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,
#9301
Bitange Ndemo
#53503
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Professor Elijah Bitange Ndemo , a global technocrat and currently serving as Kenya’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union. Professor Ndemo is also an academician and newspaper columnist with the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation and its sister publication, the Business Daily. He currently serves part-time as a Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Nairobi’s Business School. He teaches and researches entrepreneurship and research methods, with most of his research work being focused on ICT within small and medium enterprises, and their influence on economic development in Kenya.
Go to Profile#9302
John B. Thomas
#137629
Overall Influence
1925 - 2018 (93 years)
John Bowman Thomas was a noted American electrical engineer, educator, and a professor at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1955. He was the adviser of numerous outstanding scientists including Vincent Poor, Jack Wolf, Abraham H. Haddad, Dag Tjøstheim, Hisashi Kobayashi, Bob Kahn, Eugene Wong, and Oscar C. Au. His PhD adviser was Willis W. Harman, a President of IONS.
Go to Profile#9303
John Kaplan
#158778
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
John Kaplan is an American photographer who won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography "for his photographs depicting the diverse lifestyles of seven 21-year-olds across the United States". Kaplan attended Mount Pleasant High School in Wilmington, Delaware, graduating in 1977. Kaplan graduated with a bachelor's degree in journalism from E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in 1982 and later graduated with a master's degree in journalism from the school in 1998. In 1999 he became a faculty member at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.
Go to Profile#9304
Janet Allard
#177096
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Janet Allard is an American playwright and theatre educator. Allard was born and raised in Hawaii. She currently teaches in the Theatre Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Allard's plays have been produced at The Guthrie Lab, The Kennedy Center, Mixed Blood Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Yale Cabaret, The Women's Project and Productions, Perseverance Theatre, The House Of Candles, and Access Theater in New York City, as well as internationally in Ireland, England, Greece, and New Zealand. She has twice been awarded a Jerome Fello...
Go to Profile#9305
Denis Brière
#143166
Overall Influence
1946 - 2022 (76 years)
Denis Brière was a Canadian forestry professor and academic administrator. He took office as Université Laval's 25th rector on June 1, 2007. He ran unsuccessfully for the position in 2002. He was formerly dean of the faculty of forestry and geomatics at Université Laval in Quebec City, and held that office since 2000. He has also worked as an executive with James Bay Energy Corporation , a consortium which built a series of hydro-electric dams near James Bay, Kruger Inc., a Canadian pulp and paper company, and Groupe Comact, a manufacturer of wood processing equipment.
Go to Profile#9306
Nick Jennings
#40681
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nicholas Robert Jennings is an American director, artist, writer, and producer best known for his work on the Nickelodeon shows Rocko's Modern Life and SpongeBob SquarePants, as well as the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. He has also worked as a background artist for many animated television series.
Go to Profile#9307
Dejan Miladinović
#182702
Overall Influence
1948 - 2017 (69 years)
Dejan Miladinović, was a Serbiann opera director. He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in a family of opera artists . He graduated with a bachelor's degree in Theatre Direction from the Academy for Theatre in Belgrade and received the title Master of Theatrical Arts from the same Academy. He died in Belgrade on 3 August 2017.
Go to Profile#9308
Thomas S. Huang
#191515
Overall Influence
#9309
Mark Frost
#96996
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (55 years)
Mark Frost was an English professional darts player from Stoke-on-Trent. He played in Professional Darts Corporation events and used the nickname Frosty The Throw Man for his matches. This is not his profession. He works as a scaffolder.
Go to Profile#9310
Victor Niederhoffer
#168899
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Victor Niederhoffer is an American hedge fund manager, champion squash player, bestselling author and statistician. Life and career Niederhoffer was born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family. His paternal grandfather Martin , an accountant and court interpreter, married Birdie in 1916. His maternal grandparents were Sam and Gertrude Eisenberg. His father, Dr. Arthur "Artie" Niederhoffer , graduated from Brooklyn College in 1937, and then from Brooklyn Law School, and finally with a Ph.D. from New York University . He served in the New York City Police Department for 21 years , and then taught as a professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice for 14 years.
