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,
#7701
Sarah Lynn Rees
#155677
Overall Influence
Sarah Lynn Rees is a Palawa woman descending from the Plangermaireener and Trawlwoolway people of North East Tasmania, Based in Birrarung-ga , Rees is an architectural practitioner, academic and writer. She is a prominent advocate and advisor with a firm commitment to Indigenising the built environment.
Go to Profile#7702
Sandra Pascoe Ortiz
#62694
Overall Influence
Sandra Pascoe Ortiz is a Mexican researcher and chemical engineer. She is a faculty member at the Universidad del Valle de Atemajac in Zapopan. Ortiz is known for developing a non-toxic, renewable, and biodegradable plastic alternative made from cactus juice.
Go to Profile#7703
James DeYoreo
#170497
Overall Influence
James DeYoreo is the Battelle Fellow and Initiative Lead for the Materials Synthesis and Simulation Across Scales Initiative at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. Concurrent with his position at PNNL, he is a member of the graduate faculty, materials science and engineering, University of Washington.
Go to Profile#7704
J. Denis Summers-Smith
#51080
Overall Influence
1920 - 2020 (100 years)
James Denis Summers-Smith was a Scottish ornithologist and mechanical engineer, a specialist both in sparrowss and in industrial tribology. Early life Summers-Smith was raised in Glasgow, where he was born in 1920. He spent childhood holidays in County Donegal, in northwestern Ireland, where one of his uncles, a country parson and a naturalist, taught him about birds. For nearly six years of World War II, Summers-Smith was an intelligence officer in the British Army. He received his commission in 1940, and reached the rank of captain. He served with the 9th Battalion, The Cameronians, stationed on the east coast of England.
Go to Profile#7705
Stepan Lucyszyn
#115822
Overall Influence
Stepan Lucyszyn FREng, FIEEE is a British engineer, inventor and technologist, and has been a Professor of Millimetre-wave Systems at Imperial College London, England, since 2016. He was elevated to Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 and elected to Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2023. Lucyszyn's research has mainly focused on monolithic microwave integrated circuits , radio frequency microelectromechnical systems , wireless power transfer , thermal infrared technologies and additive manufacturing .
Go to Profile#7706
Cóilín Ó Dubhghaill
#112533
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Cóilín Ó Dubhghaill is an Irish artist and academic, crafting as a silversmith and also in copper and Japanese-inspired copper alloys, gold and other metals. He lived in Japan and studied Japanese metal crafts for seven years in the national arts university. His art is held in a range of national and other museums and galleries, and has been widely shown. His research work bridges art and materials science, and he is co-inventor of a new hybrid metal, mikana.
Go to Profile#7707
Patrick G. Carrick
#73936
Overall Influence
Patrick G. Carrick is a member of the Senior Executive Service and an academic. Career Before joining the United States Department of Defense, Carrick was assistant professor of physics at Mississippi State University and Director of the Shared Laser Facility at the University of Oregon. In 1989 he was assigned to Edwards Air Force Base to do research in rocket propulsion. He was assigned to The Pentagon in 2004. In 2007 he was named Director of Physics and Electronics of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. In 2014 he was assigned to the Department of Homeland Security as deputy director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency .
Go to Profile#7708
Fang Zhiyuan
#128872
Overall Influence
1939 - 2023 (84 years)
Fang Zhiyuan was a Chinese engineer in the field of genetic breeding, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Fang was a member of the 9th and 10th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Go to Profile#7709
Natalia M. Litchinitser
#167752
Overall Influence
Natalia M. Litchinitser is an Electrical Engineer and Professor at Duke University. She works on optical metamaterials and their application in photonic devices. Litchinitser is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, The Optical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Go to Profile#7710
Jadranka Skorin-Kapov
#5799
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jadranka Skorin-Kapov is a professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the College of Business, and with affiliated positions in the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics. Her background includes PhD degrees in Operations Research, in Philosophy, and in Art History. She serves as the Head of Management Area in the College of Business. She founded and currently directs the Center for Integration of Business Education & Humanities . Skorin-Kapov received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities in 2016.
Go to Profile#7711
Susan Gourvenec
#167908
Overall Influence
Susan Gourvenec is a British geoscientist who is Professor of Offshore Geotechnical Engineering and deputy director of the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2022.
Go to Profile#7712
Fred Bechly
#122077
Overall Influence
1924 - 2004 (80 years)
Fred Lorin Bechly was an American electrical engineer and inventor in the field of color television broadcasting. Early life Fred Bechly was born in Watseka, Illinois, to Edward Bechly and Ferne Smiley . He married and had two children.
