Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#6751

Victor Pickard

#86668

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Victor Pickard is an American media studies scholar. He is a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He works on the intersections of U.S. and global media activism and politics; the history and political economy of media institutions; and the normative foundations of media policy.

#6752

Massimo Troisi

#84246

Overall Influence

1953 - 1994 (41 years)

Massimo Troisi was an Italian actor, cabaret performer, screenwriter, and film director. He is best known for his works in the films I'm Starting from Three and Il Postino: The Postman , for which he was posthumously nominated for two Oscars. Nicknamed "the comedian of feelings", he is considered one of the most important actors of Italian theater and cinema.

#6753

Pat Martino

#57893

Overall Influence

1944 - 2021 (77 years)

Pat Martino was an American jazz guitarist and composer. He has been cited as one of the greatest guitarists in jazz. Biography Martino was born Patrick Carmen Azzara in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, to father Carmen "Mickey" Azzara and mother Jean . He was first exposed to jazz by his father, who sang in local clubs and briefly studied guitar. Pat studied with renowned jazz teacher Dennis Sandole, and in his studio met other of Sandole's students; among them, John Coltrane, James Moody, McCoy Tyner and others. Martino began playing professionally at the age of 15 after moving to New York City.

#6754

Jeffrey Lewis

#86558

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Jeffrey Lewis is an American singer-songwriter and comic book artist. Early life Lewis was born in New York City and grew up on the Lower East Side. He attended State University of New York at Purchase, graduating in 1997 with a degree in Literature. His Senior Literary Thesis was on the comic book Watchmen.

#6755

Nancy Longnecker

#87286

Overall Influence

Nancy Ellen Longnecker is a New Zealand based science communication academic. She is currently professor of science communication at the University of Otago. Academic career Longnecker's early work focused on nutritional efficiency in agricultural plants. Her 1980 MSc titled 'Factors affecting iron uptake by iron-efficient and inefficient soybean varieties' and a 1986 PhD titled 'A comparison of the resistance of soybean and sunflower to iron-deficiency induced chlorosis' were both obtained through study at Cornell University under supervision by Ross M. Welch. She moved to Australia in 19...

#6756

Peter Gordon

#102522

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Peter Laurence Gordon is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, pianist and experimental composer, whose influences include jazz, disco, funk, rock, opera, classical and world music. He has released several albums and composed scores for film and theater, and he has also toured and re-interpreted the music of Arthur Russell, on whose compositions he played, as well as that of Robert Ashley.

#6757

Joan Dickson

#121831

Overall Influence

1921 - 1994 (73 years)

Katherine Joan Balfour Dickson was a Scottish cellist and cello teacher. Biography Dickson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on 21 December 1921 to Marjorie Balfour Lowe and Dr Douglas Dickson, a lawyer and Writer to the Signet.

#6758

Roy Lee

#57379

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Roy Lee is a Korean-American film and television producer. His production company, titled Vertigo Entertainment, has a first-look deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. Early life Lee was born in 1969 at Wyckoff Heights Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, to Korean parents. His father, a doctor, and his mother, had been in America for just three years and were still acclimating. Lee's mother, a devout Christian, nurtured hopes that he would become a minister.

#6759

CeCe Winans

#50380

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Priscilla Marie Winans Love, known professionally as CeCe Winans, is an American gospel singer. Winans has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards, the most for a female gospel singer; 31 GMA Dove Awards, 17 Stellar Awards, 7 NAACP Image Awards, along with many other awards and honors to her credit including being one of the inaugural inductees into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame. Winans is one of the greatest gospel artists of all time, and is the most-awarded and best-selling gospel act of all time.

#6760

Moe Brooker

#114438

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Moe Albert Brooker was an African American painter, educator and printmaker. An abstract artist, he used vivid colors, lines, stripes, squares and circles to infuse a feeling of improvisational jazz in his works. Brooker was an internationally known artist whose paintings are in the collections of major museums and other institutions.

#6761

John Altman

#106862

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

John Altman is an English film composer, music arranger, orchestrator and conductor. Music career Altman was introduced to the music of the 1930s and 1940s at an early age by his uncles, bandleaders Woolf and Sid Phillips. Woolf Phillips was the bandleader and MC at the London Palladium during the Golden Age of Variety and arranged and conducted for Judy Garland, the Marx Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Danny Kaye and Dean Martin, among others, while Sid Phillips wrote for the Bert Ambrose Orchestra, played in Louis Armstrong's British All Stars, and led Britain's best known Dixieland Band.

#6762

John Christoffel Kannemeyer

#92767

Overall Influence

1939 - 2011 (72 years)

John Christoffel Kannemeyer, better known as J. C. Kannemeyer was an authority on Afrikaans literature and a well-known biographer of Afrikaans writers, and published numerous books on the history of Afrikaans literature.

#6763

Charles Bradley

#99583

Overall Influence

1948 - 2017 (69 years)

Charles Edward Bradley was an American singer. After years of obscurity and a part-time music career, Bradley came to prominence in his early 50s. His performances and recording style were consistent with the revivalist approach of his main label Daptone Records, celebrating the feel of funk and soul music from the 1960s and 1970s. One review said he "echoes the evocative delivery of Otis Redding".

#6764

Allen S. Lee

#155839

Overall Influence

#6765

Mayo Fuster Morell

#55631

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Mayo Fuster Morell is a social researcher. Her research has focused on sharing economy, social movements, online communities and digital Commons, frequently using participatory action research and method triangulation. She has been part of the most important research centres studying Internet and its social effects, including the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, the MIT Center for Civic Media or the Berkeley School of Information. As an active citizen, she is the co-founder of multiple initiatives around digital Commons and Free Culture, such as the Procomuns Forum on collaborative ec...

#6766

Kamal

#72071

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Kamaluddin Mohammed Majeed, mononymously known as Kamal, is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and producer who predominantly works in the Malayalam cinema. He was the former Chairman of Kerala State Chalachitra Academy. Kamal made his directorial debut with the 1986 film Mizhineerppoovukal. In a career spanning over three decades, Kamal has directed over forty films. His films have won various National Film Awards and Kerala State Film Awards, including films such as Kakkothi Kaavile Appoppan Thaadikal , Ulladakkam , Mazhayethum Munpe , Niram , Madhuranombarakkattu , Meghamalhar , Nammal...

#6767

Roger Greenspun

#97953

Overall Influence

1929 - 2017 (88 years)

Roger Greenspun was an American journalist and film critic, best known for his work with The New York Times in which he reviewed near 400 films, particularly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and for Penthouse for which he was the film critic throughout much of the late 1970s and 1980s.

#6768

Zenaida Manfugás

#140005

Overall Influence

1932 - 2012 (80 years)

Zenaida Elvira González Manfugás was a Cuban-born American-naturalized pianist, considered to be one of the best Cuban pianists in history. Biography Manfugás was born on February 22, 1922 in Guantánamo, Cuba. Her father was Judge Amando González Veranés and her mother, Andrea Manfugás Crombet, was a renowned pianist and teacher. She had two sisters: Alicia and Aida Esther. Her mother's family is descended from the renowned composer Nene Manfugás, who was a performer of Sonnets in the first half of the 20th century.

#6769

Michael T. Aiken

#155986

Overall Influence

#6770

Russ Freeman

#105578

Overall Influence

1926 - 2002 (76 years)

Russell Donald Freeman was a bebop and cool jazz pianist and composer. Initially, Freeman was classically trained. His reputation as a jazz pianist grew in the 1940s after working with Art Pepper and Shorty Rogers. He played with Charlie Parker on the 1947 "Home Cooking" jazz session. Numerous collaborations followed in the 1950s with Chet Baker, Shelly Manne, and Art Pepper. These collaborations included the Jazz Immortal LP recorded with Russ Freeman and jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown in 1954, which included leading musicians Brown and Zoot Sims. On the Jazz Immortal LP, Russ Freeman was abl...

#6771

Barry Harris

#84982

Overall Influence

1929 - 2021 (92 years)

Barry Doyle Harris was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. He was an exponent of the bebop style. Life and career Harris was born on December 15, 1929, in Detroit, Michigan, to Melvin Harris and Bessie as the fourth of their five children. Harris took piano lessons from his mother at the age of four. His mother, a church pianist, asked him if he was interested in playing church music or jazz. Having picked the latter, he was influenced by Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. In his teens, he learned bebop largely by ear, imitating solos by Powell. He described Powell's style as being the "epitome" of jazz.

#6772

Ran Blake

#93640

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Ran Blake is an American pianist, composer, and educator. He is known for his unique style that combines blues, gospel, classical, and film noir influences into an innovative and dark jazz sound. His career spans over 40 recording credits on jazz albums along with more than 40 years of teaching jazz at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he started the Department of Third Stream with Gunther Schuller.

#6773

Paulette Lacava Osterman

#156115

Overall Influence

#6774

David W. Lea

#156116

Overall Influence

#6775

Hugo Weisgall

#106046

Overall Influence

1912 - 1997 (85 years)

Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions. Life and career Hugo Weisgall was born in Ivančice, Moravia and moved to the United States with his parents in 1920 at the age of eight.

#6776

Rina Yerushalmi

#86134

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Rina Yerushalmi is an Israeli theater director and choreographer. Yerushalmi received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001 and the Israel Prize in Theatre in 2008, among other awards and recognition.

