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,
#7401
Janyce M. Wiebe
#146626
Overall Influence
#7402
Yogesh Chandra Sharma
#146636
Overall Influence
#7403
Andrea De Lucia
#146637
Overall Influence
#7404
Hiroji Iwata
#146641
Overall Influence
#7405
Ramesh Chandra Babu
#146655
Overall Influence
#7406
Steven L. Goldman
#32647
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Steven Louis Goldman is the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Lehigh University. Biography Goldman studied as an undergraduate at Polytechnic University of New York, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics. He then attended Boston University, where he received Master of Arts and PhD degrees in Philosophy. In the 1970s, Goldman was on faculty in the philosophy department at the State College campus of Pennsylvania State University. At Pennsylvania State, he was involved in the development of one of the first U.S. academic programs in science, technology, a...
Go to Profile#7407
Peter Schirmbacher
#115669
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Peter Schirmbacher is a German information scientist. He heads the Computer and Media Services department of Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin and he is a professor of Information Management at Berlin School of Library and Information Science.
Go to Profile#7408
Jana Sawynok
#146672
Overall Influence
#7409
Hiroshi Kunugi
#146687
Overall Influence
#7410
Gilles Laurent
#146704
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#7411
Pinar Heggernes
#47626
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Pinar Heggernes is a Turkish-born Norwegian computer scientist known for her research on graph algorithms, sparse matrix computations, and parameterized complexity. She is the deputy rector of the University of Bergen, elected together with rector Margareth Hagen for the period 2021 - 2025. Until August 2021, she was the head of the Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Research Council of Norway, appointed for the period 2019–2022.
Go to Profile#7412
Yaoqi Zhou
#146711
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#7413
Henry M. Levy
#146718
Overall Influence
#7414
Jacob Devlin
#146729
Overall Influence
#7415
Pearl Pu
#136573
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Pearl Pu is a Chinese-born Swiss computer scientist. After completing her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, she obtained the Research Initiation Award from NSF before moving to Switzerland. She has been a faculty member and senior scientist at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where she founded the Human-Computer Interaction Group in 2000. In 1997, she co-founded the company, Iconomic Systems SA, known for the development of an agent-based paradigm for travel e-commerce and was chairperson until its sale to i:FAO in 2001. She spent 6 months each as visiting scholar at Stanf...
Go to Profile#7416
Wolfhard Janke
#146740
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#7417
Mohammadreza Shokouhimehr
#146741
Overall Influence
#7418
David D. Chaplin
#146744
Overall Influence
#7419
Thomas Preston
#146753
Overall Influence
#7420
David Lee Phillips
#146760
Overall Influence
#7421
Philippe Gautret
#146766
Overall Influence
#7422
Ioannis Kontoyiannis
#62373
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Ioannis Kontoyiannis is a Greek mathematician and information theorist. He is the Churchill Professor of Mathematics for Operational Research with the Statistical Laboratory, in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics, of the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge, an affiliated member of the Division of Information Engineering, Cambridge, a Research Fellow of the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas, a Senior Member of Robinson College, Cambridge, and a trustee of the Rollo Davidson Trust.
Go to Profile#7423
Xu Chengzhong
#146784
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Chengzhong Xu from the Wayne State University, Detroit, MI was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for leadership in resource management for parallel and distributed systems.
Go to Profile#7424
Yu Guirui
#130725
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Yu Guirui is a Chinese scientist currently serving as researcher and deputy director of the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resource Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences . Biography Yu was born in Pulandian District, Dalian, Liaoning, in 1959. He received his master's degree in crop cultivation and farming and doctor's degree in soil physics and amelioration from Shenyang Agricultural University in 1984 and 1993, respectively. After graduation, he taught there. He pursued advanced studies at Chiba University in 1991, earning his doctor's degree in environmental physics in 1997.
