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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List of the most influential people in Communications,

#6601

Chris Potter

#97575

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Chris Potter is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist. Potter first came to prominence as a sideman with trumpeter Red Rodney , before extended stints with drummer Paul Motian , bassist Dave Holland , trumpeter Dave Douglas and session work, while also maintaining an active solo career.

#6602

Bob Shane

#51120

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

Robert Castle Schoen , known professionally as Bob Shane, was an American singer and guitarist who was a founding member of The Kingston Trio. In that capacity, Shane became a seminal figure in the revival of folk and other acoustic music as a popular art form in the United States in the late 1950s through the mid-1960s.

#6603

Clare Holman

#113357

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Clare Margaret Holman is an English actress. She portrayed forensic pathologist Dr. Laura Hobson in the crime drama series Inspector Morse and its spin-off Lewis from 1995 to 2015. Career Holman started her acting career in the 1988 television film The Rainbow based on the novel by D.H. Lawrence, directed by Stuart Burge.

#6604

Johnnie Taylor

#71396

Overall Influence

1934 - 2000 (66 years)

Johnnie Harrison Taylor was an American recording artist and songwriter who performed a wide variety of genres, from blues, rhythm and blues, soul, and gospel to pop, doo-wop, and disco. He was initially successful at Stax Records with the number-one R&B hits "Who's Making Love" , "Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone" and "I Believe in You " , and reached number one on the US pop charts with "Disco Lady" in 1976.

#6605

Ruqaiya Hasan

#152341

Overall Influence

#6606

Bogusław Schaeffer

#124547

Overall Influence

1929 - 2019 (90 years)

Bogusław Julian Schaeffer was a Polish composer, musicologist, and graphic artist, a member of the avantgarde "Cracow Group" of Polish composers alongside Krzysztof Penderecki and others. Schaeffer was born in Lwów . After studying violin in Opole and graduating in musical composition under Zdzisław Jachimecki in 1953 at the Academy of Music in Kraków, he became an active composer and musical theoretician. From 1963, he was a lecturer on composition at the Kraków Academy, and he was a professor at the Hochschule für Music in Salzburg from the mid-1980s to 2000.

#6607

Gary Karr

#93299

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Gary Michael Karr is an American classical double bass virtuoso and teacher; he is considered one of the best bassists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Biography Although he comes from several generations of bassists, he was not encouraged by them to go into music. In an interview with ActiveBass magazine he said that he has no contact with the professional bassists in his family.

#6608

Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg

#82142

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Steven Allan Spielberg is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director in history. He is the recipient of many accolades, including three Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four Directors Guild of America Awards, as well as the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1995, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2006, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2009 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Lib...

#6609

Craig Wood

#85931

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Craig Wood is an Australian film editor working in America. Born in Sydney, Wood began his career at the age of 19 as an assistant editor in the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's documentary department before moving into music video and advertising work.

#6610

Abraham Carmeli

#152528

Overall Influence

#6611

Hank Crawford

#89344

Overall Influence

1934 - 2009 (75 years)

Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. was an American alto saxophonist, pianist, arranger and songwriter whose genres ranged from R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, and soul jazz. Crawford was musical director for Ray Charles before embarking on a solo career releasing many well-regarded albums for labels such as Atlantic, CTI and Milestone.

#6612

Kathryn Stott

#118406

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Kathryn Stott is an English classical pianist who performs as a concerto soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. Her specialities include the English and French classical repertoire, contemporary classical music and the tango. She is a professor at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and has organised several music festivals and concert series.

#6613

Maria M. Frei

#152720

Overall Influence

#6614

Ben Heppner

#89898

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Thomas Bernard Heppner is a Canadian tenor and broadcaster, now retired from singing, who specialized in opera and other classical works for voice. Early life and career Heppner, of Mennonite descent, was born in Murrayville, British Columbia, and lived in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. He began his musical studies at the University of British Columbia and first attracted national attention when he won the CBC Talent Festival in 1979.

#6615

Tomojirō Ikenouchi

#143661

Overall Influence

1906 - 1991 (85 years)

Tomojirō Ikenouchi was a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music and professor. Biography Tomojiro Ikenouchi was born in Tokyo as son of a haiku poet Kyoshi Takahama. He traveled to Paris in 1927, where he studied composition with Henri Büsser and piano with Lazare Lévy. His music is influenced by French Impressionist music. He returned to Japan in 1933.

#6616

Andrew Davis

#92480

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Andrew Davis is an American film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer who is known for directing a number of successful action thrillers including Code of Silence, Above the Law, Under Siege, and The Fugitive.

#6617

Eduardo Reck Miranda

Eduardo Reck Miranda

#87200

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Eduardo Reck Miranda is a Brazilian composer of chamber and electroacoustic pieces but is most notable in the United Kingdom for his scientific research into computer music, particularly in the field of human-machine interfaces where brain waves will replace keyboards and voice commands to permit the disabled to express themselves musically.

#6618

Simon C. Garrod

#152835

Overall Influence

#6619

Vaali

#82458

Overall Influence

1931 - 2013 (82 years)

Tiruchirapalli Srinivasan Rangarajan, professionally credited by his pseudonym Vaali was an Indian poet who has the record for writing the most songs in Tamil cinema. He is also recognised for a five-decade long association in the Tamil film industry and has written over 15,000 songs. He acted in a number of films, including Sathya, Hey Ram, Paarthale Paravasam and Poikkal Kudhirai. He was honoured by the Government of India with the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour in 2007.

#6620

Akiko Ebi

#109064

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Akiko Ebi is a Japanese-French pianist. Ebi was born in Osaka. She studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and won the piano prize of the 41st Music Competition of Japan. Her international career began with her winning second prize in the 1975 Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris. She continued her studies with Aldo Ciccolini at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 1980, she won fifth prize at the X International Chopin Piano Competition, after which Martha Argerich, who was a member of the jury, took patronage over her.

#6621

Vladimir Kolesov

#110718

Overall Influence

1934 - 2019 (85 years)

Vladimir Viktorovich Kolesov was a Soviet and Russian linguist. He was a specialist in phonology, accentology, historical grammar and lexicography, philosophy of language and history of linguistics. Doctor of Philological Sciences , full professor , Honorary Professor of St. Petersburg State University . Professor and Head of the Department of the Russian Language of the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University .

#6622

Anthony Davis

#95481

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Anthony Davis is an American pianist and composer. He incorporates several styles including jazz, rhythm 'n' blues, gospel, non-Western, African, European classical, Indonesian gamelan, and experimental music. He has played with several groups and is also a professor of music at the University of California, San Diego.

#6623

Solomon Babalola

#70031

Overall Influence

1926 - 2008 (82 years)

Solomon Adeboye Babalola was a Nigerian academic, poet and scholar. Biography Professor Solomon Adeboye Oladele Babalola was born on December 17, 1926, into the Babalola family of Ile-Ajo. His father, Joseph Olawuni Omowunmi Babalola was a master carpenter, renowned for the charitable re-building of homes in Ipetumodu after severe storm damage very early in the 20th Century; hence the family title “Alatunse of Ipetumodu” – “The Fixer”, a family that improves their environment. His father was also a devoted Christian.

#6624

Monty Alexander

#76749

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Montgomery Bernard "Monty" Alexander OJ is a Jamaican jazz pianist. His playing has a Caribbean influence and bright swinging feeling, with a strong vocabulary of bebop jazz and blues rooted melodies. He was influenced by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Erroll Garner, Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal, Les McCann, and Frank Sinatra. Alexander also sings and plays the melodica. He is known for his surprising musical twists, bright rhythmic sense, and intense dramatic musical climaxes. Monty's recording career has covered many of the well-known American songbook standards, jazz standards, pop hits, and Jamaican songs from his original homeland.

#6625

Sadhana Sargam

#87749

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Sadhana Sargam is an Indian singer known for her playback career in Indian cinema predominantly in Hindi, Bengali and Tamil language films. She is a recipient of the National Film Award and Filmfare Awards South. She has also won five Maharashtra State Film Awards, four Gujarat State Film Awards, and one Orissa State Film.

#6626

Nichola Gutgold

#136497

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Nichola D. Gutgold is an American scholar and academic. She is the former associate dean of academics of the Schreyer Honors College, Penn State University and is a professor of communication arts and sciences. Previously she was an associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State Lehigh Valley. Gutgold's specialization is the rhetoric of women in non-traditional fields and she is author of a number of books, scholarly articles, chapters and is a frequent speaker.

#6627

Aurèle Nicolet

#116311

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

Aurèle Nicolet was a Swiss flautist. He was considered one of the world's best flute players of the late twentieth century. He performed in various international concerts. A number of composers wrote music especially for him, including Josef Tal, Toru Takemitsu, György Ligeti, Krzysztof Meyer, and Edison Denisov.

#6628

Shankar–Ganesh

#39806

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Shankar–Ganesh is an Indian music director duo who has worked on Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu movies for around 50 years. Personal life Shankar was the younger brother of music director C. R. Subbaraman while Ganesh was the son-in-law of G. N. Velumani who produced films like Bhaagapirivinai and Paalum Pazhamum.

#6629

Derek Watkins

#113558

Overall Influence

1945 - 2013 (68 years)

Derek Roy Watkins was an English jazz, pop, and classical trumpeter. Best known for his lead trumpet work on the soundtracks of James Bond films, Watkins recorded with British jazz bandleaders as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and The Beatles. Dizzy Gillespie called him "Mr. Lead".

#6630

M. L. Elrick

#115734

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Michael L. Elrick is an American journalist based in Detroit, Michigan, where he has worked for the Detroit Free Press and for WJBK-TV. Elrick attended the Grosse Pointe school system; attending Defer Elementary, Pierce Middle, and graduated from GP South High in 1985. Elrick graduated from Michigan State University in 1990 with a Bachelor of Journalism degree. He wrote for the Concord Monitor, and Daily Southtown in Chicago. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Investigative Reporters and Editors Journal, Salon.com, Rollingstone.com, the National Law Journal, Chicago Magazine and Hour Detroit magazine.

#6631

Hamsalekha

#81624

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Gangaraju , professionally known as Hamsalekha, is an Indian film composer and songwriter who works in South Indian cinema, predominantly in the Kannada film industry since the late 1980s. He is also a screenplay writer, dialogue writer, instrumentalist and conductor, having composed and written over 500 albums.

#6632

Alexander M. Rush

#153126

Overall Influence

#6633

Philip Wilby

#114692

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Philip Wilby is a British composer, organist and choir director. Education Educated at Leeds Grammar School and Keble College, Oxford, he joined the staff at the University of Leeds as a Lecturer in the Department of Music in 1972. There he taught various composition, liturgy, directing, and score reading classes as well as co-founding the Leeds University Liturgical Choir.

#6634

Catherine Malfitano

Catherine Malfitano

#122023

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Catherine Malfitano is an American operatic soprano and opera director. Malfitano was born in New York City, the daughter of a ballet dancer mother, Maria Maslova, and a violinist father, Joseph Malfitano. She attended the High School of Music and Art and studied at the Frank Corsaro Studio and Manhattan School of Music, graduating in 1971. She often mentions that she was rejected from The Juilliard School.

#6635

Jen Liu

#96390

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Jen Liu is an American visual artist. She works with video, performance, and painting and creates pieces about labor, economy and national identity. She was awarded a Guggenheim and a Creative Capital award.

#6636

Marco Beltrami

#75104

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Marco Beltrami is an American composer, conductor, and pianist, best known for his film and television scores. Beltrami has worked in a number of genres, including horror , action , science fiction , Western , and superhero .

#6637

Jennifer Metcalfe

Jennifer Metcalfe

#108819

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Jennifer Joanne Metcalfe is an English actress. She is known for her role as Mercedes McQueen in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks, which she has appeared in since 2006. Her portrayal of the character has led to her reprising the role in the programme's spin-off series Hollyoaks Later between 2008 and 2020. She appeared as a contestant in the sixth series of Dancing on Ice in 2011, where she finished in tenth place.

#6638

Al Pitrelli

#57784

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Al Pitrelli is an American guitarist, best known for his work with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Megadeth, Alice Cooper and Savatage. He has performed with various acts as a band member, session musician and touring member, including Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, Asia, Dee Snider, Kathy Troccoli, Taylor Dayne, Blue Öyster Cult, Exposé and Joe Lynn Turner.

#6639

Joanne Brackeen

#114059

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Joanne Brackeen is an American jazz pianist and music educator. Music career Brackeen was born in Ventura, California, United States, and attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. She was a fan of pop pianist Frankie Carle before she became enamored with the music of Charlie Parker. In the 1950s she performed with Dexter Gordon, Teddy Edwards, and Charles Brackeen. She and Brackeen married and moved to New York City in 1965. She performed with Chick Corea, Freddie McCoy, and Ornette Coleman.

#6640

Burt Kennedy

#73176

Overall Influence

1922 - 2001 (79 years)

Burton Raphael Kennedy was an American screenwriter and director known mainly for directing Westerns. Budd Boetticher called him "the best Western writer ever." Biography Kennedy was born in 1922 in Muskegon, Michigan. His parents were dancers in vaudeville and he joined their act, the Dancing Kennedys, when he was 4 years old. They moved to Michigan, where Kennedy attended high school. He graduated school in 1941 and enlisted in the army the following year. Kennedy was commissioned and saw World War II service in the 1st Cavalry Division during the Liberation of the Philippines as a first lieutenant.

#6641

Pierre Granche

#88151

Overall Influence

1948 - 1997 (49 years)

Pierre Granche was a French-Canadian sculptor. Having studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and the Université de Vincennes in Paris, he taught in the art history department of the Université de Montréal for more than twenty years until his death from lung cancer in Montreal.

#6642

Claude Breeze

#101470

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Claude Breeze , also known as Claude Herbert Breeze, and sometimes as C. Herbert is a Canadian figurative painter, known for paintings with raw, unsettling imagery. He is a Professor Emeritus at York University in Toronto, Ontario.

#6643

Judith Irvine

#84459

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Judith Temkin Irvine is the Edward Sapir Collegiate Professor of Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where she researches language use in African social life to create social hierarchy.

#6644

Ernestine Anderson

Ernestine Anderson

#82378

Overall Influence

1928 - 2016 (88 years)

Ernestine Anderson was an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than six decades, she recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She sang at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival , as well as at jazz festivals all over the world. In the early 1990s she joined Qwest Records, the label founded by fellow Garfield High School graduate Quincy Jones.

#6645

John Moran

#97755

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

John Moran is an American composer, choreographer, and theater artist. He has been called an "operatic trailblazer", and his works are variously described as "unconventional", "innovative", and difficult to categorize. His works bring together a variety of mediums, including recorded music, spoken word, choreography and dance, mime, lip syncing, and video. Additionally, his works have featured a range of performers, including actors Uma Thurman and Julia Stiles, as well as singer Iggy Pop, and poet Allen Ginsberg.

#6646

Sam Witt

#123113

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Sam Witt is an American poet and tenured English professor who currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. Life Born in 1970 in Wimbledon, England. He studied as an undergraduate at the University of Virginia and went on to receive his MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Everlasting Quail was published in 2010 by the University Press of New England. Witt went on to spend a year in Russia as a Fulbright Scholar to work on his second book. Witt has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Iowa, the New England Institute of Art, Saint Petersburg State University, ...

#6647

Peter David Eckersall

#153516

Overall Influence

#6648

Chuck Schuldiner

Chuck Schuldiner

#68325

Overall Influence

1967 - 2001 (34 years)

Charles Michael Schuldiner was an American musician. He founded the pioneering death metal band Death in 1983, in which he was the lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter and only continuous member until his death in 2001. His obituary in the January 5, 2002, issue of Kerrang! described him as "one of the most significant figures in the history of metal." Schuldiner was ranked No. 10 in Joel McIver's book The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists in 2009 and No. 20 in March 2004 Guitar Worlds "The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists". In 1987, Schuldiner founded the publishing company Mutilation Music, affiliated with performance rights organization BMI.

#6649

Natalie MacMaster

#103117

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Natalie MacMaster is a Canadian fiddler from Troy, Inverness County, Nova Scotia, who plays Cape Breton fiddle music. She has toured with the Chieftains, Faith Hill, Carlos Santana and Alison Krauss, and has recorded with Yo-Yo Ma. She has appeared at the Celtic Colours festival in Cape Breton, Celtic Connections in Scotland and MerleFest in the United States.

#6650

Roman Haubenstock-Ramati

#110548

Overall Influence

1919 - 1994 (75 years)

Roman Haubenstock - since 1943 Roman Haubenstock-Ramati was a composer and music editor who worked in Kraków, Tel Aviv and Vienna. Life Haubenstock-Ramati was born in Tonie as a son of Samuel and Regina née Gronner. He obtained his secondary school-leaving certificate at the Cracow 2nd State St. Jack Gymnasium in 1937. After that he studied composition, music theory, violin and philosophy there from 1934 to 1938, and in Lemberg from 1939 to 1941. Among his teachers were Artur Malawski and Józef Koffler.

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