#6777

Pieter Steinz

#118118

Overall Influence

1963 - 2016 (53 years)

Pieter Steinz was a Dutch journalist, literary critic and non-fiction author. From 2012 to 2015 he was director of the Nederlands Letterenfonds. Bibliography 1991 Meneer Van Dale Wacht Op Antwoord en andere schoolse rijtjes en ezelsbruggetjes2002 Reis om de wereld in 80 hits 2002 Drumeiland. Een bedevaart naar Bob Marley's geboorte-eiland Jamaica2003 Lezen &cetera. Gids voor de wereldliteratuur 2004 Lezen op locatie. Atlas van de wereldliteratuur2006 Klein cultureel woordenboek van de wereldliteratuur 2006 Elk boek wil muziek zijn. Lezen & luisteren in schema’s, thema’s en citaten 2007 Het web van de wereldliteratuur.

#6778

Paul Benjamin Lowry

#156226

Overall Influence

#6779

Albert Collins

#80200

Overall Influence

1932 - 1993 (61 years)

Albert Gene Collins, known as Albert Collins and the Ice Breakers , was an American electric blues guitarist and singer with a distinctive guitar style. He was noted for his powerful playing and his use of altered tunings and a capo. His long association with the Fender Telecaster led to the title "The Master of the Telecaster".

#6780

Tone Loc

#70717

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Anthony Terrell Smith , better known by his stage name Tone Lōc , is an American rapper. He is known for his raspy voice, his hit songs "Wild Thing" and "Funky Cold Medina", for which he was nominated for a Grammy Award, and for being featured in "We're All in the Same Gang", a collaborative single by the West Coast Rap All-Stars.

#6781

Neil Rosenshein

#128728

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Neil Rosenshein is an American operatic tenor, who sang leading tenor roles in the major American and European opera houses. He created the roles of Aspern in Dominick Argento's The Aspern Papers and Léon in Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles.

#6782

Brian Blade

#88102

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Brian Blade is an American jazz drummer, composer, and session musician. Early life Born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana, Blade was exposed to gospel and praise music while attending Zion Baptist Church at which his father, Brady L. Blade Sr., was pastor. Blade initially began learning violin and participated in the church choir, an experience which Blade later acknowledged was influential in his musical development. Following in the footsteps of his older brother, Brady Blade Jr., Blade developed skills on the drum kit while 'depping' for his brother in the church band Soon after Blade ...

#6783

James Simpson

#120487

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

James Simpson is an Australian-British-American medievalist currently serving as the Donald P. and Katherine B. Loker Professor of English at Harvard University. Education Educated at Scotch College Arts Degree with Honours at Melbourne University, Melbourne Master of Philosophy, University of Oxford 1980Doctor of Philosophy , University of Cambridge

#6784

Val Hale

#109608

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Val Hale is an American journalist and sports director. In 2014, he was appointed by Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert as executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development , and is currently serving in this role promoting state growth in business, tourism and film.

#6785

Rachel Brown

#156524

Overall Influence

Rachel Brown is a British flautist and author, known especially for her work with Baroque music and flutes. She is currently professor of baroque flute at the Royal College of Music in London, in addition to traveling around the world to give masterclasses. She has performed with many orchestras internationally, including as principal flute with Kent Opera, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Hanover Band, the King's Consort, Collegium Musicum 90, Ex Cathedra, and the Brandenburg Consort. She is known for her extensive work and mastery of both historical and modern flutes.

#6786

Yong Chin Pak

#46157

Overall Influence

Yong Chin Pak is a 6th dan judo, 9th dan hapkido, and 8th dan taekwondo master and adjunct instructor in Exercise Sport Science and instructed students in the martial arts at Iowa State University from 1973 to 2013. He graduated from Yongin University with a Bachelor of Science in Physical Education and was President of the National Collegiate Taekwondo Association from 1986 to 2007.

#6787

Jean Vander Pyl

#80463

Overall Influence

1919 - 1999 (80 years)

Jean Thurston Vander Pyl was an American voice actress. Although her career spanned many decades, she is best known as the voice of Wilma Flintstone for the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Flintstones. In addition to Wilma Flintstone, she also provided the voices of Pebbles Flintstone, Rosie the robot maid on the animated series The Jetsons, Goldie, Lola Glamour, Nurse LaRue, and other characters in Top Cat, Winsome Witch on The Secret Squirrel Show, and Ogee on The Magilla Gorilla Show.

#6788

Ivan Neville

#77677

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Ivan Neville is an American multi-instrumentalist musician, singer, and songwriter. He is the son of Aaron Neville and nephew to the other members of The Neville Brothers. Career Neville has released four solo albums and had a Top 30 Billboard hit with the first single "Not Just Another Girl" from his debut solo album If My Ancestors Could See Me Now. "Not Just Another Girl" reached 26 on the Billboard charts. His second single "Falling Out of Love" was a duet with singer Bonnie Raitt that reached 91 on the Billboard charts. The song was also featured in the 1989 comedy Skin Deep, starring Jo...

#6789

Toshio Hosokawa

#100944

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. He studied in Germany but returned to Japan, finding a personal style inspired by classical Japanese music and culture. He has composed operas, the oratorio Voiceless Voice in Hiroshima, and instrumental music.

#6790

TobyMac

#61538

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Toby McKeehan , better known by his stage name TobyMac , is an American contemporary Christian music singer, rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He was first known for being a member of the Christian rap and rock trio DC Talk, staying with them from 1987 until they went on hiatus in 2000. He has since continued a successful solo career with the release of nine studio albums: Momentum , Welcome to Diverse City , Portable Sounds , Tonight , Christmas in Diverse City , Eye on It , This Is Not a Test , The Elements , and Life After Death as well as five remixed albums: Re:Mix Momentum , Renovating Diverse City , Dubbed and Freq'd: A Remix Project , Eye'm All Mixed Up and The St.

#6791

Nader Jahangiri

#156665

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Nader Jahangiri is an Iranian linguist and emeritus professor of linguistics at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. He is known for his research on sociolinguistics. Books Gilaki Dialect of Lahijan, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2003 A Sociolinguistic Study of Persian in Tehran, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2000 Acoustic Phonetics, Dennis Fry, translated by N. Jahangiri, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

#6792

Joe Vitale

#73920

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Joseph Anthony Vitale is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. In a career spanning more than 55 years, Vitale has played with many of the top names in music during a career dating back to the 1970s.

#6793

Bruce Jones

#110194

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Ian Royston Jones , better known as Bruce Jones, is an English actor. He is best known for his role as taxi driver Les Battersby in Coronation Street. He left the role in 2007. Early life Jones was born to Bruce and Irene Jones in Collyhurst, Manchester. He was brought up in a typical working-class household before he went to live with his grandmother in Wales, where he joined his school drama group at the age of eleven and dreamed of becoming an actor.

#6794

Tony Kaye

#75627

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Tony Kaye is an English director of films, music videos, advertisements, and documentaries. He directed the 1998 film American History X. Life and career Kaye was born to an Haredi Jewish family in Stamford Hill, London, United Kingdom.

#6795

Sara Kestelman

#122939

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Sara Kestelman is an English actress. She is known for her role as Lady Frances Brandon, Lady Jane Grey's mother, in the 1986 film Lady Jane, as well as for providing the voice of Kreia in Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.

#6796

Carol Genetti

#142416

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Carol E. Genetti is an American linguist who is known for her research into Tibeto-Burman languages and languages of the Himalayans. Academic career Genetti earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics in 1990 from the University of Oregon. Genetti is an emeritus professor from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was a faculty member in the Department of Linguistics until 2020. Between 2013 and 2020 she was also the Dean of the UCSB Graduate Division, and she served as Chair of the Department of Linguistics from 1999-2005. Genetti now serves as the Vice Provost for Graduate and Postdoct...

#6797

Alfred C. Snider

#54380

Overall Influence

1950 - 2015 (65 years)

Dr. Alfred Charles "Tuna" Snider III was the Edwin W. Lawrence Professor of Forensics at the University of Vermont from 1982 until his death in late 2015. A native of the greater Los Angeles area in southern California, he graduated from West Covina High School and moved to New England after his graduation from high school to obtain a bachelor's degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he majored in Asian civilizations with a minor in speech communication. He later received a master's degree from Emerson College and a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, specializing in...

#6798

John Payne

#114731

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

John Payne is an English-Canadian voice actor who was originally in the UK and now works with Ocean Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has played several roles in anime, most notably Ramba Ral in Mobile Suit Gundam and Rasetsu in Inuyasha.

#6799

Ken Vandermark

#105666

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ken Vandermark is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate improvisation. He has led or been a member of many groups, has collaborated with many other musicians, and was awarded a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship. He plays tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and baritone saxophone.

#6800

Chris Walker

#109389

Overall Influence

Christopher Walker is an English actor, known for his roles as Larry 'Tiger' Barton in the BBC drama Merseybeat and Rob Hollins in the BBC soap opera Doctors. For his portrayal of Rob, Walker has been nominated for various awards, and in 2010 and 2023, he won the award for Best On-Screen Partnership at the British Soap Awards, alongside Jan Pearson who played his on-screen wife, Karen Hollins.

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