Search People Result | Academic Influence

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.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Engineering,

#7801

Gad al-Haq

#45570

Overall Influence

1917 - 1996 (79 years)

Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq also spelled Jadd al-Haqq was Grand Imam of Al-Azhar from 1982 to 1996. Life Born in Batra, Dakahlia Governorate and educated at a village school in the Nile Delta, he gained his scholar degree from al-Azhar University, Cairo. Finding a job as a clerk in the Mufti's office, he was promoted to the post of amin al-fatwa. In 1954 he became a judge. Nasser appointed him to the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in 1960.

#7802

Gwyther Irwin

#155767

Overall Influence

1931 - 2008 (77 years)

Gwyther Irwin was a British abstract artist born in Basingstoke, Hampshire, who had lived much of his life in north Cornwall. He was educated in Dorset, at Goldsmiths College and at the Central School of Art in London 1951–1954. Irwin first came to prominence in 1957 with an exhibition at Gallery One, and another at Gimpel Fils in 1959. In 1964, he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, along with Joe Tilson, Bernard Meadows and Roger Hilton. In 1960, he married Elizabeth Gowlett and they had two sons and one daughter.

#7803

Charles Duke

#116041

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Charles Moss Duke Jr. is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the 10th and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days.

#7804

Maria Domenica Di Benedetto

#168608

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Maria Domenica Di Benedetto is an Italian electrical engineer and control theorist whose interests include the control of hybrid systems, embedded control systems, automotive engine control, and aerospace flight control. She is Professor of Automatic Control at the University of L'Aquila, president of the European Embedded Control Institute, and the former president of the Italian Society of researchers in Automatic Control.

#7805

Anne Simmons

#168973

Overall Influence

Anne Simmons is an Australian biomedical engineer. She served as Provost at the University of New South Wales from 2019 to 2023. Her research focused on analysis of blood flow in diseased vessels and the development of biomaterials for implantable devices.

#7806

Lorne Lanning

#18343

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Lorne Lanning is an American game designer, director, writer and voice actor. He is also co-founder and president of the video game developer Oddworld Inhabitants. He is best known for creating the Oddworld series including the games Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! and Oddworld: Soulstorm.

#7807

Kimberly L. Foster

#169539

Overall Influence

Kimberly L. Foster is an American mechanical engineer specializing in microelectromechanical systems including stick-slip phenomena, biomimetic adhesives, parametric oscillators, and microsensors. She is dean of science and engineering at Tulane University, where she is also a professor of physics and engineering physics and of biomedical engineering.

#7808

Roemer van Toorn

#138318

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Roemer van Toorn, born 1960 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is a Dutch architectural theorist, professor, writer, lecturer and photographer. Currently he is Professor Architectural Theory at the Umeå School of Architecture , in Umeå, Sweden.

#7809

Mikhail Kats

#144830

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (40 years)

Mikhail A. Kats is an American optics/photonics researcher and applied physicist. He is Jack St. Clair Kilby associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. During his studies at Harvard University as a graduate student, Kats developed new nanophotonic and plasmonic technologies.

#7810

Alan G. Thomas

#107900

Overall Influence

1927 - 2019 (92 years)

Alan G. Thomas was an international authority on the mechanics of rubbery materials, in particular their fracture mechanics properties. Along with Ronald S. Rivlin, he published the Rupture of Rubber series of articles, beginning in 1953. He was the first to apply Griffith's energy release rate criterion to the analysis of rubber's strength and fatigue behavior.

#7811

Suranga Nanayakkara

Suranga Nanayakkara

#128816

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Suranga Nanayakkara is a Sri Lankan born computer scientist and inventor. , he is the director of Augmented Human Lab and associate professor at the National University of Singapore. Before moving to Auckland in 2018, he was an assistant professor at Singapore University of Technology and Design. He is best known for his work on FingerReader and Haptic Chair. His research interests include Wearable Computing, Assistive Technology, Ubiquitous computing, AI, Collective intelligence and Robotics. MIT Technology Review honored Nanayakkara as one of the Innovators Under 35 for Asia Pacific Region...

#7812

Tony Richardson

Tony Richardson

#26895

Overall Influence

1928 - 1991 (63 years)

Cecil Antonio Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film Tom Jones. Early life Richardson was born in Shipley, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1928 to Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist, and his wife, Elsie Evans . He was Head Boy at Ashville College, Harrogate and attended Wadham College, University of Oxford. His Oxford contemporaries included Rupert Murdoch, Margaret Thatcher, Kenneth Tynan, Lindsay Anderson and Gavin Lambert. He had the unprecedented distinction of bein...

