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,

#5401

Bob Stewart

#108196

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Bob Stewart is an American jazz tuba player and music teacher. Early life and education Stewart was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in music education from the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts and a Master of Education from Lehman College.

#5402

Hilary Hahn

#83124

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Hilary Hahn is an American violinist. A three-time Grammy Award winner, she has performed throughout the world as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors, and as a recitalist. She is an avid supporter of contemporary classical music, and several composers have written works for her, including concerti by Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon, partitas by Antón García Abril, two serenades for violin and orchestra by Einojuhani Rautavaara, and a violin and piano sonata by Lera Auerbach.

#5403

Eric Kupper

#73893

Overall Influence

Eric Kupper is an American keyboardist, arranger, songwriter, remix artist, DJ, and record producer of French descent. Biography Eric Kupper began playing in bands in his formative years, and got his real start in the mid-1980s working as a keyboardist, guitarist, and songwriter for such producer/remixers as David Morales, Frankie Knuckles, Arthur Baker, Mark Kamins, Justin Strauss, Peter Rauhofer, and Richie Jones. Since 1986 he has played on, remixed, and/or produced over 2,000 records for artists spanning all contemporary musical genres. His work in the mid-to-late 1980s/early 1990s, especi...

#5404

Norbert Kraft

#99934

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Norbert Kraft is a Canadian guitarist, music teacher, producer and arranger. Life Born in Linz, Austria, Kraft's family emigrated to Canada in 1954. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music at Toronto with Carl van Feggelen and later with John Mills and Aaron Shearer.

#5405

Nick Evans

#108367

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Nick Evans is a Welsh former jazz and progressive rock trombonist. Career Evans worked in the Graham Collier Sextet , Keith Tippett Group , Soft Machine , Brotherhood of Breath , Centipede , Just Us , Ambush , Ninesense , Intercontinental Express , Ark , Nicra , Dudu Pukwana's Diamond Express , Spirits Rejoice , and Dreamtime .

#5406

Charles Glasser

Charles Glasser

#90175

Overall Influence

Charles J. Glasser Jr. is an American attorney, writer, educator and journalist. He was Global Media Counsel for Bloomberg News and later set up his own media law practice. He was also an adjunct professor of Media Law and Ethics at The New York University Arthur Carter Journalism Institute and at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York .

#5407

Cornell Dupree

#89978

Overall Influence

1942 - 2011 (69 years)

Cornell Luther Dupree was an American jazz and R&B guitarist. He worked at various times with Aretha Franklin, Bill Withers, Donny Hathaway, King Curtis and Steve Gadd, appeared on David Letterman, and wrote a book on soul and blues guitar, Rhythm and Blues Guitar. He reportedly recorded on 2,500 sessions.

#5408

Roy Hargrove

#63967

Overall Influence

1969 - 2018 (49 years)

Roy Anthony Hargrove was an American jazz musician and composer whose principal instruments were the trumpet and flugelhorn. He achieved worldwide acclaim after winning two Grammy Awards for differing styles of jazz in 1998 and 2002. Hargrove primarily played in the hard bop style for the majority of his albums, but also had a penchant for genre-crossing exploration and collaboration with a variety of hip hop, soul, R&B and alternative rock artists. As Hargrove told one reporter, "I've been around all kinds of musicians, and if a cat can play, a cat can play. If it's gospel, funk, R&B, jazz ...

#5409

Karin Krog

#110909

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Karin Krog is a Norwegian jazz singer. Life and career Krog began singing jazz as a teenager and attracted attention while performing in jam sessions in Oslo. In 1955, she was hired by the pianist Kjell Karlsen to sing in his sextet. In 1962, she started her first band, and that same year she became a student of the Norwegian-American singer Anne Brown. Krog studied with Brown until 1969. In the 1960s, she performed with the rhythm and blues band Public Enemies, releasing the hit singles "Sunny" and "Watermelon Man".

#5410

Rachel Portman

#87177

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Rachel Mary Berkeley Portman, OBE is an English composer who is best known for scoring films. Early life and education Portman was born in Haslemere in Surrey, England, the daughter of Sheila Margaret Penelope Portman and Berkeley Charles Berkeley Portman. She was educated at Charterhouse and became interested in music from a young age, beginning composing at the age of 14.

