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,
#10051
John A. Mannick
#10052
Joseph Warren Barker
1891 - 1975 (84 years)
Joseph Warren Barker was an American electrical and mechanical engineer, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Columbia University, and 75th president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in the year 1956-57.
Go to Profile#10053
Lewis Pilcher
1871 - 1941 (70 years)
Lewis F. Pilcher, AIA , was an American academic and architect active in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century New York City. With William G. Tachau, he was a partner of Pilcher and Tachau, the predecessor firm of Tachau and Vought. He was a professor of art at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He subsequently was a state architect of New York.
Go to Profile#10054
Richard Carpenter
1841 - 1893 (52 years)
Richard Herbert Carpenter was an English Gothic Revival architect. Carpenter was born 1841 in St Pancras, England, the son of the tractarian architect Richard Cromwell Carpenter and his wife Amelia. He is best known for his collaboration with Benjamin Ingelow; their architectural practice, founded by Carpenter's father and based in Marylebone, London, was responsible for the construction or of many ecclesiastical properties.
Go to Profile#10055
John William Gregg
1880 - 1969 (89 years)
John William Gregg , was a 20th-century professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. Gregg designed the townsites of California census-designated places Delhi, California and Ballico, California as twentieth century model agriculture townships. He and University of California, Los Angeles architect William Hays, designed the original Beaux-Arts architecture master concept plans for the University of California, Davis's campus in the early 1920s. Gregg worked with University of California Botanical Garden director Thomas Harper Goodspeed to move the botanical g...
Go to Profile#10056
Mabel Keyes Babcock
1862 - 1931 (69 years)
Mabel Keyes Babcock was one of America's early women landscape architects. She taught at Wellesley College and the Lowthorpe School of Landscape Architecture before going on to become Dean of Women Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#10057
Jacques-Noël Sané
1740 - 1831 (91 years)
Jacques-Noël Sané was a French naval engineer. He was the creator of standardised designs for ships of the line and frigates fielded by the French Navy in the 1780s, which served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and in some cases remained in service into the 1860s. Captured ships of his design were commissioned in the Royal Navy and even copied.
Go to Profile#10058
Johan Jensen
1859 - 1925 (66 years)
Johan Ludwig William Valdemar Jensen, mostly known as Johan Jensen , was a Danish mathematician and engineer. He was the president of the Danish Mathematical Society from 1892 to 1903. Biography Jensen was born in Nakskov, Denmark, but spent much of his childhood in northern Sweden, because his father obtained a job there as the manager of an estate. Their family returned to Denmark before 1876, when Jensen enrolled to the College of Advanced Technology. Although he studied mathematics among various subjects at college, and even published a research paper in mathematics, he learned advanced math topics later by himself and never held any academic position.
Go to Profile#10059
August von Voit
1801 - 1870 (69 years)
Richard Jakob August von Voit was a German architect specializing in glass and iron structures. Notable projects Voit designed the city hall of Annweiler am Trifels and the in Rhineland-Palatinate. He also designed two synagogues, one in Kirchheimbolanden in 1834, and another in Speyer in 1837. Von Voit also created the neo-Romanesque facade on St. Anna's, Lehel, which was destroyed during the war.
Go to Profile#10060
Leopoldo Artucio
1903 - 1976 (73 years)
Leopoldo Artucio was an Uruguayan architect and architectural historian. Artucio was also Dean of the Faculty of Architecture in Montevideo. Selected publications Montevideo y la arquitectura moderna .
Go to Profile#10061
John Henry Alexander
1812 - 1867 (55 years)
John Henry Alexander was a noted scientist, civil engineer and businessman. Personal life Alexander was born in Annapolis, Maryland, on June 26, 1812. The youngest child of William and Mary Alexander. His education was acquired in his native city, he was graduated from St. John's College in 1826, and he spent the next four years reading law privately, but apparently he did not take the bar exam. He, instead, chose to begin working for the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, later part of the Northern Central. Alexander also attended medical lectures in Baltimore, though he did not receive a ...
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Sima Milutinović
1899 - 1981 (82 years)
Sima Milutinović , was a Yugoslav mechanical engineer and a professor at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, at the University of Belgrade, the most prolific Yugoslav aircraft constructor. Life He was born on 12 July 1899 in Mostar , where he finished elementary school and junior high school. After graduating from the Sarajevo comprehensive grammar school in 1919, he began studies at the Faculty of Technology at the University of Belgrade in October of the same year. During his fifth term, he transferred to Polytechnic School in Berlin. In November 1925 he graduated in general mechanics, specializing in aviation with a B average grade.
