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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Computer Science,
#4551
Arne Ohlsson
#116336
Overall Influence
#4552
Miriah Meyer
#56660
Overall Influence
Miriah Meyer is an American computer scientist and USTAR professor at the University of Utah. She is noted for her pioneering work in data visualization for research applications. She received an American Association for the Advancement of Science Mass Media Science & Engineering Fellowship in 2006 and served as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune. She was named in MIT Technology Reviews TR35 list in 2011 and Fast Company's list of the 100 most creative people in 2012. She was named a 2013 TED Fellow for her work in interactive visualization.
Go to Profile#4553
Michael W. Shields
#108611
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Michael William Shields, - was a British computer scientist. Overview Mike Shields had been an academic in the Department of Computing at the University of Surrey in Guildford, southern England. His research contributions were in theoretical computer science, especially concerning concurrency. In particular, he had written books on automata theory and the semantics of parallel computing.
Go to Profile#4554
Yoram Singer
#116391
Overall Influence
#4555
Kamal Henri Khayat
#116417
Overall Influence
#4556
Julie A. Kientz
#81049
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Julie Anne Kientz is an American computer scientist. Kientz is a full professor in the University of Washington's Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. Early life and education Kientz was born to Tom and Carol in Marion, Ohio, US on May 9, 1980. While attending River Valley High School in the 1990s, she won the Johnny Clearwater Award at the State Science Day. She originally intended to pursue a career in veterinary medicine but changed her path after fainting while watching a dog undergoing surgery. In her senior year, Kientz began taking courses at Ohio State University at Mari...
Go to Profile#4557
Jeremy N Rich
#116433
Overall Influence
#4558
Eric Klopfer
#69235
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Eric Klopfer is a professor and director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program and the education arcade at MIT. Klopfer's research explores how educational technology, games, and computer simulations can be tools for teaching complex systems and developing cognitive and computational thinking skills. Klopfer and his research group developed StarLogo and App Inventor for Android and other visual programming language platforms that build on the work of Seymour Papert and constructionism in education. He is also the principal investigator in the research and development of award-winning gam...
Go to Profile#4559
Wei Xu
#116468
Overall Influence
#4560
Michael R. Kramer
#116497
Overall Influence
#4561
Giorgio Buttazzo
#96335
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Giorgio Buttazzo from the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 for contributions to dynamic scheduling algorithms in real-time systems.
Go to Profile#4562
Francisco Moreno Fernández
#29467
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Francisco Moreno-Fernández is a Spanish dialectologist and sociolinguist. Career Moreno-Fernández holds a PhD in Hispanic Linguistics, is Professor of Spanish Language at the University of Alcalá and Alexander von Humboldt professor at Heidelberg University. Since acceptance of this professorship awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and endowed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research he is directing the Heidelberg Center for Ibero-American Studies . He pursues research in sociolinguistics, dialectology, and applied linguistics. He has been Academic Director of the "Ins...
Go to Profile#4563
Yang Ren
#116542
Overall Influence
#4564
Hua Chun Zeng
#116552
Overall Influence
#4565
Pascal Costanza
#95324
Overall Influence
Pascal Costanza is a research scientist at the ExaScience Lab at Intel Belgium. He is known in the field of functional programming in LISP as well as in the aspect-oriented programming community for contributions to this field by applying AOP through Lisp1. More recently, he has developed Context-oriented programming, with Robert Hirschfeld.
Go to Profile#4566
Emanuel Todorov
#76561
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Emanuel Vassilev Todorov , a neuroscientist, is an associate professor and director of the Movement Control Laboratory at the University of Washington. He introduced the use of optimal control as a formal explanatory framework for biological movement . He is the principal developer of the MuJoCo physics engine.
Go to Profile#4567
Paul Layzell
#52491
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Paul John Layzell, is a British academic, academic administrator, and software engineer. From August 2010 until July 2022, he served as Principal of Royal Holloway, University of London. He is also Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of London and Treasurer of Universities UK.
Go to Profile#4568
Stephen E. Levinson
#71620
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Stephen E. Levinson is a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , leader of the Language Acquisition and Robotics Lab at UIUC, and a full-time faculty member of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at UIUC. He works on speech synthesis, acquisition and recognition and the development of anthropomorphic robots.
Go to Profile#4569
Ralf Weiskirchen
#116606
Overall Influence
#4570
Lawrence S Young
#116620
Overall Influence
#4571
Volker Heinemann
#116657
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
#4572
Valerii Zaluzhnyi
#31591
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Valerii Fedorovych Zaluzhnyi is a Ukrainian four-star general who has served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 27 July 2021. He is also concurrently a member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
Go to Profile#4573
Koray Kavukcuoglu
#116677
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4574
Eric Allender
#88596
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Eric Warren Allender is an American computer scientist active in the field of computational complexity theory. In 2006 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. He is currently a professor at Rutgers University where he chaired the Department of Computer Science from 2006 until 2009.
Go to Profile#4575
Toshiyuki Takamiya
#13120
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Toshiyuki Takamiya in Tokyo, Japan is a Japanese academic and author. Emeritus Professor at Keio University since 2009, he is an authority on medieval English literature and medieval English manuscript studies and a collector of antiquarian books.
Go to Profile#4576
Michael J. Baum
#116721
Overall Influence
#4577
Patrick Jaillet
#65759
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Patrick Jaillet is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He is the Dugald C. Jackson Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests include online and data-focused optimization.
Go to Profile#4578
Ralph Gordon Stanton
#59232
Overall Influence
1923 - 2010 (87 years)
Ralph Gordon Stanton was a Canadian mathematician, teacher, scholar, and pioneer in mathematics and computing education. As a researcher, he made important contributions in the area of discrete mathematics; and as an educator and administrator, was also instrumental in founding the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, and for establishing its unofficial mascot of the pink tie.
Go to Profile#4579
Salvatore Rampone
#89097
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Salvatore Rampone is an Italian scientist and bodybuilder. Professor of Computer Science at the University of Sannio - Italy, he possesses two Master of Arts degrees, in Computer Science and Informatics. Prior to becoming an academic, Rampone carried out research and teaching activity in several institutions , maintaining a tightened collaboration with the Cybernetics research group founded by Eduardo Caianiello at the Department of Theoretical Physics of the University of Salerno.
Go to Profile#4580
Mervyn Maze
#89963
Overall Influence
Mervyn Maze, MD, MB ChB has been a Professor in the Departments of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Intensive Care at the University of California, San Francisco since 1988. He has also served as Professor and Chair at Imperial College London.
Go to Profile#4581
Jaime Lloret
#116811
Overall Influence
#4582
Yun-hong Wang
#116816
Overall Influence
#4583
Carl Edward Rasmussen
#116837
Overall Influence
#4584
Stormy Peters
#80408
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Stormy Peters is an information technology industry analyst and prominent free and open source software advocate, promoting business use of FOSS. She advocates as a consultant and conference speaker. She co-founded, and was later appointed as executive director of the GNOME Foundation. She previously worked for Mozilla Corporation, Cloud Foundry, and Red Hat. In August 2019 she joined Microsoft.
Go to Profile#4585
Hridesh Rajan
#107181
Overall Influence
Hridesh Rajan is an American computer scientist. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for "distinguished contributions to data driven science, particularly to modularity and modular reasoning in computer software and the development of the Boa language and infrastructure."
Go to Profile#4586
Nei Kato
#50869
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
is a computer engineer at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his contributions to satellite systems and network intrusion detection. Since that year, he is also a fellow of the Vehicular Technology Society. He is also an academician of the Engineering Academy of Japan.
Go to Profile#4587
Mogens Bjerg Mogensen
#116886
Overall Influence
#4588
Xin-peng Zhang
#116895
Overall Influence
#4589
Satya Prakash
#116904
Overall Influence
#4590
Zong Woo Geem
#116909
Overall Influence
#4591
Gary Lindstrom
#91391
Overall Influence
1944 - 2022 (78 years)
Gary Edward Lindstrom was an Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah, having previously taught at the University of Pittsburgh. He retired in July 2007 and died on January 10, 2022.
Go to Profile#4592
Martin Riedmiller
#116937
Overall Influence
#4593
Akinori Noma
#116939
Overall Influence
#4594
Joe Davis
#24930
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Joe Davis is a research affiliate in the Department of Biology at MIT, and in the George Church Laboratory at Harvard Medical School. His research and art includes work in the fields of BioArt , "space art", and sculpture, using media including centrifuges, radios, prosthetics, magnetic fields, and genetic material. Davis' teaching positions have been at MIT, the Rhode Island School of Design , and the University of Kentucky.
Go to Profile#4595
Young Bae Jun
#116974
Overall Influence
#4596
Klara Kedem
#92174
Overall Influence
Klara Kedem is an Israeli computer scientist, a professor of computer science at Ben-Gurion University in Beer-Sheva, Israel and an adjunct faculty member in computer science at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Go to Profile#4597
Behzad Baradaran
#117014
Overall Influence
#4598
David R. Snydman
#117020
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4599
Giampaolo Tortora
#117026
Overall Influence
#4600
Jim Lee
#18433
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Jim Lee is a Korean American comic-book artist, writer, editor, and publisher. He is currently the President, Publisher and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics. In recognition of his work, Lee has received a Harvey Award, Inkpot Award and three Wizard Fan Awards.
Go to Profile