Search People Result | Academic Influence

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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Communications,

#2151

Cat Hope

#157899

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Catherine Anne "Cat" Hope , is an Australian composer, musician and academic. She started her music and academic careers in Perth and relocated to Melbourne in 2017. Her opera, Speechless, was first performed in 2019 at the Perth Festival. At the Art Music Awards of 2020 she won Work of the Year: Dramatic for Speechless. Steve Dow of The Age described the opera, "fuelled by outrage over the imprisonment of asylum seeker children, which features growling and screaming to an unconventional score without musical notation." Hope has also won the Art Music Award for Excellence in Experimental Music...

#2152

Susi Wurmbrand

#184405

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Susi Wurmbrand is an Austrian linguist specializing in syntax. Education and career Wurmbrand received her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998 with a thesis titled Infinitives supervised by Noam Chomsky, Alec Marantz and David Pesetsky. In 2018 she received her Habilitation from the University of Vienna.

#2153

Luise Walker

#163251

Overall Influence

1910 - 1998 (88 years)

Luise Walker was an Austrian classical guitarist and guitar composer – one of the most prominent female guitarists of her time. Life and career Walker was born in Vienna and began studying guitar at the age of eight. Initially a student of Josef Zuth, she subsequently studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, with Jakob Ortner. She also took lessons with Heinrich Albert, Miguel Llobet, both of whom were frequent guests at her parents home, also with Andrés Segovia and Emilio Pujol.

#2154

Diane Thome

#184384

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Diane Thome is an American composer. She studied piano with Dorothy Taubman and Orazio Frugoni and composition with Robert Strassburg, Roy Harris, Darius Milhaud, A.U. Boscovich, and Milton Babbitt.

#2155

Sarah Projansky

#107365

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Sarah Projansky is Associate Vice President for Faculty at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. From 2008–2020 she was Professor of Film & Media Arts and of Gender Studies, and Adjunct Professor of Communication. She's also an author of a number of books including Spectacular Girls and Watching Rape.

#2156

María Ester Grebe

#130756

Overall Influence

1928 - 2012 (84 years)

María Ester Grebe Vicuña was a Chilean anthropologist and ethnomusicologist focusing on the Indigenous peoples of Chile. Biography María Ester Grebe was born in 1928 in Arica, Chile. She studied musicology at the University of Chile, graduating with a bachelor's in 1965. After further studies at the University of California and Indiana University in the late 1960s, then the University of Chile in the 1970s, she received a doctorate in musicology from Queen's University Belfast, in 1980.

#2157

Oxana Yablonskaya

#129028

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Oxana Yablonskaya is a Russian pianist who has had an active international performance career since the early 1960s. She began her career in the USSR and, although winning several important competitions in the West, was denied permission by the Soviet government to accept any performance engagements outside of the Soviet bloc. Frustrated by her career limitations, she emigrated to the United States in 1977. Described by The New York Times as an "internationally known virtuoso" and "one of the country's most distinguished musical residents", Yablonskaya has toured in concert and recital throughout the world and has made numerous recordings.

#2158

Charlie Murphy

#153409

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Charlotte Murphy is an Irish actress best known for her role as Ann Gallagher in the BBC series Happy Valley . Early life Murphy was born in Enniscorthy, the daughter of hair salon owners Brenda and Pat Murphy. She has five siblings. The family moved to Wexford when she was 12 years old. She trained at the Gaiety School of Acting from 2006 to 2008.

#2159

Nancy Weir

#168265

Overall Influence

1915 - 2008 (93 years)

Nancy Mary Weir was an Australian pianist and teacher. Biography Weir was born in Kew, Melbourne, on 13 July 1915. Her father was a publican who ran a small hotel in Lockhart, near Wagga Wagga, and she grew up "behind the bar". She studied piano in Melbourne with Edward Goll and Ada Corder . She was renowned as a child prodigy, performing to great acclaim. A review of her concert performance in December 1929 noted, With all her latent power, and natural gift for artistic expression, Nancy played Schumann's Scenes from Childhood, the work in which she exhibited her rare talent at the Town Hall some time ago.

#2160

N. Rajam

#110820

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

N. Rajam is an Indian violinist who performs Hindustani classical music. She remained professor of music at Banaras Hindu University, eventually became head of the department and the dean of the Faculty of Performing Arts of the university.

#2161

Ruth Lomon

#177271

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Ruth Lomon was a Canadian classical composer. A native of Montreal, Canada, she was born in Montreal and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She attended le Conservatoire de Quebec and McGill University. She continued her studies with Francis Judd Cooke at the New England Conservatory of Music and later with Witold Lutosławski at Dartington College in England.

#2162

Courtney Bryan

#126660

Overall Influence

Courtney Bryan is an American composer and pianist whose work combines influences from jazz and gospel traditions. Early life and education Bryan was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. She obtained her Bachelor of Music from Oberlin College , her Master of Music from Rutgers University , and a Doctor of Musical Arts from Columbia University , where her advisor was composer and trombonist George Lewis.

#2163

Shashi Caan

#73918

Overall Influence

Shashi Caan a design futurist, educator and author, her dedication to furthering human betterment through and by design is reflected in her 25-year design career. Biography Shashi Caan is of Indian origin and was educated at the Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland, BFA, and later at Pratt Institute, New York City, two master’s degrees, the first in Industrial Design and the second in Architecture.

#2164

Maria Grenfell

#152552

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Maria Grenfell is an Australian music teacher and composer. Early life and education Maria Grenfell was born in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia in 1969. She grew up and was educated in Christchurch, New Zealand, where she graduated from the University of Canterbury with a Master of Music degree. She subsequently went to the US, where she completed a Master of Arts at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and a doctorate from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, while also lecturing in music there. While in the USA she was taught by Stephen Hartke, Erica Muhl, James Hopk...

#2165

Cara Wrigley

#182587

Overall Influence

Cara Wrigley is an Australian industrial designer, design researcher and author. She is professor of design innovation at The University of Queensland. Her research interests include design thinking, design-led innovation, design education, and emotional design.

#2166

Marianne Schech

Marianne Schech

#175407

Overall Influence

1914 - 1999 (85 years)

Marianne Schech was a German operatic soprano and academic who appeared internationally. She was a member of the Bavarian State Opera from 1946 to 1970. She is known for leading roles in works by Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, playing, for example, the Dyer's Wife in the U.S. premiere of Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss at the San Francisco Opera in 1959. She made several recordings, including in 1951 the role of Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser, conducted by Robert Heger, in 1960 the role of Chrysothemis in Elektra by Richard Strauss, conducted by Karl Böhm, Senta in Wagner's ...

#2167

Teresa Montoya

#147281

Overall Influence

Teresa Montoya is a Diné media maker and social scientist with training in socio-cultural anthropology, critical Indigenous studies, and filmmaking. Early life Teresa grew up in Western Colorado. Teresa received a Bachelor of Arts at the University of San Diego in Spanish and Interdisciplinary Humanities with an emphasis in Art History in 2006. She then went on to pursue a Master of Arts in Anthropology at the University of Denver with an emphasis in Museum Studies, which she completed in 2011. In 2019, she completed her Doctorate in Anthropology at New York University. Her dissertation, ti...

#2168

Rose Goldblatt

#179798

Overall Influence

1913 - 1997 (84 years)

Rose Goldblatt was a Canadian administrator, pianist and teacher. She made her professional debut in Montreal in 1927 and then had her European debut eight years later. Goldblatt performed on radio, featured on recordings by the CBC and taught music at the Faculty of Music at McGill University from 1955 to 1978. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1987 and an annual award presented by the Quebec Music Teachers' Association was named for her.

#2169

Renina Katz

#88906

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (101 years)

Renina Katz Pedreira , known as Regina Katz, is a Brazilian engraver, printmaker, and watercolorist. Together with Edith Behring and Fayga Ostrower, she is part of the generation of Brazilian women engravers that art historian Geraldo Edson de Andrade calls the "matriarchy of engraving in Brazil".

#2170

Dena DeRose

#156753

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Dena DeRose is an American jazz pianist, singer and educator. Although she began her career just as a pianist, medical problems with her hand forced her to become a vocalist as well. She has released seven solo albums.

#2171

Marta Ptaszynska

#177472

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Marta Ptaszyńska is a Polish composer, percussionist and professor of music at the University of Chicago. She has been described by the Polish Music Center of the University of Southern California as "one of the best known Polish woman composers" as well as "a virtuoso percussionist specializing in performances of contemporary music".

