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,
#1151
Franz Pacher
#39624
Overall Influence
1919 - 2018 (99 years)
Franz Pacher was an Austrian civil engineer and a pioneer of modern tunneling. He is one of three men who are considered to be the chief developers of the New Austrian Tunneling method . During the later years of his career, he was involved in nearly 90% of all tunnel constructions in Austria.
Go to Profile#1152
Metin Sitti
#23296
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Metin Sitti is the Director of the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, which he founded in 2014. He is also a Professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich, a Professor at the School of Medicine and College of Engineering at Koç University and co-founder of Setex Technologies Inc. based in Pittsburgh, USA.
Go to Profile#1153
Chen Jie
#32849
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Chen Jie is a Chinese engineer who is a professor and the current president of Tongji University, and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Biography Chen was born in Fuqing, Fujian, on 8 July 1965. He attended the Fuqing Experimental Primary School. He secondary studied at Fuqing No. 1 High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1986, a master's degree in 1996, and a doctor's degree in 2001, all from Beijing Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#1154
Jayathi Murthy
#44465
Overall Influence
Jayathi Y. Murthy is an Indian-American mechanical engineer who is the current President of Oregon State University. Previously, she was the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California, Los Angeles where she was also a distinguished professor. Her research interests include macroelectronics, computational fluid dynamics, heat transfer, and phase-change materials. Murthy has served on the Engineering and Computer Science jury for the Infosys Prize since 2018.
Go to Profile#1155
Stephen Billings
#59449
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Stephen A. Billings was Professor of Signal Processing and Complex Systems, and Director of the Signal Processing and Complex Systems Research Group, in the Dept. of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering of the University of Sheffield. He died on 18 December 2022. He was one of only seven academics of that university counted as "highly cited" by the ISI Web of Knowledge with over 500 publications to his name. Based on information from the Web of Science he is ranked as the fourth most highly cited engineer in the UK, over all categories of engineering, and is one of the world's most hig...
Go to Profile#1156
Luis de Garrido
#34515
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Luis de Garrido Talavera is a Spanish architect working in sustainable architecture in Spain. Biography Luis de Garrido studied architecture in the UPV Polytechnic University of Valencia where he graduated with a doctorate. He also completed a master's degree in Urban Design at the .
Go to Profile#1157
Christian Boltanski
#11042
Overall Influence
1944 - 2021 (77 years)
Christian Liberté Boltanski was a French sculptor, photographer, painter, and film maker. He is best known for his photography installations and contemporary French conceptual style. Early life Boltanski was born in Paris on 6 September 1944. His father, Étienne Alexandre Boltanski, a physician, was Jewish and had come to France from Russia, while Marie-Elise Ilari-Guérin, his Roman Catholic mother originated from Corsica, descended from Ukrainian Jews. His Jewish heritage was a large influence in Boltanski's household. During World War II, while living in Paris, his father escaped deportation by hiding in a space under the floorboards of the family apartment for a year and a half.
Go to Profile#1158
Richard Skalak
#56685
Overall Influence
1923 - 1997 (74 years)
Richard Skalak was an American pioneer in biomedical engineering. He is known for his groundbreaking work in the mechanics of blood flow, bone growth, white blood cell response to infections, and biological implications and responses to implants. He won numerous significant scientific honors over his career, including election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1988. He is the namesake of the ASME Richard Skalak Award.
Go to Profile#1159
C.-C. Jay Kuo
#45978
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Chung-Chieh Jay Kuo is a Taiwanese electrical engineer and the director of the Multimedia Communications Lab as well as distinguished professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Southern California. He is a specialist in multimedia signal processing, video coding, video quality assessment, machine learning and wireless communication.
Go to Profile#1160
Masahiro Mori
#27422
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (97 years)
is a Japanese roboticist noted for his pioneering work in the fields of robotics and automation, his research achievements in humans' emotional responses to non-human entities, as well as for his views on religion. The ASIMO robot was designed by one of Masahiro's students.
Go to Profile#1161
Robert McMeeking
#60401
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Robert Maxwell McMeeking is a Scottish-born engineer. He is currently Tony Evans Distinguished Professor of Structural Materials and of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara. McMeeking has been widely recognized for his contributions to applied mechanics for which was awarded the 2014 Timoshenko Medal. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, National Academy of Engineering and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Go to Profile#1162
Mark van Loosdrecht
#39532
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Mark van Loosdrecht is a Dutch professor in environmental biotechnology at Delft University of Technology. He was the creator of Nereda, a wastewater treatment technology developed by a cooperation between the Delft University of Technology, the Dutch Foundation for Applied Water Research and Royal HaskoningDHV.
