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.
List of the most influential people in Engineering,
#9551
Martin Dülfer
1859 - 1942 (83 years)
Martin Dülfer was a German architect and professor; best known for designing theatres in the Historical and Art-Nouveau styles. Life and work His father, Carl Dülfer, was a publisher and book dealer. After completing his secondary education, he attended a trade school in Schweidnitz. Then, from 1877 to 1879, he studied at the Polytechnic School in Hannover, with Conrad Wilhelm Hase and, from 1879 to 1880, at the Technischen Hochschule in Stuttgart with Christian Friedrich von Leins. Following a brief period of military service, he took a position at the Berlin offices of and Karl von Großheim.
Go to Profile#9552
Leslie Green
1875 - 1908 (33 years)
Leslie William Green was an English architect. He is best known for his design of iconic stationss constructed on the London Underground railway system in central London during the first decade of the 20th century, with distinctive oxblood red faïence blocks including pillars and semi-circular first-floor windows, and patterned tiled interiors done in the Modern Style .
Go to Profile#9553
Ub Iwerks
1901 - 1971 (70 years)
Ubbe Ert Iwwerks , known as Ub Iwerks , was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician, known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and for having worked on the development of the design of the character of Mickey Mouse, among others. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919. After briefly working as illustrators for a local newspaper company, Disney and Iwerks ventured into animation together.
Go to Profile#9554
Carl Schäfer
1844 - 1908 (64 years)
Carl Wilhelm Ernst Schäfer was a German architect and university professor. Schäfer became the most important representative of the late Gothic Revival in Germany. He created several churches: Modification of the Catholic Propsteikirche St. Gertrude of Brabant in Wattenscheid , Catholic parish church of St. Nikolai in Lippstadt , Protestant church in Bralitz , Catholic parish church of St. John Baptist in Birkung , Old Catholic Church in Karlsruhe .
Go to Profile#9555
Tetsuro Yoshida
1894 - 1956 (62 years)
was a Japanese architect. He graduated from Tokyo University and entered the Ministry of Communications in 1919. He designed many Japanese post offices, telegraph offices, and related buildings in Japan. He introduced Eastern architecture to the west, while incorporating Western architecture in his own designs, including architecture from Scandinavia, Germany, and the United States.
Go to Profile#9556
Mykhailo Hrechyna
1902 - 1979 (77 years)
Mykhailo Hnatovych Hrechyna , a Soviet architect from Ukraine, recipient of the Ukrainian State Prize . Biography Mykhailo Hrechyna was born in the village of Budyshche, Kiev Governorate , today it's the village of Cherkasy Raion around the city of Cherkasy. In 1930 he graduated from the architect department of the Kiev Art Institute .
Go to Profile#9557
Albert Rowe
1898 - 1976 (78 years)
Albert Percival Rowe, CBE , often known as Jimmy Rowe or A. P. Rowe, was a radar pioneer and university vice-chancellor. A British physicist and senior research administrator, he played a major role in the development of radar before and during World War II.
Go to Profile#9558
Johannes Otzen
1839 - 1911 (72 years)
Johannes Otzen was a German architect, urban planner, architectural theorist and university teacher. He worked mainly in Berlin and Northern Germany. Otzen was involved in urban planning in Berlin. He built Gothic Revival brick buildings for the Lutheran Church, which were influential throughout Northern Germany.
Go to Profile#9559
Richard Borrmann
1852 - 1931 (79 years)
Richard Borrmann was a German architect and classical archaeologist. He was involved in the German Archaeological project at Olympia, Greece. From 1874 to 1878, he studied at the Bauakademie in Berlin, later serving as a professor of architectural history at the Technical University of Berlin . He specialized in ancient architectural history, and also made significant contributions in the field of Islamic art history, of which, he performed studies of its decorative architectural elements from ancient to modern times.
Go to Profile#9560
Wilhelm Marstrand
1810 - 1873 (63 years)
Nicolai Wilhelm Marstrand , painter and illustrator, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to Nicolai Jacob Marstrand, instrument maker and inventor, and Petra Othilia Smith. Marstrand is one of the most renowned artists belonging to the Golden Age of Danish Painting.
