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).
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List of the most influential people in Engineering,
#9601
Bruno Piglhein
1848 - 1894 (46 years)
Elimar Ulrich Bruno Piglhein was a German sculptor and painter. He was a founder and first President of the Munich Secession. Life His father was a decorator. Upon graduating from the Gymnasium, he studied with the sculptor Julius Lippelt. After Lippelt's death from tuberculosis, Piglhein went to the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts, but had to leave after two years for an alleged lack of talent. The sculptor Johannes Schilling saw that he had some potential, however, and took him into his studio. After a short stay in Italy, Piglhein decided to take up painting instead and, on Schilling's recommendation, began studies with Ferdinand Pauwels at the Weimar Saxon-Grand Ducal Art School.
Go to Profile#9602
Vera Prasilova Scott
1899 - 1996 (97 years)
Vera Prasilova Scott was a Czech-American photographer and sculptor. Her main work, which consisted of shadowed, gelatin silver photographs of Houstonian upper class society and intellectuals, has been preserved at the Rice University Woodson Research Center, the Museum of Czech Literature, and the Portland Museum of Art.
Go to Profile#9603
Dion Boucicault
1820 - 1890 (70 years)
Dionysius Lardner "Dion" Boucicault was an Irish actor and playwright famed for his melodramas. By the later part of the 19th century, Boucicault had become known on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most successful actor-playwright-managers then in the English-speaking theatre. Although The New York Times hailed him in his obituary as "the most conspicuous English dramatist of the 19th century," he and his second wife, Agnes Robertson Boucicault, had applied for and received American citizenship in 1873.
Go to Profile#9604
Marjan Amalietti
1923 - 1988 (65 years)
Marjan Amalietti was a Slovene architect, also known for his illustrations, comics and caricatures. Amalietti was born in Ormož in 1923. He studied architecture at what was then the Technical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana and graduated in 1954. From 1957 he also taught at the faculty. For many years his caricatures were regularly published in the satirical magazine Pavliha. He also illustrated numerous children's books. In 1978 he won the Levstik Award for his illustrations of Netočka Nezvanova and Ulenspiegel .
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Lee Pierce Butler
1884 - 1953 (69 years)
Lee Pierce Butler was a professor at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School. He was one of the first to use the term "library science" , by which he meant the scientific study of books and users, and was a leader in the new social-scientific approach to the field in the 1930s and 1940s.
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Robert Helpmann
1909 - 1986 (77 years)
Sir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, director, and choreographer. After early work in Australia he moved to Britain in 1932, where he joined the Vic-Wells Ballet under its creator, Ninette de Valois. He became one of the company's leading men, partnering Alicia Markova and later Margot Fonteyn. When Frederick Ashton, the company's chief choreographer, was called up for military service in the Second World War, Helpmann took over from him while continuing as a principal dancer.
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Homer Clyde Snook
1878 - 1942 (64 years)
Homer Clyde Snook was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He developed the Snook apparatus, the first interrupterless device produced for X-ray work. Life and times Homer Clyde Snook was born in 1878, at Antwerp, Ohio, to Judge Wilson H. Snook and Nancy Jane Snook . He had 4 siblings, brothers Otto W. and Ward Hunt, and sisters Lee May and Ethel Maud. On 24 June 1903, Snook, age 24, occupation listed as science expert, form Philadelphia, married May Eusebia McKee , age 26, occupation listed as at home, from Warren, Ohio. He was the son of Wilson H. Snook and Nannie Graves. The bride was the daughter of John McKee and Mary E.
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F. Morris Touchstone
1897 - 1957 (60 years)
Francis Morris Touchstone was an American lacrosse coach. He served for 29 years as the head coach for the United States Military Academy's men's lacrosse team and is their all-time winningest coach by number of wins. While at Army, he led the Cadets to three national championships and 42 of his players received first-team All-American honors. Shortly after his death he was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame. The Touchstone Memorial Award for the men's college lacrosse coach of the year was established in his honor.
