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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#5951

Lawrence Jun Zhang

#139376

Overall Influence

#5952

William J. Barry

#108346

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

William John Barry is a phonetician in Germany. Academic life He moved to Germany in his early years and was mainly educated at the University of Kiel by the German phonetician Klaus J. Kohler. In 1992, he was appointed to the Chair of Phonetics at Saarland University. His principal research areas were speech synthesis, rhythm and segmental structures, the application of linguistics to questions of pronunciation learning, speech-language pathology and speech technology in general.

#5953

K. Alexander Adelaar

K. Alexander Adelaar

#100958

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Karl Alexander "Sander" Adelaar is a Dutch linguist. He is primarily interested in the Austronesian languages of Borneo, Madagascar, and Taiwan, as well as the Malayic languages. He also does research on the oral and literary traditions of Indonesia.

#5954

Don Byron

#90573

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Donald Byron is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. He primarily plays clarinet but has also played bass clarinet and saxophone in a variety of genres that includes free jazz and klezmer.

#5955

Tom Harrell

#97660

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Tom Harrell is an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and arranger. Voted Trumpeter of the Year of 2018 by Jazz Journalists Association, Harrell has won awards and grants throughout his career, including multiple Trumpeter of the Year awards from DownBeat magazine, SESAC Jazz Award, BMI Composers Award, and Prix Oscar du Jazz. He received a Grammy Award nomination for his big band album, Time's Mirror.

#5956

Edith Mathis

#110816

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Edith Mathis is a Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worldwide. She is known for parts in Mozart operas, but also took part in premieres of operas such as Henze's Der junge Lord.

#5957

Mike Deasy

#82325

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Michael William Deasy is an American rock and jazz guitarist. As a session musician, he played on numerous hit singles and albums recorded in Los Angeles in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He is sometimes credited as Mike Deasy Sr.

#5958

David Eaton

#84453

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

David Eaton is an American composer and conductor who has been the music director of the New York City Symphony since 1985. He has also been an active composer and arranger, with 100 original compositionss and over 900 arrangements and original songs to his credit. He has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras in Asia, Canada, Israel, Europe, Central and South America, Russia, Ukraine and the United States. His compositions and arrangements have been performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the United Nations and by orchestras in the United States, Asia, Israel, South America and Europe.

#5959

Scott Poulson-Bryant

#72214

Overall Influence

Scott Poulson-Bryant is an American journalist and author. One of the co-founding editors of Vibe magazine in 1992 , Poulson-Bryant's journalism, profiles, reviews, and essays have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Spin, Essence, Ebony, and The Source. He is the author of HUNG: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America and a novel called The VIPs.

#5960

Helmut Walcha

#111456

Overall Influence

1907 - 1991 (84 years)

Arthur Emil Helmut Walcha was a German organist, harpsichordist, music teacher and composer who specialized in the works of the Dutch and German baroque masters. Blind since his teenage years, he is known for his recordings of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, entirely played by memory.

#5961

Lorna Cooke deVaron

#102525

Overall Influence

1921 - 2018 (97 years)

Lorna Cooke deVaron was an American choral conductor. She was one of the pre-eminent choral conductors of the 20th century, having given the world premiere or American premiere of many important works by Benjamin Britten, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Irving Fine, Gunther Schuller, Daniel Pinkham, and others. DeVaron founded the New England Conservatory Chorus, which she directed from 1947 to 1988.

#5962

Lou Marini

#82697

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Louis William Marini Jr. , known as "Blue Lou" Marini, is an American saxophonist, arranger, and composer. He is best known for his work in jazz, rock, blues, and soul music, as well as his association with The Blues Brothers.

#5963

Hans Hollmann

#61595

Overall Influence

1933 - 2022 (89 years)

Hans Hollmann was an Austrian-Swiss theatre director and actor. He also worked as a university lecturer and had a doctorate in jurisprudence. Despite having been born in Austria, for many years Hollmann lived with his family in Basel.