Go to Profile#9561
Kanō Jigorō
1860 - 1938 (78 years)
was a Japanese educator, athlete, and the founder of Judo. Along with Ju-Jutsu, Judo was one of the first Japanese martial arts to gain widespread international recognition, and the first to become an official Olympic sport. Pedagogical innovations attributed to Kanō include the use of black and white belts, and the introduction of dan ranking to show the relative ranking among members of a martial art style. Well-known mottoes attributed to Kanō include "good use of energy" and "mutual welfare and benefit".
Go to Profile#9562
Erwin Otto Marx
1893 - 1980 (87 years)
Erwin Otto Marx was a German electrical engineer who invented the Marx generator, a device for producing high voltage electrical pulses. He worked as an engineering scientist in Braunschweig from 1918 to 1950 where he performed research and development for electrical power distribution via long distances.
Go to Profile#9563
Mihailo Valtrović
1839 - 1915 (76 years)
Mihailo Valtrović was a Serbian architect, professor of archeology, one of the first pioneers of art history in Serbia, and key representative of the Historismus along with architect Dragutin Dragiša Milutinović. Valtrović was the first professor of archeology in Serbia, the initiator and founder of Serbian Archeology and founder and first president of the Serbian Archaeological Society. He designed a number of state orders and decorations.
Go to Profile#9564
Alexandre Horowitz
1904 - 1982 (78 years)
Alexandre "Sacha" Horowitz was a Belgian-born Dutch mechanical engineer and inventor. Alexandre "Sacha" Horowitz was born in 1904 in Antwerp, to parents of East-European Jewish heritage, and lived from 1914 in The Netherlands until his death in 1982. He has 136 patents awarded to his name over a period of 50 years, covering a wide variety of products including prefab housing, farm machinery and oil industry equipment. His most well-known invention, however, is the Philishave rotary electric razor.
Go to Profile#9565
John Coulson
1910 - 1990 (80 years)
John Metcalfe Coulson was a British chemical engineering academic particularly known for co-writing a textbook on chemical engineering with Jack Richardson , which became an established series of texts now known as Coulson & Richardson's Chemical Engineering.
Go to Profile#9566
William Farrar Smith
1824 - 1903 (79 years)
William Farrar Smith , known as "Baldy" Smith, was a Union general in the American Civil War, notable for attracting the extremes of glory and blame. He was praised for his gallantry in the Seven Days Battles and the Battle of Antietam, but was demoted for professional and political reasons after the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg. As chief engineer of the Army of the Cumberland, he achieved recognition by restoring a supply line that saved that army from starvation and surrender, known as the "Cracker Line", that helped Union troops to success in the Chattanooga Campaign in the autumn of 1863.
Go to Profile#9567
John Oldrid Scott
1841 - 1913 (72 years)
John Oldrid Scott was a British architect. Biography He was the son of Sir Gilbert Scott and his wife Caroline . His brother George Gilbert Scott Junior and nephew Sir Giles Gilbert Scott were also prominent architects. In 1868 he married Mary Ann Stevens, eldest daughter of the Reverend Thomas Stevens, founder of Bradfield College. One of his nine children, Charles Marriott Oldrid Scott, worked in his architectural practice.
Go to Profile#9568
Richard Redmayne
1865 - 1955 (90 years)
Sir Richard Augustine Studdert Redmayne was a British civil and mining engineer. Redmayne worked as manager of several mines in Britain and South Africa before becoming a professor at the University of Birmingham. He was a leading figure in improving mine safety in the early twentieth century and would become the first Chief Inspector of Mines, leading investigations into many of the mine disasters of his time. He became the president of three professional associations, namely the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, the Institution of Professional Civil Servants and the Institution of Civ...
Go to Profile#9569
Georg Benoit
1868 - 1953 (85 years)
Georg Benoit was a professor of mechanical engineering at the former TH Karlsruhe . Life Benoit was born in Wesel in 1868. He was raised in a Huguenot family. He studied mechanical engineering at the TH Charlottenburg. After working in the industry sector for a couple of years and serving as director of the Preußische Höhere Maschinenbauschule in Hagen, he was appointed to professorship for elevation and transport machines at the TH Karlsruhe in 1901. This professorship was newly established at that time. He retired in 1935. While being a professor in Karlsruhe, he was appointed to president in 1911/12 as well as in 1921/22.
