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
#2901
Erik De Schutter
#144581
Overall Influence
#2902
Richard S. Farr
#144620
Overall Influence
#2903
Ulrich Desselberger
#144804
Overall Influence
#2904
Howard Amital
#144807
Overall Influence
#2905
Robert Wellesley Mann
#144907
Overall Influence
1924 - 2006 (82 years)
Robert Wellesley Mann was a pioneer in the field of medical prosthetics. Mann was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where professor of mechanical engineering for almost 40 years and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Go to Profile#2906
Lawrence Matthies
#144953
Overall Influence
#2907
Renzhi Ma
#145012
Overall Influence
#2908
Boris Zemelman
#145101
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (58 years)
Boris Valery Zemelman is an American neuroscientist who is one of the pioneers of optogenetics. Personal life Boris Zemelman, at the age of ten, immigrated to the United States with his parents Valery and Evelina Zemelman, and lived in Wilton, Connecticut. He graduated from Wilton High School, and for his excellent academic performance was awarded Charles G. Mortimer Scholarships.
Go to Profile#2909
Deepto Chakrabarty
#145118
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (59 years)
#2910
Stergios Roumeliotis
#145181
Overall Influence
Stergios Roumeliotis is an engineer and adjunct professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2016 for his contributions to visual-inertial navigation and cooperative localization.
Go to Profile#2911
Massimo Turatto
#145318
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
#2912
Michael Tordoff
#145386
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Dr. Michael G. Tordoff is a psychobiologist working at the Monell Chemical Senses Center. His research deals with the genetics and physiology of taste and nutrition. His early work addressed how and what animals learn about the value of their food, how artificial sweeteners influence appetite and body weight, how salt intake is regulated, and how dietary calcium influences salt intake. Recently, he has been investigating calcium taste and appetite. He is the primary proponent of the notion that calcium is a basic taste, equivalent to sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.
Go to Profile#2913
Khai Ngo
#145842
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (75 years)
Khai D. T. Ngo is a Professor of electrical and computer engineering at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2015 for his contributions to the unified synthesis and modeling of switched-mode converters.
Go to Profile#2914
Epaminondas Mastorakos
#145883
Overall Influence
#2915
Carol J. Burns
#145966
Overall Influence
Carol Jean Burns is an American chemist who is Deputy Director of Research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her research is in actinide coordination and organometallic chemistry. She spent a term at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society. She was awarded the American Chemical Society Garvan–Olin Medal in 2021.
Go to Profile#2916
Rama Yedavalli
#145979
Overall Influence
Rama K. Yedavalli is an American engineering professor, currently at Ohio State University and an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and ASME.,
Go to Profile#2917
Margarita Marinova
#145981
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (45 years)
Margarita Marinova is a Bulgarian aeronautical engineer. She is the Senior Mars and Vehicle Systems Development Engineer at SpaceX. Early life and education Margarita Marinova was born in Bulgaria and can speak five languages: English, Bulgarian, Russian, German and French. When she was 10, she moved to Vienna for one year, before moving to Toronto. Her mother and father were computer engineers. She was the founder and chair of the Toronto Chapter of the international Mars Society whilst at high school. She entered and won the NASA Space Settlement Design Content in 1997, 1998 and 1999. By the age of 18, she had co-authored five science papers.
Go to Profile#2918
Martin Heeney
#146058
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (52 years)
Martin James Heeney is a professor of chemistry at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and professor of Organic Materials at Imperial College London. Heeney is a graduate of University of East Anglia, and received his PhD in organic materials chemistry from the same institution in 1999 under the supervision of Michael Cook.
Go to Profile#2919
Ralf Jaumann
#146105
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (71 years)
#2920
Franc¸ois Robert
#146274
Overall Influence
#2921
Richard M. Krause
#146325
Overall Influence
#2922
Paul T. Finger
#146386
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (70 years)
#2923
Sam T. Roweis
#146422
Overall Influence
#2924
Peter C. Thomas
#146435
Overall Influence
#2925
Jennifer Glass
#146467
Overall Influence
Jennifer L. Glass is Centennial Commission Professor of Liberal Arts in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. She was previously Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California, University of Iowa and the University of Notre Dame.
Go to Profile#2926
Thomas W. Hawkins Jr.
#146571
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (87 years)
Thomas W. Hawkins Jr. is an American historian of mathematics. Hawkins defended his Ph.D. thesis on "The Origins and Early Development of Lebesgue's Theory of Integration" at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1968 under Robert Creighton Buck. Since 1972 he has been based at Boston University. Hawkins was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1974 at Vancouver and in 1986 at Berkeley.
Go to Profile#2927
Gilles Laurent
#146704
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (65 years)
#2928
Satoshi Hoshide
#146751
Overall Influence
#2929
Angelos Vourlidas
#146757
Overall Influence
#2930
George G. Laties
#146809
Overall Influence
#2931
Mark Eli Kalderon
#147015
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (61 years)
Mark Eli Kalderon is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy in the University College London Department of Philosophy. He is known for his expertise on philosophy of color and philosophy of perception.
Go to Profile#2932
Dieter Leibfritz
#147018
Overall Influence
#2933
James T. Muckerman
#147082
Overall Influence
#2934
Fred Huffman Wilt
#147095
Overall Influence
Fred Huffman Wilt is an American biologist who was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His research currently includes the endoskeletal spicule of sea urchin embryos, and its biomineralization relative to its cellular and molecular foundation.
Go to Profile#2935
Eurie Hong
#147189
Overall Influence
Eurie Lee Hong is an American geneticist. She is the Vice President of Genomics at AncestryDNA. Education Hong earned a bachelor of science in biological sciences from Stanford University. She completed a Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology at University of Chicago. As a graduate student in Douglas K. Bishop's laboratory, Hong worked on the biochemical characterization of the yeast meiotic Dmc1 protein.
Go to Profile#2936
Liang Jiang
#147231
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (25 years)
#2937
Ray Chen
#147354
Overall Influence
Ray Chen is an American engineer, who is currently the Keys and Joan Curry/Cullen Trust Endowed Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, The Optical Society and SPIE.
Go to Profile#2938
Satish C. Kalhan
#147508
Overall Influence
#2939
Helen L. Reed
#147574
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (69 years)
Helen Louise Reed is an American aerospace engineer. Her research interests include hypersonics, energy efficient aircraft, laminar–turbulent transition, and small satellite design. She is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Physical Society, and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Go to Profile#2940
Mary Ann Sweeney
#147692
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (80 years)
Mary Ann Sweeney is an American physicist at Sandia National Laboratories. Although her doctoral research concerned astronomy, her work at Sandia has largely concerned inertial confinement fusion and pulsed power.
Go to Profile#2941
Ares J Rosakis
#147748
Overall Influence
#2942
Douglas A. Brooks
#147844
Overall Influence
1956 - 2009 (53 years)
Douglas A. Brooks was a noted Shakespeare scholar. He was an Associate Professor of English at Texas A&M University and wrote on early modern English literature. He is noted not only by his publications but also his editorship of The Shakespeare Yearbook.
Go to Profile#2943
Gustaaf Borghs
#147991
Overall Influence
#2944
Anna Ceresole
#148083
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (64 years)
Anna Ceresole is an Italian high energy physicist and Director of Research in Theoretical Physics at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare . She is interested in quantum field theory, supergravity and string theory.
Go to Profile#2945
Hua-Wei Zhou
#148153
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (68 years)
Hua-wei Zhou is an American geophysicist, focusing in earthquake seismology, exploration geophysics, digital data processing, geodynamics and seismic tomography, currently the Margaret S. Sheriff College Professorship in Geophysics at University of Houston and formerly the Joe Pevehouse Endowed Chair at Texas Tech University.
Go to Profile#2946
Glenn S. Orton
#148192
Overall Influence
#2947
Jen-Chieh Peng
#148354
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (76 years)
Jen-Chieh Peng is an experimental nuclear physicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Education and career Peng earned his bachelor's degree in physics from Tunghai University in Taiwan in 1970 and his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1975. He worked as a researcher at the Centre d'Études Nucléaires de Saclay in France before joining the Physics Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1978. Peng joined the faculty at Illinois Physics in 2002 as a full professor.
Go to Profile#2948
Deborah Lee Sivco
#148425
Overall Influence
#2949
Brandi Cossairt
#148561
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (41 years)
Brandi Michelle Cossairt is an American chemist specializing in synthetic inorganic and materials chemistry. She is the Lloyd E. and Florence M. West Endowed Professor of Chemistry at University of Washington.
Go to Profile#2950
Peter H. Siegel
#148571
Overall Influence
