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,

#8551

Michael Baum

#182243

Overall Influence

#8552

Jia Zhenyuan

#171067

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Jia Zhenyuan is a Chinese mechanical engineering expert and professor at Dalian University of Technology. He has been vice-president of Dalian University of Technology since March 2015. Education Jia was born in Liaoning province in July 1963. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1984, anmaster's degree in 1987, and doctor's degree in 1990, all from Dalian University of Technology.

#8553

Anil V. Rao

#155403

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Anil Vithala Rao is a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida and specializes in computational methods for optimal control and guidance and control of aerospace vehicles. He is the co-creator of the optimal control software GPOPS-II and is the author of the textbook Dynamics of Particles and Rigid Bodies: A Systematic Approach.

#8554

Paul Wilson

#173396

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Paul Philip Hood Wilson is the Grainger Professor of Nuclear Engineering in Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a prominent nuclear energy communicator, and advocate of modern computational science practices. He is well known for leading the production of the computational nuclear engineering toolkits ALARA, Cyclus, and DAGMC. He is also the founding president of the North American Young Generation in Nuclear and is the Faculty Director of the Advanced Computing Initiative at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

#8555

Des McAnuff

#63148

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Desmond Steven McAnuff is the American-Canadian former artistic director of Canada's Stratford Festival and director of such Broadway musical theatre productions as Big River, The Who's Tommy and Jersey Boys.

#8556

Francesco Svelto

#182321

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Francesco Svelto is an electrical engineer from the University of Pavia in Pavia, Italy. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his contributions to the analysis and design of radio frequency circuits and systems.

#8557

Justin Hollander

#181040

Overall Influence

Justin B. Hollander is an American urban planning and design scholar. He is a professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts, a Masters in Regional Planning from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Ph.D. degree from the E.J. Bloustein School of Policy and Planning at Rutgers.

#8558

Stefan Thomke

#60242

Overall Influence

Stefan Thomke is the William Barclay Harding Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Thomke joined the technology and operations management division at Harvard Business School in 1995, on completion of his doctoral studies at MIT. Thomke's research is focused on the process, economics, and management of experimentation and testing in the context of innovation management.

#8559

Terry Hands

#16041

Overall Influence

1941 - 2020 (79 years)

Terence David Hands was a multi-award English theatre director. He founded the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and ran the Royal Shakespeare Company for thirteen years during one of the company's most successful periods; he spent 25 years in all with the RSC. He also saved Clwyd Theatr Cymru from closure and turned it into the most successful theatre in Wales in his seventeen years as Artistic Director. He received several Olivier, Tony and Molière awards and nominations for directing and lighting.

#8560

Camille Sophie Brès

#179318

Overall Influence

Camille-Sophie Brès is a French physicist who is a professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Her research considers optical communications and nonlinear processes in optical fibre platforms.

#8561

Jun Watanabe

#182362

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Jun Watanabe is a Japanese architect and a former professor at Chubu University . After studying at the University of Tokyo, Jun finished the master's degree of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University in 1983. His work experiences include Kenzo Tange & URTEC , I.M.Pei & Partners , and Maki and Associates . After completing the award-winning Makuhari Messe as a project architect with Maki & Associates, he was appointed as an assistant professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin in 1990, where he received the tenure professorship in 1996. He moved to Chubu Univers...

#8562

Josef Preishuber-Pflügl

#146210

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Josef Preishuber-Pflügl is an Austrian technology leader. He is an RFID, NFC and IoT expert who served as project editor of various international RFID standards, such as ISO/IEC 18000-4 "2.45 GHz air interface", ISO/IEC 18000-6" General UHF RFID air interface", ISO/IEC 18000-63 "Type C: UHF RFID air interface", ISO/IEC 18000-7 "433 MHz Active RFID air interface", ISO/IEC 29143 "Air interface for Mobile Item Identification Methods", and ISO/IEC 29167-1 "RFID Security".

#8563

Douglas D. Taylor

#180619

Overall Influence

Douglas D. Taylor is an entrepreneur and former academic researcher in the field of extracellular vesicles. Taylor attained a bachelor's degree from the University of Richmond and a Ph.D. from Wake Forest University. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Boston University. Taylor was a professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Women's Healthheld at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He was also on the faculty of the University of California, Davis. From 2013 to 2015, he was the Chief Scientific Officer of Aethlon Medical's wholly owned subsidiary,...

#8564

Liu Shouren

#175127

Overall Influence

1934 - 2023 (89 years)

Liu Shouren was a Chinese engineer specializing in wool, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has been hailed as the "Father of Chinese Fine Wool Sheep". Liu was a representative of the 12th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and 13th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He was a delegate to the 9th and 10th National People's Congress.

#8565

Roberto Zenit

#182431

Overall Influence

#8566

Keld Helmer-Petersen

#130550

Overall Influence

1920 - 2013 (93 years)

Keld Helmer-Petersen was a Danish photographer who achieved widespread international recognition in the 1940s and 1950s for his abstract colour photographs. Early years Helmer-Petersen was born and grew up in the Østerbro quarter of Copenhagen. He started taking photographs in 1938, when he received a Leica camera as a graduation present. At an early stage, he became aware of the trends in international photography; in the 1940s he subscribed to the US Camera Annual and in this period became familiar with German inter-war photography, which had developed at the Bauhaus and in the Neue Sachlic...