Go to Profile#9570
Julius Carl Raschdorff
1823 - 1914 (91 years)
Julius Carl Raschdorff was a German architect and academic teacher. He is considered one of the notable architects of the second half of the 19th century in Germany and created his most important work with the Berlin Cathedral.
Go to Profile#9571
Edward Joseph Mccluskey
#9572
René Goormaghtigh
1893 - 1960 (67 years)
René Goormaghtigh was a Belgian engineer, after whom the Goormaghtigh Conjecture is named. Goormaghtigh studied at Ghent University, gaining a Diploma in Civil Engineering from the Central Board of Le Havre in 1918. Throughout his subsequent life he worked as an engineer and industrial administrator. In 1952 he was appointed advisor to the Société Générale de Belgique. He was made a Knight of the Order of Leopold II in 1947, and an Officer of the Order of the Crown in 1956. After a heart attack in 1958, he retired to Saint-André-des-Bruges.
Go to Profile#9573
Hippodamus of Miletus
498 BC - 408 BC (90 years)
Hippodamus of Miletus was an ancient Greek architect, urban planner, physician, mathematician, meteorologist and philosopher, who is considered to be "the father of European urban planning", and the namesake of the "Hippodamian plan" of city layout, although rectangular city plans were in use by the ancient Greeks as early as the 8th c. BC.
Go to Profile#9574
Wilhelm Bockslaff
1858 - 1945 (87 years)
Wilhelm Ludwig Nikolai Bockslaff was a Baltic German architect working in Riga. He is considered one of the most important representatives of Eclecticism, Neo-Gothic and Art Nouveau styles in the city. He is noted in particular for his construction of churches.
Go to Profile#9575
John Smith
1781 - 1852 (71 years)
John Smith was a Scottish architect. His career started in 1805 and he was appointed as the official city architect of Aberdeen in 1807, the first person to hold this post. Together with Archibald Simpson, he contributed significantly to the architecture of Aberdeen, and many of the granite buildings that gave the city the nickname "The Granite City" or also "The Silver City" are attributed to them.
Go to Profile#9576
Adalbert Stifter
1805 - 1868 (63 years)
Adalbert Stifter was an Austrian writer, poet, painter, and pedagogue. He was notable for the vivid natural landscapes depicted in his writing and has long been popular in the German-speaking world, while remaining almost entirely unknown to English readers.
Go to Profile#9577
Henry Schlacks
1867 - 1938 (71 years)
Henry John Schlacks was primarily known as an ecclesiologist in a 19th Century sense of the word, meaning one who designs and decorates churches. He was from Chicago, Illinois, and is considered by many to be the finest of Chicago's church architects. Schlacks trained at MIT and in the offices of Adler & Sullivan before starting his own practice. He founded the Architecture Department at the University of Notre Dame and designed several buildings in the Chicago area.
Go to Profile#9578
Louis Roelandt
1786 - 1864 (78 years)
Louis Roelandt or Lodewijk Joseph Adriaan Roelandt with his full Dutch name, was a Belgian architect that played an important role in the evolution of Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Classical architecture in Belgium.
Go to Profile#9579
Eduard Mezger
1807 - 1894 (87 years)
Friedrich Eduard Mezger was a Bavarian architect, painter, professor, and a high civil officer of the royal buildings administration, called Oberbaurat . Biography Mezger was born in Pahuppenheim, son of the government building officer Kaspar Mezger. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, where he was a student of Friedrich von Gärtner from 1825 to 1828, who enabled him to take part in monumental works in Athens. After his return in 1833 he became a professor in civil engineering at the Technical University of Munich, then Oberbaurat in 1846. He contributed to the design of several public and private buildings, amongst them the house of the painter Friedrich Dürck.
