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,
#4151
Kaoru Hirota
#126208
Overall Influence
#4152
J. David. Allan
#126216
Overall Influence
#4153
Mohammad-bagher Menhaj
#126231
Overall Influence
#4154
Tetsuo Fukunaga
#126245
Overall Influence
#4155
Sarah Cartmell
#121108
Overall Influence
Sarah Harriet Cartmell is a British biomaterials scientist and Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Manchester. She specializes on the potential use of electrical regimes to influence cellular activity for orthopaedic tissue engineering applications.
Go to Profile#4156
Donald m. Mcdonald
#126256
Overall Influence
#4157
James C. Spall
#126266
Overall Influence
#4158
Junmin Wang
#126295
Overall Influence
#4159
Fernando Paganini
#86578
Overall Influence
Fernando G. Paganini is a Uruguayan control theorist from the Universidad ORT Uruguay. Education and career Paganini earned an electrical engineering degree and a licenciate in mathematics in 1990 from the University of the Republic . He came to the California Institute of Technology for graduate study in electrical engineering, earning a master's degree in 1992 and completing his Ph.D. in 1996. After postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology he became an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1997, earned tenure there, and remained there a...
Go to Profile#4160
Victor O. K. Li
#126307
Overall Influence
#4161
Wim Desmet
#126308
Overall Influence
#4162
Beverley McKeon
#107021
Overall Influence
Beverley J. McKeon is a physicist and aerospace engineer specializing in fluid dynamics, and in particular in turbulent flows near walls. She was Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology. Currently she is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.
Go to Profile#4163
Jang Wook Choi
#126338
Overall Influence
#4164
Medhat Haroun
#73803
Overall Influence
1951 - 2012 (61 years)
Medhat Haroun was an Egyptian-American expert on earthquake engineering. He wrote more than 300 technical papers and received the Charles Martin Duke Lifeline Earthquake Engineering Award and the Walter Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Go to Profile#4165
John Oommen
#94324
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Basantkumar John Oommen is an Indian-Canadian computer scientist. Oommen received the Master of Science degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1979, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree from Purdue University in 1982, and is now Chancellor's Professor at the School of Computer Science, Carleton University.
Go to Profile#4166
Tugrul Unsal Daim
#126368
Overall Influence
#4167
A. Catrina Coleman
#103599
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Ann Catrina Coleman FIEEE FOSA is a Scottish electrical engineer and professor at the University of Texas at Dallas specialising in semiconductor lasers. Currently she is an Associate Vice President of the Photonics Society. Other professional activities include Associate Editor IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics , Elected Member of the IEEE LEOS Board of Governors , General Co-chair of Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics : Science and Innovations , Program Co-chair of Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics : Science and Innovations .
Go to Profile#4168
Janne Wallenius
#49236
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Janne Wallenius is a Swedish reactor physicist. He is a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Wallenius was born in 1968 in Trollhättan, Sweden. At the age of 18, he won the particle physics contest on the Swedish television show "Kvitt eller dubbelt" , after which he was nicknamed "partikel-Janne". He studied Engineering Physics at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg from 1987 to 1992. He got his PhD degree in Quantum Chemistry from Uppsala University in 1996.
Go to Profile#4169
Richard A. Oriani
#126402
Overall Influence
#4170
David H. Owens
#126412
Overall Influence
#4171
Tuija Pulkkinen
#115512
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Tuija I. Pulkkinen is a Finnish space physicist. Her primary research foci are studying the energy flow from the solar wind to the near-Earth space environment and the energy dissipation processes in the magnetosphere.
Go to Profile#4172
Shin-ichi Takagi
#126427
Overall Influence
#4173
Matthew N. O. Sadiku
#126433
Overall Influence
#4174
Masayuki Yamato
#126436
Overall Influence
#4175
John D. Salamone
#126442
Overall Influence
#4176
Dimitrios E. Beskos
#126447
Overall Influence
#4177
Paul Franklin
#48747
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Paul J. Franklin is an English visual effects supervisor who has worked with visual effects since the 1990s. Franklin won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and the BAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects for Inception , and won a second Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Interstellar . He shared the wins with Andrew Lockley, Peter Bebb, and Chris Corbould. Franklin has also been nominated for an Academy Award for The Dark Knight . He was nominated for BAFTA Awards for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight , and The Dark Knight Rises .
Go to Profile#4178
J. Christopher Jaffe
#82112
Overall Influence
1927 - 2013 (86 years)
J. Christopher Jaffe was recognized for leadership in architectural-acoustic design. Work Jaffe graduated from the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1949 and then went on to graduate studies in theater at Columbia University.
