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,
#7051
Michael A. Leschziner
#162445
Overall Influence
#7052
Michael D. Lemmon
#162468
Overall Influence
#7053
Brian Carpenter
#104522
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Brian Edward Carpenter is a British Internet engineer and a former chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force , the Internet Architecture Board , and the Internet Society. Early life and education Carpenter was born in Leicester, England, and was educated at the Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester. He earned a master's degree in physics from Downing College at Cambridge University, and MSc and PhD degrees in computer science from The University of Manchester.
Go to Profile#7054
Kelli Connell
#85553
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Kelli Connell is an American contemporary photographer. Connell is known for creating portraits, which may appear as self-portraits. Her work is held in the collections of the Columbus Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Dallas Museum of Art.
Go to Profile#7055
Lutz‐peter Nolte
#162501
Overall Influence
#7056
Ahmed A. G. Helmy
#162508
Overall Influence
#7057
Arthur Bernard Baggeroer
#162511
Overall Influence
#7058
Jack H. Kaplan
#162520
Overall Influence
#7059
Scott Mahlke
#162522
Overall Influence
Scott Mahlke from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for contributions to compiler code generation and automatic processor customization.
Go to Profile#7060
Riadh Saleh Hassan Al-mahaidi
#162549
Overall Influence
#7061
Scott R. Paterson
#162560
Overall Influence
#7062
Jack T. Holladay
#162569
Overall Influence
#7063
Christopher P. Beauchamp
#162576
Overall Influence
#7064
R. M. Bowen Wright
#162597
Overall Influence
#7065
E. Delbert Day
#162609
Overall Influence
#7066
Faa‐jeng Lin
#162612
Overall Influence
#7067
Robert M. Jacobson
#162644
Overall Influence
#7068
Karen Burns
#109003
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Karen Burns is an architectural historian and theorist based in Melbourne, Australia. She is currently a senior lecturer in architecture at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne. Early years and education Born in January 1962, Burns grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Beaumaris. Her feminist activism first found expression in 1978 when she worked as a volunteer at a newly established refuge for women and children escaping family violence.
Go to Profile#7069
Shuang-feng Wang
#162646
Overall Influence
#7070
Evangelos G. Papadopoulos
#162655
Overall Influence
#7071
Roland W. Freund
#162657
Overall Influence
#7072
José Ferrer
#25487
Overall Influence
1912 - 1992 (80 years)
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón was a Puerto Rican actor and director of stage, film and television. He was one of the most celebrated and esteemed Hispanic American actors—or, indeed, actors of any ethnicity—during his lifetime and after, with a career spanning nearly 60 years between 1935 and 1992. He achieved prominence for his portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the play of the same name, which earned him the inaugural Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play in 1947. He reprised the role in a 1950 film version and won an Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the first Hispanic actor ...
Go to Profile#7073
Edmund Philip Krider
#162669
Overall Influence
#7074
K. And Rohr
#162681
Overall Influence
#7075
B. J. Johnson
#83197
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (39 years)
Bernard Henry Johnson is an American swimmer who specializes in breaststroke events. Early and personal life Johnson was born in Seattle, Washington, and is Jewish. His parents are Sandra and Bernard Johnson, and he has a sister, Roxanne. His nickname is Baba Juice.
Go to Profile#7076
Yakov Benveniste
#162698
Overall Influence
#7077
Xiaolin Wu
#162716
Overall Influence
#7078
Valeria Bertacco
#135104
Overall Influence
Valeria Bertacco is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as well as Vice Provost for Engaged Learning at the University of Michigan. She previously served as the Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Initiatives at the University of Michigan Rackham Graduate School.
Go to Profile#7079
Adnan Badran
#74165
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Adnan Badran is a Jordanian politician and academic of Palestinian descent. He was the 35th Prime Minister of Jordan from 6 April 2005 to 27 November 2005. Early life and education Badran was born in Jerash, Jordan on 15 December 1935 to Palestinian parents. His father was from Nablus in Palestine. He received his bachelor of science from Oklahoma State University and his MS and PhD degrees from Michigan State University . Badran's brother, Mudar Badran, was a politician in Jordan and served as prime minister several times.
Go to Profile#7080
Derek Crowther
#162751
Overall Influence
#7081
Ta Sung Lee
#121255
Overall Influence
Ta Sung Lee is a Taiwanese professor of electrical engineering at National Chiao Tung University . He studied electrical engineering at National Taiwan University as an undergraduate, graduating in 1983 before moving to the United States where he received an M.S. degree from in the same field from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1987 and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1989. The following year, he returned to Taiwan, where he joined the NCTU faculty. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 "for leadership and contributions in communicati...
Go to Profile#7082
A. Richard Newton
#162776
Overall Influence
#7083
Ronald W. Harvey
#162796
Overall Influence
#7084
Hideki Kawahara
#162799
Overall Influence
#7085
Mark Christopher Thompson
#162815
Overall Influence
#7086
Augustus D. Mazzocca
#162861
Overall Influence
#7087
Joseph E. Hall
#162866
Overall Influence
#7088
Erhard Hornbogen
#162868
Overall Influence
#7089
Takashi Mukai
#162881
Overall Influence
#7090
Rafael Corsino González
#162893
Overall Influence
#7091
Ella Atkins
#105434
Overall Influence
Ella Marie Atkins is an American aerospace engineer whose research involves flight planning and the coordination of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles. She is a head of the Kevin T. Crofton Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering at Virginia Tech, where she holds the Fred D. Durham Chair in Engineering, and is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Aerospace Information Systems.
Go to Profile#7092
Rafael Sacks
#162930
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
#7093
Peter Brook
#12608
Overall Influence
1925 - 2022 (97 years)
Peter Stephen Paul Brook was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shakespeare Company . With them, he directed the first English-language production in 1964 of Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss, which was transferred to Broadway in 1965 and won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Brook was named Best Director. He also directed films such as an iconic version of Lord of the Flies in 1963.
Go to Profile#7094
Michael S. Makaroun
#162960
Overall Influence
#7095
Irwin B. Levitan
#162961
Overall Influence
#7096
Gong-nan Xie
#162967
Overall Influence
#7097
Lynn M. Walker
#100587
Overall Influence
Lynn Walker is a professor of chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research considers the rheology of complex fluids and how nanostructure impacts the behavior of complex systems. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Society of Rheology, and the American Physical Society.
Go to Profile#7098
Zi‐kang Tang
#162970
Overall Influence
#7099
Lindsay Stringer
#101446
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Lindsay C. Stringer is a Professor in Environment and Development at the University of York. Stringer's research is interdisciplinary and uses theories and methods from both the natural and social sciences to understand human-environment relationships, feedbacks and trade-offs, examining the impacts for human wellbeing, equity and the environment
Go to Profile#7100
Ulrich Ing. Grad. Pohl
#162994
Overall Influence
