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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List of the most influential people in Communications,

#7201

Robert King

#130333

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Robert King is an English conductor, harpsichordist, editor and author. His career has concentrated on period performance of classical music, in particular from the baroque and early modern periods. In 2007, he was convicted of fourteen charges of indecent assault, some against minors, and jailed. Following his release, he resumed his musical career.

#7202

Alexander Benlian

#166415

Overall Influence

#7203

Alexander Halavais

Alexander Halavais

#77296

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Alexander Halavais is an Associate Professor and Graduate Director of the Social Data Science master's program at Arizona State University, a social media researcher and former President of the Association of Internet Researchers. Before joining the faculty at Arizona State University, Halavais taught in the Interactive Media program at Quinnipiac University, the School of Informatics at the University at Buffalo and at the University of Washington.

#7204

Karen Khachaturian

#122213

Overall Influence

1920 - 2011 (91 years)

Karen Surenovich Khachaturian was a Soviet and Russian composer of Armenian ethnicity and the nephew of composer Aram Khachaturian. Khachaturian was born in Moscow, the son of Suren Khachaturian, a theatrical director. His studies under Genrikh Litinsky at the Moscow Conservatory were interrupted by a term of duty in the entertainment division of the Red Army. Resuming his studies in 1945, he worked with Dmitri Shostakovich and Nikolai Myaskovsky.

#7205

Agop Melkonyan

#73590

Overall Influence

1949 - 2006 (57 years)

Agop Melkonyan was a Bulgarian writer of Armenian descent. He is best known as an author of science fiction short stories and novels. He was also a translator, journalist, editor and scholar. Melkonyan popularized in Bulgaria recent discoveries in physics, astronomy and mechanics. His literary influence spread mainly through such Bulgarian periodical editions as Orbita, Omega and Varkolak.

#7206

Pierre Alexandre

#106592

Overall Influence

1922 - 1994 (72 years)

Pierre Alexandre , was a French anthropologist and linguist. Biography Born Pierre Hippolyte Henri Charles Alexandre in Algiers, he spent his childhood in mainland France. Alexandre studied at the Lycée Carnot in Paris. In 1943, he qualified for entry into the École nationale de la France d'Outre-Mer.

#7207

Sonny Fortune

#102128

Overall Influence

1939 - 2018 (79 years)

Cornelius "Sonny" Fortune was an American jazz saxophonist. Fortune played soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones, clarinet, and flute. Biography He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After moving to New York City in 1967, Fortune recorded and appeared live with drummer Elvin Jones's group. In 1968, he was a member of Mongo Santamaría's band. He performed with singer Leon Thomas, and with pianist McCoy Tyner . In 1974, Fortune replaced Dave Liebman in Miles Davis's ensemble, remaining until spring 1975, when he was succeeded by Sam Morrison. Fortune can be heard on ...

#7208

Chris Carmichael

#102414

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Chris Carmichael is an American musician, arranger and composer. Biography Carmichael was born in San Antonio, Texas. The son of an Air Force fighter pilot, he moved extensively before taking up the violin while living in Hampton, Virginia. After moving to Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1975, he entered into more formal training - studying violin with Western Kentucky University professor Betty Pease for eight years. While in the university environment, he also studied music theory, composition, orchestral and chamber performance under teachers; Dr. David Livingston , Vsevolod Lezhnev, and Leon...

#7209

Richard Hayes

#57345

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Richard Hayes is an Emeritus professor of Buddhist philosophy at the University of New Mexico. He received his Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian studies from the University of Toronto in 1982. Hayes moved to Canada in 1967 in order to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War.

#7210

Sarah Harmer

#83491

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Sarah Lois Harmer is a Canadian singer, songwriter and environmental activist. Early life Born and raised in Burlington, Ontario, Harmer gained her first exposure to the musician's lifestyle as a teenager, when her older sister started taking her to Tragically Hip concerts.

#7211

Anne Lauber

#122419

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Anne Lauber is a Canadian composer, conductor, and music educator. A member of the Canadian League of Composers and an associate of the Canadian Music Centre, she has been commissioned to write works by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Music Competitions, the Canada Council, and the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec among many other groups. In 1985 she was awarded first prize for her Arabesque at the International Guitar Competition in Marl, Germany. She became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1972. In 2007 the Eastman School of Music featured her in the school's Women in Music Festival.

#7212

Robert Erickson

#116891

Overall Influence

1917 - 1997 (80 years)

Robert Erickson was an American composer. Education Erickson was born in Marquette, Michigan. He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936 to 1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone system before most other Americans had taken it up." He influenced notable students Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Louise Spizizen, Betty Ann Wong, and Paul Dresher. He is the author of The Structure of Music: A Listener's Guide, which he claimed helped him overcome a "contrapuntal obsession", and Sound Structure in Music , an important early attempt to systematically study timbre in...

#7213

Montserrat Minobis i Puntonet

#113062

Overall Influence

1942 - 2019 (77 years)

Montserrat Minobis i Puntonet was a Spanish feminist journalist. Biography Montserrat Minobis i Puntonet was born in Figueras on 24 October 1942. She was committed to the anti-Franco struggle of the 1970s and was an activist in defense of Catalan culture. She affiliated with various political formations. In the 1990s, she was president of the European Network of Women Journalists and the Association of Women Journalists of Catalonia. From 2001 to 2004, she was dean of the College of Journalists of Catalonia. She was the recipient of several awards, including the Creu de Sant Jordi from the Generalitat de Catalunya.

#7214

Paul Williams

#96183

Overall Influence

1915 - 2002 (87 years)

Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams was an American jazz and blues saxophonist, bandleader, and songwriter. His record "The Huckle-Buck", recorded in December 1948, was one of the most successful R&B records of the time. In his Honkers and Shouters, Arnold Shaw credited Williams as one of the first to employ the honking tenor saxophone solo that became the hallmark of rhythm and blues and rock and roll in the 1950s and early 1960s.

#7215

Colin Macilwain

#166703

Overall Influence

#7216

Thierry. Dutoit

#166738

Overall Influence

#7217

Buddy Emmons

#83678

Overall Influence

1937 - 2015 (78 years)

Buddy Gene Emmons was an American musician who is widely regarded as the world's foremost pedal steel guitarist of his day. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1981. Affectionately known by the nickname "Big E", Emmons' primary genre was American country music, but he also performed jazz and Western swing. He recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, The Everly Brothers, The Carpenters, Jackie DeShannon, Roger Miller, Ernest Tubb, John Hartford, Little Jimmy Dickens, Ray Price, Judy Collins, George Strait, John Sebastian, and Ray Charles and was a widely sought session...

#7218

Gregory Mosher

#94262

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Gregory Mosher is an American director and producer of stage productions at the Lincoln Center and Goodman Theatres, on and off-Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre, and in the West End. He is also a film director and television director, producer, and writer. He currently serves as Senior Associate Dean for the Arts at Hunter College.

#7219

David Miller

#113706

Overall Influence

1909 - 1992 (83 years)

David Miller was an American film director who directed varied films such as Billy the Kid with Robert Taylor and Brian Donlevy, Flying Tigers with John Wayne, and Love Happy with the Marx Brothers.

#7220

Guy Paré

#166756

Overall Influence

#7221

Muriel Magenta

#152930

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Muriel Magenta née Zimmerman is an American visual artist working in new media genres of computer art, installation, multimedia performance as well as video and sculpture. Magenta is Professor of Art at Arizona State University.

#7222

John Barlow Jarvis

#72020

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

John Barlow Jarvis is an American songwriter, composer, session pianist and recording artist. Before moving to Lake Tahoe in 2014, he had lived in Nashville, Tennessee since 1982. Early career As a child, Jarvis was trained in classical music under Evelyn Hood in San Marino, California and won both the Southern California Bach Festival and first place in the California Music Teachers Composition Contest. He first began his professional musical career at the age of 14 when he was signed as a staff songwriter for Edwin H. Morris Music. By age 17, he was a staff piano player for Motown Records.

#7223

Christopher Austin

#125101

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Christopher Austin is a British conductor, and an arranger and orchestrator of film and television scores. Austin originally intended to become a composer. He studied at the University of Bristol with Adrian Beaumont and Raymond Warren , and subsequently at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama with Robert Saxton and Simon Bainbridge.

#7224

Frank Henry Nuessel

#166878

Overall Influence

#7225

Ralph Blane

#97833

Overall Influence

1914 - 1995 (81 years)

Ralph Blane was an American composer, lyricist, and performer. Life and career Blane was born Ralph Uriah Hunsecker in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He attended Tulsa Central High School. He studied singing with Estelle Liebling in New York City. He began his career as a radio singer for NBC in the 1930s before turning to Broadway, where he was featured in New Faces of 1936 , Hooray for What! , and Louisiana Purchase . In 1940 he formed a vocal quartet with his friend Hugh Martin which performed on radio and in nightclubs.

#7226

Eric Ewazen

#128066

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Eric Ewazen is an American composer and teacher. Biography Ewazen studied composition under Samuel Adler, Milton Babbitt, Gunther Schuller, Joseph Schwantner, Warren Benson, and Eugene Kurtz at the Eastman School of Music and The Juilliard School . He has been on the faculty of The Juilliard School since 1980, and has been a lecturer for the New York Philharmonic's Musical Encounters Series. He has also served on the faculties of the Hebrew Arts School and the Lincoln Center Institute. He served as Vice President of the League of Composers – International Society for Contemporary Music from 1982–1989, and was also composer-in-residence for the Orchestra of St.

#7227

Adele Addison

#121448

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (101 years)

Adele Addison is an American lyric soprano who was a figure in the classical music world during the 1950s and 1960s. Although she did appear in several operas, Addison spent most of her career performing in recital and concert. Her performances spanned a wide array of literature from the Baroque period to contemporary compositions. She is best remembered today as the singing voice for Bess in the 1959 movie, Porgy and Bess. Known for her polished and fluent tone, Addison made a desirable Baroque vocal artist. She can be heard on numerous recordings, of which her Baroque performances are perhaps her best work.

#7228

Foster Fitzsimmons

#135810

Overall Influence

1912 - 1991 (79 years)

Foster Fitz-Simons was an American dancer, novelist, and teacher. He was a member of the first all-male dance company in the US, Ted Shawn's Male Dancers. He left Ted Shawn's company to form a partnership with Miriam Winslow; they performed together for many years, appearing with the Boston, Detroit, and Toronto Symphonies as well as at the Guild Theatre in New York City and at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. They toured South America for five months in 1941.

#7229

Christopher Fifield

#122115

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Christopher Fifield is an English conductor and classical music historian and musicologist based in London. From 1982 until 2022 music director of the Lambeth Orchestra, Fifield is known for his exploration of neglected compositions, often from the 19th century Romantic repertoire. He is also known to the classical music listening public for his concert intermission talks from The Proms and other broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, the BBC World Service, and Classic FM.

#7230

Yoshihiko Wada

#34404

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Yoshihiko Wada is a Japanese painter. Biography Born in Miyama , Kitamura, Mie, Japan in 1940, his father was a cleric.He graduated from Asahigaoka High School in Aichi.In 1959, he enrolled on the oil painting course at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music.In 1964 he held his first solo exhibition.In 1965 he worked as a part-time lecturer at Musashino Art University In 1971 he won a scholarship from the Italian government and stayed in Rome for six years, also travelled in Spain while studying Western art.Returned to Japan in 1977In 1980 he was an assistant professor of the Ja...

#7231

Katherine Kelly

Katherine Kelly

#101022

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Katherine Sinead Kelly is an English actress and presenter, who made her TV debut in 2003, appearing on Last of the Summer Wine. Kelly rose to prominence after portraying Becky McDonald in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street between 2006 and 2012. For this role, Kelly won multiple awards including a National Television Award for "Best Serial Drama Performance" in 2012.

#7232

David Lowery

#93804

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

David Charles Lowery is an American guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, mathematician, and activist. He is the founder of the alternative rock band Camper Van Beethoven and the co-founder of Cracker, a more traditional rock band. Lowery released his first solo album, The Palace Guards, in February 2011.

#7233

Janis Nuckolls

#128937

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Janis Nuckolls is an American anthropological linguist and professor of linguistics and English language at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She has spent many years doing field research, with a primary focus on the Amazonian Quichua people in Ecuador and their endangered language.

#7234

Oscar Ghiglia

#144974

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Oscar Alberto Ghiglia is an Italian classical guitarist. Biography Early years Born in Livorno to an artistic family – his father and grandfather were both famed painters, his mother an accomplished pianist – Oscar Ghiglia had to choose between a path strewn with brushes and colours and a world cut into harmony and melody.

#7235

Kevin Fiedler

#167098

Overall Influence

#7236

Mark L. Knapp

#167170

Overall Influence

#7237

Dick D. F. Ettema

#167186

Overall Influence

#7238

Akiko Fukai

#138141

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Akiko Fukai is a Japanese curator of fashion and textile arts. She received a bachelor's and a master's degree in fashion history from National University of Ochanomizu and studied at Paris-Sorbonne University.

#7239

Steve Allen

#92723

Overall Influence

1921 - 2000 (79 years)

Stephen Valentine Patrick William Allen was an American television and radio personality, comedian, musician, composer, writer and actor. In 1954, he achieved national fame as the co-creator and first host of The Tonight Show, which was the first late-night television talk show.

