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 people in Communications,

#5351

Gottfried von Einem

Gottfried von Einem

#82794

Overall Influence

1918 - 1996 (78 years)

Gottfried von Einem was an Austrian composer. He is known chiefly for his operas influenced by the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as by jazz. He also composed pieces for piano, violin and organ.

#5352

Thomas Hemsley

#115962

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

Thomas Jeffrey Hemsley, CBE was an English baritone. Hemsley was born in Coalville, Leicestershire, and attended Ashby de la Zouch Grammar School. He took a degree in natural sciences from Brasenose College, Oxford. He moved to London and became a pupil of Lucie Manén, and also served as a Vicar Choral at St Paul's Cathedral. He made his debut in 1951 as Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Mermaid Theatre, London, alongside Kirsten Flagstad as Dido. The pair recorded the opera for EMI the same year. He debuted at Glyndebourne in 1953. He was principal baritone at the Aachen Opera fro...

#5353

Joel Brockner

#129285

Overall Influence

#5354

John McCabe

#101874

Overall Influence

1939 - 2015 (76 years)

John McCabe was a British composer and pianist. He created works in many different forms, including symphonies, ballets, and solo works for the piano. He served as director of the London College of Music from 1983 to 1990. Guy Rickards praised him as "one of Britain's finest composers in the past half-century" and "a pianist of formidable gifts and wide-ranging sympathies".

#5355

David Joel Goodman

#129304

Overall Influence

#5356

Bettye LaVette

#71216

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Bettye LaVette is an American soul singer-songwriter who made her first record at sixteen, but achieved only intermittent fame until 2005, when her album I've Got My Own Hell to Raise was released to widespread critical acclaim, and was named on many critics' "Best of 2005" lists. Her next album, The Scene of the Crime, debuted at number one on Billboard's Top Blues Albums chart and was nominated for Best Contemporary Blues Album at the 2008 Grammy Awards. She received the Legacy of Americana Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2023 Americana Music Honors & Awards.

#5357

He Jiuying

#94032

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

He Jiuying {; born 1932 Biography He Jiuying was born in Anren, Hunan. He graduated from Beijing University in 1961 and then joined the faculty of Beijing University Department of Chinese. Professor He is a leading expert on ancient Chinese language. His published books include Gu Hanyu Yinyunxue Shuyao , Shanggu Yin , and Zhongguo Gudai Yuyanxue Shi .

#5358

Tom Kelly

#59890

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Thomas F. Kelly is an American musician, best known for his songwriting partnership with Billy Steinberg. Steinberg and Kelly co-wrote numerous hit songs for popular music artists, including five number-one singles on the Billboard Top 100 chart in the 1980s.

#5359

Krenar Gashi

#95194

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Krenar Gashi is a Kosovar Albanian political scientist, currently based in Belgium as a Basileus doctoral fellow at the Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University. His research interest include international relations, the European Union and the works of Jean Baudrillard, while his expertise is in the political developments in the Western Balkans.

#5360

Thierry Libaert

#99486

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Thierry Libaert is a leading French specialist on Organizational Communication. He has been professor of Organizational Communication at the Université catholique de Louvain where he chaired the Laboratory for the Analysis of Organisational Communication Systems . He previously worked for the State industry department, for a public relations agency and as PR manager for one of France's leading companies.

#5361

Billy Taylor

#63171

Overall Influence

1921 - 2010 (89 years)

Billy Taylor was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the artistic director for jazz at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

#5362

Giorgio Tozzi

#87349

Overall Influence

1923 - 2011 (88 years)

Giorgio Tozzi was an American operatic bass and actor. He was associated with the Metropolitan Opera for many years and sang principal bass roles in nearly every major opera house worldwide. Career Tozzi was born George John Tozzi in Chicago, Illinois. He studied at DePaul University with Rosa Raisa, Giacomo Rimini and John Daggett Howell. He later studied singing in New York City with Beverley Peck Johnson. He made his professional debut in the Broadway production of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia in 1948 as Tarquinius. His signature roles included Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro,...

#5363

Lyubov Sova

#111339

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Ljubov Zinovjevna Sova is a Russian philologist notable for contributions in the field of linguistics and orientalistics. Her main fields of professional interest include linguistics, African philology, semiotics, typology, Slavic languages and journalism.

#5364

Norma Winstone

#98300

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Norma Ann Winstone MBE is an English jazz singer and lyricist. With a career spanning more than 50 years, she is best known for her wordless improvisations. Musicians with whom she has worked include Michael Garrick, John Surman, Michael Gibbs, Mike Westbrook, as well as pianist John Taylor, who was her former husband.

#5365

Sophie

#74206

Overall Influence

1986 - 2021 (35 years)

Sophie Xeon , known mononymously as Sophie , was a Scottish music producer, songwriter, and DJ. Sophie's work was known for its brash take on pop music and distinguished by experimental sound design, "sugary" synthesized textures, and incorporation of influences from underground dance styles. It would help pioneer the 2010s hyperpop microgenre.

#5366

Lincoln Caplan

#30546

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Lincoln W. Caplan, II is an American author, scholar, and journalist. He is the Truman Capote Visiting Lecturer in Law and a Senior Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School. Early life and education Caplan was born in 1950 in New Haven, Connecticut. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he graduated cum laude in 1968. He then attended Harvard College, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1972, after which he attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge for one year. He earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1976.

#5367

Martin Lutz

#87135

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Martin Lutz is a German musicologist, conductor and harpsichordist. He was the musical director of the concert choir Schiersteiner Kantorei in Wiesbaden from 1972 to 2017, and founded the biennial festival Wiesbadener Bachwochen in 1975.

#5368

Dale Schilly

#91890

Overall Influence

Dale Schilly is an American soccer coach. He attended Rosary High School, which today is part of Trinity Catholic High School, and Florida International University. In addition to his coaching duties, Schilly is also the director of the St. Louis Scott Gallagher-Illinois youth soccer organization. He holds a USSF "A" coaching license.

#5369

Johnny Ramone

#46551

Overall Influence

1948 - 2004 (56 years)

John William Cummings , better known by his stage name Johnny Ramone, was an American musician who was the guitarist and a founding member of the Ramones, a band that helped pioneer the punk movement. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Until the band's disbandment in 1996, Johnny, along with the lead vocalist Joey Ramone, were the only two original members who stayed since its inception.

#5370

David M. Krackhardt

#129586

Overall Influence

#5371

Robin Blaze

#105036

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Robin Blaze is a British countertenor. Early life The son of Peter Blaze, a professional golfer, and Christine, Blaze and his brother Mark grew up in Shadwell, near Leeds, and was educated at Leeds Grammar School, Uppingham School, and Magdalen College, Oxford. At Uppingham, Blaze was taught by the celebrated countertenor John Whitworth.

#5372

Marvin Schick

#61316

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

Marvin Schick was a Hunter College and New School for Social Research political science and constitutional law professor. He was also known for his work in Jewish education. Career Schick was a professor at Hunter College and New School for Social Research, where he taught political-science and constitutional law. He was president of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, for over 30 years, and was an educational consultant for the Avi Chai Foundation and has been described as an expert on Jewish Day Schools.

#5373

Karl Hutcheson Roberts

#129684

Overall Influence

#5374

Natalya Semenchenko

Natalya Semenchenko

#53683

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Natalya Semenchenko is a DPhil in Economics, professor, writer and publicist, Head of the Center of scientific thought "Dosvіd". Biography She was born on January 24, 1976, in Kyiv, at the time in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union. In 1998, she graduated from the publishing and printing department of the National Technical University of Ukraine specialty "Management of non-manufacturing sector". In 1999 she enrolled in graduate studies at the Department of Management and Marketing NTUU "KPI".

#5375

Larry Williams

#45303

Overall Influence

Lawrence Lowell Williams is an American record producer, composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist. He is proficient on the keyboards, saxophone, flute, and clarinet. Williams began his musical career in the 1970s, and has since established himself as a prominent figure in the music industry. He regularly toured and recorded with Al Jarreau for over 3 decades and also was a musician on Michael Jackson's albums Off The Wall, Thriller, and Bad.

#5376

Herbert Hirche

#56329

Overall Influence

1910 - 2002 (92 years)

Herbert Hirche was a German architect and furniture and product designer. Herbert Hirche studied from 1930 to 1933 at the Bauhaus in Dessau and Berlin. His teachers included, Wassily Kandinsky and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. From 1934 to 1938 he worked in Mies van der Rohe's office in Berlin, until his boss emigrated to the United States. From 1939 to 1945 Hirche worked for Egon Eiermann, after 1945 for Hans Scharoun. In 1948 he was appointed Professor of Applied Arts at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee, which had only been recently founded in 1946. It was in the Soviet Occupied Zone of Berlin.

#5377

Ebba Segerberg

#118431

Overall Influence

1999 - Present (27 years)

Ebba Segerberg is an academic and translator, noted for her translations of Swedish literature into English. Segerberg is a Director of Communications at Washington University in St. Louis. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley, Department of Scandinavian in 1999. She has contributed to The Dictionary of Literary Biography: 20th Century Swedish Writers.

#5378

Imtiaz Ali

#49922

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Imtiaz Ali is an Indian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for directing Jab We Met , Love Aaj Kal , Rockstar , Cocktail , Highway and Tamasha . Early and personal life Imtiaz Ali was born in Jamshedpur and spent some of his early years in Patna. Imtiaz belongs to the Muslim family of Jamshedpur in Bihar . His father Mansoor Ali was a contractor who did irrigation job, and as a child he would sometimes accompany him, which gave Imtiaz a sense of what was going on in the innards of India. His uncle, through his mother, is Pakistani TV actor and director/producer Khalid Ahmed.

#5379

Roland Sussex

#87842

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Roland Denis Sussex OAM is Emeritus Professor of Applied Language Studies at the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies of the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. Sussex hosts a talkback program on language and linguistics on ABC radio in Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and the Northern Territory and writes a weekly column, "Wordlimit", for the newspaper The Courier-Mail.

#5380

Max Bennett

#94445

Overall Influence

1928 - 2018 (90 years)

Max Bennett was an American jazz bassist and session musician. Early life Bennett grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and Oskaloosa, Iowa, and went to college in Iowa. Career Bennett's first professional gig was with Herbie Fields in 1949, and following this he played with Georgie Auld, Terry Gibbs, and Charlie Ventura. He served in the Army during the Korean War from 1951 to 1953, and then played with Stan Kenton before moving to Los Angeles. There he played regularly at the Lighthouse Cafe with his own ensemble, and played behind such vocalists as Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez through the 1970s.

#5381

Mark Murphy

#85572

Overall Influence

1932 - 2015 (83 years)

Mark Howe Murphy was an American jazz singer based at various times in New York City, Los Angeles, London, and San Francisco. He recorded 51 albums under his own name during his lifetime and was principally known for his innovative vocal improvisations. He was the recipient of the 1996, 1997, 2000, and 2001 Down Beat magazine readers' jazz poll for Best Male Vocalist and was also nominated five times for the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Jazz Performance. He wrote lyrics to the jazz tunes "Stolen Moments" and "Red Clay".

#5382

Patty Loveless

#41819

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Patty Loveless is an American country music singer. She began performing in her teenaged years before signing her first recording contract with MCA Records' Nashville division in 1985. While her first few releases were unsuccessful, she broke through by decade's end with a cover of George Jones's "If My Heart Had Windows". Loveless issued five albums on MCA before moving to Epic Records in 1993, where she released nine more albums. Four of her albumsHonky Tonk Angel, Only What I Feel, When Fallen Angels Fly, and The Trouble with the Truthare certified platinum in the United States. Loveless h...

#5383

Ibrahim Ferrer

#83171

Overall Influence

1927 - 2005 (78 years)

Ibrahim Ferrer was a Cuban singer who played with the group Los Bocucos for nearly forty years. He also performed with Conjunto Sorpresa, Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental, and Mario Patterson. After his retirement in 1991, he was brought back in the studio to record with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club, in March 1996. He then toured internationally with these revival groups and recorded several solo albums for World Circuit, before his death in 2005.

#5384

Charles Goodwin

#49458

Overall Influence

1943 - 2018 (75 years)

Charles Goodwin was a UCLA distinguished research professor of communication and key member of UCLA’s Center for Language, Interaction and Culture. Goodwin contributed ground-breaking theory and research on social interaction and opened new pathways for research on eye gaze, storytelling, turn-taking and action.

#5385

Mark Kelly

#88609

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Mark Colbert Kelly is an Irish keyboardist and member of the neo-progressive rock band Marillion. He was raised in Ireland until he moved to England with his parents in 1969. Kelly was an electronics student while performing part-time in the progressive/psychedelic band Chemical Alice, who released their EP Curiouser and Curiouser in 1981. He was invited to join Marillion when they supported Chemical Alice, replacing previous keyboardist Brian Jelliman. His first performance with the band was at the Great Northern at Cambridge on 1 December 1981. He has appeared on every Marillion studio album.

#5386

Howard Griffiths

#70938

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Howard Griffiths is a British conductor. Griffiths was born in Hastings. He studied music at the Royal College of Music, London. He has lived in Switzerland since 1981. From 1996 to 2006, he was chief conductor and artistic director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra . Griffiths is a champion of music by contemporary Turkish and Swiss composers. With the ZKO, he has also conducted works in a classical and classical modern range, including CDs of Haydn's Creation, symphonies by Mozart and Ferdinand Ries and works by Beethoven, Pleyel, Cherubini and Handel. He has recorded over 60 CDs under v...

#5387

Paul Gilbert

#59598

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Paul Brandon Gilbert is an American hard rock and heavy metal guitarist. He is the co-founder of the band Mr. Big, and was also a member of Racer X, with whom he released several albums. In 1996, Gilbert launched a solo career, for which he has released numerous solo albums, and featured in numerous collaborations and guest appearances on other musicians' albums.

#5388

Tobias Picker

#64884

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Tobias Picker is an American composer, pianist, and conductor, noted for his orchestral works Old and Lost Rivers, Keys To The City, and The Encantadas, as well as his operas Emmeline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, An American Tragedy and Lili Elbe, among many other works.

#5389

Tatsutoshi Nakahata

#130003

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

#5390

Hermann Prey

#94775

Overall Influence

1929 - 1998 (69 years)

Hermann Prey was a German lyric baritone, who was equally at home in the Lied, operatic and concert repertoires. His American debut was in November 1952, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Eugene Ormandy, and his American recital debut took place in 1956, at New York's Carnegie Hall. As a Lieder singer, he was a gifted interpreter of Schubert, including his song-cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise and the collection of songs Schwanengesang, as well as of Robert Schumann, Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. He also appeared frequently as a soloist in Bach's Passions and Brahms' A Ge...

#5391

Paul Freeman

#81019

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Paul Freeman is an English actor who has appeared in theatre, television and film. In the United Kingdom, he is best known for his role in the romance TV series Yesterday's Dreams as Martin Daniels. Internationally, he is known for playing the rival archaeologist René Belloq in Raiders of the Lost Ark , evil wine baron Gustav Riebmann on season 4 of the soap opera Falcon Crest , supervillain Ivan Ooze in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie , Julius Morlang in Morlang , Ray in When I'm 64 , Reverend Shooter in Hot Fuzz and Shrewd Eddie in Hard Boiled Sweets .

#5392

Holly Cole

#94247

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Holly Cole is a Canadian jazz singer and actress. For many years she performed with her group The Holly Cole Trio. Background Cole was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her father, Leon Cole, was a noted radio broadcaster for the CBC Stereo network.

#5393

Hermeto Pascoal

#85628

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Hermeto Pascoal is a Brazilian composer and multi-instrumentalist. He was born in Lagoa da Canoa, Alagoas, Brazil. Pascoal is a significant figure in the history of Brazilian music, mainly known for his abilities in orchestration and improvisation, as well as being a record producer and contributor to many Brazilian and international albums.

#5394

Scott Wilson

#78078

Overall Influence

1942 - 2018 (76 years)

Scott Wilson was an American actor. He had more than 50 film credits, including In the Heat of the Night, In Cold Blood, The Great Gatsby, Dead Man Walking, Pearl Harbor, and Junebug. In 1980, Wilson received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for his role in William Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration. He played veterinarian Hershel Greene on the AMC television series The Walking Dead . He also had a recurring role on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as casino mogul Sam Braun, as well as a lead role on the Netflix series The OA as Abel Johnson.

#5395

Ed Shaughnessy

#69507

Overall Influence

1929 - 2013 (84 years)

Edwin Thomas "Ed" Shaughnessy was a swing music and jazz drummer long associated with Doc Severinsen and a member of The Tonight Show Band on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Biography Shaughnessy was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and grew up in the New York City area, working in the 1940s with George Shearing, Jack Teagarden, and Charlie Ventura. In the 1950s he worked in the Charlie Ventura, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey bands. In the 1960s he played for Count Basie prior to joining The Tonight Show Band. He was the drummer on Bashin': The Unpredictable Jimmy Smith in 1962 whic...

#5396

Lemar

#83706

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Lemar Obika , known as Lemar, is an English singer, songwriter and record producer. Initially rising to fame after finishing third on the first series of British talent show Fame Academy, he was later signed to Sony BMG, where he has gone on to release five studio albums, three of which are certified platinum or double platinum by the British Phonographic Industry .

#5397

Sam Rivers

#80431

Overall Influence

1923 - 2011 (88 years)

Samuel Carthorne Rivers was an American jazz musician and composer. Though most famously a tenor saxophonist, he also performed on soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica, piano and viola.

#5398

Klaus Huber

#82129

Overall Influence

1924 - 2017 (93 years)

Klaus Huber was a Swiss composer and academic based in Basel and Freiburg. Among his students were Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Jarrell, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Toshio Hosokawa, Wolfgang Rihm, and Kaija Saariaho. He received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2009, among other awards.

#5399

Jerome Packard

#79966

Overall Influence

Jerome Packard is an American linguist specializing in Chinese linguistics and psycholinguistics. He is a Professor Emeritus of Chinese, Educational Psychology and Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His book The Morphology of Chinese is influential and widely cited in Chinese linguistics. His more recent book A Social View on the Chinese Language offers a linguistic introduction to the Chinese language for the general reader.

#5400

Joe Lovano

#70137

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Joseph Salvatore Lovano is an American jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. He has earned a Grammy Award and several mentions on Down Beat magazine's critics' and readers' polls. His wife, with whom he records and performs, is singer Judi Silvano. Lovano was a longtime member of drummer Paul Motian‘s trio with guitarist Bill Frisell.

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