Highly Influential Women in Engineering Today
From pioneers in engineering sub-disciplines like computer science and electrical engineering to the newest generation of revolutionary thinkers in areas like nano-medicine and nuclear power, these 35 female engineers showcase the brilliant minds driving today’s leading edge innovations, developing tomorrow’s life-saving discoveries, and generally taking us to thrilling new heights of scientific understanding.
Women have made important gains in engineering professions over the last several decades. According to Census reporting, just 3% of engineering professionals were women in 1970. By 2019, that number had quintupled to 15%, a significant gain but one that suggests a field still dramatically tilted toward opportunities for men.
This makes the groundbreaking achievements of the women on our list all the more remarkable. From pioneers in engineering sub-disciplines like computer science and electrical engineering to the newest generation of revolutionary thinkers in areas like nano-medicine and nuclear powers, these 35 influential women engineers showcase the brilliant minds driving today’s leading edge innovations, developing tomorrow’s life-saving discoveries, and generally taking us to thrilling new heights of scientific understanding.
While the Census figures show how far we’ve come, the data also show that there is still a great deal of work to be done in advancing equal representation in engineering. To this end, let the women on this list be an inspiration to the next generation of analysts, innovators, and influencers.
If you’re a woman who’s interested in becoming an engineer, check out our Student’s Guide to Engineering for an in-depth look at some of the most in-demand careers for engineers.
35 Highly Influential Women in Engineering 2000–2020
- #1
Adah Almutairi
#170830Overall Influence1976 - Present (48 years)Adah Almutairi is a scientist and professor at the University of California, San Diego . Her work focuses on nanomedicine, nanotechnology, chemistry and polymer science. Early life and education Almutairi was born on November 1, 1976, in Portland, Oregon, United States to Saudi parents. - #2
Rose Amal
#51889Overall Influence1965 - Present (59 years) - #3
Anousheh Ansari
#120809Overall Influence1966 - Present (58 years)Anousheh Ansari is an Iranian American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. . The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian in space. Ansari was the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave Macmillan ... - #4
Kristi Anseth
#33711Overall Influence1968 - Present (56 years)Kristi S. Anseth is the Tisone Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, an Associate Professor of Surgery, and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her main research interests are the design of synthetic biomaterials using hydrogels, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. - #5
Frances Arnold
#3660Overall Influence1956 - Present (68 years) - #6
Wanda Austin
#8204Overall Influence1954 - Present (70 years)Wanda M. Austin is a former president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation. She was both the first woman, and the first African-American, to hold this position. Austin also served as interim president for the University of Southern California, following the resignation of C. L. Max Nikias. She was both the first woman, and the first African-American, to hold this position. - #7
Ruzena Bajcsy
#3783Overall Influence1933 - Present (91 years)Ruzena Bajcsy is an American engineer and computer scientist who specializes in robotics. She is professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is also director emerita of CITRIS . - #8
Gilda Barabino
#62990Overall Influence1956 - Present (68 years)Gilda A. Barabino is the president of the Olin College of Engineering, where she is also a professor of biomedical and chemical engineering. Previously, she served as the dean of The Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and as a professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and the CUNY School of Medicine. On March 4, 2021, she became the President-Elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. - #9
Dawn Bonfield
#114499Overall Influence - #10
Ursula Burns
#3645Overall Influence1958 - Present (66 years)Ursula M. Burns is an American businesswoman. Burns is renowned for her tenure as the CEO of Xerox, serving from 2009 to 2016, making her the first black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. She also holds the distinction of being the first woman to follow another as the head of a Fortune 500 company. Burns remained the Chairman at Xerox from 2010 to 2017. - #11
M. Elizabeth Cannon
#26803Overall InfluenceMargaret Elizabeth Cannon is a Canadian engineer specializing in geomatics engineering and president Emerita of the University of Calgary. From 2010 to 2018, she served as the university’s eighth president and vice-chancellor, the first alumna to hold that position. - #12
Marita Cheng
