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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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#5251

Earle Brown

#63935

Overall Influence

1926 - 2002 (76 years)

Earle Brown was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since—notably the downtown New York scene of the 1980s and generations of younger composers.

#5252

Daniel R. Denison

#15324

Overall Influence

Daniel "Dan" R. Denison is professor of organization and management at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, and chairman and founding partner of Denison Consulting. His area of special interest is organizational culture and leadership, and the impact they have on the performance and effectiveness of organizations. His work on organizational culture is heavily cited in the field, and he is the author of a seminal article on the distinction between organizational culture and climate . His model of organizational culture is widely known and used in academic research in organizational cul...

#5253

Roy Goodman

#108801

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Roy Goodman is an English conductor and violinist, specialising in the performance and direction of early music. He became internationally famous as the 12-year-old boy treble soloist in the March 1963 recording of Allegri's Miserere with the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, under David Willcocks.

#5254

Martha S. Feldman

#79534

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Martha S. Feldman is an organization theorist best known for her work on organizational routines and, particularly, routine dynamics. Other areas of research she has contributed to include inclusive management and qualitative research methods. Feldman is the Johnson Chair for Civic Governance and Public Management in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine She has published four books as well as numerous book chapters and journal articles.

#5255

Alex North

#75680

Overall Influence

1910 - 1991 (81 years)

Alex North was an American composer best known for his many film scores, including A Streetcar Named Desire , Viva Zapata!, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He received fifteen Academy Award nominations for his work as a composer; while he did not win for any of his nominations, he received an Honorary Academy Award in 1986, the first for a composer.

#5256

Alexander Rehding

#105399

Overall Influence

Alexander Rehding is Fanny Peabody Professor of Music at Harvard University. Rehding is a music theorist and musicologist with a focus on intellectual history and media theory, known for innovative interdisciplinary work. His publications explore music in a wide range of contexts from Ancient Greek music to the Eurovision Song Contest—and even in outer space. His research has contributed to Riemannian theory, the history of music theory, sound studies, and media archaeology, reaching into the digital humanities and ecomusicology.

#5257

Bill Kerr

#76126

Overall Influence

1922 - 2014 (92 years)

William Henry Kerr was a British and Australian actor, comedian, and vaudevillian. Born in South Africa, he started his career as a child actor in Australia, before emigrating to Britain after the Second World War, where he developed a career as a performer in comedy, especially gaining notice in the radio version of Hancock's Half Hour. In 1979 Kerr returned to Australia and developed a second career as a character actor.

#5258

Craig Adams

#97577

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Craig David Adams is an English musician, bass guitarist and songwriter. Over his career he has worked with a variety of rock bands, the most notable being the Sisters of Mercy and the Mission. Biography Craig David Adams was born in Otley, Yorkshire, on 4 April 1962, and was brought up in Leeds. Adams left school to pursue a career in music and initially played keyboards in a local band the Expelairs, who released a handful of singles. He left the five-piece due to musical differences and took up bass. Inspired by Motörhead he began to channel his bass through distortion-effects. After a short conversation in a local bar with Andrew Eldritch he joined The Sisters of Mercy.

#5259

Doug Sahm

#75130

Overall Influence

1941 - 1999 (58 years)

Douglas Wayne Sahm was an American musician, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born in San Antonio, Texas. Sahm is regarded as one of the main figures of Tex-Mex music, and as an important performer of Texan Music. He gained fame along with his band, the Sir Douglas Quintet, with a top-twenty hit in the United States and the United Kingdom with "She's About a Mover" . Sahm was influenced by the San Antonio music scene that included conjunto and blues, and later by the hippie scene of San Francisco. With his blend of music, he found success performing in Austin, Texas, as the hippie ...

#5260

Akira Sakuma

#76624

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

#5261

Charlotte Cornwell

#95274

Overall Influence

1949 - 2021 (72 years)

Charlotte Cornwell was an English actress, singer, and a teacher of acting on the faculty at the University of Southern California . She began her career as an actress, making her debut for Richard Cottrell's Cambridge Theatre Company in November 1971 as Miss Brewster in Arthur Wing Pinero's Trelawny of the 'Wells'. before joining Val May's Bristol Old Vic Theatre Company where she performed in a wide variety of productions from 1972 through 1975. In 1974 she made her screen debut as Sally Potter in the musical film Stardust. She rose to fame for her portrayal of the drug-addicted rock star A...

#5262

Teppo Felin

#25876

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Teppo Felin is the Douglas D. Anderson Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University. He is also the Founding Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Study. From 2013 to 2021, Felin was Professor of Strategy at the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. His current research focuses on cognition, rationality, perception, organizational economics, markets and strategy.

