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,
#3451
Chris Rowen
#75141
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Chris Rowen is an American entrepreneur and technologist. Rowen is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems, Inc in 1984, of Tensilica Inc. in 1997 and of Babblelabs, Inc in 2017. Rowen was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for leadership in the development of microprocessors and reduced instruction set computers.
Go to Profile#3452
Mariano Sanz
#115039
Overall Influence
#3453
Dian-guo Xu
#115051
Overall Influence
#3454
Luiz Belardinelli
#115058
Overall Influence
#3455
Keith Morris
#28447
Overall Influence
1938 - 2005 (67 years)
Keith Morris was an English rock photographer. Morris was responsible for several iconic images of Marc Bolan. He photographed musical figures including Led Zeppelin, Van der Graaf Generator, Nick Drake, Janis Joplin, Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, The Albion Band, B. B. King, Jimi Hendrix, John Cale, Fred Astaire and album covers such as Pictures at an Exhibition by ELP.
Go to Profile#3456
Lynne S. Taylor
#115100
Overall Influence
#3457
Halim Yanikomeroglu
#115131
Overall Influence
#3458
David H. Phillips
#115157
Overall Influence
#3459
Richard J. Hayes
#115166
Overall Influence
#3460
C. Michael Roland
#96261
Overall Influence
1952 - 2021 (69 years)
Charles Michael Roland was Head of the Polymer Physics Section at the Naval Research Lab in Washington DC from 1989 to 2015. His research was concerned primarily with the dynamics of condensed matter, including polymers and liquid crystals, with applications to military armor and infrastructure protection. He is noted for his development of elastomeric coatings for blast protection, and for diverse accomplishments in the field of elastomer science. From 1991-1999, he served as the 8th editor of the scientific journal Rubber Chemistry and Technology, and a Fellow of the American Physical Soci...
Go to Profile#3461
Charles McKean
#58616
Overall Influence
1946 - 2013 (67 years)
Charles McKean FRSE FRSA FRHistS FRIBA was a Scottish historian, author and scholar. Biography McKean was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 16 July 1946. He was educated at Fettes College, the University of Poitiers , and the University of Bristol, from 1977 to 1983.
Go to Profile#3462
Ganti Prasada Rao
#72365
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ganti Prasada Rao is an Indian author, educator and researcher, well known in the field of systems and control in general, and as a pioneer in the applications of special orthogonal functions and Identification of Continuous-time Systems. For a comparative assessment of identification algorithms with continuous-time and discrete-time models, the Rao-Garnier test system became a bench mark.
Go to Profile#3463
Randall Beer
#41227
Overall Influence
Randall D. Beer is a professor of cognitive science, computer science, and informatics at Indiana University. He was previously at Case Western Reserve University. His primary research interest is in understanding how coordinated behavior arises from the neurodynamics of an animal's nervous system, its body and its environment. He works on the evolution and analysis of dynamical "nervous systems" for model agentss, neuromechanical modeling of animals, biomorphic robotics, and dynamical systems approaches to behavior and cognition. More generally, he is interested in computational and theoretical biology, including models of metabolism, gene regulation and development.
Go to Profile#3464
Adewale Oke Adekola
#60505
Overall Influence
1932 - 1999 (67 years)
Adewale Oke Adekola was a Nigerian engineer, academic, author, and administrator. He was the first Nigerian dean of engineering and head of civil engineering at the University of Lagos. He was the founding vice chancellor of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi and emeritus professor of the University of Lagos. He was a pioneer of engineering education in Nigeria and reputed as a great teacher. He became one of the first Nigerians to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Science in 1976 - awarded by London University in engineering .
Go to Profile#3465
Jenny Sabin
#102861
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Jenny E. Sabin is an American architect, designer and artist who draws upon biology and mathematics to design material structures. Sabin is the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger Professor of Architecture in the Department of Architecture at Cornell University. She focuses on design and emerging technologies, with particular emphasis on the areas of computational design, data visualization and digital fabrication.
Go to Profile#3466
Antonio Miró Montilla
#89255
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Antonio Miró Montilla was a Puerto Rican architect and educator. Education He studied architecture at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, from 1956 until 1961, when he graduated at the top of his class and was awarded the Student Medal of the American Institute of Architects. He is listed by the University of Notre Dame among the Notable Alumni. In 1979, Miró Montilla was awarded the Gold Medal of the Colegio de Arquitectos de Puerto Rico.
