Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most important people in 24 academic disciplines from 4000 BCE to today

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 proprietary AI program, we have ranked everyone in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef based on the number of citations, publications, and academically relevant web presence.

Students and researchers now have the easiest and fastest way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you ever wanted to find famous medieval biologists, or influential engineers during the industrial revolution, now you can!

We’ve also put together our own custom rankings of people by discipline. And speaking of influential people, don’t forget to check out the interviews we do with the influential people of today!

Use the power of AI for your research! Simply select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) most relevant to your research, and the time periods of interest, and get enlightening results.

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Start (Year)

End (Year)

List of the most influential people in Engineering, for the years 4000 BC – 1900

Vitruvius

#401

Overall Influence

80 BC - 15 BC (65 years)

Vitruvius was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled De architectura. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attributes: , , and . These principles were later widely adopted in Roman architecture. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to the famous Renaissance drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

#66

Overall Influence

1452 - 1519 (67 years)

<noinclude> </noinclude> Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially rested on his achievements as a painter, he also became known for his notebooks, in which he made drawings and notes on a variety of subjects, including anatomy, astronomy, botany, cartography, painting, and paleontology. Leonardo is widely regarded to have been a genius who epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal, and his collective works comprise a contributio...

Archimedes

#57

Overall Influence

287 BC - 212 BC (75 years)

Archimedes of Syracuse was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Considered the greatest mathematician of ancient history, and one of the greatest of all time, Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying the concept of the infinitely small and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems. These include the area of a circle, the surface area a...

John Ruskin

#233

Overall Influence

1819 - 1900 (81 years)

John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.

Andrea Palladio

Andrea Palladio

#1318

Overall Influence

1508 - 1580 (72 years)

Andrea Palladio was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be one of the most influential individuals in the history of architecture. While he designed churches and palaces, he was best known for country houses and villas. His teachings, summarized in the architectural treatise, The Four Books of Architecture, gained him wide recognition.

James Clerk Maxwell

James Clerk Maxwell

#99

Overall Influence

1831 - 1879 (48 years)

James Clerk Maxwell was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and light as different manifestations of the same phenomenon. Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism have been called the "second great unification in physics" where the first one had been realised by Isaac Newton.

Michelangelo

#252

Overall Influence

1475 - 1564 (89 years)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , known as Michelangelo , was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

#932

Overall Influence

1806 - 1859 (53 years)

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions." Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway , a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern...

Raphael

#343

Overall Influence

1483 - 1520 (37 years)

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael , was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

#137

Overall Influence

1867 - 1959 (92 years)

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing architects worldwide through his works and hundreds of apprentices in his Taliesin Fellowship. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater , which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture".

Nikola Tesla

#285

Overall Influence

1856 - 1943 (87 years)

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current electricity supply system.

Leon Battista Alberti

Leon Battista Alberti

#2049

Overall Influence

1404 - 1472 (68 years)

Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. He is considered the founder of Western cryptography, a claim he shares with Johannes Trithemius.

Robert Adam

#2537

Overall Influence

1728 - 1792 (64 years)

Robert Adam was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam , Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his older brother John, Robert took on the family business, which included lucrative work for the Board of Ordnance, after William's death.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage

#303

Overall Influence

1791 - 1871 (80 years)

Charles Babbage was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered by some to be "father of the computer". Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, the Difference Engine, that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in Babbage's Analytical Engine, programmed using a principle openly borrowed from the Jacquard loom. Babbage had a broad range of interests in addition to his work on computers covered in his book Economy of Manufactures and Machinery.

Hero of Alexandria

Hero of Alexandria

#1042

Overall Influence

10 - 75 (65 years)

Hero of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is often considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

#40

Overall Influence

1646 - 1716 (70 years)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He wrote works on philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law, history and philology. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in probability theory, biology, medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics and computer science. In addition, he contributed to the field of library science: while serving as overs...

Dankmar Adler

#6899

Overall Influence

1844 - 1900 (56 years)

Dankmar Adler was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers that boldly addressed their steel skeleton through their exterior design: the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, Missouri , the Chicago Stock Exchange Building , and the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York .

Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper

#3914

Overall Influence

1803 - 1879 (76 years)

Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture who designed and built the Semper Operaa House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. He fled first to Zürich and later to London. He returned to Germany after the 1862 amnesty granted to the revolutionaries.

Louis Sullivan

#1469

Overall Influence

1856 - 1924 (68 years)

Louis Henry Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an inspiration to the Chicago group of architects who have come to be known as the Prairie School. Along with Wright and Henry Hobson Richardson, Sullivan is one of "the recognized trinity of American architecture". The phrase "form follows function" is attributed to him, although he credited the concept to ancient Roman architect Vitruvius . In 1944, Sullivan was the second architect...

Thomas Telford

#2954

Overall Influence

1757 - 1834 (77 years)

Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotland, as well as harbours and tunnels. Such was his reputation as a prolific designer of highways and related bridges, he was dubbed The Colossus of Roads , and, reflecting his command of all types of civil engineering in the early 19th century, he was elected as the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a post he held for 14 years until his death.

Christopher Wren

Christopher Wren

#1257

Overall Influence

1632 - 1723 (91 years)

Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710.

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei

#135

Overall Influence

1564 - 1642 (78 years)

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced . He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the "father" of observational astronomy, modern physics, the scientific method, and modern science.

Antoni Gaudí

#1091

Overall Influence

1852 - 1926 (74 years)

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet was a Catalan architect from Spain known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, sui generis style. Most are located in Barcelona, including his main work, the church of the Sagrada Família.

Otto Wagner

#1924

Overall Influence

1841 - 1918 (77 years)

Otto Koloman Wagner was an Austrian architect, furniture designer and urban planner. He was a leading member of the Vienna Secession movement of architecture, founded in 1897, and the broader Art Nouveau movement. Many of his works are found in his native city of Vienna, and illustrate the rapid evolution of architecture during the period. His early works were inspired by classical architecture. By mid-1890s, he had already designed several buildings in what became known as the Vienna Secession style. Beginning in 1898, with his designs of Vienna Metro stations, his style became floral and Art Nouveau, with decoration by Koloman Moser.

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Karl Friedrich Schinkel

#3750

Overall Influence

1781 - 1841 (60 years)

Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a Prussian architect, city planner and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neogothic buildings. His most famous buildings are found in and around Berlin.

William Rankine

William Rankine

#5358

Overall Influence

1820 - 1872 (52 years)

William John Macquorn Rankine was a Scottish mechanical engineer who also contributed to civil engineering, physics and mathematics. He was a founding contributor, with Rudolf Clausius and William Thomson , to the science of thermodynamics, particularly focusing on the first of the three thermodynamic laws. He developed the Rankine scale, an equivalent to the Kelvin scale of temperature, but in degrees Fahrenheit rather than Celsius.

Victor Horta

#1759

Overall Influence

1861 - 1947 (86 years)

Victor Pierre Horta was a Belgian architect and designer, and one of the founders of the Art Nouveau movement. His Hôtel Tassel in Brussels, built in 1892–93, is often considered the first Art Nouveau house. The curving stylized vegetal forms that Horta used influenced many others, including architect Hector Guimard, who used it in the first house he designed in Paris and in the entrances he designed for the Paris Metro. He is also considered a precursor of modern architecture for his open floor plans and his innovative use of iron, steel and glass.

Oliver Heaviside

Oliver Heaviside

#374

Overall Influence

1850 - 1925 (75 years)

Oliver Heaviside FRS was an English self-taught mathematician and physicist who invented a new technique for solving differential equations , independently developed vector calculus, and rewrote Maxwell's equations in the form commonly used today. He significantly shaped the way Maxwell's equations are understood and applied in the decades following Maxwell's death. His formulation of the telegrapher's equations became commercially important during his own lifetime, after their significance went unremarked for a long while, as few others were versed at the time in his novel methodology. Altho...