#59944Overall Influence1989 - Present (35 years)Marita Cheng is the founder of Robogals. She was named the 2012 Young Australian of the Year. She is the founder and current CEO of Aubot, a start-up robotics company. She co-founded Aipoly, an app to assist blind people to recognise objects using their mobile phones. She was named as one of the World’s Top 50 women in Technology by Forbes in 2018 and was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2016. On 9 June 2019, Cheng was appointed a member of the Order of Australia for significant service to science and technology, particularly to robotics. - #13
Leslie Dewan
#175557Overall Influence1984 - Present (40 years)Leslie Dewan is an American nuclear engineer. She was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Transatomic Power. Dewan was a member of the board of MIT and was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. - #14
Ann Dowling
#22395Overall Influence1952 - Present (72 years) - #15
Mica Endsley
#11961Overall Influence1961 - Present (63 years)Mica Endsley is an engineer and a former Chief Scientist of the United States Air Force. Early life and education Endsley was born in California and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and Houston, Texas, where she attended Spring Woods High School. In 1982, Endsley graduated cum laude from Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas with Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering. In 1985, she earned a Master of Science degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in industrial and systems engineering from the University of Southern California in 19... - #16
Lynn Gladden
#24621Overall Influence1961 - Present (63 years) - #17
Diane Greene
#2523Overall Influence1955 - Present (69 years)Diane B. Greene is an American technology entrepreneur and executive. Greene started her career as a naval architect before transitioning to the tech industry, where she was a founder and CEO of VMware from 1998 until 2008. She was a board director of Google and CEO of Google Cloud from 2015 until 2019. She was also the co-founder and CEO of two startups, Bebop and VXtreme, which were acquired by Google and Microsoft, for $380 million and $75 million. - #18
Helen Greiner
#169258Overall Influence1967 - Present (57 years)Helen Greiner is a co-founder of iRobot and former CEO of CyPhy Work, Inc., a start-up company specializing in small multi-rotor drones for the consumer, commercial and military markets. Ms Greiner is currently the CEO of Tertill Corporation. - #19
Mae Jemison
#1990Overall Influence1956 - Present (68 years)Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first African-American woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992. Jemison joined NASA’s astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which the Endeavour orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992. - #20
Dina Katabi
#5052Overall Influence1970 - Present (54 years)Dina Katabi is the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and the director of the MIT Wireless Center. Academic biography Katabi received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Damascus in 1995 and M.S and Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT in 1998 and 2003 respectively. In 2003, Katabi joined MIT, where she holds the title of Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She is the co-director of the MIT Center for Wireless Networks and Mobile Computing and a principal investigator at MIT’s Computer Science a... - #21
Lydia Kavraki
#14323Overall Influence1967 - Present (57 years)Lydia E. Kavraki is a Greek-American computer scientist, the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science, a professor of bioengineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering at Rice University. She is also the director of the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice University. She is known for her work on robotics/AI and bioinformatics/computational biology and in particular for the probabilistic roadmap method for robot motion planning and biomolecular configuration analysis. - #22
Barbara Liskov
#666Overall Influence1939 - Present (85 years)Barbara Liskov is an American computer scientist who has made pioneering contributions to programming languages and distributed computing. Her notable work includes the introduction of abstract data types and the accompanying principle of data abstraction, along with the Liskov substitution principle, which applies these ideas to object-oriented programming, subtyping, and inheritance. Her work was recognized with the 2008 Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science. - #23
Sandra Magnus
#12617Overall Influence1964 - Present (60 years)Sandra Hall Magnus is an American engineer and a former NASA astronaut. She returned to Earth with the crew of STS-119 Discovery on March 28, 2009, after having spent 134 days in orbit. She was assigned to the crew of STS-135, the final mission of the Space Shuttle. She is also a licensed amateur radio operator with the call sign KE5FYE. From 2012 until 2018 Magnus was the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. - #24
Radhika Nagpal
#8121Overall InfluenceRadhika Nagpal is an Indian-American computer scientist and researcher in the fields of self-organising computer systems, biologically-inspired robotics, and biological multi-agent systems. She is the Augustine Professor in Engineering in the Departments of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science at Princeton University. Formerly, she was the Fred Kavli Professor of Computer Science at Harvard University and the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. In 2017, Nagpal co-founded a robotics company under the name of Root Robotics. This educational company works to c... - #25