Go to Profile#9311
Sandip Ray
#167967
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Sandip Ray is an Indian film director and music director who mainly works in Bengali cinema. He is the only child of the famous Indian director Satyajit Ray and Bijoya Ray. Life and education Sandip Ray was born in Calcutta. Initially schooled at the South Point School and the Patha Bhavan, Kolkata, he subsequently attended the University of Calcutta.
Go to Profile#9312
Lorraine Gilbert
#169403
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Lorraine Gilbert is a Canadian artist and photographer focusing on landscape as a genre, raising questions pertaining to the social and economic aspects of landscape as art, as nature, and as lived experience. She lives in Ottawa and in Quebec.
Go to Profile#9313
Marian Schmidt
#123192
Overall Influence
1945 - 2018 (73 years)
Marian Schmidt – Polish artist photographer. Member of Warsaw District of Polish Union of Artist Photographers . Co-founder of Warsaw School of Photography and Graphic Design. Biography Marian Schmidt was born in Żyrardów shortly before the end of World War II. In 1946 - together with his family - he migrated to France and later to Venezuela - where he spent his childhood and attended high school. Later he graduated from University of California in Berkeley, USA and gained his PhD degree in mathematics . In 1974, he returned to Poland, where he worked for the magazines: Kino, ITD, Perspektywy, Szpilki, Teatr, Zwierciadło.
Go to Profile#9314
Kiana Aran
#191340
Overall Influence
Kiana Aran is an American biomedical entrepreneur who is Associate Professor in Medical Diagnostics at the Keck Graduate Institute. She is also the Chief Scientific Officer at Cardea Bio. Her research considers the application of two dimensional materials in disease detection and diagnosis. She was awarded the 2021 Nature – Estée Lauder Research Award for Inspiring Women in Science.
Go to Profile#9315
Henry E. Riggs
#189757
Overall Influence
1935 - 2015 (80 years)
Henry E. Riggs was an early Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a professor of engineering and vice president at Stanford University, president of Harvey Mudd College, and founding president of Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences at the Claremont Colleges. His areas of specialization included financial analysis and control, management technology, technical strategy, and new venture management. Riggs was a popular professor who taught for over 45 years and published multiple books. He started the large-scale academic fund-raising efforts that are now widely used by major institutions, ...
Go to Profile#9316
Richard Fitzpatrick
#181951
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Richard John Fitzpatrick is an Australian Emmy award winning cinematographer and adjunct research fellow specialising in marine biology at James Cook University. Early life Richard Fitzpatrick's fascination for sharks started at an early age. Richard caught his first Epaulette shark from the Coral Sea and took it home to keep in his aquarium when he was eleven years old. He then took the entire aquarium into school for show and tell.
Go to Profile#9317
Robert Whitehead
#78913
Overall Influence
1916 - 2002 (86 years)
Robert Whitehead was a Canadian theatre producer. His first production was Medea, starring Judith Anderson and John Gielgud, and he won the Outer Critics Circle Award five times. He was nominated for 19 Tony and Drama Desk Awards, winning 4 Tony Awards and 5 Drama Desk Awards.
Go to Profile#9318
Cheryl Rene Rodriguez
#191582
Overall Influence
Dr. Cheryl Rodriguez represented a new breed of cultural anthropologists who combined research with community activism. An assistant professor at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, Rodriguez also served as interim director of USF’s Institute on Black Life and president of the Association of Black Anthropologists. Her degrees and education began at Northern Illinois University, BA, communications sciences, 1979, MA, communications sciences, 1981; University of South Florida, PhD, anthropology, 1992. She has worked at Marquardt School District, Glendale Heights, IL, communicative-di...
Go to Profile#9319
David Robinson
#94716
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (96 years)
David Robinson is an English film critic and author. He is a former film critic for both the Financial Times and The Times and wrote the official biography of Charlie Chaplin. Life Robinson began to write for Sight and Sound and the Monthly Film Bulletin during the 1950s, becoming assistant editor of Sight and Sound and editor of the Monthly Film Bulletin from 1957 to 1958. He was film critic of the Financial Times from 1958 to 1973, before taking up the same post at The Times in 1973. He remained the paper's main film reviewer until around 1990 and a regular contributor until around 1996.
