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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Engineering,

#401

Krishna Narayanan

#111924

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Krishna Narayanan is a computer engineer and Eric D. Rubin '06 Professor at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas and at the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing of the University of California, Berkeley.

#402

Aurelie Thiele

#58314

Overall Influence

Aurelie or Aurélie Thiele is a French engineering and decision-making professor. She is an associate professor in the engineering management and information and systems department at the Lyle School of Engineering of Southern Methodist University.

#403

Dinh Thuy Phan Huy

#74212

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Dinh Thuy Phan Huy , is a research engineer specializing in wireless networks. Her specific research interests include wireless communications and beamforming, spatial modulation, predictor antenna, backscattering and intelligent reflecting surfaces.

#404

Beth Winkelstein

#91138

Overall Influence

Beth Ann Winkelstein is the Deputy Provost and the Eduardo D. Glandt President’s Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Winkelstein has established an active research program that is recognized for elucidating the mechanisms of subfailure cervical spine injuries and the cellular events surrounding the etiology of chronic pain. She is further recognized for longstanding contributions to the discipline of biomechanics and for mentoring many students that have followed into research active careers.

#405

Catherine Mulligan

#110224

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Catherine Mulligan is a professor of Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering and the Research Chair in Geo-environmental Sustainability at Concordia University. She is also the founding director of the Concordia Institute for Water, Energy and Sustainable Systems. Mulligan's work focused on the decontamination of water and sediments.

#406

Andrea L. Thomaz

#111810

Overall Influence

Andrea L. Thomaz is a senior research scientist in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and Director of Socially Intelligent Machines Lab. She specializes in Human-Robot Interaction, Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Machine Learning.

#407

Mitra Hartmann

#82670

Overall Influence

Mitra J.Z. Hartmann is a professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. She specializes in robotics, sensory acquisition behaviors, sensorimotor integration, and neuroethology. Her lab focuses on translating sensory signals felt by whiskers to robotics.

#408

Brooke T. Mossman

#70601

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Brooke T. Mossman is an American pathologist, a University Distinguished Professor emeritus at the University of Vermont. She is known for her research on diseases caused by asbestos.

#409

Kerstin Thurow

#101460

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Kerstin Thurow is a German engineer specializing in automation technology. She has been Professor of Automation/Life Science Automation at the Faculty of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Rostock since 1999.

#410

Barbara Schock-Werner

Barbara Schock-Werner

#53120

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Barbara Schock-Werner is a German architect, and was until her retirement end of August 2012 the master builder at Cologne Cathedral with overall responsibility for conservation and restoration work. With the official title of Dombaumeisterin , she was the first and only woman to hold the position in the cathedral's 800 years history.

#411

Laurie E. Locascio

#69136

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Laurie Ellen Locascio is an American biomedical engineer, analytical chemist, and former academic administrator serving as the under secretary of commerce for standards and technology and the director of National Institute of Standards and Technology. From 2017 to 2021, Locascio was vice president for research of University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland, Baltimore.

#412

Winka Dubbeldam

#78741

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

#413

Susan Meiselas

#23338

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Susan Meiselas is an American documentary photographer. She has been associated with Magnum Photos since 1976 and been a full member since 1980. Currently she is the President of the Magnum Foundation. She is best known for her 1970s photographs of war-torn Nicaragua and American carnival strippers.

#414

Karina W. Davidson

#105858

Overall Influence

Karina W. Davidson is senior vice president of research at Northwell Health and director of the Institute of Health System Science at the Feinstein Institutes of Medical Research.She was previously vice-dean of organizational effectiveness and executive director of the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Medical Center. She was also Chief Academic Officer at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

#415

Vicki Sauter

#59258

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Vicki Lynn Sauter is an American management scientist and systems engineer known for her books on decision support systems. She is a professor in the Information Systems and Technology Department at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

#416

Melissa Skala

#84175

Overall Influence

Melissa Caroline Skala is an American biomedical engineer who is a professor at the Morgridge Institute for Research. Her research considers photonics-based technologies for personalised medical therapies. She is a Fellow of The Optical Society, SPIE and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

#417

Harriet Nembhard

#52219

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Harriet Black Nembhard is the President of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. From July 2020 through June 2023, she served as the Dean of the University of Iowa College of Engineering and the Roy J. Carver Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at that institution.

#418

Mary Amanda Dew

#120813

Overall Influence

#419

Merrill Elam

#98059

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Merrill Elam is an American architect and educator based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a principal with Mack Scogin in Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects where their work spans between buildings, interiors, planning, graphics and exhibition design, and research.

#420

Lene Dammand Lund

#88934

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Lene Dammand Lund is a Danish architect and educator. Since April 2012, she has been rector of the schools of architecture, design and conservation at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Dammand Lund studied architecture at the Aarhus School of Architecture where she graduated in 1991. In 2004, she earned an MBA from the Copenhagen Business School. After working with Danish and international design studios, Dammand Lund was editor of the Danish architecture journal Arkitekten . She has also served as managing director of the SLA urban development consultancy . She has been a member of the ...

#421

Tiziana Rossetto

#88488

Overall Influence

Tiziana Rossetto is a British–Italian structural engineer who is Professor of Earthquake Engineering at University College London. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2021.

#422

Nobuko Nakahara

#87581

Overall Influence

1929 - 2008 (79 years)

Nobuko Nakahara was a Japanese architect who reached prominence after World War II. Nakahara was one of the first women to become a Class 1 licensed architect in Japan. During the 21st Century, she did majority of works in Japan but very less works in western field.

#423

Lori Ann Setton

#100647

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Lori Ann Setton is an American biomechanical engineer noted for her research on mechanics and mechanobiology of the intervertebral disc, articular cartilage mechanics, drug delivery, and pathomechanisms of osteoarthritis. She is currently the department chair as well as the Lucy and Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

#424

Emina Soljanin

#82660

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Emina Soljanin is a Distinguished Researcher at Bell Labs who was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for contributions to coding theory and coding schemes for transmission and storage systems.

#425

Lisa Pruitt

#110582

Overall Influence

Lisa Anne Pruitt is an American mechanical engineer known for her research on orthopedic biomaterials and medical polymers. Early life and education Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pruitt double-majored in Materials Engineering and Chemical and Ocean Engineering at the University of Rhode Island, earning two bachelor's degrees in 1988. She earned her master's and PhD degrees from Brown University in 1990 and 1993 respectively.

#426

Maarja Kruusmaa

Maarja Kruusmaa

#35837

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Maarja Kruusmaa is an Estonian computer scientist, professor at Tallinn University of Technology, vice-rector for research and head of the biorobotics center at that university. Her main research area is bio-inspired underwater robotics to imitate the movements of fish and turtles.

#427

Kathleen Giacomini

#98440

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Kathleen M. Giacomini is a professor of bioengineering and therapeutic sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work focuses on how genetics affects the efficacy of drugs. She is also the co-director UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Sciences and Innovation for the department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Francisco.

#428

Catherine Rae

#105080

Overall Influence

Catherine Mary Fiona Rae is a Professor of Superalloys in the Department of Materials at the University of Cambridge. Rae is the Director of the Rolls-Royce UTC in Cambridge. She is known for her expertise in electron microscopy and the behaviour of materials in aerospace applications.

#429

Annie Chu

#85707

Overall Influence

Annie Chu, FAIA, is a Chinese-American architect, interior designer, and academic based in Los Angeles. Work Chu fuses art and design in her work. As an educator working across the U.S. and abroad, Chu was recognized as a 2016 Presidential Honoree of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Architects Distinguished Educator Award.

#430

Natalia Trayanova

#93798

Overall Influence

Natalia Trayanova FAHA FHRS is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She directs the Alliance for Cardiovascular Diagnostic and Treatment Innovation

#431

Irene C. Peden

#67037

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (99 years)

Irene Carswell Peden is an American engineer who has contributed much to the field of electrical engineering. She is known for being the first American woman scientist to live and work in the interior of the Antarctic, where she developed new methods to analyze the deep glacial ice by studying the effect it has on radio waves.

#432

Anne Whiston Spirn

#73353

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Anne Whiston Spirn is an American landscape architect, photographer and author. Her work promotes community-oriented spaces that are functional, sustainable, meaningful, and artful. Spirn is Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. She is the 2001 winner of the International Cosmos Prize.

#433

Ann F. Chambers

#123189

Overall Influence

#434

Nadine Aubry

#80986

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Nadine Aubry is an American engineer. She previously served as Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University. She is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2009, she was the Raymond J. Lane Distinguished Professor and University Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

#435

Paola Cappellaro

#89047

Overall Influence

Paola Cappellaro is an Italian-American engineer who is a Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research considers electron-spin resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance and quantum information processing. She leads the MIT Quantum Engineering Group at the Center for Ultracold Atoms.

#436

Kathleen Anne Sluka

#123536

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

#437

Karen Thole

#119123

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Karen A. Thole is an American engineer. She is a Distinguished Professor and former head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. Early life and education Thole was born on July 11, 1960, in Breese, Illinois to an army veteran father. She was raised on a dairy farm and by fifth grade was driving a tractor around the field. She graduated from Central Community High School and enrolled at Eastern Illinois University for two years before transferring to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Following the transfer, she earned her Bachelor of Science deg...

#438

Kathryn R. Nightingale

#102484

Overall Influence

Kathryn Radabaugh Nightingale is an American biomedical engineer in the field of medical ultrasound. She is the Theo Pilkington Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Nightingale is also a Member of the Duke Cancer Institute and Bass Fellow in the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering.

#439

Zoe Laughlin

#50923

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Zoe Laughlin is a British artist, maker and materials engineer. She is the co-founder and Director of the Institute of Making at University College London. She is a regular panelist on the BBC Radio 4 show The Kitchen Cabinet. Laughlin was awarded the 2019 Inspire, Support Achieve Award for Design Engineering from the Institution of Engineering Designers.

#440

Catherine Noakes

#85166

Overall Influence

Catherine Jane Noakes is a British mechanical engineer who is Professor of Environmental Engineering for Buildings at the University of Leeds. Noakes specialises in airborne infections and the transport of airborne pathogens. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Noakes served on the Government of the United Kingdom Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies .

#441

Karren More

#106034

Overall Influence

Karren L. More is an American materials scientist who is the Director of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Her research considers advanced electron microscopy as a probe to understand the structure and chemistry of emerging materials. More is a Fellow of the American Ceramic Society and Microscopy Society of America.

#442

Xanthippi Markenscoff

#109184

Overall Influence

Xanthippi Markenscoff is a Greek-American mechanical engineer specializing in the dynamics of defects and dislocations in materials, including Eshelby's inclusion; other topics in her research have included grasping and fixturing, and the relation between strain and natural frequency. She is a distinguished professor emerita in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at the University of California, San Diego.

#443

Sharon Gerecht

#91205

Overall Influence

Sharon Gerecht is an Israeli American bioengineer. She is a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering. Gerecht is the Kent Gordon Croft Investment Management Faculty scholar and director of the Johns Hopkins Institute of NanoBioTechnology . She holds a joint appointment in Oncology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and in Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering. She will be moving to Duke University in 2022. In 2011, she won a National Science Foundation CAREER Award. She was elected a fellow of the American Institute for...

#444

Elsie Sunderland

Elsie Sunderland

#40153

Overall Influence

Elsie M. Sunderland is a Canadian toxicologist and environmental scientist and the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry at Harvard University. She studies processes through which human activities increase and modify pollutants in natural ecosystems and living systems.

#445

Olfa Kanoun

#115826

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Olfa Kanoun is professor for measurement and sensor technology at the TU Chemnitz. Career development Kanoun completed her studies in electrical engineering and information technology at the Technical University of Munich in 1995. She received her doctorate from the University of the Bundeswehr University Munich in 2001. Her thesis "Kalibrationsfreie Temperaturmessung" was awarded the research prize of the Arbeitskreis der Hochschullehrer für Messtechnik . She then founded the Impedance Specroscopy a working group at the Bundeswehr University Munich. Her habilitation took place abroad. From 2006 to 2007 she was substitute professor for measurement technology at the University of Kassel.

#446

Nandita Basu

#77008

Overall Influence

Nandita Basu is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Water Sustainability and Ecohydrology at the University of Waterloo. Her research is centered on anthropogenic effects on water availability and quality via changes in land use and climate. Basu is recognized for her work on discovering the impact of nutrient legacies and proposed solutions to improving water quality of lakes and coastal zones. She is a member of Robert E. Horton Medal Committee.

#447

Sandra Hirche

#115439

Overall Influence

Sandra Hirche is a German control theorist and engineer. She is Liesel Beckmann Distinguished Professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Technical University of Munich, where she holds the chair of information-oriented control. Her research focuses on human–robot interaction, haptic technology, telepresence, and the control engineering and systems theory needed to make those technologies work.

#448

Lutgarde Raskin

#89551

Overall Influence

Lutgarde Raskin is a Belgian-American scientist and Professor of Environmental Engineering. She is best known for her studies of microbial ecology in engineered water systems for sewage treatment and drinking water production.

#449

Priscilla Nelson

#107775

Overall Influence

Priscilla Nelson was the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs of New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, New Jersey from May 2005 to November 2008. She is currently the Department Head and Professor, Department of Mining Engineering, Colorado School of Mines.

#450

Carla Chiasserini

#103200

Overall Influence

Carla Fabiana Chiasserini is an Italian communications engineer specializing in wireless networks, edge computing, and power management for networked devices. She is a professor in the Electronics and Telecommunications Department at the Polytechnic University of Turin.

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