Go to Profile#9609
Arthur Hill
1846 - 1921 (75 years)
Arthur Hill was an Irish architect based in County Cork. Biography Born in Cork on 8 June 1846, Arthur Hill was the son of Henry Hill and nephew of William Hill, part of a dynasty of Cork-based architects that included his cousins William Henry Hill and Arthur Richard Hill, as well as his son Henry Houghton Hill and first-cousin once-removed William Henry Hill. He was the grandfather via Henry Houghton Hill of Michelin star chef Myrtle Allen.
Go to Profile#9610
Edward FitzGerald
1871 - 1931 (60 years)
Edward Arthur FitzGerald was an American-born mountaineer and soldier of British descent, best known for leading the expedition which made the first ascent of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the American Continent, in 1897.
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Sebastiano Giuseppe Locati
1861 - 1939 (78 years)
Sebastiano Giuseppe Locati was an Italian architect. He became famous at the turn of the twentieth century for his efforts in designing structures in eclectic and Art Nouveau styles. Life and career Born to Francesco Locati and Angela Fossati, he studied at the Accademia di Brera, where he was a pupil of Camillo Boito and Carlo Formenti. After completing his studies in 1881, he won the Oggioni Competition for a two-year post-graduate course in Rome, after which he moved to Paris, where he enrolled in the Académie des Beaux-Arts and where he updated his artistic knowledge, nurturing his eclect...
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George G. Adams
1850 - 1932 (82 years)
George G. Adams was an American architect from Lawrence, Massachusetts. Life and career George Gilman Adams was born August 26, 1850, in Rollinsford, New Hampshire, to Benjamin Gilman Adams, a mill superintendent, and Sophia Adams. In 1854 the family moved to Lawrence, then a growing industrial city. He was educated in the Lawrence public schools before joining the office of civil engineer Baldwin Coolidge as a drafter in 1870. Two years later he joined the office of local architect Charles T. Emerson as a student. In 1875 Emerson and Adams formed a partnership, which lasted until 1878, when Emerson moved his business to Boston.
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Milarepa
1052 - 1135 (83 years)
Jetsun Milarepa was a Tibetan siddha, who was famously known as a murderer when he was a young man, before turning to Buddhism and becoming a highly accomplished Buddhist disciple. He is generally considered one of Tibet's most famous yogis and spiritual poets, whose teachings are known among several schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He was a student of Marpa Lotsawa, and a major figure in the history of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also famous for the feat of climbing Mount Kailash.
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Emile Berliner
1851 - 1929 (78 years)
Emile Berliner originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record used with a gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894; The Gramophone Company in London, England, in 1897; Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover, Germany, in 1898; and Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in Montreal in 1899 . Berliner also invented what was probably the first radial aircraft engine , a helicopter , and acoustical tiles .
Go to Profile#9615
Charles Sykes
1905 - 1982 (77 years)
Sir Charles Sykes CBE, FRS was a British physicist and metallurgist. He was born in Clowne, Derbyshire, the only son of Samuel Sykes, the local greengrocer and was educated at the Netherthorpe Grammar School and Sheffield University, where he gained a BSc in physics in 1925. He stayed on there to do a PhD course in physics but after one year accepted an invitation by Metropolitan-Vickers of Manchester to complete an unfinished project on the alloys of zirconium. The results of that study earned him a PhD in metallurgy and a position in the research department of Metropolitan-Vickers.
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Mike Todd
1909 - 1958 (49 years)
Michael Todd was an American theater and film producer, celebrated for his 1956 Around the World in 80 Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture. Actress Elizabeth Taylor was his third wife. Todd was the third of Taylor's seven husbands, and the only one whom Taylor did not divorce - Todd died in a private plane accident a year after their marriage. He was the driving force behind the development of the eponymous Todd-AO widescreen film format.
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Georges Claude
1870 - 1960 (90 years)
Georges Claude was a French engineer and inventor. He is noted for his early work on the industrial liquefaction of air, for the invention and commercialization of neon lighting, and for a large experiment on generating energy by pumping cold seawater up from the depths. He has been considered by some to be "the Edison of France". Claude was an active collaborator with the German occupiers of France during the Second World War, for which he was imprisoned in 1945 and stripped of his honors.