Dava Newman
#15854Overall Influence1964 - Present (60 years)Dava J. Newman is an American aerospace engineer. She is the director of the MIT Media Lab and a former deputy administrator of NASA. Newman is the Apollo Program Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been a faculty member in the department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and MIT’s School of Engineering since 1993. - #26
Barbara Oakley
#4280Overall Influence1955 - Present (69 years)Barbara Ann Oakley is an American professor of engineering at Oakland University and McMaster University whose online courses on learning are some of the most popular massive open online course classes in the world. She is involved in multiple areas of research, ranging from STEM education, to learning practices. - #27
Arati Prabhakar
#3020Overall Influence1959 - Present (65 years)Arati Prabhakar is an American engineer and public official. Since October 3, 2022, she has served as the 12th director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Science Advisor to the President. - #28
Daniela L. Rus
#11571Overall Influence1963 - Present (61 years)Daniela L. Rus is a roboticist and computer scientist, Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory , and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. - #29
Lisa Su
#117536Overall Influence1969 - Present (55 years)Lisa Su is a Taiwanese-born American business executive and electrical engineer, who is the president, chief executive officer and chair of AMD. Early in her career, Su worked at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale Semiconductor in engineering and management positions. She is known for her work developing silicon-on-insulator semiconductor manufacturing technologies and more efficient semiconductor chips during her time as vice president of IBM’s Semiconductor Research and Development Center. - #30
Tessy Thomas
#10748Overall Influence1963 - Present (61 years)Tessy Thomas is an Indian scientist and Director General of Aeronautical Systems and the former Project Director for Agni-IV missile in Defence Research and Development Organisation. She is the first ever woman scientist to head a missile project in India. - #31
Manuela M. Veloso
#7356Overall Influence1957 - Present (67 years) - #32
Padmasree Warrior
#152003Overall Influence1961 - Present (63 years)Padmasree Warrior is an Indian-American businesswoman and technology executive. She is known for her leadership roles in technology firms like Cisco where she served as the CTO for seven years, and at Motorola where she was the CTO for five years. She also served as the CEO of Nio USA, an electric car maker. Currently, she is the founder and CEO of Fable, a curated reading platform focused on mental wellness. She also serves on the board of directors of Microsoft and Spotify. - #33
Jennifer Widom
#2148Overall InfluenceJennifer Widom is an American computer scientist known for her work in database systems and data management. She is notable for foundational contributions to semi-structured data management and data stream management systems. Since 2017, Widom is the dean of the School of Engineering and professor of computer science at Stanford University. Her honors include the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science and multiple lifetime achievement awards from the Association for Computing Machinery. - #34
Stephanie Wilson
#8206Overall Influence1966 - Present (58 years)Stephanie Diana Wilson is an American engineer and a NASA astronaut. She flew to space onboard three Space Shuttle missions, and is the second African American woman to go into space, after Mae Jemison. her 42 days in space are the second most of any female African American astronaut, having been surpassed by Jessica Watkins in 2022. - #35
Jackie Yi-Ru Ying
#17323Overall Influence1966 - Present (58 years)Jackie Yi-Ru Ying is an American nanotechnology scientist based in Singapore. She is the founding executive director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology . Early life and career Ying was born in Taipei in 1966. She moved to Singapore with her family in 1973 as a child where she was a student at Rulang Primary School and Raffles Girls’ School. She then went to New York City, earning a B.Eng. degree by graduating summa cum laude from Cooper Union in 1987. She then attended Princeton University, receiving her MA in 1988 and her PhD in 1991, both in chemical engineering. She spen...
Ranked by Influence
- Barbara Liskov
- Ruzena Bajcsy
- Dina Katabi
- Diana Greene
- Jennifer Widom
- Barbara Oakley
- Mae C. Jemison
- Adah Almutairi
- Manuela M. Veloso
- Daniela L. Rus
- Ursula Burns
- Frances Arnold
- Lydia Kavraki
- Tessy Thomas
- Arati Prabhakar
- Jackie Yi-Ru Ying
- Sandra Magnus
- Radhika Nagpal
- Wanda Austin
- Stephanie Wilson
- Mica Endsley
- Dava Newman
- Anousheh Ansari
- M. Elizabeth Cannon
- Ann Dowling
- Lisa Su
- Lynn Gladden
- Kristi Anseth
- Marita Cheng
- Helen Greiner
- Leslie Dewan
- Rose Amal
- Padmasree Warrior
- Dawn Bonfield
- Gilda Barabino
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