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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Clear Form

List of the most influential people in Engineering,

#9151

John Goto

#181676
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John Glithero , better known as John Goto, was a British photographic artist. His work addresses a range of historical, cultural and socio-political subject areas, often using a satirical approach. Biography John Glithero was born in Stockport on 11 February 1949. As an artist, he adopted the name John Goto. His first one-man exhibition, Goto, Photographs 1971-81, was held at The Photographer's Gallery in London in 1981. Other solo shows include Terezin, at the Raab Gallery, Berlin, in 1988; The Scar, Manchester City Museum and Art Gallery, 1993; The Commissar of Space, Modern Art, Oxford, 199...
Go to Profile
#9152

Marc A. Franklin

#74662
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Marc A. Franklin was an American lawyer and pioneer in the field of mass media law and regulation, and he was the Frederick I. Richman Professor of Law, Emeritus at Stanford Law School. He was author of a case book on mass media law and the lead co-author of one on torts.
Go to Profile
#9153

Behzad Razavi

#189886
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#9154

Bambang Hero Saharjo

Bambang Hero Saharjo
#122075
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Dr. Bambang Hero Saharjo is an Indonesian fire forensics specialist and Professor of the Environment and Forest Fires at Bogor Agricultural University. In 2019, he won the Sense About Science John Maddox award for his work to prevent companies, particularly those of the palm oil industry, from using illegal methods of land clearance in Indonesia.
Go to Profile
#9155

Charles E. Dagit Jr.

#186797
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Charles E. Dagit Jr. is a contemporary American architect, artist, writer and professor. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects residing in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Dagit has taught architectural design for 40 years at Temple University, and Drexel University, and has been a visiting critic and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Syracuse University.
Go to Profile
#9156

Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Arno Rafael Minkkinen
#62705
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Arno Rafael Minkkinen is a Finnish-American photographer who works in the United States. Published and exhibited worldwide, Minkkinen's work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Finnish Museum of Photography.
Go to Profile
#9157

Theresa Utlaut

#172949
Overall Influence
Theresa Lynn Utlaut is an American statistician, and a principal engineer at the Intel Corporation, where she develops statistical methods for Intel's microprocessor and integrated circuit manufacturing processes, as well as providing statistical consultation and training. She is also a user of the JMP statistical software package and its scripting language, and a coauthor of the book JSL Companion: Applications of the JMP® Scripting Language.
Go to Profile
#9158

Patrick Farrell

#177304
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Patrick Farrell is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American photojournalist for the Miami Herald. His images from a brutal hurricane season in Haiti won the 2009, Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. The Pulitzer Prize jurors described his package of 19 black-and-white photographs as "provocative, impeccably composed images of despair after Hurricane Ike and other lethal storms caused a humanitarian disaster in Haiti." Titled A People in Despair: Haiti's Year Without Mercy, the photos ranged from the flooded streets of Gonaives and the aftermath of a storm-related school collapse in Port-au...
Go to Profile
#9159

Mark Kirkland

Mark Kirkland
#22467
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Mark Kirkland is an American animation director. He has directed 84 episodes of The Simpsons since 1990, more than any other director. Career At the age of 13, Kirkland began making super 8 films and working for his father, noted photographer and filmmaker Douglas Kirkland, creating “making of” films for major production companies. This exposure to Hollywood sparked Kirkland's desire to seek a career in the entertainment industry. Kirkland developed an interest in drawing at an early age. At the age of 17, he began studying in the Experimental Animation Program at the California Institute of the Arts for four years, earning a BFA degree.
Go to Profile
#9160

Silvia Bächli

#133826
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Silvia Bächli is a Swiss visual artist, photographer, and educator. She works primarily in painting and drawing. She has taught art at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe since 1993. Biography Silvia Bächli was born on 16 March 1956 in Wettingen, Baden District, Aargau, Switzerland. She attended Haute École d'Arts Appliques de Bâle, and École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Genève.
Go to Profile
#9161