#7240

Margot Loyola

#116479

Overall Influence

1918 - 2015 (97 years)

Margot Loyola Palacios was a musician, folk singer and researcher of the folklore of Chile and Latin America in general. Loyola was active as a musician and musical ethnographer/anthropologist for many decades. She published a large body of work dealing with musical styless, folk music and customs of all Chilean regions as well as other South American countries. She also taught music.

#7241

Louis Hayes

#87495

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Louis Hayes is an American jazz drummer and band leader. He was with McCoy Tyner's trio for more than three years. Since 1989 he has led his own band, and together with Vincent Herring formed the Cannonball Legacy Band. He is part of the NEA Jazz Masters awards class of 2023.

#7242

Lynda Lee Kaid

#121195

Overall Influence

1948 - 2011 (63 years)

Lynda Lee Kaid was a Professor of Telecommunication and Research Foundation Professor in the College of Journalism & Communications at the University of Florida and named by Communication Quarterly as one of the most productive scholars in the communication discipline. She authored more than 30 books and more than 200 peer reviewed articles and chapters on political communication and political advertising.

#7243

Walter Trampler

#124749

Overall Influence

1915 - 1997 (82 years)

Walter Trampler was a German musician and teacher of the viola and viola d'amore. Born in Munich, he was given his first lessons at age six by his violinist father. While still in his youth, he played well enough to tour Europe as violist of the prestigious Strub Quartet. In the mid-1930s, he recorded with Max Strub and Florizel von Reuter and Ludwig Hoelscher and Elly Ney . Later, he was principal violist of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. He left the quartet and emigrated to the United States in 1939. After U.S. Army service in World War II he returned to music, teaching, performing, and recording.

#7244

Stephen P. Robbins

#167274

Overall Influence

#7245

Michael Phillips

#97326

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Michael Phillips is an American film producer. Early life and education Phillips was born in Brooklyn and raised on Long Island. His mother, Shirley, was a schoolteacher and housewife; his father, Larry, was a garment manufacturer. They later became dealers in ancient Asian art. Phillips received a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law. After being admitted to the New York Bar in 1969, he worked as a securities analyst on Wall Street. In 1971, he and his wife moved to Malibu, California and produced their first film, Steelyard Blues, ...

#7246

Javier Pradera

#29043

Overall Influence

1934 - 2011 (77 years)

Francisco Javier Pradera Gortázar was a Spanish anti-Franco activist, journalist, political analyst and publisher. Pradera was a journalist and columnist for El País, based in Madrid. Pradera worked as an editorial writer at El País from 1976 to 1986. His first piece for El País was published on 16 May 1976. He remained an El País columnist and editorial board member from 1986 until his death in 2011. Outside of El País, Pradera worked as the director of the publishing firm, Alianza Editorial, and founded the publishing house, Siglo XXI.

#7247

Hartmut Höll

#133356

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Hartmut Höll is a German pianist and music professor. Biography Höll was born in Heilbronn. He trained in Stuttgart, Milan and Munich, specializing in art song accompaniment. From the time of his début in 1973 he has worked closely with the soprano Mitsuko Shirai, winning the Hugo Wolf Competition in Vienna, the Robert Schumann Competition at Zwickau and international prizes in 1976 in Athens and 's-Hertogenbosch. For many years their recitals have been acclaimed throughout Europe and the United States, as well as in Japan, the Middle East and South America. They have also recorded extensiv...

#7248

Don Grolnick

#77656

Overall Influence

1947 - 1996 (49 years)

Don Grolnick was an American jazz pianist, composer, and record producer. He was a member of the groups Steps Ahead and Dreams, both with Michael Brecker, and played often with the Brecker Brothers. As a session musician, he recorded with John Scofield, Billy Cobham, Roberta Flack, Harry Chapin, Dave Holland, Bette Midler, Marcus Miller, Bob Mintzer, Linda Ronstadt, David Sanborn, Carly Simon, J. D. Souther, Steely Dan, and James Taylor.

#7249

Paul Cohen

#60365

Overall Influence

Paul Cohen is an American saxophonist. He is active as a performer, teacher, historian, musicologist, and author in areas related to saxophone. Education Cohen holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music, and M.M. and D.M.A. degrees from the Manhattan School of Music.

#7250

Leonid Rudnytzky

#57800

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Leonid Ivanovych Rudnytzky is a linguist, professor of German, Slavic and Ukrainian Studies, co-editor of numerous American and Ukrainian encyclopedias, and scholar of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

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