The Most Influential People Across History
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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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#6251
Jim Jonsin
#53795
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
James Gregory Scheffer , professionally known as Jim Jonsin, is an American record producer from South Florida. He has produced for numerous musical artists, including Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, Usher, Lil Wayne, Kid Cudi, Eminem, Pitbull, Yelawolf, Nelly, T.I., Danity Kane and Jamie Foxx, among others. Jonsin won a Grammy Award in 2009, for Best Rap Song for Lil Wayne's "Lollipop". That year he was also nominated for his production on T.I.'s "Whatever You Like", which also garnered a nomination for Best Rap Song.
Go to Profile#6252
Ivaylo Ditchev
#77623
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Ivaylo Stefanov Ditchev was a Bulgarian anthropologist. He was a professor of cultural anthropology at Sofia University. He also taught abroad, mainly in France and the United States. Biography Ivaylo Ditchev was born on 28 March 1955. He held a doctorate from Sofia and Paris-7 universities. He focused on political culture and urban anthropology of Southeast Europe and the Balkans. Ditchev died on 6 November 2023, at the age of 68.
Go to Profile#6253
Hans Zender
#90547
Overall Influence
1936 - 2019 (83 years)
Johannes Wolfgang Zender was a German conductor and composer. He was the chief conductor of several opera houses, and his compositions, many of them vocal music, have been performed at international festivals.
Go to Profile#6254
Michael Johnson
#98070
Overall Influence
1944 - 2017 (73 years)
Michael Jay Johnson was an American pop, country, and folk singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best remembered for his 1978 hit song "Bluer Than Blue". He charted four hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and nine more on Hot Country Songs, including two number one country hits in 1986's "Give Me Wings" and "The Moon Is Still Over Her Shoulder". He also co-wrote "Cain's Blood", the debut single of 1990s country group 4 Runner.
Go to Profile#6255
Unsuk Chin
#79992
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (65 years)
Unsuk Chin is a South Korean composer of contemporary classical music, who is based in Berlin, Germany. Chin was a self-taught pianist from a young age and studied composition at Seoul National University as well as with György Ligeti at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.
Go to Profile#6256
Ed Grady
#131819
Overall Influence
1923 - 2012 (89 years)
Edward Louis Grady was an American stage, film and television actor and teacher. Early life Grady was born to Eddie Jones Grady and Maude Clara Grady on August 31, 1923, in Kinston, North Carolina. He graduated from Grainger High School in Kinston. Grady enlisted in the Army Air Force during World War II and trained as a cryptographer. He served on Ie Shima during the war, and was awarded the Soldier's Medal for rescuing the pilot of a P-47 which was on fire.
Go to Profile#6257
Arthur P. Barnes
#104880
Overall Influence
Arthur P. Barnes is a former professor of music at Stanford University. He directed the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band from 1963 to 1997. Career After teaching band and music theory at Fresno State University, Barnes came to Stanford to get his doctorate in music education, and took over as interim director of the Stanford Band , winning over a group of students that had been in a state of anarchy until his arrival with his charts of rock and roll songs, including tunes by The Beatles, Chicago, and The Rolling Stones. His ability to transform popular rock songs into two-minute band pieces soon became the stuff of legend.
Go to Profile#6258
Perry Fenwick
#95518
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Perry Fenwick is an English actor. He is known for portraying the role of Billy Mitchell in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, a role which he has played since 1998. Career Television Fenwick's first regular television role was in the sitcom Watching. He has also appeared in Inspector Morse, The Brittas Empire, Minder, On the Up, The Thin Blue Line, and Bergerac. In 1995, Fenwick played a role in the Crimewatch File episode "Sorry Sarah".
Go to Profile#6259
Frank Sinatra Jr.
#88637
Overall Influence
1944 - 2016 (72 years)
Francis Wayne Sinatra , professionally known as Frank Sinatra Jr., was an American singer, songwriter, and conductor. He was the son of singer and actor Frank Sinatra and his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra, the younger brother of singer and actress Nancy Sinatra, and the older brother of television producer Tina Sinatra.
Go to Profile#6260
David Bryan
#58886
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
David Bryan Rashbaum is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the keyboard player for the rock band Bon Jovi, with which he also co-wrote songs and performed backing vocals. In 2018, Bryan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Bon Jovi. He is also known for writing the music and co-writing the lyrics with Joe DiPietro for the musical Memphis, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Original Score.