#7813

Jianhui Wang

#172115

Overall Influence

#7814

Hana El-Samad

#125429

Overall Influence

Hana El-Samad is a Lebanese-American scientist who is a founding Principal Investigator at Altos Labs and a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work considers control theory and the function of complex biological systems. Her group has made contributions to systems biology, synthetic biology, and cell engineering.

#7815

Esa Piironen

#151501

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Esa Erkki Piironen is a Finnish architect. He studied architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, qualifying as an architect in 1970. He studied architecture and urban design in North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was awarded the Master of Architecture in 1972. He was working as a teaching assistant at Helsinki University of Technology 1972–81, and was awarded Licentiate in Technology in 1978. Visiting professor at Guangdong University of Technology School of Art and Design starting from 2012.

#7816

Judith Liebman

#124564

Overall Influence

1936 - 2023 (87 years)

Judith S. Liebman was an American operations researcher, civil engineer, and mechanical engineer. She was a professor emerita at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the only female president of the Operations Research Society of America .

#7817

Terrence Masson

Terrence Masson

#74166

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Terrence Masson is a computer graphics educator, producer, and lecturer, specializing in animation, storytelling and executive leadership. He is the chair of the MFA Computer Arts Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He was also founder and CEO of Building Conversation, an augmented reality company located in Boston, MA. He was both the ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Computer Animation Festival Chair and 2010 Conference Chair. He also wrote the book CG 101: A Computer Graphics Industry Reference, and has contributed to films, television programs, and video games.

#7818

Michael Thompson

#32055

Overall Influence

Michael Thompson is an American photographer who began his career as an assistant to Irving Penn after training at the Brooks Institute of Photography in California. His father was a studio photographer in Washington State. Thompson's photography has appeared in W, Details, Allure, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ and The New York Times Magazine. His commercial photography includes campaigns for Gap, Elizabeth Arden, Chanel, and the PDN Award winner "I Am African." His commercials include those for the fragrance "Lovely" by Sarah Jessica Parker , the "Frank Gehry Collection" for Tiffany...

#7819

Michael Hess

#172137

Overall Influence

#7820

Michael Tordoff

#145386

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Dr. Michael G. Tordoff is a psychobiologist working at the Monell Chemical Senses Center. His research deals with the genetics and physiology of taste and nutrition. His early work addressed how and what animals learn about the value of their food, how artificial sweeteners influence appetite and body weight, how salt intake is regulated, and how dietary calcium influences salt intake. Recently, he has been investigating calcium taste and appetite. He is the primary proponent of the notion that calcium is a basic taste, equivalent to sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.

#7821

Oleg Tabakov

#54274

Overall Influence

1935 - 2018 (83 years)

Oleg Pavlovich Tabakov was a Soviet and Russian actor and the Artistic Director of the Moscow Art Theatre. People's Artist of the USSR . Biography Tabakov was born in Saratov into a family of doctors. His paternal great-grandfather, Ivan Ivanovich Utin, came from serfs and was raised in a wealthy peasant family under the Tabakov surname. His grandfather, Kondratiy Tabakov, worked as a locksmith in Saratov where he built himself a house and married a local commoner Anna Konstantinovna Matveeva. Oleg's father, Pavel Kondratievich Tabakov, worked at the State Regional Research Institute of Epide...

#7822

V John Mathews

#154474

Overall Influence

V John Mathews is an Indian-American engineer and educator who is currently a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Oregon State University, United States. Early life and education Mathews grew up in India. He obtained Bachelor of Engineering with honors in Electronics and Communication Engineering in 1980 from Regional Engineering College, Tiruchirappalli , formerly affiliated to University of Madras, India. He then received his Master of Science and Doctorate of Philosophy degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Iowa, Iowa City in 1...

#7823

Katsumi Kishino

#172227

Overall Influence

Katsumi Kishino is an engineer at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for his contributions to III-V light emitter technology.

#7824

Keith Waters

#73511

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Keith Waters is a British animator who is best known for his work in the field of computer facial animation. He has received international awards from Parigraph, the National Computer Graphics Association and the Computer Animation Film Festival.

