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,
#8801
Chi Chia-fen
#175270
Overall Influence
Chia-fen Christine Chi is a Taiwanese industrial engineer. Chi Chia-fen earned her bachelor's of science degree from the Tunghai University Department of Industrial Engineering. She completed master's and doctoral studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Chi became a professor at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology in 1998, and was named a distinguished professor in 2012. Prior to her appointment to a distinguished professorship, Chi served as chair of the industrial management department from 2008 to 2010, associate dean of the school of management between 2010 and 2011, and dean of international affairs from 2011 to 2013.
Go to Profile#8802
Adrienne Stiff-Roberts
#173606
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Adrienne Stiff-Roberts is an American electrical engineering and Jeffrey N. Vinik Professor of Electrical and computer engineering at Duke University. Her research is on novel hybrid materials for optoelectronic and energy devices.
Go to Profile#8803
William Wasswa
#177161
Overall Influence
1990 - Present (36 years)
William Wasswa is a Ugandan lecturer, engineer and researcher. He serves as a senior lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering at Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda.
Go to Profile#8804
Thomas Kelly
#185762
Overall Influence
#8805
Dmitry Chizhik
#185777
Overall Influence
Dmitry Chizhik is an electrical engineer at Bell Labs in Holmdel, New Jersey. Chizhik was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for contributions to wireless channel modeling.
Go to Profile#8806
Mario Silveirinha
#185779
Overall Influence
Mário G. Silveirinha is a professor of electrical engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico - University of Lisbon, and a senior researcher at Instituto de Telecomunicações, in Portugal. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for contributions to electrodynamics of metamaterials. He was chosen as the 2018 recipient of the IET Harvey Engineering Research Prize for his outstanding contributions to research in the field of Radar and Microwave Engineering, specifically in the electrodynamics of metamaterials and its applications to microwave components and devices.
Go to Profile#8807
Harrison Wadsworth Jr.
#184671
Overall Influence
1924 - 2010 (86 years)
Harrison Morton Wadsworth Jr. was an American engineering professor of statistical methods, author and specialist in quality control science. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, he grew up in Miami Beach, Florida and lived most of his life in Atlanta, Georgia. Wadsworth received his B.I.E. Degree and M.S. Degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his PhD from Case Western Reserve University. He was a professor of statistics in the Industrial and Systems Engineering Department at the Georgia Institute of Technology from 1960 through 1991, and taught in China and Turkey. He operated his own quality auditing consulting business upon retiring in 1991.
Go to Profile#8808
Joseph T. C. Liu
#137676
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Joseph Tsu Chieh Liu is an engineer. Liu completed a bachelor's degree, followed by a Master of Science in Engineering, at the University of Michigan in 1958. He worked for a Convair for a year and was based in Fort Worth, Texas, before pursuing a doctorate at the California Institute of Technology in 1964. Liu subsequently worked for the Gas Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University's Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences. He joined the Brown University faculty in 1966, and upon his retirement, was granted emeritus status. Liu was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society...
Go to Profile#8809
Adrienne Lavine
#185723
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Adrienne S. Lavine is an American mechanical engineer specializing in heat transfer, thermal energy, and energy storage, and known as a coauthor of several widely used textbooks on heat transfer. She is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, director of the UCLA Modeling of Complex Thermal Systems Laboratory, and a former associate vice provost at UCLA.
Go to Profile#8810
Naia Butler-Craig
#132773
Overall Influence
Naia Butler-Craig is a science communicator and an American aerospace engineer. Early life and education As of 2022, she is a NASA Space Technology Graduate Research fellow in the High-Power Electric Propulsion Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She joined Georgia Tech to pursue her doctoral research on electric propulsion after graduating from Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University and working in the Space and Science Technology Systems Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center.
Go to Profile#8811
George E. Moore
#105771
Overall Influence
1920 - 2008 (88 years)
George Eugene Moore was an American doctor and cancer researcher notable for his discovery of the link between chewing tobacco and mouth cancer. He was head of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. He was the author of two books and more than 700 papers.
Go to Profile#8812
Jingming Xu
#162624
Overall Influence
Jingming "Jimmy" Xu is an engineer, currently the Charles C. Tillinghast '32 University Professor at Brown University and Chang-Jiang Chair in Physics at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, also having been the James Ham Chair in Optoelectronics and Nortel Professor of Emerging Technology at University of Toronto . He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, IEEE, American Physical Society and Institute of Physics.