Jason Hill

#189966
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#9162

Kaushik Ganguly

Kaushik Ganguly
#172048
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Kaushik Ganguly is an Indian film director, screenwriter and actor in Bengali cinema. Multiple National Film Awards winner Actor-Director, Kaushik Ganguly is known for making films that explore various aspects sexuality, like Ushnatar Janye , which deals with a lesbian relationship, and Arekti Premer Golpo , which examines transgender identity & Nagarkirtan , an LGBTQ Movie. In 2019, Film Companion ranked Ridhi Sen's performance in Nagarkirtan which was directed by Ganguly, among 100 Greatest Performances of the decade.
Go to Profile
#9163

Bonny L. Schumaker

#155925
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Bonny Laura Schumaker is an American physicist and pilot who worked on the LISA Pathfinder. In 2010 she founded the nonprofit "On Wings of Care", a charity which protects animals and environments. Early life and education Schumaker was born and raised in Wisconsin, near Lake Michigan. She wanted to be a vet but was awarded a scholarship to study physics at the California Institite of Technology. She loved mathematics, and continued at the California Institute of Technology for her graduate studies, earning a PhD in 1985. She worked under the supervision of Kip Thorne. Over six papers, her PhD thesis considered theoretical investigations into nonlinear quantum optics.
Go to Profile
#9164

Jörg Colberg

#68658
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Jörg M. Colberg is a German writer, educator and photographer, living in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. He is the founder and editor of Conscientious, a blog dedicated to contemporary fine-art photography. He worked as a research scientist in astronomy and has been a professor of photography at the Hartford Art School.
Go to Profile
#9165

Manfred Zimmermann

#190017
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#9166

Leon Major

#107832
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Leon Major is a Canadian opera and theatre director. He is the Artistic Director of The Maryland Opera Studio for the University of Maryland, College Park. From 1998-2003 he was Artistic Director of Boston Lyric Opera and from 2003–2007 he was artistic consultant for Opera Cleveland.
Go to Profile
#9167

Mehmet Karaca

#45352
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Mehmet Karaca was the rector of Istanbul Technical University . He was born in Istanbul on 17 September 1957. He is a member of the Department of Geology and the Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences at İstanbul Technical University. He is also head of Climate and Marine Sciences Group at Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences. Following his graduation from Pertevniyal High School in Istanbul, He earned B.S. and M.S. degrees at the Department of Meteorology in the Faculty of Basic Sciences at ITU, in 1979 and 1981 respectively. He earned another M.S. degree at Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences of University of California, Los Angeles .
Go to Profile
#9168

Joseph Kulkosky

#190059
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#9169

Mark Zakharov

Mark Zakharov
#12901
Overall Influence
1933 - 2019 (86 years)
Mark Anatolyevich Zakharov was a Soviet and Russian stage and film director, screenwriter and pedagogue best known for his fantasy parable movies. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1991. Zakharov served as the artistic director at the Lenkom Theatre from 1973 till his death. He gathered a "dream team" of actors and reestablished Lenkom as one of the leading Soviet theatres.
Go to Profile
#9170

Peng Zhou

#190074
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#9171

Juan Ramón Lacadena

#78054
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Juan Ramón Lacadena Calero is a Spanish agronomical engineer. Lacadena was born at Zaragoza. He studied in the Escuela Especial de Ingenieros Agrónomos in Madrid. He has been collaborator in CSIC, professor of Genetics in the UCM, head of the Department of Genetics in the Universidad de La Laguna and in the UCM .
Go to Profile
#9172

John Emmeus Davis

#58037
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
John Emmeus Davis is an American scholar and community organizer who has advanced the worldwide understanding and development of community land trusts. His professional practice has focused on assisting new community land trusts , supporting the growth of older CLTs, and helping municipal agencies, Habitat for Humanity affiliates, and other nonprofit organizations to add permanently affordable housing to their program mix. In 2014, he and a colleague, Greg Rosenberg, established an online archive of historical materials named Roots & Branches: A Gardener’s Guide to the Origins and Evolution ...
Go to Profile
#9173