#5411

Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson

#68107

Overall Influence

1941 - 2016 (75 years)

Robert Hutcherson was an American jazz vibraphone and marimba player. "Little B's Poem", from the 1966 Blue Note album Components, is one of his best-known compositions. Hutcherson influenced younger vibraphonists including Steve Nelson, Joe Locke, and Stefon Harris.

#5412

J. Keith Murnighan

#15219

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

J. Keith Murnighan was an American social scientist and author, born on November 23, 1948, in Evanston, Illinois. He died on June 3, 2016. He was the Harold H. Hines Jr. Distinguished Professor of Risk Management at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he taught from 1996 to 2016. His areas of expertise included: leadership, negotiations, ethics, individual and group decision-making, group dynamics, teams, psychology, auctions, diversity, and trust.

#5413

Joël-François Durand

#101485

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Joël-François Durand is a French composer. Biography Born in Orléans, Durand studied mathematics, music education and piano in Paris, then composition with Brian Ferneyhough in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany , and at Stony Brook University, New York, with Arel and Semegen . Between 1979 and 1984 he attended masterclasses by György Ligeti and Luciano Berio at the Centre Acanthes in Aix-en-Provence, and with Luigi Nono at the Freiburg Musikhochschule. In 1981–82 he was awarded a scholarship from the DAAD . In 1982 he received a Darmstadt Institute Scholarship for his String Trio, and in 1983 his piano piece ...d'asiles déchirés...

#5414

George Thorogood

#56928

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

George Lawrence Thorogood is an American musician, singer and songwriter from Wilmington, Delaware. His "high-energy boogie-blues" sound became a staple of 1980s USA rock radio, with hits like his original songs "Bad to the Bone" and "I Drink Alone". He has also helped to popularize older songs by American icons, such as "Move It on Over", "Who Do You Love?", and "House Rent Blues/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer".

#5415

Laurindo Almeida

#82053

Overall Influence

1917 - 1995 (78 years)

Laurindo Almeida was a Brazilian guitarist and composer in classical, jazz, and Latin music. He and Bud Shank were pioneers in the creation of bossa nova. Almeida was the first guitarist to receive Grammy Awards for both classical and jazz performances. His discography encompasses more than a hundred recordings over five decades.

#5416

Annie Goldson

#92729

Overall Influence

Anne Veronica Goldson is a New Zealand journalism and film academic specialising in documentaries. Her films include Punitive Damage, Georgie Girl, Brother Number One and Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web.

#5417

John McFee

#70934

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

John McFee is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist, and long-time member of The Doobie Brothers. Biography Some of McFee's early and non-Doobie Brothers work includes playing pedal steel guitar on Van Morrison's Tupelo Honey and Saint Dominic's Preview albums, and recording with many other artists, including Steve Miller on his Fly Like An Eagle album, the Grateful Dead on their From the Mars Hotel album, and Boz Scaggs, Emmylou Harris, Link Wray, Rick James, Janis Ian, Ricky Skaggs, The Brothers Four, Nick Lowe, Wanda Jackson, Bill Wyman of th...

#5418

Buckwheat Zydeco

#94512

Overall Influence

1947 - 2016 (69 years)

Stanley Dural Jr. , better known by his stage name Buckwheat Zydeco, was an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He was one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group was formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band , but they often performed as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.

#5419

John F. Ince

#95463

Overall Influence

John F. Ince is an author, business journalist, documentary filmmaker, social entrepreneur, podcaster and nonprofit administrator. He is the host and creator of PodVentureZone, a regular podcast for the Venture Capital and entrepreneurial community and Founder / CEO of I-INSPIRE: An Operating System for the Social Economy.

#5420

Lotfollah Yarmohammadi

#115636

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Lotfollah Yarmohammadi was an Iranian linguist and emeritus professor of linguistics at Shiraz University. He is known for his expertise on discourse analysis. Yarmohammadi is a permanent member of the Academy of Sciences of Iran.

#5421

Dennis Budimir

#85545

Overall Influence

1938 - 2023 (85 years)

Dennis Matthew Budimir was an American jazz and rock guitarist. He was considered to be a member of The Wrecking Crew. Biography Budimir learned to play piano and guitar in his youth and first played professionally when he was fourteen years old. In Los Angeles in the mid-1950s he played in a quartet with La Monte Young, Billy Higgins, and Don Cherry. In the late 1950s he worked in the bands of Ken Hanna, Keith Williams, Harry James, and Chico Hamilton. In 1960–1961 he worked with Bud Shank and accompanied Peggy Lee, then entered into military service in 1961.

#5422

Jim Brown

#100146

Overall Influence

Jim Brown is a multihull sailboat designer who collaborates with John Marples. The pair are responsible for the Constant camber, Seaclipper and Searunner series of trimarans. Early in his career, Jim Brown was inspired by Arthur Piver. Jim is now retired.

#5423

Chloé Zhao

#68039

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Chloé Zhao is a Chinese-born filmmaker. She is known primarily for her work on independent films. Her debut feature film, Songs My Brothers Taught Me , premiered at Sundance Film Festival to critical acclaim and earned a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. Her second feature film, The Rider , was critically acclaimed and received nominations for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film and Best Director.

#5424

Alun Hoddinott

#87314

Overall Influence

1929 - 2008 (79 years)

Alun Hoddinott CBE was a Welsh composer of classical music, one of the first to receive international recognition. Life and works Hoddinott was born in Bargoed, Glamorganshire, Wales. He was educated at Gowerton Grammar school before matriculating to University College, Cardiff, and later studied privately with Arthur Benjamin. His first major composition, the Clarinet Concerto, was performed at the Cheltenham Festival of 1954 by Gervase de Peyer with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir John Barbirolli.

#5425

Manfred Rühl

#115592

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Manfred Rühl is a German communication scientist with a social science background. Life and Work At the age of sixteen he received a high school scholarship for Dayton, Ohio, for the 1950/51 school year. After graduating from high school , he completed an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk. He became a freelance journalist for daily newspapers, magazines and radio, and studied economics and social sciences at the University of Erlangen, Free University of Berlin, and Hochschule für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften Nürnberg, where he graduated in economics in 1960. His theses topic was "Der Stürmer und sein Herausgeber" .

#5426

Anne Burns

#122295

Overall Influence

Anne Burns is a British-born Australian educational linguist, internationally known for her work on genre-based pedagogy in TESOL and EAP/ESP. She is a Professor Emerita in Language Education at Aston University and Professor of TESOL at the University of New South Wales . The TESOL International Association named her one of the '50 at 50', leaders who had made a significant contribution to TESOL in its first 50 years.

#5427

Melody Gardot

#95352

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Melody Gardot is an American jazz singer. At the age of 19, Gardot was involved in a bicycle accident and sustained a head injury. Music played a critical role in her recovery. She became an advocate of music therapy, visiting hospitals and universities to discuss its benefits. In 2012, she gave her name to a music therapy program in New Jersey.

#5428

Paul Willis

#63992

Overall Influence

Paul M. A. Willis is an Australian palaeontologist, science communicator and former Director of the Royal Institution of Australia . Career Willis studied zoology and geology at University of Sydney and went on to complete a PhD in palaeontology at the University of New South Wales. He has been a resident palaeontologist on ten Antarctic expeditions and has written or co-authored eight books on dinosaurs, rocks and fossils.

#5429

Charlie Barnet

#77841

Overall Influence

1913 - 1991 (78 years)

Charles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".

#5430

Michael Peyron

#108606

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Dr. Michael Peyron is a specialist in the field of Berber language, literature and culture. He is also well known as a writer on tourism in Morocco. Michael Peyron was born in the Cannes, France. He has studied in France . His doctoral thesis at the Institut de Géographie Alpine, Grenoble's University, was on an Amazigh area in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco: "Tounfit et le pays Aït Yahia"

#5431

Igor Oistrakh

#87828

Overall Influence

1931 - 2021 (90 years)

Igor Davidovich Oistrakh was a Soviet and Russian violinist. He was described by Encyclopædia Britannica as "noted for his lean, modernist interpretations". Life and career Oistrakh was born in Odesa, Ukrainian SSR, the son of Tamara Rotareva and the violinist David Oistrakh. He began studying violin with Valeria Merenbloom at age 6, though his main teacher was his father. In 1943, the 12-year-old Oistrakh enrolled in the Central Music School, Moscow, studying with Pyotr Stolyarsky who had taught both his father and Nathan Milstein. He made his concert debut in 1948; the next year he won the...

#5432

Robert Kochersberger

#115365

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Robert C. Kochersberger Jr. is an American writer and associate professor of English at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has taught since 1986. He received his BA in journalism from St. Bonaventure University in 1972, MS from Syracuse University in 1979, and PhD from the University of Tennessee in 1986. Kochersberger is an expert on the muckraking journalism era and has published extensively on Ida Tarbell. He routinely contributes to the News & Observer.

#5433

Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin

#113025

Overall Influence

1903 - 1997 (94 years)

Marjorie Batchelder McPharlin was an American puppeteer and authority on the puppet theater. Her two best known puppetry productions were Aristophanes' The Birds and Maeterlinck's The Death of Tintagiles . She was the author of many books on puppetry, including The Puppet Theatre Handbook. She was the second honorary president of the Puppeteers of America. Her marriage to the puppeteer Paul McPharlin was in 1948, a few months before his death. Marjorie was also the creator of the hand-rod puppet which was a style Jim Henson took up for The Muppets.

#5434

Les Pattinson

#91357

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Leslie Thomas Pattinson is an English musician, best known for his work as the bassist and co-writer of the Liverpool-based band Echo & the Bunnymen, along with vocalist Ian McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant. He was brought up in Aughton, Lancashire and attended nearby Deyes High School in Maghull, where he and Sergeant were classmates and became friends.

#5435

Tomasz Stańko

#87706

Overall Influence

1942 - 2018 (76 years)

Tomasz Ludwik Stańko was a Polish trumpeter and composer. Stańko was associated with free jazz and the avant-garde. In 1962, Tomasz Stańko formed his first band, the Jazz Darings, with saxophonist Janusz Muniak, pianist Adam Makowicz, bassist Jacek Ostaszewski, drummer Wiktor Perelmuter. Inspired by Ornette Coleman and the innovations of John Coltrane, Miles Davis and George Russell, the group is often cited by music historians as the first European group to play free jazz. In his later years, he collaborated with pianist Krzysztof Komeda on Komeda's album Astigmatic, recorded in late 1965. I...

#5436

Burial

#73298

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

William Emmanuel Bevan, known by his recording alias Burial, is a British electronic musician from South London. Initially remaining anonymous, Burial became the first artist signed to Kode9's electronic label Hyperdub in 2005. He won acclaim the following year for his self-titled debut album, an influential release in the UK's dubstep scene which showcased a dark, emotive take on UK rave music styles such as UK garage and 2-step; it was named the album of the year by The Wire. Burial's second album, Untrue, was released to further critical acclaim in 2007.

#5437

Stephen Flaherty

#76294

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Stephen Flaherty is an American composer of musical theatre and film. He works most often in collaboration with the lyricist/book writer Lynn Ahrens. They are best known for writing the Broadway musicals Ragtime, which was nominated for thirteen Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and won the Tony for Best Original Score; Once on This Island, which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, the Olivier Award for London's Best Musical, and was nominated for a Grammy Award and eight Tony Awards; and Seussical, which was nominated for the Grammy Award. Flaherty was also nominated for two Acad...

#5438

Lloyd Haft

#109805

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Lloyd Haft is an American-born Dutch poet, translator, and sinologist. He has been living in the Netherlands since 1968. Haft was educated at Harvard College and Leiden University. His translations into Dutch include works by Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane. He has translated Herman Gorter, Gerrit Kouwenaar, H. H. ter Balkt, Anton Ent, Bian Zhilin, Zhou Mengdie, Yang Lingye, and Lo Fu into English.

#5439

Dave Sardy

#50416

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

David Stuart Sardy , more commonly known as D. Sardy, is an American composer, musician, songwriter, and multiple Grammy winning record producer. He came to prominence as the leader of 1990s noise rock band Barkmarket before turning mostly to production work, often with alternative rock, hard rock, electronic related genres, and then to scoring feature films.

#5440

Jacqueline Vaissière

#117551

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Jacqueline Vaissière is a French phonetician. Career Vaissière studied computing and automatic language translation under the supervision of Bernard Vauquois, at Centre d’Études et de Traduction Automatique, University of Grenoble, where she earned her PhD in 1971. She joined the Speech Communication Group at MIT , where she acquired a specialization in acoustic phonetics.

#5441

Norman Dello Joio

#96351

Overall Influence

1913 - 2008 (95 years)

Norman Dello Joio was an American composer active for over half a century. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1957. Life Dello Joio was born in New York City to Italian immigrants. He began his musical career as organist and choir director at the Star of the Sea Church on City Island in New York at age 14. His father, Casimiro Dello Joio, was an organist, pianist, part-time composer, and vocal coach and coached many opera stars from the Metropolitan Opera. He taught Norman piano starting at the age of four. In his teens, Norman began studying organ with his godfather, Pietro Yon, who was the organist at Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

#5442

Peyton Reed

#78570

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Peyton Tucker Reed is an American television and film director. He directed the comedy films Bring It On, Down with Love, The Break-Up, and Yes Man, as well as the superhero film Ant-Man and its sequels.

#5443

Chung Ling

#26622

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Chung Ling is a Taiwan-Chinese writer, critic, educator and translator. Her name also appears as Zhong Ling.[1] She was born in Chongqing in Sichuan province, a native Cantonese and came to Taiwan with her family in 1950 from Japan. Zhong was educated at a girls' school in Kaohsiung, at Tunghai University and at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.[2] She taught at State University of New York at Albany, at Hong Kong University at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, where she became Dean of Liberal Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University where she served as chair professor, Dean of Arts ...

#5444

Billy Byers

#113699

Overall Influence

1927 - 1996 (69 years)

William Mitchell Byers was an American jazz trombonist and arranger. Early life Byers was born in Los Angeles on May 1, 1927. He suffered from arthritis from a young age and was unable to continue his plans of a career as a pianist.

#5445

Renée Van Halm

#101662

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Renée Van Halm is a Canadian contemporary visual artist born in Haarlemmermeer, the Netherlands and immigrated to Canada in 1953. Exhibitions Renée Van Halm has been featured in over 30 solo exhibitions including numerous exhibitions at the S.L. Simpson Gallery and Birch Contemporary in Toronto, Ontario, as well as Equinox Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Notable exhibitions include:Interior Projections at Mercer Union, Toronto, ON Voor Gerrit/Healing at University of Lethbridge, AB Songs of Experience at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON L’ eau à la bouche, Art Galler...

#5446

Lenny White

#67850

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Leonard "Lenny" White III is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion". He has won three Grammy awards, two nominations and one Latin Grammy.

#5447

Hirokazu Kore-eda

Hirokazu Kore-eda

#75099

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Hirokazu Kore-eda is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including Nobody Knows , Still Walking , and After the Storm . He won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Like Father, Like Son and won the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters.

#5448

Kenny Drew

#99633

Overall Influence

1928 - 1993 (65 years)

Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew was an American-Danish jazz pianist. Biography Drew was born in New York City, United States, and received piano lessons from the age of five. He attended the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. Drew's first recording, in 1950, was with Howard McGhee, and over the next two years he worked in bands led by Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, among others. After a brief period with his own trio in California, Drew returned to New York, playing with Dinah Washington, Johnny Griffin, Buddy Rich, and several others over the following few years.

#5449

David Bianculli

#91547

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

David Bianculli is an American TV critic, columnist, radio personality, non-fiction author and university professor. Bianculli has served as the television critic for NPR's radio show Fresh Air since the Philadelphia-based show went national in 1987, and regularly fills in for the show's long-time host, Terry Gross. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the website TVWorthWatching.com, and an associate professor of TV and film history at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.

#5450

Mike Hebert

#73475

Overall Influence

1944 - 2019 (75 years)

Michael Robert Hebert was an American volleyball coach. He is considered to be one of the "architects" of modern high-competitive professional volleyball. Hebert coached the Pittsburgh men and women teams, New Mexico women's team, Illinois women's team, and Minnesota women's team before announcing his retirement at the conclusion of the 2010 season.

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