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,

#7751

Diane Schuur

#88090

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Diane Joan Schuur , nicknamed "Deedles", is an American jazz singer and pianist. As of 2015, Schuur had released 23 albums, and had extended her jazz repertoire to include essences of Latin, gospel, pop and country music. Her most successful album is Diane Schuur & the Count Basie Orchestra, which remained number one on the Billboard Jazz Charts for 33 weeks. She won Grammy Awards for best female jazz vocal performance in both 1986 and 1987 and has had three other Grammy nominations.

#7752

Felix Johannes Oinas

Felix Johannes Oinas

#134779

Overall Influence

1911 - 2004 (93 years)

Felix Johannes Oinas was an Estonian folklorist, linguist, and translator. Early life and career Felix Oinas was born in Tartu to dairy farmer Ernst Oinas and his wife Marie , who was a homemaker. He grew up in the village of Maltsa. Ernst had a keen interest in literature and maintained a small library. Felix became an avid reader during elementary school, particularly interested in Estonian folklore and literature.

#7753

Yvonne Latty

#161622

Overall Influence

Yvonne Latty is an American journalist, author, filmmaker and professor at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She has traveled the country to speak on subjects including race to writing, and is also a Leeway Foundation Fellow.

#7754

Billy West

#101710

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

William Richard Werstine , known professionally as Billy West, is an American voice actor, musician and former radio personality. His voice roles include Bugs Bunny in the 1996 film Space Jam and several subsequent projects, the title characters of Doug and The Ren & Stimpy Show, as well as the Futurama characters Philip J. Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg, Zapp Brannigan and many more. In commercials, he voices the Red M&M and formerly voiced Buzz for Honey Nut Cheerios. West also voices other such established characters such as Elmer Fudd, Popeye, Shaggy Rogers, Skeets, Muttley, and Woody Woodpecker.

#7755

Theodore Antoniou

#143140

Overall Influence

1935 - 2018 (83 years)

Theodore Antoniou , was a Greek composer and conductor. His works vary from operas and choral works to chamber music, from film and theatre music to solo instrumental works. In addition to his career as composer and conductor, he was professor of composition at Boston University. His education included studies in violin, voice, and composition at the National Conservatory of Athens, the Hellenic Conservatory, and conducting at both The Hochschule für Musik and the International Music Centre in Darmstadt. He was a member of the Academy of Athens.

#7756

Kotono Mitsuishi

#139154

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

is a Japanese actress and narrator. She was affiliated with Arts Vision and Lasley Arrow, but is now freelance. Mitsuishi lived in Nagareyama, Chiba. She graduated from high school and entered the Katsuta Voice Actor's Academy in 1986. She is well known for her roles as Usagi Tsukino in Sailor Moon series, Misato Katsuragi in Neon Genesis Evangelion, Sayaka Mine in Yaiba, Boa Hancock in One Piece, Murrue Ramius, Haro and Narrator in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY, and Rena Mizunashi in Detective Conan.

#7757

Kirsten Johnson

#97932

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Kirsten Johnson is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer. She is mostly known for her camera work on several well-known feature-length documentaries such as Citizenfour and The Oath. In 2016, she released Cameraperson, a film which consists of various pieces of footage from her decades of work all over the world as a documentary cinematographer. Directed by Johnson herself, Cameraperson went on to be praised for its handling of themes about documentary ethics interwoven with Johnson's personal reflection on her experiences.

#7758

Dave Burrell

#134697

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Herman Davis "Dave" Burrell is an American jazz pianist. He has played with many jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Marion Brown and David Murray. Biography Born in Middletown, Ohio, United States, Burrell grew fond of jazz at a young age after meeting Herb Jeffries. Burrell studied music at the University of Hawaii from 1958 to 1960, then, beginning in 1961, attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating with degrees in composition/arranging and performance in 1965. While in Boston, he played with Tony Williams and Sam Rivers.

#7759

Jeff Marx

#100821

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Jeff Marx is an American composer and lyricist of musicals. He is best known for creating the Broadway musical Avenue Q with collaborator Robert Lopez. Early life Marx grew up in Hollywood, Florida. He attended Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Following graduation, he attended the University of Michigan, where he was a member of the Men's Glee Club. He also holds a juris doctor degree from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and is a member of the New York State Bar Association, but he does not practice law.

#7760

Rich Harrison

#63987

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Richard Christopher Harrison is an American record producer and songwriter from Washington, D.C., specializing in R&B and hip hop music. The winner of a Grammy Award, Harrison is well known for producing songs such as "Get Right" , "1 Thing" and "Crazy in Love" . Harrison is the founder of Richcraft Entertainment, a label that housed artists such as singer Amerie, R&B girl group RichGirl, and rapper Young Steff.

#7761

John White

#129097

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

John White is an English experimental composer and musical performer. He invented the early British form of minimalism known as systems music, with his early Machines. Life and career White was born in Berlin to an English father and German mother. The family moved to London at the outbreak of war. Originally a sculptor, White decided on a composition career when he heard Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie. He studied composition at the London Royal College of Music from 1955 to 1958 with Bernard Stevens and piano with Arthur Alexander and Eric Harrison. He also took analysis classes privately with Elisabeth Lutyens.

#7762

Carol Neblett

#129229

Overall Influence

1946 - 2017 (71 years)

Carol Lee Neblett was an American operatic soprano. Life and career Neblett was born in Modesto, California and raised in Redondo Beach. She studied at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1969 she made her operatic debut with the New York City Opera, playing the part of Musetta in Puccini's La bohème. With that company, she continued to sing many leading roles, in Mefistofele , Prince Igor , Faust, Manon, Louise , La traviata, Le coq d'or, Carmen , The Marriage of Figaro , Don Giovanni , L'incoronazione di Poppea , Ariadne auf Naxos , and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Die tote Stadt .

#7763

Jay McShann

#76002

Overall Influence

1916 - 2006 (90 years)

James Columbus "Jay" McShann was an American jazz pianist, vocalist, composer, and bandleader. He led bands in Kansas City, Missouri, that included Charlie Parker, Bernard Anderson, Walter Brown, and Ben Webster.

#7764

Michael Thomas

#170103

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Michael Thomas is research professor at Liverpool John Moores University working primarily in the field of digital education in relation to social justice, the educational implications of disadvantage, online and distance education, digitally mediated communication and higher education policy.

#7765

Hermann Moisl

#109348

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Dr. Hermann Moisl is a retired senior lecturer and visiting fellow in Linguistics at Newcastle University. He was educated at various institutes, including Trinity College Dublin and the University of Oxford.

#7766

John Melby

#136707

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

John Melby is an American composer. Life and work John Melby is most widely known for his numerous compositions for computer-synthesized sounds, particularly in combination with live acoustic instruments. In addition to electronic music, Melby's catalog includes many acoustic chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Since 2010, he has focused almost exclusively on writing acoustic music for chamber ensembles and symphony orchestra.

#7767

Jody Kreiman

#171334

Overall Influence

Jody Kreiman is an American linguist and professor in residence of head and neck surgery at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is known for her works on phonetics and laboratory phonology. She is an elected fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.

#7768

Mike Hill

#89611

Overall Influence

1949 - 2023 (74 years)

Michael J. Hill was an American film editor. He and his editing partner Dan Hanley had a longstanding, notable collaboration with director Ron Howard, having cut all of Howard's films from Night Shift to In the Heart of the Sea . They won an Academy Award for the film Apollo 13 , and the BAFTA Award for the film Rush . Hill was a member of the American Cinema Editors .

#7769

Ian Ritchie

#114339

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Ian Ritchie is an English composer, record producer, arranger and saxophonist. He was the producer of Roger Waters' album Radio K.A.O.S., along with other recordings with Laurie Anderson , Pete Wylie , Hugh Cornwell and the Big Dish . During the 1980s, he collaborated with English singer/songwriter Gary Numan.

#7770

Patrick Swayze

#104566

Overall Influence

1952 - 2009 (57 years)

Patrick Wayne Swayze was an American actor, dancer, and singer-songwriter known for playing distinctive lead roles, particularly romantic, tough, and comedic characters. He was also known for his media image and looks; People magazine named Swayze the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991.

#7771

Christopher Robe

#130784

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Christopher Robé is a professor in film and media studies at Florida Atlantic University. He has published Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture., which resituates such well-known auteurs like Sergei Eisenstein and Jean Renoir in an American political context.,. It also argues that the 1930s proved a vital moment in time regarding the emergence of Left Film Theory,.

#7772

Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem

#75631

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem , is a Congolese historian and linguist. He is the author of several essays, studies and other publications about the history of the Congo, including the overview work L'histoire générale du Congo: De l'héritage ancien à la République démocratique.

#7773

Augustus Pablo

#100629

Overall Influence

1954 - 1999 (45 years)

Horace Michael Swaby , known as Augustus Pablo, was a Jamaican roots reggae and dub record producer and a multi-instrumentalist, active from the 1970s until his death. He popularised the use of the melodica in reggae music. His album King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown is often regarded as one of the most important examples of dub.

#7774

Robin Orr

#134073

Overall Influence

1909 - 2006 (97 years)

Robert Kemsley Orr was a Scottish organist and composer. Life Born in Brechin, and educated at Loretto School, he studied the organ at the Royal College of Music in London under Walter Galpin Alcock, and piano with Arthur Benjamin. He then continued his studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge under Cyril Rootham. Following studies with Alfredo Casella and Nadia Boulanger in Paris he returned to Cambridge in 1938 as Organist of St John's College, succeeding Rootham. During his war service in the Royal Air Force Herbert Howells deputised for him.

