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,
#8251
Gillian Hayes
#144971
Overall Influence
Gillian Rachael Hayes is an American computer scientist. She is the Robert A. and Barbara L. Kleist Professor in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences and Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Dean of the Graduate Division at UC Irvine.
Go to Profile#8252
Theaster Gates
#24592
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Theaster Gates is an American social practice installation artist and a professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he still lives and works.
Go to Profile#8253
Bevyn Jarrott
#153515
Overall Influence
#8254
Nallasivam Palanisamy
#153520
Overall Influence
#8255
Mohsen Sharifpur
#153525
Overall Influence
#8256
Andreas Börner
#153539
Overall Influence
#8257
André van der Hoek
#141887
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
André van der Hoek is a Dutch and American professor of computer science at the University of California, Irvine , and department chair of Informatics at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences .
Go to Profile#8258
Edmund Y. Lam
#153578
Overall Influence
#8259
Lee Josephson
#153594
Overall Influence
#8260
Dale Sanders
#153596
Overall Influence
#8261
Gregory R. Ganger
#153599
Overall Influence
#8262
Norbert Pfeifer
#153604
Overall Influence
#8263
Jacques Vallée
#104533
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Jacques Fabrice Vallée is an Internet pioneer, computer scientist, venture capitalist, author, ufologist and astronomer currently residing in San Francisco, California and Paris, France. His scientific career began as a professional astronomer at the Paris Observatory. Vallée co-developed the first computerized map of Mars for NASA in 1963. He later worked on the network information center for the ARPANET, a precursor to the modern Internet, as a staff engineer of SRI International's Augmentation Research Center under Douglas Engelbart.
Go to Profile#8264
Yi-ran Chen
#153616
Overall Influence
#8265
Toshinori Tsuru
#153646
Overall Influence
#8266
Kai Ming Ting
#153648
Overall Influence
#8267
Junjie Yan
#153649
Overall Influence
#8268
Dirk Ponge
#153651
Overall Influence
#8269
Afshin Samali
#153655
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#8270
Christopher M. Brown
#153659
Overall Influence
#8271
Yukihiro Shoyama
#153677
Overall Influence
#8272
Mingan Choct
#153681
Overall Influence
#8273
Peng George Wang
#153687
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
#8274
Song Feng Lu
#153690
Overall Influence
#8275
Hannah Wunsch
#153691
Overall Influence
#8276
Roberto Manduchi
#153695
Overall Influence
#8277
Do Kyung Kim
#153698
Overall Influence
#8278
Mitra Jashni
#60806
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Mitra Jashni is an Iranian visual artist and political activist, of Kurdish ethnicity. She works in the mediums of painting, drawing, and sculpture; as well as works as an art teacher, poet, and singer of Iranian contemporary music. She is one of the founders and executive director of Farashgard, an Iranian political party and activist group based in Washington, D.C..
Go to Profile#8279
Franco Rongioletti
#153708
Overall Influence
#8280
Amit Kumar Nayak
#153713
Overall Influence
#8281
Hiroyuki Ogata
#153717
Overall Influence
#8282
Kazuyuki Tobe
#153726
Overall Influence
#8283
Pier Giorgio Natali
#153731
Overall Influence
#8284
Gangfeng Ouyang
#153732
Overall Influence
#8285
Ruth Misener
#121980
Overall Influence
Ruth Misener is a professor at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London. Her research concentrates on the development of software and optimisation algorithms for energy efficient engineering and biomedical systems.
Go to Profile#8286
Giuseppe La Torre
#153743
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
#8287
Jacqueline Suthren Hirst
#25864
Overall Influence
Jacqueline G. Suthren Hirst or Jackie Hirst is a senior lecturer in comparative religion and South Asian studies at Manchester University. She has an MA and PhD from Cambridge University and is a qualified teacher, and taught religious education in a school for five years. She was a senior lecturer at Homerton College, training teachers to teach religious education, before moving to Manchester in 1994.
Go to Profile#8288
James Joseph Little
#153760
Overall Influence
#8289
Koichi Wakabayashi
#153766
Overall Influence
#8290
Zehui Xiong
#153770
Overall Influence
#8291
Laurent Fauchier
#153797
Overall Influence
#8292
Lawrence E. Band
#153806
Overall Influence
#8293
Wei Xu
#153807
Overall Influence
#8294
Dengsheng Lu
#153814
Overall Influence
#8295
Barak A. Pearlmutter
#153817
Overall Influence
#8296
Stephen Trimberger
#109749
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Stephen "Steve" Trimberger is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer, philanthropist, and prolific inventor with 250 US utility patents as of August 26, 2021. He is a DARPA program manager of the microsystems technology office.
Go to Profile#8297
Shahin Akhondzadeh
#153838
Overall Influence
#8298
Paul Tam
#59250
Overall Influence
Paul Tam Kwong-Hang was Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor in the University of Hong Kong , the first university in Hong Kong and in the British-Empire-controlled East Asia region, from 2015 to 2019. Before his provostship, he has already started chairing Paediatric Surgery at HKU since 1996 for decades and has received Li Shu-Pui Professorship in Surgery since 2013.
Go to Profile#8299
Tetsuji Miura
#153871
Overall Influence
#8300
Eduardo Villamor
#153875
Overall Influence