#8567

Abeer Alwan

#132167

Overall Influence

Abeer Alwan is an American electrical engineer and speech processing researcher. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, and vice chair for undergraduate affairs in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

#8568

David Bruce Davidson

#176997

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

David Bruce Davidson is a London-born South African electrical engineer at Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia whose work started in the field of Computational Electromagnetics focussed on the underlying theory and engineering applications of, in particular, finite element methods. In 2012 he was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for contributions to computational electromagnetics. He currently leads the engineering team at the Curtin Institute of Radio Astronomy, part of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research . His current research ...

#8569

Li Hejun

#182004

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Li Hejun is a Chinese engineer specializing in composite material. He an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and formerly served as dean of the School of Materials, Northwestern Polytechnical University. He is a member of the Chinese Materials Research Society , Chinese Society for Composite Materials , and Chinese Society for Metals .

#8570

Renee M. Johnson

#95977

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Renee M. Johnson is an American scientist specializing in the mental health of adolescents and young adults. She researches substance abuse, substance use epidemiology, and violence in marginalized youth including persons of color, LGBTQ, and immigrants. Johnson is an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

#8571

Jonathan L. Foote

#182499

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Jonathan Lipe Foote , is an American architect whose work is associated with the preservation movement in the U.S. He is the founder of Jonathan L. Foote and Associates, Inc., an architecture firm based in Livingston, Montana.

#8572

Anna Paradowska

#181847

Overall Influence

Anna Paradowska is an Australian engineer who is Professor in Advanced Structure Materials at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.

#8573

Shintaro Higashi

#104561

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Shintaro Higashi is a Japanese-American judo competitor and 6th degree black belt in judo for the United States in the 100 kg category. He is the head instructor at the Kokushi Budo Institute, a member of the New York Athletic Club, and a professor at Brooklyn College.

#8574

Francisco Moreno Capdevila

#92670

Overall Influence

1926 - 1995 (69 years)

Francisco Moreno Capdevila was a Mexican artist of Spanish origin, best noted for his engraving and other graphic work. He came to Mexico as a political refugee after the fall of the Republicans in 1939. Unlike other Spanish artists of his generation, he was young when he arrived and did not begin studying or working in art until he was in Mexico. His work generally had cultural and political themes, but also included a portable mural about the fall of Tenochtitlan. This work was at the Museo de la Ciudad de México for thirty years, but today it is at the law school of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

#8575

Dapeng Wu

#182522

Overall Influence

Dapeng Wu is an electrical engineer at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his contributions to video communications, processing, and wireless networking.

#8576

Yuri Suzuki

#132916

Overall Influence

Yuri Suzuki is a Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University. She studies novel ground states and magnetic phenomena. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and an American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellow of the National Science Foundation.

#8577

Ken-ichi Kimura

#182384

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

is a Japanese environmental architect. Kimura's main interests lie in sustainable architecture and engineering. In 1972, he designed a solar-heated house for his family, which attracted public attention after the oil crisis of 1973. Since then, he has designed several more solar houses and conducted studies on energy conservation in buildings, utilization of natural energy sources, and solar heating and cooling. He has also enjoyed a long career in academia, and has authored a variety of publications.

#8578

Terry Amburgey

#182535

Overall Influence

Terry Amburgey is an American engineer, currently a William L. Giles Professor at Mississippi State University and an Elected Fellow of The International Academy of Wood Science.

#8579

Margaret Hyland

#174951

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Margaret Mary Hyland is a Canadian-born chemist based in New Zealand whose research focuses on aluminium technology, and the chemistry and engineering of material surfaces. She moved to New Zealand in 1989 and after holding many senior academic leadership roles supporting and developing research at the faculty, university and national level became recognised as an authority on the generation and capture of fluoride emissions from aluminium smelters and for coordinating the team that produced the 'Fluoride Emissions Management Guide' for the aluminium industry. This achievement was acknowledged when she became the first woman to win the Pickering Medal.

#8580

Norman Seeff

#59766

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Norman Seeff is a photographer and filmmaker. Since moving to the United States in 1969, his work has been focused on the exploration of human creativity and the inner dynamics of the creative process.

#8581

Michael Galperin

#182558

Overall Influence

#8582

Shuvo Roy

#182584

Overall Influence

#8583

Maria Rubert de Ventós

#169691

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Maria Rubert de Ventós is a Spanish architect, winner of the 2004 . Among other works, she was co-designer of the expansion of the Palacio de las Cortes in 1994 and was project director for the Olympic Village on Barcelona's Avinguda Diagonal. In 2011, she became the first female university professor of Urban Planning in Spain.

#8584

Leigh McCue

#181883

Overall Influence

Leigh Shaw McCue-Weil is an American marine engineer who applies computational fluid dynamics to study the nonlinear and chaotic motion of watercraft . She is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at George Mason University, interim chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering there, and former executive director of the American Society of Naval Engineers.