Go to Profile#9320
Mike Ware
#88917
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Michael J. Ware is a chemist and photographer, known for his work in alternative photographic processeses, earlier methods of printing photographic images that were succeeded by the more common silver-gelatin used today. In the Present, Ware acts as a consultant, most recently on the history and development of the platinotype and palladium processes. His has also written about chemistry's influence on the history of photography.
Go to Profile#9321
Sylvie Readman
#182999
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Sylvie Readman is a Canadian photographer. Her work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
Go to Profile#9322
Misaki Wayengera
#173420
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Misaki Wayengera is a Ugandan physician, academician, and a medical researcher. He serves as a lecturer for Pathology, Immunology and Molecular Biology at Makerere University College of Health Sciences. He is the chairperson of Uganda's Scientific Advisory Committee on COVID-19 for the Ministry of Health and the National Task Force.
Go to Profile#9323
Ahn Byong-man
#82143
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
Ahn Byong-man was a South Korean academic, and the former President of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Seoul National University in 1964 and 1967, and went on to the University of Florida for doctoral studies, graduating in 1973. In 1975 he joined the faculty of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea. While at this institution he served as the Dean of Student Affairs, Dean of the Graduate School, and in 1994 he was named president. He served in this capacity until 2004.
Go to Profile#9324
Aaron Swartz
#169749
Overall Influence
Aaron Swartz is a British actor and theatre and film director who has appeared in plays, movies, commercials and television series in the United States and Europe. His first film appearance was in The Lords of Discipline, a 1983 film adaptation of the Pat Conroy novel; Swartz played a senior at an American military academy. In 1994, he played Cutter, the lead role in the video game Burn:Cycle. He appeared in 25 episodes of the documentary series I Shouldn't Be Alive and has directed two films that were sold to the BBC. He stars in the film Young Hunters: The Beast of Bevendean .
Go to Profile#9325
Marian Garfinkel
#181388
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Marian S. Garfinkel was an early researcher in the field of complementary medicine, showing that yoga could be used to treat and possibly cure a variety of hand injuries resulting from repetitive use. She studied with B. K. S. Iyengar for over 40 years, making annual trips to yoga centers in India, France, California and Michigan. As a result of her contact with Iyengar, she and her former husband Marvin Garfinkel are credited with inspiring the sculptor Robert Engman to create the sculpture After Iyengar, currently on display at the Morris Arboretum at the University of Pennsylvania and at t...
Go to Profile#9326
Frank Wright
#119664
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Frank Wright was an American painter, professor of art for many years at George Washington University, and sixth-generation Washingtonian. Early life and education Wright was born in Washington, D.C. He attended DC Public Schools graduating from Eastern High School in 1950. From there, he attended American University on a scholarship from the National Society of Arts and Letters and received his BA, in 1954. He then went on to do studies and research at the Berenson Villa I Tatti in Florence, and post-graduate work at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University . The study he undertook at Bernar...
Go to Profile#9327
Hideaki Anno
#171568
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Hideaki Anno is a Japanese animator, filmmaker and actor. His most celebrated creation, the Evangelion franchise, has had a significant influence on the anime television industry and Japanese popular culture, with many deeming Anno as one of the medium's first auteurs. Anno's style is defined by his postmodernist approach and the extensive portrayal of characters' thoughts and emotions, often through unconventional scenes presenting the mental deconstruction of those characters.
Go to Profile#9328
Kannan Krishnan
#186127
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Kannan M. Krishnan is the Campbell Chair Professor of Materials Sciences & Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for contributions to nano-magnetic technology in medicine.
Go to Profile#9329
Hershey Felder
#181732
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Hershey Felder is a pianist, actor, and playwright known for his portrayals of classical and American composers on the theatrical stage. Early life Felder was born in Montreal, Quebec, to Jacob Felder and Eva Surek Felder . He was raised in a Yiddish-speaking home mainly, from age 13, by his widower father.
Go to Profile#9330
Ahmed Abukhater
#187331
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Ahmed Abukhater is an architect, environmental scientist, and an urban and regional planner by trade. He is an author, powerlifter, and the first athlete to represent Palestine at the World Association of Bench Pressers and Dead lifters World Powerlifting Championships in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2006.
