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,
#2251
Steffen Lehmann
#45864
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Steffen Lehmann is a German-born architect and urban designer. Biography Lehmann held the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific from 2008 to 2010. He now advises UNESCO ex-officio. He was the Professorial Chair in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales from 2006 to 2010, and the Professorial Chair of Architecture and Head of Discipline at Queensland University of Technology from 2002 to 2006. Lehmann is the founding director of the s_Lab Space Laboratory for Architectural Research and Design , which he opened in 1993.
Go to Profile#2252
Chuck Jones
#690
Overall Influence
1912 - 2002 (90 years)
Charles Martin Jones was an American animator, painter, and voice actor, best known for his work with Warner Bros. Cartoons on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of shorts. He wrote, produced, and/or directed many classic animated cartoon shorts starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, Pepé Le Pew, Marvin the Martian, and Porky Pig, among others.
Go to Profile#2253
Shaik Mohammed Zakeeruddin
#93103
Overall Influence
#2254
Bradley Nelson
#73253
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Bradley James Nelson is an American roboticist and entrepreneur. He has been the Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich since 2002 and is known for his research in microrobotics, nanorobotics, and medical robotics.
Go to Profile#2255
Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy
#22639
Overall Influence
1909 - 2001 (92 years)
Gleb Yevgenyevich Lozino-Lozinskiy was a Ukrainian engineer, General Director and General Designer of the JSC NPO Molniya, lead developer of the Russian Spiral and Shuttle Buran programme, Doctor of Sciences, Hero of Socialist Labour, laureate of Lenin Prize and Stalin Prizes .
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Mikyoung Kim
#58643
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Mikyoung Kim, FASLA is an American landscape architect, urban designer, and founding principal of Mikyoung Kim Design. Kim has received the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Award and the American Society of Landscape Architects National Design Medal. Her studio was named by Fast Company as one of the world's most innovative architecture firms.
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Antonio Bicchi
#89095
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Antonio Bicchi is an Italian scientist interested in robotics and intelligent machines. He is professor at the University of Pisa and senior researcher at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in Genoa. He is an adjunct professor at the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, US.
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Julian Charles Roland Hunt
#93223
Overall Influence
#2259
Bruno Siciliano
#88604
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Bruno Siciliano is an Italian engineer, academic and scientific popularizer. He is professor of Control and Robotics at the University of Naples Federico II, Chair of the Scientific Council of the ICAROS Center, and Coordinator of the PRISMA Lab at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. He is also Honorary Professor at the university of Óbuda where he holds the Rudolf Kálmán chair.
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Robert Young
#89613
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Robert Joseph Young is a British materials scientist specialising in polymers and composites. He is a Professor of Polymer Science and Technology at the National Graphene Institute of the University of Manchester.
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Linda Abriola
#62828
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Linda Marie Abriola is an American environmental and civil engineer who specializes in the study of organic chemical liquid contaminants in porous media. She is currently the Joan Wernig and E. Paul Sorensen Professor of Engineering at the Brown University School of Engineering.
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Kjersti Engan
#37962
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Kjersti Engan is a Norwegian researcher in signal and image processing who works as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Stavanger. Engan was born in 1971 in Bergen. She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1994 from Bergen University College. She then moved to the University of Stavanger for graduate study, completing her doctorate in 2000. At Stavanger, she was promoted to full professor in 2008.
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Prahlad Vadakkepat
#66865
Overall Influence
Prahlad Vadakkepat is a researcher in the field of robotics and is the founder and general secretary of the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association and in 2013 is its general secretary. He is an associate professor at the National University of Singapore. His research is in the areas of Humanoids, Neuro-Fuzzy Controllers, Distributed robotic systems, Biomorphic Robots, Intelligent Control techniques and Frugal Innovation.
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Gregory S. Chirikjian
#81297
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Gregory Scott Chirikjian is an American roboticist and applied mathematician, primarily working in the field of kinematics, motion planning, computer vision, group theory applications in engineering, and the mechanics of macromolecules. He currently serves as the head and professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore. Before joining NUS, he was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University. He is well known for his theoretical contributions to the kinematics of hyper-redundant robots and stochastic methods on Lie groups.
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Danny Boyle
#12294
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Daniel Francis Boyle is an English director and producer. He is known for his work on films including Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and its sequel T2 Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, Steve Jobs, and Yesterday.
Go to Profile#2266
Kevin Kendall
#93454
Overall Influence
#2267
Thomas Paulay
#82505
Overall Influence
1923 - 2009 (86 years)
Thomas Paulay was a Hungarian-New Zealand earthquake engineer. Academic career Trained as chemical engineer, after fleeing Hungary to West Germany, Paulay arrived in New Zealand in 1951, and became a naturalised New Zealand citizen in 1957. After a PhD 'The coupling of shear walls', in 1961, he joined the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Canterbury, where he spent many years studying the seismic behaviour and design of structures.
