The Most Influential People Across History
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 …
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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#8201
Louis Smith
#160537
Overall Influence
1931 - 2016 (85 years)
Edward Louis Smith was an American jazz trumpeter from Memphis, Tennessee. After graduating from Tennessee State University he attended graduate school at the University of Michigan. While studying at the University of Michigan, he played with visiting musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Thad Jones and Billy Mitchell, before going on to play with Sonny Stitt, Count Basie and Al McKibbon, Cannonball Adderley, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, Lou Donaldson, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham and Zoot Sims. Smith decided to forgo being a full-time musician to take a music teaching job at Atlanta's Booker T.
Go to Profile#8202
Nicholas Thompson
#109693
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Nicholas Thompson is an American technology journalist and media executive. In February 2021, he became Chief Executive Officer of The Atlantic. Thompson was selected in part for his editorial experience, which includes stints as the editor-in-chief of Wired and as the editor of Newyorker.com. He was responsible for instituting digital paywalls at both The New Yorker and Wired; at Wired, digital subscriptions increased almost 300 percent in the paywall's first year. While at The New Yorker, Thompson co-founded Atavist, which sold to Automattic in 2018, and in 2009, he published his first book...
Go to Profile#8203
Manoj Joshi
#20944
Overall Influence
Manoj Joshi is an Indian journalist and author specialising in security and international relations. As of 2013 he is a Distinguished Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi–based think tank. Before that he was a professional journalist whose previous job was as Comment Editor with the Mail Today newspaper in India.
Go to Profile#8204
Houston Person
#111853
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Houston Person is an American jazz tenor saxophonist and record producer. Although he has performed in the hard bop and swing genres, he is most experienced in and best known for his work in soul jazz. He received the ‘Eubie Blake Jazz Award’ in 1982.
Go to Profile#8205
Joel Lamangan
#79656
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Joel Lamangan is a Filipino film director, television director and actor. His award-winning films includes The Flor Contemplacion Story, Sidhi, Deathrow, Hubog, Aishte Imasu 1941, Blue Moon and Mano Po.
Go to Profile#8206
John Kinsella
#159076
Overall Influence
1932 - 2021 (89 years)
John Kinsella was an Irish composer and the country's most prolific symphonist during the twentieth century. Life Kinsella was born in Dublin, Irish Free State, the younger brother of the poet and editor Thomas Kinsella. He studied viola at the College of Music in Dublin and took private composition lessons with Éamonn Ó Gallchobhair for a brief period. He developed an early interest in serialism and began to explore many of the techniques evolved by the contemporary European avant-garde. Supported by Gerard Victory and the conductor Hans Waldemar Rosen he had a number of works accepted for ...
Go to Profile#8207
Chita Rivera
#114917
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero Anderson , professionally known as Chita Rivera, is an American actress, singer and dancer who originated roles in Broadway musicals including Anita in West Side Story, Velma Kelly in Chicago, and the title role in Kiss of the Spider Woman. She is a ten-time Tony Award nominee and a three-time Tony Award recipient, including one for Lifetime Achievement. She is the first Latina and the first Latino American to receive a Kennedy Center Honor and is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her autobiography, Chita: A Memoir, was published in 2023.
Go to Profile#8208
Julie Landsman
#168268
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Julie Landsman is an American-born French horn player and teacher. Landsman was Principal Horn of the Metropolitan Opera from 1985-2010. Prior to her appointment with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Landsman served as co-principal horn with the Houston Symphony, and has toured internationally with the New York Philharmonic and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Julie Landsman is on the faculties of The Juilliard School, the USC Thornton School of Music, and the Music Academy of the West. She formerly taught at the Bard College Conservatory of Music.
Go to Profile#8209
Özge Samancı
#126385
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (51 years)
Özge Samancı is a Turkish-American media artist, and associate professor at Northwestern University`s School of Communication. She creates media art installations and graphic novels. Her art installations merge computer code and bio-sensors with comics, animation, interactive narrations, performance, and projection art. Her installations use media arts to break down people's mental and emotional barriers and hear about environmental issues. Her graphic novels combine drawings with three-dimensional objects.
