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,
#8851
Roger Kemp
#178197
Overall Influence
Roger John Kemp is a professorial fellow in engineering at Lancaster University. He was engineering manager for the Docklands Light Railway in London and managed the design and development team at Eurostar.
Go to Profile#8852
Tapio Saramäki
#122266
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Tapio Antero Saramäki is a Finnish electrical engineer and professor emeritus. He is a pioneer in Finnish digital signal processing since 1981. His diploma engineer thesis and doctor of technology thesis were the first digital signal processing theses in Tampere University of Technology.
Go to Profile#8853
Nachman Ash
#46806
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Nachman Ash is an Israeli physician who is currently the director-general of the Ministry of Health. Early life and education Nachman Ash was born in 1961. Ash received his medical degree from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University in 1986. In 1997, he completed a residency in internal medicine at the Sheba Medical Center.
Go to Profile#8854
Garson Kanin
#39621
Overall Influence
1912 - 1999 (87 years)
Garson Kanin was an American writer and director of plays and films. Early life Garson Kanin was born in Rochester, New York; his Jewish family later relocated to Detroit then to New York City. He attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn, dropping out to take up a career on the theatre stage. He subsequently became a professional saxophone player and leader of his own band that went by the name Garson Kanin and His Red Hot Peppers. During this period, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts pursuing an acting career.
Go to Profile#8855
Clifton C. Edom
#47248
Overall Influence
1907 - 1991 (84 years)
Clifton Cedric Edom , often credited with the title "Father of Photojournalism", was prolific in the development of photojournalism education. Biography Edom was born in Baylis, Illinois. After receiving a teaching certificate from the Western Illinois State Teachers College, now Western Illinois University, in 1925, he attended a Linotype school and worked for several newspapers. He married Vilia Clarissa "Vi" Patefield on June 30, 1928, and the couple bought the weekly Edgar News in Edgar, Wisconsin, working with it until 1930 when Edom began work with the Wausau Record-Herald in Wausau, Wi...
Go to Profile#8856
Walter Rosenblum
#71033
Overall Influence
1919 - 2006 (87 years)
Walter A. Rosenblum was an American photographer. He photographed the World War II D-Day landing at Normandy in 1944. He was the first Allied photographer to enter the liberated Dachau concentration camp. He received several military decorations including a Purple Heart. His photography is on display in museums around the world.
Go to Profile#8857
Paula Isabel da Silva Moreira
#81893
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Paula Isabel da Silva Moreira is a neuroscientist and Assistant Professor of Physiology at the University of Coimbra. Moreira is recognized in the field of Alzheimer's disease research particularly for her work on bioenergetics.
Go to Profile#8858
Scott Haraburda
#120566
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Scott Stanley Haraburda is an American soldier, engineer, inventor, and 2nd dan judoka. In addition to making key contributions to the development of heat exchangers and spacecraft propulsion, he led a team of military officers in 2007 to Kuwait to correct many of the contingency contracting problems identified by the Gansler Commission. He is known nationally as the president of the Indiana Society of Professional Engineers who led the opposition to a state governmental panel recommendation in 2015 to eliminate licensing of engineers in Indiana.
Go to Profile#8859
Emma Kendrick
#179379
Overall Influence
Emma Kendrick is Professor of Energy Materials at the University of Birmingham where her work is focused on new materials for batteries and fuel cells. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.
Go to Profile#8860
Rudy Burckhardt
#82148
Overall Influence
1914 - 1999 (85 years)
Rudy Burckhardt was a Swiss-American filmmaker, and photographer, known for his photographs of the hand-painted billboards that began to dominate the American landscape in the 1940s and 1950s. He was married to Edith Schloss and Yvonne Jacquette. His youngest son is artist Tom Burckhardt.
Go to Profile#8861
Jane Alden Stevens
#166111
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Jane Alden Stevens is an American photographer and educator. Solo exhibitions of her work have been mounted at the ARC Gallery in Chicago, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY, and the Pittsburgh Filmmakers Gallery. She has exhibited extensively abroad, including in Finland, Ukraine, Belgium, Germany, and Brazil. Stevens’ photographs are included in the permanent collections of the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, NY, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Museu da Imagem e do Som in São Paulo, Brazil. She is Professor Emerita of Fine A...