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Dana Tomlin
#4692
Overall Influence
Charles Dana Tomlin is an author, professor, and originator of Map Algebra, a vocabulary and conceptual framework for classifying ways to combine map data to produce new maps. Tomlin's teaching and research focus on the development and application of geographic information systems . He is currently a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design and an adjunct professor at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, having also taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Ohio State University School of Natural Resources. His coursework in Landscape Archite...
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Delbert Day
#70960
Overall Influence
Delbert E. Day is an American engineer, currently the Curator's Professor Emeritus of Ceramic Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology, who made the first U.S. glass melting experiments in micro-gravity on NASA's Space Shuttle.
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Tony Kinloch
#92947
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Tony Kinloch Ph.D., DSc , FCGI, FIMMM, FIMechE, FRSC, FREng, FRS is a 'Professor of Adhesion' at The Department of Mechanical Engineering of Imperial College London and is a visiting professor at the Universities of New South Wales and Sydney, Australia.
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Arnold Beck
#71593
Overall Influence
1916 - 1997 (81 years)
Arnold Hugh William Beck was a British scientist and electrical engineer, a specialist in plasma and microwaves, Professor of Engineering in the University of Cambridge. Early life and education The younger son of Major Hugh Beck and Diana L. Beck, the young Beck was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, and University College, London, where he graduated BSc Eng. His old college elected him to a Fellowship in 1979.
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Mihailo D. Trifunac
#93636
Overall Influence
#2273
Asegun Henry
#65241
Overall Influence
Asegun Sekou Famake Henry is a Robert N. Noyce Career Development Professor in mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research is focused on energy storage, heat transfer, and phonons.
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Josep A. Planell i Estany
#88534
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Josep A. Planell i Estany is a Spanish academic. Planell was born in Barcelona, graduated in Physics from the University of Barcelona in 1975 and earned his doctorate in Materials Science from Queen Mary, University of London, in 1983. Since 1992 he has been full professor in the Materials Science and Metallurgy department of the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. He served as President of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya between 2013 and 2023.
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Christine Dalnoky
#52172
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Christine Dalnoky is a French landscape architect and educator. She was born in Paris and studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts there and at the National School of Landscape Architecture in Versailles. Dalnoky worked with and Alexandre Chemetoff in Paris and with Renzo Piano in Geneva. She studied in Rome for two years after winning a competition sponsored by the French Academy in Rome. Dalnoky held a residency at the Villa Medici from 1987 to 1988;
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James M. Anderson
#45427
Overall Influence
James M. Anderson is an American Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology and is a Chief of Section of Digestive Diseases at the Yale School of Medicine. Anderson is also a director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives at the National Institutes of Health.
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Thais Russomano
#57268
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Thais Russomano is a Brazilian doctor and scientific researcher specialising in space medicine, space physiology, biomedical engineering, telemedicine and telehealth. She founded the Microgravity Centre at PUCRS university, Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1999, coordinating it for 18 years until 2017. The MicroG is the first educational and research centre in Space Life Sciences in Latin America. She is a senior lecturer at King's College London, lecturing in Aviation and Space related courses; coordinator of the Space Network , University of Lisbon; guest lecturer at Aalto University, Finland in S...
Go to Profile#2278
Meinhard von Gerkan
#60524
Overall Influence
1935 - 2022 (87 years)
Meinhard von Gerkan was a German architect and one of the founders of the architectural firm von Gerkan, Marg and Partners . Von Gerkan was known for being the architect of Berlin Tegel Airport as well as Berlin Hauptbahnhof . At the time of his death, Deutsche Welle described him as "Germany's most famous architect".
Go to Profile#2279
Odd Magnus Faltinsen
#88300
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Odd Magnus Faltinsen is a Norwegian mathematician and professor of marine technology. Education and career Faltinsen took the cand.real. degree at the University of Bergen in 1968, and the PhD degree at the University of Michigan in 1971. He started his career in Det Norske Veritas from 1968 to 1974, and was appointed docent in marine technology at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1974. In 1976 he was promoted to professor of marine hydrodynamics. He was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1980 to 1981,1987 to 1988 and 1994 to 1995. He is a member of...
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Ignacio Rodríguez Iturbe
#77075
Overall Influence
1942 - 2022 (80 years)
Ignacio Rodríguez Iturbe was a Venezuelan hydrologist who was a professor at Texas A&M University. Rodríguez Iturbe was born in Maracaibo, Zulia State in 1942. He graduated from the University of Zulia as a civil engineer and did graduate studies at Caltech, earning his PhD at Colorado State University in 1967.
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Subodh Verma
#93775
Overall Influence
#2282
Kazuo Tanaka
#39433
Overall Influence
Kazuo Tanaka from the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for contributions to fuzzy control system design and analysis.
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David Messerschmitt
#75584
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
David G. Messerschmitt is an engineer and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. He retired from UC Berkeley in 2005. At present he is conducting research at Berkeley, is a visiting professor in the Software Business Laboratory at the Helsinki University of Technology, and is doing research on interstellar communications at the SETI Institute. Messerschmitt also serves on the Advisory Council of METI .
