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,
#4901
Carol Espy-Wilson
#80084
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Carol Yvonne Espy-Wilson is an electrical engineer and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park. She received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987.
Go to Profile#4902
William Jungers
#136138
Overall Influence
#4903
Kirsten Moselund
#72489
Overall Influence
Kirsten E. Moselund is a Danish engineer who is a professor of electronics and microtechnology at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. She also leads the Laboratory for Nano and Quantum Technologies at Paul Scherrer Institute. She previously worked as Head of the Materials Integration and Nanoscale Devices group at IBM Research.
Go to Profile#4904
Steven D. Glassman
#136166
Overall Influence
#4905
José A.F.O. Correia
#90748
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
José A.F.O. Correia , also known as José António Correia, is a Portuguese researcher, professor and engineer. Biography José A.F.O. Correia is a researcher in fatigue, structural integrity and fracture mechanics at the University of Porto of Porto, Portugal, since 2019. He is invited professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, since 2016. He is also guest teacher at the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. In 2007, José A.F.O. Correia is graduated in Civil Engineering at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro . In 2009, he obtained the Master Science in Civil Engineering in the Structural Mechanics area at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro .
Go to Profile#4906
Margaret Lucas
#134741
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Margaret Lucas is a Scottish mechanical engineer specializing in vibration analysis and the applications of high-power ultrasound, including shattering and sampling rock in space exploration, under-sea oil and gas exploration, and ultrasonic cutting devices in robot-assisted surgery. She is Professor of Ultrasonics and Head of Systems, Power & Energy Division in the James Watt School of Engineering at the University of Glasgow.
Go to Profile#4907
Hong‐zhong Huang
#136174
Overall Influence
#4908
Tsuguo Fukuda
#136188
Overall Influence
#4909
Raymond Yong
#120985
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Raymond Yong, is a retired Canadian environmental engineer. His father, Yong Ngim Djin, was principal of Anglo-Chinese School, and he first studied in the United States at Washington & Jefferson College due to his godfather, who was a Methodist missionary. He started in medicine, but switched to physics. He became an important instructor at McGill University. He is also an authority on contaminated soil and has 60 patents. In 1985 he won the Izaak-Walton-Killam Award.
Go to Profile#4910
Giovanni Battista Crosta
#136229
Overall Influence
#4911
Roger Falconer
#120751
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Roger Alexander Falconer FREng, ForMemCAE, FLSW, FEurASc, is Emeritus Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering at Cardiff University, Independent Water Engineering and Environmental Management Consultant, Tidal Energy Consultant, and Chair Professor at Hohai University and the Yangtze Institute for Conservation and Development, China.
Go to Profile#4912
Mahendra Kumar Trivedi
#136275
Overall Influence
#4913
Chittoor V. Ramamoorthy
#93511
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Chittoor V. Ramamoorthy was an Indian American computer scientist, computer engineer and educator whose work had many implications in engineering, computer science, and software engineering. Together with Raymond T. Yeh, he is given credit for the early establishment of the discipline of software engineering. He had a large following worldwide with whom he actively collaborated until the last few months of his life. Advances made during these collaborations included the exploration of transdisciplinary methods and the development of a science to support future complex systems design.
Go to Profile#4914
Daniel Oerther
#92363
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Daniel Barton Oerther is an American professor. He is best known for leadership bridging engineering and nursing to advance environmental health practice through science diplomacy. Oerther uses 16S ribosomal RNA-targeted techniques for fundamental studies of the ecology of bacteria in engineered and natural systems. He promotes transdisciplinarity among engineers, nurses, and sanitarians to improve access to clean water, nutritious food, and energy efficiency in developing communities. Oerther practices innovation in the scholarship of teaching and learning, including modified mastery learni...
Go to Profile#4915
Jacqueline Chen
#52106
Overall Influence
Jacqueline H. Chen is an American mechanical engineer. She works in the Combustion Research Facility of Sandia National Laboratories, where she is a Senior Scientist. Her research applies massively parallel computing to the simulation of turbulent combustion.
Go to Profile#4916
Trevor Whittaker
#89363
Overall Influence
Trevor Whittaker FREng is Professor of coastal engineering at Queen's University, Belfast having been awarded a personal chair in 1993. He was elected a Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering in 2002. He is specialist adviser to the board of Aquamarine Power, a company formed to commercially develop the Oyster wave energy converter.
Go to Profile#4917
Mark S. Daskin
#136333
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
#4918
Sandra A. Edwards
#136343
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
#4919
John L. Bowman
#136344
Overall Influence
#4920
Ou Chin-der
#94226
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Ou Chin-der is a Taiwanese civil engineer. Ou was an immigrant who moved from the mainland China to the Taitung County of eastern Taiwan with his parents. He graduated and received his master's degree of civil engineering from National Cheng Kung University, and took a doctoral degree in Soil Mechanics at Case Western Reserve University.
Go to Profile#4921
Samuel G. Jacobson
#136363
Overall Influence
#4922
Kadangode K. Ramakrishnan
#136365
Overall Influence
#4923
Carl W. Gottschalk
#95804
Overall Influence
1922 - 1997 (75 years)
Carl William Gottschalk was the Kenan Professor and Distinguished Research Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Gottschalk made important discoveries about the function of the kidneys, and helped set government policies that provided dialysis to patients with kidney failure.
Go to Profile#4924
Jonathan Michael Rigelsford
#136379
Overall Influence
#4925
Michael J. Quon
#136394
Overall Influence
#4926
Deepa Kundur
#104755
Overall Influence
Deepa Kundur is a professor, researcher at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for "contributions to signal processing techniques for multimedia and cybersecurity."
Go to Profile#4927
Ian Axford
#64258
Overall Influence
1933 - 2010 (77 years)
Sir William Ian Axford was a New Zealand space scientist who was director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Aeronomy from 1974 to 1990. Axford's research was focused on the interaction of the Sun with the magnetic field of Earth or the interstellar medium .
Go to Profile#4928
John Murray Gibson
#136425
Overall Influence
#4929
Shawn Wong
#21102
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Shawn K. Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He has served as the Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program , Chair of the Department of English , and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Washington, where he has been on the faculty since 1984 and teaches courses covering critical theory, Asian American studies, which he is considered a pioneer in, and fiction writing. Wong received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California Berkeley and a master's degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University .
Go to Profile#4930
Dale E. Seborg
#136426
Overall Influence
#4931
Tjprc
#136427
Overall Influence
#4932
Alireza Fatemi
#136428
Overall Influence
#4933
Elayne Arrington
#78610
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Elayne Arrington is an American mathematician and engineer. She was the first African American woman to graduate with a bachelor's degree from the School of Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. After earning her Ph.D., she went on to conduct performance analyses of Soviet Union aircraft at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Go to Profile#4934
Adolf Darlington May
#136465
Overall Influence
#4935
Silvestro Micera
#136468
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
#4936
Eckhart George Hahn
#136473
Overall Influence
#4937
Francisco de León
#122534
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Francisco de León from the New York University Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, New York. was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for contributions to transformer modeling for electromagnetic transient studies.
Go to Profile#4938
Dipankar Raychaudhuri
#108463
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Dipankar Raychaudhuri is the Director of Wireless Information Network Laboratory and distinguished professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Rutgers University. Education Raychaudhuri obtained his B.Tech in Electronics & Electrical Communications Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1976, and the M.S. and Ph.D degrees from Stony Brook University in 1978 and 1979, respectively. His PhD was on the topic of code division multiple access under the guidance of the late Prof. Stephen Rapapport, who continued to be a mentor and close associat...
Go to Profile#4939
David Berthold
#38813
Overall Influence
David Berthold is an Australia theatre director. He has been theatre director of several Australian, London and Berlin theatre companies. He was artistic director of the Brisbane Festival over five festivals from 2015 to 19.
Go to Profile#4940
Robert Snoeck
#136510
Overall Influence
#4941
Kenneth Stuart Sorbie
#136552
Overall Influence
#4942
Kwang-cheng Chen
#136558
Overall Influence
#4943
John Doyle
#18778
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
John Doyle is a Scottish stage director of musicals and plays, as well as operas. He served as artistic director at several regional theatres in the United Kingdom, where he staged more than 200 professional productions during his career spanning over 40 years.
Go to Profile#4944
Quyen T. Nguyen
#45242
Overall Influence
Quyen T. Nguyen is an American surgeon-scientist and Professor in the Department of Surgery at UC San Diego School of Medicine and associate director of Education and Training at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. She is known for her work pioneering fluorescence guided surgery and co-holds several patents with Nobel Laureate Roger Y. Tsien, PhD pertaining to their invention of peptides, imaging systems and methods to support fluorescence-guided cancer tumor resection and fluorescent labeling of nerves on the surgical bed.
Go to Profile#4945
Bobby Ross Barmish
#136610
Overall Influence
#4946
Yun-jiang Rao Rao
#136615
Overall Influence
#4947
Hirotaka Iwase
#136640
Overall Influence
#4948
Majid Amidpour
#130310
Overall Influence
Majid Amidpour is a professor of Mechanical and Energy engineering at Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology . He is also the director of the Energy and Environment Research Center at Niroo Research Institute , Tehran, Iran.
Go to Profile#4949
Tian Cheng He
#136669
Overall Influence
#4950
Samuel A. Yousem
#136674
Overall Influence