#7825

Michael Bedzyk

#172233

Overall Influence

Michael J. Bedzyk is an x-ray physicist, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. Biography His research program includes the development of novel X-ray probes and the characterization of surface, interface, and thin-film structures with atomic resolution. He conducts experiments using both in-house and synchrotron X-ray facilities. The latter have greatly enhanced chemical and structural sensitivity for studying systems as dilute as one-hundredth of an atomic monolayer.

#7826

Fu Xinqi

#147392

Overall Influence

1919 - 2019 (100 years)

Fu Xinqi was a Chinese architect and professor at Tongji University. He was a co-designer of Mao Zedong's villa in Wuhan and served as a director member of the National Architecture and Engineering Commission. After retiring as an architect and professor, he took up painting and became accomplished in guóhuà.

#7827

John B. Anderson

#172302

Overall Influence

#7828

Yutaka Matsuo

#172304

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#7829

Christopher Rose

#97924

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Christopher Rose is a professor of engineering, former associate provost at Brown University in Rhode Island and a founding member of WINLAB at Rutgers University in New Jersey. He was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; SB'79, SM'81, Ph.D'85 all in Course VI . On September 2, 2004, an article by Christopher Rose and Gregory Wright, titled Inscribed matter as an energy-efficient means of communication with an extraterrestrial civilization, appeared on the cover of Nature with the headline "Dear ET...".

#7830

Laura Pauley

#169410

Overall Influence

Laura Lynn Pauley is an American mechanical engineer specializing in computational fluid dynamics, including the simulation of cavitation, flow separation, and large eddy simulation, with applications including the design of airfoils, boat propellors, and centrifugal pumps. She is a professor of mechanical engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering, the former Arthur L. Glenn Professor of Engineering Education at Penn State, and the interim executive director of the Penn State faculty senate.

#7831

Greta Ferušić

#124929

Overall Influence

1924 - 2022 (98 years)

Greta Ferušić Weinfeld was a Bosnian professor & dean of architecture at the University of Sarajevo. Greta was the only Bosnian woman to survive Auschwitz and the only person in the world to survive both Auschwitz and the Siege of Sarajevo.

#7832

Per Eriksson

#109549

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Per Filip Billy Eriksson is a Swedish scientist and professor in signal processing. He served as rector of Lund University from 2009 to 2014, as rector of Blekinge Institute of Technology from 1989 to 2000 and director-general at Vinnova from 2001 to 2008. His membership in the Baptist Hyllie Park Church was once the subject of a heated controversy regarding his appointment as rector of Lund University.

#7833

Mimi Lobell

#148084

Overall Influence

1942 - 2001 (59 years)

Mimi Lobell was an American architect, professor, cultural historian, and second wave feminist. Early life Lobell was born in the Midwest, the youngest of three children. She grew up in farm country in Illinois and Indiana. Her father was a professor of chemical engineering and later a department chair and then a dean. Her mother was a college-educated stay-at-home housewife.

#7834

Werner Kurz

#92179

Overall Influence

Werner Kurz is a Canadian research scientist at Canada's Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, British Columbia. He is leading the development of an accounting system to assess potential climate change known as the National Forest Carbon Accounting System for Canada. Currently, his research focuses on using forest land to its maximum carbon efficiency, reducing the impact of natural disasters, and managing forests. Kurz holds a PhD in forest ecology from the University of British Columbia. He has made significant contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the work of th...

#7835

Kwadwo Osseo-Asare

#121254

Overall Influence

Kwadwo Osseo-Asare is an Ghanaian materials scientist who is Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. He was awarded the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers Gold Medal in 1997. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for contributions to the fundamental understanding of interfacial phenomena in leaching and solvent extraction.

#7836

Ákos Moravánszky

#146047

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Ákos Moravánszky , is a Swiss-Hungarian architect, theorist, historian and Adjunct Professor Emeritus of Architectural Theory at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Moravánszky is regarded as one of the world's leading architecture historians of Central European architecture.

#7837

Jennifer Cochran

#153008

Overall Influence

Jennifer R. Cochran is an American bioegineer. Cochran completed a bachelor's degree in biochemistry at the University of Delaware in 1995, and pursued doctoral study in biological chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating in 2001, she remained at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow. Cochran later joined the Stanford University faculty, where she was named Shriram Chair of the Department of Bioengineering. She was elected a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2018.