Andreas N. Angelakis

#184154
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Andreas N. Angelakis is a Greek Civil Engineer of Water Resources and Agronomist . His wife is Kalliopi A. Roubelakis-Angelakis, Emeritus Professor of Biology, University of Crete. Studies He completed his undergraduate studies and holds a degree in agricultural sciences from the Agricultural University of Athens and a Bachelor of Sciences in civil engineering from the University of California, Davis, USA . He also completed postgraduate studies at the University of California, Riverside, USA, holding an M.S. in Soil Science and at the University of California, Davis, USA, from where he received an M.S.
Go to Profile
#9174

Hans Einstein

#47726
Overall Influence
1923 - 2012 (89 years)
Hans E. Einstein was the foremost authority on the lung disease Valley Fever. He lived in Bakersfield, California. He was related to Albert Einstein: Hans's grandfather and Albert were first cousins.
Go to Profile
#9175

Francis F. Lee

Francis F. Lee
#187657
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Francis Fan Lee is an inventor, entrepreneur, and professor emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Lee is the founder of Lexicon . He is best known for three inventions: the Digital Cardiac Monitor , the Digital Audio Signal Processor , and the Digital Time Compression System . In 1984, Lexicon won an Emmy Award for Engineering Excellence for the Model 1200 Audio Time Compressor and Expander, widely used in the television industry.
Go to Profile
#9176

Dhayendre Moodley

#190145
Overall Influence
Dhayendre Moodley is a South African scientist and Associate Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Career She received an Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation fellowship to work with John Sullivan at his laboratory. She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Over 100 journal papers have been co-authored by Moodley.
Go to Profile
#9177

Gottfried Jäger

#72637
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Gottfried Jäger is a German photographer, photo-theorist and former university teacher. Biography Gottfried Jäger, son of photographer Ernst Jäger , learned the craft of photography in the years 1954 to 1958 with the master photographer Siegfried Baumann in Bielefeld, receiving his apprenticeship qualification in 1957. He then studied technical photography at the Staatliche Höhere Fachschule für Photographie in Cologne, graduating in 1960 from the master craftsman exam. There he discovered a work by the early pioneer of computer art, Herbert W. Franke's 1957 Kunst und Konstruktion. Its subtit...
Go to Profile
#9178

Chris McMahon

#186809
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Christopher Alan McMahon is a British mechanical engineer, academic and a researcher. He is a retired professor of engineering design and serves as senior research fellow and senior associate teacher at the University of Bristol.
Go to Profile
#9179

Roger B. Corbett

#173809
Overall Influence
Roger B. Corbett was an American academic and college administrator who served as President of New Mexico State University from 1955–1970. He was born in Morgantown, W.Va. and was educated at Cornell University, receiving his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from the same institution.
Go to Profile
#9180

Bill Boomer

#100558
Overall Influence
1937 - 2022 (85 years)
William Boomer , also known as Buzz Boomer, was an American college coach, best known for serving as the head coach of the University of Rochester's men's swim team from 1962 to 1990. Beginning in the 1990s, as a noted authority on swimming technique, Boomer gave technique instruction to swimmers on the Stanford University swim team and worked one-on-one with many world-class swimmers, including many on three American Olympic swim teams from 1996 to 2004.
Go to Profile
#9181

Frank H. Wadsworth

#74527
Overall Influence
1915 - 2022 (107 years)
Frank Howard Wadsworth was an American forester, conservationist and researcher. He made important scientific contributions to forestry, through his work in Puerto Rico where he lived from 1942 until his death.
Go to Profile
#9182

Friedrich Kurrent

#151349
Overall Influence
1931 - 2022 (91 years)
Friedrich Kurrent was an Austrian architect and author. Biography He was a professor at the Technical University of Munich and a member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste. Kurrent died on 10 January 2022, at the age of 90.
Go to Profile
#9183

