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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#7701

Lyudmila Kasatkina

Lyudmila Kasatkina

#120219

Overall Influence

1925 - 2012 (87 years)

Lyudmila Ivanovna Kasatkina was a Soviet and Russian actress who starred in a string of war-related films directed by her husband Sergey Kolosov. Biography Kasatkina was born in a village near Vyazemsky Uyezd, Smolensk Oblast, and attended a ballet school. After breaking her leg at age 14, she gave up her dream of dancing and joined the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts. Kasatkina joined the troupe of the Red Army Theatre in 1947 and worked there for the rest of her life. Her breakthrough film role was a tiger tamer in Tamer of Tigers where she was body/stunt doubled by Margarita Nazarova, a professionally trained tiger handler.

#7702

Robert Stewart

#86845

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Robert Darrin Stewart is an American saxophonist. He recorded several albums under his own name during the period 1994–2006. He has also recorded as a sideman, including on trumpeter Wynton Marsalis' Blood on the Fields. Stewart went on multiple national and world tours during his 30-year career as a performer, both under his own name and with the Marsalis band.

#7703

Bill Stevenson

#52648

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

John William Stevenson is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He is the drummer, main songwriter, and the only constant member of the California punk rock group Descendents since its inception. In late December 1981, he played a few concerts with the hardcore punk band Black Flag because their drummer ROBO was detained in England after a tour there. He went on to record with Black Flag on several of their albums until 1985, including the highly influential My War. After this, he focused his attention on Descendents and played with the band until lead singer Milo Aukerman left in 1987.

#7704

Raya Garbousova

Raya Garbousova

#155496

Overall Influence

1909 - 1997 (88 years)

Raya Garbousova was a Russian Empire-born American cellist and teacher. Early life and career According to the biography contained in the program booklet for the 1997 memorial concert in her honor in DeKalb, Illinois, she made her formal debut in Moscow in 1923 and left the Soviet Union in 1925. She lived and performed in Europe, and gave her first performance in New York City in 1935. In December 1938, she toured the UK as supporting artist to Richard Tauber. She emigrated to the United States in 1939.

#7705

Wolfgang Schäfer

#94305

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Wolfgang Schäfer is a German choral conductor and academic. He founded the Freiburger Vokalensemble, the BosArt Trio, and the Frankfurter Kammerchor. Career Born in Staufen im Breisgau, Schäfer studied music education, voice and choral conducting in Freiburg im Breisgau, and orchestral conducting in Stuttgart. He was a teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg from 1971 to 1982. He has been the artistic director of the , which he founded in 1971.

#7706

John Wallace

#142105

Overall Influence

"Big" John Wallace is a bassist and singer who became known as a backup for singer-songwriter Harry Chapin. Career Musician Wallace gained membership of Chapin's band by responding to an ad placed in the Village Voice in 1971. Other responders to the ad included cellist Tim Scott and guitarist Ron Palmer.

#7707

Dominic Cossa

#158357

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Dominic Cossa is an American operatic lyric baritone particularly associated with the Italian and French repertoire. Biography Born in Jessup, Pennsylvania, Cossa studied with Anthony Marlowe in Detroit, Michigan, Robert Weede in Concord, California, and Armen Boyajian in New York City. He made his debut at the New York City Opera as Moralès in 1961, and a week later sang Sharpless with the company. He won the American Opera Auditions in 1964 and was sent to Italy for debuts at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan and Teatro della Pergola in Florence.

#7708

Karen McGrane

#120404

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Karen McGrane is a content strategist and website accessibility advocate, who wrote a book called Content Strategy for Mobile. McGrane teaches Design Management at School of Visual Arts in New York. Her design philosophy is "every company is a technology company" and "every business is in the user experience business." McGrane was an early proponent of designing web content for mobile devices and is a frequent speaker at technology conferences. She was also the co-executive producer, with Jared Spool, of the UX Advantage Conference and cohost of the UX Advantage podcast. She co-hosted the Resp...

