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,
#4301
Ergin Sezgin
#128309
Overall Influence
#4302
Shrikant Lele
#83758
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Shrikant Lele is an Indian metallurgical engineer and a distinguished professor of Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi. He is a former director of the Institute of Technology of the university and is known for his studies on structural metallurgy. He is credited with reportedly original work on X-ray diffraction effects, solid state and martensitic transformations as well as spinodal decomposition in alloys and electron diffraction from quasicrystals. His researches have been documented in several peer-reviewed articles; and Google Scholar the online article repository of Indian Academy...
Go to Profile#4303
Essam Sharaf
#48265
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Essam Abdel-Aziz Sharaf is an Egyptian academic who was the Prime Minister of Egypt from 3 March 2011 to 7 December 2011. He served as Minister of Transportation from 2004 to 2005. Early life and education Sharaf was born in Giza in 1952. After receiving his BSc in civil engineering from Cairo University in 1975, he went to Purdue University where he continued his studies, receiving his MSc Eng in 1980 and his PhD in 1984.
Go to Profile#4304
Ronald D. Schrimpf
#119658
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Ronald D Schrimpf is an American electrical engineer and scientist. He is the Orrin H. Ingram Chair in Engineering, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Vanderbilt University. where his research activities focus on microelectronics and semiconductor devices. He is affiliated with the Radiation Effects and Reliability Group at Vanderbilt University where he works on the effects of radiation on semiconductor devices and integrated circuits. He also serves as the Director of the Institute for Space and Defense Electronics at Vanderbilt. He is best known for his work in the field of ioniz...
Go to Profile#4305
Daniel Peña
#83616
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Daniel Peña Sánchez de Rivera is a Spanish engineer and statistician. Education Peña obtained a Ph.D. in industrial engineering from the Technical University of Madrid and studied sociology and statistics at Complutense University of Madrid and business administration Harvard University. He is an active researcher in statistics and econometrics and was rector of Charles III University of Madrid in 2007–2015.
Go to Profile#4306
Theodore Caplow
#81271
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Theodore "Ted" Caplow is an American social entrepreneur, environmental engineer, and inventor. He is the founder of greenhouse science lab provider New York Sun Works and the co-founder of AgTech supply-chain disruptor BrightFarms. Caplow's pioneering work in urban agriculture and vertical farming began with the Science Barge in Yonkers, New York . Caplow has also patented a Vertically Integrated Greenhouse. Caplow subsequently co-founded Caplow|Manzano in 2017 with Nathalie Manzano to pursue innovations in resilient housing design and sustainable building technology. As an academic, Caplow holds a Ph.D.
Go to Profile#4307
Alvin Williams Nienow
#128404
Overall Influence
#4308
Paul Daniel Dapkus
#128418
Overall Influence
#4309
Andrew J. Whittle
#112796
Overall Influence
Andrew John Whittle is Edmund K. Turner Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and former Head of the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He specializes in Geotechnical Engineering and more particularly in numerical and constitutive modelling.
Go to Profile#4310
Ken Ludwig
#12664
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Ken Ludwigis an American playwright , author, screenwriter, and director whose work has been performed in more than 30 countries in over 20 languages. He has had six productions on Broadway and eight in London’s West End. His 34 plays and musicals are staged throughout the United States and around the world every night of the year.
Go to Profile#4311
Kenneth Maiese
#128497
Overall Influence
#4312
Michael J. Peach
#128506
Overall Influence
#4313
Seymour Glagov
#128510
Overall Influence
#4314
William A Gardner
#122532
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
William A Gardner is a theoretically inclined electrical engineer who specializes in the advancement of the theory of statistical time-series analysis and statistical inference with emphasis on signal processing algorithm design and performance analysis. He is also an entrepreneur, a professor emeritus with the University of California, Davis, founder of the R&D firm Statistical Signal Processing, Inc. , and former president, CEO, and chief scientist of this firm for 25 years prior to sale of its IP to Lockheed Martin.
Go to Profile#4315
Ruth M. Hall
#128563
Overall Influence
#4316
Massimo Ruzzene
#128565
Overall Influence
#4317
Oded Golan
#15582
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Oded Golan is an Israeli engineer, entrepreneur, and antiquities collector. He owns one of the largest collections of Biblical archaeology in the world. Biography Oded Golan is the son of an engineer and a professor of microbiology. He served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces before studying industrial and management engineering at the Technion, graduating with honors. Since childhood, Golan has had a keen interest in archeology and antiquities. At the age of 10, during a visit to the ancient site of Tel Hatzor, he discovered the world’s oldest dictionary, which was later published by Professor Yigael Yadin.
Go to Profile#4318
Upadrasta Ramamurty
#128589
Overall Influence
#4319
Zhongbo Su
#128625
Overall Influence
#4320
Rodrigo Caiado De Lamare
#128636
Overall Influence
#4321
Candice Breitz
#69292
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Candice Breitz is a South African white artist who works primarily in video and photography. She won a 2007 Prince Pierre de Monaco Prize. Her work is often characterized by multi-channel moving image installations, with a focus on the “attention economy” of contemporary media and culture, often represented in the parallelism of the identification with fictional characters and celebrity figures and widespread indifference to global issues. In 2017, she was selected to represent South Africa at the 57th Venice Biennale.
Go to Profile#4322
Xiao-ling Ling Zhao
#128648
Overall Influence
#4323
Susan Margulies
#75327
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Susan Margulies is an American engineer and assistant director of the U.S. National Science Foundation, heading the Directorate for Engineering. She is also the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Injury Biomechanics and Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, where she served as chair from 2017 to 2021. She is a world leader in the biomechanics of head injury in infants.
Go to Profile#4324
Michael Fredrick Vaezi
#128670
Overall Influence
#4325
Bo Du
#128679
Overall Influence
#4326
Jerzy Grotowski
#6893
Overall Influence
1933 - 1999 (66 years)
Jerzy Marian Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He is considered one of the most influential theatre practitioners of the 20th century as well as one of the founders of experimental theatre.
Go to Profile#4327
Richard J. Hawkins
#128767
Overall Influence
#4328
Tokutoshi Torii
#106000
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
is a Japanese architect and writer. He has lived for more than ten years in Zambia, researching Spanish architecture, especially the architecture of Gaudi, on which he has published several studies. Bibliography El munco enigmático de Gaudí, Madrid; Instituto de España, 1983, 2 vols. Antonio Gaudí , Tokyo; Kajimashuppankai, 1985 The architecture of Gaudí , Tokyo; Kajimashuppankai, 1987 The Philosophy of Gaudí , Tokyo; Kajimashuppankai, 1990 The origins of Gaudí's architecture, Tokyo; Kajimashuppankai, 2001 Gaudí, his architecture and his historical world, Tokyo; Chuokoronbijutsu-Shuppan, 2000...
Go to Profile#4329
Karen Messing
#87085
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Karen Messing is a Canadian geneticist and ergonomist. She is an emeritus professor in the biological sciences at the University of Quebec at Montreal. She is known for her work on gender, environmental health and ergonomics. She was given the Jacques Rousseau Award in 1993, the Governor General's Award in 2009, and was named an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 27, 2019.
Go to Profile#4330
Xiao-song Hu
#128803
Overall Influence
#4331
Aurèle Cardinal
#60887
Overall Influence
Aurèle Cardinal is a Quebec architect, urban planner and academic. In 2007, his plan for the Outremont campus of the Université de Montréal received the award of excellence for urban design from the Canadian Institute of Planners. Cardinal, who is a partner in Groupe Cardinal Hardy, conceived the plan in collaboration with Groupe Provencher & Roy architectes, another Quebec firm. He has also taught at the university's Faculté d'aménagement since 1979.
Go to Profile#4332
Nicoletta Colombo
#128829
Overall Influence
#4333
Peter Nellist
#119666
Overall Influence
Peter David Nellist, is a British physicist and materials scientist, currently a professor in the Department of Materials at the University of Oxford. He is noted for pioneering new techniques in high-resolution electron microscopy.
Go to Profile#4334
Sunil Vishwas Rao
#128849
Overall Influence
#4335
Joseph J. Loferski
#116070
Overall Influence
1925 - 1997 (72 years)
Joseph John Loferski was an American physicist and a professor of engineering at Brown University. The New York Times called him "a pioneer in the development of solar cells". During his long and successful career he focused primarily on photovoltaic cells and their ability to convert the energy in light to electricity. Loferski also wrote and spoke extensively on the physics of semiconductor materials such as silicon, and methods of improving the efficiency of photovoltaic cells. Loferski's work and that of other early researchers proved that semiconductor devices could produce commercially...
Go to Profile#4336
Deng’an Cai
#128901
Overall Influence
#4337
Raymond M. Lemaire
#80881
Overall Influence
1921 - 1997 (76 years)
Raymond Martin Marie Ghislain, Baron Lemaire was an art historian and an architectural historian, a leading expert in conservation and professor at the Catholic University of Leuven and later at the KU Leuven and the Université catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve.
Go to Profile#4338
Tom Wu
#128941
Overall Influence
#4339
Susan Hagness
#110047
Overall Influence
Susan Carol Hagness is an American electrical engineer and applied electromagnetics researcher. She is the Philip Dunham Reed Professor and Department Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Go to Profile#4340
Walter R. Hibbard Jr.
#120795
Overall Influence
1918 - 2010 (92 years)
Walter R. Hibbard Jr was an American metallurgist, a distinguished professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the 11th director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines in President Johnson's administration.
Go to Profile#4341
Costas D. Maranas
#128970
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
#4342
Shun‐lien Chuang
#128985
Overall Influence
#4343
Ellen Braae
#112067
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ellen Marie Braae is a Danish landscape architect and, since April 2014, the first professor of landscape architecture at Copenhagen University. Biography Braae was brought up on a farm near Rønde in central Jutland. After matriculating from Aarhus Cathedral School, she followed the family tradition and attended Viborg Gymnastikskole. From there, she went on to study landscape architecture at the Aarhus School of Architecture, graduating in 1991 and earning a PhD in 2003. From 2003 to 2006, she taught urban design at Aarhus University, specializing in landscape architecture until 2009. In 2...
Go to Profile#4344
Masaya Notomi
#128999
Overall Influence
Masaya Notomi from the NTT Basic Research Laboratories, Atsugi, Kanagawa, Japan was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2013 for leadership in the development of photonic crystals and applications.
Go to Profile#4345
Steven A. Abrams
#129011
Overall Influence
#4346
Christopher Calladine
#90636
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Christopher Reuben Calladine FRS FREng is a British engineer, emeritus professor at University of Cambridge, and fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. Works External links
Go to Profile#4347
Dimitri J. Mavriplis
#129037
Overall Influence
#4348
Ilona J. Frieden
#129050
Overall Influence
#4349
Julie Willis
#60522
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Julie Willis is an Australian architectural historian and academic. She is currently Professor of Architecture and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne.
Go to Profile#4350
Jianquan Q. Yao
#129083
Overall Influence
