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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Person Name

School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#6351

Karl Moore

#66009

Overall Influence

Karl Moore is an associate professor at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He holds a joint appointment in the Department of Strategy and Organization at the Desautels Faculty of Management and the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill's Faculty of Medicine, however, he is not a medical professional, he does leadership teaching and coaching. Moore was previously on the faculty of Templeton College at Oxford University for five years, where he remains an Associate Fellow. Before joining academia, he worked 12 years in sales and marketing management positions with IBM, Bull and Hitachi.

#6352

Ray McKinley

#91327

Overall Influence

1910 - 1995 (85 years)

Ray McKinley was an American jazz drummer, singer, and bandleader. He played drums and later led the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra in Europe. He also led the new Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1956.

#6353

Keith Taylor

#52400

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Keith John Taylor is an Australian science fiction and fantasy writer. Biography Born in Tasmania, Taylor now resides in Melbourne, Australia. Getting his start in Ted White's Fantastic, Taylor went on to collaborate with Andrew J. Offutt on two novels based upon the Robert E. Howard hero, Cormac Mac Art – an Irish Viking active in King Arthur's time.

#6354

Bob Babbitt

#74224

Overall Influence

1937 - 2012 (75 years)

Robert Andrew Kreinar , known as Bob Babbitt, was a Hungarian-American bassist, most famous for his work as a member of Motown Records' studio band, the Funk Brothers, from 1966 to 1972, as well as his tenure as part of MFSB for Philadelphia International Records afterwards. Also in 1968, with Mike Campbell, Ray Monette and Andrew Smith he formed the band Scorpion, which lasted until 1970. He is ranked number 59 on Bass Player magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time".

#6355

Ryan Clark

#89560

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Ryan Curtis Clark is an American musician who also has performed under the stage name Maven. He is best known as the lead vocalist of the Christian metal band Demon Hunter, which he co-founded with his brother, guitarist Don Clark. He was also the frontman for Christian metalcore band Training for Utopia along with being one of the guitarists for Focal Point. He is featured on Zao's The Lesser Lights of Heaven DVD and Mark Salomon's Podcast, Never Was.

#6356

Sergey Kolosov

#127112

Overall Influence

1921 - 2012 (91 years)

Sergey Nikolayevich Kolosov was a Soviet and Russian film director, screenwriter, and pedagogue. People's Artist of the USSR . Biography He was born in Moscow into a family of actors Nikolai Alekseyevich Kolosov-Mayevsky and Lyubov Isidorovna Frank.

#6357

Kenneth Kiesler

#102646

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Kenneth Kiesler is an American symphony orchestra and opera conductor and mentor to conductors. Kiesler is conductor laureate of the Illinois Symphony Orchestra where he was music director from 1980 to 2000 and founder and director of the Conductors Retreat at Medomak. In 2014, Kiesler was nominated for a Grammy Award for his recording of Darius Milhaud’s opera L’Orestie d’Eschyle. He is Director of Orchestras and Professor of Conducting at the University of Michigan.

#6358

Yui

#88163

Overall Influence

1987 - Present (39 years)

Yui , stylized as YUI or yui, is a Japanese singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. In her solo career, she sold more than 5 million physical copies in Japan. She is popular in Japan and in surrounding countries, ranking number one in 2011 Count Down TV "Dearest Female Artist" and Music Station "Artist You Most Want to Marry" polls, as well as Radio Television Hong Kong's "Most Popular Japanese Artist".

#6359

Paul Franklin

#45822

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Paul V. Franklin is an American multi-instrumentalist, known mainly for his work as a steel guitarist. He began his career in the 1970s as a member of Barbara Mandrell's road band; in addition he toured with Vince Gill, Mel Tillis, Jerry Reed and Dire Straits. He has since become a prolific session musician in Nashville, playing on more than 500 albums. He has been named by the Academy of Country Music as Best Steel Guitarist on several occasions. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 2000 and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019. With thirty, Franklin is the most nom...

#6360

Christian Lacroix

Christian Lacroix

#97931

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Christian Marie Marc Lacroix is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded. Lacroix's designs combine luxury and insouciance. He prefers artisanal trades, fringe, bead, and embroidery. He's characterized by a strong sense of colour, and patterns mix.

#6361

Lillian Wolock Elliott

#132667

Overall Influence

1930 - 1994 (64 years)

Lillian Wolock Elliott was an American fiber artist, and textile designer. She is known for her innovative basket craft. Biography Lillian Wolock Elliott was born in 1930 in Detroit, Michigan. She attended Wayne State University , and Cranbrook Academy of Art . After she graduated school, she worked at Ford Motor Company, as a designer from 1955 to 1958.