Go to Profile#8813
Eddie Gilbert
#93062
Overall Influence
1961 - 1995 (34 years)
Thomas Edward Gilbert Jr. better known by his ring name "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert, was an American professional wrestler and booker. Gilbert started his wrestling career for the Continental Wrestling Association in 1977, using the ring name Tommy Gilbert Jr. and winning the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship with his father in 1980. He later moved to the World Wrestling Federation in 1982, working a storyline as the protégé of Bob Backlund until leaving the company in 1984. He found his greatest success in Memphis, teaming with Tommy Rich to form “Fargo’s Fabulous Ones” and winning the AWA Southern Tag Team Championship.
Go to Profile#8814
Ian Edward Smith
#185915
Overall Influence
#8815
Susan Bright
#92013
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Susan Bright is a British writer and curator of photography, specializing in how photography is made, disseminated and interpreted. She has curated exhibitions internationally at institutions including: Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery in London and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago amongst others.
Go to Profile#8816
Ralph W. Conant
#75171
Overall Influence
1926 - Present (100 years)
Ralph Wendell Conant was a writer and researcher in the areas of social policy, metropolitan governance, and regional planning. Conant is also the former president of Shimer College and Unity College.
Go to Profile#8817
Ana Miljacki
#182521
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Ana Miljački is a historian, theorist, educator and curator of architecture. She is an Associate Professor of Architecture at MIT where she directs the Critical Broadcasting Lab, the Architecture and Urbanism Group and the Master of Architecture Program.
Go to Profile#8818
Norbert Prangenberg
#172027
Overall Influence
1949 - 2012 (63 years)
Norbert Prangenberg was an abstract painter, sculptor, and engraver who was born in Nettseheim, just outside of Cologne, Germany. Though he had no formal training and did not fully engage with art until his 30s, Prangenberg did finally come up with a style that was uniquely his own, not fitting comfortably into the neo-expressionist or neo-geo movements of his time, in the 1970s and 1980s. At this time, he was considered a major figure in contemporary German art. Though he got his start with abstract paintings, he also became known for making sculptures of all sizes; and while his work initially appears abstract, the titles given sometimes allude to the human body or a landscape.
Go to Profile#8819
Margaret Burnham Geddes
#109038
Overall Influence
1907 - 1995 (88 years)
Margaret Burnham Geddes was an American architect, urban planner, and activist who worked in Providence, Rhode Island. She designed several early modernist houses in southern New England with partner J. Peter Geddes and worked as a planner for the Providence Redevelopment Agency.
Go to Profile#8820
Dominique Guinard
#180813
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Dominique "Dom" Guinard is the CTO of EVRYTHNG. He is a technologist, entrepreneur and developer with a career dedicated to building the Internet of Things both in the cloud and on embedded Things. He is particularly known for his early contributions to the Web of Things along with other researchers such as Vlad Trifa, Erik Wilde and Friedemann Mattern. Guinard is a published researcher, a book author and a recognized expert in Internet of Things technologies
Go to Profile#8821
Richard M. Murray
#185979
Overall Influence
#8822
Sanjay Raman
#175462
Overall Influence
Sanjay Raman is an electrical engineer. He is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech, where he is also associate vice president of Virginia Tech in the National Capital Region. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his work on adaptive microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits.
Go to Profile#8823
Zhang Siying
#171999
Overall Influence
1925 - 2019 (94 years)
Zhang Siying was a Chinese automatic control specialist, a professor and doctoral supervisor of Qingdao University, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences . Biography Zhang was born in Zhangqiu County, Shandong, on 5 April 1925. He elementary studied at Provincial No.1 Middle School in Ji'nan and secondary studied at Beijing Chongshi High School. In 1944, he was accepted to Wuhan University, where he graduated in August 1948.
Go to Profile#8824
Georgios Ginis
#180874
Overall Influence
Georgios Ginis is an electrical engineer with ASSIA, Inc. in San Mateo, California. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for his contributions to transmission optimization in digital subscriber loops.
