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,
#5701
Hugh Ford
#88593
Overall Influence
1913 - 2010 (97 years)
Education Ford was educated at Northampton Grammar School and served an apprenticeship at the Great Western Railway. He studied at City & Guilds College on a Whitworth scholarship, where he would earn a first class degree, and win the Bramwell Medal. He earned a PhD in heat transfer and fluid flow. During World War II, he worked at Imperial Chemical Industries in Cheshire. He studied operations at strip mills, earning the Thomas Hawksley Gold Medal in 1948.
Go to Profile#5702
Zeynep Çelik
#43450
Overall Influence
Zeynep Çelik is a Turkish born architect, architectural historian, theorist, and academic. She is Sakıp Sabancı Visiting Professor at Columbia University. She is a retired distinguished professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Her work focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth century urban history, colonialism, orientalism and modernity.
Go to Profile#5703
Dakshi Agrawal
#135134
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Dakshi Agrawal, from the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. Agrawal obtained his B.Tech. degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in 1993 and two years later received his M.S. from the Washington University in St. Louis as well as his Ph.D. in 1999 from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, all of which were in electrical engineering. From 1999 to 2000 he worked as a visiting assistant professor at UIUC and in 2000, joined the Thomas J. Watson Research Center of IBM, in Hawthorne, New York as a research scientist. Since 2006 he serves as manager of the Network Management Research Group at the Thomas J.
Go to Profile#5704
Kai-bo Shi
#146209
Overall Influence
#5705
Vladimir Terzija
#142969
Overall Influence
Vladimir Terzija is an electrical engineer at the University of Manchester, England. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for his contributions to power system protection.
Go to Profile#5706
Philip Gschwend
#56751
Overall Influence
Philip M. Gschwend is an American engineer focusing on environmental organic chemistry, currently the Ford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#5707
Nigel. J. D. Graham
#146235
Overall Influence
#5708
Supriyo Bandyopadhyay
#124598
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Supriyo Bandyopadhyay is an Indian-born American electrical engineer, academic and researcher. He is Commonwealth Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he directs the Quantum Device Laboratory.
Go to Profile#5709
G. Clifford Carter
#146276
Overall Influence
#5710
Zainal Bin Salam
#146286
Overall Influence
#5711
Karthikeyan Rajagopal
#146288
Overall Influence
#5712
Sadık Kakaç
#146296
Overall Influence
#5713
Thomas Michael Best
#146298
Overall Influence
#5714
Peter Jeffrey Burt
#146313
Overall Influence
#5715
Leonard Bielory
#146330
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#5716
Louis M. Luttrell
#146336
Overall Influence
#5717
Yaguo Lei
#146339
Overall Influence
#5718
Nicolas D. Georganas
#146347
Overall Influence
#5719
David J. Burney
#103318
Overall Influence
David Burney is a public architect and educator. He was born in Liverpool, England and educated at Edinburgh College of Art and The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment of University College London . He is the Academic Coordinator of Urban Placemaking and Management at Pratt Institute and serves as a commissioner at the New York City Department of City Planning. He has lived in New York since 1982.
Go to Profile#5720
Ioannis Paschalidis
#116638
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Ioannis C. Paschalidis is a professor at Boston University with appointments in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Systems Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Computing & Data Sciences. He serves as the Director of the Center for Information and Systems Engineering.
Go to Profile#5721
Paul T. Finger
#146386
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
#5722
Enrico Macii
#146388
Overall Influence
#5723
Thomas Similowski
#146390
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#5724
Paul Epp
#76821
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Paul Epp is a Canadian professor and industrial designer from Toronto, Ontario. Career Epp is a graduate of Sheridan College School of Design. Since 1993 he has been a professor of industrial design at OCAD University in Toronto.
Go to Profile#5725
Julia A. Kornfield
#102062
Overall Influence
Julia A. Kornfield is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. A world expert in polymer science, Kornfield's research encompasses the development of mega-supramolecular systems for fuel additives and intraocular lenses, as well as the influence of flow on polymer chains.
Go to Profile#5726
Ilene Busch-Vishniac
#90507
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ilene Busch-Vishniac is an American-born mechanical engineer and university administrator. She served as Dean of the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University from 1998 to 2003 then resigned the position to serve as President of the Acoustical Society of America , an elected non-gratis position, from 2003 to 2005. She served as Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at McMaster University from 2007 to 2012, and as President of the University of Saskatchewan from 2012 to 2014. In 2018 she joined startup Sonavi Labs as Chief Innovation Officer. She has written research p...
Go to Profile#5727
Nicole Grobert
#111580
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Nicole Grobert FRSC FYAE is a German-British materials chemist. She is a professor of nanomaterials at the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford, fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and a Royal Society industry fellow at Williams Advanced Engineering. Grobert is the chair of the European Commission's Group of Chief Scientific Advisors.
Go to Profile#5728
Liudong Xing
#146463
Overall Influence
#5729
Antonios Tsourdos
#146470
Overall Influence
#5730
Wei‐bin Zhang
#146491
Overall Influence
#5731
Mariano Arana
#115931
Overall Influence
1933 - 2023 (90 years)
Mariano Arana was an Uruguayan architect and politician, Minister of Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment of Uruguay and mayor of Montevideo. Biography Son and grandson of Spanish immigrants, Arana attended the Lycée Français de Montevideo and was a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of the Republic. He was also a teacher and Director of the Institute of History of Architecture, among the many other activities during college.
Go to Profile#5732
Michael Kent Sain
#146553
Overall Influence
#5733
Steven E. Shladover
#146563
Overall Influence
#5734
David Pountney
#16164
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Sir David Willoughby Pountney is a British-Polish theatre and opera director and librettist internationally known for his productions of rarely performed operas and new productions of classic works. He has directed over ten world premières, including three by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies for whom he wrote the librettos of The Doctor of Myddfai, Mr Emmet Takes a Walk and Kommilitonen!
Go to Profile#5735
Krishan Kumar Chawla
#146572
Overall Influence
#5736
Christoph Stiller
#146585
Overall Influence
#5737
Larry Lee Miller
#146606
Overall Influence
#5738
Jennifer Barton
#137395
Overall Influence
Jennifer Kehlet Barton is an American biomedical engineer who is Director of the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona. Barton develops optical techniques for the detection and treatment of cancer.
Go to Profile#5739
Tarek Mohammed Zayed
#146644
Overall Influence
#5740
Lavneesh Varshney
#146671
Overall Influence
#5741
Anne E. Tattersfield
#146678
Overall Influence
#5742
Julian Cheng
#146683
Overall Influence
#5743
Ranjith Ramasamy
#118347
Overall Influence
Ranjith Ramasamy is Director of the Reproductive Urology Fellowship program at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. An American medical researcher and urologist, Ramasamy is known for academic contributions to reproductive medicine, including testosterone deficiency, regenerative therapy, erectile dysfunction, and prostate cancer studies. Ramasamy has co-authored a significant number of publications in the domain of male infertility and sexual dysfunction. Ramasamy is a recipient of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine Award.
Go to Profile#5744
Kazuo Hotate
#146708
Overall Influence
#5745
Peter J. Fitzgerald
#146710
Overall Influence
#5746
H. Neal Bertram
#146716
Overall Influence
#5747
Olof Bryngdahl
#146724
Overall Influence
#5748
George J. Vachtsevanos
#146728
Overall Influence
#5749
David D. Chaplin
#146744
Overall Influence
#5750
Thomas Preston
#146753
Overall Influence