Go to Profile#9580
Charles Babcock
1829 - 1913 (84 years)
Charles Babcock was an American architect, academic, Episcopal priest and founding member of the American Institute of Architects. He was born in Ballston Spa, New York. After being educated at Union College in 1847, he served as an apprentice of Richard Upjohn while he designed Trinity Church in Manhattan. Remaining with the firm for five years, he became a partner and later married Upjohn's daughter. From 1858 to 1862 he taught in St. Stephen's college, Annandale, New York. His interest in Gothic Revival architecture led him to study for the ministry, and after his training he became the pr...
Go to Profile#9581
Tatsuo Endo
1925 - 1989 (64 years)
Tatsuo Endo was a Japanese engineer who, in 1968 along with M. Matsuishi, developed the rainflow-counting algorithm for fatigue analysis of structures while a visiting professor at the University of Illinois.
Go to Profile#9582
Lee Miller
1907 - 1977 (70 years)
Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, Lady Penrose , was an American photographer and photojournalist. She was a fashion model in New York City in the 1920s before going to Paris, where she became a fashion and fine art photographer. During the Second World War, she was a war correspondent for Vogue, covering events such as the London Blitz, the liberation of Paris, and the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Dachau.
Go to Profile#9583
Oscar Faber
1886 - 1956 (70 years)
Oscar Faber was a British structural engineer. He was influential in the development of the use of reinforced concrete in the United Kingdom. Because many engineers were not certain of the material, Faber pioneered simple deflection tests, which enabled him to develop his theory of ‘Plastic yield in concrete’, and to calculate shear in reinforced concrete beams.
Go to Profile#9584
Pál Selényi
1884 - 1954 (70 years)
Engineer Pál Selényi was known as the "father of xerography" at Tungsram corporation. He is also known as Paul Selenyi. Chester Carlson read one of Selenyi's papers in the 1930s and was very greatly impressed; subsequently, he invested in a big effort to develop xerography. That may be the reason why Selenyi was known as the "father of xerography" by some people. Pál Selényi studied physics and mathematics at the Budapest University. After finishing his studies, Selényi started to work for the newly created Applied Physics Department of the University.
Go to Profile#9585
Domingo García Ramos
1911 - 1978 (67 years)
Domingo García Ramos was a prominent Mexican architect. He is the author of several books:Iniciación al Urbanismo Arquitectura y artes decorativas Primeros pasos en diseño urbano Planificación de edificios para la enseñanza Todos Tenemos la Culpa... y por eso estamos como estamos
Go to Profile#9586
Eugene Bourdon
1870 - 1916 (46 years)
Eugene Bourdon was a Professor of Architectural Design at the Glasgow School of Art, and was influential in the development of architectural thinking and education in Glasgow in the early 20th century.
Go to Profile#9587
Hans Multhopp
1913 - 1972 (59 years)
Hans Multhopp was a German aeronautical engineer/designer. Receiving a degree from the University of Göttingen, Multhopp worked with the famous designer Kurt Tank at the Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG during World War II, and was the leader of the team responsible for the design of the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 lightweight jet fighter, which was the winner of the 1945 Emergency Fighter Competition. Emigrating to the United Kingdom after the war, he assisted in the advancement of British aeronautic science before moving to the United States, where his work for Martin Marietta on lifting bodies provided ae...
Go to Profile#9588
Vladimir Vetchinkin
1888 - 1950 (62 years)
Vladimir Petrovich Vetchinkin was a Soviet scientist in the field of aerodynamics, aeronautics, and wind energy, Doctor of Technical Sciences , Honored Science Worker of the RSFSR . Biography Vladimir Petrovich was born in Kutno , the son of a Russian military officer. Vetchinkin graduated from Moscow Higher Technical School in 1915, the favorite student of Nikolay Zhukovsky and generally viewed as his successor. In 1913, they had created a vortex-sheet theory of aircraft propellers. In 1916, Vetchinkin and Zhukovsky created the aviation calculation and test bureau in the wind-tunnel labora...
Go to Profile#9589
Ferdinando Bonsignore
1760 - 1843 (83 years)
Ferdinando Bonsignore was an Italian architect and designer. Biography He was a student of the Accademia di Pittura e Scultura di Torino in 1782, and from 1783 to 1798 he was given a scholarship to Rome by the King of Sardinia. In Rome he worked with Nicola Giansimoni , a neoclassic architect. In 1798, he returned to Turin and was nominated architect and designer to the court. He became professor of architecture in the Ecole spéciale d’architecture dell’Académie des Sciences, Littérature et Beaux Arts and at the university in 1805. In 1813 he received a gold medal for his design of a Monument to Napoleon on the Moncenisio.