Go to Profile#4179
Carolee Schneemann
#40540
Overall Influence
1939 - 2019 (80 years)
Carolee Schneemann was an American visual experimental artist, known for her multi-media works on the body, narrative, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. in poetry and philosophy from Bard College and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois. Originally a painter in the Abstract Expressionist tradition, Schneeman was uninterested in the masculine heroism of New York painters of the time and turned to performance-based work, primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the individual in relation to social bodies. Although renowned for ...
Go to Profile#4180
Pierre Duhamel
#126505
Overall Influence
#4181
Poul V. Ladep.v. Lade
#126510
Overall Influence
#4182
Colin Ivor Johnston
#126512
Overall Influence
#4183
Jørgen Fredsøe
#126539
Overall Influence
#4184
Guotong Zhou
#114414
Overall Influence
Guotong Zhou is a Chinese engineer from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Shenzhen. She was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2012 for her contributions to the analysis of nonlinear systems and signals.
Go to Profile#4185
Julie Bargmann
#113490
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
'Bold text' Julie Bargmann is an American landscape architect and educator. Bargmann is Professor Emerita of Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, founding principal of D.I.R.T. Studio, a landscape architecture firm, and inaugural recipient of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, an initiative of Washington, D.C.-based The Cultural Landscape Foundation.
Go to Profile#4186
Gene Polito
#78604
Overall Influence
1918 - 2010 (92 years)
Eugene Emmanuel Polito was an American cinematographer, mechanical engineer and academic. His numerous film and television credits included Futureworld, Up in Smoke and Lost in Space. Biography Polito was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1918, the son of cinematographer Sol Polito and his wife, Frances Polito. Polito was just eight months old when his family moved to Los Angeles in 1919 so his father, Sol Polito, could continue working at Warner Brothers Studios.
Go to Profile#4187
Eric Radin‡
#126602
Overall Influence
#4188
Jery Russell Stedinger
#126604
Overall Influence
#4189
Peter Richardson
#118621
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Professor Peter Damian Richardson FCGI, FRS was a British biomedical engineer and academic. He studied at Imperial College London, on a scholarship awarded to him at the age of 16. He was appointed Professor of Engineering and Physiology at Brown University in 1984, becoming Emeritus upon retirement. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1986, and was awarded a Humboldt Prize in 1976, and the Ernst Jung Prize in Medicine in 1986.
Go to Profile#4190
Convenors Richard Taylor
#126643
Overall Influence
#4191
Thomas C. Mcgill
#126668
Overall Influence
#4192
Yadollah Yamini
#126682
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4193
Naser Maleknia
#56974
Overall Influence
1931 - 2007 (76 years)
Naser Maleknia was a pioneering Iranian clinical biochemist and a distinguished professor of Tehran University. Maleknia studied chemical engineering and principles of medicine in the USA then moved to France where he studied medicine and take PHD degree in biochemistry and started research activities on clinical biochemistry. He became a full professor of biochemistry and a director of the department of Biochemistry at Tehran University.
Go to Profile#4194
Robert Riener
#126693
Overall Influence
#4195
Justine Kurland
#33174
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Justine Kurland is an American fine art photographer, based in New York City. Early life and education Kurland was born in Warsaw, New York. She earned her B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in 1996. She went on to study with Gregory Crewdson at Yale University where she received an M.F.A. in 1998.
Go to Profile#4196
Donald Gibson
#72744
Overall Influence
1908 - 1991 (83 years)
Sir Donald Edward Evelyn Gibson CBE was Coventry’s first City Architect and Planning Officer, from 1938-1954; most famous for the postwar redevelopment of Coventry city centre following the Coventry Blitz.
Go to Profile#4197
Eddy Roger Simoen
#126750
Overall Influence
#4198
Michèle Hébert Bruneau
#126797
Overall Influence
#4199
Witold F. Krajewski
#126817
Overall Influence
#4200
Lev Korolyov
#92965
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Lev Nikolayevich Korolyov was a Russian / Soviet computer scientist, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. He was involved in the development of the first Soviet computers. Biography Korolev was born in Podolsk, Russia. After Army service, he graduated from Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Moscow State University in 1952. In 1953-1975 Korolev worked at the Institute of Precise Mechanics and Computer Engineering of academician S.A. Lebedev, and became his deputy. He died in Moscow in 2016 at the age of 89.
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