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Cy Young
1900 - 1964 (64 years)
Cyrus "Cy" Young was a Chinese-American special effects animator, best known for his work for The Walt Disney Company. Young was brother of Chinese politician Yang Qianli , architect Yang Xiliu , Entrepreneur Yang Xiren and Yang Renlan . He had works in China called Pause and New Year. Young's first work in United States was as lead animator on the 1931 short "Mendelssohn's Spring Song", a project completed while he was a student in New York City. Disney was so impressed with his work that he hired him to be head of the new special effects animation department and he partnered with animator U...
Go to Profile#9619
William Robertson
1786 - 1841 (55 years)
William Robertson was a Scottish architect. Born in Lonmay in Aberdeenshire, he started his career in Cullen, Moray, then moved to Elgin around 1821, where he practised for the rest of his life. He established himself as the foremost architect of his period north of Aberdeen, described by Charles McKean as "possibly the north of Scotland's first native classical architect of substance." His practice was continued by his nephews Alexander and William Reid, and their partners and successors J and W Wittet.
Go to Profile#9620
Norman Percy Allen
1903 - 1972 (69 years)
Norman Percy Allen was a British metallurgist. Early life He was born in Wrexham, North Wales, the son of accountant Sidney Edward Allen and educated at Burton-on-Trent Boys' Grammar School and Sheffield University, where he obtained an honours degree in metallurgy.
Go to Profile#9621
Florence Ward Stiles
1897 - 1981 (84 years)
Florence Ward Stiles was an American architect and librarian who in 1939 was appointed the first advisor to women students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . She was awarded an architecture degree as a member of MIT's class of 1923. After graduating, she joined the all-woman firm of Howe, Manning & Almy, Inc. Her career included working at the firm of Stone & Webster. Later she established a private practice with a focus on small dwellings and remodeling historic houses. In 1931 she became the librarian at MIT's Rotch Library of Architecture and Planning. She joined the American Institute of Architects in 1943.
Go to Profile#9622
Ralph D. Cornell
1890 - 1972 (82 years)
Ralph Dalton Cornell was an American landscape architect from Los Angeles, California. Biography Early life Ralph Dalton Cornell was born on January 11, 1890, in Holdrege, Nebraska. He moved to California with his family in 1908. He graduated from Pomona College in 1914 and received an M.L.A. from Harvard University in 1917. During World War I, he served in the United States Army.
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Richard Sears McCulloh
1818 - 1894 (76 years)
Richard Sears McCulloh was an American civil engineer and professor of mechanics and thermodynamics at the Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. Career McCulloh was born on 18 March 1818 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. He graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1836, then studied chemistry in Philadelphia with James Curtis Booth from 1838 to 1839. From 1846 to 1849 he worked for the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1846. McCulloh was appointed professor of natural philosophy at Princeton University on 24 October 1849, ...
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Dillard E. Bird
1906 - 1990 (84 years)
Dillard Eugene Bird was an American industrial and consulting engineer, founder and President of Dillard E. Bird Associates, consultants to management in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was known as "veteran in the field of personnel administration," and as the 10th president of the Society for Advancement of Management from 1949 to 1951.
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Syrius Eberle
1844 - 1903 (59 years)
Syrius Eberle was a German sculptor and art professor. Biography Eberle was born in Pfronten, Allgäu, the son of a carpenter. He married the daughter of the lithographer Thomas Driendl , also from Pfronten.
Go to Profile#9626
Giuseppe Bruno
1828 - 1893 (65 years)
Giuseppe Bruno was an Italian mathematician, professor of geometry in the university of Turin. Life and work Bruno has born in a very poor family, but he won a stipend to study in the University of Turin, where he graduated in philosophy in 1846. The following years he was professor at secondary level, while he studied to graduate in engineering and to doctorate in mathematics .
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John Philip Holland
1840 - 1914 (74 years)
John Philip Holland was an Irish engineer who developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the US Navy, and the first Royal Navy submarine, Holland 1. Early life Holland, the second of four siblings, all boys, was born in a coastguard cottage in Liscannor, County Clare, Ireland where his father, John Sr., was a member of the Royal Coastguard Service. His mother, a native Irish speaker from Liscannor, Máire Ní Scannláin , was John Holland's second wife; his first, Anne Foley Holland, believed to be a native of Kilkee, died in 1835. The area was heavily Irish-speaking and Holla...