#7775

Chris Stamey

#79262

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Christopher Charles Stamey is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. After a brief time playing with Alex Chilton, as well as Mitch Easter under the name Sneakers, Stamey formed The dB's with Peter Holsapple.

#7776

Linda Putnam

#101623

Overall Influence

Linda Putnam is an American scholar and professor in the department of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is known for her theories on organizational communication, centered on conflict management and negotiation, solutions within organizations, gender studies in organizations, and organizational space.

#7777

Jesse Moss

#152239

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Jesse Moss is an American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer known for his cinéma vérité style. His 2014 film, The Overnighters, was shortlisted for best documentary feature at the Oscars. He has directed four independent, feature-length films, and three television documentaries and has produced 15 documentaries.

#7778

Robert Spano

#103987

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Robert Spano is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently music director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and music director laureate of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra .

#7779

Rudolf Kehrer

#147295

Overall Influence

1923 - 2013 (90 years)

Rudolf Kehrer was a much-recorded Soviet and Russian classical pianist. Biography Kehrer was born in Tiflis, Georgia to a family of piano-makers who had emigrated from Swabia. He was a solo pianist of the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and professor at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. In 1961, he won the All-Union Contest. Kehrer was long known only in Eastern bloc countries, as he was denied the opportunity to travel freely. His recording career lasted for over 40 years in many diverse locations.

#7780

Rudolf Koelman

#82364

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Rudolf Koelman is a Dutch violinist and is professor for violin at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in Switzerland. Biography Koelman studied the violin with Jan Bor and Herman Krebbers in Amsterdam. From the age of 18, he studied with Jascha Heifetz on a full scholarship at the University of Southern California School of Music, now known as the USC Thornton School of Music, in Los Angeles. From 1996 until 1999 he was first concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. 2000-2005 he was Professor for violin and chamber music at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf, Germany.

#7781

Bari Rolfe

#136825

Overall Influence

1916 - 2002 (86 years)

Bari Rolfe was an American dancer, choreographer, mime artist, and educator. Rolfe studied mime in Paris, and beginning in the 1960s taught it at University of California, Los Angeles, California State University, Northridge, and University of Washington in Seattle. She wrote several books on mime.

#7782

Marjorie Thomas

#155182

Overall Influence

1923 - 2008 (85 years)

Marjorie Gwendolen Thomas was an English opera and oratorio singer for almost three decades. She sang at the Royal Opera House and was a regular performer at the Promenade Concerts and the Three Choirs Festivals and, for many years, a professor of singing at London's Royal Academy of Music. A favourite soloist of Sir Malcolm Sargent's, she also participated in a number of recordings of Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

#7783

Adam DeVine

#99635

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Adam Patrick Devine is an American actor, comedian, singer, screenwriter, and producer. He is one of the stars and co-creators of the Comedy Central comedy television series Workaholics and Adam DeVine's House Party.

#7784

Michael Gordon

#104950

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Michael Gordon is an American composer and co-founder of the "Bang on a Can" music collective and festival. He grew up in Nicaragua. Life and career Michael Gordon was born in Miami Beach, Florida on July 20, 1956. He grew up in Nicaragua on the outskirts of Managua in an Eastern European Jewish community before moving back to Miami Beach at age eight.

#7785

Debby Herbenick

Debby Herbenick

#101706

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Debby Herbenick is an American author, research scientist, sex educator, sex advice columnist, children's book author, blogger, television personality, professor, and human sexuality expert in the media. Herbenick is a professor at the Indiana University School of Public Health and lead investigator of the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior , which Time called "the most comprehensive survey of its kind in nearly two decades."

#7786

David M. Berube

#130208

Overall Influence

David M. Berube is a professor of communication at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. His doctorate is from New York University and he has studied and taught communication and cognitive psychology and created the term SEIN in his book NanoHype.

#7787

Helke Sander

#87805

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Helke Sander is a German feminist film director, author, actress, activist, and educator. She is known primarily for her documentary work and contributions to the women's movement in the seventies and eighties.

#7788

Bobo Stenson

#114808

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Bobo Stenson is a Swedish jazz pianist. The Bobo Stenson Trio, formed in collaboration with Anders Jormin and Jon Fält , has been in existence for four decades. Career For 15 years, starting at the age of eight, Stenson studied with pianist and professor Werner Wolf Glaser, a Jewish refugee from Cologne.

#7789

Don Burrows

#108883

Overall Influence

1928 - 2020 (92 years)

Donald Vernon Burrows was an Australian jazz and swing musician who played clarinet, saxophone and flute. Life and career Donald Vernon Burrows was born on 8 August 1928, the only child of Vernon and Beryl and attended Bondi Public School. In 1937 a visiting flutist and teacher inspired him to start learning the flute. He began on a B-flat flute which he later played at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival. By 1940 he was captain of the Metropolitan Schools Flute Band and began entering talent quests.

#7790

Greg Ellis

#125223

Overall Influence

Greg Ellis is an American drummer and percussionist, known for his work in film and world music, living in Los Angeles. He has performed and recorded with artists from almost every continent, including Zakir Hussain, Airto, KODO, Mickey Hart’s Planet Drum, Juno Reactor, Billy Idol, Sonu Nigam, Sussan Deyhim, Hamed Nikpay, Bickram Ghosh, Chiwoniso Maraire, Sugizo and many more.

#7791

Ian Pace

#126255

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Ian Geoffrey Pace is a British pianist. Pace studied at Chetham's School of Music, The Queen's College, Oxford and the Juilliard School in New York. His main teacher was the Hungarian pianist György Sándor.

#7792

István Anhalt

#139681

Overall Influence

1919 - 2012 (93 years)

István Anhalt was a Hungarian-Canadian composer. Anhalt served as a professor of music at McGill University and founded the McGill University Electronic Music Studio. He also served as head of music at Queen's University, Kingston. His works earned him the reputation of one of the founding fathers of electroacoustic music in Canada. Among his pupils are Kevin Austin, John Fodi, Clifford Ford, Hugh Hartwell, John Hawkins, Alan Heard, Richard Hunt, Donald Patriquin, and Alex Tilley.

#7793

Larry Sitsky

#100226

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Lazar "Larry" Sitsky is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar. His long term legacy is still to be assessed, but through his work to date he has made a significant contribution to the Australian music tradition.

#7794

Eiji Hashimoto

#169713

Overall Influence

1931 - 2021 (90 years)

Eiji Hashimoto was a Japanese harpsichordist, orchestra conductor, and classical music professor. Biography Hashimoto studied music at the University of Tokyo, and subsequently at Yale University. He made his debut in New York City at The Town Hall in February 1964. At this baroque concert, he received positive reviews for his performances of Jean-Philippe Rameau and Domenico Scarlatti. He was then a professor at the University of Cincinnati.

#7795

Francesca Battistelli

#102603

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Francesca Battistelli is an American Christian singer and songwriter. She was originally an independent artist and had released an independent album, Just a Breath, in 2004. Her first studio album on Fervent Records, My Paper Heart, was released on July 22, 2008. Her first single, "I'm Letting Go", was released to on june bugs radio stations on July 15, 2008, and charted on national Christian CHR charts. The song was the 16th most played song of 2008 on Christian radio stations according to R&R magazine. Battistelli received her first Grammy Award nomination in 2009, for Best Gospel Performance with her single, "Free to Be Me".

#7796

Alfredo Corvino

#99063

Overall Influence

1916 - 2005 (89 years)

Alfredo Corvino was an Uruguayan ballet dancer and ballet teacher. Early life and education Corvino was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and studied violin with his father who was a member of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Montevideo. He studied ballet as a scholarship student of Alberto Pouyanne at the National Academy of Ballet, now known as the Uruguay National Ballet School. He became a principal dancer with the Municipal Theater in Uruguay and was a choreographer and assistant ballet-master for the company as well.

#7797

Frank Lantz

#29921

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Frank Lantz is the Director of the New York University Game Center. For over 12 years, Lantz taught game design at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. He has also taught at the School of Visual Arts and Parsons School of Design. His writings on games, technology, and culture have appeared in a variety of publications. In 2012, The New York Times referred to Lantz as a "reigning genius of the mysteries of games" following his design of iPhone puzzle game Drop7.

#7798

Theo Altmeyer

#141339

Overall Influence

1931 - 2007 (76 years)

Theo Altmeyer was a German classical tenor. Although he was a successful opera singer, he is chiefly remembered for his work as an oratorio soloist. He possessed a rich and lyrical voice that he employed with great expression and nuance.

#7799

RonNell Andersen Jones

#52190

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

RonNell Andersen Jones is the Lee E. Teitelbaum endowed professor of law and Associate Dean of Faculty and Research at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah. She is also an Affiliated Fellow at Yale Law School's Information Society Project. Previously, Jones was a law professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Research at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University, where she was twice named Professor of the Year. Jones has previously been a reporter employed by the Deseret News and she specializes in the study of the integration of the press, the l...

#7800

Chuck Israels

#94545

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Charles H. Israels is a GRAMMY winning American jazz composer, arranger, and bassist who is best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio. He has also worked with Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, J. J. Johnson, John Coltrane, and Judy Collins.

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