John Smeaton

#3788

Overall Influence

1724 - 1792 (68 years)

John Smeaton was a British civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. He was also a capable mechanical engineer and an eminent physicist. Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed "civil engineer", and is often regarded as the "father of civil engineering". He pioneered the use of hydraulic lime in concrete, using pebbles and powdered brick as aggregate. Smeaton was associated with the Lunar Society.

Galileo Ferraris

Galileo Ferraris

#5070

Overall Influence

1847 - 1897 (50 years)

Galileo Ferraris was an Italian university professor, physicist and electrical engineer, one of the pioneers of AC power system and inventor of the induction motor although he never patented his work. Many newspapers touted that his work on the induction motor and power transmission systems were some of the greatest inventions of all ages. He published an extensive and complete monograph on the experimental results obtained with open-circuit transformers of the type designed by the power engineers Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs.

Joseph Fourier

#196

Overall Influence

1768 - 1830 (62 years)

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Fourier was a French mathematician and physicist born in Auxerre and best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series, which eventually developed into Fourier analysis and harmonic analysis, and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's law of conduction are also named in his honour. Fourier is also generally credited with the discovery of the greenhouse effect.

Ada Lovelace

#739

Overall Influence

1815 - 1852 (37 years)

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and to have published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer.

Inigo Jones

#4736

Overall Influence

1573 - 1652 (79 years)

Inigo Jones was the first significant architect in England and Wales in the early modern period, and the first to employ Vitruvian rules of proportion and symmetry in his buildings. As the most notable architect in England and Wales, Jones was the first person to introduce the classical architecture of Rome and the Italian Renaissance to Britain. He left his mark on London by his design of single buildings, such as the Queen's House which is the first building in England designed in a pure classical style, and the Banqueting House, Whitehall, as well as the layout for Covent Garden square which became a model for future developments in the West End.

Claude Nicolas Ledoux

Claude Nicolas Ledoux

#9265

Overall Influence

1736 - 1806 (70 years)

Claude-Nicolas Ledoux was one of the earliest exponents of French Neoclassical architecture. He used his knowledge of architectural theory to design not only domestic architecture but also town planning; as a consequence of his visionary plan for the Ideal City of Chaux, he became known as a utopian. His greatest works were funded by the French monarchy and came to be perceived as symbols of the Ancien Régime rather than Utopia. The French Revolution hampered his career; much of his work was destroyed in the nineteenth century. In 1804, he published a collection of his designs under the title L'Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des mœurs et de la législation .

Daniel Burnham

#2134

Overall Influence

1846 - 1912 (66 years)

Daniel Hudson Burnham was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the Beaux-Arts movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ever produced."

Pavel Yablochkov

Pavel Yablochkov

#9668

Overall Influence

1847 - 1894 (47 years)

Pavel Nikolayevich Yablochkov was a Russian electrical engineer, businessman and the inventor of the Yablochkov candle and the transformer. Biography Yablochkov graduated in 1866 as a military engineer from Nikolayev Engineering Institute, now Military engineering-technical university , and in 1869 from Technical Galvanic School in Saint Petersburg. After serving in the army, Yablochkov settled in Moscow in 1873, where he was appointed Head of Telegraph Office at the Moscow-Kursk railroad. He opened up a workshop for his experiments in electrical engineering, which laid down the foundations...

Giorgio Vasari

#2259

Overall Influence

1511 - 1574 (63 years)

Giorgio Vasari was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, considered the ideological foundation of all art-historical writing, and the basis for biographies of several Renaissance artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Vasari designed the Tomb of Michelangelo in the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence that was completed in 1578. Based on Vasari's text in print about Giotto's new manner of painting as a rinascita , auth...

Leo von Klenze

#6468

Overall Influence

1784 - 1864 (80 years)

Leo von Klenze was a German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer. Court architect of Bavarian King Ludwig I, Leo von Klenze was one of the most prominent representatives of Greek revival style.

George Stephenson

George Stephenson

#2682

Overall Influence

1781 - 1848 (67 years)

George Stephenson was a British civil engineer and mechanical engineer. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. Self-help advocate Samuel Smiles particularly praised his achievements. His chosen rail gauge, sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", was the basis for the standard gauge used by most of the world's railways.

Henry Dyer

#5092

Overall Influence

1848 - 1918 (70 years)

Henry Dyer was a Scottish engineer who contributed much to founding Western-style technical education in Japan and Scottish-Japanese relations. Early life Henry Dyer was born on 16 August 1848, in the village of Muirmadkin in the Parish of Bothwell in what is now known as North Lanarkshire.

Paul Hankar

#9748

Overall Influence

1859 - 1901 (42 years)

Paul Hankar was a Belgian architect and furniture designer, and an innovator in the Art Nouveau style. Career Hankar was born at Frameries, in Hainaut, Belgium, the son of a stonemason. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels, where he met fellow student Victor Horta. Like Horta, he closely studied the techniques of forged iron, which he would later use in many of his buildings. He began his career as a designer and sculptor of funeral monuments. From 1879 to 1904, he worked in the studio of the prominent architect Henri Beyaert, a master of eclectic and neoclassical architecture.

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb

#3625

Overall Influence

1736 - 1806 (70 years)

Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was a French officer, engineer, and physicist. He is best known as the eponymous discoverer of what is now called Coulomb's law, the description of the electrostatic force of attraction and repulsion. He also did important work on friction.

Charles Barry

#5686

Overall Influence

1795 - 1860 (65 years)

Sir Charles Barry was a British architect, best known for his role in the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster in London during the mid-19th century, but also responsible for numerous other buildings and gardens. He is known for his major contribution to the use of Italianate architecture in Britain, especially the use of the Palazzo as basis for the design of country houses, city mansions and public buildings. He also developed the Italian Renaissance garden style for the many gardens he designed around country houses.

Richard Morris Hunt

Richard Morris Hunt

#8590

Overall Influence

1827 - 1895 (68 years)

Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance façade and Great Hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty , and many Fifth Avenue mansions since destroyed.

William Kent

#6075

Overall Influence

1684 - 1748 (64 years)

William Kent was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.

William Morris

#1237

Overall Influence

1834 - 1896 (62 years)

William Morris was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in fin de siècle Great Britain.

Hector Guimard

#2593

Overall Influence

1867 - 1942 (75 years)

Hector Guimard was a French architect and designer, and a prominent figure of the Art Nouveau style. He achieved early fame with his design for the Castel Beranger, the first Art Nouveau apartment building in Paris, which was selected in an 1899 competition as one of the best new building facades in the city. He is best known for the glass and iron edicules or canopies, with ornamental Art Nouveau curves, which he designed to cover the entrances of the first stations of the Paris Metro.

Imhotep

#1686

Overall Influence

2800 BC - 2700 BC (100 years)

Imhotep was an Egyptian chancellor to the Pharaoh Djoser, possible architect of Djoser's step pyramid, and high priest of the sun god Ra at Heliopolis. Very little is known of Imhotep as a historical figure, but in the 3,000 years following his death, he was gradually glorified and deified.

Henry van de Velde

Henry van de Velde

#1631

Overall Influence

1863 - 1957 (94 years)

Henry Clemens van de Velde was a Belgian painter, architect, interior designer, and art theorist. Together with Victor Horta and Paul Hankar, he is considered one of the founders of Art Nouveau in Belgium. He worked in Paris with Samuel Bing, the founder of the first gallery of Art Nouveau in Paris. Van de Velde spent the most important part of his career in Germany and became a major figure in the German Jugendstil. He had a decisive influence on German architecture and design at the beginning of the 20th century.

Henry Darcy

#10525

Overall Influence

1803 - 1858 (55 years)

Henry Philibert Gaspard Darcy was a French engineer who made several important contributions to hydraulics, including Darcy’s law for flow in porous media. Early life Darcy was born in Dijon, France, on June 10, 1803. His first given name is Henry; although the French spelling Henri appears in multiple sources such as necrological notices, Darcy used the Anglicized spelling.

Image Attributions