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,
#4201
M. Eric Johnson
#34834
Overall Influence
M. Eric Johnson is Dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Formerly, he was Associate Dean and the Benjamin Ames Kimball Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. He was also Director of the Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies. Prior to Tuck, he was a professor at management at Vanderbilt University and a development engineer at Hewlett-Packard.
Go to Profile#4202
William P. Kustas
#111158
Overall Influence
#4203
Jian Feng Ma
#111162
Overall Influence
#4204
Anthony Rodgers
#111184
Overall Influence
#4205
Andreas Geiger
#111267
Overall Influence
#4206
Anant Madabhushi
#111311
Overall Influence
#4207
Paula Bonta
#94801
Overall Influence
Paula Bonta is an Argentinian-Canadian computer scientist and educational software designer. She is known for developing programming environments for children, most notably contributing to the design of the Scratch programming language before it was even called Scratch. She co-founded the Playful Invention Company, a spin-off from the MIT Media Lab noted for developing the Programmable Cricket, with Mitchel Resnick and Brian Silverman and serves as Lead Designer. She was also the design director for several award-winning software products for children, including MicroWorlds and the "My Make Believe" series of products from Logo Computer Systems, Inc.
Go to Profile#4208
J. Greg Hanson
#89361
Overall Influence
J. Greg Hanson is an American computer scientist and software engineer. He previously served as the first Assistant Sergeant at Arms and chief information officer of the United States Senate from June 2003 to January 2008 under Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Harry Reid.
Go to Profile#4209
Mamidala Ramulu
#49825
Overall Influence
Dr. Ramulu Mamidala is a mechanical engineering professor at University of Washington. Usually goes by the name 'Ram', or 'M.R.', he is recognized for his leadership and outstanding record in promoting collaborative education and research with industry. He is currently the director of Manufacturing Science and Technology Laboratory at Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Washington. He has designed and developed manufacturing methods for a wide range of systems, from the B2 bomber to the Boeing 787. Additionally, in collaboration with industry, he established and directed two int...
Go to Profile#4210
Don Hahn
#14342
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Donald Paul Hahn is an American film producer who is credited with producing some of the most successful animated films in recent history, including Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.
Go to Profile#4211
Mike Giles
#105400
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Michael Bryce Giles is a British mathematician and computer scientist. He is a Professor of Scientific Computing and Head of Department at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. He is best known for developing Multilevel Monte Carlo methods.
Go to Profile#4212
Thomas Walther
#111416
Overall Influence
#4213
John Romkey
#70749
Overall Influence
John Romkey is an American computer scientist who along with Donald W. Gillies co-developed MIT PC/IP, the first TCP/IP stack in the industry for MS-DOS on the IBM PC in 1983 while at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1986, Romkey founded FTP Software, a commercial TCP/IP stack provider. Romkey authored the first network analyzer, Netwatch, predating the Network General Sniffer. He served on the IAB. With Simon Hackett, Romkey connected the first appliance to the Internet in 1990. Romkey is currently one of the owners of Blue Forest Research, a consulting company.
Go to Profile#4214
Nasir Memon
#38144
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nasir Memon is a computer scientist based in Brooklyn, New York. Memon is a professor and chair of the New York University Tandon School of Engineering computer science and engineering department and affiliate faculty at the computer science department in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University. He is also the Department Head of NYU Tandon Online, the online learning unit of the school. He introduced cyber security studies to New York University Tandon School of Engineering, making it one of the first schools to implement the program at the undergraduate level. Memon holds twelve patents in image compression and security.
Go to Profile#4215
James Hoe
#81610
Overall Influence
James Hoe is a Taiwanese-American professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University . He is interested in many aspects of computer architecture and digital hardware design, including the specific areas of FPGA architecture for computing; digital signal processing hardware; and high-level hardware design and synthesis. Professor Hoe’s current research focus is on devising a new FPGA architecture for power efficient, high-performance computing. His research group is working on developing an FPGA runtime environment that incorporates partial reconfiguration, virtualiz...
Go to Profile#4216
Salim S. Virani
#111447
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4217
Vincent Cottin
#111469
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#4218
Yasushi Yatabe
#111472
Overall Influence
#4219
Simon J. Griffin
#111488
Overall Influence
#4220
Silvio Cesare
#111520
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Silvio Cesare is an Australian security researcher known for his multiple articles in phrack, talks at numerous security conferences including Defcon and Black Hat Briefings. Silvio is also a former member of w00w00. His security research includes an IDS evasion bug in the widely deployed Snort software. Silvio holds a PhD in Computer Science from Deakin University and is the co-founder of the security conference BSides Canberra. He earned his Master of Informatics and Bachelor of Information Technology from CQUniversity Australia. He currently operates the Canberra based training and consult...
Go to Profile#4221
Bin Cao
#111543
Overall Influence
#4222
Mustafa Abdalla Mohamed Salih
#19012
Overall Influence
Mustafa Abdalla Mohamed Salih , , is a Sudanese academic professor, scientist and pediatric neurologist. He established the first pediatric neurology specialty in Sudan and is also one of the founders of the pediatric neurology specialty in Saudi Arabia. He identified inherited neurologic diseases which were subsequently named after him. Salih Myopathy, Salih ataxia, and Bosley-Salih-Alorainy syndrome resulting from mutations in HOXA1 gene. He is also known to have led a team of scientists who proved that the extract from broad beans also known as hoarse beans had the ability to cure epilepsy spasms.
Go to Profile#4223
Fouad Tobagi
#96309
Overall Influence
Fouad Tobagi is a professor in the Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering. Education Fouad Tobagi received the Engineering Diploma from Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, Paris, France, in 1970. He completed MS and PhD in Computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles .
Go to Profile#4224
Stefano Levialdi Ghiron
#105604
Overall Influence
1936 - 2015 (79 years)
Stefano Levialdi Ghiron was an Italian computer scientist who was a full professor at the Sapienza University of Rome. His research areas included visual programming languages, image processing, pattern recognition, and human-computer interaction.
Go to Profile#4225
Miron Livny
#111570
Overall Influence
#4226
Nicholas Jarvis Proudfoot
#111577
Overall Influence
#4227
Axel Heidenreich
#111588
Overall Influence
#4228
Rasmus Bro
#111593
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4229
Wilbur R. LePage
#87043
Overall Influence
1911 - 1996 (85 years)
Wilbur Reed LePage was an American professor and department chair of electrical and computer engineering at Syracuse University. He was the author of numerous textbooks, including Complex Variables and the Laplace Transform for Engineers and Applied APL Programming. He was a noted authority on the APL programming language.
Go to Profile#4230
Sten Madsbad
#111615
Overall Influence
#4231
F. Zhang Wei
#111620
Overall Influence
#4232
Orna Grumberg
#52610
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Orna Grumberg is an Israeli computer scientist and academic, the Leumi Chair of Science at the Technion. Grumberg is noted for developing model checking, a method for formally verifying hardware and software designs. With Edmund M. Clarke and Doron A. Peled, she is the author of the book Model Checking .
Go to Profile#4233
Richard Vaughan
#67572
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Richard Vaughan is a robotics and artificial intelligence researcher at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Since 2018, Vaughan is on leave from SFU and is working at Apple. He is the founder and director of the SFU Autonomy Laboratory. In 1998, Vaughan demonstrated the first robot to interact with animals and in 2000 co-founded the Player Project, a robot control and simulation system.
Go to Profile#4234
Hiroaki Okamoto
#111678
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4235
Pete Wilson
#73784
Overall Influence
1945 - 2007 (62 years)
Peter James Wilson was an American broadcaster born in Wisconsin. For more than 20 years prior to his death, he worked in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was not related to the former California governor of the same name.
Go to Profile#4236
Arun Kumar Sangaiah
#111808
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
#4237
Domenico Otranto
#111811
Overall Influence
#4238
Bijaya Ketan Panigrahi
#111820
Overall Influence
#4239
Zdzisław Bubnicki
#89198
Overall Influence
1938 - 2006 (68 years)
Zdzisław Bubnicki was a Polish scientist, a specialist in the fields of automation and computer science. His main scientific interests concerned: decision theory, control theory, system identification, pattern recognition, expert systems, and knowledge-based systems, complexes of operations, and methodology of computer systems.
Go to Profile#4240
Supratik Chakraborty
#72388
Overall Influence
Supratik Chakraborty is an Indian computer scientist. He is currently Bajaj Group Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Supratik completed his undergraduate in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 1993, where he was awarded the President of India Gold Medal. Subsequently, he completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1995 and 1998 respectively, working on the design of polynomial time approximate algorithms for timing analysis of asynchronous systems.
Go to Profile#4241
Ali Guermazi
#111845
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#4242
Carl Kesselman
#111850
Overall Influence
#4243
Andrea Fraser
#15312
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Andrea Rose Fraser is a performance artist, mainly known for her work in the area of Institutional Critique. Fraser is based in New York and Los Angeles and is currently Department Head and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studio of the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Go to Profile#4244
Natasha Noy
#98688
Overall Influence
Natasha Fridman Noy is a Russian-born American Research scientist who works at Google Research in Mountain View, CA, who focuses on making structured data more accessible and usable. She is the team leader for Dataset Search, a web-based search engine for all datasets. Natasha worked at Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research before joining Google, where she made significant contributions to ontology building and alignment, as well as collaborative ontology engineering. Natasha is on the Editorial Boards of many Semantic Web and Information Systems publications and is the Immediate Past President of the Semantic Web Science Association.
Go to Profile#4245
Jugal Kalita
#52162
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Jugal Kalita is a professor and department chair of computer science at the College of Engineering and Applied Science within the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Academics Jugal Kalita is founder of the Language Information and Computation Lab at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs .
Go to Profile#4246
Diederik P. Kingma
#111892
Overall Influence
#4247
Chris H. Q. Ding
#111894
Overall Influence
#4248
Ferry Breedveld
#102721
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ferdinand Christoffel "Ferry" Breedveld is a Dutch rheumatologist. He was a professor of internal medicine, specializing in rheumatology, at Leiden University from 1991 to 2015. He served as chair of the board of directors of the Leiden University Medical Center from 2006 to 2015.
Go to Profile#4249
Derviş Karaboğa
#111902
Overall Influence
#4250
Victor On-kwok Li
#71274
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Professor Victor On-kwok Li is an American Hong Kong academic. He is best known for his contributions to the development of Information technology. He received the Government of Hong Kong Bronze Bauhinia Star in 2001, and he is a fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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