Go to Profile#1163
Diana Balmori
#37900
Overall Influence
1932 - 2016 (84 years)
Diana Balmori Ling was a landscape and urban designer. She was the founder of the landscape design firm Balmori Associates. Early life and education Born in Gijón, Spain, Diana Balmori spent most of her childhood in Spain and England before her family settled in Argentina. Her mother Dorothy Ling was a musician and musicologist. Her father Clemente Hernando Balmori was a linguistic expert. At an early age Balmori learned to sing, dance, play piano, and her parents encouraged her to explore a wide range of mediums. She brought many of these influences with her into the design world.
Go to Profile#1164
Jan Roskam
#39060
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Jan Roskam was a Dutch-born American aircraft designer. He was the Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Kansas. He was also the author of eleven books on airplane design and flight dynamics and over 160 papers on the topics of aircraft aerodynamics, performance, design and flight controls. He founded the company DARcorporation with Willem Anemaat.
Go to Profile#1165
Tom Byers
#16192
Overall Influence
Tom Byers is a professor at Stanford University in the United States. He concentrates in the area of high-technology ventures and serves as the faculty director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
Go to Profile#1166
Kiran Seth
#35577
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Kiran Seth is an Indian academician, professor emeritus in the department of mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He is most known as the founder of SPIC MACAY , a non-profit organisation which promotes Indian classical music, Indian classical dance, and other aspects Indian culture, amongst youth the world over; through its about 500 chapters and through conventions, baithaks, lectures and musical fests.
Go to Profile#1167
Chia-Shun Yih
#40733
Overall Influence
1918 - 1997 (79 years)
Chia-Shun Yih was the Stephen P. Timoshenko Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He made many significant contributions to fluid mechanics. Yih was also a seal artist.
Go to Profile#1168
Zhu Han
#64147
Overall Influence
#1169
Jim Plummer
#54828
Overall Influence
James D. Plummer is a Canadian-born electrical engineer. He is the John M. Fluke Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, and from 1999 to 2014 served as Frederick Emmons Terman Dean of the School of Engineering.
Go to Profile#1170
Brian Jones
#14084
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Brian George Jones is an English balloonist. Brian Jones, along with Bertrand Piccard, co-piloted the first successful uninterrupted circumnavigation of the world on board a balloon, the Breitling Orbiter 3. They set off on 1 March 1999 from Château d'Oex in Switzerland and landed in Egypt after a flight lasting 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes. For this achievement, he received awards including the Harmon Trophy, the Hubbard Medal, the FAI Gold Air Medal, the Charles Green Salver, the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, and was appointed an Officer of the Order of t...
Go to Profile#1171
Susan Hough
#36216
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Susan Elizabeth Hough is a seismologist at the United States Geological Survey in Pasadena, California, and scientist in charge of the office. She has served as an editor and contributor for many journals and is a contributing editor to Geotimes Magazine. She is the author of five books, including Earthshaking Science .
Go to Profile#1172
Maria Schwarz
#48708
Overall Influence
1921 - 2018 (97 years)
Maria Schwarz was a German architect and professor best known for her church architecture. Maria Lang was born on 3 October 1921 in Aachen, Germany. Her father, a contractor sparked her interest in architecture at a young age. In 1941, Lang enrolled in RWTH Aachen University, making her the first woman to study architecture at the school. She graduated for the university with a master's degree in 1946.
Go to Profile#1173
Zhu Zhaoxiang
#51004
Overall Influence
1921 - 2011 (90 years)
Zhu Zhaoxiang , also known as Zhao-xiang Zhu, was a Chinese engineer, educator and a pioneer of explosive mechanics in China. He was the first President of Ningbo University. Biography Feb 4, 1921, Zhu was born in Zhenhai County , Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Both his father and grandfather were fishermen. In 1949, Zhu graduated from the Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University. In the early 1940s, Zhu joined the Communist Party of China . From 1944 to 1949, Zhu was a lecturer and assistant in the Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University.
Go to Profile#1174
Thomas S. Lundgren
#36337
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Thomas S. Lundgren is an Americann fluid dynamicist and Professor Emeritus of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Minnesota He is known for his work in the field of theoretical fluid dynamics. In 2006, Lundgren received Fluid Dynamics Prize by the American Physical Society "for his insightful theoretical contributions to numerous areas of fluid mechanics, most notably in the fields of turbulence and vortex dynamics"
Go to Profile#1175
Peter J Lang
#64431
Overall Influence
#1176
George Tchobanoglous
#36811
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
George Tchobanoglous is an American civil and environmental engineer, writer and professor. Biography George Tchobanoglous was born in the United States to Greek immigrant parents. He received a BS in civil engineering from the University of the Pacific, an MS in sanitary engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in environmental engineering from Stanford University. Rolf Eliassen was his PhD adviser at Stanford.
Go to Profile#1177
Anil K. Rajvanshi
#10795
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Anil K. Rajvanshi is an academic from India, and is the current director of the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute . Rajvanshi was born and raised in Lucknow, India. He has been the director of NARI at Maharashtra, India since 1981. Prior to taking this position he served on the faculty at the University of Florida. Rajvanshi has more than 40 years of experience in renewable energy research, rural and sustainable development. He has more than 250 publications and 7 patents to his credit.
Go to Profile#1178
Chen Wen-chang
#23515
Overall Influence
Chen Wen-chang is a Taiwanese chemical engineer and the current President of the National Taiwan University. Succeeding Kuan Chung-ming, he took his position as President of the University on the 8th January 2023.
Go to Profile#1179
James McLurkin
#29312
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
James McLurkin is a Senior Hardware Engineer at Google. Previously, he was an engineering assistant professor at Rice University specializing in swarm robotics. In 2005, he appeared on an episode of PBS' Nova and is a winner of the 2003 Lemelson-MIT Prize.
Go to Profile#1180
Narendra Ahuja
#25020
Overall Influence
Narendra Ahuja is an Indian-American computer scientist and the Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus in Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. His research primarily concerns computer vision and pattern recognition.
Go to Profile#1181
Dara Huang
#51712
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (41 years)
Dara Huang is an American architect. In 2013, she founded the architecture and design firm Design Haus Liberty. She is the co-founder of Vivahouse, which converts disused commercial properties into co-living spaces.
Go to Profile#1182
Ravindra K. Ahuja
#18707
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Ravindra K. Ahuja is an Indian-born American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is currently Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, and CEO of the automation and optimization solutions provider Optym, which he founded in 2000 as Innovative Scheduling, Inc.
Go to Profile#1183
Roy Billinton
#63211
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Roy Billinton is a Canadian scholar and a Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 2008, Billinton won the IEEE Canada Electric Power Medal for his research and application of reliability concepts in electric power system. In 2007, Billinton was elected a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Engineering for "contributions to teaching, research and application of reliability engineering in electric power generation, transmission, and distribution systems."
Go to Profile#1184
Massimo Carmassi
#30855
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Massimo Carmassi is an Italian architect. Biography Massimo Carmassi graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Florence in 1970. In 1974, he established the Project Office of the Commune of Pisa and directed it till 1990. From 1981 to 1985, he was the chairman of the Architectural Association in Pisa and its district. Carmassi is recipient of the Heinrich Tessenow gold medal awarded by the Heinrich-Tessenow-Gesellschaft e.V. ; he was appointed as a member of the class of Architecture in the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno of Florence and of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. He is a m...
Go to Profile#1185
Wang Xiji
#24985
Overall Influence
1921 - Present (103 years)
Wang Xiji is a Chinese aerospace engineer. The chief designer of China's first sounding rocket , first space launch vehicle and first recoverable satellites, he was awarded the Two Bombs, One Satellite Meritorious Medal in 1999. He is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the International Academy of Astronautics, and was inducted into the International Astronautical Federation Hall of Fame in 2016. Wang turned 100 in July 2021.
Go to Profile#1186
Sasikanth Manipatruni
#21637
Overall Influence
Sasikanth Manipatruni is an American engineer and inventor in the fields of Computer engineering, Integrated circuit technology, Materials Engineering and semiconductor device fabrication. Manipatruni contributed to developments in silicon photonics, spintronics and quantum materials.
Go to Profile#1187
Cyril Stanley Smith
#26045
Overall Influence
1903 - 1992 (89 years)
Cyril Stanley Smith was a British metallurgist and historian of science. He is most famous for his work on the Manhattan Project where he was responsible for the production of fissionable metals. A graduate of the University of Birmingham and Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Smith worked for many years as a research metallurgist at the American Brass Company. During World War II he worked in the Chemical-Metallurgical Division of the Los Alamos Laboratory, where he purified, cast and shaped uranium-235 and plutonium, a metal hitherto available only in microgram amounts, and whose properties were largely unknown.
Go to Profile#1188
Soroosh Sorooshian
#47806
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Soroosh Sorooshian is an Iranian-born American civil engineer, and educator. He is a distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Irvine and currently serving as the Director of the Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing.
Go to Profile#1189
Robert Mair, Baron Mair
#44750
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Robert James Mair, Baron Mair, is a geotechnical engineer and Emeritus Sir Kirby Laing Professor of Civil Engineering and director of research at the University of Cambridge. He is Head of the Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction . He was Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, from 2001 to 2011 and a fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, from 1998 to 2001. In 2014 he was elected a vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and on 1 November 2017 became the Institution's president for 2017–18, its 200th anniversary year. He was appointed an independent crossbenc...
Go to Profile#1190
René de Borst
#48521
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
René de Borst is a Dutch civil engineer who is known for his work on computational mechanics and fracture mechanics. Since January 2016 he is the Centenary Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Sheffield.
Go to Profile#1191
Gerard J. Foschini
#23917
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Gerard Joseph Foschini , was an American telecommunications engineer who worked for Bell Laboratories since 1961 until his retirement. Dr. Foschini passed away in September 2023. His research has covered many kinds of data communications, particularly wireless communications and optical communications. Foschini has also worked on point-to-point systems and networks.
Go to Profile#1192
João Luís Carrilho da Graça
#45528
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
João Luís Carrilho da Graça is a Portuguese architect and lecturer. He received the Pessoa Prize in 2008, and was Distinguished with the order for merit of the Portuguese Republic in 1999. Career Graca graduated from the Lisbon School of Fine Arts in 1977 and lectured at the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon between 1977 and 1992. Since 2001, he has been a guest lecturer at the architecture department of the Autonomous University of Lisbon and also, from 2005, at the University of Évora. He has been invited to several universities, seminars and conferences all ove...
Go to Profile#1193
M. Elizabeth Cannon
#26803
Overall Influence
Margaret Elizabeth Cannon is a Canadian engineer specializing in geomatics engineering and president Emerita of the University of Calgary. From 2010 to 2018, she served as the university's eighth president and vice-chancellor, the first alumna to hold that position.
Go to Profile#1194
Paul K. Wright
#31941
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Paul Kenneth Wright is a mechanical engineer best known for his work on the UC Berkeley-based CyberCut/CyberBuild project, which established a set of standards that streamlined the conversion of creative manufacturing designs into rapid prototyping. Wright's NYU research group is also known for developing the first open-architecture control-of-manufacturing systems, and for developing Internet-based CAD/CAM systems.
Go to Profile#1195
Dragoslav D. Šiljak
#46962
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Dragoslav D. Šiljak is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Santa Clara University, where he held the title of Benjamin and Mae Swig University Professor. He is best known for developing the mathematical theory and methods for control of complex dynamic systems characterized by large-scale, information structure constraints and uncertainty.
Go to Profile#1196
Yusuke Yamauchi
#65587
Overall Influence
#1197
Richard D. Gitlin
#17843
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Richard D. Gitlin is an electrical engineer, inventor, research executive, and academic whose principal places of employment were Bell Labs and the University of South Florida . He is known for his work on digital subscriber line , multi-code CDMA, and smart MIMO antenna technology all while at Bell Labs.
Go to Profile#1198
Thomas Wiegand
#24839
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Thomas Wiegand is a German electrical engineer who substantially contributed to the creation of the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. For H.264/AVC, Wiegand was one of the chairmen of the Joint Video Team standardization committee that created the standard and was the chief editor of the standard itself. He was also a very active technical contributor to the H.264/AVC, H.265/HEVC, and H.266/VVC video coding standards. Wiegand also holds a chairmanship position in the ITU-T VCEG of ITU-T Study Group 16 and previously in ISO/IEC MPEG standardization organizations. In July 2006, video coding work of the ITU-T was jointly led by Gary J.
Go to Profile#1199
Robert W. Lucky
#17655
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Robert Wendell Lucky was an electrical engineer, inventor, and research manager at Bell Labs and Bell Communications Research . He is best known for his writings and speeches about technology, society, and engineering culture. Bob is a Fellow of the IEEE and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He is also a member of TTI/Vanguard's advisory board.
Go to Profile#1200
Y. Austin Chang
#46978
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Y. Austin Chang was a material engineering researcher and educator. He was a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor Emeritus, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fellow of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, and Fellow of ASM International.
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