#7709

Erwin Ortner

#122452

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Erwin Ortner is an Austrian conductor, especially of vocal music. He is the founder and artistic director of the Arnold Schoenberg Chor. External links Erwin Ortner Arnold Schoenberg ChorErwin Ortner bach-cantatas.comHohe Ehre für Wiens neue Musik: Auszeichnungen für Ortner und Knessl wien.gv.at 2010

#7710

Lynn Davis

#77105

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Lynn Davis is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. She rose to prominence after joining The George Duke Band in 1977. During her time with the band, she sang lead vocals on some of their biggest hits: "I Want You for Myself", "Party Down", and "Thief in the Night". Under the guidance of Epic Records musician and mentor George Duke, Davis continued booking success by contributing background vocals and writing songs for many singers including Tracie Spencer, La Toya Jackson, Patrice Rushen, Anita Baker, and many other singers.

#7711

Shelly Berg

#101649

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Shelton "Shelly" Glen Berg is an American classical and jazz pianist and music educator. He is the dean of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida and the school's Patricia L. Frost Professor of Music.

#7712

William P. Foster

#140219

Overall Influence

1919 - 2010 (91 years)

William Patrick Foster , also known as The Law and The Maestro, was the director of the noted Florida A&M University Marching "100". He served as the band's director from 1946 to his retirement in 1998. His innovations revolutionized college marching band technique and the perceptions of the collegiate band. Foster was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, the National Association for Distinguished Band Conductors Hall of Fame, the Florida Music Educators Association Hall of Fame and the Afro-American Hall of Fame among others. He also served as the president of the American Bandmasters Association and was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by President Bill Clinton.

#7713

James Morrison

#129363

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

James Lloyd Morrison AM is an Australian jazz musician. Although his main instrument is trumpet, he has also performed on trombone, tuba, euphonium, flugelhorn, saxophone, clarinet, double bass, guitar, and piano. He is a composer, writing jazz charts for ensembles of various sizes and proficiency levels.

#7714

Alan Ridout

#135661

Overall Influence

1934 - 1996 (62 years)

Alan Ridout was a British composer and teacher. Life Born in West Wickham, Kent, England, Alan Ridout studied briefly at the Guildhall School of Music before commencing four years of study at the Royal College of Music, London with Herbert Howells and Gordon Jacob. He was later taught by Michael Tippett, Peter Fricker and Henk Badings.

#7715

Katherine Westphal

#121074

Overall Influence

1919 - 2018 (99 years)

Katherine Westphal was an American textile designer and fiber artist who helped to establish quilting as a fine art form. Early life and education Westphal was born January 2, 1919, in Los Angeles, California to Emma and Leo Westphal, who managed grocery stores. At age two, she began cutting, pasting and coloring and decided that she liked to do that more than anything. She attended Los Angeles public, elementary, junior and senior high schools. In 1941 she earned an Associate of Arts degree from Los Angeles City College. She then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied painting and art history and received BA and MFA degrees in painting.

#7716

Gulbrand Alhaug

#171032

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Gulbrand Alhaug is a Norwegian onomastician and linguistics professor emeritus at the University of Tromsø. Alhaug studied at the University of Bergen. He has studied personal names in particular, and published the volume Norsk fornavnleksikon . In addition to Norwegian names, his onomastic studies have also included the Pomaks of Bulgaria.

#7717

Charles Davis

#157518

Overall Influence

1933 - 2016 (83 years)

Charles Davis was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Davis played alto, tenor and baritone saxophone, and performed extensively with Archie Shepp and Sun Ra. Biography Born in Goodman, Mississippi, Davis was raised in Chicago. After being sent to boarding school at St Benedict's in Milwaukee, he graduated from DuSable High School before studying at the Chicago School of Music. Davis also studied privately with John Hauser. During the 1950s, he played with Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Sun Ra and Dinah Washington. Davis also performed and recorded with Kenny Dorham, with whom he associa...

#7718

Christopher Fox

#143141

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Christopher Fox is an English composer and writer on music. Biography He studied at the universities of Liverpool, Southampton and York, where his teachers included Hugh Wood and Jonathan Harvey. He received a PhD in composition from the University of York in 1984. From 1984 to 1994 he was a member of the composition staff at the Darmstadt New Music Summer School. He is currently Professor in Music at Brunel University, a post he took up in 2006. His music is widely performed, broadcast and recorded. He is also a prolific writer on music. In addition to concert works, Fox has collaborated wit...