#7838

Paul H. Steen

#136102

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Paul H Steen was an engineer and scientist. He held the Maxwell M. Upson Chair in Engineering at Cornell University. Steen received degrees in Engineering and English Literature from Brown University, his PhD from Johns Hopkins University, and postdoctoral training at Stanford University.

#7839

Kevin McCollum

#27502

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Kevin McCollum is an American theatrical booking executive and producer of musical theater and plays, many on Broadway. During a producing career spanning over twenty-five years, McCollum has received three Tony Awards for Best Musical for In the Heights, Avenue Q, and Rent.

#7840

Rick Freuler

#129521

Overall Influence

Dr. Richard "Rick" J. Freuler is a professor and director of the Fundamentals of Engineering for Honors program at the Ohio State University. As the director of FEH, he also teaches some of the classes.

#7841

Katja Schenke-Layland

#75790

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Katja Schenke-Layland is the Professor of Medical Technologies and Regenerative Medicine, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department for Medical Technologies and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tübingen. She is the Director of the NMI Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University Tübingen in Reutlingen, Study Dean of Medical Technologies at the University of Tübingen, and Founding Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the Medical Faculty of the University Tübingen. She is also the Founding Director of the 3R Center for In Vitro Models and Alternativ...

#7842

William Alden Edson

#130873

Overall Influence

1912 - 2012 (100 years)

William Alden Edson was a scientist and engineer specializing in vacuum tube oscillators, radar, antennas and microwave technologies. His work spans universities, research institutions and commercial ventures. He taught at Illinois Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology and Stanford University.

#7843

Anthony Cullis

#145257

Overall Influence

1946 - 2021 (75 years)

Anthony George Cullis FRS was a British electronic engineer, and professor at University of Sheffield. Life Cullis was born on 16 January 1946 in Worcester. He earned a BA at the University of Oxford in 1968, and MA, and DPhil in Semiconducting Materials at Oxford University in 1972.

#7844

Shreyas Vasanawala

#135732

Overall Influence

Shreyas Vasanawala is an American pediatric radiologist and biomedical engineer. In 2021, Vasanawala was appointed the Division Chief, Associate Chair, and Radiologist-in-Chief for Pediatric Radiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also the inaugural William R. Brody Professor of Pediatric Radiology and Child Health.

#7845

Irving Lefkowitz

#118143

Overall Influence

1921 - 2015 (94 years)

Irving Lefkowitz was an American control engineer and Professor Emeritus at the Case Western Reserve University who made significant contributions to process dynamics, advanced control, and computer-based integrated and hierarchical systems control. Lefkowitz was a Life Fellow of the IEEE Control Systems Society, and a recipient of the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award .

#7846

Fyodor Bondarchuk

Fyodor Bondarchuk

#14117

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Fyodor Sergeyevich Bondarchuk is a Russian film director, actor, TV and film producer, clipmaker, TV host, founder of production company Art Pictures Studio. Specializes in action, war, and science fiction films. Some of his most notable films include The 9th Company , The Inhabited Island , Stalingrad and Attraction .

#7847

Chris Mason

#46412

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Chris Mason is an English former professional darts player. He used the nickname Mace the Ace. BDO and first PDC spell Mason began his career in the British Darts Organisation, making his World Championship debut at the 1996 BDO World Championship. He lost 0–3 to Andy Fordham. After joining the World Darts Council in 1996, Mason competed in the 1996 World Matchplay, losing to Alan Warriner. In October 1996, Mason reached the final of the Sky Sports World Pairs partnered by Steve Raw, where they were narrowly beaten by Phil Taylor and Bob Anderson. Mason then competed in the 1997 WDC World Ch...

#7848

Marco Brambilla

#172533

Overall Influence

#7849

Owen McCarty

#114518

Overall Influence

Owen McCarty is an American biomedical engineer who studies the dynamics of the vascular system in the context of cancer metastasis, cardiovascular disease, and inflammation. He is the Douglas Strain Professor and Chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Oregon Health & Science University and a fellow of the American Heart Association.

#7850

Yongsong Huang

#152269

Overall Influence

Yongsong Huang is a Chinese-American organic geochemist, biogeochemist and astrobiologist, and is a professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Brown University. He researches the development of lipid biomarkers and their isotopic ratios as quantitative proxies for paleoclimate and paleoenviromental studies and subsequent application of these proxies to study mechanisms controlling climate change and environmental response to climate change at a variety of time scales.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions