Search People Result | Academic Influence

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).

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School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Engineering,

#851

Kakani Katija Young

#129676

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (41 years)

Kakani Katija is a bioengineer from Hawaii. While earning her Master's and PhD in Aeronautics and Bioengineering, Katija began to study the mechanics of swimming and feeding marine organisms. Biography Kakani Katija completed her bachelor's degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics at the University of Washington in 2004. She furthered her studies, earning a Master's in Aeronautics in 2005 at the California Institute of Technology and her Doctorate at Caltech in 2010 in Bioengineering.

#852

Bénédicte Cuenot

#154624

Overall Influence

Bénédicte Cuenot is a French engineer specializing in the numerical simulation of combustion and related phenomena, including turbulent flow, the flow of plasma, and heat transfer. Her software has been used to investigate the emission of pollutants and other products of combustion, non-carbon-based fuels including hydrogen, ammonia, and metal powders, the start and end of combustion, and the ability of combustion chambers to stand up under use. She heads the combustion research group at the European Centre for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation in Toulouse, and holds a ...

#853

Gail Brion

#167963

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (123 years)

Gail Montgomery Brion is an inventor and a professor of civil engineering and the Director of the Environmental Research and Training Laboratories at the University of Kentucky. An expert on waterborn illness, she holds a co-appointment in the College of Public Health. She works to introduce and maintain high quality water systems in rural regions.

#854

Paula Nascimento

#173244

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Paula Nascimento is an Angolan architect and curator who along with Stefano Rabolli Pansera curated the Angolan pavilion at the 55th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia which won the Golden Lion for "best national participation".

#855

Cary Millholland Parker

#82860

Overall Influence

1902 - 2001 (99 years)

Cary Millholland Parker was an American landscape architect based in Washington, D.C. Education and personal life Cary Blunt Millholland was born in Cumberland, Maryland, on December 11, 1902. She was one of five children of James Allaire and Harriet Woodward Millholland. She graduated from Wellesley College in 1924 and then continued her studies informally while traveling around Europe and East Asia. Her travels in Asia developed her interest in trees as a landscape element. She went on to enroll in the landscape architecture program at the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Arc...

#856

Judy Green

#64699

Overall Influence

Judy Green is an American volleyball coach. She is the former head coach of the volleyball team at the University of Alabama , and was formerly the head coach at the University of Montevallo from 1986-1995. She is a graduate of Tuscola High School in Waynesville, NC and of Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC where she lettered in 12 varsity sports, the only WCU athlete to ever do so.

#857

Branislava Peruničić

#171084

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Branislava Peruničić-Draženović is an Emeritus Professor of Control Engineering at the University of Sarajevo. She was elected to the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1986.

#858

Sherry Harbin

#135143

Overall Influence

Sherry Lynn Voytik-Harbin is a professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Basic Medical Sciences at Purdue University. Early life and education Harbin was born and raised in Indiana. As a senior at Central High School, she won the State Scholarly Writing Contest and was the recipient of a Storer Scholarship for Indiana University. Upon graduating in 1987, Harbin was expected to enroll at Harvard University and the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute for graduate work in experimental pathology but instead chose to explore Purdue University. She made contact with Pete Ko...

#859

Christina Fragouli

#173488

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Christina Fragouli, from the University of California, Los Angeles, was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for contributions to network coding.

#860

Anne Noble

#70804

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Anne Lysbeth Noble is a New Zealand photographer and Distinguished Professor of Fine Art at Massey University's College of Creative Arts. Her work includes series of photographs examining Antarctica, her own daughter's mouth, and our relationship with nature.

#861

Debbie Chachra

#139804

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Debbie Chachra is a materials scientist and a professor at Olin College. She specialises in biological materials and infrastructure. She is interested in innovations in engineering education and was one of the founding members of the materials faculty at Olin.

#862

Emily S. Day

#168057

Overall Influence

Emily S. Day is an American biomedical engineer. She is an associate professor at the University of Delaware where her research team engineers nanoparticles to enable high precision therapy of diseases including cancers, blood disorders, and maternal/fetal health complications.

#863

Michelle Pantoya

#173117

Overall Influence

Michelle L. Pantoya is an American mechanical engineer who studies combustion of solid fuels, such as nanocomposites of thermite. She is also an author of children's books on engineering. She is the J.W. Wright Regents Endowed Chair Professor in Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University.

#864

Cynthia Finelli

#172540

Overall Influence

Cynthia J. Finelli is an American engineering educator whose research includes publications on evidence-based education, on the effects of neurodiversity on engineering education, on the evaluation of group work, and on academic dishonesty. She is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, where she also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Education.