Go to Profile#3467
Ashutosh Chilkoti
#115297
Overall Influence
#3468
Harrison Hooker Barrett
#115309
Overall Influence
#3469
William S. Marras
#115327
Overall Influence
#3470
Steve Simske
#52551
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Steve Simske , also known as Steven J. Simske, is an American engineer and scientist specialized in biomedical engineering, cybersecurity, anti-counterfeiting, Variable data printing, imaging, and robotics. He is a full professor of systems engineering at the Walter Scott Jr. School of Engineering of Colorado State University.
Go to Profile#3471
Olgica Milenkovic
#73077
Overall Influence
Olgica Milenkovic is a coding theorist from the former Yugoslavia, known for her work in compressed sensing, low-density parity-check codes, and DNA digital data storage. She is a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
Go to Profile#3472
Werner Gerich
#115373
Overall Influence
1919 - 2003 (84 years)
Werner Gerich also known as Ge Lixi, was a German engineer and technical consultant. Life Gerich was born and died at Mannheim. He worked as a quality control inspector at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology before his retirement. At the age of 65, he joined the Senior Experten Service based in Bonn. In 1984 he was sent as an expert to the Chinese city of Wuhan, where he first served as a consultant on assembly and quality control at a state-run diesel motor factory, and later as its general director. Gerich was the first foreign factory director in China since the Revolution of 1949. In h...
Go to Profile#3473
Ola-dele Kuku
#99510
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Ola-Dele Kuku was a Nigerian architect and artist of Yoruba origin. He lived and worked between Nigeria and Belgium. Formation and career Ola-Dele Kuku studied at , the Southern California Institute of Architecture , in Los Angeles, California, U.S. and in Vico Morcote, Ticino, Switzerland . He also attended Architecture Intermundium in Milan, Italy, for advanced architecture studies, where he collaborated with Daniel Libeskind on the City Edge project , and the Berlin Jewish Museum competition.
Go to Profile#3474
Daniel Patrick Whittlesey Ellis
#115420
Overall Influence
#3475
Ruxandra Botez
#115213
Overall Influence
Ruxandra Mihaela Botez is an aerospace design engineer, specializing in aircraft modeling and simulation. She holds a Canada Research Chair in the Systems Engineering Department of the École de technologie supérieure [ETS] in Quebec.
Go to Profile#3476
Marc Parlange
#54305
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Marc Brendan Parlange is an American academic, recognised for his research expertise in environmental fluid mechanics and research in hydrology and climate change. His contributions primarily relate to the measurement and simulation of air movement over complex terrain, with a focus on how atmospheric turbulence dynamics influence urban, agricultural and alpine environments and wind energy. He has also been active in addressing water resources challenges and environmental change in remote communities, particularly West Africa.
Go to Profile#3477
Yrjö Neuvo
#62117
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Yrjö Aunus Olavi Neuvo is a Finnish engineer and professor emeritus. In 1976 Neuvo was appointed professor of electronics at Tampere University of Technology. Under his leadership, postgraduate education from digital signal processing began immediately at Tampere University of Technology. Graduate studies in digital signal processing continued for two years until 1978.
Go to Profile#3478
Matthias Böttger
#97079
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Matthias Böttger is a German architect and curator. Matthias Böttger studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Karlsruhe and the University of Westminster, London. He worked as an architect in Cologne, Berlin and Paris. His scientific activity began at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation, followed by the University of Stuttgart and the ETH Zurich, where Böttger taught art and architecture.
Go to Profile#3479
Arvind Victor Shah
#85602
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Arvind Victor Shah is a Swiss electronics engineer, educator and scientist. He founded the Centre For Electronics Design And Technology at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1974, where he was co-director during its first four years. Thereafter, he became full professor for electronics at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. Because of his interest for the field of photovoltaics, he initiated in 1985 the Photovoltaic Laboratory within the Institute of Microtechnology in Neuchâtel. In 1987, Shah became part-time professor of electronic materials at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in addition to his duties at the University of Neuchâtel.
Go to Profile#3480
Philip Goad
#91352
Overall Influence
Philip J. Goad is an Australian academic, currently serving as Professor of Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He is also a former President of the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Phillip became Chair of the Heritage Council of Victoria in July 2021.
Go to Profile#3481
Orly Yadid-Pecht
#73611
Overall Influence
Orly Yadid-Pecht is a Professor of Electrical and Software Engineering and Alberta Innovates Technology Futures Strategic Chair of Integrated Intelligent Sensors at the University of Calgary. She develops CMOS based imaging devices for biomedical sensing. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, SPIE and American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. She is an ASTech Award Winner for Technology. Yadid-Pecht holds several patents for new technologies, including sensors, health monitoring devices and drug delivery systems.
Go to Profile#3482
Doris Kuhlmann‐wilsdorf
#115549
Overall Influence
#3483
Konrad Zuse
#43782
Overall Influence
1910 - 1995 (85 years)
Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse is regarded by some as the inventor and father of the modern computer.