Go to Profile#8825
Brooke E. Sheldon
#101001
Overall Influence
1931 - 2013 (82 years)
Brooke E. Sheldon was an American librarian and educator who served as the president of the American Library Association from 1983 to 1984. Career Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Sheldon also grew up in Nova Scotia. She graduated from Cambridge High and Latin School in Cambridge, Massachusetts before returning to Nova Scotia to attend Acadia University as an undergraduate. She earned her master's degree in library science from Simmons College and a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh. She worked as a librarian at the Detroit Public Library, the Albuquerque Public Library, the Santa Fe...
Go to Profile#8826
James Dunwoody
#179046
Overall Influence
James Dunwoody was a university professor of mathematical engineering. James Dunwoody was born in Belfast in October 1935. He attended St. Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Belfast, and then Queen's University Belfast, from which he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. He worked for a period as an apprentice aircraft engineer at Short Brothers before returning to Queen's, where he obtained a PhD in computational fluid dynamics. He moved to Canada, where he became a professor of applied mechanics at the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#8827
Zhen Lei
#186026
Overall Influence
#8828
William E. Kerstetter
#102570
Overall Influence
1913 - 1996 (83 years)
William E. Kerstetter was president of DePauw University and earlier of Simpson College. Kerstetter had a bachelor's degree from Dickinson College. He had a Ph.D. from Boston University. He was an ordained Methodist minister who spent most of his career in academia. Before he became president of Simpson College he was a professor of philosophy at Hamline University.
Go to Profile#8829
Donald Weber
#75310
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Donald Weber is a literary critic and a specialist in Jewish American literature and film studies. He is the Lucia, Ruth, and Elizabeth MacGregor Professor of English and Chair of the English department at Mount Holyoke College.
Go to Profile#8830
C. V. Sridhar
#70700
Overall Influence
1933 - 2008 (75 years)
Chitthamoor Vijayaraghavalu Sridhar was an Indian screenwriter and film director. He has directed nearly 60 films in Tamil, Hindi and Telugu Languages. Career Entry In 1951, 18-year-old Sridhar went to AVM Productions with his story Latchiyavathi but P. Neelakantan rejected his story. Avvai T. K. Shanmugam was very much impressed by the story and Sridhar wrote the screenplay and dialogues for the drama. It was staged as Raththa Paasam and was one of the most successful dramas staged by TKS brothers. Sridhar was proudly taken to the stage and introduced to the audience as the writer. It was l...
Go to Profile#8831
Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue
#173109
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue is a French control theorist, retired from the French National Centre for Scientific Research as an emeritus distinguished research fellow. Education and career Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue was born on Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue31 December 1953 in Toulouse. She earned a master's degree in mathematics through Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse in 1976, and then moved to Paris-Sud University, where she earned a diplôme d'études approfondies in signal processing in 1978, a PhD in 1980, and a habilitation in 1985.
Go to Profile#8832
Hilary Bart-Smith
#185573
Overall Influence
Hilary Bart-Smith is a Scottish mechanical engineer known for her work on biologically inspired structures including robot fish. She is professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of Virginia, where she is the founder of both the Multifunctional Materials and Structures Laboratory and the Bio-inspired Engineering Research Laboratory.
Go to Profile#8833
Chris Ray
#186067
Overall Influence
#8834
Craig McCracken
#5928
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Craig Douglas McCracken is an American cartoonist, animator, director, writer, and producer known for creating the Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Disney Channel and Disney XD's Wander Over Yonder and Netflix's Kid Cosmic.
Go to Profile#8835
Raffaello D'Andrea
#182460
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Raffaello D’Andrea is a Canadian-Italian-Swiss engineer, artist, and entrepreneur. He is professor of dynamic systems and control at ETH Zurich. He is a co-founder of Kiva Systems , and the founder of Verity, an innovator in autonomous drones. He was the faculty advisor and system architect of the Cornell Robot Soccer Team, four time world champions at the annual RoboCup competition. He is a new media artist, whose work includes The Table, the Robotic Chair, and Flight Assembled Architecture. In 2013, D’Andrea co-founded ROBO Global, which launched the world's first exchange traded fund focused entirely on the them of robotics and AI.
Go to Profile#8836
Antonios Zavaliangos
#186083
Overall Influence
Antonios Zavaliangos is an American material scientist and engineer, and currently the A. W. Grosvenor professor at Drexel University. He is also a published author. Zavaliangos is also the Director of the CMSE Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need, Director of GAANN-Pharma, and Co-Director of the Drexel Research Experiences in Advanced Materials NSF REU Site.
Go to Profile#8837
María Eugenia Hurtado Azpeitia
#183581
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
María Eugenia Hurtado Azpeitia is a Mexican architect. She is the coordinator of the Carlos Leduc M. Workstop of the Faculty of Architecture at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Biography María Eugenia Hurtado Azpeitia graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico with a Bachelor's and later Master's degree. She began her career in the last year of her university education in the field of landscape architecture on a road and alpine lodge being constructed in Ajusco. After finishing her degree, Azpeitia was invited by architect Carlos González Lobo to work at Espacio M...
Go to Profile#8838
Malcolm Lewis Heron
#186100
Overall Influence
Malcolm Lewis Heron is an electrical engineer at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Heron has a doctorate from the University of Auckland, completed in 1971, on refraction of satellite signals.
Go to Profile#8839
Wang Qi
#185595
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Wang Qi is a Chinese engineer who is a professor at Sichuan University and director of the State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Go to Profile#8840
Ronald D. Guttmann
#106324
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Ronald D. Guttmann MD, FRCPC, FCAHS, was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1936 and received his post secondary school education at the University of Minnesota, receiving a B.A. Magna Cum Laude in 1958, and a B.S. and M.D. degree in 1961. He did his Medical Internship at the University of California San Francisco, military service in the USNR at the Tissue Bank , National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Medical Residency on the II & IV Medical Service at Boston City Hospital, and a Research & Clinical Fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In 1969, he was ap...
Go to Profile#8841
F. Drew Gaffney
#35006
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Francis Andrew "Drew" Gaffney is an American doctor and former astronaut. He previously worked for NASA and participated in the STS-40 Space Life Sciences Space Shuttle mission in 1991 as a payload specialist.
Go to Profile#8842
Scott Hensley
#185744
Overall Influence
Scott Hensley is an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for his contributions to radar remote sensing of the Earth and planetary bodies, and advancements in interferometric synthetic-aperture radar.
Go to Profile#8843
Randall Crane
#118010
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Randall Crane is an American urban planner who is professor emeritus of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, where he taught since 1999. He was associate then editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Planning Association, chair of the executive committee and director of Undergraduate Studies of the Luskin School, associate and acting director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and department vice chair and director of PhD studies of the urban planning department, among other cross-campus administrative appointments.
Go to Profile#8844
Edith Pfau
#72073
Overall Influence
1915 - 2001 (86 years)
Sister Edith Pfau, S.P., was an American painter, sculptor, and art educator known for her religious works and commissions. Born Alberta Henrietta Pfau in Jasper, Indiana, she began drawing at a very early age. Later in her life she recalled, "I always was attracted to faces. I find faces everywhere, even in scribbles on the wall."
Go to Profile#8845
Andor Gomme
#97363
Overall Influence
1930 - 2008 (78 years)
Austin Harvey Gomme known as Andor Gomme was a British scholar of English literature and architectural history. He was a frequent reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement, an author of books on both literary criticism and architectural history, and Chairman of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, whose journal, Architectural History, he edited for many years.
Go to Profile#8846
Abraham Rogatnick
#180519
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
Abraham Jedidiah Rogatnick was an American-born Canadian architect and professor. Early life Rogatnick was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He graduated in 1952 from Harvard with two degrees studying under Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School.
Go to Profile#8847
Dick Clark
#179106
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
#8848
Brad R. Roth
#107771
Overall Influence
Brad Richard Roth is a professor of political science and law at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Biography His research has focused on international law, political theory, and human rights. He received a B.A. from Swarthmore College, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He has been described by James Gathii as a neoconservative realist in reference to Roth's book Governmental Illegitimacy in International Law.. This description has been rejected by Roth in his response to Gathii's review. Roth a...
Go to Profile#8849
Alireza Afzalipour
#174378
Overall Influence
1909 - 1993 (84 years)
Alireza Afzalipour was an Iranian engineer, businessman and philanthropist who is known as the founder of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman because of his financial support and outstanding donation to Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman as well as Kerman Medical University. He died aged 84 in 1993.
Go to Profile#8850
Chris J. K. Williams
#130558
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Christopher John Kenneth Williams is a British structural engineer and researcher who has specialised in the relationship between geometry and structural action. He works on a range of building types including thin-shell structures, gridshells and tension structures, as well as bridges and towers.
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