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).

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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Communications,

#2251

Linda McKnight

#175670

Overall Influence

Linda McKnight is a double bassist particularly known for her teaching and solo performances. She is part of the music faculties at Manhattan School of Music, Columbia University, New York University, Columbia Teachers College, and Montclair State University.

#2252

Melina Mercouri

#177984

Overall Influence

1920 - 1994 (74 years)

Maria Amalia "Melina" Mercouri was a Greek actress, singer, activist, and politician. She came from a political family that was prominent over multiple generations. She received an Academy Award nomination and won a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for her performance in the film Never on Sunday . Mercouri was also nominated for one Tony Award, three Golden Globes and two BAFTA Awards in her acting career. In 1987 she was awarded a special prize in the first edition of the Europe Theatre Prize.

#2253

Cynthia Haymon

#172616

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Cynthia Haymon-Coleman is an American soprano She is known for the beauty of her voice and seeming ease with which she uses it, and more recently as a voice teacher. She received a bachelor's degree of music in vocal performance from Northwestern University. In 2016, she retired from the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and presently teaches privately from her studio in Champaign, Illinois.

#2254

Lam Bun-Ching

#179659

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Lam Bun-Ching is a Chinese American composer, pianist, and conductor. Early life and training Lam holds a B.A. degree in piano performance from the Chinese University of Hong Kong . She obtained a scholarship from the University of California at San Diego, where she studied composition with Bernard Rands, Robert Erickson, Roger Reynolds, and Pauline Oliveros, earning a Ph.D. in 1981.

#2255

Ledisi

#159126

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Ledisi Anibade Young , better known simply as Ledisi, is an American R&B and jazz recording artist, songwriter, music producer, author and actress. Her name means "to bring forth" or "to come here" in Yoruba.

#2256

Sheryl WuDunn

#141659

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Sheryl WuDunn is an American business executive, writer, lecturer, and Pulitzer Prize winner. A senior banker focusing on growth companies in technology, new media and the emerging markets, WuDunn also works with double bottom line firms, alternative energy issues, and women entrepreneurs. She has also been a private wealth adviser with Goldman Sachs and was previously a journalist and business executive for The New York Times. She is now senior managing director at Mid-Market Securities, a boutique investment banking firm in New York serving small and medium companies.

#2257

Sheila Silver

#172482

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Sheila Jane Silver is an American composer. Early life and studies Sheila Silver was born in Seattle, Washington in 1946, the youngest daughter of Robert and Fannie Silver. She started piano studies at the age of five. After two years at the University of Washington, she transferred to the University of California where she received a Bachelor of Arts in 1968. She then studied with Erhard Karkoschka at the State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart, and with György Ligeti in Berlin and later in Hamburg. She attended the 1970 Darmstadt Summer Institute, and spent a summer at the Tanglewood Music Center where she studied with Jacob Druckman.

#2258

Donna Amato

#176594

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Donna Marie Amato is an American pianist. She teaches at University of Pittsburgh. Life Amato studied under the renowned teacher and virtuoso, Ozan Marsh throughout her early musical training. After receiving her BMA from the University of Arizona in 1983, Amato traveled to Europe to study with Louis Kentner, in London and with Gaby Casadesus, in Paris. She also received a scholarship to play for Guido Agosti's masterclass series in Siena, Italy with a Diploma d'Onore.

#2259

Tove Bull

#119811

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Tove Bull is a Norwegian linguist. Born in Alta, Bull was appointed associate professor at the University of Tromsø in 1984, and was promoted to professor in 1990. Bull served as pro rector from 1990 to 1995, and then became the first female rector of the University of Tromsø, holding this position from 1996 to 2001.

#2260

Joy Singarayer

#175077

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Joy Sargita Singarayer is a British climate scientist and Professor of Palaeoclimatology at the University of Reading, where she is joint Head of the Department of Meteorology. She has made contributions to understanding past climate change and has used that knowledge to constrain current and future environmental changes. Her work focuses on interactions between humans, land cover/use and climate, and future implications for agriculture and water resources.

#2261

Sally Pinkas

#177904

Overall Influence

Sally Pinkas is a pianist, born and raised in Israel. She is Professor of Music at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and pianist-in-residence of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.

