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,
#5651
Charles A. Burrus
#145420
Overall Influence
#5652
Lori Lamel
#131610
Overall Influence
Lori Faith Lamel is a speech processing researcher known for her work with the TIMIT corpus of American English speech and for her work on voice activity detection, speaker recognition, and other non-linguistic inferences from speech signals. She works for the French National Centre for Scientific Research as a senior research scientist in the Spoken Language Processing Group of the Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur.
Go to Profile#5653
Ramon Torrecillas
#127566
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ramon Torrecillas is a Spanish physicist and materials scientist internationally recognized for his research in the fields of nanomaterials and biomaterials. Since December 2019 he is Head of the Brussels' Office of the Spanish National Research Council , which holds the institutional representation of the CSIC before the institutions of the EU and other relevant organizations and forums.
Go to Profile#5654
Toshio Suzuki
#145492
Overall Influence
#5655
Edward S. Grood
#145515
Overall Influence
#5656
Ulrich Keilholz
#145535
Overall Influence
#5657
Janet Allen
#107345
Overall Influence
Janet Katherine Allen is an American biochemist and industrial engineer whose research concerns uncertainty in the engineering design process and its quantification and control through robust design processes, statistical methods, simulation of alternative designs, and the use of the design of experiments to systematically explore alternatives in large design spaces. She is a professor of industrial and systems engineering at the University of Oklahoma, where she holds the John and Mary Moore Chair of Engineering.
Go to Profile#5658
Ning-sheng Xu
#145543
Overall Influence
#5659
Sundeep Rangan
#145545
Overall Influence
#5660
Holger Schmid‐schönbein
#145576
Overall Influence
#5661
Roberto Verzicco
#145627
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#5662
Hero Jan Heeres
#145649
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
#5663
Rajendra R. Makkar
#145659
Overall Influence
#5664
Hermann F. Fasel
#145664
Overall Influence
#5665
Graham A. Jullien
#145672
Overall Influence
#5666
Kaneaki Tsuzaki
#145677
Overall Influence
#5667
Carlos Saura
#31499
Overall Influence
1932 - 2023 (91 years)
Carlos Saura Atarés was a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. With Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be among Spain's great filmmakers. He had a long and prolific career that spanned over half a century, and his films won many international awards.
Go to Profile#5668
Eleni Chatzi
#109419
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Eleni Chatzi is a Greek civil engineer, researcher, and an associate professor and Chair of Structural Mechanics and Monitoring at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.
Go to Profile#5669
John Dalsgaard Sørensen
#145734
Overall Influence
#5670
Danny Reible
#130344
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Danny Reible is an American engineer, currently the Donovan Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair and Paul Whitfield Horn Professor at Texas Tech University. He was previously the director of the Center for Research for Water Resources and Bettie Margaret Smith Chaired Professor at University of Texas at Austin, the director of the Hazardous Substance Research Center/South and Southwest and Chevron Professor at Louisiana State University and also the Shell Professor of Environmental Engineering at University of Sydney. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
Go to Profile#5671
Tuncer B. Edil
#145807
Overall Influence
#5672
Robert Alexander Young
#145810
Overall Influence
#5673
Peter C. Wayner
#145826
Overall Influence
#5674
Gordon E. Andrews
#145839
Overall Influence
#5675
Rolf Heinrich Sabersky
#122476
Overall Influence
1920 - 2016 (96 years)
Rolf Heinrich Sabersky was professor emeritus in mechanical engineering at Caltech. He worked with luminaries throughout his career including Apollo M. O. Smith and Theodore von Kármán at Aerojet. James Van Allan sought his expertise for the development of the Ajax and Bumblebee rocket programs.
Go to Profile#5676
Neil Armstrong
#145869
Overall Influence
#5677
Epaminondas Mastorakos
#145883
Overall Influence
#5678
Per Kvols Heiselberg
#145897
Overall Influence
#5679
Andrew K. Packard
#145927
Overall Influence
#5680
Robert Shorten
#145940
Overall Influence
#5681
Ian A. Hiskens
#145954
Overall Influence
#5682
Robert E. Apfel
#145955
Overall Influence
#5683
Sally Temple
#145960
Overall Influence
#5684
Craig Alexander Simmons
#140044
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Craig Alexander Simmons is a Canadian mechanobiologist and professor at the University of Toronto. He received a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Toronto. Simmons contributes to the fields of mechanobiology, stem cells, microfluidics and tissue engineering.
Go to Profile#5685
Tofigh Allahviranloo
#145973
Overall Influence
#5686
Victor A. Regnier
#117997
Overall Influence
Victor A. Regnier is an American architect, professor, and researcher. His research and publications have explored the creation and evaluation of residential settings for the physically and cognitively frail with special attention to northern European precedents.
Go to Profile#5687
Rama Yedavalli
#145979
Overall Influence
Rama K. Yedavalli is an American engineering professor, currently at Ohio State University and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and ASME.,
Go to Profile#5688
Michael D. Zoltowski
#145982
Overall Influence
#5689
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
#33134
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Philip-Lorca diCorcia is an American photographer, living in New York City. He teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Early life and education DiCorcia was born in 1953 in Hartford, Connecticut. His father, Philip Joseph DiCorcia, a major architect in Hartford, operated Philip J. DiCorcia Associates. The DiCorcia family is of Italian descent, having moved to the United States from Abruzzo. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he earned a diploma in 1975 and a 5th year certificate in 1976. Afterwards diCorcia attended Yale University, where he receive...
Go to Profile#5690
Gregory Peter Mori
#145993
Overall Influence
#5691
James m. Mcqueen
#145995
Overall Influence
#5692
Sivaguru S. Sritharan
#97941
Overall Influence
Sivaguru S. Sritharan is an American aerodynamicist and mathematician. Sritharan served in civilian universities such as University of Southern California and University of Wyoming as faculty member and head of the department and also in the Department of Defense in various capacities ranging from scientist to leadership roles, and also held visiting positions at several international institutions.
Go to Profile#5693
Qing‐lei Hu
#146029
Overall Influence
#5694
Hideki Tanaka
#146031
Overall Influence
#5695
Kenneth A. Perkins
#146052
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#5696
David R. Critchley
#146078
Overall Influence
#5697
Bong Wie
#146104
Overall Influence
#5698
Kenji Hiraga
#146142
Overall Influence
#5699
John Hunt, Baron Hunt
#4943
Overall Influence
1910 - 1998 (88 years)
Henry Cecil John Hunt, Baron Hunt, was a British Army officer who is best known as the leader of the successful 1953 British expedition to Mount Everest. Early life and military career Hunt was born in Simla, British India on 22 June 1910, the son of Captain Cecil Edwin Hunt of the Indian Army, and a great-great-nephew of the explorer Sir Richard Burton. His father was killed in action during the First World War. Hunt, from the age of 10, spent much holiday time in the Alps, learning some of the mountaineering skills he would later hone while taking part in several expeditions in the Himalayas while serving in India.
Go to Profile#5700
Howard Heemstra
#110428
Overall Influence
1928 - 2011 (83 years)
Howard Heemstra was an architect, professor of architecture, and photographer. He was born in Orange City, Iowa on December 22, 1928 and died in Ames, Iowa on July 22, 2011. He graduated from Northwestern Academy , and Northwestern Junior College in Orange City in 1948 before earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Iowa State University in 1952. After working briefly in Sioux City for an architecture firm Heemstra joined the US Army and served two years in the Korean War. After returning from abroad he applied for graduate studies to Harvard University and the Cranbrook Academy of Arts in Bloomfield, Michigan.
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