Go to Profile#7425
William Shieh
#146829
Overall Influence
#7426
Olov Wiklund
#146839
Overall Influence
#7427
Benjamin Van Roy
#146847
Overall Influence
#7428
Chuansheng Chen
#146853
Overall Influence
#7429
Thomas Andrew Black
#146889
Overall Influence
#7430
Lori L. Pollock
#131717
Overall Influence
Lori L. Pollock is an American Computer Scientist noted for her research on software analysis and testing, green software engineering and compiler optimization. She is also noted for her leadership in broadening participation in computing. She has been a board member of CRA-W since 2001 and was the Co-Chair of CRA-W from 2005 to 2009. She was on the board when CRA-W was awarded the U.S. Public Service Award by the National Science Board in 2005, and when the CRA-W was awarded the U.S. Presidential Award for Mentoring in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics in 2004.
Go to Profile#7431
Richard Lawrence Nelson
#146902
Overall Influence
#7432
Fumio Miyazaki
#146904
Overall Influence
#7433
Bellie Sivakumar
#146910
Overall Influence
#7434
Sung Woo Kim
#146923
Overall Influence
#7435
Nicolas Le Novère
#75819
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Nicolas Le Novère is a British and French biologist. His research focuses on modeling signaling pathways and developing tools to share mathematical models. Education Le Novère obtained his Baccalauréat at the Prytanée National Militaire. He received a MSc in Biology and Biochemistry from the École Normale Supérieure, a BSc in Cellular Biology and Physiology , and a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the Pierre and Marie Curie University. From 1999 to 2001, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge .
Go to Profile#7436
Fawzia Fahim
#38123
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Fawzia Abbas Fahim is an Egyptian biochemist and environmental biologist known for her work on the anti-tumoral effects of snake venom and iodoacetate. She is currently Professor of Biochemistry at Ain Shams University, Egypt. Fahim has also made important contributions to infant and occupational health, and pollution issues in Egypt.
Go to Profile#7437
Hans Vangheluwe
#127392
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Hans L.M. Vangheluwe is a professor and researcher in the domain of computer simulation and modelling. He is currently professor at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, and at McGill University, Montreal. He was a co-founder of Modelica, a language for the acausal modelling of complex systems and computer automated multiparadigm modeling.
Go to Profile#7438
Kaoru Ota
#146940
Overall Influence
#7439
Daniela-florentina Marcu
#146943
Overall Influence
#7440
Tamer Uyar
#146944
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#7441
Roberto Vettor
#146946
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#7442
Peter J. Haas
#125369
Overall Influence
Peter J. Haas is an American computer scientist and operations researcher known for his work in information management and big data. He worked for 30 years at IBM Research before becoming a professor of computer science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Go to Profile#7443
Bina Shaheen Siddiqui
#20035
Overall Influence
Bina Shaheen Siddiqui is a Pakistani chemist and the Director of the H.E.J. Research Institute of Chemistry at the University of Karachi. Siddiqui graduated from the University of Karachi with an MPhil in 1978. In 1980, she graduated from the same university with a PhD in organic chemistry.
Go to Profile#7444
Allan Tsung
#146964
Overall Influence
#7445
Richa Singh
#137448
Overall Influence
Richa Singh is an Indian computer scientist whose research concerns biometrics, including face recognition and iris recognition. She is a professor and head of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Jodhpur.
Go to Profile#7446
Roberto De Giorgio
#146970
Overall Influence
#7447
Evangelos Bellos
#146973
Overall Influence
#7448
Olaf Storaasli
#99644
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Olaf O. Storaasli, Synective Labs VP, was a researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and USEC following his NASA career. He led the hardware, software and applications teams' successful development of one of NASA's 1st parallel computers, the Finite element machine and developed rapid matrix equation algorithms tailored to high-performance computers to solve science and engineering applications. He was PhD advisor and graduate instructor at UT, GWU and CNU and mentored 25 NHGS students. He is recognized by American Men and Women of Science, Marquis Who's Who, and NASA, Cray, Intel and Concordia College awards.
Go to Profile#7449
Michael Rakowitz
#53190
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Michael Rakowitz is an Iraqi-American artist living and working in Chicago. He is best known for his conceptual art shown in non-gallery contexts. Rakowitz is Professor of Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University, and is represented by Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago; Jane Lombard Gallery, New York; and Barbara Wien Galerie, Berlin; and Green Art Gallery, Dubai. He lives and works in Chicago.
Go to Profile#7450
Cecil G. Armstrong
#146989
Overall Influence