Go to Profile#9628
Michiel Coignet
1549 - 1623 (74 years)
Michiel Coignet was a Flemish polymath who made significant contributions to various disciplines including cosmography, mathematics, navigation and cartography. He also built new and improved scientific instruments and made military engineering designs.
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Kate Cory
1861 - 1958 (97 years)
Kate Cory was an American photographer and artist. She studied art in New York, and then worked as commercial artist. She traveled to the southwestern United States in 1905 and lived among the Hopi for several years, recording their lives in about 600 photographs.
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Jean Painlevé
1902 - 1989 (87 years)
Jean Painlevé was a photographer and filmmaker who specialized in underwater fauna. He was the son of mathematician and twice prime minister of France Paul Painlevé. Upbringing A few days after Painlevé was born, his mother, Marguerite Petit de Villeneuve, died from complications arising from an infection contracted during childbirth. Painlevé, an only son, was raised by his father's sister Marie, a widow.
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Willem van Bemmel
1630 - 1708 (78 years)
Willem van Bemmel, or Guillaume, or Wilhelm von Bemmel , was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter who moved to Germany. He was born in Utrecht, where he was a student of Herman Saftleven. He made a Grand Tour to Rome, spending first the years 1647–9 in Venice before moving to Rome where he stayed for six years and became a member of the Bentvueghels. From Rome he crossed the Alps to Nuremberg. He died in Nuremberg, aged 78.
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Constantin C. Teodorescu
1892 - 1972 (80 years)
Constantin C. Teodorescu was a Romanian engineer. Born in Bucharest to a low-ranking employee of the Education Ministry, he attended primary school in his native city. Subsequently, he went to Iași on a scholarship, first going to the Costache Negruzzi High School, followed by the National High School. He graduated from the latter institution's science department in 1911, then winning a place at the National School for Bridges and Roads. There, his professors included Anghel Saligny, Elie Radu, Ion Ionescu-Bizeț, David Emmanuel and Nicolae Vasilescu-Karpen. After obtaining a degree as a bridg...
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Victor Fürth
1893 - 1984 (91 years)
Victor Fürth , was a Czech-Jewish architect working in Prague until 1939. Life His firm designed the Te-Ta department Store in Prague. This 7-story building can be seen at Jungmannova Street 747/28 110 00 Praha-Nové Město . It was renovated in 1997 at which time underground parking was added, and an apartment wing was included in the rear. The reinforced concrete building contains a parterre which allows passage between Jungmannova Street and the Franciscan Garden.
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Geoffrey de Havilland
1882 - 1965 (83 years)
Captain Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, was an English aviation pioneer and aerospace engineer. The aircraft company he founded produced the Mosquito, which has been considered the most versatile warplane ever built, and his Comet was the first jet airliner to go into production.
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Silston Cory-Wright
1888 - 1976 (88 years)
Silston Cory-Wright was an English-born New Zealand engineer, university lecturer, soldier, and company director. Early life Silston Cory-Wright was born at Sigglesthorne Hall, Hornsea, Yorkshire, England, on 22 September 1888. He was the son of George Henry Cory Wright and his wife, Ellen Green Wade. The grandson of Sir William Wright, the double-barrelled surname came about as a result of a disagreement between George's side of the family and his half-siblings.
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John Muir
1918 - 1977 (59 years)
John Muir was a structural engineer who worked for National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics , who "dropped out," 1960s-style, to become a writer and long-haired car mechanic with a garage in Taos, New Mexico, specializing in maintenance and repair of Volkswagens. He was a distant relative of the naturalist John Muir.
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Henry Payne
1871 - 1945 (74 years)
Henry Payne FRAeS M.Inst.C.E. was dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Melbourne. He was also the first occupant of the Corporation Chair of Engineering, South African College, Cape Town where he designed and equipped the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Departments. Payne's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography describes him as 'Dignified in manner and precise in speech, he was respected as a man of principle'.