#865

Silvia Vignolini

#112959

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (43 years)

Silvia Vignolini is an Italian physicist who is Director of research at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and Professor of Chemistry and Bio-materials in the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. Her research investigates natural photonics structures, the self-assembly of cellulose and light propagation through complex structures. She was awarded the KINGFA young investigator award by the American Chemical Society and the Gibson-Fawcett Award in 2018.

#866

Cassandra Fraser

#86840

Overall Influence

Cassandra L. Fraser is an American synthetic chemist with an interest in biomedicine and sustainable design. She is a Full Professor of Chemistry at the University of Virginia. Early life and education Fraser completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at Kalamazoo College in 1984 and her master's degree at Harvard Divinity School. Following her PhD at the University of Chicago in 1993, she accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology. Fraser conducted her postdoctoral studies under the guidance of Robert H. Grubbs.

#867

Carole Tucker

#118443

Overall Influence

Carole Tucker FLSW is a Professor at the School of Physics and Astronomy, Cardiff University. She is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales , and a member of the Institute of Physics and the Royal Astronomical Society. Her research focuses on astronomy instrumentation in the fields of far infra-red quasi-optics and spectroscopy. She is a member of the UK EPSRC THz Network, Teranet and a reviewer for the IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology.

#868

Elizabeth Opila

#171578

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Jane Opila is an American materials scientist who is the Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Professor of Engineering at the University of Virginia. Her research considers the development of materials for extreme environments. She was elected Fellow of the Electrochemical Society in 2013 and the American Ceramic Society in 2014.

#869

Elisabete A. Silva

#89578

Overall Influence

Elisabete A. Silva is a British-Portuguese planning theorist. She is a professor of spatial planning in the department of land economy at the University of Cambridge. Silva was the first woman to be promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor in the Department's history.

#870

Susannah York

#44855

Overall Influence

1939 - 2011 (72 years)

Susannah Yolande Fletcher , known professionally as Susannah York, was an English actress. Her appearances in various films of the 1960s, including Tom Jones and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? , formed the basis of her international reputation. An obituary in The Telegraph characterised her as "the blue-eyed English rose with the china-white skin and cupid lips who epitomised the sensuality of the swinging sixties", who later "proved that she was a real actor of extraordinary emotional range".

#871

Alison Mears

#117097

Overall Influence

Alison Mears is a certified AIA LEED AP Architect and is the current head of the Healthy Materials Lab at Parsons The New School for Design. Mears was previously the director of the BFA Architecture and Interior Design Programs in the School of Constructed Environments and an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Parsons.

#872

Hui Meng

#173479

Overall Influence

Hui Meng is a mechanical engineer whose research focuses on hemodynamics , particularly with respect to intracranial aneurysms. Educated in China, Germany, and the US, she is a University at Buffalo Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and chief scientific officer of Neurovascular Diagnostics.

#873

Janis Swan

#117322

Overall Influence

Janis Elizabeth Swan is a New Zealand food process engineering academic. She is currently an emeritus professor at the University of Waikato. Academic and research career Educated at Horowhenua College in Levin, Swan went on to study biotechnology at Massey University, completing a Bachelor of Technology in 1969 and a Master of Technology in 1971. After working in industry for two years, she returned to Massey as a lecturer. She was awarded a Walter Mulholland Fellowship, which enabled her to undertake doctoral studies at the University of Waterloo in Canada, and she completed her PhD on the...

#874

Laura Bottomley

#118023

Overall Influence

Dr. Laura Bottomley, from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, is an electrical engineer. In 2016. Bottomley was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for increasing student interest in STEM education. In 2007, she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. Bottomley is also a Fellow of the American Society of Engineering Education. In 2016, she appeared in a Super Bowl commercial entitled "Doing Good with STEM."

#875

Ana Falú

#106977

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Ana María Falú is an Argentine architect and a social activist for human rights and for women's rights. She has been Regional Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women for the Andean Region and for Brazil and the Southern Cone Countries . She is a researcher and Professor at the National University of Córdoba , where she is the Director of the Housing and Habitat Research Institute . In the field of feminist action, she promoted numerous institutional initiatives and contributed to the establishment of women's rights to the city, to housing, and to the habitat. She is co-fou...

#876

Dubravka Sekulić

#132503

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Dubravka Sekulić is a professor, author and architect. Since 2016, she has taught at the "Institute of Contemporary Art", which is part of the Graz University of Technology in Austria. She is known for writing about privatization and its consequences on Belgrade's urban planning, stating that public space ought to be ".. a resource whose development should bring equality, not the basis for profit making". Her main field of research examines how modern cities change within the framework of spatial, legal and economic modalities.

#877

Shin-Ru Shih

#171712

Overall Influence

Shin-Ru Shih is the director of the Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections and holds a professorship in the Department of Medical Biotechnology and Laboratory Science and Graduate Program of Biomedical Sciences at Chang Gung University. She is also the medical director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.

#878

Sheila MacNeil

#124863

Overall Influence

Sheila MacNeil is a Professor of Tissue Engineering at the University of Sheffield. She works alongside NHS clinicians to use tissue engineered skin to benefit patients with burns, chronic ulcers and those recovering from surgery. She developed MySkin, skin bandages that are used to treat burns in 11 of 13 major UK burns units.

#879

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris

#140453

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris is a Greek-American academic. She is a Distinguished Professor of urban planning and urban design at UCLA. She is also a core faculty of the UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative. She served as Associate Provost for Academic Planning at UCLA from 2016-2019, and she has been the Associate Dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs since 2010. She was the chair of the UCLA Department of Urban Planning from 2002-2008. She is a public space scholar and has examined transformations in the public realm and public space in cities, and their associated social meanings and impacts on urban residents.

#880

Yasamin Mostofi

#154648

Overall Influence

Yasamin Mostofi is an Iranian-American Scientist and a Professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara. Yasamin’s research is multi-disciplinary, expanding wireless communications, sensing, and control/robotics.

#881

Tania Bubela

#94891

Overall Influence

Tania Marjorie Bubela is a professor and dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Education Born and raised in Australia, Bubela earned her bachelor's degree in 1988 from the Australian National University and her PhD from the University of Sydney.

#882

Sharon M. Weiss

#156843

Overall Influence

Sharon M. Weiss is an American professor of electrical engineering and physics at Vanderbilt University. Weiss has been awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers , an NSF CAREER award, an ARO Young Investigator Award, and the 2016–2017 IEEE Photonics Society Distinguished Lecturer award for her teaching and fundamental and applied research on silicon-based optical biosensing, silicon photonics for optical communication, and hybrid and nanocomposite material systems. She is the Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Engineering at Vanderbilt University, in addition to the Di...

#883

Mary Frecker

#171909

Overall Influence

Mary Irene Frecker is an American mechanical engineer whose research focuses on topology optimization of adaptive structures, compliant mechanisms, and self-folding origami mechanisms, with applications including the design of medical devices. She is a professor of mechanical and biomechanical engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering, Riess Chair of Engineering, head of the mechanical engineering department, and director of the Penn State Center for Biodevices.

#884

Eva Zurek

#172481

Overall Influence

Eva Dagmara Zurek is a theoretical chemist, solid-state physicist and materials scientist. As a Professor of Chemistry at the University at Buffalo, Zurek studies the electronic structure, properties, and reactivity of a wide variety of materials using quantum mechanical calculations. She is interested in high pressure science, superhard, superconducting, quantum and planetary materials, catalysis, as well as solvated electrons and electrides. She develops algorithms to predict the structures of crystals, interfaces them with machine learning models, and applies them in materials discovery.

#885

Cathryn Mitchell

#147978

Overall Influence

Cathryn N. Mitchell is a Professor of Electronic & Electronic Engineering at the University of Bath. She was awarded the 2019 Institute of Physics Edward Appleton Medal and Prize. Early life and education Mitchell studied physics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. She remained there for her doctoral studies, where she explored the use of radio tomography to study the Earth's ionosphere. She was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Keith Runcorn Prize and University of Wales Granville Beynon prize for her dissertation.

#886

Kristina Shea

#174139

Overall Influence

Kristina Shea is a mechanical engineer whose research topics include generative design, tensegrity structures, aquatic soft robotics, and 4D printing. She is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering at ETH Zurich, where she holds the chair in Engineering Design and Computing.

#887

Beatriz del Cueto

#169374

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Beatriz del Cueto is a Cuban-born architect specialising in conservation and architectural preservation. A resident of Puerto Rico since 1960, del Cueto is a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and Henry Klumb Award winner in 2012.

#888

Graciela Silvestri

#169002

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Graciela Silvestri is an Argentine architect, Professor of Architectural Theory and a senior researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina. Career Silvestri earned both her degree in Architecture and Ph.D. in History from the University of Buenos Aires. The main focus of her work is on landscapes and urban design.

#889

Margarita Marinova

#145981

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Margarita Marinova is a Bulgarian aeronautical engineer. She is the Senior Mars and Vehicle Systems Development Engineer at SpaceX. Early life and education Margarita Marinova was born in Bulgaria and can speak five languages: English, Bulgarian, Russian, German and French. When she was 10, she moved to Vienna for one year, before moving to Toronto. Her mother and father were computer engineers. She was the founder and chair of the Toronto Chapter of the international Mars Society whilst at high school. She entered and won the NASA Space Settlement Design Content in 1997, 1998 and 1999. By the age of 18, she had co-authored five science papers.

#890

Cigdem Eskicioglu

#170680

Overall Influence

Cigdem Eskicioglu is a Turkish-Canadian engineer, and a professor at the University of British Columbia. She holds a Senior Industrial Research Chair in the School of Engineering at the University of British Columbia.

#891

Martha A.Q. Curley

#138331

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Martha A.Q. Curley is an American nurse. She is the Ruth M. Colket Endowed Chair in Pediatric Nursing at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Early life and education Curley was born on November 14, 1952 in Springfield, Massachusetts, US to an Italian father. She completed her Diploma in Nursing from the Springfield Hospital School of Nursing in 1973 and her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1985. Following this, she completed her Master's degree in nursing from Yale University and her PhD from Boston College.

#892

Joan Burt

#148606

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Joan Burt was a Canadian architect and educator. She was born in Toronto and received a BArch from the University of Toronto in 1956, becoming the 21st woman to graduate from the program. Burt worked with architecture firm Mathers and Haldenby from 1956 to 1958 and with developer Irwin Burns from 1958 to 1959 before establishing her own firm in 1958. Since the 1960s, she has been involved in renovating 19th century rowhouses in downtown Toronto. New home projects include the Luella Booth Residence in Toronto, the Daymond House in Guelph and the O'Reilly Residence in Etobicoke. She was a membe...

#893

Xing-Fang Li

#160309

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Xing-Fang Li is a toxicologist whose research involves the discovery and identification of water contaminants through the development of new analytical technologies, as well as the engineering of solutions to ensure safe drinking water. Li is a professor at the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alberta in Canada. She is a Canada Research Chair in Analytical and Environmental Toxicology, and was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2021.

#894

Emily Cranston

#116021

Overall Influence

Emily D. Cranston is a Canadian chemist who is a professor at the University of British Columbia and President’s Excellence Chair in Forest Bioproducts. She investigates nanocellulose and hybrid bio-based materials. Cranston is an NSERC E.W.R. Steacie fellow and was awarded the Kavli Emerging Leader in Chemistry lectureship in 2018 and the Tappi NanoDivision Technical Award in 2021.

#895

Jane Ammons

#114437

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Jane Chumley Ammons is an American industrial engineer known for her research on supply chain engineering and on the recycling of industrial goods, including carpet. She is the former chair of the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Tech, the former president of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, and a professor emerita at Georgia Tech.

#896

Sarah L. Waters

#48216

Overall Influence

Sarah Louise Waters is a British applied mathematician whose research interests include biological fluid mechanics, tissue engineering, and their applications in medicine. She is a professor of applied mathematics in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford, and a Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow of the Royal Society.

#897

Carey-Ann Burnham

#169685

Overall Influence

Carey-Ann Burnham is a clinical microbiologist, and a professor of Pathology and Immunology, Molecular Microbiology, Pediatrics and Medicine in Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

#898

Evangelia Micheli-Tzanakou

#88106

Overall Influence

1942 - 2012 (70 years)

Evangelia Micheli-Tzanakou was a professor of biomedical engineering and the Director of Computational Intelligence Laboratories at Rutgers University. Dr. Micheli-Tzanakou was also a Founding Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering , a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , and a Fellow of the New Jersey Academy of Medicine. Dr. Micheli-Tzanakou's areas of interest included neural networks, information processing in the brain, image and signal processing applied to biomedicine, telemedicine, mammography, hearing aids and electronic equivalents of neurons.

#899

Anne Lesage

#145094

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Anne Lesage is a French engineer who is a group leader at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. She is based at the High Field NMR Centre of the Lyon Institute of Analytical Sciences, where she develops novel nuclear magnetic resonance approaches to characterise solid-state materials.

#900

Domitilla Del Vecchio

#122611

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Domitilla Del Vecchio is an Italian control theorist, whose research connects control theory to systems biology, synthetic biology, synthetic biological circuits, and regenerative medicine. She has also studied self-organization in traffic control. She is a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center.

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