#2262

Helen Callus

#178575

Overall Influence

Helen Callus is a British violist who teaches at Northwestern University. Callus studied with Ian Jewel at the Royal Academy of Music in London, earning an Honorary ARAM . She then continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory, where she served as the teaching assistant to Paul Coletti. At age 26, she was appointed to the faculty of the University of Washington, where she taught for seven years before accepting a position at UCSB. In 2016, she accepted the position of Professor of Viola at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music.

#2263

Paula Ortiz

#103402

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Paula Ortiz Álvarez is a Spanish director, screenwriter and producer who works for Get in the Pictures Productions and Amapola Films, teaches Audiovisual Communication at the University of Barcelona, and collaborates with the University of San Jorge in Zaragoza.

#2264

Tamara Afifi

#177555

Overall Influence

Tamara Dawn Afifi is a communications scholar who focuses on topics such as family communication, stress, and communication. She is one of the creators of the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load and is currently a professor in the department of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the editor of Communication Monographs. As of June 2020, Afifi has an h-index of 25.

#2265

Carol Rosenberger

Carol Rosenberger

#170326

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.

#2266

JoAnn Hackos

#123061

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

JoAnn T. Hackos is a lecturer, consultant, and author of a number of books about technical communication. Now retired, Hackos is the founder of the Center for Information-Development Management and the president emeritus of Comtech Services in Denver, Colorado. She is also a fellow and past president of the Society for Technical Communication. She is a member of the IEEE Standards Association and active in the ISO SC7 Working Groups that is developing standards for information developers. She is the co-author of the standards on content management and information-development management.

#2267

Halina Harelava

#186538

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Halina Kanstancinaŭna Harełava, also known as Galina Gorelova , is a Belarusian contemporary composer. Biography Harełava was born in Minsk, Byelorussian SSR , and studied music at the National Conservatory in Minsk with Dźmitry Smolski, graduating in 1977. After completing her studies, she took at position teaching theory and composition at the Conservatory. She received the State Prize of Belarus in 1992 for Anno mundis ardentis.

#2268

Eunice Alberts

#171733

Overall Influence

1927 - 2012 (85 years)

Eunice Alberts was an American contralto who had an active career as a concert soloist and opera singer during the 1950s through the 1980s. Early life and education Born in Boston, Alberts attended the Girls' Latin School in her native city during her youth; earning her diploma in 1940. Subsequently, she studied singing with Cleora Wood and Rosalie Miller at the Longy School of Music, earning a certificate in vocal performance. She also studied at the Tanglewood Music Center where she drew the attention of conductor Serge Koussevitzky.

#2269

Michelle Kaufmann

Michelle Kaufmann

#69897

Overall Influence

Michelle Kaufmann is an American architect and designer. In 2002, Kaufmann founded Michelle Kaufmann Designs, which designed and built single-family and multi-family green homes using prefabricated modular technology. The firm was closed in May 2009 and Kaufmann started a new design firm, Michelle Kaufmann Studio. Kaufmann is also a co-founder of Flux.io, a company developing collaborative design software for the building design and construction industry.

#2270

Melissa Hui

#179269

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Melissa Hui is a Chinese-Canadian composer and pianist. She was born in 1966 in Hong Kong and currently resides in Montreal where she has been a faculty member at McGill University since 2010. Notable works by this artist include and blue sparks burn for violin and piano, Common Ground for orchestra, and San Rocco for oboe d'amore, SATB chamber choir, and chimes.

#2271

Ruby Lin

#150988

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Ruby Lin Xin-ru is a Taiwanese actress, television and film producer, and pop singer. American entertainment critic Derek Elley named Lin as "Taiwan's TV Drama Queen". 3 years after Lin made her acting debut in a TV commercial, she rose to national and regional prominence overnight for her role as Xia Ziwei in the TV series My Fair Princess 还珠格格 . My Fair Princess was highly popular in East and Southeast countries; launching Lin as a household name in Asia. She followed the success with other hit series including The Duke of Mount Deer , Romance in the Rain , Boy & Girl , Affair of Half a Lif...

#2272

Shirlee Emmons

#176215

Overall Influence

1923 - 2010 (87 years)

Shirlee Emmons was an American classical soprano, voice teacher, and author on vocal pedagogy. She began her career in the early 1940s as a concert soprano, eventually becoming one of the original singers in the Robert Shaw Chorale in 1948. She branched out into opera in the 1950s; performing mainly with regional companies in the United States. She achieved several honours as a performer, including winning the Marian Anderson Award in 1953 and an Obie Award in 1956.

#2273

Lucie Robert

#181813

Overall Influence

Lucie Robert is a Canadian-American violinist, composer, and college professor. Personal life and career Robert was born in Montreal. When Robert was five years old, she taught her older sister how to play the violin. Robert was the youngest musician at the Conservatoire de Montréal when she was 11 or 12 years old. She attended Indiana University Bloomington when she was 18 years old to study with the well known violinist Josef Gingold at the Jacobs School of Music. During the last three years of her nine year stay in Bloomington, she was Gingold's assistant. At 26 years old, Robert became a teacher at the Manhattan School of Music where she has taught at for over 20 years.

#2274

Vivienne Olive

#180837

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Vivienne Olive is a British-German composer and music educator. Career Born in London, Vivienne Olive studied piano, harpsichord, organ and music theory at Trinity College of Music in London. After 1968, she continued her education at the University of York, where she graduated in composition in 1975. Her teachers included the composers Bernard Rands , Franco Donatoni , Roman Haubenstock-Ramati and Klaus Huber . She received her Ph.D. in composition from the University of York in 1975. She was awarded composition grants from the Department of Education and Science and the German Academic Ex...

#2275

Katja Andy

#182155

Overall Influence

1907 - 2013 (106 years)

Katja Andy was a German-American classical pianist and piano professor. Biography Youth and first career steps in Germany Katja Andy was born Käthe Aschaffenburg in 1907 in Mönchengladbach, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She was the younger child of Otto Aschaffenburg , a Jewish fabric manufacturer, and his wife, Clara , an amateur pianist who had studied the piano with Clara Schumann. She started playing the piano at the age of three. Her parents were musical patrons and used to accommodate touring soloists of the local philharmonic concerts at the family home, including stars like Adolf Busch, Joseph Szigeti, Eugen d’Albert, and Walter Gieseking.

#2276

Elaine Douvas

#173509

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Elaine Douvas has been Principal Oboe of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in New York City since 1977. She is also Instructor of Oboe and Chairman of the Woodwind Department at The Juilliard School. She also serves on the faculty of Mannes College The New School for Music in New York City, the Bard College Conservatory of Music in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, the Aspen Music Festival and School, Le Domaine Forget Academie , and the Hidden Valley Music Seminars .

#2277

Katherine Hoover

#169218

Overall Influence

1937 - 2018 (81 years)

Katherine Hoover was an American composer of Contemporary classical music and Chamber music, flutist, teacher of Musical composition and Music theory, poet, and later a conductor of her music. Her career as a composer began when few women composers earned recognition in Classical music in the 1970s. As shown in her list of known works, she has composed pieces for solo flute, mixed ensembles, chamber orchestra, choir, full orchestra, and many other combinations of instruments and voice. Some of her flute pieces incorporated Native American themes.

#2278

Yegana Akhundova

#186130

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Yegana Akhundova is an Azerbaijani pianist, composer, and teacher. She has held the title of People's Artist of Azerbaijan since 2012. Biography Yegana Akhundova was born on May 22, 1960, in Sheki, Azerbaijan.

#2279

Martha Gonzalez

Martha Gonzalez

#153225

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Martha Gonzalez is a Chicana artist, activist, musician and feminist music theorist. She is an associate professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Chicana/o Latina/o Studies at Scripps College. She is also a lead singer, percussionist, and songwriter for the band Quetzal, which won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop, Rock or Album in 2013. In 2022, Gonzalez was named a MacArthur Fellow by the MacArthur Foundation.

#2280

Mimi Lerner

#173100

Overall Influence

1945 - 2007 (62 years)

Mimi Lerner was a Polish-American mezzo-soprano, and later head of the voice department at Carnegie Mellon University. Life and career Lerner was born Emilia Lipczer in 1945 in Sambir, Ukraine to Jewish parents. At the time of her birth, her family had been hiding for several years in the woods to avoid Nazi persecution, and Lerner's first year of life was spent living in secret in the forest. Her grandparents died in Nazi concentration camps in Poland. After the end of World War II, the family moved to Paris where they resided for seven years.