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Fritz Kortner
1892 - 1970 (78 years)
Fritz Kortner was an Austrian stage and film actor and theatre director. Life and career Kortner was born in Vienna as Fritz Nathan Kohn into a Jewish family. He studied at the Vienna Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. After graduating, he joined Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1911 and then Leopold Jessner in 1916. After his breakthrough performance in Ernst Toller's Transfiguration in 1919, he became one of Germany's best-known character actors and the nation's foremost performer of Expressionist works. He also appeared in over ninety films beginning in 1916.
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Edward B. Durham
1875 - Present (151 years)
Edward Benjamin Durham was an American mining engineer and Professor at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, especially known for his work on mine surveying. Biography Durham received his MA in mining at the Columbia University in 1893, where he was classmate of Halbert Powers Gillette.
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William Robinson
1840 - 1921 (81 years)
William Robinson was an American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer and businessman. He invented the first track circuit used in railway signaling, a major development that improved railroad safety and efficiency.
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Fabian Franklin
1853 - 1939 (86 years)
Fabian Franklin was a Hungarian-born American engineer, mathematician and journalist, husband of Christine Ladd-Franklin. Life and work The Franklin family migrated from Hungary to Philadelphia when Fabian Franklin was four years old and they afterwards moved to Washington, D.C. in 1861. He was educated at Columbian College where he graduated Ph.B. in 1869. Franklin worked the following seven years as surveyor and engineer for the Baltimore City Council.
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Jack Magee
1883 - 1968 (85 years)
John Joseph Magee was an American track and field coach. He was head coach at Bowdoin College from 1913 to 1955 and assistant coach of the United States Olympic track and field team in 1924, 1928 and 1932.
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Edward Benjamin Cushing
1863 - 1924 (61 years)
Edward Benjamin Cushing was an engineer and academic administrator. He served as the Chairman of the Board of Regents of Texas A&M University in 1912. Biography Early life Edward Benjamin Cushing was born in Houston, Texas to E.H. and Matilda Cushing. His father was an outspoken Southern Democrat and owner of The Telegraph, a Houston newspaper. He graduated from the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, now known as Texas A&M University, in 1880.
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Louis Boutan
1859 - 1934 (75 years)
Louis Marie-Auguste Boutan was a French biologist and photographer. He was a pioneer in the field of underwater photography. Biography The son of , he was born in Versailles and studied biology and natural history at the University of Paris. In 1880, he was named deputy head assigned to organize the French exhibit at the Melbourne International Exhibition . He stayed in Australia for 18 months, travelling the continent and identifying new animal species. In 1886, Boutan was named maître de conférences at the University of Lille. In the same year, he learned how to dive. In 1893, he was named professor at the Laboratoire Arago.
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Wolfgang Liebeneiner
1905 - 1987 (82 years)
Wolfgang Georg Louis Liebeneiner was a German actor, film director and theatre director. Beginnings He was born in Liebau in Prussian Silesia. In 1928, he was taught by Otto Falckenberg, the director of the Munich Kammerspiele, in acting and directing.
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Hubert Oswald Stier
1838 - 1907 (69 years)
Hubert Oswald Stier was a German architect and university lecturer. He built mainly train stations, museums, and churches primarily in the Neo-Renaissance style. Most of his works are located in Berlin and Hanover.
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Witold Nowacki
1911 - 1986 (75 years)
Prof Witold Nowacki HFRSE PPAS was a Polish mathematician and expert on the mechanics of elasticity and thermoelasticity. He served as President of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1978 to 1980 and was the first President of the Society of the Interaction of Mathematics and Mechanics.
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Richard Burbage
1567 - 1619 (52 years)
Richard Burbage was an English stage actor, widely considered to have been one of the most famous actors of the Globe Theatre and of his time. In addition to being a stage actor, he was also a theatre owner, entrepreneur, and painter. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage. They were both actors in drama. Burbage was a business associate and friend to William Shakespeare.
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Ugo Tognazzi
1922 - 1990 (68 years)
Ugo Tognazzi was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter. Early life Tognazzi was born in Cremona, in northern Italy but spent his youth in various localities as his father was a travelling clerk for an insurance company.
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John Moran
1831 - 1903 (72 years)
John Moran was a pioneering American photographer and artist. Moran was a prominent landscape, architectural, astronomical and expedition photographer whose career began in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area during the 1860s.
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