Go to Profile#6261
Charlie Bisharat
#68553
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Charlie Bisharat is an American violinist known as a member of Shadowfax and for his work in film and with other new age jazz artists. Life and career He was born in Inglewood, California, in 1963 to Palestinian parents who immigrated to the United States from Israel in the 1950s.
Go to Profile#6262
Kevin Martin
#99147
Overall Influence
Kevin Richard Martin, often known under his recording alias The Bug, is an English musician and music producer. Martin moved from Weymouth to London around 1990 and is now currently based in mainland Europe. He has been active for over two decades in the genres of dub, jazzcore, industrial hip hop, dancehall, and dubstep.
Go to Profile#6263
Cheryl Studer
#112672
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Cheryl Studer is an American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's foremost opera houses. Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and coloratura sopranos, and, in her late stage, mezzo-sopranos. She is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner.
Go to Profile#6264
Janice Lough
#143029
Overall Influence
Janice Lough is a climate scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science at James Cook University, researching climate change, and impacts of temperature and elevated on coral reefs. She was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 2022 for her research in climate change, coral reefs, and developing high resolution environmental and growth histories from corals, particularly the Great Barrier Reef.
Go to Profile#6265
Wolf Koenig
#94734
Overall Influence
1927 - 2014 (87 years)
Wolf Koenig was a Canadian film director, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada. Early life Born in Dresden, Germany, Koenig emigrated to Canada with his family in 1937, when they fled Nazi Germany. They settled in farm along the Grand River, outside what is now known as Cambridge, Ontario. In 1948, a local representative for the Canadian department of agriculture needed the family's tractor to demonstrate a new tree-planting machine. As the young Koenig pulled the machine across a field, he noticed a small film crew from the NFB's former agricultural film unit, recording the demonstration.
Go to Profile#6266
August Kovačec
#96903
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
August Kovačec is Croatian linguist and Romanicist. He was born in Donje Jesenje. He received a degree in Romance and Russian philology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb in 1960, and a PhD in 1965. From 1960 to 1962, he worked as Croatian language editor at the University of Bucharest. In 1962 he started working at the Department of Romance Languages at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, becoming professor in 1983. From 1966 to 1967 he went to Paris to further study under André Martinet and Émile Benveniste.
Go to Profile#6267
Bill Doggett
#92930
Overall Influence
1916 - 1996 (80 years)
William Ballard Doggett was an American pianist and organist. He began his career playing swing music before transitioning into rhythm and blues. Best known for his instrumental compositions "Honky Tonk" and "Hippy Dippy", Doggett was a pioneer of rock and roll. He worked with the Ink Spots, Johnny Otis, Wynonie Harris, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Jordan.
Go to Profile#6268
Dorota Simonides
#51862
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (98 years)
Dorota Elżbieta Simonides - Polish folklorist and politician. Professor emerita of the Faculty of Philology, Opole University. During the People's Republic of Poland period she joined a small non-Marxist 'satellite party', the Democratic Party , and was a member of parliament of the Sejm of People's Republic of Poland in 1980–1985. She was one of only a few MPs who did not vote in favour of martial law in 1981 and the criminalisation of Solidarity in 1984.
Go to Profile#6269
Kurt Eichhorn
#121117
Overall Influence
1908 - 1994 (86 years)
Kurt Peter Eichhorn , was a German conductor. Eichhorn was born in Munich, the son of a painter. He studied music at the conservatory in Würzburg with Hermann Zilcher and progressed through provincial houses. His conducting debut was in 1932 as a conductor and choral conductor in Bielefeld. He also worked as a conductor in Teplitz-Schönau and Karlsbad. Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland provided Eichhorn with career openings in Teplice and Karlovy Vary . He began conducting at the far more significant Dresden State Opera in 1941, and was a conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic in 1944.
Go to Profile#6270
Andrew Gettelman
#145476
Overall Influence
#6271
Rolf Bremmer
#94259
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Rolf Hendrik Bremmer is a Dutch academic. He is professor of Old and Middle English, and extraordinary professor of Old Frisian, at Leiden University. Biography Rolf Bremmer's father, also named Rolf Hendrik Bremmer , was a theologian and preacher associated with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and a student of Klaas Schilder. He married Lucie Gera Arina Lindeboom in 1943 in The Hague; she was the daughter of a Reformed preacher . Rolf Jr.'s older brother J.N. Bremmer is professor of church history at the University of Groningen.
Go to Profile#6272
Hans-Christoph Rademann
#96669
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Hans-Christoph Rademann is a German choral conductor, currently the director of the Dresdner Kammerchor and the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart. Career Born in Dresden, Rademann grew up in Schwarzenberg and received his first musical experiences in his father's church choir. As a teenager he was taught the violin and piano. From 1975 to 1983, he was a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor. After completing school, he studied choral and orchestral conducting at the Musikhochschule Dresden until 1990. He acquired further experience in several classes with Helmuth Rilling and Philippe Herrewegh...
Go to Profile#6273
Takashi Tachibana
#102385
Overall Influence
1940 - 2021 (81 years)
Takashi Tachibana was a Japanese journalist. He was known for his articles on Japanese social problems. History Tachibana graduated from the University of Tokyo, majoring in French literature. At one point he served in the magazine Bungeishunjū, however, he only worked there for two years, quitting after being assigned to write articles about professional baseball. He returned to school at Tokyo University, during which time he wrote numerous nonfiction articles for the magazine Shokun!. Among the articles were ones on topics such as the Scientific Revolution, space travel, and crude oil. Beca...
Go to Profile#6274
Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine
#68116
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine is a French philosopher, essayist, and historian of East European history and culture. Laignel-Lavastine holds a PhD in History and Philosophy. She studied at Paris-Sorbonne University and then at the Center for Training of Journalists , before devoting herself to a career as an essayist.
Go to Profile#6275
Brillante Mendoza
#84367
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Brillante Mendoza is a Filipino independent filmmaker. Mendoza is known one of the key members associated with the Philippine New Wave. Career Mendoza was born and raised in San Fernando, Pampanga. He took advertising arts of the College of Architecture and fine arts at the University of Santo Tomas.
Go to Profile#6276
Yvonne Ciannella
#121220
Overall Influence
1926 - 2022 (96 years)
Yvonne Regina Ciannella was an American coloratura soprano in opera and concert. She began her career performing and recording with the Robert Shaw Chorale in the early 1950s. After graduate voice studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, she embarked on a career as an opera singer; working mainly in Germany at the Staatstheater Braunschweig, Theater Bonn, and Theater Dortmund during the 1960s. She also appeared as a guest artist with opera companies in Berlin, Cologne, Florida, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Vienna. For many years she was a member of the voice faculty of the College of Music at Florida...
Go to Profile#6277
John Russell
#101754
Overall Influence
1921 - 1991 (70 years)
John Lawrence Russell was an American film and television actor, most noted for his starring role as Marshal Dan Troop in the ABC western television series Lawman from 1958 to 1962 and his lead role as international adventurer Tim Kelly in the syndicated TV series Soldiers of Fortune from 1955 to 1957.
Go to Profile#6278
Marv Tarplin
#82222
Overall Influence
1941 - 2011 (70 years)
Marvin Tarplin was an American musician, best known as the guitarist for the Miracles from the 1950s through the early 1970s. He was one of the group's original members and co-wrote several of their biggest hits, including the 1965 Grammy Hall Of Fame-inducted "The Tracks of My Tears". He is also a winner of the BMI Songwriter's Award, and the ASCAP Award Of Merit, and was a 2012 posthumous inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Miracles.
Go to Profile#6279
Christian Thielemann
#85369
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Christian Thielemann is a German conductor. He is currently chief conductor of the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the designated Generalmusikdirektor of the Berlin State Opera . Biography and career Born in West Berlin, Thielemann studied viola and piano there and took private lessons in composition and conducting before becoming répétiteur aged 19 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Heinrich Hollreiser and working as Herbert von Karajan's assistant. He worked at a number of smaller German theatres including the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, in Karlsruhe, Hanover, at Düsseldorf's Deutsche...
Go to Profile#6280
Alan Taylor
#74659
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Alan Taylor is an American television director, film director, screenwriter, and television producer. He is best known for his work on television series such as The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones. He also directed films such as Palookaville, Thor: The Dark World, Terminator Genisys, and The Many Saints of Newark.
Go to Profile#6281
Seldon Powell
#108524
Overall Influence
1928 - 1997 (69 years)
Seldon Powell was an American soul jazz, swing, and R&B tenor saxophonist and flautist born in Lawrenceville, Virginia. He worked with Tab Smith , Lucky Millinder , Neal Hefti, Louis Bellson, and Jimmy Witherspoon. During the 1960s he ventured into the soul jazz idiom and worked with Clark Terry, Lou Donaldson, Johnny Hammond Smith, and Buddy Rich.
Go to Profile#6282
Joseph W. Polisi
#15114
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Joseph William Polisi was the President of The Juilliard School from 1984 to May 2017, having assumed the position upon the death of his predecessor, Peter Mennin. Born in New York City to an Italian family, Dr. Polisi is the son of William Polisi, a bassoonist who performed with the New York Philharmonic. He was instrumental in the construction of Juilliard's Meredith Willson Residence Hall, and has focused his tenure on "community building". Polisi is the author of The Artist as Citizen, a book which implores the classical music world to reach out to society at large.
Go to Profile#6283
David Toshio Tsumura
#48866
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
is a linguist, Old Testament scholar, Dean of Faculty and professor of Old Testament professor of Japan Bible Seminary. His degrees are M.Div., M.A., Ph.D. He is a chairman of the Tokyo Museum of Biblical Archaeology, and editor of Exegetica: Studies in Biblical Exegesis and chairman of New Japanese Bible（新改訳）Publishing Association. Most notably responsible for the commentary on the First Book of Samuel in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament series.
Go to Profile#6284
Margaret Ann Neale
#145759
Overall Influence
#6285
Jon English
#123419
Overall Influence
1949 - 2016 (67 years)
Jonathan James English was an English-born Australian singer, songwriter, musician and actor. He emigrated from England to Australia with his parents in 1961. He was an early vocalist and rhythm guitarist for Sebastian Hardie but left to take on the role of Judas Iscariot in the Australian version of the stage musical Jesus Christ Superstar from May 1972, which was broadcast on television. English was also a noted solo singer; his Australian top twenty hit singles include "Turn the Page", "Hollywood Seven", "Words are Not Enough", "Six Ribbons" and "Hot Town".
Go to Profile#6286
Simon Emmerson
#99993
Overall Influence
1956 - 2023 (67 years)
Simon Emmerson was an English musician and record producer. He founded the bands Working Week, Weekend, and Afro Celt Sound System. Early life and education Simon was born in London, the son of Alan Emmerson, an architect who had also worked as manager for the rock band Screw, and his wife, Mercia , a sociology lecturer, both members of the Communist party. He attended Ibstock Place School and then Wandsworth School. He attended Forest School Camps, in which his father was heavily involved, and there he developed his love of folk song, nature and bird watching.
Go to Profile#6287
Erskine Hawkins
#84308
Overall Influence
1914 - 1993 (79 years)
Erskine Ramsay Hawkins was an American trumpeter and big band leader from Birmingham, Alabama, dubbed "The 20th Century Gabriel". He is best remembered for composing the jazz standard "Tuxedo Junction" with saxophonist and arranger Bill Johnson. The song became a hit during World War II, rising to No. 7 nationally and to No. 1 nationally . Vocalists who were featured with Erskine's orchestra include Ida James, Delores Brown, and Della Reese. Hawkins was named after Alabama industrialist Erskine Ramsay.
Go to Profile#6288
Alan Shulman
#112846
Overall Influence
1915 - 2002 (87 years)
Alan Shulman was an American composer and cellist. He wrote a considerable amount of symphonic music, chamber music, and jazz music. Trumpeter Eddie Bailey said, "Alan had the greatest ear of any musician I ever came across. He had better than perfect pitch. I've simply never met anyone like him." Some of his more well known works include his 1940 Neo-Classical Theme and Variations for Viola and Piano and his A Laurentian Overture, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1952 under the baton of Guido Cantelli. Also of note is his 1948 Concerto for Cello and Orchestra which was also premiered by the New York Philharmonic with cellist Leonard Rose and conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos.
Go to Profile#6289
Paul Humphrey
#101083
Overall Influence
1935 - 2014 (79 years)
Paul Nelson Humphrey was an American jazz and R&B drummer. Biography Humphrey was born in Detroit and began playing drums at age eight, taking private lessons in Detroit. In high school he played baritone horn, trombone and drums in the school band. Upon graduation he entered the U.S. Navy and studied under Kenneth J. Abendschein, touring the world and playing with many jazz figures of 1950s.