Go to Profile#7713
Philippe Starck
#98692
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Philippe Starck is a French industrial architect and designer known for his wide range of designs, including interior design, architecture, household objects, furniture, boats and other vehicles. Life Starck was born on 18 January 1949 in Paris. He is the son of André Starck, who was an aeronautics engineer. He says that his father often inspired him because he was an engineer, who made invention a "duty". His family was originally from and lived in the Alsace region, before his grandfather moved to Paris. He studied at the École Nissim de Camondo in Paris.
Go to Profile#7714
Kim
#170691
Overall Influence
#7715
Janet Perlman
#67903
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Janet Laurie Perlman is a Canadian animator and children's book author and illustrator whose work includes the short film The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 54th Academy Awards and received a Parents' Choice Award. Her 13 short films have received 60 awards to date. She was married to the late animation producer Derek Lamb. After working with Lamb at the National Film Board of Canada in the 1980s, they formed their own production company, Lamb-Perlman Productions. She is currently a partner in Hulascope Studio, based in Montreal.
Go to Profile#7716
Pat Fothergill
#111355
Overall Influence
1936 - 2017 (81 years)
Ann Patricia "Pat" Fothergill was a pioneer in robotics and robot control languages in the AI department of the University of Edinburgh. She moved to the University of Aberdeen in 1986 to join the Department of Computing as a senior lecturer, where she remained until her death.
Go to Profile#7717
Alessandra Costanzo
#169170
Overall Influence
Alessandra Costanzo is an Italian electrical engineer specializing in microwave engineering, microwave circuits, and wireless power transfer. She is a professor at the University of Bologna. Education and career Costanzo earned a laurea in electrical engineering, through a 5-year course of study, in 1987 at the University of Bologna. In 1989, through a national competition, she won a permanent research position at the University of Bologna, bypassing the need to earn a doctorate. She became an associate professor in the faculty of engineering there in 2001 and full professor in the Department...
Go to Profile#7718
Steven Z. Pavletic
#95865
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Steven Z. Pavletic is a Croatian-American physician and researcher in hematology and oncology known for his role in developing consensus guidelines for clinical trials in chronic Graft-versus-host disease .
Go to Profile#7719
James D. Brenton
#107792
Overall Influence
Professor James D Brenton is a clinician scientist and Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and Professor of Ovarian Cancer Medicine in the Department of Oncology, University of Cambridge. He is an Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University Hospitals, Ovarian Cancer Domain Lead for the 100,000 Genomes Project by Genomics England, and co-founder and Clinical Advisor to Inivata Ltd, a clinical cancer genomics company.
Go to Profile#7720
Xiao-Fan Wang
#75379
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Xiao-Fan Wang is a Chinese-American oncologist. He is the Donald and Elizabeth Cooke Professor of Cancer Research at Duke University School of Medicine. Biography Wang was born in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, China in 1955. His family moved to a village in Henan province in the 1970s, during the Cultural Revolution, his mother was imprisoned by local government for "historical questions". Wang was raised by his paternal grandmother. Before graduating from primary school, he was assigned to work as a worker in a factory for 8 years. After resuming the college entrance examination, he entered Wuhan University, majoring in biochemistry, where he graduated in 1982.
Go to Profile#7721
Margaret Brandeau
#120145
Overall Influence
Margaret Louise Brandeau is an American management scientist and engineer whose research applies operations research to decision-making in public health. The main focus of her work is on the development of applied mathematical and economic models to support health policy decisions. She is the Coleman F. Fung Professor in the Stanford University School of Engineering, and also holds a courtesy affiliation with the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#7722
Collin M. Stultz
#109141
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Collin M. Stultz is an American biomolecular engineer, physician-scientist and academic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is the Nina T. and Robert H. Rubin Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science also at MIT, a faculty member in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and a cardiologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also co-Director of the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology
Go to Profile#7723
David Aradeon
#126291
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
David Olatunde Aradeon is a Nigerian architect, urban planner and curator. Career David Aradeon was born in Lagos, and commenced his Architectural education in 1959 at Columbia University in New York. After his graduation in 1966, he worked for three different architectural firms in New York and then returned to Nigeria. In 1968, he was awarded a three-year Ford Fellowship to study the human settlements in western and North Africa. At the University of Lagos, he was a lecturer in the Department of Architecture, where he was appointed Professor in 1979. Aradeon founded the Sankore Institute for African Environment and Development in Lagos, which he still heads today.