Go to Profile#3484
Martin Philip Bendsøe
#115599
Overall Influence
#3485
H. Gleda Hermansky
#115616
Overall Influence
#3486
Sheldon Weinbaum
#95081
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Sheldon Weinbaum: is an American biomedical engineer and biofluid mechanician. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering at The City College of New York. He is a member of all three U.S. national academies and also the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2002 when he was elected to NAM he became the sixth living individual to be a member of all three National Academies and the first to achieve this distinction since 1992. He was the founding director of the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering, a regional research consortium involving...
Go to Profile#3487
Mark D. McDonnell
#52538
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Mark Damian McDonnell is an electronic engineer and mathematician, notable for his work on stochastic resonance and more specifically suprathreshold stochastic resonance. Education McDonnell graduated from the Salesian College, Adelaide. He received a BSc in Mathematical & Computer Sciences , a BE in Electrical & Electronic Engineering , and a BSc in Applied Mathematics all from The University of Adelaide, Australia. He received his PhD in Electrical & Electronic Engineering , under Derek Abbott and Charles E. M. Pearce, also from the University of Adelaide, for a thesis entitled Theoretical Aspects of Stochastic Signal Quantisation and Suprathreshold Stochastic Resonance.
Go to Profile#3488
Erick Jones
#89056
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Dr. Erick Christopher Jones Sr. is dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, joining the college in September 2022. Jones is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among other organizations, and is a former senior science advisor in the Office of the Chief Economist at U.S. State Department. In addition to his experience in academia and government, Jones has worked in the private sector as an industrial engineer, director of engineering, consultant and project manager and executive manager.
Go to Profile#3489
Ralf Riedel
#115677
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
#3490
Quanxing Zhu
#115687
Overall Influence
#3491
Morteza Mahmoudi
#74182
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Morteza Mahmoudi is an Iranian-American nanotechnologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology at Michigan State University. Previously, he was an assistant professor at Harvard University. Mahmoudi is a winner of 2018 BRIght Futures Prize, 2018 IGNITE Award, and 2016 USERN Prize. He is best known for his works on academic bullying; he is also a co-founder of a non-profit organization called the Academic Parity Movement which is focused on addressing academic bullying issue in various disciplines.
Go to Profile#3492
Roger J. Hajjar
#115721
Overall Influence
#3493
Ebrahim Babaei
#115724
Overall Influence
#3494
K. A. Jun. Gschneidner
#115745
Overall Influence
#3495
Vincenzo Piuri
#88560
Overall Influence
Vincenzo Piuri is an Italian scientist. He is an IEEE Fellow and an ACM Distinguished Scientist. He is known for his work in the field of information processing, with specific focus on artificial intelligence, computational intelligence, signal/image processing, biometrics, industrial applications, measurement systems, arithmetic units and fault-tolerant architectures.
Go to Profile#3496
Haitao Zheng
#36210
Overall Influence
Haitao "Heather" Zheng is Chinese-American computer scientist and electrical engineer. She is the Neubauer Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. She was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for "contributions to dynamic spectrum access and cognitive radio networks". She was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to wireless networking and mobile computing".
Go to Profile#3497
Tsachy Weissman
#77582
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Tsachy Weissman is a professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. He is the founding director of the Stanford Compression Forum. His research interests include information theory, statistical signal processing, their applications, with recent emphasis on biological applications, in genomics in particular, lossless compression, lossy compression, delay-constrained and complexity-constrained compression and communication, network information theory, feedback communications, directed information, the interplay between estimation theory and information theory, entropy, noise reduct...
Go to Profile#3498
Amit Lal
#100082
Overall Influence
Amit Lal is an American academic, a Robert M. Scharf 1977 Professor of Engineering at the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Cornell University and director of SonicMEMS laboratory. He served as a Program Manager at DARPA in the Microsystems Technology Office , from 2005 to 2009. At DARPA he managed ten and started six new programs in the area of navigation, low-energy computation, bio-robotics, and atomic microsystems.
Go to Profile#3499
David Brown
#11052
Overall Influence
1916 - 2010 (94 years)
David Brown was an American film and theatre producer and writer who was best known for producing the 1975 film Jaws based on the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley. Early life He was born in New York City, the son of Lillian and Col. Edward Fisher Brown, and was the elder brother of Carolyn Brown, who married French aristocrat Emmanuel de Crussol d'Uzès, Duke of Uzès, then who remarried to Geoffrey Carpenter Doyle, a grandson of New York City architect James Edwin Ruthven Carpenter Jr.
Go to Profile#3500
Michael John Grimble
#115784
Overall Influence