#2172

Jayne Loader

#158633

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Jayne Loader is an American director and writer best known for the 1982 Cold War documentary The Atomic Cafe. Early life She was born in 1951 in Weatherford, Texas. She graduated from Reed College and the University of Michigan .

#2173

Myra Melford

#130408

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Myra Melford is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the San Francisco Chronicle as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can make the piano stand up and do things it doesn't seem to have been designed for."

#2174

Seiko Mikami

#91769

Overall Influence

1961 - 2015 (54 years)

Seiko Mikami was a Japanese artist known for her large-scale interactive art installations. Mikami was born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1961, and she stepped into the art scene in the mid-1980s with large-scale art that studied information society and the human body. After moving to the United States in 1991, she studied computer science at the New York Institute of Technology, which lead her art to focus on the interaction between electronics and the human perception. She became a professor in the Department of Information Design at Tama University in 2000. Mikami died from cancer on January 2, ...

#2175

Allison Moorer

#92176

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Allison Moorer is an American country singer-songwriter. She signed with MCA Nashville in 1997 and made her debut on the U.S. Billboard Country Chart with the release of her debut single, "A Soft Place to Fall", which she co-wrote with Gwil Owen. The song was featured in Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999. Moorer performed at the Oscars ceremony the same year. She has made ten albums and has had songs recorded by Trisha Yearwood, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Steve Earle, and Hayes Carll.

#2176

Amy Peikoff

#46450

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Amy Lynn Peikoff is an American writer, blogger, and a professor of philosophy and law. Peikoff is the Chief Policy Officer of social media platform Parler. Early life and education Amy Peikoff studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Applied Science in 1992 and her Juris Doctor in 1998, having attended her first year of law school at Pepperdine University. She was an editor of the UCLA Law Review. She then earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy at the University of Southern California in 2003.

#2177

Cynthia Folio

#157382

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Cynthia Folio is an American composer, flutist, and music theorist. She is a professor of Music Studies at Temple University, where she was honored with the Creative Achievement Award in 2012 and the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1994. Cynthia’s compositions have been described as “confident and musical in expressing ideas of great substance.” In addition, her work has been regarded as“ intriguing and enjoyable,” and “imaginatively scored.”

#2178

Adel Heinrich

#181514

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Adel Verna Heinrich was an American composer, organist, and university teacher. She taught music at Colby College until her retirement in 1988. Personal life and career Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Heinrich graduated from Flora Stone Mather College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1951, and a master's degree in sacred music from the Union Theological Seminary in 1954. She studied the organ with Hugh Porter, John Harvey, E. Power Biggs, Andre Marchal, and Jean Langlais, the harpsichord with Eugenia Earle, and composition with Norman Coke-Jephcott. In 1976, she received a doctorate from the University of...

#2179

Helen Doron

#182312

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Helen Doron is a British-Israeli linguist and educator based in Israel. She is best known as the creator of the Helen Doron Method of teaching and as the Founder of Helen Doron Educational Group, an international pedagogic network for babies, children, and teens learning English and other programs, including Helen Doron Academy Kindergartens, Helen Doron International, MathRiders and Helen Doron Connect.

#2180

Julia Rebekka Adler

#114774

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Julia Rebekka Adler is a German viola and viola d'amore player. Early life, family and education Julia Rebekka Mai was born in Heidelberg. She started playing viola at the age of six. Having won first prize at Jugend musiziert , she was invited to participate at the Interlochen Arts Camp and the Aspen Music Festival.

#2181

Cindy Cox

#181921

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Cindy Cox is an American composer and performer, and Professor of Music. Cox grew up in Houston. She holds a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Texas Christian University, and her Masters and Doctorate in 1992 from Indiana University Bloomington in composition, where she studied with Harvey Sollberger, Donald Erb, Eugene O’Brien, and John Eaton. She has also studied with John Harbison at the Tanglewood Music Center, and Bernard Rands and Jacob Druckman at the Aspen Music Festival. As a pianist, she studied with the Mozart and Schubert specialist Lili Kraus. As of 2011, Cox is a pr...

#2182

Brandee Younger

#170460

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Brandee Younger is an American harpist. Younger infuses classical, jazz, soul, and funk influences to the harp tradition pioneered by her predecessors and idols Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Younger leads her own ensemble, performs as a soloist and has worked as a sideman for such musicians as Pharoah Sanders, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Bill Lee and Reggie Workman, and other popular artists including Lauryn Hill, John Legend , Common , Ryan Leslie, Drake, Maxwell, The Roots, Moses Sumney and Salaam Remi. Younger is noted for her work with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who was featured on her 2019 release, Soul Awakening.

#2183

Évelyne Crochet

#183560

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Évelyne Crochet is a Franco-American classical pianist. Biography Crochet was born in Paris, where she studied piano with Yvonne Lefébure and Nadia Boulanger at the Conservatoire de Paris. She also worked with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau, Pierre Pasquier, Pierre Petit, Norbert Dufourcq. In 1953, she won first prize at the Conservatoire. She continued her piano studies with Edwin Fischer and Rudolf Serkin. At the international competition in Geneva in 1956, she won the first prize, and was among the winners of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958. In Bern, Rudolf Serkin heard her playing and invited her to follow his masterclasses.

#2184

Ann Magnuson

#159421

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Ann Magnuson is an American actress, performance artist, and nightclub performer. She was described by The New York Times in 1990 as "An endearing theatrical chameleon who has as many characters at her fingertips as Lily Tomlin does".

#2185

Barbara Maria Zakrzewska-Nikiporczyk

#147814

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Barbara Maria Zakrzewska-Nikiporczyk is a composer and musicologist who was born in Poznań, Poland. She studied composition with Florian Dąbrowski at the Poznań Academy of Music, graduating in 1969. She finished her postgraduate studies in library and information science in 1974; two years later she received a doctorate at the Institute of History, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. She studied electronic music for three months in Utrecht, Netherlands, in 1981, and in Oxford, England.

#2186

Hanna Ludwig

#181243

Overall Influence

1918 - 2014 (96 years)

Hanna Ludwig was a German contralto and mezzo-soprano and an academic voice teacher. She participated in several roles at the first Bayreuth Festival after World War II and performed leading roles at major European opera houses, such as the title role of Der Rosenkavalier at the Vienna State Opera. She toured the world as a lieder singer. After retiring from the stage she turned to teaching in Ankara and, from 1971, at the Mozarteum.

#2187

Lin Hsin Hsin

#166249

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Lin Hsin Hsin is an IT inventor, artist, poet and composer from Singapore, deeply rooted in mathematics and information technology. Early life and education Lin was born in Singapore. She graduated in mathematics from the University of Singapore and received a postgraduate degree in computer science from Newcastle University, England. She studied music and art in Singapore, printmaking at the University of Ulster, papermaking in Ogawamachi, Japan and paper conservation at the University of Melbourne Conservation Services.

#2188

Marilyn Tyler

#173280

Overall Influence

1926 - 2017 (91 years)

Marilyn Tyler was an American soprano and music pedagogue. Of Romanian Jewish descent, Tyler was born in Brooklyn, New York to a family that contained many performers, including singers, dancers, musicians, actors and clowns. She studied music at the Manhattan School of Music, and was twice a recipient of Fulbright Scholarships.

#2189

Karen Finch

#164790

Overall Influence

1921 - 2018 (97 years)

Karen Solveig Sinding Møller Finch was a Danish-born British master weaver, conservator and educator who was the founder of the Textile Conservation Centre. Life Karen Finch was born in May 1921 on a farm in Rødding in Denmark to Soren Møller and Ellen Sinding. She left the farm to study art in Copenhagen under Gerda Henning and Kaare Klint. She witnessed the occupation of her country and moved to England after she married Norman Finch in 1946.

#2190

Ruby Turner

#172108

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Francella Ruby Turner MBE is a British Jamaican R&B and soul singer, songwriter, and actress. In a music career spanning more than 30 years, Turner is best known for her album and single releases in Europe and North America. She is also known for her work as a session backing vocalist, with artists including Bryan Ferry, UB40, Steel Pulse, Steve Winwood, Jools Holland, and Mick Jagger. She has also written songs that have been covered by musicians including Lulu, Yazz and Maxi Priest.

#2191

Sarah Jeffrey

#174598

Overall Influence

Sarah Jeffrey is a Canadian oboist and teacher. Jeffrey is Principal Oboe with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and has performed as a chamber musician with Trio Arkel and Amici Chamber Ensemble. She is a faculty member at the University of Toronto, and The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music.

#2192

Marcia Haufrecht

#171256

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Marcia Haufrecht is an American actress, playwright and director, as well as a noted acting teacher and coach. A life member of The Actors Studio, and a longtime member of The Ensemble Studio Theatre, she is also the founder and artistic director of the Off-Off-Broadway company , The Common Basis Theatre .

#2193

Birgit Hein

#147365

Overall Influence

1942 - 2023 (81 years)

Birgit Hein was a German film director, producer, performance artist, university professor, and screenwriter who has made experimental films since 1960s, with her then husband Wilhelm Hein. Biography Hein was born in Berlin in 1942. With her structural films , performances, documentary film essays and film study publications, she is considered one of the decisive pioneers of German underground and experimental films. In 1964, she married Wilhelm Hein , with whom she collaborated on several experimental film projects. In 1968, she co-founded XSCREEN, an exhibition space in Cologne. In 1993, He...

#2194

Andrea Polli

#119950

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Andrea Polli is an environmental artist and writer. Polli blends art and science to create widely varied media and technology artworks related to environmental issues. Her works are presented in various forms, she uses interactive websites, digital broadcasting, mobile applications, and performances, which allows her to reach a wider audience.

#2195

Bernadette Speach

#172457

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Bernadette Speach is an American avant-garde composer and pianist. Known for her minimalist approach, she often synthesizes improvisation and through-composed material. Biography Born in Syracuse, New York, Speach earned her B.S. in Music Education from the College of Saint Rose in 1971. Five years later, while studying abroad in Siena, Italy, she was introduced to Franco Donatoni and Morton Feldman. She went on to study with Feldman, alongside composers Lejaren Hiller and Leo Smit, at SUNY Buffalo, where she finished her M.A. and Ph.D. in Music Composition, and before that studied under Jacq...

#2196

Florentine Mulsant

Florentine Mulsant

#184837

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Florentine Mulsant is a French composer. Life Born in Dakar, Mulsant studied harmony, counterpoint, fugue, musical analysis and orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Schola Cantorum de Paris, where she won a First Prize in 1987 for composition in Allain Gaussin's class. She followed the teaching of Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and furthered her skill with Alain Bancquart.

#2197

Jennifer Warren

Jennifer Warren

#104582

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Jennifer Warren is an American actress, producer and film director. Early life and education Warren's uncle was Yiddish theatre actor and director Jacob Ben-Ami. Career Warren made her Broadway debut in 1972 in 6 Rms Riv Vu, for which she won a Theatre World Award. She appeared in the short-lived P.S. Your Cat Is Dead! Warren's film credits include Sam's Song , Night Moves , Slap Shot , Another Man, Another Chance , Ice Castles , Mutant , and Fatal Beauty . She was listed as one of the 12 "Promising New Actors of 1975" in John Willis' Screen World, Volume 27. She also played a role in Steel Cowboy .

#2198

Kim So-hyun

#115054

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Kim So-hyun is a South Korean musical theatre actress. A classically-trained former opera singer, she switched to musical theater and debuted in 2001 as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera. She immediately rose to musical theatre stardom and has since starred in South Korean stage productions of Jekyll & Hyde, My Fair Lady, The Three Musketeers, Elisabeth, and Marie Antoinette.

#2199

Alice Ripley

#168688

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Alice Ripley is an American actress, singer, songwriter and mixed media artist. She is known, in particular, for her various roles on Broadway in musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal and Side Show. She most recently played three roles in the short-lived Broadway musical, American Psycho. Alice Ripley has released albums with her band, RIPLEY, including the single, "Beautiful Eyes", released in February 2012. She also performs as a solo artist, while in February 2011 she released Alice Ripley Daily Practice, Volume 1, a stripped-down collection of acoustic rock cover...

#2200

Beata Heuer-Christen

#178414

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Beata Heuer-Christen is a Swiss-German soprano concert singer and voice teacher. Life Born in Bern, Heuer-Christen is the daughter of the violinist and member of the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Caesar Christen, and Greti Christen-Schiffmann, also violinist in the Bern Symphony Orchestra and Primaria of the Schiffmann Quartet.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions