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,
#4801
Guo-qiang P. Lo
#134897
Overall Influence
#4802
Constantinos C. Stoumpos
#134918
Overall Influence
#4803
Dao-qing Dai
#134921
Overall Influence
#4804
Mark Johnston
#134925
Overall Influence
#4805
Yoshio Imai
#134929
Overall Influence
#4806
Chih-Kong Ken Yang
#117367
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Chih-Kong Ken Yang is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles , Director of the Integrated Circuits and Systems Laboratories , and co-founder of Pluribus Networks, Inc.
Go to Profile#4807
David. V. Schaffer
#134941
Overall Influence
#4808
Brahim Benmokrane,
#134944
Overall Influence
#4809
John H. Weaver
#134949
Overall Influence
#4810
John W. Woods
#134952
Overall Influence
#4811
Arthur Dipl Ing Prochazka
#134962
Overall Influence
#4812
Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis
#134971
Overall Influence
#4813
Bagher Shirazi
#86519
Overall Influence
1936 - 2007 (71 years)
Bagher Ayatollahzadeh Shirazi , was an Iranian professor and architect. Shirazi was the deputy coordinator at the Iranian Cultural Heritage Organization , coordinating and supervising all ICHO activities at a national and international level, establishing executive centers of the organization across all provinces of Iran. He then became the head of the organization, and remained until 2000.
Go to Profile#4814
Ignace Verpoest
#134992
Overall Influence
#4815
George Grenfell-Baines
#82764
Overall Influence
1908 - 2003 (95 years)
Sir George Grenfell-Baines was an English architect and town planner. Born in Preston, his family's humble circumstances forced him to start work at the age of fourteen. Both George and his younger brother, Richard , were prodigiously gifted mathematicians and draughtsmen. Grenfell-Baines left a secure, but limiting, job in the Lancashire County Architect's Office to work for the prestigious private firm of Bradshaw Gass & Hope in Bolton in 1930.
Go to Profile#4816
Kathryn Gleason
#75199
Overall Influence
Kathryn Gleason is Professor of Landscape Architecture at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Also a faculty member of the Cornell Institute for Archaeology and Material Studies, her work focuses on the archaeology of landscape architecture, especially the design and interpretation of ancient Roman and Mediterranean gardens and landscapes. Her pioneering field research on archaeological methods for detecting landscape design has been conducted across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, most recently in Italy, Israel, Jordan, and India. She is the editor of A Cultural History of Garden...
Go to Profile#4817
Sarah Bell
#61695
Overall Influence
Sarah Jayne Bell is the City of Melbourne Chair in Urban Resilience and Innovation at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Honorary Professor of Environmental Engineering at The Bartlett School in University College London . She works on urban water systems. She was the Director of the UCL Engineering Exchange during her 16 years as a Professor of Environmental Engineering at UCL.
Go to Profile#4818
Paul Khairy
#135013
Overall Influence
#4819
Mehdi Mehrpooya
#135048
Overall Influence
#4820
Hassan Diab
#50434
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Hassan Diab is a Lebanese academic, engineer and politician who served as the prime minister of Lebanon from 21 January 2020 to 10 September 2021. He was appointed by President Michel Aoun in 2019 to succeed Saad Hariri as prime minister. He submitted his resignation on 10 August 2020 in wake of the explosion in Beirut and served as caretaker prime minister until Najib Mikati formed a new government on 10 September 2021. Prior to his premiership, he served as the minister of education from June 2011 to February 2014 under President Michel Suleiman.
Go to Profile#4821
Mats Viberg
#135094
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
#4822
Evelyn Wang
#103646
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (48 years)
Evelyn Ning-Yi Wang is a mechanical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , where she is the Ford Professor of Mechanical Engineering, director of the Device Research Laboratory, and chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Topics in her research include heat transfer, ultrahydrophobicity, solar energy and nanostructures.
Go to Profile#4823
Yoshio Nishi
#135107
Overall Influence
#4824
Alois Jungbauer
#135123
Overall Influence
#4825
Malene Hauxner
#104409
Overall Influence
1942 - 2012 (70 years)
Malene Hauxner was a Danish landscape architect, author, educator and professor of Theory, Method and History at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University . Biography Hauxner was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark. Her parents were Jørgen Bo and Gerda Rigmor Boisen Bennike. She became a landscape architect after graduating from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in 1968. In 1993 she was awarded a doctoral degree . From 1975 she worked in parallel as assistant professor in retail planning, later as associate professor at KVL. In 1979 she established her own l...
Go to Profile#4826
Yan Xiao
#135176
Overall Influence
Yan Xiao is an engineer and Professor of Civil Engineering at USC. He is best known for inventing structural uses for bamboo. He describes his research interests as "seismic analysis and design of structures; experimental analysis of structures, components and materials, and implementation of new materials into structural design and retrofit."
Go to Profile#4827
David C. Viano
#135180
Overall Influence
#4828
Mohammad Reza Eslami
#135192
Overall Influence
#4829
Maria Delivoria‐papadopoulos
#135195
Overall Influence
#4830
John Owen
#106904
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
John Owen is a British Formula One engineer. He is currently the chief designer at the Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport Formula One team. Career Owen started his career in motorsport in Brackley in 2001, working as an aerodynamicist for chassis manufacturer Reynard Motorsport. A year later, he moved to Hinwil, Switzerland, to work for the Sauber team. In 2004, he was promoted to a senior aerodynamicist for the Swiss outfit. Three years later, he returned to Brackley as principal aerodynamicist for Honda. In 2010 he was promoted to Chief Designer for the Mercedes works team. He currently leads the engineering team at Mercedes.
Go to Profile#4831
Randall S. Prather
#135240
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#4832
Allan Acosta
#95485
Overall Influence
1924 - 2020 (96 years)
Allan James Acosta was an American engineer, and a Richard L. and Dorothy M. Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Emeritus at California Institute of Technology. He was elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and National Academy of Engineering.
Go to Profile#4833
Enzo Tonti
#75202
Overall Influence
1935 - 2021 (86 years)
Enzo Tonti was an Italian physicist and mathematician, known for his contributions to engineering and mathematical physics. Life Enzo Tonti was born in Milan. He attended an fine arts high school. He graduated in Mathematics and Physics at the University of Milan in 1961. He began work there in 1962 as research assistant in the field of mathematical physics. In the year 1976, he accepted a professorship at the Engineering Faculty of the university of Trieste. After retirement, he was nominated professor emeritus. He married in 1962 and had three children .
Go to Profile#4834
Heinz Schmidtke
#76004
Overall Influence
1925 - 2013 (88 years)
Heinz Schmidtke was a German ergonomist. Between 1970 and 1972, he was rector of the Technical University of Munich. Life Schmidtke studied psychology and physics at the Technical University of Braunschweig until 1949. He completed his habilitation in 1960.
Go to Profile#4835
Guang-tao Zhai
#135287
Overall Influence
#4836
Liang-horng Lin
#135303
Overall Influence
#4837
Robert Metcalfe
#66965
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
#4838
Liang Liang
#135309
Overall Influence
#4839
Robert Howard Webb
#135311
Overall Influence
#4840
Ramesh Karri
#135314
Overall Influence
#4841
Peter Vilhelm Nielsen
#135340
Overall Influence
#4842
David J. Field
#135411
Overall Influence
#4843
Richard A. Berger
#135450
Overall Influence
#4844
Anna Grassellino
#116053
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Anna Grassellino is an Italian and American physicist, Senior Scientist and, since 2020, Director of the SQMS Center at Fermilab. In 2017 she was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by Barack Obama.
Go to Profile#4845
Theodore Tamir
#135470
Overall Influence
#4846
Alfred Ayala
#135482
Overall Influence
#4847
Bao-shan Huang
#135483
Overall Influence
#4848
Robert Moser
#128659
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Robert D. Moser is an American Professor of engineering, noted for his studies of spectral methods, turbulence, and uncertainty quantification. He is the W. A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr. Chair in Computational Engineering and Sciences and is professor of mechanical engineering in thermal fluid systems at the University of Texas at Austin. Before coming to The University of Texas at Austin, he was a research scientist at the NASA-Ames Research Center and then a professor of theoretical and applied mechanics at the University of Illinois.
Go to Profile#4849
Denis Rodrigue
#135495
Overall Influence
#4850
Geetam Tiwari
#135501
Overall Influence
