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,
#6751
Julia Kluge
#158736
Overall Influence
#6752
Akira Tomita
#158745
Overall Influence
#6753
Reiner Leist
#110791
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Reiner Leist , is a German-born photographer, who emigrated to the United States and lives in New York City. Leist is currently a professor in studio art at Hunter College, The City University of New York.
Go to Profile#6754
Campbell Middleton
#148966
Overall Influence
Campbell R. Middleton is the Laing O'Rourke Professor of Construction Engineering at the University of Cambridge, and director of the Laing O'Rourke Centre for Construction Engineering & Technology in the Cambridge Department of Engineering.
Go to Profile#6755
Patrick J. Prendergast
#158788
Overall Influence
#6756
Lennart Harnefors
#158792
Overall Influence
#6757
Shiv G. Kapoor
#84406
Overall Influence
Shiv Gopal Kapoor is the Grayce Wicall Gauthier Chair professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. His interests are manufacturing technologies and material machining. He attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison for his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering.
Go to Profile#6758
Vincent H. Crespi
#158798
Overall Influence
#6759
Lydia Sohn
#124696
Overall Influence
Lydia Lee Sohn is a professor of mechanical engineering and bio-engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and the co-founder of Nodexus. In 2002, Sohn and Paul McEuen uncovered figure duplication and fraud in scientific papers on semiconductors written by Jan Hendrik Schön, leading to multiple retractions and concerns over peer-review, which is referred to as the Schön scandal.
Go to Profile#6760
Davide Dardari
#158812
Overall Influence
#6761
Raymond H. Plaut
#158824
Overall Influence
#6762
Peter Eberhard
#158845
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
#6763
Keith Carter
#45285
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Keith Carter is an American photographer, educator, and artist noted for his dreamlike photos of people, animals and objects. Early life and education At the age of three, Keith Carter's family moved to Beaumont, Texas where, soon after arriving, his father left and his mother worked as a professional photographer of children.
Go to Profile#6764
Sang Hyuk Im
#158857
Overall Influence
#6765
Ralph Waldo Hingson
#158865
Overall Influence
#6766
In Kyu Lee
#158873
Overall Influence
#6767
Arnon Bentur
#158881
Overall Influence
#6768
Ismail Gögenur
#158897
Overall Influence
#6769
Gernot R. Müller-putz
#158915
Overall Influence
#6770
Paul Cameron Mcintyre
#158924
Overall Influence
#6771
Pedro Malan
#76252
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Pedro Sampaio Malan is a Brazilian economist and former Minister of Finance of Brazil. He is the father of journalist and correspondent Cecília Malan. Early life Pedro Sampaio Malan was born in 1943 in Petropolis, a town named in honor of Dom Pedro II to the north of Rio de Janeiro. Malan was educated in a Jesuit school before studying electrical engineering at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro.
Go to Profile#6772
Shan-lin Yang
#158973
Overall Influence
#6773
Ken M. Wallace
#109444
Overall Influence
1944 - 2018 (74 years)
Kenneth Michael Wallace was a British engineer. He studied mechanical engineering at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. After graduation, Wallace worked for Rolls-Royce until 1971, when he started an engineering firm. He began lecturing at the University of Cambridge in 1978, and retired in 2007. Over the course of his career, Wallace became a fellow of Selwyn College , the Institution of Mechanical Engineers , the Smallpeice Trust , Institution of Engineering Designers , and the Royal Academy of Engineering . In 2002, he received the Sir Misha Black Award for Innovation in Design Education.
Go to Profile#6774
J. D. Thomas
#159036
Overall Influence
#6775
Hans J. Tiziani
#159056
Overall Influence
#6776
Theodore E. Bunch
#159063
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
#6777
Hedi Turki
#26882
Overall Influence
1922 - 2019 (97 years)
Hedi Turki was a Tunisian artist of Turkish origin. He is considered to have been the pioneering force of abstract painting in Tunisia and was an influential member of the School of Tunis. His younger brother was Zoubeir Turki, who died in 2009.