Go to Profile#8862
Hessam Nowzari
#37642
Overall Influence
Hessam Nowzari is the Director of the University of Southern California Advanced Periodontics program, since 1995, and is a diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology. Biography Nowzari was born in Shiraz, Iran and was the youngest director at the University of Southern California Advanced Periodontics program where he established a program that mirror's Nowzari's stances on key issues in periodontology.
Go to Profile#8863
Jonathan Holloway
#61549
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Jonathan Holloway is an English theatre director and playwright. He founded and directed two professional companies in British fringe and touring theatre in the 1980s and 1990s, notably Red Shift Theatre Company. His work has won three Edinburgh Fringe First awards , the Shakespeare Prize at Chile's World Festival of Theatre in 1993, and in 2013 his BBC version of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four won a First Prize at the Prix Italia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and in 2005 he was made an Honorary Fellow of St Mary's University, Twickenham.
Go to Profile#8864
Bilge Yıldız
#151532
Overall Influence
Bilge Yıldız is a Professor of Nuclear Science, Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She develops new materials for energy conversion in harsh environments. These include solid oxide fuel cells and corrosion-resistant materials for nuclear energy regeneration.
Go to Profile#8865
Zafer Kızılkaya
#170894
Overall Influence
Zafer Ali Kızılkaya is a Turkish marine advocate and engineer who is credited for expanding marine protected areas along Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Kızılkaya was born in Ankara in 1969. Growing up, he watched Jacques Cousteau documentaries which inspired his admiration for the sea. He has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Middle East Technical University. After graduating from college, Kızılkaya took interest in commercial deep sea diving and underwater photography. He took his interests to the Pacific Ocean and spent many years exploring its waters while being a marine photographer and researcher in Indonesia.
Go to Profile#8866
Wayne Jones
#55300
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Wayne Jones is an English professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation tournaments. He uses the nickname The Wanderer for his matches. Career Jones started his career in the British Darts Organisation in the late 1980s and reached the final of the British Open in 1990
Go to Profile#8867
Zemin Wang
#186480
Overall Influence
#8868
Jane Aaron
#88070
Overall Influence
1948 - 2015 (67 years)
Jane Frances Aaron was an American filmmaker and children's book illustrator, best known for her work on Between the Lions and Sesame Street. Aaron mixed live-action shots and animated images to teach children the alphabet, counting skills, and opposites, such as front and back or full and empty.
Go to Profile#8869
Milt Hinton
#66852
Overall Influence
1910 - 2000 (90 years)
Milton John Hinton was an American double bassist and photographer. Regarded as the Dean of American jazz bass players, his nicknames included "Sporty" from his years in Chicago, "Fump" from his time on the road with Cab Calloway, and "The Judge" from the 1950s and beyond. Hinton's recording career lasted over 60 years, mostly in jazz but also with a variety of other genres as a prolific session musician.
Go to Profile#8870
David Pruiksma
#91158
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
David "Dave" Pruiksma is an American Disney animator best known for his work at The Walt Disney Company and occasionally other studios. Early life and education Pruiksma was born and raised in Falls Church, Virginia where he attended J.E.B. Stuart High School. He graduated in 1975. He then studied art at the Pratt Institute in New York for two years. He left to attend California Institute of the Arts where he received a degree in character animation in 1981.
Go to Profile#8871
Gagik Shmavonyan
#143358
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Gagik Shmavonyan is Professor at National Polytechnic University of Armenia, PhD in physics, D.Sc. in Engineering., Senior Consultant at Zhejiang Jianhu Foreign Experts Development Company , Consultant at Nanolabs , Expert at Malta Council for Science and Technology, Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation, European Cooperation in Science and Technology and Science Committee of Armenia, as well as President of NanoHiTech Association .
Go to Profile#8872
Cheng-lin Liu
#186556
Overall Influence
#8873
Daniel MacIvor
#108674
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Daniel MacIvor is a Canadian actor, playwright, theatre director, and film director. He is probably best known for his acting roles in independent films and the sitcom Twitch City. Personal MacIvor was born in Sydney, Nova Scotia and educated at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and then at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario. MacIvor is openly gay. He married Paul Goulet in 2006; they have since divorced. He has an Italian Greyhound, called 'Buddy'. In 2021, MacIvor earned an MA in Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#8874
Tao Lin
#186581
Overall Influence
#8875
Joshua Jacobs
#186590
Overall Influence
#8876
Stanisław Tochowicz
#175864
Overall Influence
1923 - 1994 (71 years)
Stanisław Tochowicz was a Polish metallurgist, professor of technical sciences, professor and Director of the Institute of Metallurgy of the Silsesian Polytechnic, prorector of the Silsesian Polytechnic, professor and Head of the Department of Metallurgy of Steel at the Częstochowa Polytechnic.
Go to Profile#8877
Mitra Dutta
#118603
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Mitra Dutta is an Indian-American physicist and electronics engineer known for her research on optoelectronics. She is a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the university's former vice chancellor for research.
Go to Profile#8878
Christen A. Smith
#118139
Overall Influence
Christen A. Smith is an associate professor of anthropology and African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and the director of the university's Center for Women’s and Gender Studies. She is also the founder of Cite Black Women.
Go to Profile#8879
Jack Bauerle
#58885
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Jack Bauerle is the former head coach of the University of Georgia men's and women's swimming teams. At the end of his coaching career, Bauerle finished his 42nd year as a head coach for the UGA women's team and his 35th year as men's head coach. Bauerle began coaching the women's team in 1979 and later became head coach for the men's team as well in 1983. He has three children, John, Magill, and Duke, who have followed in Jack's footsteps.
Go to Profile#8880
Diane Thiede Rover
#177806
Overall Influence
Diane Thiede Rover is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State University. She was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 "for contributions to active learning methods in engineering education".
Go to Profile#8881
Chris Buck
#84117
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Christopher James Buck is an American film director, animator, and screenwriter known for co-directing Tarzan , Surf's Up , Frozen , which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2014, and Frozen II . He also worked as a supervising animator and story artist on Pocahontas and Home on the Range .
Go to Profile#8882
Peter Baines
#155477
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Peter George Baines is an Australian geophysicist. He is an honorary senior fellow at University of Melbourne and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria. Baines has published over 150 research articles and is the author of Topographic Effects in Stratified Flows, published in 1995 . His major research areas include climate dynamics on the decadal time scale, volcano dynamics and Rossby wave hydraulics.
Go to Profile#8883
Donald H. Sinnott
#185624
Overall Influence
Donald Hugh Sinnott is an Australian engineer and academic notable in the area of radar. His expertise is in applied electromagnetics, including radio and radar systems, antennas and radio propagation, signal processing and global navigation satellite systems . He played a major role in development of Australia's Jindalee over-the-horizon radar system.
Go to Profile#8884
Tao Ho
#39431
Overall Influence
1936 - 2019 (83 years)
Tao Ho was a Hong Kong architect best known for designing the Bauhinia emblem on the flag of Hong Kong. Background Born in Shanghai in 1936 to Ping Yin Ho and Chin Hwa, Ho grew up with elder brother Chien and younger sister Diana. He graduated from Pui Ching Middle School and went on to receive a BA in art history with a minor in music and theology at Williams College in Massachusetts. Then, he studied for his MArch at Harvard's Graduate School of Design under the tutelage of Josep Lluís Sert, Sigfried Giedion, and Walter Gropius, the latter of whom hired Ho upon graduation as his personal a...
Go to Profile#8885
Wen Chuanyuan
#181304
Overall Influence
1918 - 2019 (101 years)
Wen Chuanyuan was a Chinese aeronautical and automation engineer. He was a professor and co-founder of the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering at Beihang University. He developed China's first unmanned aerial vehicle in 1959 and first flight simulator in 1983. He was awarded the State Science and Technology Progress Award in 1985.
Go to Profile#8886
Martin Casado
#169056
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Martín Casado is a Spanish-born American software engineer, entrepreneur, and investor. He is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and was a pioneer of software-defined networking, and a co-founder of Nicira Networks.
Go to Profile#8887
Larrie Ferreiro
#176983
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Larrie D. Ferreiro is a naval architect and historian. Early life He was born and raised on Long Island, New York, United States. His great-grandfather was an immigrant from Galicia, Spain. Career He completed his Ph.D at Imperial College London in 2004. He did his M.Sc. and BSE in Naval Architecture.
Go to Profile#8888
Jan Van Humbeeck
#186745
Overall Influence
#8889
Abbas El-Zein
#180141
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Abbas El-Zein is an Australian writer and academic. He is the author of two acclaimed works of fiction – a novel, Tell the Running Water and a collection of short stories, The Secret Maker of the World – as well as an award-winning memoir, Leave to Remain, about growing up in civil-war Lebanon and migrating to Europe and Australia. He has published essays and articles on war, displacement and environmental decline. His work has appeared in the New York Times the Guardian the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, as well as literary magazines Meanjin, Heat and Overland. His work is a manifestation o...
Go to Profile#8890
Robert B. Bradley
#86740
Overall Influence
Robert B. Bradley is the Vice President for Planning and Programs at Florida State University. Bradley is in charge of the university’s budget and is responsible for academic planning. He also serves as Director of the Institute of Science and Public Affairs . He is also a professor at the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy.
Go to Profile#8891
Henry G. Dietz
#186842
Overall Influence
Henry Gordon Dietz is an American electrical engineer and currently the James F. Hardymon Chair professor in Engineering and Networking at the University of Kentucky, an endowed professorship from Textron's CEO. Dietz is also a published author.
Go to Profile#8892
Birgit Jürgenssen
#113460
Overall Influence
1949 - 2003 (54 years)
Birgit Jürgenssen was an Austrian photographer, painter, graphic artist, curator and teacher who specialized in feminine body art with self-portraits and photo series, which have revealed a sequence of events related to the daily social life of a woman in its various forms including an atmosphere of shocking fear and common prejudices. She was acclaimed as one of the "outstanding international representatives of the feminist avant-garde". She lived in Vienna. Apart from holding solo exhibitions of her photographic and other art works, she also taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna a...
Go to Profile#8893
Alberto Gorbatt
#186897
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Alberto Gorbatt is an architect at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Planning at the University of Buenos Aires. Biography In 1996, Gorbatt founded ARQA, the first Open Community of Architecture, Design and Construction in Latin America.
Go to Profile#8894
Chris Butler
#134516
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Chris Butler is an English animator, writer and director, known for his works at Laika, such as ParaNorman and Missing Link, which were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Go to Profile#8895
Judith Crist
#74258
Overall Influence
1922 - 2012 (90 years)
Judith Crist was an American film critic and academic. She appeared regularly on the Today show from 1964 to 1973 and was among the first full-time female critics for a major American newspaper, in her case, The New York Herald Tribune. She was the founding film critic at New York magazine and became known to most Americans as a critic at the weekly magazine TV Guide and at the morning TV show Today. She appeared in one film, Woody Allen's dramatic-comedy film Stardust Memories , and was the author of various books, including The Private Eye, The Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl; Judith Crist's...
Go to Profile#8896
Paul Russell
#186941
Overall Influence
#8897
Boris Berezovsky
#82774
Overall Influence
1946 - 2013 (67 years)
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky , also known as Platon Elenin, was a Russian business oligarch, government official, engineer and mathematician and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He had the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.
Go to Profile#8898
Susan Lepri
#184520
Overall Influence
Susan Lepri is an American space scientist and is currently Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. She led development of portions of the Heavy Ion Sensor which was launched onboard the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter mission in February 2020. She has been director of the University of Michigan Space Physics Research Laboratory since 2021.
Go to Profile#8899
Paul Thompson
#71144
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Paul Thompson O.C. is a Canadian playwright and theatre director. Best known for his term as artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto, Ontario from 1970 to 1982, Thompson was known for pioneering techniques of collective creation, in which actors, playwrights and directors would collaborate on the creation of a play through field research and acting improvisations. Plays on which Thompson was credited as a primary or collaborating writer during this era included Doukhobors , The Farm Show , 1837: The Farmers' Revolt , I Love You, Baby Blue , Far As the Eye Can See and Maggie an...
Go to Profile#8900
Jing Kong
#186979
Overall Influence