Go to Profile#9331
Michał Życzkowski
#89392
Overall Influence
1930 - 2006 (76 years)
Michał Życzkowski was a Polish mechanical engineer. Career Życzkowski was born in Kraków. In 1954 he graduated at the Tadeusz Kościuszko University of Technology, and in 1958 he received a diploma at the Imperial College London. He became Professor and doctor honoris causa of the Cracow University of Technology, full member of Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish Academy of Learning, Foreign Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#9332
Cecile Reynaud
#117454
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Cecile Reynaud is an American volleyball educator and retired coach of the Florida State Lady Seminoles volleyball team. After her retirement from coaching she was an associate professor with the sport management program at Florida State University until August, 2015. She also served as an interim assistant athletic director and senior women's administrator at Florida State University from 1994-95. She has served as a television color analyst for collegiate volleyball matches on ACCN, Fox Sports Net South, Sunshine Network and ESPN.
Go to Profile#9333
Nancy Davenport
#144956
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Nancy Davenport is a Canadian photographer. Her photography, animations and digital work have been exhibited at venues including the Liverpool Biennial, the Istanbul Biennial, the 25th Bienal de São Paulo, DHC/Art Fondation pour l’art Contemporain in Montreal and the First Triennial of Photography & Video at the International Center of Photography, NY.
Go to Profile#9334
Kevin Beurle
#182680
Overall Influence
1956 - 2009 (53 years)
Dr Kevin Beurle was a British space scientist and programmer at Queen Mary, University of London, who played a key role in the Cassini–Huygens mission to study Saturn and its moons. He was a specialist in space imaging systems. He was the lead Cassini programmer at QMUL, developing software and designing the spacecraft's observation sequences.
Go to Profile#9335
Hans van Leeuwen
#191330
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Johannes "Hans" van Leeuwen is educator, engineer, inventor, researcher, and entrepreneur. He is an emeritus professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering at Iowa State University and an entrepreneur in ethanol co-product development. His research and innovations have worked to solve various problems including, new water purification methods, a way of creating food and animal feed from waste, and a process in making the purest alcohol ever made.
Go to Profile#9336
Ivenue Love-Stanley
#191528
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Ivenue Love-Stanley, , , is an American architect. She co-founded Stanley, Love-Stanley P.C., an Atlanta-based architecture and design firm. She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Architecture, and in 1983 she became the first African-American woman licensed architect in the Southeast. Love-Stanley's projects include the Aquatic Center for the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, the Lyke House Catholic Student Center at the Atlanta University Center, the Southwest YMCA and St. Paul's Episcopal Church , the Auburn Market in Sweet Aubur...
Go to Profile#9337
Ke Jun
#137490
Overall Influence
1917 - 2017 (100 years)
Ke Jun was a Chinese metallurgist who specialized in forming bainite. He was elected the Chinese Academy of Sciences academician in 1980. Born in 1917, Ke graduated from the Chemistry Department of Wuhan University in 1938. He gained his doctorate degree at the University of Birmingham in Britain in 1948. He died in Beijing on 8 August 2017 at the age of 100.
Go to Profile#9338
Stuart Ostrow
#54805
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (94 years)
Stuart Ostrow is an American theatrical producer and director, professor, and author. Early life Stuart Ostrow was born in 1932 in New York City to Abe and Anna Ostrow. He attended The High School of Music & Art, and received a degree in music education from New York University. He then served in the United States Air Force from 1952 to 1955, during which he directed and produced multiple camp shows for the troops. In 1957, he married singer Ann Elizabeth Gilbert; they have three children.
Go to Profile#9339
Joseph Carvalko Jr.
#190331
Overall Influence
Joseph Carvalko, Jr. is an American technologist, academic, patent lawyer and writer. As an inventor and engineer, Carvalko has been awarded eighteen U.S. patents in various fields, including computer technology, biomedical, fuel purification, and financial systems. He has authored academic books and articles throughout his career. In 2019, he was appointed to chair the Technology and Ethics Working Group, Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, Yale University.
Go to Profile#9340
G. Marshall Molen
#191729
Overall Influence
G. Marshall Molen is an American engineer currently at Mississippi State University. He is a former Distinguished Engineering Professor.