#5964

Johannes Schreiter

#58876

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Johannes Schreiter is a German graphic artist, printmaker, designer of stained glass, theoretician and cultural critic. Born in Buchholz in 1930, Schreiter studied in Munster, Mainz, and Berlin, before receiving a scholarship from Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in 1958. His invention of the Brandcollage in 1959 first brought him to broader cultural attention, and in 1963 he became professor of Painting and Graphic Art at the Frankfurt/Main School of Decorative Arts, and later Rector of the same. He was awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuze , the highest civilian honour granted by West Germany, in 1979.

#5965

Robert D. McChesney

#61018

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Robert Duncan McChesney is a scholar of the social and cultural history of Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan. Academic career Robert D. McChesney was born in Northampton, Massachusetts McChesney’s academic focus has been on the history Central Asia, Iran and Afghanistan from the time of the Mongol conquest through the early 20th century. Much of his work has centered on the connection of social history and architecture and the Islamic charitable institutions that supported architecture. He has taken a particular interest in the works of Afghan scholar Fayz Muhammad, in particular his monumental history of Afghanistan, Sirajul Tawarikh.

#5966

Warren Haynes

#38821

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Warren Haynes is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known for his work as longtime guitarist with the Allman Brothers Band and as founding member of the jam band Gov't Mule. Early in his career he was a guitarist for David Allan Coe and The Dickey Betts Band. Haynes also is known for his associations with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead, including touring with Phil Lesh and Friends and the Dead. In addition, Haynes founded and manages Evil Teen Records.

#5967

Henry Brant

#87914

Overall Influence

1913 - 2008 (95 years)

Henry Dreyfuss Brant was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant's works featured spatialization techniques. Biography Brant was born in Montreal, to American parents , in 1913. Something of a child prodigy, he began composing at the age of eight, and studied first at the McGill Conservatorium and then in New York City . He played violin, flute, tin whistle, piano, organ, and percussion at a professional level and was fluent with the playing techniques for all of the standard orchestral instruments.

#5968

Fred Maher

#66453

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Frederick J. Maher is an American drummer, music programmer and record producer. He was a member of the bands Massacre , the Dance, Material, Scritti Politti, and has recorded and toured with Lou Reed. In 1984 he released Basic, an instrumental collaboration album with ex-Voidoids guitarist Robert Quine.

#5969

Catherine Best

#139814

Overall Influence

Catherine Best is an American psycholinguist and Chair in Psycholinguistic Research at Western Sydney University. She is known for her works on speech perception and production.

#5970

Marek Janowski

#95102

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Marek Janowski is a Polish-born German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic. Childhood Janowski grew up in Wuppertal, near Cologne, after his mother traveled there at the start of World War II to be with her parents. His father disappeared in Poland during the war.

#5971

Vinko Globokar

#86904

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Vinko Globokar is a French-Slovenian avant-garde composer and trombonist. Globokar's music uses unconventional and extended techniques, places great emphasis on spontaneity and creativity, and often relies on improvisation. His extensive output is largely unknown outside of experimental music circles.

#5972

John Walker

#55155

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

John C. Walker, more familiarly known as John Walker, is an American concert organist, choirmaster, and CD recording artist. He is also a former president of the American Guild of Organists, elected in May 2014 to a two-year term of the 16,000-member organization. Walker has performed throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, and Europe. He is "widely recognized for his flawless technique and execution as well as his controlled and passionate playing," said Duke University in announcing a John Walker recital at Duke Chapel. Since 2006 he has served on the faculty of the Peabody Institute a...

#5973

Lonnie Liston Smith

#80160

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Lonnie Liston Smith Jr. is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with such jazz artists as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of albums widely regarded as classics in the fusion, smooth jazz and acid jazz genres.

#5974

David Matthews

#95694

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

David Matthews is an English composer of mainly orchestral, chamber, vocal and piano works. Life Matthews was born in London into a family that was musical, though not formally trained; the desire to compose did not manifest itself until he was sixteen, and for a time he and his younger brother Colin Matthews, also a composer, were each other's only teachers. The start of the 'Mahler boom' in the early 1960s, when the works of Gustav Mahler began to enter the regular British repertoire for the first time, provided a tremendous creative impetus for both of them; but although they have sometime...

#5975

Red Norvo

#81207

Overall Influence

1908 - 1999 (91 years)

Red Norvo was an American musician, one of jazz's early vibraphonists, known as "Mr. Swing". He helped establish the xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone as jazz instruments. His recordings included "Dance of the Octopus", "Bughouse", "Knockin' on Wood", "Congo Blues", and "Hole in the Wall".

#5976

Miroslav Vitouš

Miroslav Vitouš

#78346

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš is a Czech jazz bassist. Biography Early life and education Born in Prague, Vitouš began the violin at age six, switching to piano after about three years, and then to bass at age fourteen. As a young man in Europe, Vitouš was a competitive swimmer. One of his early music groups was the Junior Trio with his brother Alan on drums and Jan Hammer on keyboards. He studied music at the Prague Conservatory under František Pošta, and won a music contest in Vienna in 1966 that gave him a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, which he attended one year before...

#5977

Keith Hampton

#45510

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Keith N. Hampton is professor of media and information at Michigan State University. His research interests focus on the relationship between information and communication technology, such as the Internet, social networks, and community democratic engagement, social isolation, and participation in the urban environment.

#5978

Carlo Ponti

#96133

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Carlo Ponti Jr. is an Italian orchestral conductor working in the United States. He is the son of late film producer Carlo Ponti Sr. and Italian actress Sophia Loren, and the older brother of film director Edoardo Ponti.

#5979

Jimmy Rowles

#101664

Overall Influence

1918 - 1996 (78 years)

James George Hunter , known professionally as Jimmy Rowles , was an American jazz pianist, vocalist, and composer. As a bandleader and accompanist, he explored multiple styles including swing and cool jazz.

#5980

J. A. Giles

#140148

Overall Influence

#5981

Margery J. Turner

#117143

Overall Influence

1921 - 2004 (83 years)

Margery J. Turner was an American dancer, choreographer and author. Turner earned a B.S. degree from Chicago Teachers College in 1943, an M.S. degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1947, and a Doctoral degree from New York University in 1957.

#5982

François-Bernard Mâche

#97805

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

François-Bernard Mâche is a French composer of contemporary music. Biography Born into a family of musicians, he is a former student of Émile Passani and Olivier Messiaen and has also received a diploma in Greek archaeology and a teaching certificate . He was a member of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris from 1958–63. He has composed electroacoustic, orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal and piano works. He has been a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts since 2002 and occupies the chair of the late Iannis Xenakis.

#5983

Ray Anderson

#113662

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Ray Anderson is an American journalist who worked at The New York Times as a foreign correspondent. He is also a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison's School of Journalism. Life and education Anderson joined the Navy at the age of 17. After his military service, he attended the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire where he studied pre-journalism. He then went to Los Angeles and studied photojournalism. Eventually he attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and received a bachelor's degree and master's degree in Russian. After his graduate work in Madison, Anderson received a Fulbright Scholarship and subsequently studied at the Slavic Institute in Denmark.

#5984

Leslie M. Klevay

#140249

Overall Influence

#5985

Fred Hersch

#95707

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Fred Hersch is an American jazz pianist, composer, educator and HIV/AIDS activist. He was the first person to play weeklong engagements as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has recorded more than 70 of his jazz compositions. Hersch has been nominated for several Grammy Awards, and, as of December 2014, had been on the Jazz Studies faculty of the New England Conservatory since 1980 .

#5986

Michael Masser

#53655

Overall Influence

1941 - 2015 (74 years)

Michael William Masser was an American songwriter, composer and producer of popular music. Early life Born to a Jewish family in Chicago to Ester Huff and William Masser, he attended the University of Illinois College of Law. He became a stockbroker, but left to pursue his interest in music.

#5987

James Renwick

#52107

Overall Influence

James Arthur Renwick CRSNZ is a New Zealand weather and climate researcher. He is professor of physical geography at Victoria University of Wellington, specialising in large-scale climate variations. He was awarded the 2018 New Zealand Prime Minister's Science Prize for Communication by Jacinda Ardern.

#5988

Martin Owen

#108758

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Martin Owen is a British classical horn player. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music. He was principal horn of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra 19982008. In 2008, he was appointed principal horn of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

#5989

Rachel Pollack

#78137

Overall Influence

1945 - 2023 (78 years)

Rachel Grace Pollack was an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. Early life and education Pollack was born on August 17, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York. She earned an honours degree in English from New York University and a master's in English from Claremont Graduate University.

#5990

John Roberts

#78434

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

John David Roberts is a Canadian-American television journalist currently working for the Fox News Channel, as the co-anchor of America Reports. Roberts formerly worked as the Fox News Chief White House Correspondent from 2017 to 2021, covering the Donald Trump presidency.

#5991

Simone Young

#100250

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor. She is currently chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Biography and career Young was born in Sydney, of Irish ancestry on her father's side and Croatian ancestry on her mother's. Young was educated at the Monte Sant'Angelo Mercy College in North Sydney. She studied composition, piano and conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

#5992

Pascal Gygax

#104761

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Pascal Mark Gygax, born in Evilard/Leubringen , is a Swiss psycholinguist, specializing in inclusive language in French. He is the cofounder and director of the Psycholinguistics and Applied Social Psychology Group at the University of Fribourg.

#5993

Philip Ewell

#61498

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Philip Adrian Ewell is an American professor of music theory at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center. He specializes in Russian and twentieth century music, as well as rap and hip hop. Early life and education Phillip Adrian Ewell was born on February 16, 1966, and grew up in DeKalb, Illinois. Ewell received a BA in music from Stanford University, an MA in cello performance from Queens College , and a PhD in music theory from Yale University. His dissertation, Analytical Approaches to Large-Scale Structure in the Music of Alexander Scriabin, was advised by Allen Forte.

#5994

Reggie Workman

#86488

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Reginald "Reggie" Workman is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey. Career Early in his career, Workman worked in jazz groups led by Gigi Gryce, Donald Byrd, Duke Jordan and Booker Little. In 1961, Workman joined the John Coltrane Quartet, replacing Steve Davis. He was present for the saxophonist's Live at the Village Vanguard sessions, and also recorded with a second bassist on the 1961 album, Olé Coltrane. Workman left Coltrane's group at the end of the year, following a European tour.

#5995

Toshiko Akiyoshi

Toshiko Akiyoshi

#69102

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Toshiko Akiyoshi is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. Akiyoshi received fourteen Grammy Award nominations and was the first woman to win Best Arranger and Composer awards in Down Beat magazine's annual Readers' Poll. In 1984, she was the subject of the documentary Jazz Is My Native Language. In 1996, she published her autobiography, Life with Jazz, and in 2007 she was named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.

#5996

Michael Harvey

#114236

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Michael Harvey is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. Career Harvey is the author of seven crime novels, The Chicago Way, The Fifth Floor, The Third Rail, We All Fall Down, The Innocence Game, The Governor's Wife, and Brighton. Harvey is also an investigative reporter, documentary producer and co-creator, producer and executive producer of A&E's groundbreaking forensic series, Cold Case Files. Harvey's investigative journalism and documentary work has won multiple news Emmys and CableACE awards, numerous national and international film festival awards, a CINE Golden Eagle, two Prime-Time Emmy nominations, as well as an Academy Award nomination.

#5997

Guglielmo Cinque

#140490

Overall Influence

#5998

David Cole

#99847

Overall Influence

1962 - 1995 (33 years)

David Byron Cole was an American songwriter and record producer. Cole was one half of the dance-music duo C+C Music Factory, which he founded with his musical partner Robert Clivillés. Robert Clivillés and David Cole also produced various hits for other artists such as Mariah Carey, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Deborah Cooper, and many others. After Cole's death in 1995, Robert Clivillés continued to keep C+C Music Factory going through his own production work.

#5999

Bill Miller

#118879

Overall Influence

1915 - 2006 (91 years)

Bill Miller was an American jazz pianist, who accompanied Frank Sinatra for more than 50 years, and for the last eight years of his life, accompanied Frank Sinatra Jr. Life and career Miller was born in Brooklyn, New York. Performing with Red Norvo, Mildred Bailey and Charlie Barnet in the 1930s, Miller also performed with Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.

#6000

Jo Joyner

#96438

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Joanne Mary Joyner is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Tanya Branning in the BBC soap opera EastEnders and Mandy Carter in Channel 4 drama Ackley Bridge. From 2018, she has starred as Luella Shakespeare in the BBC crime drama series Shakespeare & Hathaway: Private Investigators.

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