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,

#2301

Suzanne Davis

#183680

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Suzanne Davis is an American jazz pianist. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College. She composed the score for the independent film In Between as well as several short animated films and videos. She has performed with Phil Grenadier, Greg Hopkins, Ted Kotick, Joe Hunt, and Grover Washington, Jr. She is leader of the Suzanne Davis Trio and Quartet and also performs with the Bart Weisman Jazz Group. She is an Associate Professor of piano at Berklee College of Music.

#2302

Laura Kaminsky

#137975

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Laura Kaminsky is an American composer, producer of musical and multi-disciplinary cultural events, and educator. She was born in New York City, graduated from the High School of Music and Art, and studied with Joseph Wood at Oberlin College and Mario Davidovsky at City College of New York. She graduated from City College/CUNY with a Master of Arts degree in composition in 1980.

#2303

Ana Sokolovic

#180590

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Ana Sokolovic is a Canadian music composer based in Montreal, Quebec, whose contemporary pieces have won several awards in Canada. Career Sokolovic studied composition under Dušan Radić at the University of Novi Sad and Zoran Erić at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She received her masters in composition from the Université de Montréal studying under José Evangelista.

#2304

Tracy Dahl

#185554

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Tracy Elizabeth Dahl is a Canadian coloratura soprano who has performed in opera houses and on concert stages around the world. Alongside her performing career, Dahl teaches voice at the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music, and conducts masterclasses and workshops across North America. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba with her husband and two children.

#2305

Gao Hong

#134231

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Gao Hong is a composer and performer of the Chinese pipa . She serves as the professor of Chinese Musical Instruments at Carleton College. She is the recipient of multiple music awards and has been honored by the Saint Paul, Minnesota Mayor Melvin Carter , who declared April 3, 2022 to be Gao Hong Day.

#2306

Rita McAllister

#178827

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Margaret 'Rita' McAllister is a Scottish musicologist, composer and academic. She is the Director of Music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is a renowned authority on the works of Sergei Prokofiev.

#2307

Lalya Gaye

#182028

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Lalya Gaye is a digital media artist and interaction designer whose early work was influential in the field of locative media. Currently based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, she is the founder and director of the international and interdisciplinary digital art practice Attaya Projects.

#2308

Sandy Wilson

#183704

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Sandra “Sandy” Wilson is a Canadian film director and screenwriter, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is best known for her films My American Cousin and Harmony Cats . Most of her films take place in the same areas she grew up: Penticton and Okanagan.

#2309

Jeanne You

#178086

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Jeanne You, also You Ji-yeoun, is a South Korean classical pianist. Education and professional career She began studying the piano at the age of five. After attending Yewon Art School in Seoul she became a student of Laszlo Simon at the Berlin University of the Arts and continued her studies with Klaus Bäßler and Georg Sava at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. In 2005 she graduated with the degree of "Konzertexamen". She attended masterclasses with Daniel Barenboim, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Klaus Hellwig, Hans Leygraf, Menahem Pressler, and Eliso Virsaladze. She teaches piano at the ...

#2310

Kaori Iida

#163902

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Kaori Iida is a Japanese pop singer and actress, associated with Hello! Project and best known as a founding member of the girl band Morning Musume. She has also recorded with the Morning Musume side project band Tanpopo and is currently a solo artist. During her time in the group, she was the tallest member , earning her the nickname "Kaorin" & "Kao-tan". She is currently a member of Dream Morning Musume.

#2311

Simona Bordoni

#174056

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Simona Bordoni is an Italian climatologist and professor of environmental science and engineering who runs the Simona Bordoni Research Group at California Institute of Technology. She studies atmospheric dynamics, with a special emphasis on understanding the coupling between larger-scale circulations and the hydrological cycle.

#2312

Jos Boys

#138670

Overall Influence

Jos Boys is an architect, activist, educator, and writer. She was a founder member of Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative and co-author of their 1984 book Making Space: Women and the Man-Made Environment . Since 2008 she has been co-director of The DisOrdinary Architecture Project with disabled artist Zoe Partington, a disability-led platform that works with disabled artists to explore new ways to think about disability in architectural and design discourse and practice.

