Search People Result | Academic Influence

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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Computer Science,

#12751

Geza de Kaplany

#109985

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Geza de Kaplany is a Hungarian-born physician who emigrated to the United States in the late 1950s. In 1963, he was convicted of first-degree murder in California after mutilating his wife with a scalpel and corrosive strong acids, thus causing her death.

#12752

Erik Tengström

#127779

Overall Influence

1913 - 1996 (83 years)

Erik Tengström , Swedish astronomer and geodesist. Tengström was born in Motala, Sweden, and was a descendant of the first archbishop of Åbo Jacob Tengström. He enrolled in Stockholm University in 1932, where he studied astronomy, physics and geology. After teaching at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and while working as state geodesist at the Geographical Survey Office of Sweden 1949-1954, he completed his Licentiate in 1952 and his PhD in geodesy at Uppsala University in 1954 with the dissertation Outlines of a method for determining the geoid in Sweden by free-air anomalies .

#12753

Frank LaPena

#106793

Overall Influence

1937 - 2019 (82 years)

Frank Raymond LaPena, also known as Frank LaPeña and by his Wintu name Tauhindauli , was a Nomtipom-Wintu American Indian painter, printmaker, ethnographer, professor, ceremonial dancer, poet, and writer. He taught at California State University, Sacramento, between 1975 and 2002. LaPena helped defined a generation of Native artists in a revival movement to share their experiences, traditions, culture, and ancestry.

#12754

Pratury Trirumala Rao

#135739

Overall Influence

Pratury Trirumala Rao was an Indian pediatrician and a writer of medical and non-fiction literature. He was a professor of pediatrics at the Gandhi Medical College, Hyderabad. He was the author of two books on pediatric medicine in English, The insulin requirements of children with diabetes mellitus maintained in good control and Pediatric Problems in Developing Countries

#12755

Arvi Hurskainen

Arvi Hurskainen

#59724

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Arvi Johannes Hurskainen is a Finnish scholar of language technology and linguistics. Since 1985 he has developed rule-based language technology mainly for Swahili, but also for other languages, including machine translation from English to Finnish. He has created a development environment called SALAMA , but it suits to any language. The major applications developed so far include the following: the spell checker for Swahili, the annotator of corpus texts, an advanced dictionary between Swahili and English and translators from Swahili to English, from English to Swahili, and from English to Finnish.

#12756

Monica Malta

#179399

Overall Influence

Monica Malta is a Brazilian researcher who works mostly to address health inequalities faced by LGBTQ persons. She is currently a professor at the University of Toronto and a scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. She was elected a TED fellow in 2022.

#12757

Jorge Glusberg

#39611

Overall Influence

1932 - 2012 (80 years)

Jorge Glusberg was an Argentine author, publisher, curator, professor, and conceptual artist. Early life and education Glusberg was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he was 12 years old Glusberg organized a "geology museum" on balcony of his house. In the space he exhibited rocks and other found objects from the Pampas for fellow neighborhood kids.

#12758

Sug Woo Shin

#93235

Overall Influence

Sug Woo Shin is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley working in number theory, automorphic forms, and the Langlands program. Education From 1994 to 1996 when he was in Seoul Science High School, Shin won two gold medals and one bronze medal while representing South Korea at the International Mathematical Olympiad. He graduated from Seoul National University with a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 2000. He received his PhD in mathematics from Harvard University in 2007 under the supervision of Richard Taylor.

#12759

C. Wyatt Shields IV

#188809

Overall Influence

Charles Wyatt Shields IV is an American biomedical engineer and assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research involves the rational design of colloidal and supracolloidal particles for applications in drug delivery and biosensing.

#12760

Scott Williams

#96386

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Scott Williams is an American artist best known for paintings made using stencils. He began working with stencils in the early 1980s, painting on walls, cars and the found paper and objects that accumulated in his studio. He has painted many murals in San Francisco and was dubbed by artist/writer Aaron Noble The Stencil Godfather of the Mission, where stencil graffiti is common. Williams has painted numerous murals in San Francisco, both indoors and out, including Armadillo's on Fillmore Street, Amoeba Records, Clarion Alley, Leather Tongue video, The Chamelleon bar, DNA Lounge, Burger Joint, Pedal Revolution, and The Lab.

#12761

Antoinette Lombard

#184069

Overall Influence

Antoinette Lombard is the Head of the Department of Social Work and Criminology and a Professor in Social Work at the University of Pretoria. She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She was awarded the James Billups International Consortium for Social Development Leadership Award in Social Development prize in 2013. She is the Programme Director of the Fordham University’s Ubuntu Exchange Programme with the University of Pretoria. She is the Chairperson of Global Agenda Committee in International Association of Schools of Social Work.