Peter Bartlett

#178268
Overall Influence
1929 - 2019 (90 years)
Peter John Bartlett was a New Zealand architect and professor of architectural design. Early life, education and family Born in Auckland on 7 January 1929, Bartlett was the son of Florence Mary Bartlett and John Maddocks Bartlett. He was educated at Auckland Grammar School, before studying architecture at Auckland University College and completing a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1957. He later undertook doctoral studies at Auckland, supervised by Richard Toy, and submitted his PhD thesis, titled Structured evaluation of attitudes to dwelling environments: people’s subjective assessments...
Go to Profile
#9184

Laurent El Ghaoui

#190200
Overall Influence
Go to Profile
#9185

Frances V. Harbour

#116807
Overall Influence
1953 - 2013 (60 years)
Frances Vryling Harbour was an associate professor of government at George Mason University, in the United States. She died on December 19, 2013. Information She is a founding member and past president of the International Ethics Section of the International Studies Association and a former John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur fellow in international peace and security studies. She has written on the ethics of weapons of mass destruction and just war philosophy. Her book Thinking About International Ethics: Moral Theory and Cases from American Foreign Policy looks at the Realism-Idealism debat...
Go to Profile
#9186

Arminda Schutte

Arminda Schutte
#168567
Overall Influence
1909 - 1995 (86 years)
Arminda Schutte was a Cuban classical pianist and pedagogue. Life Early life and training Schutte was born in the farm of La Merced located near Matanzas City, Cuba, to a well-educated high middle-class family. Her father, Julio Schutte, was of French origin and insisted that when at home the family would speak only French; this would prove to be invaluable later. Her Cuban mother, Ondina Visiedo, had a teaching degree. Schutte's mother was strongly determined to see her three children excel in life. Schutte's two brothers grew to become physicians prominent both in Cuba and in Pan-American medical societies.
Go to Profile
#9187

Richard Smith

#76348
Overall Influence
1931 - 2016 (85 years)
Richard Smith, CBE was an English painter and printmaker. Smith produced work in a range of styles, and is credited with extending the field of painting through his shaped, sculptural canvases. A key figure in the British development of Pop Art, Smith was chosen to represent Britain in the 1970 Venice Biennale.
Go to Profile
#9188

Joseph A. Falcon

#189180
Overall Influence
1923 - 2019 (96 years)
Joseph Albert Falcon was an American mechanical engineer, and business executive, who served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1992-93. Falcon was credited for his contributions in the energy field, which "encompassed nuclear power, geothermal facilities, fossil fuel-fired plants, alternative energy sources, and the geopolitics of oil and energy economics."
Go to Profile
#9189

Louis Montrose

#34991
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Louis Adrian Montrose was an American literary theorist and academic scholar who retired from the academy in 2010 to pursue a career as a photographer. His scholarship addressed a wide variety of literary, historical, and theoretical topics and issues, and significantly shaped contemporary studies of Renaissance poetics, English Renaissance theatre, and Elizabeth I. Montrose was an influential early proponent of New Historicism, especially as it applied to the study of early modern English literature and culture. He was a professor of English Literature at the University of California, San ...
Go to Profile
#9190

Yuri Kordonsky

Yuri Kordonsky
#167012
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Yuri Kordonsky is a Russian-born theatre actor and director, now a United States citizen and a professor of directing at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut. His theatrical career has been mainly in Russia, United States, Hungary, Luxembourg, as well as Romania, where he has been associated with the Bulandra Theatre, National Theatre of Bucharest, Radu Stanca National Theatre", and Timișoara State German Theatre. As of March 2012, at least six of his productions were in the active repertory of the Bulandra.
Go to Profile
#9191

William Missouri Downs

#153142
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
William Missouri Downs is an American comedy writer, playwright, screenwriter, stage director, and author. Life and career William Missouri Downs started as an actor earning an MFA in acting from the University of Illinois, but a bout with viral encephalitis left him with a slight stammer and ended his acting career. So he moved to New York and studied playwriting at the Circle Rep Theatre under Lanford Wilson and Milan Stitt.
Go to Profile
#9192

Penelope Umbrico

#98868
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Penelope Umbrico is an American artist best known for her work that appropriates images found using search engines and picture sharing websites. Education and career Umbrico was born in Philadelphia in 1957. She graduated from the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Canada in 1980. She obtained her M.F.A. in 1989 at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Go to Profile
#9193

Joe MacDonald

#189915
Overall Influence
Joe MacDonald is a Canadian-American architect, researcher and professor. He is most known for his work on The Bone Wall, The Water Planet, Johnson & Johnson's Olympic Games Pavilion and Project Energos. He founded Urban A&O, a design firm in 2004 and now serves as one of its principals.
Go to Profile
#9194

Chung Pau-choo

#190289
Overall Influence
Julia Chung Pau-choo is a Taiwanese electrical engineer. Chung earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from National Cheng Kung University in 1981, followed by a master's degree in the same subject in 1983. She subsequently graduated in 1991 from Texas Tech University with a doctorate, and accepted a faculty position at NCKU in 1996. Chung was elevated to a distinguished professorship in 2005. In 2008, Chung was elected a fellow of the IEEE. Chung was a founding member of Women in Circuits and Systems in 2008, a subcommittee sanctioned by the board of governors of the IEEE Circuit...
Go to Profile
#9195

Willie Rockward

#124501
Overall Influence
Willie S. Rockward is a physics professor and has served as the chair of the department of physics and engineering physics at Morgan State University since August of 2018. His research interests include Micro/Nano Optics Lithography, Extreme Ultraviolet Interferometry, Metamaterials, Terahertz imaging, Nanostructure Characterization, and Crossed Phase Optics. From 2018 to 2020 he was the president of the National Society of Black Physicists.
Go to Profile
#9196

Charles-Michel Marle

#92393
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Charles-Michel Marle is a French engineer and mathematician, currently a Professor Emeritus at Pierre and Marie Curie University. Biography Charles-Michel Marle completed in 1951 his primary and secondary education in Constantine, Algeria. He was a pupil of the preparatory classes for the grandes écoles at the in Algiers: in 1951-1952, then in 1952-1953. He was admitted to the École Polytechnique in 1953. When he left this school in 1955, he opted for the Corps des mines.
Go to Profile
#9197

P. Bhaskaran

P. Bhaskaran
#73989
Overall Influence
1924 - 2007 (83 years)
Pulloottupadathu Bhaskaran alias as P. Bhaskaran , was an Indian Malayalam language poet, lyricist of Malayalam film songs, and filmmaker. He penned more than 3000 songs for about 250 films. He also directed 44 Malayalam feature films and three documentaries, produced six feature films, and acted in several movies. For his overall contributions to Malayalam cinema, he was awarded J. C. Daniel Award by the Government of Kerala.
Go to Profile
#9198

Robert M. Hayes

Robert M. Hayes
#58940
Overall Influence
1926 - 2022 (96 years)
Robert Mayo Hayes was an American professor and dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science , now the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, at the University of California, Los Angeles . An expert on information systems, Hayes began his academic career in mathematics and went on to become a pioneer in the field of information science.
Go to Profile
#9199

Limor Fix

#153019
Overall Influence
Limor Fix is an Israeli electronic design automation engineer and executive, senior principal engineer and director of academic programs and research at Intel. Her research interests include formal verification languages.
Go to Profile
#9200

Robert H. Edwards

#83646
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Robert Hazard Edwards is an American educator who was the seventh president of Carleton College and the thirteenth president of Bowdoin College. Education and early career A graduate of Deerfield Academy, Edwards attended Princeton University and graduated magna cum laude with an A.B. in English in 1957 after completing a senior thesis titled "The Lesson of the Master." He also earned a B.A. and an M.A. at Cambridge University and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. In 1961, after law school, he earned admission to the U.S. federal bar. For several years he worked for the U.S. State Department ...
Go to Profile