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,
#3051
Yuval Shahar
#72072
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Yuval Shahar is an Israeli professor, physician, researcher and computer scientist Shahar served as the chair of the Ben Gurion University Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering, the Josef Erteschik Chair in Information Systems Engineering, and head of the BGU Medical Informatics Research Center.
Go to Profile#3052
Juyoung Yoon
#90141
Overall Influence
#3053
Edward M. Sellers
#90179
Overall Influence
#3054
Christoph Walther
#67573
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Christoph Walther is a German computer scientist, known for his contributions to automated theorem proving. He is Professor emeritus at Darmstadt University of Technology. Selected publications On automated program termination analysis
Go to Profile#3055
Paul Elliott
#39618
Overall Influence
Paul Elliott has been professor of epidemiology and public health medicine at Imperial College London since 1995. He is director of REACT , a community coronavirus testing programme. He is also director of the National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit for Chemical and Radiation Threats & Hazards.
Go to Profile#3056
Melvin Earl Maron
#56248
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Melvin Earl "Bill" Maron was an American computer scientist and emeritis professor of University of California, Berkeley. He studied mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Nebraska and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California in 1951. Maron is best known for his work on probabilistic information retrieval which he published together with his friend and colleague Lary Kuhns. Quite remarkably, Maron also pioneered relational databases, proposing a system called the Relational Data File in 1967, on which Ted Codd based his Relational model of data.
Go to Profile#3057
Marc Pollefeys
#84029
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Marc Pollefeys from the ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 for contributions to three-dimensional computer vision. He was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to geometric computer vision and applications to AR/VR/MR, robotics, and autonomous vehicles".
Go to Profile#3058
Robert S. Gold
#19753
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Robert S. Gold is a researcher in the field of application of computer technology to health education and health promotion. He was the founding dean of the University of Maryland School of Public Health and is the current chair of its Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.
Go to Profile#3059
Chip Martel
#81880
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Charles U. "Chip" Martel is an American computer scientist and bridge player. Martel was Inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2014. He is married to Jan Martel, also in the ACBL Hall of Fame. Academic life Martel received a B.S. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975, and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1980. He helped establish the computer science department at UC Davis, received tenure there in 1985–86, and retired in 2013. At UC Davis he is Charles U. Martel, Professor Emeritus. His academic interests involved designing and analyzing algorithms.
Go to Profile#3060
Jean Berstel
#61153
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Jean Berstel is a French mathematician and theoretical computer scientist known for his contributions to combinatorics on words and formal language theory. He is a currently a professor emeritus at the University of Marne-la-Vallée.
Go to Profile#3061
Dave Grossman
#34194
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Dave Grossman is an American game programmer and game designer, most known for his work at Telltale Games and early work at LucasArts. He has also written several children's books, and a book of "guy poetry" called Ode to the Stuff in the Sink.
Go to Profile#3062
Larry Page
#50528
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Lawrence Edward Page is an American businessman, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was chief executive officer of Google from 1997 until August 2001 when he stepped down in favor of Eric Schmidt and then again from April 2011 until July 2015 when he became CEO of its newly formed parent organisation Alphabet Inc. which was created to deliver "major advancements" as Google's parent company, a post he held until December 4, 2019 when he along with his co-founder Brin stepped down from all executive positions and day-to-day roles within the company.
Go to Profile#3063
Keith Fox
#90468
Overall Influence
#3064
Kousha Etessami
#68324
Overall Influence
Kousha Etessami is a professor of computer science at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He has received his Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1995. He works on theoretical computer science, in particular on computational complexity theory, game theory and probabilistic systems.
Go to Profile#3065
James H. Davenport
#50010
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
James Harold Davenport is a British computer scientist who works in computer algebra. Having done his PhD and early research at the Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, he is the Hebron and Medlock Professor of Information Technology at the University of Bath in Bath, England.
Go to Profile#3066
Mark H Ginsberg
#90528
Overall Influence
#3067
Shazia Sadiq
#55750
Overall Influence
Professor Shazia Sadiq is a computer scientist based in Queensland, Australia. Background Originally from Pakistan, Sadiq was one of a handful of women to undertake studies in a computer science program within Pakistan at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan in 1980s, and wrote her first computer program in Fortran using punched cards.
Go to Profile#3068
Albrecht Schmidt
#83772
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Albrecht Schmidt is a computer scientist best known for his work in ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, and the tangible user interface. He is a professor at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich where he joined the faculty in 2017.
Go to Profile#3069
Robert M. Hayes
#58940
Overall Influence
1926 - 2022 (96 years)
Robert Mayo Hayes was an American professor and dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science , now the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, at the University of California, Los Angeles . An expert on information systems, Hayes began his academic career in mathematics and went on to become a pioneer in the field of information science.
Go to Profile#3070
Roy Clay
#69699
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Roy Clay Sr. is an American computer scientist and inventor. He was a founding member of the computer division at Hewlett-Packard, where he led the team that created the HP 2116A. He is the Chief Executive Officer of ROD-L electronics and has been involved with the development of electrical safety equipment.
Go to Profile#3071
Natalie Rusk
#52631
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Natalie Rusk is a research scientist in the Lifelong Kindergarten group, part of the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Education Rusk was educated at Brown University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on Chinese language, Chinese literature and Computer science in 1988. She moved to the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she was awarded a Master of Education degree specializing in educational technology in 1989. She completed her PhD in child development supervised by Fred Rothbaum at Tufts University in 2011. Her thesis used a...
Go to Profile#3072
Troels S Jensen
#90602
Overall Influence
#3073
Frank Dignum
#67993
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Franciscus Petrus Maria Dignum is a Dutch computer scientist. He is currently a Professor of Socially-Aware AI at Umeå University and an associate professor at the Department of Information and Computing Sciences of the Utrecht University. Dignum is best known from his work on software agents, multi-agent systems and fundamental aspects of social agents.
Go to Profile#3074
Zhi-Li Zhang
#75632
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Zhi-Li Zhang is a computer scientist, the McKnight Distinguished University Professor and the Qwest Chair Professor of Computer Science at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. He leads the Networking Research Group at the university. Zhi-Li obtained his PhD in computer science from the University of Massachusetts in 1997 under Don Towsley and Jim Kurose. He has published a large number of papers in the field of routing, computer communication and multimedia communication.
Go to Profile#3075
George Blakley
#61424
Overall Influence
1932 - 2018 (86 years)
George Robert Blakley Jr. was an American cryptographer and a professor of mathematics at Texas A&M University, best known for inventing a secret sharing scheme in 1979 . Biography Blakley did his undergraduate studies in physics at Georgetown University, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1960. After postdoctoral studies at Cornell University and Harvard University, he held faculty positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the State University of New York at Buffalo before joining Texas A&M in 1970. At Texas A&M, he was chairman of ...
Go to Profile#3076
Jacek Błażewicz
#52677
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Jacek Antoni Błażewicz is a Polish computer scientist specializing in the theory of algorithms and bioinformatics. He has been working as Director of the Institute of Computer Sciences of the Poznań University of Technology. He is also Head of the Department of Bioinformatics at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
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Percy Liang
#90672
Overall Influence
#3078
Mor Harchol-Balter
#42886
Overall Influence
Mor Harchol-Balter is the Bruce J. Nelson Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. She is known for her work on queueing theory, scheduling and resource allocation, load balancing, data center power management, and heavy-tailed workloads.
Go to Profile#3079
Helmut Schwichtenberg
#53307
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Helmut Schwichtenberg is a German mathematical logician. Schwichtenberg studied mathematics from 1961 at the FU Berlin and from 1964 at the University of Münster, where he received his doctorate in 1968 from Dieter Rödding. He then worked as an assistant and then as a professor in Münster, and since 1978 has been professor of mathematical logic at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich .
Go to Profile#3080
Martin Grohe
#54133
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Martin Grohe is a German mathematician and computer scientist known for his research on parameterized complexity, mathematical logic, finite model theory, the logic of graphs, database theory, and descriptive complexity theory. He is a University Professor of Computer Science at RWTH Aachen University, where he holds the Chair for Logic and Theory of Discrete Systems.
Go to Profile#3081
Xia Peisu
#22600
Overall Influence
1923 - 2014 (91 years)
Xia Peisu or Pei-su Hsia was a Chinese computer scientist and educator known for her pioneering research in computer science and technology. The leading developer of Model 107, the nation's first domestically designed general-purpose electronic computer, she has been called the "Mother of Computer Science in China". She and her husband Yang Liming were both elected academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991. In 2010, she was honoured with the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the China Computer Federation.
Go to Profile#3082
Marisa Olson
#60177
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Marisa Olson is an artist, writer, curator, and former punk singer. In 2004 she auditioned for popular American television show American Idol as an artistic project. Over the course of three months of daily "training exercises," it is revealed that she is critiquing gender norms entrenched by the show, while also using the popularity of her site to speak to readers about using their voice to vote in elections as well as on the show.
Go to Profile#3083
Monte Cassim
#41293
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Monte Cassim is a Sri Lankan academic. He is the Vice-Chancellor of the Ritsumeikan Trust and from April 2004 until January 2010 was President of Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan where he remains Professor.
Go to Profile#3084
Dietmar Fuchs
#90837
Overall Influence
#3085
Richard Wexelblat
#75554
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Richard L. Wexelblat, aka Dick Wexelblat is an American, a former artisan woodturner, and a former computer scientist. Early life Wexelblat received his BSEE, MSEE , and Ph.D. from The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 6/1959, 6/1961, and 12/1965 respectively. His doctorate is believed by many and so reported by ACM to have been the first ever awarded by a formally recognized Computer Science department. His doctoral advisor was Noah Prywes.
Go to Profile#3086
Nam-Trung Nguyen
#55671
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Nam-Trung Nguyen is a Vietnamese-Australian researcher in the fields of Microfluidics and Nanofluidics. He is notable for his work on nerve agent detector, PCR, Micromixer, Droplet-based Microfluidics, Micro Magnetofluidics, Liquid Marbles and Micro Elastofluidics. He is currently a Professor and Director of Queensland Micro and Nanotechnology Centre at Griffith University. He was a former Associate Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Nguyen is a Fellow of ASME and a Senior Member of IEEE.
Go to Profile#3087
Jianlin Cheng
#52457
Overall Influence
Jianlin Cheng is the William and Nancy Thompson Missouri Distinguished Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He earned his PhD from the University of California-Irvine in 2006, his MS degree from Utah State University in 2001, and his BS degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1994.
Go to Profile#3088
Antonio Lieto
#72643
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Antonio Lieto is an Italian cognitive scientist and computer scientist at the University of Turin and a Research Associate at the Institute of High Performance Computing of the Italian National Research Council focusing on cognitive architectures and computational models of cognition, commonsense reasoning and models of mental representation, and persuasive technologies. He teaches Artificial Intelligence and "Design and Evaluation of Cognitive Artificial Systems" at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Turin.
Go to Profile#3089
Jan Peter Toennies
#50919
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Jan Peter Toennies is an American scientist. Early life and education He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to German immigrant parents. He is the grandson of sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies. He graduated from Lower Merion High School, outside of Philadelphia in 1948, from Amherst College, with a B.A. in 1952, and from Brown University, with a Ph.D. in chemistry in 1957. During graduate school he was a Fulbright student in Göttingen 1953–1954.
Go to Profile#3090
John Black
#72125
Overall Influence
John Richard Black, Jr. is a cryptologist, programmer, and professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder focusing on computer security. He graduated with a BA in computer science from CSU East Bay in 1988 and completed his PhD in cryptography at UC Davis with Phillip Rogaway in 2000. He has taught at CU-Boulder since 2002.
Go to Profile#3091
Orna Kupferman
#74332
Overall Influence
Orna Kupferman is a Professor of Computer Science and former Vice Rector at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2016. Early life and education Kupferman served in the Israel Defense Force from 1986 to 1988. She earned her PhD at the Technion in 1995, where she was supervised by Orna Grumberg. In 1996 Kupferman joined the technical staff at Bell Labs. She moved to University of California, Berkeley in 1997, working with Thomas Henzinger.
Go to Profile#3092
Randal E. Bryant
#91118
Overall Influence
#3093
François Baccelli
#31589
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
François Louis Baccelli is senior researcher at INRIA Paris, in charge of the ERC project NEMO on network mathematics. Education and career Baccelli obtained his PhD at the University of Paris-Sud in 1983 under the supervision of Erol Gelenbe. Between 1991 and 2003, he was a faculty member at the applied mathematics department at École polytechnique. He was Simons Chair in mathematics and electrical and computer engineering at University of Texas at Austin between 2012 and 2021. Between 2012 and 2019, he was the head of the Simons Center on Communication, Information and Network Mathematics.
Go to Profile#3094
Janet Ritterman
#21592
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Dame Janet Elizabeth Ritterman is the Australian-educated former Director of the Royal College of Music in London, from 1993 to 2005. Ritterman was educated at North Sydney Girls High School, the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music , the University of Durham, and King's College, London. She held academic positions in England from 1975 when she was Senior Lecturer in Music at the Middlesex Polytechnic . Ritterman became the third Chancellor of Middlesex University on 3 July 2013.
Go to Profile#3095
Mani Bhushan Srivastava
#91129
Overall Influence
#3096
Mike Sharples
#63282
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Michael Sharples is a British academic working in educational technology. He is an Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology at The Open University. Background Sharples graduated from St. Andrews University in 1976 with a BSc. Hons in Computational Science, then moved to the Dept of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh as a post graduate student. His PhD thesis was on the topic of Cognition, Computers and Creative Writing.
Go to Profile#3097
Heng Ji
#33255
Overall Influence
Heng Ji is a computer scientist who works on information extraction and natural language processing. She is well known for her work on joined named entity recognition and relation extraction, as well as for her work on cross-document event extraction. She has been coordinating the popular NIST TAC Knowledge Base Population task since 2010. She has been recognised as one of AI's 10 to watch by IEEE Intelligent Systems in 2013, and has won multiple awards, including a NSF Career Award in 2009, Google Research awards in 2009 and 2014, and an IBM Watson Faculty Award in 2012.
Go to Profile#3098
Robert Hecht-Nielsen
#63893
Overall Influence
1947 - 2019 (72 years)
Robert Hecht-Nielsen was an American computer scientist, neuroscientist, entrepreneur and professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, San Diego. He co-founded HNC Software Inc. in 1986 which went on to develop the pervasive card fraud detection system, Falcon®. He became a vice president of R&D at Fair Isaac Corporation when it acquired the company in 2002.
Go to Profile#3099
Richard Hartley
#64948
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Richard I. Hartley is an Australian computer scientist and an Emeritus professor at the Australian National University, where he is a member of the Computer Vision group in the Research School of Computing.
Go to Profile#3100
Gustaf Neumann
#45337
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Gustaf Neumann is an Austrian computer scientist who is specialised in information systems. He is a full professor and the chair of the Institute for Information Systems and New Media at the Vienna University of Economics and Business . Neumann is one of the authors of Wirtschaftsinformatik, which is the bestseller book on Information Systems in German speaking countries with more than 500.000 copies.
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