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,
#4951
Soumen Chakrabarti
#109631
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Soumen Chakrabarti is an Indian computer scientist and professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. He is known for his work onThe CLEVER Web page ranking system based on hyperlinks, related to PageRank.Focused crawlers, which are Web crawlers guided by page topic classifiers.Keyword search on graph databases, later popularized by Facebook graph search.Named entity disambiguation in Web text.He is author of an early book on Web search and mining.
Go to Profile#4952
Michael Elliott
#121835
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#4953
Karl Otto Götz
#34465
Overall Influence
1914 - 2017 (103 years)
Karl Otto Götz often simply called K.O. Götz, was a German artist, filmmaker, draughtsman, printmaker, writer and professor of art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He was one of the oldest living and active artists older than 100 years of age and is best remembered for his explosive and complex abstract forms. His powerful, surrealist-inspired works earned him international recognition in exhibitions like documenta II in 1959. Götz never confined himself to one specific style or artistic field. He also explored generated abstract forms through television art. Götz is one of the most important members of the German Art Informel movement.
Go to Profile#4954
Oliver Distler
#121859
Overall Influence
#4955
Frank Seela
#121868
Overall Influence
#4956
Samuel Eilon
#121876
Overall Influence
#4957
Xiao Liang He
#121882
Overall Influence
#4958
Jordan B. Pollack
#121891
Overall Influence
#4959
Günter Böckle
#87600
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Günter Böckle is a German software engineer and project manager at Siemens Corporate Technology, known for his work on Software product line engineering. Böckle received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1976 from the University of Stuttgart. He started his career in industry working in the fields of software engineering, and systems engineering, particularly in systems modelling and simulation and evaluation. Late 1990s he moved into the field of software product line engineering, on which he published several papers and books. He is member INCOSE, the International Council on Systems Engineering.
Go to Profile#4960
Patrick Willems
#121909
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
#4961
Xiaofang Zhou
#121967
Overall Influence
#4962
Jeong Min Lee
#121978
Overall Influence
#4963
Uri Banin
#67640
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Uri Banin is an Israeli chemist and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, currently holding the Alfred & Erica Larisch Memorial Chair at the Institute of Chemistry. He is recognized as one of the pioneers of nanoscience in Israel.
Go to Profile#4964
Stefan Lucks
#64997
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Stefan Lucks is a researcher in the fields of communications security and cryptography. Lucks is known for his attack on Triple DES, and for extending Lars Knudsen's Square attack to Twofish, a cipher outside the Square family, thus generalising the attack into integral cryptanalysis. He has also co-authored attacks on AES, LEVIATHAN, and the E0 cipher used in Bluetooth devices, as well as publishing strong password-based key agreement schemes.
Go to Profile#4965
Roland Baron
#121998
Overall Influence
#4966
Hongbo Zeng
#122001
Overall Influence
#4967
Laure Gossec
#122017
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
#4968
Qiang Zheng
#122025
Overall Influence
#4969
Armin Biere
#122063
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#4970
Clayton Bailey
#45146
Overall Influence
1939 - 2020 (81 years)
Clayton George Bailey , was an American artist who worked primarily in the mediums of ceramic and metal sculpture. Early life and education Clayton George Bailey was born on March 9, 1939, in Antigo, Wisconsin. In middle school he met his future wife, artist Betty Joan Graveen .
Go to Profile#4971
Hou-qiang Li
#122082
Overall Influence
#4972
Patricia Rodriguez
#44350
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Patricia Rodriguez is a prominent Chicana artist and educator. Rodriguez grew up in Marfa, Texas and moved to San Francisco to later pursue an art degree at Merritt College and this is where she learned about the Mexican American Liberation Art Front and the Chicano Movement. In 1970, Patricia received a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute and this is where she met Graciela Carrillo. Together, they created and founded the Mujeres Muralistas, the first Chicana women's mural collective in San Francisco.
Go to Profile#4973
Mark Crovella
#120735
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Mark Crovella is an American computer scientist and Professor at Boston University. His research focuses on computer networks as well as data science. Much of his work has focused on improving the understanding, design, and performance of parallel and networked computer systems, mainly through the application of measurement, data mining, statistics, and performance evaluation. In the computer science arena, he has focused on the analysis of social, biological, and communication networks. He is co-author of the first text on Internet Measurement, Internet Measurement: Infrastructure, Traffic, and Applications.
Go to Profile#4974
Derek Taunt
#25352
Overall Influence
1917 - 2004 (87 years)
Derek Roy Taunt was a British mathematician who worked as a codebreaker during World War II at Bletchley Park. Taunt attended Enfield Grammar, then the City of London School. He studied mathematics at Jesus College, Cambridge between 1936 and 1939. He was accepted as a research student by G. H. Hardy, but this was postponed by the outbreak of World War II. Taunt registered with the Joint Recruiting Board, and was initially allocated to work on ballistics at Kemnal Manor in Chislehurst, preparing range tables for new weapons. Finding that the task required only trivial mathematics , he sought ...
Go to Profile#4975
Earl E. Jr. Swartzlander
#122137
Overall Influence
#4976
Xin-wang Liu
#122145
Overall Influence
#4977
Anupam Joshi Joshi
#122156
Overall Influence
#4978
Peter Brooks
#122161
Overall Influence
#4979
Fahiem Bacchus
#117430
Overall Influence
1957 - 2022 (65 years)
Fahiem Bacchus was a Canadian professor of computer science at the University of Toronto and a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence . Early life and career Fahiem Bacchus was born in 1957. In 1979 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Alberta. After working in industry for a couple of years he returned to academic pursuits and in 1983 received a Master of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Toronto. A year later he returned to the University of Alberta and graduated from there with a Ph.D. in computer science in 1988.
Go to Profile#4980
Wengyik Yeong
#82825
Overall Influence
1966 - 2007 (41 years)
Wengyik 'Weng' Yeong was an American computer scientist. He is principally known for his work on the X.500, LDAP, and SNMP Internet protocols. He also authored and edited several Internet Engineering Task Force Requests for comments , including the original specification for LDAP.
Go to Profile#4981
Kazuyuki Kuroda
#122189
Overall Influence
#4982
Michael P. Barnett
#69430
Overall Influence
1929 - 2012 (83 years)
Michael Peter Barnett was a British theoretical chemist and computer scientist. He developed mathematical and computer techniques for quantum chemical problems, and some of the earliest software for several other kinds of computer application. After his early days in London, Essex and Lancashire, he went to King's College, London, in 1945, the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern in 1953, IBM UK in 1955, the University of Wisconsin Department of Chemistry in 1957, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Solid State and Molecular Theory Group in 1958.
Go to Profile#4983
Caroline Anne Ross
#72948
Overall Influence
Caroline Anne Ross is a British physicist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was named as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2004 for innovative research into the magnetic properties of thin film and nanoscale structures, and for the development of novel lithographic and self-assembly methods for nanostructure fabrication and named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for contributions to synthesis and characterization of nanoscale structures and films for magnetic and magneto-optical devices. She is the Associate Head o...
Go to Profile#4984
Patrice Codogno
#122234
Overall Influence
#4985
Brian. Henderson-sellers
#122238
Overall Influence
#4986
Dan Quine
#53900
Overall Influence
Daniel Nicholas Quine is a computer scientist, currently VP Engineering at AltSchool. Early career Quine learned to program on a ZX81 and a BBC Micro in the 1980s. He received a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Leeds, and earned his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from Leeds in 1995. His thesis work used machine learning algorithms to discover patterns in user interactions.
Go to Profile#4987
Susie Wee
#87388
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Susie J. Wee is an American technology expert. In 2011, she became the Vice President and Chief Technology and Experience Officer of Collaboration at Cisco Systems. In 2018, she became the Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Cisco DevNet, which she founded in 2014. Wee is a WITI Hall of Fame inductee.
Go to Profile#4988
Andrea Doria
#122263
Overall Influence
#4989
David J. Patterson
#70384
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
David Joseph Patterson is a Northern Irish taxonomist specializing in protozoa and the use of taxonomy in biodiversity informatics. Early life and education David Joseph Patterson was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 19 April 1950 to Doris Mary and Samuel Patterson, with one elder brother and a sister . Father of Alice Mia Vørs Patterson, Daniel Kieran Patterson, and William Zhao Patterson. He was educated at Belmont Primary, Strandtown and Grosvenor High schools in Belfast. He obtained his Bachelor of Science with first-class honours at Queen's University Belfast in 1971.
Go to Profile#4990
Ferdinando Auricchio
#122348
Overall Influence
#4991
Hideto Matsuyama
#122364
Overall Influence
#4992
William C. Leggett
#79779
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
William C. Leggett is a Canadian population biologist and university administrator who served as the 17th Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Queen's University, Kingston in Canada, from 1994 to 2004, only the second scientist to hold the Principalship. He was previously the Vice Principal of McGill University.
Go to Profile#4993
Nancy Spero
#15432
Overall Influence
1926 - 2009 (83 years)
Nancy Spero was an American visual artist. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Spero lived for much of her life in New York City. She married and collaborated with artist Leon Golub. As both artist and activist, Nancy Spero had a career that spanned fifty years. She is known for her continuous engagement with contemporary political, social, and cultural concerns. Spero chronicled wars and apocalyptic violence as well as articulating visions of ecstatic rebirth and the celebratory cycles of life. Her complex network of collective and individual voices was a catalyst for the creation of her figurative lex...
Go to Profile#4994
Grégorio Crini
#122410
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#4995
Wayne Hendrix Wolf
#122417
Overall Influence
#4996
Kenneth Kwong
#35058
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Kenneth Kin Man Kwong is a Hong Kong-born American nuclear physicist. He is a pioneer in human brain imaging. He received his bachelor's degree in Political Science in 1972 from the University of California, Berkeley. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Riverside studying photon-photon collision interactions.
Go to Profile#4997
Frank Hayden
#14605
Overall Influence
Frank Joseph Hayden, is a retired physical education/kinesiology professor and pioneer of the Special Olympics from Oakville, Ontario. Personal life Hayden was born in Windsor, Ontario and lives in Burlington. He completed his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Western Ontario in 1955, and a Master of Science in 1958 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1962 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Hayden joined the faculty of the University of Western Ontario in 1964, then became director of the School of Physical Education and Athletics at McMaster University in 1975. He retired from...
Go to Profile#4998
Claudio Soto
#122474
Overall Influence
#4999
Jinyue Yan
#122505
Overall Influence
#5000
Hyuna Sung
#122510
Overall Influence