Go to Profile#9341
Akio Sugino
#131042
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Akio Sugino is a Japanese character designer who is known for working with Osamu Dezaki and his designs on Golgo 13 and Space Adventure Cobra. Filmography Astro Boy Kimba the White Lion – Character designSabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae – AnimationA Thousand and One Nights – Original picturesAshita no Joe Nobody's Boy Remi – Character designAim for the Ace! – DesignLa Seine no Hoshi – DesignGaiking – Design and animationFamous World Fairy Tales – AnimationArrow Emblem Grand Prix no Taka – DesignJetter Mars – Design and animation3D Animation: Child Without a Home – Character designTreasu...
Go to Profile#9342
Chi Jang Yin
#191273
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Chi Jang Yin is an American filmmaker, photographer, curator and educator. She is best known for her experimental films that explore displacement, alienation, the absence of representation, and narrative memory. Yin left China in the latter part of The Cultural Revolution. Her mother, an artist from an aristocratic family, first led the family to Taiwan, and then to Canada. Yin received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied with Yvonne Rainer and Shellie Fleming. She was the Head of Media Art at the Department of Art, Media, and Design at DePaul University.
Go to Profile#9343
Cheryl J. Sanders
#62614
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Cheryl J. Sanders is an African-American professor and scholar of Christian Ethics. Her work on womanist ethics has been influential in the development of the field. She teaches Christian Ethics at Howard University School of Divinity. Her books include Ministry at the Margins, Saints in Exile: The Holiness Pentecostal Experience in African American Religion, and Empowerment Ethics for a Liberated People: A Path to African American Social Transformation.
Go to Profile#9344
T.J. Thomson
#183567
Overall Influence
T.J. Thomson is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, and a chief investigator at its Digital Media Research Centre, where he leads its News, Media, and Journalism Research Group. He teaches and researches on visual communication topics, especially media representation, the production and reception of visual journalism, and visual culture. He has been an officer in several national and international societies and has served as the associate editor of Visual Communication Quarterly since 2017.
Go to Profile#9345
Perry R. Cook
#48091
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Perry R. Cook is an American computer music researcher and professor emeritus of computer science and music at Princeton University. He was also founder and head of the Princeton Sound Lab. Cook has worked in the areas of physical modeling, singing voice synthesis, music information retrieval, principles of computer music controller design, audio analysis and real-time computer music programming languages and systems, and has written a number of books on these subjects. Together with Gary Scavone, he authored the Synthesis Toolkit and with Ge Wang the ChucK programming language. He is also a co-founder, with Dan Trueman in 2005, of the Princeton Laptop Orchestra .
Go to Profile#9346
Bea Nettles
#90530
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Bea Nettles is a fine art photographer and author currently residing in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois. Education Nettles earned her BFA at the University of Florida in 1968. She then went on to pursue an MFA at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1970.
Go to Profile#9347
Karl-Heinz Adler
#140064
Overall Influence
1927 - 2018 (91 years)
Karl-Heinz Adler was a German abstract painter, graphic artist and conceptual artist and has been described as "one of Germany’s foremost representatives of Concrete Art." He produced many public monuments and developed, with Friedrich Kracht, modular concrete decoration for hundreds of buildings across East, now eastern, Germany.
Go to Profile#9348
Pearl Stewart
#191758
Overall Influence
Pearl Stewart is an Associate Professor of Family Science and Human Development at Montclair State University. She specializes in family diversity, African-American extended families and cultural connections between African American and West African families. Alma Maters: PhD and BS from University of Delaware, and an MSSA from Case Western Reserve University Academic Website
Go to Profile#9349
Archie Dykes
#172605
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Archie Reece Dykes is an American academic. He served as the chancellor of the University of Kansas from 1973 to 1981. From 1967 to 1971, he was chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin. Dykes is an alumnus of East Tennessee State University and University of Tennessee at Knoxville and holds bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in education.
Go to Profile#9350
Kelsey Leonard
#96692
Overall Influence
Kelsey Leonard is a water governance researcher specializing in Indigenous water rights at the University of Waterloo. She was the first Native American woman to earn a science degree from the University of Oxford, which she earned in 2012. She earned an MSc in water science, policy and management from St. Cross College, one of the thirty-eight colleges of the University of Oxford. Her master's thesis, “Water Quality For Native Nations: Achieving A Trust Responsibility”, discusses water quality regulation and how water resources on tribal land are not protected.
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