#8585

Lisa Lockerd Maragakis

#182675

Overall Influence

Lisa Lockerd Maragakis is an infectious disease specialist and professor with dual appointments, both at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is also Senior Director of Infection Prevention at the Johns Hopkins Health System as well as the hospital epidemiologist. She is also a designated representative to the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee at the Department of Health and Human Services.

#8586

Ban Tsui

#73984

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Chi Ho Ban Tsui is a Canadian anesthesiologist known for medical innovation in the field of anesthesia. Examples include describing the Tsui Test and developing the StimuLong Sono-Tsui for ease of pediatric epidural placement. Recently along with his son, Dr. Jonathan Jenkin Tsui, Dr. Tsui developed a catheter-over-needle kit allowing a continuous catheter placement to be performed with the ease of a single shot during peripheral nerve blocks.

#8587

Amitava Patra

#182706

Overall Influence

#8588

Paul Taylor

#62676

Overall Influence

1939 - 2021 (82 years)

Paul Taylor was an American engineer, a pioneer in development of telecommunications devices for the deaf . He also enjoyed a kind of celebrity status because of his central role in the award-winning documentary Hear and Now. The film by daughter Irene Taylor Brodsky chronicles the before and after experiences of her parents, Paul and Sally Taylor, both of whom underwent cochlear implant surgeries in their mid-60s after a lifetime of deafness.

#8589

John D. Landis

#182724

Overall Influence

John David Landis is the Crossways Professor of City and Regional Planning and Department Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. Landis attended MIT and UC Berkeley.

#8590

Feng Lin

#182750

Overall Influence

#8591

Ken Gonzales-Day

#137807

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ken Gonzales-Day is a Los Angeles-based conceptual artist best known for interdisciplinary projects that examine the historical construction of race, identity, and systems of representation including lynching photographs, museum display and street art. His widely exhibited "Erased Lynching" photographic series and book, Lynching in the West: 1850-1935 , document the absence in historical accounts of the lynching of Latinos, Native Americans and Asians in California's early history. The series has toured in traveling exhibitions staged by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , Smithsonian Inst...

#8592

Ignacio Provencio

#106392

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Ignacio Provencio is an American neuroscientist and the discoverer of melanopsin, an opsin found in specialized photosensitive ganglion cells of the mammalian retina. Provencio served as the program committee chair of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms from 2008 to 2010.

#8593

Akihiko Kikuchi

#182753

Overall Influence

#8594

Henrik Wenzel

#173682

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Henrik Wenzel is a Danish engineer and head of SDU Life Cycle Engineering at University of Southern Denmark . Career Earlier career Henrik Wenzel was trained as a chemical engineer from the Technical University of Denmark in 1982. After graduation he started his career in the field of Industrial Water Management and Cleantech, first as a case officer in Ringkøbing County, and then as a project manager on biogas R&D, Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy and as chairman of the Board of the Western Jutland Energy and Environment Bureau .

#8595

Byron Jones

#182767

Overall Influence

#8596

Lü Xilin

#181156

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Lü Xilin is a Chinese engineer specializing in concrete structures, prestressed structures and aseismic structures. Biography Lü was born in the town of , Qishan County, Shaanxi, in January 1955. In September 1974, he entered the Xi'an Institute of Metallurgical Architecture , where he graduated in August 1978. Then he earned his M.Eng. degree from Tongji University in 1984 under the supervision of Zhu Bolong . He is the first doctor of engineering trained after the establishment of Tongji University.

#8597

Peter Gray

#113508

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Professor Peter Gray is a bioengineer who has played a key role in the development of modern industrial biotechnology in Australia. He was Professor and Head of Biotechnology at the University of New South Wales , Sydney, from 1988 – 2003, and was the inaugural Director of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia from 2003 – 2015.

#8598

Tunney Lee

#156367

Overall Influence

1931 - 2020 (89 years)

Tunney Lee was an architect, planner, educator, and activist known for his community engagement work primarily in Chinatown, Boston. Lee was a professor emeritus of urban planning and a former head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning within the MIT School of Architecture and Planning. He is also known as the founder of the Department of Architecture at The Chinese University of Hong Kong , now called the School of Architecture. Lee also maintained a career in public service as chief of planning and design for the Boston Redevelopment Authority and deputy commissioner of the state Division of Capital Planning and Operations under Governor Michael S.

#8599

Sonia Hirt

#139965

Overall Influence

Sonia Anguelova Hirt is a professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning and dean in the College of Environment + Design at the University of Georgia. Academic career After training as an architect at the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in her hometown of Sofia, Hirt earned masters and doctoral degrees from the Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 2003 she became an assistant professor at the University of Toledo College of Languages, Literature and Social Sciences, and moved the next year to another assistant professorship at Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies.

#8600

Niels Quack

#176227

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Niels Quack is a Swiss and German engineer specialized in optical micro engineering. He is a SNSF professor at EPFL and director of the Photonic Micro- and Nanosystems Laboratory at its school of engineering.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions