Search People Result | Academic Influence

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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Engineering,

#2201

Donald Maxwell Parkin

#91840

Overall Influence

#2202

Eric Parry

#58257

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Eric Owen Parry is a British architect, designer, writer and educator. Parry is the founder and principal of Eric Parry Architects established in London in 1983. His built work includes the restoration and renewal of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London, the Holburne Museum in Bath, 50 New Bond Street, 23 Savile Row, One Eagle Place in Piccadilly, Aldermanbury Square by London Wall, 30 Finsbury Square in London, and the London Stock Exchange. His projects also include a number of residential developments. Eric Parry's architectural work and design has been shown internationally on major exhibit...

#2203

Jan in 't Veld

#45986

Overall Influence

1925 - 2005 (80 years)

Jan in 't Veld was a Dutch aerospace engineer and professor of industrial organization at the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Technical University of Delft. In the Netherlands he was one of the pioneers of the application of systems theory in business administration and management.

#2204

Robert F. Beck

#72132

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Robert F. Beck is the Richard B. Couch Professor of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan. He is the editor of the Journal of Ship Research. Education and career B.S.E. University of Michigan, 1965; Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering

#2205

Marc E. Rothenberg

#89367

Overall Influence

Marc E. Rothenberg is an American physician-scientist who has made significant contributions to the fields of allergy, gastroenterology, and immunology. He is currently a Professor of Pediatrics, at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, the Director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology, the Director of the Cincinnati Center for Eosinophilic Disorders, and the principal investigator of the Consortium of Eosinophilic Disease Researchers as part of the Rare Disease Clinical Research Network of the National Institute of Health. ...

#2206

Roderick S. Lakes

#91930

Overall Influence

#2207

Stephen Hillenburg

Stephen Hillenburg

#1020

Overall Influence

1961 - 2018 (57 years)

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was an American animator, voice actor, and marine biology educator. He is best known for creating the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants for Nickelodeon in 1999 — serving as the showrunner for its first three seasons, and again from season nine until his death — which has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series. He also performed the original voice of Patchy's pet bird Potty the Parrot from the show.

#2208

Han Schröder

#68771

Overall Influence

1918 - 1992 (74 years)

Johanna Erna Else Schröder was a Dutch architect and educator. After becoming one of the first women to practice architecture in the Netherlands, she opened her own architecture and interior design firm in Amsterdam. In the 1963, she immigrated to the United States where she went on to teach interior design at Adelphi University, Parsons School of Design, New York Institute of Technology and Virginia Commonwealth University.

#2209

Noemí Goytia

#39444

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Noemí Goytia is an Argentine architect and professor specialized in history, criticism, heritage and project processes. She has received the CICOP Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Center for Heritage Conservation in 2014. She is the author of numerous books and magazine articles on her specialty.

#2210

Necmettin Erbakan

#15983

Overall Influence

1926 - 2011 (85 years)

Necmettin Erbakan was a Turkish politician, engineer, and academic who was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1996 to 1997. He was pressured by the military to step down as prime minister and was later banned from politics by the Constitutional Court of Turkey for allegedly violating the separation of religion and state as mandated by the constitution.

#2211

Alexander Lamb Cullen

#73607

Overall Influence

1920 - 2013 (93 years)

Alexander Lamb Cullen, was a British electrical engineer. Career and research Cullen served as the Head of Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at University College London where he held the Pender Chair, from 1967 to 1980. In 1988 he published his book Modern Radio Science and a biography of Harold Barlow.

#2212

Cheng Taining

#65033

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Cheng Taining is a Chinese architect. He is Director of the Design and Theoretical Research Center of Southeast University and Chief Architect of . Biography Cheng was born 9 December 1935 in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Nanjing Institute of Technology . In 1984 Cheng became director and chief architect of the Hangzhou Architectural Design Institute. He won the Liang Sicheng Architecture Prize in 2004 and was elected a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2005. His pieces were collected in 20th-Century World Architecture by International Unio...

#2213

Steven E. Kahn

#92035

Overall Influence

#2214

Samuel Achilefu

#52991

Overall Influence

Samuel Achilefu is a Nigerian-born scientist and medical researcher who has pioneered both fundamental and applied research in science, engineering, and medicine. Dr. Samuel Achilefu is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where he holds the Lyda Hill Distinguished University Chair in Biomedical Engineering. He is also Professor of Radiology and a member of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. Before joining UT Southwestern, he was the Michel M. Ter-Pogossian Professor of Radiology and Vice Chair for Innovat...

#2215

Pradeep Rohatgi

#68540

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Pradeep K. Rohatgi is a professor of materials engineering, and director of the for Composites at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Education and career In India Institute of Technology, Kanpur he pioneered incorporating renewable materials such as coir, banana and sial plant fiber into composites. "The solidification processing of metal-matrix composites: The Rohatgi Symposium." This first creation of a cast metal matrix composite material is considered a landmark in the 11,000-year history of metal casting Rohatgi served as founding director of the Regional Research Laboratories at ...

#2216

E. Burton Swanson

#30089

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

E. Burton Swanson is an American information scientist, and Professor Emeritus of Information Systems at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Biography Swanson received his BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering in 1962 from San Jose State University, his MBA in 1964 from the University of Michigan and his PhD in Business Administration in 1971 from University of California, Berkeley.

#2217

Dusan Krajcinovic

#80714

Overall Influence

1935 - 2007 (72 years)

Dusan Krajcinovic was a mechanics scientist. He was past member and chair of the Applied Mechanics Division of ASME. He served a term on the U. S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. He authored a review paper on damage mechanics that predates his book on the same subject.

#2218

Thomas A. Furness III

Thomas A. Furness III

#76216

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Thomas A. Furness III is an American inventor, professor, and virtual reality pioneer based in Seattle, Washington. He is a Professor in the University of Washington Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, and the founder of the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Washington and its sister labs at the University of Canterbury and University of Tasmania. Known for his contributions in developing human interface technology, he has earned the title, "Grandfather of Virtual Reality."

#2219

Iain Borden

#53491

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Iain Borden is an English architectural historian and urban commentator. Career Educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford , Iain Borden graduated from University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1985, and went on to complete master's degrees at UCL and University of California, Los Angeles and a PhD at UCL. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

#2220

John M. Lachin

#92320

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

#2221

Unnikrishna Pillai

#84629

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Unnikrishna Pillai is a professor of electrical engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering in Brooklyn, New York. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for his work in adaptive signal processing and radar systems.

#2222

Ottmar Hörl

#71854

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Ottmar Hörl is a German conceptual artist, sculptor, installation, action, photography, and object artist. He achieved worldwide popularity due to his radical, avant-garde art concepts as well as large-scale projects featuring serial sculptures in public spaces, based on his distinctive definition of sculpture as an organisational principle. He is considered an "offensive and direct strategist campaigning for a new type of public art" and the most successful artist creating multiples, an artist implementing his vision of art for everyone and promoting the democratisation of sculpture like no other so far.

#2223

Bahgat G. Sammakia

Bahgat G. Sammakia

#56940

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Bahgat G. Sammakia is an educator and academic administrator who currently serves as Vice President for Research at Binghamton University. He was previously the Interim President of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute. He is also a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Small Scale Systems Packaging Center at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. Sammakia has published over 200 technical papers in refereed journals and conference proceedings, holds 21 U.S. patents and 12 IBM technical disclosures. He has also contributed to three books.

#2224

Edward Ruscha

#6983

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Edward Joseph Ruscha IV is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. He is also noted for creating several artist's books. Ruscha lives and works in Culver City, California.

#2225

Milan Mrksich

#67507

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Milan Mrksich is an American chemist. He is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor of biomedical engineering at Northwestern University and has additional appointments in chemistry and cell and developmental biology. He also serves as both the founding director of the center for Synthetic Biology and as an associate director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern. Mrksich also serves as the Vice President for Research of Northwestern University.

#2226

James Welling

#44596

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

James Welling is an American artist, photographer and educator living in New York City. He attended Carnegie-Mellon University where he studied drawing with Gandy Brodie and at the University of Pittsburgh where he took modern dance classes. Welling transferred to the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California in 1971 and received a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. in the School of Art. At Cal Arts, he studied with John Baldessari, Wolfgang Stoerchle and Jack Goldstein.

#2227

Harold Hankins

#58429

Overall Influence

1930 - 2009 (79 years)

Harold Hankins CBE FREng was a British electrical engineer and the first Vice-Chancellor of UMIST. Early life and education Hankins was born 18 October 1930 in Crewe, Cheshire and at the age of 16 began an apprenticeship with the London Midland and Scottish Railway. He continued to study with evening classes at Manchester Municipal College of Technology, gaining a first class honours degree in 1955.

#2228

Serena Best

#81075

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Serena Michelle Best , is a British academic, and the Professor of Materials Science at the University of Cambridge. Best has a BSc from the University of Surrey, and a PhD from the University of London. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2012.

#2229

Robert Bruegmann

#53391

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Robert Bruegmann is an historian of architecture, landscape and the built environment. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a specialist on the Chicago school of architecture. Bruegmann is best known for his research on the architectural firm of Holabird & Root, and is also a commentator on urban sprawl.

#2230

Madhu Bhaskaran

#41515

Overall Influence

Madhu Bhaskaran is an engineer and Professor at RMIT University. She co-leads the Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group at RMIT University She won the APEC Aspire prize in 2018 for her development of "electronic skin".

#2231

Patrick Jaillet

#65759

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Patrick Jaillet is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He is the Dugald C. Jackson Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research interests include online and data-focused optimization.

#2232

Jens Glad Balchen

Jens Glad Balchen

#87503

Overall Influence

1926 - 2009 (83 years)

Jens Glad Balchen was a Norwegian engineer. He was born in Kristiansand and graduated from the Norwegian Institute of Technology and the Yale University. He was appointed professor of cybernetics at the Norwegian Institute of Technology from 1962. His research included projects in medicine, on aquaculture and on dynamic positioning of ships and platforms. He was decorated Commander of the Order of St. Olav in 1996.

