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,
#2901
Shlomo Argamon
#35316
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Shlomo Argamon is an American/Israeli computer scientist and forensic linguist. He is currently the chair of the computer science department as well as a tenured professor of computer science and interim director of the Active Computational Thinking Center at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL. He founded their Master of Data Science program in 2013.
Go to Profile#2902
Tat-seng Chua
#86396
Overall Influence
#2903
Scott R. Kirkpatrick
#86405
Overall Influence
#2904
Andrew J. Hanson
#27211
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Andrew J. Hanson is an American theoretical physicist and computer scientist. Hanson is best known in theoretical physics as the co-discoverer of the Eguchi–Hanson metric, the first Gravitational instanton. This Einstein metric is asymptotically locally Euclidean and self-dual, closely parallel to the Yang-Mills instanton. He is also known as the co-author of Constrained Hamiltonian Systems and of Gravitation, Gauge Theories, and Differential Geometry, which attempted to bridge the gap between theoretical physicists and mathematicians at a time when concepts relevant to the two disciplines were rapidly unifying.
Go to Profile#2905
Charlie Catlett
#58567
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Charlie Catlett is a senior computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a visiting senior fellow at the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation at the University of Chicago. From 2020 to 2022 he was a senior research scientist at the University of Illinois Discovery Partners Institute. He was previously a senior computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a senior fellow in the Computation Institute, a joint institute of Argonne National Laboratory and The University of Chicago, and a senior fellow at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy.
Go to Profile#2906
Hui Xiong
#72892
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Hui Xiong is a data scientist. He is a distinguished professor at Rutgers University and a distinguished guest professor at the University of Science and Technology of China . Education Xiong received his B.E. degree in automation from the University of Science and Technology of China and his M.S. degree in computer science from the National University of Singapore. He received his Ph.D. in computer science with a minor in statistics from the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in 2005 under Vipin Kumar.
Go to Profile#2907
Valerie King
#79250
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Valerie King is an American and Canadian computer scientist who works as a professor at the University of Victoria. Her research concerns the design and analysis of algorithms; her work has included results on maximum flow and dynamic graph algorithms, and played a role in the expected linear time MST algorithm of Karger et al.
Go to Profile#2908
Arie E. Kaufman
#74238
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Arie E. Kaufman is an Israeli-American computer scientist best known for his work in volume visualization and virtual reality. Dr. Kaufman is Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University, where he is also Director of the Center for Visual Computing , and Chief Scientist at the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology . He has an H-Index of 84 and is currently the ninth most cited researcher in the world working in the area of visualization.
Go to Profile#2909
Zygmunt Haas
#22016
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Zygmunt J. Haas is a professor and distinguished chair in computer science, University of Texas at Dallas also the professor emeritus in electrical and computer engineering, Cornell University. His research interests include ad hoc networks, wireless networks, sensor networks, and zone routing protocols.
Go to Profile#2910
José António Couto Teixeira
#86510
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
#2911
Alice Recoque
#62282
Overall Influence
1929 - 2021 (92 years)
Alice Recoque was a French computer scientist, computer engineer and computer architecture specialist. She worked on the designs of mini-computers in the 1970s and led research focused on artificial intelligence.
Go to Profile#2912
Abhaya Induruwa
#56094
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Abhaya Induruwa is the inaugural Professor V K Samaranayake Endowed Professor of Computing, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka. Having served as the Director of Cyber Innovation Hub he recently retired from the Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom where he researched into security and forensic investigation of Internet of Things . Currently he is engaged in promoting IoT in digital agriculture as a disruptive technology, primarily in developing countries, leading to smart agriculture resulting in higher yields in food production. Induruwa is considered...
Go to Profile#2913
Leonard Shapiro
#46996
Overall Influence
Leonard D. Shapiro is an American computer scientist. He is a professor emeritus at Portland State University. Education Shapiro graduated from Reed College in 1965, Phi Beta Kappa. He earned a doctor of philosophy from Yale University in 1969.
Go to Profile#2914
Sundeep Khosla
#86565
Overall Influence
#2915
Alexander Gammerman
#79308
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Alexander Gammerman is a British-Soviet computer scientist, and professor at Royal Holloway University of London. He is the co-inventor of conformal prediction. He is the founding director of the Centre for Machine Learning at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.
Go to Profile#2916
L. Jean Camp
#47235
Overall Influence
Linda Jean Camp is an American computer scientist whose research concerns information security, with a focus on human-centered design, autonomy, and safety. She has also made important contributions to risk communication, internet governance, and the economics of security. She is a professor of informatics in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington, where she directs the Center for Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, and Engineering.
Go to Profile#2917
K. R. K. Easwaran
#28607
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Kalpathy Ramaier Katchap Easwaran is an Indian molecular biophysicist, academic and a former Astra Chair Professor and chairman of the department of molecular biophysics of the Indian Institute of Science. He is known for his contributions in the development of anti-fungal drugs and for his researches on ionophores and ion-transport across membranes. He is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swar...
Go to Profile#2918
Gary T. Leavens
#67745
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Gary T. Leavens is an American academic working as a professor of computer science at the University of Central Florida. Education Leavens earned a Bachelor of Science in computer and communication science from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science in computer science from the University of Southern California, and a PhD in philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#2919
John Edward Blundell
#86596
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
#2920
Steve Kille
#49898
Overall Influence
Steve Kille is an English software engineer. He has worked on Internet technologies since 1980, and was one of the principal engineers behind the ISO Development Environment open-source implementation of the OSI protocol stack.
Go to Profile#2921
Thabet Abdeljawad
#86724
Overall Influence
#2922
Julian Bleecker
#57161
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Julian Bleecker is an artist and technologist with a history developing innovative mobile research projects. Career Bleecker holds a Ph.D. from the History of Consciousness Program at University of California, Santa Cruz where he studied with Donna Haraway, Angela Davis, Victor Burgin, and James Clifford.
Go to Profile#2923
Shmuel Zaks
#25971
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Schmuel Zaks is a computer scientist and mathematician who works in the fields of distributed computing and computer networks. He is a professor at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where he holds the Joan Callner-Miller Chair in Computer Science.
Go to Profile#2924
Rachid Deriche
#59499
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Rachid Deriche is a research director at Inria Sophia Antipolis, France, where he leads the research project Athena aiming to explore the Central Nervous System using computational imaging. He has published more than 60 journals and more than 180 conferences papers with a Google Scholar H-index of 67. He is known for the development of the edge detection algorithm, named after him.
Go to Profile#2925
David G. Stork
#86799
Overall Influence
#2926
Peter Arner
#86818
Overall Influence
#2927
David M. Levy
#37150
Overall Influence
David Levy is an American computer scientist and professor at University of Washington Information School. He is known for his research, writing, and teaching on the prevention of information overload.
Go to Profile#2928
Peter A Jones
#86841
Overall Influence
#2929
Yoshiko Ogata
#49848
Overall Influence
Yoshiko Ogata is a Japanese mathematical physicist whose research concerns quantum statistical mechanics, quantum information theory, and the quantum many-body problem. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Tokyo.
Go to Profile#2930
Jacobus Verhoeff
#84317
Overall Influence
1927 - 2018 (91 years)
Jacobus "Koos" Verhoeff was a Dutch mathematician, computer scientist, and artist. He is known for his work on error detection and correction, and on information retrieval. He has also held exhibitions of his mathematically inspired sculptures.
Go to Profile#2931
Erik Cambria
#86911
Overall Influence
#2932
Yehuda Afek
#69673
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Yehuda Afek is an Israeli computer scientist at Tel Aviv University, and is known for his work on network cyber security and fault tolerant distributed computing. Yehuda cofounded Riverhead Networks in 2000, and was the head of the School of Computer Science in Tel Aviv University in 2014–2016.
Go to Profile#2933
Kenji Hashimoto
#86919
Overall Influence
#2934
John Leslie King
#57831
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
John Leslie King is a W.W. Bishop Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. His main works deal with computerization in the public sector and municipalities, as well as other organizations. He has also worked on privacy issues and some of the primary computerization projects such as project SAGE. He is the author of Information systems: the state of the field, published by Wiley in 2006, which, according to WorldCat, is held in 126 libraries. He is a former editor-in-chief of Information Systems Research.
Go to Profile#2935
Ilhan Ozturk
#86978
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
#2936
Dewald Roode
#67059
Overall Influence
1940 - 2009 (69 years)
Johannes Dewald Roode was a South African academic and Professor at the University of Pretoria, specializing in Information Systems research. Biography Dewald Roode received a B.A. in theoretical physics, an M.A. in mathematics from the University of Potchefstroom in South Africa, another in physics from the same institute, and a PhD in operations research under the supervision of Guus Zoutendijk at the University of Leiden.
Go to Profile#2937
Frederick Naftolin
#87006
Overall Influence
#2938
Stephanie Weirich
#84181
Overall Influence
Stephanie Weirich is an American computer scientist specializing in type theory, type inference, dependent types, and functional programming. She is a professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#2939
Kalev Leetaru
#52410
Overall Influence
Kalev Hannes Leetaru is an American internet entrepreneur, academic, and senior fellow at the George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science Center for Cyber & Homeland Security in Washington, D.C. He was a former Yahoo! Fellow in Residence of International Values, Communications Technology & the Global Internet at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, before moving to George Washington University.
Go to Profile#2940
Niraj Kumar Jha
#87084
Overall Influence
#2941
Neil Heffernan
#49147
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Neil T. Heffernan is a professor of computer science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is known for his role in the development of the ASSISTments online learning tool and app, which assists students with homework and classwork while helping teachers assess where to focus instructional time in mathematics, and is used by over 50,000 students a year in the US. His work gained prominence when a New York Times Magazine story by Annie Murphy Paul featured ASSISTments and Heffernan's research with the tool.
Go to Profile#2942
Boris Aronov
#48672
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Boris Aronov is a computer scientist, currently a professor at the Tandon School of Engineering, New York University. His main area of research is computational geometry. He is a Sloan Research Fellow.
Go to Profile#2943
Franz Aurenhammer
#74681
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Franz Aurenhammer is an Austrian computational geometer known for his research in computational geometry on Voronoi diagrams, straight skeletons, and related structures. He is a professor in the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science of Graz University of Technology.
Go to Profile#2944
Chromatic
#74888
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Chromatic is a writer and free software programmer best known for his work in the Perl programming language. He lives in Hillsboro, Oregon, United States. He wrote Extreme Programming Pocket Guide, co-wrote Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook, is the lead author of Perl Hacks, and is an uncredited contributor to The Art of Agile Development. He has a music degree. Also, he has contributed to CPAN, Perl 5, Perl 6, and Parrot.
Go to Profile#2945
Jaime Bosch
#87320
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
#2946
John Breslin
#70012
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
John Breslin is an Irish engineer and full professor at the University of Galway. He is co-founder of the Irish websites boards.ie and adverts.ie. He co-authored the Irish bestselling book Old Ireland in Colour in 2020, Old Ireland in Colour 2 in 2021, and Old Ireland in Colour 3 in 2023.
Go to Profile#2947
Colin Hill
#87365
Overall Influence
#2948
Charles E. Leiserson
#80811
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
#2949
Joseph Mundy
#47195
Overall Influence
Joseph Mundy did early work in computer vision and projective geometry using LISP, when computer vision still was a new area of research. In 1987 he presented his work in a video, which now is available for free at archive.org.
Go to Profile#2950
Elza Erkip
#32992
Overall Influence
Elza Erkip is a Turkish-American electrical and computer engineer, professor and wireless technology researcher at New York University. Education Erkip received her B.S. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Middle East Technical University in Turkey, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. She ranked among the top 1% of highly cited scholars in computer science from 2002 to 2012 according to Thomson Reuters.
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