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,
#1851
José António Tenreiro Machado
#83792
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
#1852
Rankin
#8026
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
John Rankin Waddell , known as Rankin, is a British photographer and director who has photographed, amongst other subjects, Björk, Kate Moss, Madonna, David Bowie and Queen Elizabeth II. The London Evening Standard described Rankin's fashion and portrait photography style as "high-gloss, highly sexed and hyper-perfect".
Go to Profile#1853
Peter Rose
#52366
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Peter D. Rose is an architect and educator. Rose is the founder and principal of Peter Rose and Partners, an architectural, research, and urban design practice founded in Montreal, Quebec, Canada now based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#1854
Pramod P. Khargonekar
#75037
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Pramod P. Khargonekar is the Vice Chancellor for Research and Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine. An expert in control systems engineering, Dr. Khargonekar has served in a variety of administrative roles in academia and federal funding agencies. Most recently, he served as Assistant Director for Engineering at the National Science Foundation , and as Deputy Director for Technology at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy . From 2001 through 2009 he was the Dean of the College of Engineering at the University o...
Go to Profile#1855
Bruce Hajek
#47241
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Bruce Edward Hajek is a Professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory, the head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Leonard C. and Mary Lou Hoeft Chair in Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. He does research in communication networking, auction theory, stochastic analysis, combinatorial optimization, machine learning, information theory, and bioinformatics.
Go to Profile#1856
Janaka Ruwanpura
#45268
Overall Influence
Professor Janaka Ruwanpura is the Vice Provost and Associate Vice-President Research of the University of Calgary, Canada effective Sept. 1, 2020. He has been the Vice-Provost International since 2013. In 2022, Janaka was a winner of the Top25 Canadian Immigrant Awards selected by Canadian Immigrant Magazine.
Go to Profile#1857
Hagit Messer Yaron
#25513
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Hagit Messer Yaron is an Israeli electrical engineer and businesswoman. She is a professor of electrical engineering. She is the Kranzberg Chair Professor in Signal Processing at Tel Aviv University. She was the President of Open University of Israel from 2008 to 2013. Messer Yaron is the first woman in Israel to be appointed as a full professor of electrical engineering.
Go to Profile#1858
Shin-tson T. Wu
#83950
Overall Influence
#1859
Bernard Mills
#31582
Overall Influence
1920 - 2011 (91 years)
Bernard Yarnton Mills AC, FRS, FAA, DSc was an Australian engineer and a pioneer of radio astronomy in Australia, responsible for the design and implementation of the Mills Cross Telescope and the Molonglo Cross Telescope.
Go to Profile#1860
Dietmar Werner Hutmacher
#84053
Overall Influence
#1861
Saied Reza Ameli
#24587
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Saied Reza Ameli is a professor of communication at the University of Tehran. He is currently a member of Department of Communications and the director of the UNESCO Chair on Cyberspace and Culture, and Cyberspace Policy Research Center, Faculty of World Studies at the University of Tehran. Over the past decade, Ameli has been working on issues of Muslim minority identity in the West, and Muslim minority rights in UK, France and the U.S. He also serves as the editor-in-chief of of Cyberspace Studies. He was also Secretary of Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution. He is the member of Sup...
Go to Profile#1862
P. S. Ayyaswamy
#79299
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Portonovo S. Ayyaswamy is an Indian-born-American mechanical engineer, the Asa Whitney Professor of Dynamical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, and inventor. He is known for his work on phase-change heat/mass transfer with droplets and bubbles, multi-phase flows, buoyancy-driven transport, and ionized arc-plasma transport with applications in condensation, combustion, microelectronic packaging, and micro-/macro-biological systems. He is the recipient of the 2014 Max Jakob Memorial Award.
Go to Profile#1863
Hooshang Seyhoun
#28860
Overall Influence
1920 - 2014 (94 years)
Houshang Seyhoun, was an Iranian architect, sculptor, painter, scholar and professor. He studied fine arts at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and earned a degree in architecture from University of Tehran. Seyhun is noted specially for his innovative and creative architectural design. His architectural legacy includes countless monuments and over one thousand private villas. After the Iranian Revolution he moved to Vancouver and lived in exile until his death. Seyhoon became famous for his design work in the 1950s in Iran, including: Tehran's Central Railway Station and tombs of scientific/literary figures .
Go to Profile#1864
Alessandro Melis
#32036
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Alessandro Melis is an Italian architect and the curator of the Italian National Pavilion at the 17th Venice Biennale. He is also a professor of architecture and the inaugural endowed chair of the New York Institute of Technology.
Go to Profile#1865
Jörg Imberger
#64625
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Jörg Imberger is an Australian civil engineer. Imberger studied civil engineering at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1963. He pursued further study in the subject at the University of Western Australia, completing a master's degree in 1966. Imberger earned his doctorate in civil engineering with specialization in coastal engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1970. Imberger began teaching as an associate professor at Berkeley in 1976. He returned to Australia to assume the Winthrop Professorship at the University of Western Australia in 1979.
Go to Profile#1866
Richard M. Murray
#66881
Overall Influence
Richard M. Murray is a synthetic biologist and Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at Caltech, California. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013 for "contributions in control theory and networked control systems with applications to aerospace engineering, robotics, and autonomy". Murray is a co-author of several textbooks on feedback and control systems, and helped to develop the Python Control Systems Library to provide operations for use in feedback control systems. He was a founding member of the Department of D...
Go to Profile#1867
Richard I. Shader
#84150
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
#1868
Wilfried de Beauclair
#28174
Overall Influence
1912 - 2020 (108 years)
Wilfried de Beauclair was a Swiss-born German engineer and computer scientist. His work on automated computing technology makes him one of the first-generation computer pioneers. Biography De Beauclair was born on 4 April 1912 in Ascona, Switzerland, as the second son of the painting couple Alexander Wilhelm de Beauclair and Friederike de Beauclair. He grew up with his brother Gotthard de Beauclair in the artists' colony on Monte Verità. In 1920, his mother moved with the two children to Darmstadt, where the family came from. From 1921 to 1930 he went to school in Darmstadt.
Go to Profile#1869
Peter Sellars
#4485
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles , where he teaches Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action. He has been described as a key figure of theatre and opera from the last 50 years.
Go to Profile#1870
Fabrizio de Miranda
#47328
Overall Influence
1926 - 2015 (89 years)
Fabrizio de Miranda was an Italian bridges and structural engineer and university professor. Career He graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 1950 from the University of Naples. Beginning in 1955 he introduced in Italy steel-concrete composite structures, mainly in the field of bridges. He planned the first motorway viaducts with steel structure on the Autostrada del Sole in Italy . In 1959, he became managing director of the largest Italian steelwork company, "Costruzioni Metalliche Finsider S.p.A." in Milan, which was under his management until 1967. From 1965 until 1996, he was professor of "Tecnica delle costruzioni" at Politecnico di Milano.
Go to Profile#1871
Reid Wiseman
#58362
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Gregory Reid Wiseman is an American astronaut, engineer, and naval aviator. He served as Chief of the Astronaut Office until November 14, 2022. Wiseman was selected in June 2009 as a member of the NASA Astronaut Group 20 and qualified as an astronaut in 2011. Wiseman took part in his first spaceflight as part of the crew of Expedition 40/41, which launched to the International Space Station on May 28, 2014, and returned on November 10, 2014. Before joining NASA, Wiseman was a naval aviator and test pilot. Wiseman was the Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office from June 2017, working under Chief Astronaut Patrick Forrester.
Go to Profile#1872
Carin Boalt
#30596
Overall Influence
1912 - 1999 (87 years)
Carin Margareta Boalt was a Swedish professor of Building Function Analysis at Lund University, who at the time of her appointment was the first female professor in Lund. She was head of research at the Home Research Institute from 1944 until 1956.
Go to Profile#1873
Yusuf Chisti
#84290
Overall Influence
#1874
Randall M. German
#84322
Overall Influence
#1875
T. William Lambe
#83464
Overall Influence
1920 - 2017 (97 years)
Thomas William Lambe was an American geotechnical engineer and an emeritus professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lambe studied civil engineering at North Carolina State, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1942. He studied at MIT starting in 1943, working with Donald Wood Taylor in 1948. He assisted Karl von Terzaghi and Taylor in their work as consultants. He was Professor of Civil Engineering until his retirement in 1981, when he was the head of the Geotechnical Engineering Department and the director of the Soil Stabilization Laboratory. He also worked as a consulting engi...
Go to Profile#1876
Bruce Dunn
#84361
Overall Influence
#1877
Peter Wriggers
#84362
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
#1878
Jorge Arango
#80042
Overall Influence
1917 - 2007 (90 years)
Jorge Arango was a Colombian-born US architect. Arango was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and educated in Chile, Colombia and at Harvard. Arango was invited to come to America by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the U.S. State Department.
Go to Profile#1879
Alan G. Poindexter
#15039
Overall Influence
1961 - 2012 (51 years)
Alan Goodwin "Dex" Poindexter was an American naval officer and a NASA astronaut. Poindexter was selected in the 1998 NASA Group and went into orbit aboard Space Shuttle missions STS-122 and STS-131.
Go to Profile#1880
John Muratore
#46028
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
John F. Muratore is a former NASA systems engineer-project manager and launch director at SpaceX. He is well known in the aerospace circles for his gregarious and unconventional style and use of rapid spiral development to reduce cost and schedule for introducing technical innovations.
Go to Profile#1881
Joe F. Thompson
#57817
Overall Influence
Joe F. Thompson is an American aerospace engineer. Thompson is the William L. Giles Distinguished Professor at the Mississippi State University and Director, DoD Programming Environment & Training Center. He is known for his contributions to the fields of computational fluid dynamics, especially in the area of grid generation. He, with Z. U. A. Warsi and C. Wayne Mastin, wrote the classic book on grid generation titled Numerical Grid Generation: Foundations and Applications.
Go to Profile#1882
Erik G. Larsson
#84496
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
#1883
Ulrich Reimers
#84623
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Ulrich Reimers is an electrical engineer and is regarded as a pioneer of digital television. The International Electrotechnical Commission elected him for its Hall of Fame of most important personalities.
Go to Profile#1884
Norman Rasmussen
#41749
Overall Influence
1927 - 2003 (76 years)
Norman C. Rasmussen was an American physicist. Biography Rasmussen was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He grew up on a dairy farm as the fifth of six brothers. He attended public school in Hershey, Pennsylvania. His father died when he was in eighth grade, and his family moved to Gettysburg, where his grandparents helped to care for the family. Rasmussen graduated from high school in June, 1945 and enlisted in the United States Navy. He was sent to Great Lakes Naval Training school, where he became an electronics technician. He served on active duty until August, 1946, when he was honor...
Go to Profile#1885
Olufemi Bamiro
#22054
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Olufemi Adebisi Bamiro is a Nigerian professor of mechanical engineering and former vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan. Early life and education Olufemi was born on 16 September 1947 in Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State. He attended Molusi College, Ijebu-lgbo and proceeded to Government College, Ibadan, obtaining the best result of the year at the Cambridge Higher School Certificate , 1967. Afterwards he proceeded as Shell Scholar to the University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering with First Class Honours in 1971. He worked brie...
Go to Profile#1886
Maurizio Prato
#84639
Overall Influence
#1887
Ahmed Tewfik
#40369
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Ahmed H. Tewfik is an Egyptian-American electrical engineer, professor and college administrator who currently serves as the IEEE Signal Processing Society President. He also holds the Cockrell Family Chair in Engineering #1 at UT Austin. He served as the former chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin from 2010 to 2019. For his research and contributions to the field of Signal Processing he was elected as an IEEE Fellow in 1996, received the IEEE Third Millennium Award in 2000, and awarded the 20...
Go to Profile#1888
Kari Jormakka
#23513
Overall Influence
1959 - 2013 (54 years)
Kari Juhani Jormakka was a Finnish architect, historian, critic and pedagogue. Background Though born in Helsinki, Kari Jormakka's family soon afterwards moved to the city of Lappeenranta, where he spent his childhood. After finishing school in Lappeenranta, he initially studied philosophy at the University of Helsinki before switching to studying architecture at Helsinki University of Technology, graduating in 1985. He completed a PhD in architecture theory, with a thesis titled "Constructing Architecture", at Tampere University of Technology in 1992.
Go to Profile#1889
Michael Benedikt
#42264
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Michael Benedikt is an architect, urbanist, and academic. He is noted for formalizing and promoting the geographical concept called isovist. Benedikt is also an advocate of the interior design concept called "interiorist" practice.
Go to Profile#1890
P. P. Vaidyanathan
#41433
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Palghat P. Vaidyanathan is the Kiyo and Eiko Tomiyasu Professor of Electrical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA, where he teaches and leads research in the area of signal processing, especially digital signal processing , and its applications. He has authored four books, and authored or coauthored close to six hundred papers in various IEEE journals and conferences. Prof. Vaidyanathan received his B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees from the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics, Science College campus of University of Kolkata, and a Ph.D. degree ...
Go to Profile#1891
Linda Petzold
#43403
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Linda Ruth Petzold is a professor of computer science and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is also listed as affiliated faculty in the department of mathematics. Her research concerns differential algebraic equations and the computer simulation of large real-world social and biological networks.
Go to Profile#1892
Satoshi Hiyamizu
#31474
Overall Influence
1943 - 2019 (76 years)
was a Japanese professor of electrical engineering. Dr. Hiyamizu won the 1982 Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Paper Award as lead author of a paper on mobility in two-dimensional electron gases while at Fujitsu Laboratories Limited, received the 1990 IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award with Takashi Mimura "for outstanding contributions to the epitaxial growth of compound semiconductor materials and devices," and in 2001 was named an IEEE Fellow "for contributions to the realization of the first high electron mobility transistor ". He served as dean of the Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering from 2000 to 2002.
Go to Profile#1893
Harald Haas
#45216
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Harald Haas FRSE is a German Professor of Mobile Communications at the University of Strathclyde and is the person who coined the term Li-Fi. In 2012 he was one of the co-founders of pureVLC . Haas was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2017.
Go to Profile#1894
Pratiwi Sudarmono
#17500
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Pratiwi Pujilestari Sudarmono is an Indonesian scientist. She is currently a professor of microbiology at the University of Indonesia, Jakarta. Early life and education Pratiwi Sudarmono received a master's degree from the University of Indonesia in 1977, and the Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Osaka, Japan, in 1984.
Go to Profile#1895
Monique Frize
#39768
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Monique Frize, , née Aubry is a Canadian biomedical engineer and professor, knowledgeable in medical instruments and decision support systems. Notably, her scientific research and outreach efforts led her to receive the prestigious distinction of Officer of the Order of Canada.
Go to Profile#1896
Herwig Werner Kogelnik
#84964
Overall Influence
#1897
Han Pao-teh
#42093
Overall Influence
1934 - 2014 (80 years)
Han Pao-teh was a Taiwanese architect, educator, scholar, writer, museum curator and calligrapher. Han Pao-teh was born in Shandong, China and moved to Taiwan in 1949. He received his bachelor's degree in architecture from the Tainan Institute of Technology, now known as the National Cheng Kung University. He was awarded a full scholarship to attend Harvard University, where he received a master's degree in architecture in 1965. And in 1967, he received his second master's degree in Art History at Princeton University.
Go to Profile#1898
Demas Nwoko
#34295
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Demas Nwoko is a Nigerian artist, protean designer, architect and master builder. As an artist, he strives to incorporate modern techniques in architecture and stage design to enunciate African subject matter in most of his works. In the 1960s, he was a member of the Mbari club of Ibadan, a committee of burgeoning Nigerian and foreign artists. He was also a lecturer at the University of Ibadan. In the 1970s, he was the publisher of the now defunct New Culture magazine.
Go to Profile#1899
Teng Jin-guang
#46246
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Teng Jin-guang is a Chinese engineer and educator, currently serving as the president of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University since July 1, 2019. Previously he served as the vice-president of Southern University of Science and Technology.
Go to Profile#1900
George F. Sowers
#77434
Overall Influence
1921 - 1996 (75 years)
George F. Sowers was an American Civil Engineer and Regents Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also worked as a consultant for Law Engineering while maintaining his position as a professor.
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