#6362

Manfred Krifka

#147264

Overall Influence

#6363

Gus Van Sant

#79181

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American film director, producer, photographer, and musician who has earned acclaim as an independent filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultures, in particular homosexuality. Van Sant is considered one of the most prominent auteurs of the New Queer Cinema movement.

#6364

Carol Burnett

#74836

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Carol Creighton Burnett is an American comedian, actress, and singer. Her groundbreaking comedy-variety show The Carol Burnett Show, which originally aired on CBS, was one of the first to be hosted by a woman. She has performed onstage, on television, and in film in varying genres, including dramatic and comedic roles. She has received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and seven Golden Globe Awards. Burnett was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2013, and the Screen Actors Guild Lif...

#6365

Denis Smalley

#103770

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Denis Arthur Smalley is a composer of electroacoustic music, with a special interest in acousmatic music. Biography Denis Smalley studied at the University of Canterbury and Victoria University in his native New Zealand, and later at the Paris Conservatoire with Olivier Messiaen, with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales , and at the University of York.

#6366

Toshio Masuda

#112057

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

is a Japanese composer. He has composed and synthesized scores for several Japanese television shows and animated series. Masuda is perhaps best known as the composer of the 2002 hit anime series Naruto where he combined traditional instruments like the shamisen and shakuhachi together with guitar, drums, bass, piano and other keyboard instruments along with chanting.

#6367

Jacob Druckman

#101469

Overall Influence

1928 - 1996 (68 years)

Jacob Raphael Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. Life A graduate of the Juilliard School in 1956, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de Musique in Paris . He worked extensively with electronic music, in addition to a number of works for orchestra or for small ensembles. In 1972 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his first large orchestral work, Windows. He was composer-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic from 1982 until 1985.

#6368

Antoine Dumas

#146030

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Antoine Dumas was a Canadian painter. Biography Dumas studied at the École des beaux-arts de Québec. He began working as a graphic designer for Payeur Publicité. He then became an illustrator. In 1969, he moved to California to study at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco after being recommended by Jean Paul Lemieux. In 1970, he published À l'enseigne d'antan, a perspective on traditional Québécois insignias. He created three stamps for Canada Post to commemorate Germaine Guèvremont, Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, and the 25th Quebec Winter Carnival. In 1977, he illustrated a luxury edition of the book Kamouraska by Anne Hébert.

#6369

Krzysztof Meyer

Krzysztof Meyer

#100085

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Krzysztof Meyer is a Polish composer, pianist, and music scholar, formerly dean of the Department of Music Theory at the State College of Music , and president of the Union of Polish Composers . Meyer was professor of composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne from 1987 to 2008, before his retirement.

#6370

Jon Christensen

#103562

Overall Influence

1943 - 2020 (77 years)

Jon Ivar Christensen was a Norwegian jazz drummer. He was married to actress, minister, and theater director Ellen Horn, and was the father of singer and actress Emilie Stoesen Christensen. Career In the late 1960s, Christensen played alongside Jan Garbarek on several recordings by the composer George Russell. He also was a central participant in the jazz band Masqualero, with Arild Andersen, and they reappeared in 2003 for his 60th anniversary. He appears on many recordings on the ECM label with such artists as Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Bobo Stenson, Eberhard Weber, Ralph To...

#6371

Isabelle Faust

#125245

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Isabelle Faust is a German violinist who has worked internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She received multiple awards. Life and career Faust was born in Esslingen on 12 March 1972. She received her first violin lessons at the age of five. Her father, then a 31 year old secondary school teacher, decided to learn the violin. He took his young daughter along: the father's talent was not especially stellar, but his daughter was able to learn the technical fundamentals of violin playing correctly and at an unusually early age, quickly herself becoming the star pupil. Shortly after th...

#6372

Ann Lund

#147479

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Ann Lund is a journalist based in Brisbane, Australia. Biography Lund was born in the UK, is a graduate of Modern English and holds a post graduate diploma in broadcast journalism. She worked for the BBC as a reporter, producer and presenter in radio and television, and as a specialist reporter for the BBC's political unit "Out of Westminster" in Bristol.

#6373

Jimmy Adegoke

#40283

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

James O. Adegoke is a Nigerian-American climate scientist and professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City where he served as Chair of the Department of Geosciences . He also served as an appointee of the Mayor of Kansas City Missouri on the city's Environmental Management Commission and has testified before the South Africa Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Science and Technology and the Climate Change Committee of the Nigerian House of Representatives. In the United States, he has testified at the United States House of Representatives for the United States House Select Committee ...

#6374

Roy Nichols

#110456

Overall Influence

1932 - 2001 (69 years)

Roy Ernest Nichols was an American country music guitarist best known as the lead guitarist for Merle Haggard's band The Strangers for more than two decades. He was known for his guitar technique, a mix of fingerpicking and pedal steel-like bends, usually played on a Fender Telecaster electric guitar. Nichols is considered one of the founders of the country music subgenre the “Bakersfield Sound”, which includes such notable country artists as Haggard, Buck Owens, and Don Rich.

#6375

Johnny Gimble

#77097

Overall Influence

1926 - 2015 (89 years)

John Paul Gimble was an American country musician associated with Western swing. Gimble was considered one of the most important fiddlers in the genre. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 in the early influences category as a member of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

#6376

Steve Johnson

#67900

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Steve Johnson is an American special effects artist whose career has spanned more than thirty years. His work has appeared in over 200 films, countless television shows, theme parks, commercials, and music videos. Some of his best-known creations include Slimer for Ghostbusters , the alien seductress Sil for Species , Robin Williams's robotics for Bicentennial Man , and Doctor Octopus's arms for Spider-Man 2 .

#6377

Guy Wood

#118094

Overall Influence

1911 - 2001 (90 years)

Guy B. Wood was a musician and songwriter born in Manchester, England. Wood started his career in music playing saxophone in dance bands in England. He moved to the United States in the 1930s, where he worked for Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures as well as serving as bandleader at the Arcadia Ballroom in New York. His songs include "Till Then", "My One and Only Love", "Shoo-Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy". His song "Till Then" reached the pop charts three times . Wood also wrote songs for Captain Kangaroo and the Radio City Music Hall. Wood died on 23 February 2001.

#6378

Benny Dayal

#81139

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Benny Dayal is an Indian playback singer. He is a prominent singer in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati and Marathi and more languages films. He has sung more than 3500 songs in 19+ Indian languages. He is a member of the band S5, launched by SS Music TV channel. He made his acting debut in the Malayalam movie By the People, a suspense thriller. All the songs were sung by S5 members and it was then that A.R. Rahman noticed him and took an audition.

#6379

Kenneth L. Denman

#147672

Overall Influence

#6380

Philip Jones

#129650

Overall Influence

1928 - 2000 (72 years)

Philip Jones was a British trumpeter and leader of an internationally famous brass chamber music ensemble. Philip Jones was born in Bath, England. In 1944 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. He became principal trumpet for most major London orchestras: The Royal Philharmonic , the Philharmonia , the Philharmonic , the New Philharmonia and the BBC Symphony . His playing continues a line of English trumpeters that stretches back to Ernest Hall.

#6381

Timothy J. Dunkerton

#147681

Overall Influence

#6382

Pat O'Connor

#100086

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Patrick O'Connor is a BAFTA-winning Irish film director. Career In 1982, O'Connor won a Jacob's Award for his direction of the RTÉ TV adaptation of William Trevor's short story Ballroom of Romance, starring Cyril Cusack and Brenda Fricker. It was shot near the village of Ballycroy, County Mayo. He subsequently won the BAFTA award for Best Television Single Drama, 1983 for the same work. He also directed Trevor's One of Ourselves for BBC TV, again starring Cyril Cusack, and filmed in Cappoquin and Lismore, County Waterford.

#6383

Suzanne Eggins

#113835

Overall Influence

Suzanne Eggins is an Australian linguist who is an Honorary Fellow at Australian National University , associated with the ANU Institute for Communication in Health Care. Eggins is the author of a best selling introduction to systemic functional linguistics and she is known for her extensive work on critical linguistic analysis of spontaneous interactions in informal and institutional healthcare settings.

#6384

Bella Davidovich

Bella Davidovich

#103314

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Bella Mikhaylovna Davidovich is a Soviet and American pianist. Biography Davidovich was born in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, into a Jewish family of musicians and began studying piano when she was six. Three years later, she was the soloist for a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. In 1939, she moved to Moscow to continue her musical education. At the age of 18 she entered the Moscow Conservatory where she studied with Konstantin Igumnov and Yakov Flier. In 1949, she shared the first prize with Halina Czerny-Stefańska at the IV International Chopin Piano Competition. This launched her ...

#6385

Harold Shapero

#82634

Overall Influence

1920 - 2013 (93 years)

Harold Samuel Shapero was an American composer. Early years Shapero was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, on April 29, 1920. He and his family later moved to nearby Newton. He learned to play the piano as a child, and for some years was a pianist in dance orchestras. With a friend, he founded the Hal Kenny Orchestra, a swing-era jazz band.

#6386

David T. Walker

#86209

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

David T. Walker is an American guitarist. In addition to numerous session musician duties since the early 1970s, Walker has issued fifteen albums in his own name. Career David T. Walker was born to a Native American mother and African American father. He and his family relocated to Central California when he was 7 years old. He attended David Starr Jordan High School in the Watts area of Los Angeles. He has recorded fifteen solo albums since his debut release, The Sidewalk, in 1967. He has also been a session rhythm and lead guitarist, appearing on numerous soul, funk, and jazz releases. Hi...

#6387

Glyne Piggott

#123756

Overall Influence

Glyne Piggott is an emeritus professor of linguistics at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. During his four decades at McGill, he served terms as associate dean of the faculty of arts, as well as director of undergraduate studies, graduate program director, and chair of the department of linguistics. He was the vice-president and president-elect of the Canadian Linguistic Association from 2002 to 2003.

#6388

Paul Simpson

#111003

Overall Influence

Paul Simpson is an English musician, vocalist, lyricist and writer from Liverpool, England, best known for his work with the Wild Swans and Care. Musically, his contributions have crossed the genres of synth-pop, post-punk, neo-psychedelia, new wave and ambient.

#6389

Tom Cora

#113826

Overall Influence

1953 - 1998 (45 years)

Thomas Henry Corra , better known as Tom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock. He recorded with John Zorn, Butch Morris, and the Ex, and was a member of Curlew, Third Person and Skeleton Crew.

#6390

Valery Khalilov

Valery Khalilov

#90867

Overall Influence

1952 - 2016 (64 years)

Valery Mikhaylovich Khalilov was an Uzbek-born Russian military band conductor and composer. A lieutenant general in the Russian military, he was the Senior Director of Music of the Military Band Service of the Armed Forces of Russia, most famously conducting the massed Russian military bands at the annual "Victory Day" parade held in the Moscow's Red Square a record 14 times. He died when the plane he was on, en route to Syria, crashed into the Black Sea off Sochi, Russia.

#6391

Michael J. Frueh

#147763

Overall Influence

#6392

David Murray

#82159

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

David Keith Murray is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who performs mostly on tenor and bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s. He lives in New York City.

#6393

El Jones

#68273

Overall Influence

El Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was Halifax's Poet Laureate from 2013 to 2015. Biography She was born in Wales and grew up in Winnipeg. Her book, Live From the Afrikan Resistance! published in 2014 by Roseway, an imprint of Fernwood Publishing, is a collection of poems about resisting white colonialism. In 2015, she was a resident at the International Writing Program at University of Iowa. Her work focuses on social justice issues such as feminism, prison abolition, anti-racism, and decolonization; she wrote in The Washington Postin J...

#6394

Jeremy Lawrance

#39650

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Jeremy Norcliffe Haslehurst Lawrance FBA is a Ugandan born British linguist and historian. Professor at Manchester and later at Nottingham, and Fellow of the British Academy since 2011, he was President of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain and Ireland from 2004 to 2006.

#6395

Donald Hinds

#110824

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Donald Hinds was a Jamaican-born writer, journalist, historian and teacher. He is best known for his work on the West Indian Gazette and his fiction and non-fiction books portraying the West Indian community in Britain, particularly his 1966 work Journey to an Illusion, which has been called a groundbreaking book that "captured the plight of Commonwealth immigrants and foresaw the multicultural London of today".

#6396

Ali H. S. Hajjaj

#111144

Overall Influence

1933 - 2004 (71 years)

Dr. Ali Hussein Salman Hajjaj was the first non-English speaking person to acquire a in Applied Linguistics of the English Language. He attained his Ph.D. from Department of Linguistics and English Language of the University of Lancaster, UK in 1979.

#6397

Craig Lucas

#71470

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Craig Lucas is an American playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, musical actor, and film director. Biography Born on April 30, 1951, he was found abandoned in a car in Atlanta, Georgia. Lucas was adopted when he was eight months old by a conservative Pennsylvania couple. His father was an FBI agent; his mother was a painter. She was born Jewish but suppressed the identity, which Lucas relates in his storytelling. He graduated in 1969 from Conestoga High School in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lucas became interested in the political left and discovered an attraction toward men.

#6398

Francis Egbokhare

#123553

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Francis Egbokhare is a prolific scholar, academic linguist, writer, and professor from Nigeria, and a fellow and the immediate past president of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. He has held positions at the University of Ibadan for many years as a professor of linguistics and as the Director of the Distance Learning Centre. He lives in Ibadan.

#6399

Philip Corner

#80926

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Philip Lionel Corner is an American composer, trombonist, alphornist, vocalist, pianist, music theorist, music educator, and visual artist. Biography After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner received his BA at CCNY, where his most important teacher was Fritz Jahoda; and an MA from Columbia University where his composition teachers were Otto Luening and Henry Cowell, The two years in between were spent in Paris at the Conservatoire Nat'l de Musique, following the class "Philosophie Musicale" of Olivier Messiaen. Equally important was his friendship with the Cana...

#6400

John Mack

#99272

Overall Influence

1927 - 2006 (79 years)

John Mack was an American oboist. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, Mack attended the Juilliard School of Music, studying oboe with Harold Gomberg and Bruno Labate and then at the Curtis Institute of Music with Marcel Tabuteau, the longtime principal oboe of the Philadelphia Orchestra.

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