#2313

Velvet Brown

#179032

Overall Influence

Velvet Brown is an American tubist and euphonium player. She is currently a Distinguished Professor of Music at Pennsylvania State University, prior to which she taught at Bowling Green State University and Ball State University.

#2314

Milada Blekastad

#83845

Overall Influence

1917 - 2003 (86 years)

Milada Blekastad was a Norwegian literary historian. Personal life She was born in Prague. Her grandfather František Topič was one of the most prominent publishers in that town and often published Nordic literature; her father Jaroslav Topič was a publisher as well and her mother Milada Topičová was a translator. As a fifteen-year old, Milada Blekastad received an invitation from Gunnvor Krokann, wife of the writer Inge Krokann, to travel to Norway. There she met the artist Hallvard Blekastad whom she married in 1934. She was quick to learn nynorsk and spoke fluent Gausdal dialect, but she ...

#2315

Karola Obermueller

#181683

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Karola Obermueller is a German composer and teacher. Life Obermueller began her training at the Akademie für Tonkunst in Darmstadt. She studied composition with of the Meistersinger-Konservatorium and the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, Theo Brandmüller of the Hochschule für Musik Saar, and Adriana Hölszky of the Mozarteum Salzburg. In 2010, she completed a doctorate at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she studied with Mario Davidovsky, Bernard Rands, Julian Anderson, Chaya Czernowin, Magnus Lindberg, and Harrison Birtwistle. She has taught at Wellesley College and the Young Composers Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

#2316

Toula Limnaios

#130592

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Toula Limnaios is a Greek choreographer, performer and, alongside a composer Ralf R. Ollertz, artistic director of cie. toula limnaios, a dance company based in HALLE TANZBÜHNE BERLIN. Biography After completing her studies in classical and modern dance, M. Alexander and Laban technique, music and dance education, she worked as a dancer with Claudio Bernardo and Régine Chopinot, and as an assistant with Pierre Droulers. Limnaios received further education at the Folkwang University of the Arts , where she studied together with Susanne Linke, Malou Airaudo, Jean Cébron, Lutz Förster and Dominique Mercy.

#2317

B.J. Sullivan

#182717

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Elizabeth Johnson Sullivan, known professionally as B.J. Sullivan, is an American dancer and choreographer and the founder of safety release technique in postmodern dance. Early life and education Elizabeth Johnson Sullivan began her dance training in classical ballet and modern dance with Sandy Stramonine in Walworth, New York. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from The Juilliard School and her Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

#2318

Yvonne Andersen

#170186

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Yvonne Andersen is an American animated filmmaker, author, and teacher. She is most well known for co-creating the Yellow Ball Workshop with her husband, Dominic Falcone. The Yellow Ball Workshop was a school for both children and adults to learn about animation.

#2319

Wendy Loretto

#185445

Overall Influence

Wendy Loretto is the Dean and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at the University of Edinburgh Business School and an expert in later-life employment. Education Loretto holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Edinburgh. After graduation, she worked as a commercial manager at Marks & Spencer. For three years she worked at the Alcohol Research Group at the University of Edinburgh, where she received her PhD in research on the social and cultural aspects of illicit and legal drug use by young people.

#2320

Xenia Jankovic

#182653

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Xenia Jankovic is a Serbian-Russian cellist. Biography Jankovic was born in Niš Serbia into a Serbian–Russian family of musicians. The cello soon became her instrument of choice and she made her debut with the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of nine. A government scholarship allowed her to study at the Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory with Stefan Kalianov and Mstislav Rostropovich. She then went on to study with Pierre Fournier and Guy Fallot in Geneva and with André Navarra in Detmold. Later on, intensive work with Sandor Végh and György Sebők led to a deepening of ...

#2321

Edna Stern

#176217

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Edna Stern is a Belgian-Israeli pianist. Biography She was born in Belgium, and grew up in Israel. She began to play piano at the age of six. She studied piano under Viktor Derevianko and Natasha Tadson at the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Tel Aviv.

#2322

Hetty Plümacher

#184858

Overall Influence

1919 - 2005 (86 years)

Hedwig Mathilde Plümacher was a German operatic singer who appeared on stage as Hetty Plümacher. A long-term member of the Staatstheater Stuttgart, she also performed at international festivals and major opera houses, as well as recording music.

#2323

Mary Jane Leach

#183762

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Mary Jane Leach is an American composer based in New York City. She has been a member of the Downtown Ensemble, composer in residence at Sankt Peter, Köln, and has recordings on XI, New World Records, and Lovely Music. In the late 1970s Leach composed mainly with tape, overdubbing her own playing and singing. As her music became more frequently performed she continued writing in an "overdubbing" fashion, layering parts and experimenting with the textures created by multiple voices. Her compositional style is characterized by modality, imitation, and prolongation. Leach received a 1995 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

#2324

Judy Niemack

#154551

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Judy Niemack is an American jazz vocalist. Early life Judy Niemack was born in Pasadena, California to a musical family. She began singing in a church choir from the age of seven. Niemack decided on a professional career in singing at age 17 and studied Bel canto singing with Primo Lino Puccinelli in Pasadena for 3 years. She studied classical voice and jazz improvisation with Gary Foster at Pasadena City College, and later attended the New England Conservatory of Music and the Cleveland Institute of Music. After pursuing classical studies until 1975, she returned to California to study jazz improvisation with Marsh .

#2325

Laura Tunbridge

#173399

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Laura Tunbridge, is a British musicologist and academic, specialising in 19th and 20th-century music, Robert Schumann, and opera. She has been Professor of Music at the University of Oxford since 2017 and a Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford since 2014. Previously, she taught at the University of Reading and the University of Manchester.

#2326

Victoria Bond

#170676

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Victoria Ellen Bond is an American conductor and composer in New York City. Early life Victoria Bond was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of operatic bass and medical doctor Philip Bond and concert pianist Jane Courtland, who studied with Bela Bartok. Her grandfather was Samuel Epstein, a composer, conductor and double bass player. Bond married Stephan Peskin in 1974.

#2327

Pam Tillis

#133169

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Pamela Yvonne Tillis is an American country music singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She is the daughter of country music singer Mel Tillis and ex-wife of songwriter Bob DiPiero. Tillis recorded unsuccessful pop material for Elektra and Warner Records in the 1980s before shifting to country music. In 1989, she had signed to Arista Nashville, entering top-40 on Hot Country Songs for the first time with "Don't Tell Me What to Do" in 1990. This was the first of five singles from her breakthrough album Put Yourself in My Place.

#2328

Violeta Hemsy de Gainza

Violeta Hemsy de Gainza

#176410

Overall Influence

1929 - 2023 (94 years)

Violeta Hemsy de Gainza was an Argentine pianist and music pedagogue. She focused on the music education of children, improvisation and music therapy, considering learning music a human right. Her books were translated into many languages. She served in international organisations, as a board member of the International Society for Music Education from 1985 to 1990, and as president of the Latin American Forum of Musical Education from its foundation in 1995 to 2005.

#2329

Isabel Mundry

#145477

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Isabel Mundry is a German composer. Life and work Isabel Mundry was born in Schlüchtern, Hesse in 1963 and studied composition at the Hochschule der Künste and electronic music, musicology and history at the Berlin Technische Universität. From 1991 to 1994 she taught at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin and furthered her studies in Frankfurt with Hans Zender and later researched at the IRCAM in Paris. In addition to her teaching activities in Berlin, she held teaching appointments in Zürich and at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.

#2330

Cindy McTee

#169006

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Cindy McTee is an American composer and educator. Early life and education McTee was born in Tacoma, Washington. She studied at Pacific Lutheran University, the Academy of Music in Kraków, Yale University, and the University of Iowa. Her teachers included Krzysztof Penderecki, Bruce MacCombie, and Jacob Druckman.

#2331

Lioba Braun

#183993

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Lioba Braun is a German opera singer and academic teacher at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. Based at the Nationaltheater Mannheim, she has appeared mostly in mezzo-soprano parts at major opera houses and festivals. She became internationally known appearing as Brangäne at the Bayreuth Festival in 1994, and performed the soprano part of Isolde on stage first in 2012.

#2332

Zosia Mamet

#174495

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (38 years)

Zosia Russell Mamet is an American actress and musician who has appeared in television series including Mad Men, United States of Tara, and Parenthood, and played the character Shoshanna Shapiro on the HBO original series Girls. She currently stars as Annie Mouradian in the HBO Max original series The Flight Attendant.

#2333

Queenie van de Zandt

#173530

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Queenie van de Zandt is an Australian actress, singer, comedian, recording artist, writer and arts educator. Life and career Born in Canberra to Dutch immigrants, van de Zandt attended St Matthew's Primary School and St Francis Xavier High School before graduating in the top 2% of her state at Daramalan College. She relocated to Sydney in 1992 and began her career performing in musicals and stage plays such as Hair, Cabaret, Les Misérables, Anything Goes, Threepenny Opera, Furious, Barmaids, After January, and The Boy from Oz. She has since become one of Australia's leading ladies of the stag...

#2334

Arianna Zukerman

#179116

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Arianna Zukerman is an American lyric soprano who has performed with some of the world's finest orchestras and opera companies. Her voice was described in The Washington Post as "remarkable" combining the "range, warmth and facility of a Rossini mezzo with shimmering, round high notes and exquisite pianissimos."

#2335

Ivana Loudová

#173326

Overall Influence

1941 - 2017 (76 years)

Ivana Loudová was a Czech composer. Loudová was born at Chlumec nad Cidlinou. She studied at the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts under Miloslav Kabeláč and Emil Hlobil. She later studied in Paris at the Centre Bourdan under Olivier Messiaen and Andre Jolivet. She has written orchestral and chamber music, as well as music for the voice and film/stage. She obtained an honourable mention in Mannheim for the composition Rhapsody in Black, and won at the Guido d'Arezzo” International Polyphonic Competition in Italy in 1978, 1980 and 1984. In the choral area, she wro...

#2336

Michelle Amato

#176053

Overall Influence

Michelle Amato is an American vocalist. She trained at the University of Miami's School of Music. She has toured or recorded with Quincy Jones, Jon Secada, Liza Minnelli, Al Green, Sandi Patty, Jon Hendricks, Donna Summer, Michael McDonald, Celia Cruz, and Rita Marley. She has been a featured soloist with the Memphis Symphony and the South Florida Pops.

#2337

Jo Grady

#119022

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Jo Grady is a senior lecturer in Employment Relations at The University of Sheffield, and a British trade union leader who serves as the general secretary of the University and College Union . Biography Grady was born in Wakefield in 1984, while her father was part of the UK miners' strike. She studied at Wakefield College, a further education institution, and then became the first member of her family to attend university, studying industrial relations at Lancaster University. Grady completed a PhD on trade union responses to neoliberal pensions reforms at Lancaster in 2011. In 2009, she beg...

#2338

Kati Agócs

#177157

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Kati Ilona Agócs is a Canadian-American composer and a member of the composition faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Education Agócs attended the Juilliard School in New York where she earned a Master's and Doctoral degrees under the guidance of Milton Babbitt. She was a composition fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Tanglewood Music Center, where she held the ASCAP Leonard Bernstein Composer Fellowship in 2007.

#2339

Elizabeth Pitcairn

#172998

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Elizabeth Pitcairn is a renowned American classical violinist who is noted for performing on the 1720 Red Mendelssohn Antonio Stradivari violin. In addition to a solo career, she is the President and Artistic Director of the Luzerne Music Center in Lake Luzerne, New York.

#2340

María Ugarte

#48689

Overall Influence

1914 - 2011 (97 years)

María de la Purificación Ugarte España was a Spanish-Dominican journalist, writer, academician, historian and palaeographer. Ugarte was the first woman who worked as a journalist in the Dominican Republic, and also the first woman to become a member of the Dominican Academy of History.

#2341

Christa Schwertsik

#177084

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Christa Schwertsik is an Austrian singer, actress, director and university lecturer. Life and career Schwertsik attended grammar school in Vienna and then studied psychology at the University of Vienna. She received her vocal training from Hedda and Edwin Szamosi and Ruthilde Boesch. She also took acting lessons from Dorothea Neff and Eva Zilcher in Vienna.

#2342

Marianne Ahrne

#166803

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Siv Marianne Ahrne is a Swedish film director and screenwriter. She has directed ten films between 1970 and 1997. Her 1976 film Near and Far Away won the award for Best Director at the 13th Guldbagge Awards. Her 1978 film The Walls of Freedom was entered into the 11th Moscow International Film Festival. According to film historian Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Ahrne was one of the first women to make documentary films in Sweden, and Foster noted that Ahrne's films have received little attention in the United States.

#2343

Erica Lindsay

#184295

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Erica Lindsay is an American jazz saxophone player and composer. Music career Lindsay's parents, both teachers, lived in Europe in the 1960s. She began her studies in composition with Mal Waldron in Munich when she was fifteen years old. She played clarinet, then alto and tenor saxophone. In 1973, she studied for a year at the Berklee School of Music in Boston and then went back to Europe, where she began her music career. She formed and a local quartet and went on tour. Since 1980, she has lived in New York.

#2344

Jennylyn Mercado

#174766

Overall Influence

1987 - Present (39 years)

Jennylyn Anne Pineda Mercado-Ho is a Filipino actress, singer, and songwriter. She was the winner of the first season of the reality talent competition StarStruck. Mercado garnered acclaim at a young age for her acting performances on television and film. She starred in multiple commercially successful films, including English Only, Please , The Prenup , Walang Forever , and Just the 3 of Us . With GMA Records and Viva Records, Mercado has released three albums, which have several popular singles such as "Sa Aking Panaginip", "Moments Of Love" in collaboration with Janno Gibbs, "Basta't Nandito Ka", and "Kahit Sandali".

#2345

Marie Therese Henderson

#186280

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Marie Thérèse Henderson is a Scottish music director and composer. She teaches at the Sophia University Institute of the Focolare Movement. She is linked to the music group Gen Verde.

#2346

Martha Sheil

#180163

Overall Influence

Martha Sheil is an American operatic soprano who made her professional opera debut as the Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro at the New York City Opera under the baton of Julius Rudel. She went on to be a professor of voice at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance for over 30 years before her retirement in 2015.

#2347

Teresa Kubiak

#181063

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Teresa Kubiak is a Polish operatic soprano. Born in Ldzań in the Łódź Voivodeship, she studied at the Academy of Music in Łódź. Kubiak is best known for her recording of the role of Tatyana in Georg Solti's recording of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, which was used for Petr Weigl's 1988 film of the opera. She was also known for her performances of Liza in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame.

#2348

Marianne Elser Crowder

#181502

Overall Influence

1906 - 2010 (104 years)

Marianne Elser Crowder was, until her death, the oldest living Girl Scout in the United States. She joined the Wagon Wheel Council Troop 4 in 1918 and got her Golden Eaglet, then the GSUSA highest award. She later operated her own dance studio in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and headed the dance department at Colorado College before moving to Menlo Park, California, in 1939 where she continued to teach dance until she was in her mid-90s. In 2007, the Wagon Wheel Council named Crowder the nation's oldest Girl Scout after it conducted a nationwide search and sifted through council archives.

#2349

Gloria Contreras Roeniger

#171333

Overall Influence

1934 - 2015 (81 years)

María Gloria Contreras Roeniger, better known as Gloria Contreras was a Mexican dancer and choreographer. Biography Contreras was born in Mexico City. She studied dancing under Nelsy Dambré in Mexico from 1946 to 1954, and, after joining the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, visited the School of American Ballet in New York from 1956 to 1964, where she was taught by Pierre Vladimirov, Felia Doubrovska, Anatole Oboukhoff, Muriel Stuart and George Balanchine. From 1958 to 1965 she was also taught by Carola Trier.

#2350

Debra Marquart

#177112

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Debra Marquart is an American poet and musician from the small town of Napoleon, North Dakota. Since 1992 she has been performing as singer-songwriter with the band The Bone People. After graduating with master's degrees from Moorhead State University and Iowa State University , she became an English professor at ISU, directing an MFA program in "creative writing and environment". In 2014, she taught writers' workshops in Bakken oil field communities most affected by hydraulic fracking, where "many people ... are despairing – feeling that they have been declared an energy sacrifice zone." She is the Poet Laureate of Iowa since 2019.

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