#2233

Terrance James Beveridge

#92539

Overall Influence

#2234

Allen Barnett

#62138

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Allen M. Barnett was a research professor of electrical engineering at the University of Delaware. He was the principal investigator of the DARPA-funded Consortium for Very High Efficiency Solar cells. Barnett was the founder and CEO of solar-cell producer Astropower, Inc. He was also a Professor of Advanced Photovoltaics at the University of New South Wales School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering in Sydney Australia.

#2235

Peter Gumbsch

#38889

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Peter Gumbsch is a German physicist and materials scientist. He is the director of the Fraunhofer-Institut für Werkstoffmechanik IWM, in Freiburg, Germany and professor for mechanics of materials at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology .

#2236

Adam Hardy

#67450

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Professor Adam Hardy is an architect and architectural historian, and Professor of Asian Architecture at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. He is Director of PRASADA, a centre bringing together research and practice in South Asian art and architecture.

#2237

John Berger

#1083

Overall Influence

1926 - 2017 (91 years)

John Peter Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, written as an accompaniment to the BBC series of the same name, was influential. He lived in France for over fifty years.

#2238

Reza Ansari

#92597

Overall Influence

#2239

Walid M. Saad

#92616

Overall Influence

#2240

James Marston Fitch

#53448

Overall Influence

1909 - 2000 (91 years)

James Marston Fitch was an architect and a Preservationist. In 1964, he was one of the founders of the Historic Preservation Program at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He was a member of the faculty there from 1954 to 1977, and received an honorary Litt.D. in 1980. The School has established a lecture series in his honor and endowed a named professorship, previously held by Andrew Dolkart and currently held by Erica Avrami.

#2241

Cheryl B. Schrader

#27744

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Cheryl B. Schrader is an American educator and former academic administrator. She began her presidency of Wright State University on July 1, 2017, and stepped down from the position December 31, 2019, midway through her five-year appointment. She was previously the chancellor of Missouri University of Science and Technology.

#2242

Günther Clauss

#87838

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Günther F. Clauss is a German professor for Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering. Scientific career Clauss studied technical physics at the Technical Universities at Munich and Berlin , and completed his doctorate at the Institute of Aerospace in 1968. Inspired by Professor Alfred Keil, Dean of Engineering at MIT he changed from outer space to inner space, and established the new field 'ocean engineering' at the Technical University Berlin. After his habililtation – a postgraduate degree – he became professor of Ocean Engineering in 1972, and – after research visits at the MIT-Departme...

#2243

Wacław Zalewski

#60965

Overall Influence

1917 - 2016 (99 years)

Wacław Piotr Zalewski was a Polish construction engineer and designer, creator of innovative buildings such as "Spodek" in Katowice, "Supersam" in Warsaw from the roof of the structure funikularnej, or train station in Katowice. He was Professor Emeritus of Structural Design at the School of Architecture of MIT.

#2244

Adrian F. Hernandez

#92835

Overall Influence

#2245

Victor Burgin

#21699

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Victor Burgin is a British artist and writer. Burgin first came to attention as a conceptual artist in the late 1960s and at that time was most noted for being a political photographer of the left, who would fuse photographs and words in the same picture. He has worked with photography and film, calling painting "the anachronistic daubing of woven fabrics with coloured mud" . His work is influenced by a variety of theorists and philosophers, most especially thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Henri Lefebvre, André Breton, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes.

#2246

Kenji Uchino

#92854

Overall Influence

#2247

Ernest Hinton

#60366

Overall Influence

1946 - 1999 (53 years)

Ernest Hinton was a British civil engineer and engineering professor. He was born in Liverpool, England in 1946 and was educated at University of Wales Swansea. After receiving the BSc , MSc and PhD at Swansea he joined the faculty of the Department of Civil Engineering where served until his death in 1999.

#2248

Simon Ungers

#79167

Overall Influence

1957 - 2006 (49 years)

Simon Ungers was a German architect and artist. Simon Ungers was born in 1957 in Cologne, the son of the architect Oswald Mathias Ungers and Liselotte Gabler. In 1969, his family moved to the United States. From 1975 to 1980, he studied architecture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

#2249

George Legrady

#33416

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

George Legrady is a multidisciplinary digital media artist and university professor in photography and computational media arts. Early life and education Legrady was born in Budapest, Hungary, and emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada at age 6 with his parents and brothers Miklos and Thomas under political refugee status in November 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution. His father, :nl:Thomas Legrady was a musician and composer. His paternal great-grandfather Légrády Tivadar was a lithographer and co-founder with his brother :hu:Légrády Károly, of the Légrády Testvérek publishing house in Budapest.

#2250

Alon Orlitsky

#41493

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Alon Orlitsky is an information theorist and the Qualcomm Professor for Information Theory and its Applications at University of California, San Diego. He received a BSc in Mathematics and Electrical Engineering from Ben Gurion University in 1981, and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1986. He was a member of Bell Labs from 1986 to 1996, and worked for D. E. Shaw from 1996 to 1997. He joined UCSD in 1997.

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