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,

#3651

Angelika Steger

Angelika Steger
#57275
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Angelika Steger is a mathematician and computer scientist whose research interests include graph theory, randomized algorithms, and approximation algorithms. She is a professor at ETH Zurich. Education and career After earlier studies at the University of Freiburg and Heidelberg University, Steger earned a master's degree from Stony Brook University in 1985. She completed a doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1990, under the supervision of Hans Jürgen Prömel, with a dissertation on random combinatorial structures, and earned her habilitation from Bonn in 1994. After a visiting position a...
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#3652

Emma Pierson

#67599
Overall Influence
Emma Pierson is an American computer scientist who specializes in artificial intelligence. She graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. She earned a degree in physics and then a master's in computer science from Stanford University, where she studied cognitive psychology and biocomputation. She received a PhD in 2020 at Stanford under Jure Leskovec. She was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship for her work in using computers to solve biological problems, and specifically to work on cancer treatments.
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#3653

Andrea Danyluk

#52022
Overall Influence
1963 - 2022 (59 years)
Andrea Pohoreckyj Danyluk was an American computer scientist and computer science educator. She was Mary A. and William Wirt Warren Professor of Computer Science at Williams College, and co-chair of the Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research of the Computing Research Association.
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#3654

Aditya Akella

#98031
Overall Influence
Srinivasa Aditya Akella is a computer scientist, professor and Regents Chair Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is notable for research in software-defined networking, big data systems, low latency networking, content distribution and network function virtualization.
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#3655

Erik Guldentops

#80332
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Erik Guldentops is a Belgian computer scientist and management consultant, who was systems engineer at SWIFT and Executive Professor at Antwerp Management School, known for his work on IT governance.
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#3656

Gregory E. Simon

#102345
Overall Influence
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#3657

Preslav Nakov

#93225
Overall Influence
Preslav Nakov is a computer scientist who works on natural language processing. He is particularly known for his research on fake news detection, automatic detection of offensive language, and biomedical text mining. Nakov obtained a PhD in computer science under the supervision of Marti Hearst from the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first person to receive the prestigious John Atanasov Presidential Award for achievements in the development of the information society by the President of Bulgaria.
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#3658

William Latham

#83645
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
William Latham is a British computer artist, most known as the creator of the Organic Art product, as well as for creating album covers and artwork for the dance group The Shamen. Latham is the founder of the company Computer Artworks, which released the Organic Art product through Time Warner Interactive. Latham has authored a book called Evolutionary Art and Computers together with Stephen Todd, published 1992, based on their work at the IBM Scientific Centre in Winchester, generating 3-d computer models of organic life forms, using genetic algorithm based techniques to mutate base forms into artistic creations.
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#3659

Charles M. Dollar

#67859
Overall Influence
Charles M. Dollar, an internationally recognized expert on the life cycle management of electronic records, particularly electronic records archiving, pioneered research into digital preservation of electronic records.
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#3660

Jacob O. Wobbrock

Jacob O. Wobbrock
#91666
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Jacob O. Wobbrock is a Professor in the University of Washington Information School and, by courtesy, in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. He is Director of the ACE Lab, Associate Director and founding Co-Director Emeritus of the CREATE research center, and a founding member of the DUB Group and the MHCI+D degree program.
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#3661

Jie Tang

#44369
Overall Influence
Jie Tang is a full-time professor at the Department of Computer Science of Tsinghua University. He received a PhD in computer science from the same university in 2006. He is known for building the academic social network search system AMiner , which was launched in March 2006 and now has attracted 2,766,356 independent IP accesses from 220 countries. His research interests include social networks and data mining.
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#3662

Nancy Burson

#69121
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Nancy Burson is an American artist known for creating photographs using computer morphing technology, including the Age Machine, Human Race Machine and Anomaly Machine. Biography Artist/photographer Nancy Burson's work is shown in museums and galleries internationally. "Seeing and Believing", her traveling 2002 retrospective originating at the Grey Art Gallery, was nominated for Best Solo Museum Show of the Year in New York City by the International Association of Art Critics. She has served as a visiting professor at Harvard and was a member of the adjunct photography faculty at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts for five years.
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#3663

Ran Libeskind-Hadas

#58307
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ran Libeskind-Hadas is the founding chair of the Department of Integrated Sciences at Claremont McKenna College. He was previously a professor of computer science at Harvey Mudd College where he served as chair of that department and associate dean of faculty. His research interests lie in the area of algorithms for computational biology.
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#3664

Per Aagaard

#102410
Overall Influence
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#3665

Steve Pettifer

Steve Pettifer
#74190
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Stephen Robert Pettifer is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester in England. Education Pettifer completed his Bachelor of Science degree and PhD in the Department of Computer Science, and work on virtual reality under the supervision of Adrian West in 1999.
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#3666

Michal Rosen-Zvi

#81761
Overall Influence
Michal Rosen-Zvi is an Israeli academic and researcher in the fields of artificial intelligence and deep learning and their applications to healthcare. She is research director for Healthcare Informatics at IBM Research in Haifa.
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#3667

Audrey Girouard

#80226
Overall Influence
Audrey Girouard is a Canadian computer scientist. She researches human–computer interaction. Girouard is an associate professor at Carleton University and the Director and Principal Investigator of the Collaborative Learning of Usability Experiences program. She is the first female faculty member at Carleton School of Information Technology.
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#3668

Boshra Salem

#29165
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Boshra Salem is a professor, founder and the Chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences at Alexandria University in Alexandria, Egypt. She is president of Unesco's Man and the Biosphere International Coordinating Council and serves on the International Council for Science 's Committee for Scientific Planning & Review. She has received a number of awards, including being recognized as an outstanding female scientist in the Women in Science Hall of Fame by the Embassy of the United States in Cairo, Egypt.
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#3669

Hiroshi Nakatsuji

#102523
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
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#3670

M. Yousuff Hussaini

#59012
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Mohammed Yousuff Hussaini is an Indian born American applied mathematician. He is the Sir James Lighthill Professor of Mathematics and Computational Science & Engineering at the Florida State University, United States. Hussaini is also the holder of the TMC Eminent Scholar Chair in High Performance Computing at FSU. He is widely known for his research in scientific computation, particularly in the field of computational fluid dynamics and Control and optimization. Hussaini co-authored the popular book Spectral Methods in Fluid Dynamics with Claudio Canuto, Alfio Quarteroni, and Thomas Zang. H...
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#3671

Hani Hagras

#41614
Overall Influence
Hani Hagras is a computer scientist and professor from the University of Essex, Colchester, UK was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for contributions to fuzzy systems in particular for his work on Type-2 fuzzy sets and systems. He is also a Fellow of the IET and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy , an award issued by Advance HE. Prof. Hagras is Chair of the Centre for Computational Intelligence , and co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence Research Group at the University of Essex. He is also Chief Scientific Officer at Temenos AG.
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#3672

Ronny Kohavi

#102546
Overall Influence
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#3673

Robert F. Murphy

Robert F. Murphy
#46520
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Robert F. Murphy is Ray and Stephanie Lane Professor of Computational Biology Emeritus and Director of the M.S. Program in Automated Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to his retirement in May 2021, he was the Ray and Stephanie Lane Professor of Computational Biology as well as Professor of Biological Sciences, Biomedical Engineering, and Machine Learning. He was founding Director of the Center for Bioimage Informatics at Carnegie Mellon and founded the Joint CMU-Pitt Ph.D. Program in Computational Biology. He also founded the Computational Biology Department at Carnegie Mellon Uni...
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#3674

Leonid Perlovsky

#72441
Overall Influence
Leonid Perlovsky is an Affiliated Research Professor at Northeastern University. His research involves cognitive algorithms and modeling of evolution of languages and cultures. He served as professor at Novosibirsk State University and New York University, and participated as a principal in commercial startups developing tools for text understanding, biotechnology, and financial predictions. He has published more than 320 papers and 10 book chapters and authored three books, including Neural Networks and Intellect, Oxford University Press, 2000 and two books with Springer in 2007. He serves ...
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#3675

Alexander Tzagoloff

#102612
Overall Influence
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#3676

Mark H. Wilcox

#102614
Overall Influence
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#3677

Stefano Ermon

#102615
Overall Influence
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#3678

Wolfgang Wick

#102636
Overall Influence
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#3679

Heini Murer

#102691
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
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#3680

Edwin Hancock

#96510
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Edwin Hancock is a British computer scientist at the University of York specialising in computer vision and pattern recognition. Education Edwin Hancock graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1977, a PhD in high energy nuclear physics in 1981 and a Doctor of Science degree by publication in 2008 from Durham University. His PhD thesis was entitled "The π π Ʌ channel from Kp reactions in the Ʌ region" and his D.Sc. thesis "Contributions to pattern recognition and computer vision".
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#3681

Irving Zucker

#102705
Overall Influence
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#3682

Pedro Pedrosa Mendes

Pedro Pedrosa Mendes
#41089
Overall Influence
Pedro Pedrosa Mendes is a professor of computational systems biology in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology , the Machine Learning and Optimization group. He is also a professor at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
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#3683

Jinsong Huang

#102747
Overall Influence
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#3684

Ian Ford

#102808
Overall Influence
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#3685

Jeromy Carriere

#71132
Overall Influence
Steven Jeromy Carrière is a Canadian computer software engineer. Carrière is a graduate of the University of Waterloo in Canada. He was technical staff member at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute working on practical software architectural reconstruction and analysis.
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#3686

Raissa D'Souza

#49945
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Raissa M. D'Souza is the Associate Dean of Research for the College of Engineering and a Professor of Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Davis as well as an External Professor and member of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. She was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2016 and Fellow of the Network Science Society in 2019. D'Souza works on theory and complex systems.
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#3687

Hilary Kahn

#84263
Overall Influence
1943 - 2007 (64 years)
Hilary J. Kahn was a South African British computer scientist who spent most of her career as a professor at the University of Manchester, where she worked on computer-aided design and information modelling. Kahn participated in the development of the Manchester MU5 computer. Later she became involved in standards development and was both the chair of the Technical Experts Group and a member of the Steering Committee for the development of the EDIF standard. Kahn retired from Manchester in 2006 and died in 2007.
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#3688

Holger Thiele

#102826
Overall Influence
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#3689

William Henry Stallings

#102851
Overall Influence
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#3690

Varun Grover

#102859
Overall Influence
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#3691

Mary Elizabeth Ramsay

#102870
Overall Influence
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#3692

Sibel Adalı

#48431
Overall Influence
Sibel Adalı is a Turkish-American computer scientist who studies trust in social networks and uncertainty in decision-making. She is a professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and associate dean for research at Rensselaer.
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#3693

Partha Niyogi

#87547
Overall Influence
1967 - 2010 (43 years)
Partha Niyogi was the Louis Block Professor in Computer Science and Statistics at the University of Chicago. He is known for his work in artificial intelligence, especially in the field of manifold learning and evolutionary linguistics. He wrote more than 90 academic publications and two books.
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#3694

Toshitaka Nabeshima

#102886
Overall Influence
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#3695

Daniel Weitzner

Daniel Weitzner
#67802
Overall Influence
Daniel J. Weitzner is the director of the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative and principal research scientist at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab CSAIL. He teaches Internet public policy in MIT's Computer Science Department. His research includes development of accountable systems architectures to enable the Web to be more responsive to policy requirements.
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#3696

Jeffrey T. Leek

Jeffrey T. Leek
#46771
Overall Influence
Jeffrey Tullis Leek is an American biostatistician and data scientist working as a Vice President, Chief Data Officer, and Professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is an author of the Simply Statistics blog, and runs several online courses through Coursera, as part of their Data Science Specialization. His most popular course is The Data Scientist's Toolbox, which he instructed along with Roger Peng and Brian Caffo. Leek is best known for his contributions to genomic data analysis and critical view of research and the accuracy of popular statistical methods.
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#3697

Howard Hodgkin

Howard Hodgkin
#7129
Overall Influence
1932 - 2017 (85 years)
Sir Gordon Howard Eliott Hodgkin was a British painter and printmaker. His work is most often associated with abstraction. Early life Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin was born on 6 August 1932 in Hammersmith, London, the son of Eliot Hodgkin , a manager for the chemical company ICI and an amateur horticulturist, and his wife Katherine, a botanical illustrator. During the Second World War, Eliot Hodgkin was an RAF officer, rising to Wing Commander, and was assistant to Sefton Delmer in running his black propaganda campaign against Nazi Germany.
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#3698

Nico Boon

#102941
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
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#3699

Msugh Moses Kembe

#25531
Overall Influence
Msugh Moses Kembe is an academic and the 5th substantive Vice chancellor of Benue State University. He was appointed by Benue state governor Dr. Samuel Ortom and assumed office on November 3, 2015. Early life and education Kembe attended Bristow Secondary School in Gboko , and received his WASSCE in 1979. He received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics at the University of Jos in 1984, a masters in statistics in 1992 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and his Ph.D. in statistics in 2009 at the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi. Kembe started his academic career as a lecturer in m...
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#3700

Kausalya Hart

#25628
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
Kausalya Hart is a scholar of Tamil language at UC Berkeley. She is famous for translating Sangam literature from Tamil to English and for writing many Tamil textbooks. Life Kausalya Hart is a scholar of Tamil. She taught in the Department of South Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has written many books for students and has translated many works of bhakti literature from the 6th to 15th century CE.
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