Go to Profile#9590
Garry Winogrand
1928 - 1984 (56 years)
Garry Winogrand was an American street photographer, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Photography curator, historian, and critic John Szarkowski called Winogrand the central photographer of his generation.
Go to Profile#9591
Norman McLaren
1914 - 1987 (73 years)
William Norman McLaren, LL. D. was a Scottish Canadian animator, director and producer known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada . He was a pioneer in a number of areas of animation and filmmaking, including hand-drawn animation, drawn-on-film animation, visual music, abstract film, pixilation and graphical sound. McLaren was also an artist and printmaker, and explored his interest in dance in his films.
Go to Profile#9592
James McDonald Gardiner
1857 - 1925 (68 years)
James McDonald Gardiner was an American architect, lay Anglican church missionary and educator who lived and worked in Japan during the Meiji period. Early life and education Born May 22, 1857 in St. Louis, Missouri, son of James McDonald and Margaret McCartney Gardiner. Educated at Hackensack Academy and Harvard University graduating with a degree in architecture in 1879.
Go to Profile#9593
David A. Atchison
#9594
Shinrokuro Miyoshi
1856 - 1910 (54 years)
Shinrokuro Miyoshi was a professor of shipbuilding. He graduated from Imperial College of Engineering , and studied in England. In 1882, the shipbuilding department was established. He was installed as an Adjunct Professor and lectured in the shipbuilding department. The next year he was installed as a Professor. In 1887 he established the Tsukiji Technic school .
Go to Profile#9595
Marian Lutosławski
1871 - 1918 (47 years)
Marian Lutosławski was a Polish mechanical engineer and inventor born during the foreign partitions of Poland. He studied at the Technical University in Riga, then also part of Russia, and obtained a diploma in electrical engineering from the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany. Lutosławski installed the first power station in a residential neighbourhood in Warsaw, and introduced new techniques such as the three-phase current. In 1900 he built the country's first power plant fueled by a diesel internal combustion engine for Hotel Bristol, Warsaw. He also designed the first two reinforced concrete bridges in Lublin in 1908 and 1909.
Go to Profile#9596
Gustav Halmhuber
1862 - 1936 (74 years)
Gustav Halmhuber was a German architect and university teacher. His style reflected the flamboyance and brittle optimism of the early twentieth century. Perhaps his best known surviving work – also one of his earliest commissions – is the WaterTower in Mannheim.
Go to Profile#9597
John Dobson
1787 - 1865 (78 years)
John Dobson was a 19th-century English neoclassical architect. During his life, he was the most noted architect in Northern England. He designed more than 50 churches and 100 private houses, but he is best known for designing Newcastle railway station and his work with Richard Grainger developing the neoclassical centre of Newcastle. Other notable structures include Nunnykirk Hall, Meldon Park, Mitford Hall, Lilburn Tower, St John the Baptist Church in Otterburn, Northumberland, and Beaufront Castle.
Go to Profile#9598
Sumner Spaulding
1892 - 1952 (60 years)
Sumner Spaulding was an American architect and city planner. He is best known for designing the Harold Lloyd Estate, Greenacres, in Beverly Hills, California, the Catalina Casino in Avalon on Santa Catalina Island, California, and the Malaga Cove Plaza in Palos Verdes Estates, California.
Go to Profile#9599
Percival Goodman
1904 - 1989 (85 years)
Percival Goodman was an American urban theorist and architect who designed more than 50 synagogues between 1948 and 1983. He has been called the "leading theorist" of modern synagogue design, and "the most prolific architect in Jewish history."
Go to Profile#9600
Hans Motz
1909 - 1987 (78 years)
Hans Motz is known for his pioneering work at Stanford University on undulators which led to the development of the wiggler and the free-electron laser. Hans Motz was born in Vienna, and died in Oxford, England. He was survived by his widow Lotte Motz, his daughter Anna Motz, and his protégé of many years, George Purdy.
Go to Profile