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 …
See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.
List of the most influential people in Engineering,
#6051
Giorgio Metta
#150393
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
#6052
Stephen Rosenbaum
#46273
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Stephen Rosenbaum is an American visual effects artist and supervisor, and has worked on numerous movie, tv and music productions, including six that have won Academy Awards. He has been nominated three times for an Academy Award and two times for a BAFTA Award. He has won both awards twice for his contributions on Forrest Gump and Avatar, and has played artist and supervisor roles on such pioneering films as Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, X2: X-Men United, Death Becomes Her, Contact and The Perfect Storm.
Go to Profile#6053
Pavaguda V. Indiresan
#135355
Overall Influence
1928 - 2012 (84 years)
Pavagada Venkata Indiresan was an Indian engineer, educationist, and administrator. He served as Director of the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras during 1979-1984. He was professor at IIT Delhi during 1965-1979 and 1987-1993.
Go to Profile#6054
Luc Vandendorpe
#150447
Overall Influence
#6055
Roy E. Albert
#150460
Overall Influence
#6056
Hartmut Hofrichter
#141105
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Hartmut Hofrichter is a German architect, architecture historian, historic preservationist and academic teacher. Life Born in Stettin, Hofrichter studied architecture from 1961 to 1966 at the RWTH Aachen. In 1971, he to the doctorate at this university with Willy Weyres and Lorenz Dittmann with the thesis Das Kloster Sdepannos Nachawega in der iranischen Provinz Azerbaijan. From 1971 until his habilitation in 1978, he worked with Martin Graßnick as an assistant professor in the Department of Architectural History, History of Urban Development and Preservation of Monuments. In 1980, he was appointed State Conservator of Rhineland-Palatinate in succession to Werner Bornheim gen.
Go to Profile#6057
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
#150473
Overall Influence
#6058
Tatsuo Arai
#150490
Overall Influence
Tatsuo Arai is a Japanese engineer from the Osaka University, Osaka, Japan was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for contributions to micro manipulators and sensors, and applications to cellular biology.
Go to Profile#6059
Randolph W. Hall
#150494
Overall Influence
#6060
Horn-sen Tzou
#150534
Overall Influence
#6061
Elizabeth Wayne
#103122
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Wayne is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and former Postdoc at the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Wayne was a 2017 TED fellow and is a member of a number of professional societies, including the National Society of Black Physicists.
Go to Profile#6062
Nico Patrick Roussel
#150550
Overall Influence
#6063
Heli Jantunen
#146308
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Heli Maarit Jantunen is a Finnish Professor of Technology at the University of Oulu and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the National Defense. She works on microelectronics and is a member of the 6G Flagship.
Go to Profile#6064
A. Daniel Jones
#150558
Overall Influence
#6065
Homayoon Kazerooni
#150563
Overall Influence
#6066
John Stollery
#104638
Overall Influence
1930 - 2013 (83 years)
Professor John Leslie Stollery, was a British engineer and academic. He was Professor of Aerodynamics at Cranfield University. He served as president of the Royal Aeronautical Society from 1987 to 1988 and Editor-in-Chief of its The Aeronautical Journal from 1996 to 2006. He pioneered the 'Gun Tunnel' that is widely used in aerospace engineering.
Go to Profile#6067
Luca Padua
#150600
Overall Influence
#6068
Joseph D. Fenstermacher
#150604
Overall Influence
#6069
Benjamin William Schafer
#150606
Overall Influence
#6070
Ken‐ichi Hirata
#150614
Overall Influence
#6071
Ichiro Fujimori
#40957
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ichiro Fujimori is a Japanese electrical engineer who specializes in data converters and communication systems. He is currently the VP of R&D at Broadcom Corporation and a visiting professor at Kobe University.
Go to Profile#6072
Pierre Cochat
#150618
Overall Influence
#6073
Harry Suryapranata
#150631
Overall Influence
#6074
Ian Mcdowell
#150682
Overall Influence
#6075
Roberto Cauda
#150702
Overall Influence
#6076
Xiaodong Chen
#128917
Overall Influence
Xiaodong Chen, Professor of Microwave Engineering in School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the Queen Mary University of London, UK was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for contributions to antennas for wireless communications and satellites.
Go to Profile#6077
Olof Ljungström
#121067
Overall Influence
1918 - 2013 (95 years)
Gustaf Olof "Olle" Ljungström was a Swedish engineer. He was a visiting professor in aircraft design at Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology in the United States. Biography Olof Ljungström was born in 1918 as the son of Fredrik Ljungström and Signe . He studied at Whitlockska samskolan, and studied aeronautics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He undertook military service as an automotive engineer in the Swedish Air Force in 1939 and 1940. He acquired a Ph.D. in transportation and aviation technology at the Royal Institute of Technology in 1973.
Go to Profile#6078
Brian Joseph Cantwell
#150722
Overall Influence
#6079
Christoforos E. Kozyrakis
#150728
Overall Influence
#6080
Cecilia Laschi
#150732
Overall Influence
#6081
Sanjiv Jeff Singh
#150740
Overall Influence
#6082
Zhi-qiang Ge
#150744
Overall Influence
#6083
Hongjun Lin
#150752
Overall Influence
#6084
Baochun Li
#150766
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Baochun Li from the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for contributions to application-layer network protocols and network coding.
Go to Profile#6085
Jadranka Travaš-Sejdić
#110967
Overall Influence
Jadranka Travaš-Sejdić is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2018 is a professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After an undergraduate at the University of Zagreb in Croatia and a PhD titled 'Study of the interactions and structure in polyelectrolyte copolymer gel systems based on acrylamide monomers' at the University of Auckland, Travaš-Sejdić joined the staff, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#6086
Yat Li
#150797
Overall Influence
#6087
Masatoshi Ishikawa
#150807
Overall Influence
#6088
Gun- Woo Moon
#150808
Overall Influence
#6089
James Hiram Aylor
#150845
Overall Influence
#6090
Suvrit Sra
#150846
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
#6091
M Williams
#150865
Overall Influence
#6092
Zafer Gürdal
#150869
Overall Influence
#6093
David M. Brooks
#150878
Overall Influence
#6094
Megan Valentine
#68603
Overall Influence
Megan T. Valentine is an American engineer. She is a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara and associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute. Valentine's research focuses on understanding how forces are generated and transmitted in living materials and how they control cellular outcomes. Valentine is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Go to Profile#6095
Julian D. Marshall
#150897
Overall Influence
#6096
Michelle Oyen
#112804
Overall Influence
Michelle Lynn Oyen is an American materials scientist who is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research considers nano indentation and biomimetic materials.
Go to Profile#6097
Philip H. Gutin
#150946
Overall Influence
#6098
Ozgur B. Akan
#100902
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Özgur Baris Akan is a Professor with the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering and the Director of Next-generation and Wireless Communications Laboratory at the University of Cambridge and Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for contributions to wireless sensor networks. Since the same year, he is also a fellow of the Vehicular Technology Society.
Go to Profile#6099
Tapan Kumar Gupta
#150992
Overall Influence
#6100
Jean‐herve Prévost
#151005
Overall Influence