#5263

Robert Tracy

#72593

Overall Influence

1955 - 2007 (52 years)

Robert Tracy was an American dancer, writer, and educator in New York City. He taught dance history as an associate professor at Fordham University and published well-reviewed books. During his life, he was better known for his literary work, even though he was a talented dancer; he dedicated his life to academia and writing books. Tracy became, as a secondary duty, the personal assistant to his live-in partner Rudolf Nureyev. After Nureyev's death, Tracy dedicated his life to AIDS awareness and LGBT legal advocacy.

#5264

Edo de Waart

#80621

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Edo de Waart is a Dutch conductor. He is Music Director Laureate of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. De Waart is the former chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic , Artistic Partner with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra , and music director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra .

#5265

Jim Price

#77295

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

James William Price was an American session musician. He toured extensively with The Rolling Stones from 1970 until 1973, including their 1972 American Tour, and appears on the albums Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Goats Head Soup. From September 1968 to February 1969, Price played with New Buffalo Springfield. He also toured and recorded with Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Eric Clapton. Price played on several songs on Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson. Price produced Cocker's album I Can Stand a Little Rain, which includes the song "You Are So...

#5266

Jeffrey L. Seglin

Jeffrey L. Seglin

#33989

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Jeffrey L. Seglin is an American columnist, author, and teacher. He is currently a senior lecturer, emeritus, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 2011 until 2023, he was a senior lecturer and director of the communications program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He consults widely on writing, communications, and ethics. His weekly column on ethics, "The Right Thing," is syndicated in newspapers in the United States and Canada. Seglin lives in Boston with his wife, a psychotherapist. He has two adult children and four grand...

#5267

Alho Alhoniemi

#127834

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Alho Alhoniemi is a Finnish linguist specializing in the Finno-Ugric languages. Alhoniemi graduated from high school in 1952 in Kannus. He obtained his PhD in 1967 with a thesis about the lative case in Mari and served as professor of Finno-Ugric linguistics at the University of Turku from 1971 to 1996. He was appointed member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters in 1981 and received an honorary doctorate from Uppsala University in 1994. He served as chairman of the Society for the Finnish Language from 1971 to 1979.

#5268

Jan Knappert

#44056

Overall Influence

1927 - 2005 (78 years)

Dr. Jan Knappert was a well-known expert on the Swahili language. He was also an Esperantist, and he wrote an Esperanto-Swahili dictionary. Knappert translated many literary and historical works from Swahili; including Utendi wa Tambuka , a very early Swahili epic poem. He also translated the Finnish national epic, The Kalevala, into Swahili.

#5269

Jennifer Higdon

#86801

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Jennifer Elaine Higdon is an American composer of contemporary classical music. She has received many awards, including the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Violin Concerto and three Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Percussion Concerto in 2010, Viola Concerto in 2018, and Harp Concerto in 2020. Elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019, she was a professor of composition at the Curtis Institute of Music from 1994 to 2021.

#5270

Stacy Blake-Beard

#102136

Overall Influence

Stacy Blake-Beard has a BS in Psychology from the University of Maryland, an MA and a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan. Since 2002, Blake-Beard has been teaching organizational behavior at the Simmons College School of Management and is currently a tenured Professor of Management. Before Blake-Beard joined Simmons, she was Assistant Professor of Administration, Planning, and Social Policy at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. At HGSE she lectured on organizational behavior, cultural diversity in organizations, and mentoring relationships at w...

#5271

Shankar Mahadevan

#57898

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Shankar Mahadevan is an Indian singer and composer who is part of the Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy trio that writes music for Indian films. In 2023, he was awarded a honorary doctorate by Birmingham City University.

#5272

Jim Hunt

#87281

Overall Influence

1926 - 2006 (80 years)

Jim "Shaky" Hunt was a Canadian sports columnist who spent over 50 years as a journalist and covered the biggest events in sports including the Stanley Cup, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, all of golf's majors and the 1972 Canada-Russia Summit Series. Hunt was known as "Shaky" thanks to his intramural goaltending career at the University of Western Ontario, where he was part of the school's first journalism graduating class, in 1948. Jim Hunt was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.

#5273

David Torn

#65260

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

David M. Torn is an American guitarist, composer, and producer. He is known for combining electronic and acoustic instruments and for his use of looping. Background Torn has contributed to recordings by artists as diverse as David Bowie, k.d. lang, John Legend, Madonna, Tori Amos, Bill Bruford, Tony Levin, Mick Karn, David Sylvian, Chocolate Genius, Michael Shrieve, Steve Roach, Patrick O'Hearn, Andy Rinehart, Matt Chamberlain, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Don Cherry.

#5274

Harald Clahsen

#127963

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

#5275

Jim Messina

#71070

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

James Messina is an American musician, songwriter, singer, guitarist, recording engineer, and record producer. He was a member of the folk rock group Buffalo Springfield, a founding member of the pioneering country rock band Poco, and half of the soft rock duo Loggins and Messina with Kenny Loggins.

#5276

Enrico Rava

#95253

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Enrico Rava , is an Italian jazz trumpeter. He started on trombone, then changed to the trumpet after hearing Miles Davis. Career He was born in Trieste, Italy. His first commercial work was as a member of Gato Barbieri's Italian quintet in the mid-1960s; in the late 1960s he was a member of Steve Lacy's group. In 1967, Rava moved to New York City and, one month later, became a member of the group Gas Mask, which had one album released on Tonsil Records in 1970.

#5277

Maureen Morrin

#128025

Overall Influence

#5278

Julius Baker

#95527

Overall Influence

1915 - 2003 (88 years)

Julius Baker was one of the foremost American orchestral flute players. During the course of five decades he concertized with several of America's premier orchestral ensembles including the Chicago Symphony and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

#5279

Sherlie Matthews

#75288

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Sherlie Matthews is an American singer, songwriter and former Motown Records producer, best known as a backing vocalist for pop, R&B and rock groups from the mid-1960s to the present time. Mirwood Employing her as both a lyricist and composer, she created many of the 1960s and 1970s hits for Mirwood Records' artists, including Jackie Lee, The Olympics, Bobby Garrett, The Mirettes, The Belles and Bob & Earl.

#5280

Helen Merrill

#92342

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Helen Merrill is an American jazz vocalist. Her first album, the eponymous 1954 recording Helen Merrill , was an immediate success and associated her with the first generation of bebop jazz musicians. After an active 1950s and 1960s, Merrill spent time recording and touring in Europe and Japan, falling into obscurity in the United States. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was recorded by EmArcy, JVC and Verve; and her performances in America revived her profile. Known for her emotional, sensual vocal performances, her career continues in its sixth decade with concerts and recordings.

#5281

Marcelo Dascal

#56852

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Marcelo Dascal was a Brazilian-born Israeli philosopher and linguist, who was a professor of philosophy at Tel Aviv University since 1967. He also served as a Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1995 to 2000.

#5282

Allissa Richardson

Allissa Richardson

#95822

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Allissa V. Richardson is an American journalist and college professor. She is best known as a proponent of mobile journalism and citizen journalism. Richardson has trained students in the United States and Africa to report news using only smartphones, tablets and MP3 players. She is assistant professor of journalism in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Additionally, Richardson is a Nieman Foundation Visiting Journalism Fellow at Harvard University, the 2012 Educator of the Year for the National Association of Black Journalists, and ...

#5283

John Nerbonne

#42548

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

John A. Nerbonne is an American computational linguist. He was a professor of humanities computing at the University of Groningen until January 2017, when he gave his valedictory address at the celebration of the 30th anniversary of his department there.

#5284

Daniel J. Brass

#63573

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Daniel Joseph Brass is an American organizational theorist and Professor of Innovation Management at the University of Kentucky, and Director of its LINKS Center for Social Network. Biography Brass studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where in 1969 he received his BA in Psychology, in 1975 his MA in Labor and Industrial Relations, and in 1979 his PhD in Business Administration and Management.

#5285

Ronald Sanders

#108726

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Ronald Sanders is a Canadian film editor and television producer. Career Sanders won Genie Awards for his work on Eastern Promises , eXistenZ , Crash , and Dead Ringers . He has collaborated extensively with director David Cronenberg; since 1979, he has edited most of Cronenberg's films.

#5286

Vernon Handley

#100333

Overall Influence

1930 - 2008 (78 years)

Vernon George "Tod" Handley was a British conductor, known in particular for his support of British composers. He was born of a Welsh father and an Irish mother into a musical family in Enfield, Middlesex. He acquired the nickname "Tod" because his feet were turned in at his birth, which his father simply summarised: "They toddle". Handley preferred the use of the name "Tod" throughout his life over his given names.

#5287

Bob Moore

#57979

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Bob Loyce Moore was an American session musician, orchestra leader, and double bassist who was a member of the Nashville A-Team during the 1950s and 1960s. He performed on over 17,000 documented recording sessions, backing popular acts such as Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison. Bob was also the father of multi-instrumentalist R. Stevie Moore, who pioneered lo-fi/DIY music.

#5288

Edward Boches

#109160

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Edward Boches is an American documentary photographer working in Boston and Cape Cod. He contributes regularly to the Provincetown Independent, exhibits frequently, and speaks publicly on the role of photographer as advocate.

#5289

Kris Kristofferson

#60284

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Kristoffer Kristofferson is an American retired country singer, songwriter, and actor. Among his songwriting credits are "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night", all of which were hits for other artists.

#5290

James Cotton

#60190

Overall Influence

1935 - 2017 (82 years)

James Henry Cotton was an American blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter, who performed and recorded with many fellow blues artists and with his own band. He also played drums early in his career.

#5291

Patricia Shehan Campbell

#35962

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Patricia Shehan Campbell is an American musicologist. Life and career She is the Donald E. Peterson Professor of Music at the University of Washington, where she teaches courses at the interface of music education and ethnomusicology. Prior to this position, she was a member of the faculties of Washington University in St. Louis and Butler University. Her training includes Dalcroze Eurhythmics, piano and vocal performance, and specialized study in Bulgarian choral song, Indian vocal repertoire, and Thai mahori, the latter two of which were launched during the period of her PhD studies in Music Education at Kent State University.

#5292

Chris McHugh

#18022

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Chris McHugh is an American musician from Camden, NJ. He began his career as the drummer of Christian rock band White Heart from 1986 to 1989. McHugh toured and played as a session drummer with artists such as Aaron Neville, Peter Frampton, Jewel , Alabama Kenny Rogers, LeAnn Rimes, Brooks & Dunn and numerous others. His recording credits span over 40 years with 93 platinum and 15 gold certifications. Cited: Credits, Muso

#5293

Henriette Gezundhajt

#128344

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Henriette Gezundhajt is a professor of French linguistics at Glendon College and York University. Gezundhajt was born in France and studied Enunciative Linguistics at the University Paris 7 until 1988. She received her Ph.D. in French linguistics from the University of Toronto in 1995 and has taught at several universities in Toronto, including Ryerson University , York University and U of T. She has published on the morphology of adverbs. She has created several websites dedicated to the study of linguistics. Among them, "Sur Les Sentiers de La Linguistique" offers a comprehensive introductory guide to French linguistics.

#5294

Alessandro Acquisti

#128370

Overall Influence

#5295

Edwin Hawkins

#74629

Overall Influence

1943 - 2018 (75 years)

Edwin Reuben Hawkins was an American gospel musician, pianist, vocalist, choir master, composer, and arranger. He was one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound. As the leader of the Edwin Hawkins Singers, he was probably best known for his arrangement of "Oh Happy Day" , which was included on the "Songs of the Century" list. In 1970, the Edwin Hawkins Singers made a second foray into the charts, backing folk singer Melanie on "Lay Down ".

#5296

Ferlin Husky

#69893

Overall Influence

1925 - 2011 (86 years)

Ferlin Eugene Husky was an American country music singer who was equally adept at honky-tonk, ballads, spoken recitations, rockabilly and pop tunes. From 1948 to 1953, he recorded under the stage name Terry Preston. . He also created and recorded as the comic, outspoken hayseed character, Simon Crum. In the 1950s and '60s, his hits included "Gone" and "Wings of a Dove", each reaching number one on the country charts. Between 1953 and 1975, he had 11 top 10 hits, two dozen top 20 hits and a total of 50 songs in Billboard magazine's top 100 country songs. His versatility and matinee-idol looks propelled a seven-decade entertainment career.

#5297

Donald Rosenberg

#74676

Overall Influence

Donald Rosenberg is an American musician, music critic and journalist. Biography Rosenberg was born in New York City and educated at the Mannes College of Music and the Yale School of Music. He is a horn player, who participated in the Aspen Music Festival and Marlboro Music Festival.

#5298

Kurt Equiluz

#105453

Overall Influence

1929 - 2022 (93 years)

Kurt Equiluz was an Austrian classical tenor in opera and concert. He was a member of the Vienna State Opera as a tenor buffo from 1957 until 1983, remembered for roles such as Pedrillo in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival, including world premieres such as Rolf Liebermann's Penelope in 1954. He recorded works by Johann Sebastian Bach with conductors such as Michel Corboz, Helmuth Rilling and Charles de Wolff, and prominently as the Evangelist in the first recording of Bach's St John Passion on period instruments with the Concentus Musicus ...

#5299

Jerry Hadley

#91104

Overall Influence

1952 - 2007 (55 years)

Jerry Hadley was an American operatic tenor. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenůfa , Susannah , and Candide . Hadley was a leading American tenor for nearly two decades. He was mentored by soprano Joan Sutherland and her husband, conductor Richard Bonynge. Leonard Bernstein chose Hadley for his 1989 recording of Candide on Deutsche Grammophon. Aside from singing opera and operetta, Hadley also sang on Broadway.

#5300

Jerry Blackstone

#59350

Overall Influence

Jerry Blackstone is a Grammy Award winning American choral conductor. He was the Director of Choirs and Chair of the Conducting Department at the University of Michigan and the Music Director of the University Musical Society Choral Union.

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