#12762

Ian Scott

#69781

Overall Influence

1945 - 2013 (68 years)

Ian Christopher Scott was a New Zealand painter. His work was significant for pursuing an international scope and vision within a local context previously dominated by regionalist and national concerns. Over the course of his career he consistently sought to push his work towards new possibilities for painting, in the process moving between abstraction and representation, and using controversial themes and approaches, while maintaining a highly personal and recognisable style. His work spans a wide range of concerns including the New Zealand landscape , popular imagery , appropriation and art historical references.

#12763

George Santangelo

George Santangelo

#187465

Overall Influence

George M. Santangelo is an American genomicist and data scientist. He is the director of the Office of Portfolio Analysis at the National Institutes of Health. Education and career Santangelo received his bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. from Yale University. In 2011, he was appointed as director of the newly formed Office of Portfolio Analysis at the National Institutes of Health. Santangelo oversees a team of analysts, data scientists, and software developers to enable data-driven decision-making.

#12764

John Frederick Pickering

#104551

Overall Influence

1939 - 2018 (79 years)

John Frederick Pickering, was a British economic and business consultant. He held senior posts at several UK universities and served on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission and Competition Commission Appeal Tribunal. He was a member of the General Synod of the Church of England as well as a church commissioner and president of the Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society -Crosslinks.

#12765

Ashley C. Ford

#116839

Overall Influence

Ashley C. Ford is an American writer, podcaster and educator who discusses topics including race, sexuality, and body image. She is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Somebody's Daughter. She has been the host of five podcasts and has written or guest-edited for publications including The Guardian, Elle, BuzzFeed, and New York. In 2017, Forbes named her one of their "30 Under 30 in Media". In 2022, Ford won the Indiana Authors Award for a debut novel.

#12766

Rostislav Vovkushevsky

#60171

Overall Influence

1917 - 2000 (83 years)

Rostislav Ivanovich Vovkushevsky was a Russian Soviet realist painter, who lived and worked in Leningrad. He was a member of the Saint Petersburg Union of Artists , and regarded as one of representatives of the Leningrad school of painting.

#12767

David Bernstein

#189936

Overall Influence

#12768

Li Kemu

#147772

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Li Kemu is a Chinese political figure and economist that is the Vice Chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. He is a research fellow and a doctoral supervisor. Biography Li Kemu was born in July 1952. He began working in 1969 as an employee at a farm and factory. He subsequently joined the Dongcheng District Development Planning Commission in 1974. In 1982, he joined the Central Institute of Cameralistics and Finance. Li graduated from the Central College of Finance in 1982 and later taught at the institution. He served as a fellow of the Development Research Center of the St...

#12769

Kathryn Toghill

#189303

Overall Influence

Kathryn Toghill is a British chemist who is Professor of Sustainable Electrochemistry at Lancaster University. Her research considers the development of low-cost energy storage systems, with a particular focus on redox flow batteries.

#12770

Li Dongxu

#176675

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Li Dongxu is a Chinese female scientist and professor at the National University of Defense Technology. Honours and awards November 22, 2019 Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

#12771

Richard Wright

#129685

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Richard Wright is an English artist and musician. Wright was born in London. His family moved to Scotland when he was young. He attended Edinburgh College of Art from 1978 to 1982 and studied at Glasgow School of Art between 1993 and 1995 studying for a Master of Fine Art. He lives in Glasgow. and Norfolk.

#12772

Dirk Skreber

#125438

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Dirk Skreber is a German artist who lives and works in New York City. Skreber's work has been exhibited at galleries including The Saatchi Collection, the Petzel Gallery, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. In 2000, he won the .

#12773

Jason Hill

#189966

Overall Influence

#12774

Jim McKay

#170302

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Jim McKay is an American film and television director, producer and writer. He has directed episodes of The Wire, Treme, Better Call Saul, Big Love, Criminal Intent and Mr. Robot as well as writing and directing Everyday People and Angel Rodriguez.

#12775

Vito Schnabel

#84575

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (40 years)

Vito Schnabel is an American art dealer. He is the owner of Vito Schnabel Gallery, which has locations in New York, Santa Monica, and St. Moritz, Switzerland. Life and career Vito Schnabel was born on July 27, 1986. He is the son of artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel and designer Jacqueline Beaurang. He has two sisters and two half-brothers. Schnabel attended Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn.

#12776

Lori Diachin

#186879

Overall Influence

Lori Ann Diachin is an American computer scientist specializing in scientific computing, mesh generation, mesh improvement, and interoperability. She works in the Computation Directorate of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she is Deputy Associate Director for Science and Technology, and Deputy Director of the Exascale Computing Project.

#12777

Boris Lavrenko

#60297

Overall Influence

1920 - 2001 (81 years)

Boris Mikhailovich Lavrenko was a Russian Soviet realist painter, People's Artist of the Russian Federation, professor of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after Ilya Repin, who lived and worked in Saint Petersburg , regarded as one of the major representatives of the Leningrad school of painting.

#12778

Irving Amen

#90311

Overall Influence

1918 - 2011 (93 years)

Irving Amen was an American painter, printmaker and sculptor. Life Born in New York City in 1918, Amen began drawing at the age of four. A scholarship to the Pratt Institute was awarded to him when he was fourteen years old.

#12779

Hind Rassam Culhane

#44429

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Hind Rassam Culhane is an Iraqi-born American educator and former journalist. Early life and education Rassam Culhane was born in Mosul, Iraq, to an Iraqi-Assyrian father and a Lebanese mother. As a child, she and her family moved to the United States. Rassam Culhane studied at Cazenovia College before earning a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in early childhood education from Rockford College.

#12780

James Bumgardner

#113737

Overall Influence

1935 - 2015 (80 years)

James Bumgardner was an expressionist/figurative painter, multi-media artist, and stage set designer who was a Virginia Commonwealth University professor of art in the VCU School of the Arts. As an undergraduate student at Richmond Professional Institute , Bumgardner was encouraged by his mentor Jewett Campbell to study with the notable Art Students League of New York instructor Hans Hoffman , and Bumgardner received the last scholarship given by Hoffman, a German-born American abstract expressionist painter. Using his scholarship, Bumgardner studied with Hoffman in Provincetown in 1957, during which time he became friends with gallery director Richard Bellamy and artist Jan Müller.

#12781

Sigrid Schmitz

#98660

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Sigrid Schmitz is a visiting professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and was formerly the chair of gender studies and scientific head of the Gender Research Office [Referat Genderforschung] at the University of Vienna. Schmitz is also a member of The NeuroGenderings Network.

#12782

Endi E. Poskovic

Endi E. Poskovic

#114794

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Endi Poskovic is an American visual artist, printmaker and educator. His graphic work merges visual representation with text, often shifting the reading of the imagery through continuous representation and re-contextualization. Poskovic's woodcut prints invoke influences as disparate as early cinema, classic Japanese woodblock prints, devotional pictures, and Eastern European Propaganda poster. The amalgam of diverse scenarios and visual narratives in Poskovic's work imply accounts from personal and social histories and reference themes of cultural and environmental shifts, migration and alie...

#12783

Marcel Odenbach

#40631

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Marcel Odenbach is a German video artist. In the 1970s, with Ulrike Rosenbach and Klaus vom Bruch, he formed the producer group ATV. Odenbach's works criticize the conditions of German society. Life and work Odenbach was born in 1953 in Cologne, Germany, where he studied architecture, art history and semiotics between 1974–79. In the late 1970s, he started using video work, tapes, installations, performances and drawings to probe the cultural identity of his native Germany. His ambivalence to cultural history shows in works such as "Make a Fist in the Pocket", a German expression for hiding on...

#12784

Robert S. Welch

Robert S. Welch

#100347

Overall Influence

1944 - 2016 (72 years)

Robert Stephen Welch II was an American academic and college administrator who served as dean and later as interim president of Goucher College. Early life and education Born in Middleborough, Massachusetts, Welch graduated from Brown University and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst where his dissertation focused on René Descartes. He completed his dissertation titled, Doubt, certainty and the Cartesian Circle under committee chairman Fred Feldman.

#12785

James A. Simmons

#86639

Overall Influence

James A. Simmons is a pioneer in the field of biosonar. His research includes behavioral and neurophysiological studies of sound processing in the echolocating bat. From the time he began graduate research in the late 1960s to the present, he has been in the forefront of bat echolocation research. Simmons was honored as a fellow of the Acoustical Society of America in 1996 and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2000. He was awarded the ASA's second Silver Medal in Animal Bioacoustics in 2005. His current position is Professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Brow...

#12786

Josephine Ho

#108708

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Josephine Chuen-juei Ho is the chair of the English department of National Central University, Taiwan, and coordinator of its Center For the Study of Sexualities. She has withstood lawsuits directed at her outspokenness on gender and rights issues. She is one of the most known feminist scholars in Taiwan. She is called "the godmother of the Taiwanese queer movement."

#12787

Steven Runo

#86838

Overall Influence

Steven Runo is a Kenyan researcher who is a professor at Kenyatta University. Runo has extensively studied the pathogens of African cereal crops, including Striga. He was awarded the 2020 Royal Society Africa Prize.