Go to Profile#6290
Prince Paul
#73963
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Paul Edward Huston , better known by his stage name Prince Paul, is an American record producer, disc jockey and recording artist from Amityville, New York. Paul began his career as a DJ for Stetsasonic. He has worked on albums by Boogie Down Productions, Gravediggaz, MC Lyte, Big Daddy Kane and 3rd Bass, among others. Major recognition for Prince Paul came when he produced De La Soul's debut album 3 Feet High and Rising , in which he pioneered new approaches to hip hop production, mixing and sampling, notably by including comedy sketches.
Go to Profile#6291
Matti Rantanen
#132441
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Matti Juhani Rantanen is a Finnish accordionist. Rantanen won the Finnish Youth Accordion Championship four successive times from 1964 to 1967, national championship in 1968, the Scandinavian championship in 1969 and 1970, and was third in the world championship in 1970.
Go to Profile#6292
Gustavo Cardoso
#51643
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Gustavo Cardoso is Full Professor of Communication Sciences at ISCTE - Lisbon University Institute, Portugal and a member of the Innovation Lab Annenberg School of Communication and World Internet Project both based at the University of Southern California. He was also a visiting professor at the IN3 in Barcelona and Directeur d'Études Associes at FMSH Paris. Currently he directs the Doctoral Program in Communication Sciences at ISCTE-IUL and the Postdegree in Journalism in the same institution. He is also member of the Board of OberCom and OBS Journal Editor . His reflection analysis on poli...
Go to Profile#6293
Mary Beth Oliver
#109688
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Mary Beth Oliver is a Distinguished Professor of Media Studies at the Penn State College of Communications, where she is also the co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory. Education and career Oliver received her B.A. from Virginia Tech in communication studies in 1986. She then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in 1988 and 1991, respectively. Both of her graduate degrees were in communication arts.
Go to Profile#6294
Akin Odebunmi
#107980
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Akin Odebunmi is a Yoruba Nigerian Professor of Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis in the Department of English, University of Ibadan. Born on December 21, 1967, he is a widely traveled scholar in pragmatics and intercultural studies.
Go to Profile#6295
Wilhelm Killmayer
#103969
Overall Influence
1927 - 2017 (90 years)
Wilhelm Killmayer was a German composer of classical music, a conductor and an academic teacher of composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München from 1973 to 1992. He composed symphonies and song cycles on poems by Friedrich Hölderlin, Joseph von Eichendorff, Georg Trakl and Peter Härtling, among others.
Go to Profile#6296
Gunnar Myhre
#146069
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
#6297
Richard Hayman
#116033
Overall Influence
1920 - 2014 (94 years)
Richard Warren Joseph Hayman was an American musician who was the chief music arranger of the Boston Pops Orchestra for over 50 years, and served as a pops conductor for orchestras including the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony and the Grand Rapids Symphony in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Go to Profile#6298
Curtis Roads
#112458
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Curtis Roads is an American composer, author and computer programmer. He composes electronic and electroacoustic music, specializing in granular and pulsar synthesis. Career and music Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Roads studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of California San Diego. He is former chair and current vice chair of the Media Arts and Technology Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has previously taught at the University of Naples "Federico II", Harvard University, Oberlin Conservatory, Les Ateliers UPIC , and the University...
Go to Profile#6299
Richard Jakoby
#100848
Overall Influence
1929 - 2017 (88 years)
Richard Matthias Jakoby was a German music teacher and cultural manager and until 1993 director of the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover. Life Born in Dreis, Jakoby was the sixth of seven children . He attended school in Klüsserath and from 1937 in Trier . During the Second World War he was a student in the medical service and for a short time he was called up for the Volkssturm to dig tank trenches. The family moved back to Dreis after the destruction of Trier by bombing in 1944. At times he worked and lived in the winery of his piano teacher. From 1946 he attended the Cusanus-Gymna...
Go to Profile#6300
Larry Lavender
#83748
Overall Influence
Larry Lavender is an American dancer and dance scholar. He is the author of the book Dancers Talking Dance: Critical Evaluation in the Choreography Class. Biography Lavender did not begin training in dance until he was a college student. He has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the University of California, Irvine and a Ph.D in Dance Education from New York University.
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