#7719

James Stroud

#77015

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

James Stroud is an American musician and record producer who works in pop, rock, R&B, soul, disco, and country music. He played with the Malaco Rhythm Section for Malaco Records. In the 1990s, he was the president of Giant Records and held several credits as a session drummer. He later worked for DreamWorks Records Nashville and in 2008 founded his own label, Stroudavarious Records.

#7720

Toyah Willcox

#120356

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Toyah Ann Willcox is an English singer, actress, and TV presenter. In a career spanning more than 40 years, she has had eight top 40 singles, released over 20 albums, written two books, appeared in over 40 stage plays and 10 feature films, and voiced and presented numerous television shows.

#7721

Amália Rodrigues

#134634

Overall Influence

1920 - 1999 (79 years)

Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues GCSE, GCIH , better known as Amália Rodrigues or popularly as Amália, was a Portuguese fadista . She was known as the 'Rainha do Fado' and was instrumental in popularising fado worldwide and travelled internationally throughout her career. Amália remains the best-selling Portuguese artist in history. She advocated the restoration of the monarchy in Portugal. She was a devout Catholic, which was reflected in her music.

#7722

Bill Lee

#90652

Overall Influence

1928 - 2023 (95 years)

William James Edwards Lee III was a jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Bob Dylan and Aretha Franklin, his compositions for jazz percussionist Max Roach, and his session work as a "first-call" musician and band leader to many of the twentieth-century's most significant musical artists, including Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, Billy Strayhorn, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, among many others.

#7723

V. V. Ganeshananthan

#102588

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

V. V. "Sugi" Ganeshananthan is an American fiction writer, essayist, and journalist of Ilankai Tamil descent. Her work has appeared in many leading newspapers and journals, including Granta, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Washington Post.

#7724

Miriam Hadar Weingarten

Miriam Hadar Weingarten

#15800

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Miriam Hadar Weingarten is an American-Israeli lawyer, model and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss Israel 1958 and represented Israel at Miss Universe 1958. Life Hadar-Weingarten was born in Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine . She did her military service in the Israeli Air Force while studying law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1958, she won the title of Beauty Queen of Jerusalem and Beauty Queen of Israel.

#7725

David Mansfield

#85705

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

David Mansfield is an American musician and composer. Mansfield was raised in Leonia, New Jersey. His father, Newton Mansfield was a first violinist in the New York Philharmonic. David played guitar, pedal steel guitar and fiddle in his first band, called Quacky Duck and His Barnyard Friends, which also included two sons of Tony Bennett.

#7726

G. Devarajan

#62901

Overall Influence

1924 - 2006 (82 years)

Paravoor Govindan Devarajan , popularly known as G. Devarajan or Devarajan master, was an Indian music composer and Carnatic singer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers in the history of Indian film music. He scored music for more than three hundred Malayalam films, many dramas, and twenty Tamil and four Kannada movies. His collaborations with Vayalar Ramavarma produced the golden era of Malayalam film music and many of his compositions remain ever green classics in Malayalam. His music in the Tamil film Annai Velankanni has received many accolades. Devarajan received Kerala Government's Best Music Director award five times, among other honours.

#7727

Jan Howard

#95415

Overall Influence

1929 - 2020 (91 years)

Jan Howard was an American author, as well as a country music singer and songwriter. As a singer, she placed 30 singles on the Billboard country songs chart, was a Grand Ole Opry member and was nominated for several major awards. As a writer, she wrote poems and published an autobiography. She was married to country songwriter Harlan Howard.

#7728

Chrisanthi Avgerou

Chrisanthi Avgerou

#53861

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Chrisanthi Avgerou FBCS FAIS is a Greek-born British scholar in the field of the Social Study of Information Systems, focusing on Information Technology in developing countries. She is currently Professor of Information Systems at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

#7729

Tatiana Samoilova

Tatiana Samoilova

#114596

Overall Influence

1934 - 2014 (80 years)

Tatiana Yevgenyevna Samoilova was a Soviet and Russian film actress best known for her lead role in The Cranes Are Flying . She received a number of awards for the film, including a special mention at the Cannes Film Festival. Samoilova had several major roles in the 1960s before largely disappearing from public life. In 1993, she was named a People's Artist of Russia. She made a comeback in the 2000s and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2007 Moscow Film Festival.

#7730

Phil Nimmons

#123573

Overall Influence

1923 - Present (103 years)

Phillip Rista Nimmons, is a Canadian jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and educator. Nimmons is known for playing in a "Free Jazz" and mainstream styles. As well as playing jazz, Nimmons also plays other genres, notably classical music. Nimmons has composed over 400 pieces of music in various genres, and for various instrumentations including film scores, music for radio and television, chamber music, music for large ensembles, concert band and symphony orchestras. Nimmons studied clarinet at the Juilliard School and composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.

#7731

Tom Johnson

#102797

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Tom Johnson is an American minimalist composer. Early life and career Tom Johnson was born in Greeley, Colorado, where he received a religious education at a Methodist church, which has influenced his work. He received two degrees from Yale, a B.A. and the M.Mus. , after which he studied privately with Morton Feldman in New York. From 1971 to 1983 he was a music critic for The Village Voice, writing about new music, and an anthology of these articles was published in 1989 by Het Apollohuis under the title The Voice of New Music. During this period he also composed four of his best known works: An Hour for Piano , The Four-Note Opera , Failing and Nine Bells .

#7732

Amanda Lenhart

#123004

Overall Influence

Amanda Lenhart is a senior research specialist at the Pew Internet & American Life Project who resides in Washington, D.C. She has published numerous articles and research reports, many of which focus on teenagers and their interactions with the internet and other new media technologies.

#7733

Hiromi Uehara

#115907

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

, known professionally as Hiromi, is a Japanese jazz composer and pianist. She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blending of musical genres such as stride, post-bop, progressive rock, classical and fusion in her compositions.

#7734

Jane Scarpantoni

#81388

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Jane Scarpantoni is an American classically trained cello player, who has played on a number of alternative rock albums. She was a member of Hoboken, New Jersey's Tiny Lights in the mid-1980s, then went on to play with other musicians especially those associated with the Hoboken underground rock scene of the 1980s and early 1990s, including Silverchair, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, Patti Smith, Richard Barone, R.E.M., Indigo Girls, 10,000 Maniacs, Throwing Muses, Kristin Hersh, Lou Reed, Chris Cacavas, Bob Mould, John Lurie's Lounge Lizards, Boo Trundle, Train and many others.

#7735

Bent Sørensen

#134418

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Bent Sørensen is a Danish composer. He won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition in 2018 for L'isola della Città . He studied composition with Ib Nørholm at the Royal Danish Academy of Music and with Per Nørgård at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus.

#7736

Michael Roemer

#119566

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Michael Roemer is a film director, producer and writer. He has won several awards for his films. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. A professor at Yale University, he is the author of Telling Stories.

#7737

Martin Katz

#145396

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Martin Katz is an American pianist, educator and conductor, primarily known for his work as a collaborative pianist. Over his 30 years as a performer, Mr. Katz has accompanied such stars as Marilyn Horne, Cecilia Bartoli, Kathleen Battle, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sylvia McNair, Frederica von Stade, Karita Mattila, David Daniels, José Carreras, Samuel Ramey, and Piotr Beczała.

#7738

Xian Zhang

#59125

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Xian Zhang is a Chinese-American conductor. Born in Dandong, Liaoning, China, to musician parents, Zhang began to learn music as a child with her mother on a piano built by her father. She continued her music studies at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She began conducting studies at age 16, and received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the conservatory in Beijing. Her first conducting appearance was at age 19 with the China National Opera Orchestra in a production of The Marriage of Figaro. She served as conductor-in-residence of the China Opera House in Beijing, and c...

#7739

Adrian Lyne

#113627

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Adrian Lyne is an English film director. Having begun his career directing 1970s television commercials, Lyne made well-received short films which were entries in the London Film Festival. He started making feature length films in 1980 and is known for sexually charged stories and characters, often using stylised light.

#7740

Richard Ford

#141258

Overall Influence

Richard Ford, formerly known as Rick Ford, is a music editor and music producer for feature film soundtracks and scores. He has worked with a number of critically acclaimed film makers, including Ben Affleck, Alexander Payne, Ted Demme and Kathryn Bigelow. He started his musical career as a bass player in his home town of London and later in New York City, working with, amongst others, guitarist Bill Nelson and singer/songwriter Joe Jackson. Ford moved to Los Angeles in the 1990s, where he started his music editing career. He is best known for his work on films such as Argo, The Descendants, S...

#7741

Colette Whiten

#94197

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Colette Whiten is a sculptor, and installation and performance artist who lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Whiten is a recipient of the Governor General's Medal. Early life and education Colette Whiten was born in Birmingham, England. and graduated from the Ontario College of Art in 1972, and was a recipient of the Governor General's Medal.

#7742

Hank Levy

#141767

Overall Influence

1927 - 2001 (74 years)

Henry Jacob "Hank" Levy was an American jazz composer and saxophonist whose works often employed unusual time signatures. He is best known as a big band composer for Stan Kenton and the Don Ellis Orchestra, as well as the founder and long-time director of Towson University's Jazz Program.

#7743

Charles Dutoit

#134019

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Charles Édouard Dutoit is a Swiss conductor. He is currently the principal guest conductor for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia and co-director of the MISA Festival in Shanghai. In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal Award. Dutoit held previous positions with the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Tokyo NHK Symphony and the Orchestre National de France. As of 2017, he is conductor emeritus of the Verbier Music Festival Orchestra. He is an honorary member of the Ravel Foundation in France and the Stravinsky Foundation in Switzerland.

#7744

Adísia Sá

#171232

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Maria Adísia Barros de Sá is a Brazilian radio host, television presenter, writer, and journalist. In 2009, the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo established the Adísia Sá Journalism Cultural Contest in her honour. In 2013, she was awarded the Medal of Abolition by the state of Ceará.

#7745

Jordan Casteel

#73229

Overall Influence

1989 - Present (37 years)

Jordan Casteel is an American figurative painter. Casteel typically paints intimate portraits of friends and family members as well as neighbors and strangers in Harlem and New York. Casteel lives and works in New York City.

#7746

Tony Cox

#145610

Overall Influence

Tony Cox is an American radio and television journalist who is host of the syndicated radio talk show UpFront with Tony Cox and used to be host of News & Notes on National Public Radio . Cox is a graduate of UCLA, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English and a Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre. He started his radio career in 1969 at KFWB in Los Angeles, an all-news station where he was a writer, editor, reporter and anchor. In 1982, Cox became a reporter and early morning anchor for the Los Angeles television station KNXT . In 1985, he changed stations, joining future Fox owned-and-operated station KTTV as an anchor and later anchored for independent station KHJ-TV .

#7747

Chen Yi

#126415

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Chen Yi is a Chinese-American composer of contemporary classical music and violinist. She was the first Chinese woman to receive a Master of Arts in music composition from the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chen was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Si Ji , and has received awards from the Koussevistky Music Foundation and American Academy of Arts and Letters , as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from The New School and in 2012, she was awarded the Brock Commission from the American Choral Directors Association.

#7748

Alexis Kirke

#83528

Overall Influence

Alexis Kirke is a composer and filmmaker known for his interdisciplinary practice. He has been called "the Philip K. Dick of contemporary music". Alexis is British and lives in Plymouth, in South West England. Alexis says he takes his inspiration from both the Arts and from Science/Technology – and has two doctorates – one from each of those Faculties at Plymouth University. In particular, his highest profile work has been motivated by interests in quantum mechanics, marine science, stock markets, and artificial intelligence. Alexis is senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for...

#7749

Peter Robinson

#93728

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Peter Robinson is a British music journalist. He is the creator of the pop music-based blog Popjustice. Robinson self-published the biography/fanzine of The KLF, Justified and Ancient History. He is also the author of three other books: The Official Story and On Tour for UK pop band Busted, and also the author of the tie-in book to UK reality TV show Popstars: The Rivals.

#7750

Santhosh Narayanan

Santhosh Narayanan

#68388

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Santhosh Narayanan is an Indian composer and musician in the Tamil film industry. He also composed music and songs for some Telugu and Malayalam movies. Early life Santhosh Narayanan was born in Tiruchirappalli, India. He is the younger of two children. He was educated at RSK Higher Secondary School, Tiruchirappalli. Santhosh Narayanan completed his B.E., Computer Science & Engineering at J. J. College of Engineering and Technology, Thiruchirapalli. After completing his education, he worked as a recording engineer, arranger and programmer, before beginning to produce independent music and compose for films.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions