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,
#4051
Henning Bundgaard
#108804
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4052
Nicholas Mirzoeff
#29091
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Nicholas Mirzoeff is a visual culture theorist and professor in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University. He is best known for his work developing the field of visual culture and for his many books and his widely used textbook on the subject. He was also Deputy Director of the International Association for Visual Culture from 2012-2016 and organized its first conference in 2012. Mirzoeff holds a BA degree from Oxford University and studied for his PhD at the University of Warwick.
Go to Profile#4053
Robert McNaughton
#82182
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
Robert Forbes McNaughton, Jr. was an American mathematician, logician, and computer scientist with several key contributions in formal languages, grammars and rewriting systems, and word combinatorics.
Go to Profile#4054
Jiashi Feng
#108846
Overall Influence
#4055
Hyunjune Sebastian Seung
#108848
Overall Influence
#4056
Hidenori Takagi
#108888
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#4057
Charles Bauschlicher
#108908
Overall Influence
#4058
Edward G. Coffman Jr.
#58213
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Edward Grady "Ed" Coffman Jr. is a computer scientist. He began his career as a systems programmer at the System Development Corporation during the period 1958–65. His PhD in engineering at UCLA in 1966 was followed by a series of positions at Princeton University , The Pennsylvania State University , Columbia University , and the University of California, Santa Barbara . In 1979, he joined the Mathematics Center at Bell Laboratories where he stayed until his retirement as a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff 20 years later. After a one-year stint at the New Jersey Institute of Technolo...
Go to Profile#4059
Philip Agre
#98971
Overall Influence
Philip E. Agre is an American AI researcher and humanities professor, formerly a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is known for his critiques of technology. He was successively the publisher of The Network Observer and The Red Rock Eater News Service . TNO ran from January 1994 to July 1996. RRE, an influential mailing list he started in the mid-1990s, ran for around a decade. A mix of news, Internet policy and politics, RRE served as a model for many of today's political blogs and online newsletters.
Go to Profile#4060
Amir Hussain
#15836
Overall Influence
Amir Hussain is a scholar of religion who specializes in the study of Islam. Currently, he is a professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In November 2022 he became President of the American Academy of Religion. He has done significant publishing work with Oxford University Press, including editing the fifth editions of two of their main textbooks, World Religions: Western Traditions and World Religions: Eastern Traditions, and the third edition of A Concise Introduction to World Religions.
Go to Profile#4061
Jeffrey Schwartz
#108997
Overall Influence
#4062
Michelle Grabner
#50388
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Michelle Grabner is an artist, curator, and critic based in Wisconsin. She is the Crown Family Professor of Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she has taught since 1996. She has curated several important exhibitions, including the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art along with Anthony Elms and Stuart Comer, and FRONT International, the 2016 Portland Biennial at the Oregon Contemporary, a triennial exhibition in Cleveland, Ohio in 2018. In 2014, Grabner was named one of the 100 most powerful women in art and in 2019, she was named a 2019 National Academy of Design's Academician, a lifetime honor.
Go to Profile#4063
Lyle Ungar
#101951
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Lyle H. Ungar is a machine learning researcher and professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also affiliated with the psychology department at the university.
Go to Profile#4064
Erdal Karapınar
#109021
Overall Influence
#4065
Hans Ulrich Obrist
#8505
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review. He lives and works in London.
Go to Profile#4066
Yves A. Lussier
#59473
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Yves A. Lussier is a physician-scientist conducting research in Precision medicine, Translational bioinformatics and Personal Genomics. As a co-founder of Purkinje, he pioneered the commercial use of controlled medical vocabulary organized as directed semantic networks in electronic medical records, as well as Pen computing for clinicians.
Go to Profile#4067
Eric E. Schadt
#109071
Overall Influence
#4068
Mark David Weiser
#109085
Overall Influence
#4069
Peter G. Ryan
#109124
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
#4070
Armando Santoro
#109150
Overall Influence
#4071
Wanlei. Zhou
#109158
Overall Influence
#4072
Norio Akaike
#109198
Overall Influence
#4073
Petra Perner
#109204
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#4074
Yujie Xiong
#109246
Overall Influence
#4075
Junliang Zhang
#109263
Overall Influence
#4076
Ann Nicholson
#45207
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Professor Ann E. Nicholson , is Dean in the Faculty of Information Technology of Australia's largest university, Monash University in Melbourne. She is a researcher in the specialised area of Bayesian networks.
Go to Profile#4077
Gerald E. Farin
#109308
Overall Influence
#4078
Mirka Miller
#77362
Overall Influence
1949 - 2016 (67 years)
Mirka Miller was a Czech-Australian mathematician and computer scientist interested in graph theory and data security. She was a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Newcastle.
Go to Profile#4079
Matteo Cesari
#109335
Overall Influence
#4080
Jeffrey A. Bilmes
#109344
Overall Influence
#4081
Elena Ferrari
#105766
Overall Influence
Elena Ferrari is a Professor of Computer Science and Director of the STRICT Social Lab at the Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Varese, Italy. Ferrari was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for contributions to security and privacy for data and applications. She has been named one of the “50 Most Influential Italian Women in Tech” in 2018. She was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2019 "for contributions to security and privacy of data and social network systems".
Go to Profile#4082
Alfonso Valéncia
#109375
Overall Influence
#4083
Michael S. Landy
#77185
Overall Influence
Michael S. Landy is Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University. He is known for his research on visual perception and movement planning. Biography Landy attended college at Columbia University and earned a B.S. in 1974 in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Subsequently, Landy went to the University of Michigan where he received a M.S. in 1976 and a Ph.D in 1981 in Computer and Communication Sciences. His doctoral research used neural network models of visual learning. After receiving his doctorate, he began working at New York University, where he subsequently...
Go to Profile#4084
Haibing Ling
#109387
Overall Influence
#4085
Leah Buechley
#74045
Overall Influence
Leah Buechley is an American educator, engineer and designer who is best known as the developer of the LilyPad Arduino toolkit and other smart textiles. Buechley is currently serving as an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico's Department of Computer Science. Her research focuses on the intersection of computer science, art, architecture, and education in her work. She has done fundamental work in electronics based on paper and fabric.
Go to Profile#4086
Richard Masao Fujimoto
#109434
Overall Influence
#4087
Robert Allen Koeppe
#109436
Overall Influence
#4088
David C. Dale
#109459
Overall Influence
#4089
Gary Panter
#8995
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Gary Panter is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, designer and part-time musician. Panter's work is representative of the post-underground, new wave comics movement that began with the end of Arcade: The Comics Revue and the initiation of RAW, one of the second generation in American underground comix.
Go to Profile#4090
Pieter Sonneveld
#109492
Overall Influence
#4091
Liz Liddy
#84368
Overall Influence
Elizabeth DuRoss Liddy is an Emeritus Professor of Information Science and former Dean of the Syracuse University School of Information Studies. She is a pioneer in the field of natural language processing.
Go to Profile#4092
Lorraine Borman
#97541
Overall Influence
Lorraine Borman is an American computer scientist associated with Northwestern University who specializes in information retrieval, computational social science, and human–computer interaction. She was one of the founders of SIGCHI, the Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction of the Association for Computing Machinery, and became its first chair.
Go to Profile#4093
Vijai Kumar Gupta
#109509
Overall Influence
#4094
Tim J. Menzies
#109526
Overall Influence
#4095
Darwin Caldwell
#51509
Overall Influence
Professor Darwin Caldwell is a researcher and academic in robotics who is currently Research Director at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa, Italy. Besides other robots, he was involved in the development of the iCub, a small-size humanoid robot being designed by the RobotCub Consortium.
Go to Profile#4096
Joan L. Mitchell
#58455
Overall Influence
1947 - 2015 (68 years)
Joan Laverne Mitchell was an American computer scientist, data compression pioneer, and inventor who, as a researcher at IBM, co-invented the JPEG digital image format. Early life Mitchell was born on May 24, 1947, in Modesto, California. Mitchell's father was William Mitchell and her mother was Doris Mitchell.
Go to Profile#4097
Gregory Grefenstette
#51259
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Gregory Grefenstette is a French–American researcher and professor in computer science, in particular artificial intelligence and natural language processing. , he is the chief scientific officer at Biggerpan, a company developing a predictive contextual engine for the mobile web. Grefenstette is also a senior associate researcher at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition .
Go to Profile#4098
Tom Porter
#71717
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Thomas K. Porter is the senior vice president of production strategy at Pixar and one of the studio's founding employees. Professional life After receiving a master's degree in computer science at Stanford University in 1975, Porter worked at the National Institutes of Health on computer visualization of molecular models and wrote software at Ampex for the world's first commercial digital paint program, AVA.
Go to Profile#4099
Kristina Toutanova
#109637
Overall Influence
#4100
Michael Otto
#109663
Overall Influence