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Frank Williams
#44925
Overall Influence
1936 - 2010 (74 years)
Frank Williams was an American architect who worked as a lead architect on nearly 20 buildings in Manhattan, including Trump Palace Condominiums, 515 Park Avenue, and the W Hotels in Times Square. Williams graduated from UC Berkeley in 1961, and received a master's degree from Harvard in 1965. He moved to New York City and taught at Columbia University for the next few years.
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Jeffrey A. Fessler
#93898
Overall Influence
#2286
David VandeLinde
#61124
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
David VandeLinde is an American electrical engineering graduate from Carnegie Tech in 1964 and was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 2001 to 2006. David VandeLinde was raised in St. Albans, WV. He graduated from St. Albans High School in 1960. He played football and was an offensive end.
Go to Profile#2287
Saeid Nahavandi
#93948
Overall Influence
#2288
Benjaming Friedlander
#93959
Overall Influence
#2289
Jennifer L. West
#83790
Overall Influence
Jennifer L. West is an American bioengineer. She is the current Dean of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. She was the Fitzpatrick University Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University from 2012-2021. In 2000, West cofounded Nanospectra Biosciences in Houston to develop a cancer therapy based on gold nanoparticles that destroy tumor cells and has been listed by MIT Technology Review as one of the 100 most innovative young scientists and engineers world wide.
Go to Profile#2290
Louis Sauer
#57006
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (96 years)
Louis Edward Sauer is a North American architect and design theorist of dual American and Canadian nationality, known for his role in the renewal in Society Hill, Philadelphia and his contributions to low-rise, high-density housing. Sauer worked with housing developers to produce low-rise high-density housing projects throughout the 1960s and 70s.
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Larry Howell
#65749
Overall Influence
Larry L. Howell is a professor and Associate Academic Vice President at Brigham Young University . His research focuses on compliant mechanisms, including origami-inspired mechanisms, microelectromechanical systems, medical devices, space mechanisms, and developable mechanisms. Howell has also conducted research in lamina emergent mechanisms and nanoinjectioninjection. He received a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from BYU and master's and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University. His Ph.D. advisor was Ashok Midha, who is regarded as the "Father of Compliant Mechanisms."
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James Stevens Curl
#48956
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
James Stevens Curl is an architectural historian, architect, and author with an extensive range of publications to his name. Early life and education The son of George Stevens Curl , who worked as an inspector of agents for the Eagle Star Insurance Company, and Sarah , Curl was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was educated at Campbell College, Belfast, at Queen's University Belfast, and at Belfast College of Art before studying at the Oxford School of Architecture where he qualified in Architecture and – having studied under Arthur Korn – in Town Planning . He read for his doctorate a...
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Joel S. Schuman
#56941
Overall Influence
Joel S. Schuman, MD, FACS is Professor of Ophthalmology, the Kenneth L. Roper Endowed Chair, Vice Chair for Research Innovation and co-director of the Glaucoma Service at Wills Eye Hospital. Prior to this he was the Elaine Langone Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone Medical Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Professor of Neural Science in the Center for Neural Science at NYU College of Arts and Sciences. He chaired the ophth...
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Francesco Mondada
#69402
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Francesco Mondada is a Swiss professor in artificial intelligence and robotics. He got a Master's degree in Microengineering at the EPFL in 1991 and a PhD degree in 1997. He is one of the creators of the Khepera and directed the design of the S-bot, the e-puck, the marXbot and the Thymio mobile robots. Together, these robots are mentioned in more than 9000 research articles. In particular the Khepera robot is a milestone in the field of bio-inspired and evolutionary robotics.
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Kit Vaughan
#54075
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Christopher L. 'Kit' Vaughan , is Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the Department of Human Biology, University of Cape Town in South Africa. Early life and education Born in 1953 to Peter Leslie Vaughan, a mining engineer, and Margaret Baillie Vaughan at Blyvooruitzicht in the Western Transvaal, South Africa, Christopher Leonard 'Kit' Vaughan was educated at Michaelhouse, and then attended Rhodes University where he graduated in 1975, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in applied mathematics and physics.
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Nishan Canagarajah
#33597
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Cedric Nishan Canagarajah is a British Tamil academic and the current president and vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester. He was previously one of the pro-vice-chancellors of the University of Bristol.
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Thomas W. Clarkson
#69158
Overall Influence
Thomas W. Clarkson is a heavy metals toxicologist and an emeritus professor in the department of environmental medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center. His area of expertise is mercury, and he has been involved in the Seychelles Child Development Study. After Karen Wetterhahn's death, Clarkson's lab analyzed the dimethylmercury levels that had been responsible for her death.
Go to Profile#2298
John P. Cooke
#94086
Overall Influence
#2299
Robert Dutton
#78909
Overall Influence
Robert W. Dutton is an American electrical engineer. At Stanford University, he is the Robert and Barbara Kleist Professor of Electrical Engineering. Dutton also serves as the undergraduate advisor for Stanford University Department of Electrical Engineering.
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