children. After the resumption of college entrance examination, he was admitted to Southwest Jiaotong University, where he studied vehicle heat transfer under Yu Chengshun
Go to Profile#7241
Bruno Lomonte
#145337
Overall Influence
#7242
Anthony D. Hunter
#145342
Overall Influence
#7243
Thilo Hackert
#145353
Overall Influence
#7244
Yasuyuki Yamashita
#145357
Overall Influence
#7245
Gayle King
#29064
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Gayle King is an American television personality, author and broadcast journalist for CBS News, co-hosting its flagship morning program, CBS Mornings, and before that its predecessor CBS This Morning. She is also an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine.
Go to Profile#7246
Masaru Mimura
#145362
Overall Influence
#7247
Kenneth Komoski
#73827
Overall Influence
Kenneth Komoski was an educational advocate, nonprofit executive, and former teacher. He died November 15, 2017, aged 89. Komoski served as head of the Center for Programmed Instruction and the Educational Products Information Exchange Institute. In 1964, Life Magazine named him to their list of Young Leaders of the Big Breakthrough. The magazine noted that he "was among the first to explore the new field of education by teaching-machines, such as keyboard devices, microfilm, and computers". Several years later, Komoski coined the term "learner verification and revision" for formative evaluation and modification of instructional materials .
Go to Profile#7248
Finn Ravndal
#84961
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Finn Ravndal is a Norwegian physicist. Ravndal grew up in Molde, Norway. In 1961 he enrolled at the Norwegian Institute of Technology to study physics . In 1966 he completed the degree of sivilingeniør with a dissertation in the area of theoretical physics under the supervision of Harald Wergeland. During the summer of 1965, he interned at CERN where he worked with an experimental particle physics group to study bubble chamber images for the detection of new elementary particles.
Go to Profile#7249
Paolo Tonella
#145389
Overall Influence
#7250
Gerard Clarke
#145390
Overall Influence