Go to Profile#6778
Wei Jian Hua
#159068
Overall Influence
#6779
Gerard Adriaan Acket
#159079
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Gerard Adriaan Acket is a Dutch electrical engineer and emeritus professor. He worked in the faculties of electrical engineering at Delft University of Technology between 1981 and 1988 and Eindhoven University of Technology between 1991 and 2000. His workfield was optoelectronics.
Go to Profile#6780
Berndt Lüderitz
#159110
Overall Influence
#6781
Arun K. Somani
#108473
Overall Influence
Arun K. Somani is Associate Dean for Research of College of Engineering, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Philip and Virginia Sproul Professor at Iowa State University. Somani is Elected Fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for “contributions to theory and applications of computer networks” from 1999 to 2017 and Life Fellow of IEEE since 2018. He is Distinguished Engineer of Association for Computing Machinery and Elected Fellow of The American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Go to Profile#6782
Giovanni Guaraldi
#159173
Overall Influence
#6783
Johannes F. E. Mann
#159183
Overall Influence
#6784
Yong-hua Song
#159198
Overall Influence
#6785
John Steeds
#132815
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
John Wickham Steeds is a British physicist and materials scientist. He is an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol. Research Steeds is best known for his investigations of the microstructure of materials using electron microscopy and convergent-beam electron diffraction. Early in his career, he produced seminal work on dislocation arrangements in deformed copper crystals, which is a basis for the more recent theories of work hardening. His monograph on anisotropic elasticity theory of dislocations is a standard reference. He has led a sophisticated research effort to mak...
Go to Profile#6786
Václav Švorčík
#159205
Overall Influence
#6787
Yonggang Young Huang
#159216
Overall Influence
#6788
Thomas Niendorf
#159239
Overall Influence
#6789
Karmella Haynes
#100709
Overall Influence
Karmella Ann Haynes is a biomedical engineer and associate professor at the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University. She researches how chromatin is used to control cell development in biological tissue.
Go to Profile#6790
John. V. Tyberg
#159246
Overall Influence
#6791
Tapani A. Pakkanen
#159247
Overall Influence
#6792
Fulvio Gini
#159249
Overall Influence
#6793
Kōzō Osamura
#159260
Overall Influence
#6794
Hussain U. Bahia
#159263
Overall Influence
#6795
Venkatesh C. Saligrama
#159284
Overall Influence
#6796
Arthur Lithgow
#51380
Overall Influence
1915 - 2004 (89 years)
Arthur Washington Lithgow III was an American actor and director. He helped pioneer the regional theater movement in the United States and founded two Shakespeare festivals. Early life Lithgow was born in Puerto Plata, the Dominican Republic, the son of Ina Berenice , an American nurse, and Arthur Washington Lithgow II, an American-Dominican entrepreneur born to Ellen Prentiss Peirce, American, and Washington G. Lithgow, a Dominican of American descent, who was a vice consul and vice commercial agent in the country. He first appeared onstage in December 1920 at age 5 as a cherub in a Christma...
Go to Profile#6797
Herbert Zirath
#159300
Overall Influence
#6798
Fariborz Jolai
#159314
Overall Influence
#6799
Awad Alasmari
#128434
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
His Excellency Professor Awad bin Khuzeim Bin Ali Al-Asmari is a Saudi professor of electrical engineering. He served as Rector of Shaqra University since 2016 to August 2020. Early life and education Awad Alasmari was born in a small village of Balasmer in Saudi Arabia. Alasmari started his basic education from a government school in the village of Balasmer in Asir Region of Saudi Arabia. He was fond of reading since he was a young child. After completing his secondary education, he proceeded to the Department of Electrical Engineering at King Saud University and earned his Bsc in Electrical Engineering degree.
Go to Profile#6800
Shu-gen Ma
#159337
Overall Influence