#2281

Abby Ginzberg

#126974

Overall Influence

Abby Ginzberg is an independent documentary film director and producer and founder of Ginzberg Productions. For the past 30 years, Ginzberg has been creating films that tackle discrimination and the legal profession.

#2282

Miku Nishimoto-Neubert

#178512

Overall Influence

Miku Nishimoto-Neubert is a classical pianist. Born in Tokyo, she studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts . On a recommendation of Karl-Heinz Kämmerling she completed her studies in Hannover at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, where she took the concert exam in 2001. She won awards in international competitions, including in 1994 a first prize at the Concurso Internacional de Musica da Cidade do Porto in Portugal, in 1997 a finalist prize at the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition in Vevey and a finalist prize at the Esther Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, and in 1998 third prize at the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig.

#2283

Eleanor Cory

#179596

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Eleanor Cory is an American composer. Cory studied at Sarah Lawrence College, Harvard University, New England Conservatory, and Columbia University. She has taught at Yale University, Baruch College, Manhattan School of Music, Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College, and The New School for Social Research and currently teaches at Mannes College of Music Prep Division and Kingsborough Community College, CUNY.

#2284

Ann Hampton Callaway

Ann Hampton Callaway

#124633

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Ann Hampton Callaway is an American jazz singer, songwriter, and actress. She wrote and sang the theme song for the TV series The Nanny. Career Callaway is a native of Chicago. Her father, John Callaway, was a journalist and her mother was a singer, pianist, and vocal coach. She learned scat singing from her father and a love of jazz from his record collection, and she learned classical music from her mother. Her sister, Liz Callaway, is a singer and actress on Broadway. Callaway performed in musicals at New Trier High School in Winnetka. After graduation, she studied acting for two years at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

#2285

Eleanor Yule

#181431

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Eleanor Yule is a Scottish film director, best known for her feature film Blinded and her television documentaries with Michael Palin. She also directed Ghost Stories for Christmas a TV mini-series with Christopher Lee for BBC2.

#2286

Mari Yaguchi

#161590

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Mari Yaguchi is a Japanese singer, actress, and television personality. She joined the girl group Morning Musume in 1998 as a second generation member and was the leader of subgroups within Hello! Project, such as Mini-Moni, Morning Musume Sakuragumi, and ZYX. After leaving Morning Musume in 2005, Yaguchi has continued to appear on television in dramas and variety shows.

#2287

Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn

#173934

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn is a Swedish academic and professor of information systems. Since December 1, 2017 Bergvall-Kåreborn is the Vice-Chancellor at Luleå University of Technology. Bergvall-Kåreborn defended her thesis in 2002 at Luleå University of Technology. Since 2009 she is professor of information systems. She has also been the university's Pro Vice Chancellor.

#2288

Bodil Kjær

#95519

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Bodil Kjær is a Danish architect, furniture designer, professor and researcher, who has specialized in interior design and city planning. Today she is recognized above all for the flexible series of office furniture she designed in the 1960s.

#2289

Ingrid Monson

#173378

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Ingrid Monson is Quincy Jones Professor of African-American Music, supported by the Time Warner Endowment, and Professor of African and African American studies at Harvard University. Education Monson earned a Bachelor of Music from New England Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied economics. She later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology from New York University.

#2290

Beverley Peck Johnson

#163797

Overall Influence

1904 - 2001 (97 years)

Beverley Peck Johnson was an American voice teacher, soprano, and pianist who taught on the faculties of several institutions, including Manhattan School of Music and The Juilliard School. Her pupils included several prominent opera singers, actors, and entertainers, including sopranos Renée Fleming, Renata Tebaldi, Anna Moffo, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, and actors Madeline Kahn, Kevin Kline, Constance Towers, and Juilliard voice professor Cynthia Hoffmann among others. Music critic Anthony Tommasini wrote that "Johnson was particularly valued by students for a keen ability to find individua...

#2291

Donna Bruton

#183266

Overall Influence

1954 - 2012 (58 years)

Donnamaria Bruton was a painter and faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design, known for her mixed media paintings and collages. Bruton worked at RISD starting in 1992, serving as Painting Department head from 2001–03, and as interim dean of Graduate Studies from 2003–05.

#2292

Márta Gulyás

#183422

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Márta Gulyás is a performing pianist and a professor of piano and chamber music. Biography Márta Gulyás studied piano at the Liszt Ferenc University for Music in Budapest, Hungary with Erzsébet Tusa and István Lantos. In 1976, she received the artistic and pedagogic diplomas there. She then completed a post-graduate program at the Tschaikowski Conservatory in Moscow with professor Dmitri Bashkirow. In 2001, Márta Gulyás habilitated herself at the Liszt Ferenc University and was awarded the title of Magistra Habilitatam.

#2293

Nicole Mitchell

#168377

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Nicole Mitchell is an American jazz flautist and composer who teaches jazz at the University of Virginia. She is a former chairwoman of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians . Early life and education Mitchell was born in Syracuse, New York, and moved to Anaheim, California at the age of eight. Her first instruments were piano and viola, which she started playing in fourth grade. She was classically trained in flute and played in youth orchestras as a teenager. Though she intended to major in computer science in college, she took a class in improvisation from Jimmy Cheatham at University of California, San Diego, and started busking in the streets playing jazz flute.

#2294

Dorothy Warenskjold

Dorothy Warenskjold

#165985

Overall Influence

1921 - 2010 (89 years)

Dorothy Lorayne Warenskjold was an American lyric soprano who had an active career in operas and concerts from the mid-1940s through the early 1960s. She made several recordings for Capitol Records.

#2295

Marina Piccinini

#179568

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Marina Piccinini is an Italian American virtuoso flautist. She is noted for her performances of compositions by Mozart and Bach, and has performed with many of the world's top orchestras and conductors.

#2296

Nóirín Ní Riain

#132814

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Nóirín Ní Riain is an Irish singer, writer, teacher, theologian, and authority on Gregorian Chant . She is primarily known for spiritual songs, but also sings Celtic music, sean-nós and Indian songs. Nóirín plays an Indian harmonium , shruti box and feadóg . She was Artist-in-Residence for Wexford and Laois. She performs with her sons Eoin and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin under the name A.M.E.N. and gives workshops about "Sound as a Spiritual Experience".

#2297

Ruth Anderson

#171660

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Ruth Anderson was an American composer, orchestrator, teacher, and flutist. Biography Evelyn Ruth Anderson was born March 21, 1928, in Kalispell, Montana. She was a composer of orchestral and electronic music. Her extensive education spanned two decades, and was spent at eight different institutions. Throughout this time, Anderson was the recipient of a multitude of awards and grants, including two Fulbright awards to study composition with Darius Milhaud and Nadia Boulanger in Paris. After completing her education, Anderson spent time as a freelance composer, orchestrator, and choral arrang...

#2298

Jill Dolan

#165389

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Jill Susan Dolan is an American educator, author, blogger and feminist. She writes on theatre, sexuality studies, and feminist theory. Since July 2015, Dolan has been the Dean of the College at Princeton University, where she is also the Annan Professor in English and a professor of theatre studies in the Lewis Center for the Arts. Prior to Princeton, Dolan served as the Department Head of Theater and Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, and as Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dolan's notable works include her blog The Feminist Spectator, for which she received the 2011 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and Theater and Sexuality.

#2299

Helen Boatwright

#171776

Overall Influence

1916 - 2010 (94 years)

Helen Strassburger Boatwright was an American soprano who specialized in the performance of American song, recorded the first full-length album of songs by composer Charles Ives and had a career that spanned more than five decades.

#2300

Ani Kavafian

#172406

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Ani Kavafian is a classical violinist and professor at the Yale School of Music. Early life and education Born in Istanbul of Armenian heritage, Ani Kavafian began piano lessons at the age of three. After immigrating to the United States in 1956, she began violin studies in Detroit, Michigan with Ara Zerounian and then with Mischa Mischakoff. She went on to study at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian receiving a Master of Science degree.

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