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,
#8801
Jiming Liu
#157728
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
#8802
George F. Turner
#157737
Overall Influence
#8803
Sakamon Devahastin
#157742
Overall Influence
#8804
Rodney A. Brooks
#157753
Overall Influence
#8805
Udo Reichl
#157761
Overall Influence
#8806
Susanne Wetzel
#138515
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Gudrun Susanne Wetzel is a German computer scientist known for her work in computer security, including the use of information channels such as voice or keystroke dynamics to strengthen password-based security, and the security of wireless communications standards including Bluetooth and GSM. She is a professor of computer science at the Stevens Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#8807
Michael Nassal
#157790
Overall Influence
#8808
Fumitaka Kikkawa
#157793
Overall Influence
#8809
Shichaozhangand Chengqi Zhang
#157796
Overall Influence
#8810
Kouhei Tsumoto
#157803
Overall Influence
#8811
Raad Mohiaddin
#123907
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Raad Hashem Mohiaddin is professor of cardiovascular imaging at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College, London, and Royal Brompton Hospital. He is twice winner of the William S. Moore award of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine the society's highest honor for medical investigators.
Go to Profile#8812
Rohit Bakshi
#157814
Overall Influence
#8813
Utpal Sarkar
#157825
Overall Influence
#8814
James C. Lin
#157838
Overall Influence
#8815
Mario Morino
#157840
Overall Influence
#8816
Laurence Claes
#157853
Overall Influence
#8817
Damián J. Fernández
#50374
Overall Influence
Damián J. Fernández is an American academic administrator and political scientist who serves as the 10th president of Warren Wilson College. Fernández assumed office on June 1, 2023, succeeding Lynn Morton. He previously served as the fifth president of Eckerd College.
Go to Profile#8818
Stefano Lonardi
#125379
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Stefano Lonardi is an Italian computer scientist and bioinformatician, currently Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University of California, Riverside. He is also a faculty member of the Graduate Program in Genetics, Genomics and Bioinformatics, the Center for Plant Cell Biology, the Institute for Integrative Genome Biology, and the Graduate Program in Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology.
Go to Profile#8819
Ueli Suter
#157859
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#8820
El Anatsui
#18639
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
El Anatsui is a Ghanaian sculptor active for much of his career in Nigeria. He has drawn particular international attention for his "bottle-top installations". These installations consist of thousands of aluminum pieces sourced from alcohol recycling stations and sewn together with copper wire, which are then transformed into metallic cloth-like wall sculptures. Such materials, while seemingly stiff and sturdy, are actually free and flexible, which often helps with manipulation when installing his sculptures. Anatsui was included in the 2023 Time 100 list of the world's most influential peopl...
Go to Profile#8821
Toshitsugu Sugimoto
#157864
Overall Influence
#8822
Jane Jiang
#142635
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Dame Xiangqian "Jane" Jiang is a Professor of Precision Metrology at the Huazhong University Of Science And Technology and University of Huddersfield. She is the Director of the EPSRC Future Advanced Metrology HUB and is the Royal Academy Engineering/Renishaw Chair in Precision Metrology.
Go to Profile#8823
Alon Lavie
#157870
Overall Influence
#8824
Alan Hanjalic
#157884
Overall Influence
Alan Hanjalic is an engineer who is a full professor at the Delft University of Technology in Delft, the Netherlands. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for his contributions to multimedia information retrieval.
Go to Profile#8825
Jianlin Cheng
#157885
Overall Influence
#8826
Kate Northstone
#157886
Overall Influence
#8827
Jonathan L. Katz
#157890
Overall Influence
#8828
Torsten Braun
#157898
Overall Influence
#8829
Zissis Samaras
#85879
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Zissis Samaras is a Greek mechanical engineer and a professor of thermodynamics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he began his academic career in 1989. He is also the head of the Laboratory of Applied Thermodynamics and co-founder of the two environmental spinoffs EMISIA SA and Exothermia.
Go to Profile#8830
Gian Luca Salvagno
#157908
Overall Influence
#8831
John Saka
#55620
Overall Influence
Professor John Danwell Kalenga Saka is the current Vice-Chancellor of Mzuzu University who replaced Dr.Robert Ridley who withdrew his services in 2017. Saka was also the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malawi who preceded Professor Mkali Idruss Samson Sajidu.
Go to Profile#8832
Satoshi Gando
#157914
Overall Influence
#8833
Giuseppe Colla
#157919
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
#8834
William Margolin
#157923
Overall Influence
#8835
Amnon Altman
#157928
Overall Influence
#8836
Jerson Lima
#136836
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jerson Lima Silva , usually known as Jerson Lima, is a Brazilian biophysicist. He is known for his pioneering research in the field of structural biology, publishing important studies on protein folding and the relationship between protein aggregates and diseases such as cancer, prion diseases and Parkinson's disease.
Go to Profile#8837
Sanjay Mehrotra
#157956
Overall Influence
#8838
Larry L. Constantine
#157959
Overall Influence
#8839
Saket Suman Saurabh
#157973
Overall Influence
#8840
Xiaofei Yang
#157985
Overall Influence
#8841
Mikako Shirouzu
#157987
Overall Influence
#8842
Thomas R. Neu
#157989
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#8843
Xavier Fettweis
#157998
Overall Influence
#8844
Kemal Polat
#158004
Overall Influence
#8845
Antonio Puliafito
#158006
Overall Influence
#8846
Steve Reeves
#113066
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Steve Reeves is a computer scientist based at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. He has been in the various roles of Associate Dean, Programme Co-ordinator and Head of Department of Software Engineering. He has undertaken research work on the Z notation, formal methods for GUI design, a general theory of refinement and logic for veracity.
Go to Profile#8847
Mark Martin
#55075
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Mark Martin is an American cartoonist known for lighthearted humor and satire. He grew up in Leeds, Alabama. Career Martin's first major work in the 1980s was Gnatrat, a parody of Batman, featuring a rat who dresses as a gnat to fight crime. He went on to work on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, and created "20 Nude Dancers 20," a long-running humor strip featured in Comics Buyer's Guide.
Go to Profile#8848
Jiancheng Shi
#158018
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jiancheng Shi from the Institute for Remote Sensing Applications Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for contributions to active and passive microwave remote sensing.
Go to Profile#8849
Jeremy M. Kahn
#158020
Overall Influence
#8850
Hendrik C. Ferreira
#81418
Overall Influence
Hendrik Christoffel Ferreira was a professor in Digital Communications and Information Theory at the University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. Biography He studied electrical engineering at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1980. He worked as a visiting researcher at Linkabit in San Diego. He joined the Rand Afrikaans University in 1983, where, in 1989, he was appointed full professor. In recognition of his excellence in research and educating post-graduate students, he has been appointed as a research professor at the University of Johannesburg in 2007.
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