Go to Profile#7724
José Luis Calderón Cabrera
#104851
Overall Influence
1924 - 2004 (80 years)
José Luis Calderón Cabrera was a Mexican architect. He was professor at the Universidad Anáhuac campus del Norte and at the Escuela Nacional de Arquitectura of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Go to Profile#7725
Ganesan Venkatasubramanian
#23767
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Ganesan Venkatasubramanian is an Indian psychiatrist and clinician-scientist who works as a professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore . His overarching research interest to learn the science that will facilitate a personalized approach to understand and treat severe mental disorders like schizophrenia. Venkatasubramanian is known for his studies in the fields of schizophrenia, transcranial Direct Current Stimulation , brain imaging, neuroimmunology, neurometabolism and several other areas of biological psychiatry. The Council of Scientifi...
Go to Profile#7726
István Szabó
#51401
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
István Szabó is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director. Szabó is one of the most notable Hungarian filmmakers and one who has been best known outside the Hungarian-speaking world since the late 1960s. István Szabó's films are based on the tradition of the European auteurism that represent many aspects of the political and psychological conflicts of Central Europe's recent history often inspired by his own personal biography. He made his debut as a student in 1959, creating a short film at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest, and his first feature film was released ...
Go to Profile#7727
Andreas Quednau
#170871
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Andreas Quednau is a German architect, and professor of architecture and urbanism. He is principal of the firm SMAQ for architecture, urbanism and research, that is based in Berlin, Germany. He is Professor of Urban Design at Leibniz University Hannover.
Go to Profile#7728
Janusz Turowski
#91659
Overall Influence
1927 - 2020 (93 years)
Professor Janusz Turowski was a Polish engineer. In 1940-46 deported by Soviets to Siberia. Graduated from the TUL with a: MSc and Electr. Engineer 1951, PhD 1958, DSc 1963. Ass. Prof. 1964, Professor 1971 and Full Professor in Electr. Machines and Applied Electromagnetism.
Go to Profile#7729
Moshe Matalon
#118562
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Moshe Matalon is an Israeli-American mechanical engineer and applied mathematician, currently the Caterpillar Distinguished Professor at University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Biography He finished his bachelor's and master's degree from Tel Aviv University in 1973 and completed his PhD in 1977 from Cornell University, under the supervision of Geoffrey S. S. Ludford. He worked at New York University Tandon School of Engineering from 1978 to 1980 and then at Northwestern University from 1980 to 2006. He finally moved to University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 2007. His research area ...
Go to Profile#7730
Stacey Finley
#96399
Overall Influence
Stacey Finley is the Nichole A. and Thuan Q. Pham Professor and associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science, and quantitative and computational biology at the University of Southern California. Finley has a joint appointment in the department of chemical engineering and materials science, and she is a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Finley is also a standing member of the MABS Study Section at NIH. Her research has been supported by grants from the NSF, NIH, and American Cancer Society.
Go to Profile#7731
Robert C. Horton
#118921
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Robert Carlton Horton was an American mining engineer. He served as the 17th director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. Early life Robert Carlton Horton was born on July 25, 1926, with his identical twin brother, Richard Wingfield Horton, to Eathal and Frank E. Horton in Tonopah, Nevada. Frank E. Horton owned the Weepah Mine in Esmeralda County, Nevada in the 1920s and 1930s, and had previously owned the Diamondfield Daisy Mine in Goldfield, Nevada. He attended primary schools in Reno, Nevada and Unionville, Nevada. He graduated from Humboldt County High School in 1944. Horton then moved back to R...
Go to Profile#7732
Dilanthi Amaratunga
#170238
Overall Influence
Dilanthi Amaratunga, FRGS is a Sri Lankan scientist. She is a quantity surveyor who leads research and international projects into disaster mitigation, reconstruction and resilience. Early life and education Amaratunga was born in Sri Lanka, spending her early life in Panadura. She went to Visakha Vidyalaya a girls school, for secondary education. In 1993 she graduated with a B.Sc. in Quantity Surveying from the Department of Building Economics, University of Moratuwa. She was awarded a PhD for a study of ‘Theory Building in Facilities Management Performance Measurement: Application o...
Go to Profile#7733
Stephan Matthai
#121119
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Stephan Konrad Matthai is a German geologist and petroleum engineer. He is currently Professor of Reservoir Engineering at University of Melbourne. Previously he had the same position at the University of Leoben.
Go to Profile#7734
Hidenori Suzuki
#171008
Overall Influence
#7735
Carlos Cruchaga
#158977
Overall Influence
Carlos Cruchaga is a human genomicist with expertise in multi-omics, informatics, and neurodegeneration, with a focus on Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease. He is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Genetics and Washington University School of Medicine. He is founding director of the Neurogenomics and Informatic center at Washington University School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#7736
Wilhelm von der Emde
#132469
Overall Influence
1922 - 2020 (98 years)
Wilhelm von der Emde was a German-Austrian civil engineer. He played a major role in the development of the activated sludge process for biological wastewater treatment in sewage treatment plants and the establishment of an infrastructure for treatment and disposal of municipal and industrial wastewater. Further fields of his broad spectrum of activities included the training of operating personnel of wastewater treatment plants. He initiated the establishment of corresponding training networks and participated in their organisation in a leading position. His work provided the central basis f...
Go to Profile#7737
Claude Laurgeau
#167177
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Claude Laurgeau is a French professor in robotics. His primary interest is intelligent transportation systems. He was a professor at the University of Nantes from 1975 to 1982, then director of the "Productive robotics research" department at the IT Agency from 1982 to 1987.
Go to Profile#7738
Tao Sule DuFour
#122337
Overall Influence
Tao Sule DuFour is an architect and scholar whose work explores the overlaps between architecture, philosophy, and anthropology. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Architecture in Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art and Planning and the director of the Landscape and Urban Environmentalities Lab.
Go to Profile#7739
Helen L. Reed
#147574
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Helen Louise Reed is an American aerospace engineer. Her research interests include hypersonics, energy efficient aircraft, laminar–turbulent transition, and small satellite design. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Physical Society, and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Go to Profile#7740
Park Sukyung
#169243
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Park Sukyung is a South Korean professor of mechanical engineering at KAIST with expertise in Biomechanics served as Science and Technology Advisor to President Moon Jae-in from 2020 to 2022. Park is the youngest person appointed by Moon to a vice-ministerial post as well as the youngest senior member of the Office of the President.
Go to Profile#7741
Kent Fuchs
#123946
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Wesley Kent Fuchs is an American university professor and academic administrator. He was the 12th president of the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, serving from 2015 to 2023. He previously served as the provost of Cornell University from 2009 through 2014.
Go to Profile#7742
John Zemanek
#156320
Overall Influence
1921 - 2016 (95 years)
John Zemanek was an American architect. He taught at the University of Houston beginning in 1964 and was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects , a distinguished educator, and architect. External links Interview with John Zemanek 2013 William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Digital Library.
Go to Profile#7743
Herbert Carlin
#149834
Overall Influence
1917 - 2009 (92 years)
Herbert J. Carlin was the J. Preston Levis Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University. He served as the director of the School of Electrical Engineering from 1966 to 1975 at Cornell University. He spent a year as a senior research fellow at the Physics Laboratory of the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and was a visiting professor at several institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tianjin University in China and University College Dublin.
Go to Profile#7744
Lara Thompson
#168716
Overall Influence
Lara A. Thompson is a biomedical engineer at the University of the District of Columbia. She is known for her work in human mobility and was a 2022 recipient of the National Science Foundations Alan T. Waterman Award.
Go to Profile#7745
Pedro Álvares Ribeiro do Carmo Pacheco
#165422
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Pedro Álvares Ribeiro do Carmo Pacheco , known as Pedro Pacheco, is a Portuguese civil engineer and professor of bridges at FEUP , who co-founded BERD, one of the most respectable bridge engineering companies. Pacheco is the mentor of the organic prestressing system concept , based on the human muscle, used in bridge engineering worldwide.
Go to Profile#7746
Yehia Massoud
#156265
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Yehia Massoud has had significant progressive academic leadership and has been involved in forging and building effective partnerships with numerous academic and industrial institutions, and international organizations, and governmental funding agencies.
Go to Profile#7747
Noble Banadda
#121497
Overall Influence
1975 - 2021 (46 years)
Noble Banadda was a Ugandan biosystems engineer, researcher and academic, who was a professor of biosystems engineering at Makerere University, Uganda's largest and oldest public university. He was appointed a full professor in 2012 at age 37, one of the youngest persons in the history of the university to attain full professorship.
Go to Profile#7748
Jürgen Flimm
#22722
Overall Influence
1941 - 2023 (82 years)
Jürgen Flimm was a German theatre and opera director, theatre manager, and academic teacher. Flimm was first active in drama, and made the Thalia Theater in Hamburg one of the most successful German theatres when he managed it from 1985 to 2000. He was general manager of the Salzburg Festival and RuhrTriennale festivals, and intendant of the Berlin State Opera from 2010 to 2018. He directed internationally, including Beethoven's Fidelio at the Metropolitan Opera, the 2000 Ring cycle production at the Bayreuth Festival, and the 2002 world premiere of Friedrich Cerha's Der Riese vom Steinfeld a...
Go to Profile#7749
Daniele Mortari
#149800
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Daniele Mortari is Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Texas A&M University and Chief Scientist for Space for Texas A&M ASTRO Center. Mortari is known for inventing the Flower Constellations and the k-vector range searching technique and the Theory of Functional Connections.
Go to Profile#7750
Lamine Mili
#171131
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Lamine Mili is an American electrical engineer from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for his contributions to robust state estimation for power systems.
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