#12788

Tim Cockerill

#179342

Overall Influence

Tim Cockerill FRES is an zoologist, broadcaster and photographer in the UK, he is Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University and has a particular interest in Insects. Education and career Cockerill grew in Hull in Yorkshire, he studied a Zoology BSc and MRes at the University of Leeds and then a PhD in Insect Ecology and Biodiversity at the University of Cambridge; he moved to the Natural History Museum to do postdoctoral research and then did a Masters in Science Media Production at Imperial College London. He was a Senior Lecturer at the University of South Wales where he taught natural history...

#12789

Jane Wilhelms

#188462

Overall Influence

Jane Patricia Wilhelms was an American biologist and computer scientist known for her contributions to computer graphics, including work on anatomical simulation of humans and animals and collision detection in computer animation, and isosurfaces and volume rendering in scientific visualization. She was a professor of computer science at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

#12790

Chris Kimball

#88476

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Chris Kimball is a former president and chief executive officer at California Lutheran University from April 2008 to August 2020. Before his tenure at CLU, he served as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at CLU from 2006 to 2008. Previously, he had served as Dean of the Faculty and Provost at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. An alumnus of McGill University in Canada, Kimball received his doctorate from the University of Chicago. Kimball constructed and taught a baseball class at Augsburg College, and has also taught the course "U.S. History Through Baseball" while Presi...

#12791

Maud Morgan

#98102

Overall Influence

1903 - 1999 (96 years)

Maud Morgan was an American modern artist and teacher who is best known for her abstract expressionism. She mentored Frank Stella and Carl Andre, and had art pieces shown alongside such notable contemporaries as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Morgan's life began in New York City to an aristocratic family. She was also known as Boston's Modernist Doyenne.

#12792

Joseph Kulkosky

#190059

Overall Influence

#12793

Xing Xie

#190061

Overall Influence

#12794

Merlin Stone

#13378

Overall Influence

1931 - 2011 (80 years)

Merlin Stone was an American author, artist and academic. She was an important thinker of the feminist theology and Goddess movements and is known for her book When God Was a Woman. Biography Merlin Stone was born in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York. She attended P.S. 217 and Erasmus Hall High School, where she graduated in 1949 with a Metallic Art Medal Award. After enrolling at the University of Buffalo later that year and marrying in 1950, she continued her studies while raising her children, ultimately earning a B.S. and teaching certificate in art from the institution in 1958. She became in...

#12795

Thomas Bauman

#63705

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Thomas Bauman is an American musicologist and Professor of Musicology at Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. He is an expert on German opera, film music, Mozart, and African American theatrical history.

#12796

Kogila Moodley

#78437

Overall Influence

Kogila Moodley is a published academic and sociologist at the University of British Columbia, where she was the first holder of the David Lam Chair of Multicultural Studies. She serves on the board of directors of the International Sociological Association's Race Relations Committee, and was its President from .

#12797

Ana Marjanović-shane

#190069

Overall Influence

#12798

Jouke de Vries

#30040

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Professor Jouke de Vries is chairman of the Executive Board of the University of Groningen in The Netherlands. Before that he was Dean of the University of Groningen/Campus Fryslân in Leeuwarden. De Vries grew up in the village of Balk in Friesland and in 1979 started his studies in political science at the University of Amsterdam. He has been working at the group Leaderships Art at the University of Leiden since 1984. De Vries obtained his PhD in 1989 from H. Daudt and H. Daalder on the article he wrote on "Ground Politics" and the educational essay "Cabinet Crisis in the Netherlands".

#12799

Christian Guttmann

Christian Guttmann

#189083

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Christian Guttmann is an entrepreneur, business executive and scientist in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science. He has three citizenships. He is currently the vice president in Engineering and Artificial Intelligence at Pegasystems, and leads the AI research and development including the development of Large Language Models and Generative AI. He is an adjunct associate professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia and Adjunct researcher at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Guttmann has edited and authored 7 books, over 50 publications and 4 patents in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

#12800

Jaroslav Vacek

#68389

Overall Influence

1943 - 2017 (74 years)

Jaroslav Vacek was director of the Institute of South and Central Asia and former dean of the Philosophical Faculty at the Charles University in Prague, where he founded the teaching and research of Mongolian as a new subject. He was a member of the Czech Oriental Society, the Prague Linguistic Circle, and The Learned Society. He translated the Bhagavad Gita from Sanskrit into Czech. Vacek was interested mainly in linguistic problems on the Indian linguistic area and the Dravidian and Altaic relationships, where he applied new research approach. He also spoke fluent Tamil and was an authority...

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions