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 Engineering,
#5201
Jacques Heyman
#140157
Overall Influence
1925 - Present (101 years)
#5202
Hiroki Habazaki
#140166
Overall Influence
#5203
Teresa Head-Gordon
#119224
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Teresa Lyn Head-Gordon is an American chemist and the Chancellor's Professor of Chemistry, Bioengineering, and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a faculty scientist in the Chemical Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a fellow of both the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and the American Chemical Society .
Go to Profile#5204
Lixian Zhang
#140173
Overall Influence
#5205
Usha Chakravarthy
#140179
Overall Influence
#5206
Christian-charles Enz
#140191
Overall Influence
#5207
Lev Gutkin
#134984
Overall Influence
1914 - 2011 (97 years)
Lev Solomonovich Gutkin was a Russian scientist and a specialist in the field of radio engineering and the theory of radio reception. Professor, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Honoured worker of Science and Technology of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and laureate of USSR State Prize.
Go to Profile#5208
Ingrid Moerman
#140209
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
#5209
Gaetano Manfredi
#115545
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Gaetano Manfredi is an Italian university professor and politician. He has been mayor of Naples since 2021, and has served as the Minister of University and Research in the second government of Giuseppe Conte from 2020 to 2021.
Go to Profile#5210
Borko Furht
#68562
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Borivoje "Borko" Furht is a Serbian American scientist and author in the field of computer science and engineering. He is a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. He is also director of the National Science Foundation's Industry and University Cooperative Research Center for Advanced Knowledge Enablement at FAU. In 2019, he was inducted into Academia Europaea, which is The Academy of Europe.
Go to Profile#5211
Catherine M. Klapperich
#133718
Overall Influence
Catherine M. Klapperich is an American biomedical engineer noted for her research on diagnostics and precision medicine. She is currently professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, with additional appointments in materials science & engineering and mechanical engineering. Klapperich serves as the director of research for the DAMP Laboratory at BU. Klapperich was previously the director of the NIH NIBIB Center for Future Technologies in Cancer Care as part of the Point-of Care-Research Technologies Network.
Go to Profile#5212
David Gius
#100879
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
David R. Gius is an American physician-scientist the Zell Family Scholar Professor, Women's Cancer Research Program director, and Vice Chair of Translational Research at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Radiation Oncology and Pharmacology. His research focuses into the mechanistic connection between aging, cellular and/or mitochondrial metabolism, and carcinogenesis focusing on the Sirtuin gene family.
Go to Profile#5213
Richard Weston
#107816
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Professor Richard Weston is an architect, landscape architect, author and is also the Chair of Architecture at Cardiff University. He is Director of Richard Weston Studio Ltd and Earth Images Ltd. Professional background Weston was born in Leicester in 1953. He attended Wyggeston Boys Grammar School. He went on to study architecture at Manchester University, gaining a BA in 1975 and BArch in 1977. Supported by the Thouron Award, he attended the University of Pennsylvania to study landscape architecture, gaining an MLA in 1979. From 1979 to 1982 he worked in practice and was appointed as a lecturer at the Welsh School of Architecture in Cardiff.
Go to Profile#5214
Niles Pierce
#73494
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Niles A. Pierce is an American mathematician, bioengineer, and professor at the California Institute of Technology. He is a leading researcher in the fields of molecular programming and dynamic nucleic acid nanotechnology. His research is focused on kinetically controlled DNA and RNA self-assembly. Pierce is working on applications in bioimaging.
Go to Profile#5215
Poo Gyeon Park
#140299
Overall Influence
#5216
Yasuo Takeda
#140324
Overall Influence
#5217
Weng Shilie
#139872
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Weng Shilie is a Chinese scientist and an expert in thermo-engine. He formerly served as the president of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and was elected a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1995.
Go to Profile#5218
Eva Koppel
#96053
Overall Influence
1916 - 2006 (90 years)
Eva Koppel née Ditlevsen was a Danish architect who together with her husband Nils ran one of Denmark's largest architectural firms . Biography The daughter of a bank director, Eva Koppel was educated at the Danish Academy in Copenhagen . She married the architect Nils Koppel in 1936 and together they worked in Alvar Aalto's studio in Finland and later joined him in Stockholm 1943–19451946] which is listed.
Go to Profile#5219
Mark F. Horstemeyer
#140348
Overall Influence
#5220
Sundaram Gunasekaran
#140364
Overall Influence
#5221
Marc A. Judson
#140365
Overall Influence
#5222
Jeffrey Rushen
#140376
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#5223
William W-G. Yeh
#93209
Overall Influence
William W-G. Yeh is a Taiwanese-American civil engineer and the Richard G. Newman AECOM Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, a Chair position that he was given in 2010. His research work has involved the development of computer models for optimal operations of large-scale hydropower and water supply systems. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Elected Fellow and Elected Honorary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers , Elected Member of the National Academy of Engineering and also Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#5224
Duncan C. Mcfarlane
#140383
Overall Influence
#5225
Ali M. Niknejad
#140385
Overall Influence
#5226
Joseph Braat
#47318
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Joseph J.M. Braat is a Dutch optics engineer and scientist. Between 1973 and 1998 he worked at Philips Research Laboratories. He was professor of optics at Delft University of Technology between 1998 and 2008.
Go to Profile#5227
Enge G. Wang
#140414
Overall Influence
#5228
Hung Nguyen‐xuan
#140418
Overall Influence
#5229
Anthony R. West
#102491
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Anthony Roy West FRSE, FRSC, FInstP, FIMMM is a British chemist and materials scientist, and Professor of Electroceramics and Solid State Chemistry at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield.
Go to Profile#5230
Hamid Band
#140452
Overall Influence
#5231
Shu Min Fei
#140463
Overall Influence
#5232
Olaf von Ramm
#87926
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Olaf von Ramm is the Thomas Lord Professor of Engineering at Duke University. He is best known for his work in the development of medical instruments, particularly ultrasound systems. He holds the first patent on a three-dimensional ultrasound .
Go to Profile#5233
Qiang Ji
#140482
Overall Influence
#5234
Pierre Apkarian
#140492
Overall Influence
#5235
Yi Qian
#140518
Overall Influence
#5236
Dimitrios Hatzinakos
#140524
Overall Influence
Dimitrios Hatzinakos is an electrical engineer at the University of Toronto, Ontario. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for his contributions to signal processing techniques for communications, multimedia, and biometrics.
Go to Profile#5237
Doff B. Mcelhinney
#140526
Overall Influence
#5238
Hui-jun Li
#140545
Overall Influence
#5239
Sui-zheng Qiu
#140570
Overall Influence
#5240
Marwan M. Krunz
#140604
Overall Influence
#5241
Jan‐anders E. Månson
#140613
Overall Influence
#5242
Joe Rosenthal
#8712
Overall Influence
1911 - 2006 (95 years)
Joseph John Rosenthal was an American photographer who received the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic World War II photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, taken during the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima. His picture became one of the best-known photographs of the war, and was replicated as the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
Go to Profile#5243
Pierre Y. Julien
#140621
Overall Influence
#5244
Gates SJ Jr
#140641
Overall Influence
#5245
Takashi Hibiki
#140669
Overall Influence
#5246
Yu Shrike Zhang
#140675
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#5247
Zelda Zabinsky
#118531
Overall Influence
Zelda Barbara Zabinsky is an industrial engineer and operations researcher specializing in the application of global optimization to logistics. She is a professor of industrial engineering at the University of Washington, where she also holds adjunct positions in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil and environmental engineering.
Go to Profile#5248
George R. Dubyak
#140707
Overall Influence
#5249
Masayuki Ieda
#140708
Overall Influence
#5250
Gadi Eisenstein
#140728
Overall Influence