Go to Profile#10063
Ludwig Schupmann
1851 - 1920 (69 years)
Ludwig Ignaz Schupmann was a German professor of architecture and an optical designer. He is principally remembered today for his Medial and Brachymedial telescopes, types of catadioptric reflecting-refracting telescopes with Mangin mirrors that eliminate chromatic aberrations while using common optical glasses. Used in early lunar studies, they are used now in double-star work.
Go to Profile#10064
Kai W. Hwang
#10065
Sheldon Greenfield
#10066
Henry Wright
1878 - 1936 (58 years)
Henry Wright , was a planner, architect, and major proponent of the garden city, an idea characterized by green belts and created by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Early life Henry Wright was born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1878. His family was Quaker and he based many of the ideas for his communities on Quaker ideas. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1901.
Go to Profile#10067
Cherry Logan Emerson
1888 - 1959 (71 years)
Cherry Logan Emerson, Sr. was an American engineer and academic administrator. Education Emerson graduated from Georgia Tech with two bachelor's degrees: one in mechanical engineering and one in electrical engineering . He was also a charter member of Georgia Tech's ANAK Society, Editor-in-Chief of the Blueprint, and a brother of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
Go to Profile#10068
Edwin Cooper
1874 - 1942 (68 years)
Sir Thomas Edwin Cooper RA FRIBA was an English architect. His work has been described as "essentially Classical, and sometimes powerfully Baroque." Personal life Cooper was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the son of Samuel Cooper, a local carriage proprietor. He married Mary Emily Welburn in 1898.
Go to Profile#10069
Yavin Shaham
#10070
André Kertész
1894 - 1985 (91 years)
André Kertész , born Andor Kertész, was a Hungarian-born photographer known for his groundbreaking contributions to photographic composition and the photo essay. In the early years of his career, his then-unorthodox camera angles and style prevented his work from gaining wider recognition. Kertész never felt that he had gained the worldwide recognition he deserved. Today he is considered one of the seminal figures of 20th century photography.
Go to Profile#10071
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
1794 - 1872 (78 years)
Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld was a German painter, chiefly of Biblical subjects. As a young man he associated with the painters of the Nazarene movement who revived the florid Renaissance style in religious art. He is remembered for his extensive Picture Bible, and his designs for stained glass windows in cathedrals.
Go to Profile#10072
Kazimierz Vetulani
1889 - 1941 (52 years)
Kazimierz Franciszek Vetulani was a Polish civil engineer, professor at the Lviv Polytechnic, member of the Polish Mathematical Society, author of several dozen papers in the fields of technology and mathematics, as well as in the field of musical scale theory.
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Wilhelm Philipp Daniel Schlich
1840 - 1925 (85 years)
#10074
William Pope Barney
1890 - 1970 (80 years)
William Pope Barney was an American architect. Barney was born 1890 in Columbus, Georgia, where he received his early education. He received a bachelor's degree in architecture from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1911. He then came to Philadelphia, where he earned a second B.S. in architecture in 1912 and a master's degree in 1913, both from the University of Pennsylvania. By 1915 he was employed in the office of his mentor, Paul Cret.
Go to Profile#10075
Walter Tollmien
1900 - 1968 (68 years)
Walter Tollmien was a German fluid dynamicist. Life Walter Tollmien studied from the winter semester 1920–1921 mathematics and physics with Ludwig Prandtl in Göttingen and then from 1924 onwards worked under Prandtl at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. After a research stays in United States in 1930 and 1933 he became a Professor in 1937 at Technische Hochschule Dresden. In 1957 he took over the post of Director at Max-Planck Institute for fluid mechanics research.
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William P. Trowbridge
1828 - 1892 (64 years)
William Petit Trowbridge was a mechanical engineer, military officer, and naturalist. He was one of the first mechanical engineers on the faculties of the University of Michigan, the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale, and the Columbia School of Mines. He had a brief military career after graduating from West Point and later served as Adjutant General for the State of Connecticut from 1873 to 1876. During his career as a surveyor on the American Pacific coast he collected thousands of animal specimens, several of which now bear his name.
Go to Profile#10077
En-hong Chen
#10078
Roland Duer Irving
1847 - 1888 (41 years)
Roland Duer Irving was an American geologist. He was born in New York city and graduated from Columbia College School of Mines in 1869 as a mining engineer. In 1879, he received his PhD, also from Columbia.
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Carl Paul Pfleiderer
1881 - 1960 (79 years)
Carl Paul Pfleiderer, also listed as Karl Pfleiderer , was a German mechanical engineer and university lecturer at the Technical University of Braunschweig . He developed the theoretical foundations of modern centrifugal pump construction.
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Herman Rosse
1887 - 1965 (78 years)
Hermann Rosse was a Dutch-American architect, illustrator, painter, theatrical designer, and art director. He won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for the film the King of Jazz. Early life He was born in The Hague, Netherlands, and died in Nyack, New York. Herman was the second child of Carl Rosse and Jacoba, Susanna de Haan. The elder sister of Herman, Bertha, Suzanna Rosse became a well-known Dutch painter.
Go to Profile#10081
Samuel Sanders Teulon
1812 - 1873 (61 years)
Samuel Sanders Teulon was an English Gothic Revival architect, noted for his use of polychrome brickwork and the complex planning of his buildings. Family Teulon was born in 1812 in Greenwich, Kent, the son of a cabinet-maker from a French Huguenot family. His younger brother William Milford Teulon also became an architect.
Go to Profile#10082
George C. Whipple
1866 - 1924 (58 years)
George Chandler Whipple was an American civil engineer and an expert in the field of sanitary microbiology. His career extended from 1889 to 1924 and he is best known as a co-founder of the Harvard School of Public Health. Whipple published some of the most important books in the early history of public health and applied microbiology.
Go to Profile#10083
August Ritter
1826 - 1908 (82 years)
August Ritter was a German civil engineer. Biography He was educated at the Polytechnic Institute at Hanover, and at Göttingen. He was a practicing engineer for some time, in 1856 became teacher of mechanics and construction of machinery at Hanover, in the Polytechnic Institute, and in 1870 became professor in the School of Technology at Aix-la-Chapelle. He is best known as the author of Ritter's method of doing calculations for arches for bridges and roofs.
Go to Profile#10084
James Gillray
1756 - 1815 (59 years)
James Gillray was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810. Many of his works are held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
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Harold E. Wagoner
1905 - 1986 (81 years)
Harold Eugene Wagoner was a prominent twentieth-century American ecclesiastical architect who designed many notable churches, including Coral Ridge Presbyterian and National Presbyterian, as well as helping design the interior of the United States Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel. His firm was entirely devoted to ecclesiastical work and had more than 500 commissions in 36 states. He was an instructor in architecture at the Drexel Institute of Technology for more than twenty years.
Go to Profile#10086
Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee
1893 - 1991 (98 years)
Elizabeth Greenleaf Pattee was an American architect, landscape architect, and architecture professor in the Northeast whose career spanned a half century. About Pattee was born in 1893 in Quincy, Massachusetts. She was descended from an old New England family; portraits of several of her Greenleaf ancestors were painted by the Colonial-era painter Joseph Blackburn, and she would in later life donate a Christian Gullager portrait of her great-great-granduncle Daniel Greenleaf to the National Portrait Gallery.
Go to Profile#10087
Morrough Parker O'Brien
1902 - 1988 (86 years)
Morrough "Mike" Parker O'Brien, Jr. was an American hydraulic engineering professor and is considered the founder of modern coastal engineering. In addition to his academic work, O'Brien served as a consultant on a variety of government and private sector projects including work for General Electric. O'Brien's government career culminated in a presidential appointment to the National Science Board.
Go to Profile#10088
Paul Thiersch
1879 - 1928 (49 years)
Paul Thiersch was a German architect and designer. Life and work He was born to an illustrious family that produced notable people in several fields. His great-grandfather, Friedrich Thiersch was a philologist. His grandfather, H. W. J. Thiersch, was a theologian; brother of the surgeon Karl Thiersch and the artist Ludwig Thiersch. Paul's father, , and his uncle, Friedrich, were also architects, and his older brother, , was an archaeologist.
Go to Profile#10089
James Craig
1739 - 1795 (56 years)
James Craig was a Scottish architect who worked mostly in lowlands of the country and especially his native city of Edinburgh. He is remembered primarily for his layout of the first Edinburgh New Town.
Go to Profile#10090
Obed Crosby Haycock
1901 - 1983 (82 years)
Obed Crosby Haycock was a scientist and educator. He was born in Panguitch, Utah on October 5, 1901. He received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah in 1925. He also had studied at Utah State University. He received a master of Science from Purdue University in 1931. He was a research Engineer at Rutgers University from 1944-1945. He became the Director of Upper Air Research labs at the University of Utah in 1957. He started a radio station KLGN in Logan, Utah in 1954 which he later sold.
Go to Profile#10091
Johannes Emil Gnudtzmann
1837 - 1922 (85 years)
Johannes Emil Gnudtzmann was a Danish architect working in the Historicist style. His most notable works are St. Paul's Church and the extension of the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University's main building, both in Copenhagen. He was the father of Kaj Gnudtzmann.
Go to Profile#10092
Rudolf Fränkel
1901 - 1974 (73 years)
Rudolf Fränkel, often anglicised as Rudolf or Rudolph Frankel was a German-Jewish architect who was among the leaders of the pre-war avant-garde movement in Berlin. He later emigrated to Bucharest, London and the United States, where he became an Architecture professor at Miami University, Ohio.
Go to Profile#10093
Nicolai Abildgaard
1743 - 1809 (66 years)
Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard was a Danish neoclassical and royal history painter, sculptor, architect, and professor of painting, mythology, and anatomy at the New Royal Danish Academy of Art in Copenhagen, Denmark. Many of his works were in the royal Christiansborg Palace , Fredensborg Palace, and Levetzau Palace at Amalienborg.
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Adolf Martens
1850 - 1914 (64 years)
Adolf Martens , 6 March 1850 in Gammelin – 24 July 1914 in Groß-Lichterfelde, was a German metallurgist and the namesake of the steel structure martensite and the martensitic transformation, a type of diffusionless phase transition in the solid state. He also made significant contributions to the field of tribology. The functional relationship between the coefficient of friction and the product of sliding speed and viscosity divided by the normal load was experimentally explored by Adolf Martens in 1888, long before Richard Stribeck made his pioneering measurements in 1902.
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Yakov Modestovich Gakkel
1874 - 1945 (71 years)
Yakov Modestovich Gakkel was a Soviet and Russian scientist and engineer who made significant contributions to the development of aircraft and locomotives in the former Soviet Union. Biography His father was a military engineer and he attended the Petersburg Electrotechnical Institute. In 1896, he was arrested for revolutionary activities and imprisoned for several months. After being released, he was allowed to graduate, then exiled to Siberia. He was sent to work at The Lena Goldfields , near Bodaybo. While there, he participated in the construction of hydroelectric facilities and helped wi...
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Constantin Dinculescu
1898 - 1990 (92 years)
Constantin N. Dinculescu was a Romanian energy engineer and educator. Dinculescu designed the electrification of the Bucharest-Brașov railway for Căile Ferate Române, implemented between 1959 and 1966. Serving as rector of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest between August 1954 and January 1956, and then between December 1956 and April 1968, he contributed to the development of energy engineering education in Romania, introducing a nuclear energy engineering discipline to the curriculum.
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Aurelio Lucchini
1910 - 1989 (79 years)
Aurelio Lucchini was a Uruguayan architect and architectural historian. From March 1983 till his death he was a member of the Academia Nacional de Letras del Uruguay. Selected works Cronología comparada de la historia del Uruguay 1830-1945, with Blanca París de Oddone, Carlos Real de Azúa, Otilia Muras, Arturo Ardao, Washington Buño, Lauro Ayestarán, and Susana Salgado; Montevideo, 1966.Ideas y formas en la arquitectura nacional. Colección Nuestra Tierra, Vol. 6, Montevideo, 1969.Julio Vilamajó. Su arquitectura, with the collaboration of Mariano Arana; FArq, IHA, Montevideo, 1970.El Concepto de Arquitectura y su traducción a formas en el territorio que hoy pertenece a Uruguay.
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William E. Wickenden
1882 - 1947 (65 years)
William Elgein Wickenden was the third president of Case School of Applied Science, now Case Western Reserve University. Wickenden was born in Toledo, Ohio, on December 24, 1882. He graduated from Denison University in 1904 and married Marion Lamb, also a Denison graduate, in Toledo on Sept 2, 1908.
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Juan Giuria
1880 - 1957 (77 years)
Juan Giuria was a Uruguayan architect and architectural historian. Biography He was a student of the old Faculty of Mathematics of Montevideo, where he obtained his degree in Architecture. He devoted himself to lecturing and investigation. He was one of the founders of the Institute of Architectural History; among his collaborators were Aurelio Lucchini and Elzeario Boix.
Go to Profile#10100
Peder Oluf Pedersen
1874 - 1941 (67 years)
Peder Oluf Pedersen was a Danish engineer and physicist. He is notable for his work on electrotechnology, his cooperation with Valdemar Poulsen on the developmental work on Wire recorders, which he called a telegraphone, the arc converter known as the Poulsen Arc Transmitter, and his work on electrical currents in the ionosphere.
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