Go to Profile#8210
John Walker
#103339
Overall Influence
1943 - 2011 (68 years)
John Joseph Maus , known professionally as John Walker, was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as the founder of the Walker Brothers, who had their greatest success in the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom.
Go to Profile#8211
Christopher Bannerman
#127301
Overall Influence
Christopher Bannerman is a British academic, choreographer, and former dancer. He is professor of dance and head of the School of Dance at Middlesex University. Bannerman started his career with the National Ballet of Canada but left in the 1970s to travel in south Asia.
Go to Profile#8212
Maurice Pope
#111713
Overall Influence
1926 - 2019 (93 years)
Maurice Wildon Montague Pope was a British linguist, specialist in Classical studies and antiquity, one of leading researchers of the Cretan script Linear A. Born in London, he graduated from Cambridge University. In 1949, became a teaching assistant at the chair of classical studies of Cape Town University, lecturer from 1952, professor from 1957.
Go to Profile#8213
Ella Mae Morse
#96331
Overall Influence
1924 - 1999 (75 years)
Ella Mae Morse was an American singer of popular music whose 1940s and 1950s recordings mixing jazz, blues, and country styles influenced the development of rock and roll. Her 1942 recording of "Cow-Cow Boogie" with Freddie Slack and His Orchestra gave Capitol Records its first gold record. In 1943, her single "Get On Board, Little Chillun", also with Slack, charted in what would soon become the R&B charts, making her one of the first white singers to do so. Morse stopped recording in 1957 but continued to perform and tour into the 1990s. In 1960 she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of F...
Go to Profile#8214
Graham Bell
#140001
Overall Influence
1948 - 2008 (60 years)
Graham Thomas Bell was an English pop and rock singer. Early career Bell's father, Jimmy, who died in 2010, was a well-known local singer, and his late mother, Leonora Rogers, was in show business prior to marriage, after which she was heavily involved in local music and dance.
Go to Profile#8215
Grachan Moncur III
#112978
Overall Influence
1937 - 2022 (85 years)
Grachan Moncur III was an American jazz trombonist. He was the son of jazz bassist Grachan Moncur II and the nephew of jazz saxophonist Al Cooper. Biography Born in New York City, United States, and raised in Newark, New Jersey, Grachan Moncur III began playing the cello at the age of nine, and switched to the trombone when he was 11. In high school, he attended the Laurinburg Institute in North Carolina, the private school where Dizzy Gillespie had studied. While still at school, he began sitting in with touring jazz musicians on their way through town, including Art Blakey and Jackie McLea...
Go to Profile#8216
William Johnson
#165372
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
William Denis Hertel Johnson, CM was a Canadian academic, journalist, and author. Early life and education Johnson's mother was francophone and his father anglophone and Johnson himself spoke both English and French. His mother was outspoken in the Ontario rights movement regarding French school access under Regulation 17.
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Ronald T. Farrar
#168994
Overall Influence
1935 - 2020 (85 years)
Ronald T. Farrar was an American journalist and academic. He was the chair of the Journalism Department at Southern Methodist University and University of Mississippi, and he later became the director of the School of Journalism at the University of Kentucky. He retired from academia as the Reynolds-Faunt Professor of Journalism at the University of South Carolina in 2001. He was the author of several academic books on journalism.
Go to Profile#8218
Eímear Noone
#131880
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Eimear Noone is an Irish conductor and composer, best known for her award-winning work on video game music. She has conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Bretagne, the Sydney Symphony, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and several other national orchestras. Noone was the first woman to conduct at the Oscars on 9 February 2020, leading the orchestra in excerpts from the five nominated film scores. Noone was also the first woman to conduct at the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Ireland. A documentary about the life of Eimear Noone is curren...
Go to Profile#8219
Sean Malone
#80820
Overall Influence
1970 - 2020 (50 years)
Sean Malone was an American musician who played primarily fretless bass guitar and Chapman Stick. He was most famous for his work with progressive metal band Cynic, in which he developed a strong partnership with the drummer Sean Reinert. Malone and Reinert played on several records together outside Cynic, making them one of the most favorable modern progressive rhythm sections. Malone also did a number of session jobs for various bands and musicians.
Go to Profile#8220
H. Owen Reed
#115748
Overall Influence
1910 - 2014 (104 years)
Herbert Owen Reed was an American composer, conductor, and author. Personal life Reed was raised in rural Odessa, Missouri, where his first exposure to music was his father's playing of the old-time fiddle .
Go to Profile#8221
Daniel Chorzempa
#144268
Overall Influence
1944 - 2023 (79 years)
Daniel Walter Chorzempa was an American organist, composer and architect. Biography Daniel Chorzempa was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota on December 7, 1944. He subsequently studied music and architecture at the University of Minnesota and further music studies in Cologne. After starting out as a pianist , he became better known as an organist. In the 1970s he was also active as a composer associated with the Cologne School and New Simplicity.
Go to Profile#8222
Chris Whitley
#98424
Overall Influence
1960 - 2005 (45 years)
Christopher Becker Whitley was an American blues/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. During his 25-year career, he released more than a dozen albums, had two songs in the top 50 of the Billboard mainstream rock charts and received two Independent Music Awards. Whitley's sound was drawn from the traditions of blues, jazz and rock and he recorded songs by artists from many genres. He died in 2005 of lung cancer at the age of 45.
Go to Profile#8223
Jeff Paris
#120116
Overall Influence
Jeff Paris is an American vocalist, keyboardist and guitarist who has primarily performed in the hard rock/heavy metal genre. Still performing under the name Geoffrey Leib, Paris began his career as a session musician in the 1970s, appearing on albums by such acts as Jay Gruska and Bill Withers . His initial band was the jazz/soul/disco quartet, Pieces, who released an album in 1979, following which he had a stint with the disco band L.A.X., who released two albums in 1979 and 1980.
Go to Profile#8224
Bernard Rose
#137850
Overall Influence
1916 - 1996 (80 years)
Bernard William George Rose, OBE, Doctor in Music, Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, was a British organist, soldier, composer, and academic. A graduate of Cambridge University, he is best known for his compositions of Anglican church music; his Preces and Responses, for use in the Anglican service of evensong, is widely performed. He served as a soldier in the Second World War, and went on to become a noted choir master and music tutor, counting among his pupils the composer Kenneth Leighton, musicians Professor Roger Bray, Professor David Wulstan and Harry Christophers, and actor Du...
Go to Profile#8225
Michael Farrell
#126788
Overall Influence
Michael Kevin Farrell is an American keyboardist, musical director, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his work both recording and touring with Alanis Morissette, Morrissey and Macy Gray.
Go to Profile#8226
Eleanor Sokoloff
#134744
Overall Influence
1914 - 2020 (106 years)
Eleanor Sokoloff was an American pianist and academic who formed a piano duo with her husband, Vladimir Sokoloff. She taught piano on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music from 1936 until her death in 2020.
Go to Profile#8227
Alleen Pace Nilsen
#148457
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Alleen Pace Nilsen is an American literary scholar, linguist, and one of the pioneers of both humor studies and children's literature studies. She is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Arizona State University, where she was previously the director of the English Education Program. Together with her husband Don Nilsen, she co-founded the International Society for Humor Studies.
Go to Profile#8228
Carolyn Marvin
#99052
Overall Influence
Carolyn Marvin is a professor and author that specializes in communication, culture and media, political communication, and technology and society. Marvin is currently the Frances Yates Emeritus Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. Marvin is the author of two major publications, When Old Technologies Were New and Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag.
Go to Profile#8229
Joseph H. Seipel
#117259
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Joseph H. Seipel is an American sculptor and conceptual artist who was formerly the Dean of the VCU School of the Arts. He was a member of the VCU faculty for over 40 years. As Dean of VCU arts, he also had oversight of the VCU School of the Arts branch in Doha, Qatar. He administered VCU exchange programs with art and design schools in Finland, India, Israel and Korea. He retired in 2016.
Go to Profile#8230
Francis Pott
#126056
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Francis John Dolben Pott is a British composer, pianist and academic. Life Following early training as a chorister at New College, Pott held open music scholarships at Winchester College and Magdalene College, Cambridge, studying composition at the latter with Robin Holloway and Hugh Wood while also pursuing piano studies as a private pupil of the late Hamish Milne in London. He holds BA, BMus and MA degrees from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from the University of West London, as well as a Fellowship of London College of Music and a Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy .
Go to Profile#8231
Lis Lewis
#174590
Overall Influence
Lis Lewis is an American voice teacher, author and performance coach. Lewis's clients include Miguel, Gwen Stefani, Rihanna, Courtney Love, Britney Spears, Colbie Caillat, Linkin Park, Demi Lovato, Tyson Ritter of The All-American Rejects, The Pussycat Dolls, Bryson Tiller, Iggy Azalea, and Jack Black.
Go to Profile#8232
Roland Hanna
#113666
Overall Influence
1932 - 2002 (70 years)
Roland Pembroke Hanna was an American jazz pianist, composer, and teacher. Biography Hanna studied classical piano from the age of 11, but was strongly interested in jazz, having been introduced to it by his friend, pianist Tommy Flanagan. This interest increased after his time in military service . He studied briefly at the Eastman School of Music in 1953 and then enrolled at the Juilliard School when he moved to New York City two years later. He worked with several big names in the 1950s, including Benny Goodman and Charles Mingus, and graduated in 1960. Between 1963 and 1966, Hanna led his own trio, then from 1966 to 1974 he was a regular member of The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.
Go to Profile#8233
Diane Winston
#149736
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Diane Winston is an American professor of Media and Religion at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, and an author. USC lists her current research interests as media coverage of Islam, religion and new media, and the place of religion in American identity.
Go to Profile#8234
Edwin Kessler
#84939
Overall Influence
1928 - 2017 (89 years)
Edwin Kessler III was an American atmospheric scientist who oversaw the development of Doppler weather radar and was the first director of the National Severe Storms Laboratory . Early life Kessler was the oldest of three sons, born to Edwin Kessler, Jr. and Marie Rosa Weil in Brooklyn on December 2, 1928. After early years in New York City, Marie, Edwin, and the other sons went to live in his mother's home town of Corpus Christi, Texas, while his father was in the military overseas. He graduated from Corpus Christi High School in 1946. He returned to New York to attend Columbia College of Co...
Go to Profile#8235
Gene Harris
#113407
Overall Influence
1933 - 2000 (67 years)
Gene Harris was an American jazz pianist known for his warm sound and blues and gospel infused style that is known as soul jazz. From 1956 to 1970, he played in The Three Sounds trio with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy. During this time, The Three Sounds recorded regularly for Blue Note and Verve.
Go to Profile#8236
Stephen Stubbs
#164106
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Stephen Stubbs is a lutenist and music director and has been a leading figure in the American early music scene for nearly thirty years. Born in Seattle, he studied harpsichord and composition at the University of Washington where, at the same time, he began playing the harpsichord and the lute. He left America after graduation to study the instrument in England and Holland and gave his debut concert in London's Wigmore Hall in 1976. From 1981 to 2013, Stubbs taught at the University of the Arts Bremen in Germany. In 2013, he became an artist in residence at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Go to Profile#8237
Danny Smith
#94333
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Danny Smith is an American producer, writer and voice actor on the American animated television series Family Guy. He has been with the show since its inception and throughout the years has contributed to many episodes, such as "Holy Crap", "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Fonz", "Chitty Chitty Death Bang" and the Christmas themed episodes, "Road to the North Pole" and "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas". Smith also voices the Evil Monkey, the Giant Chicken, Buzz Killington and Al Harrington. Smith has also written many songs for Family Guy, including "Prom Night Dumpster Baby", "...
Go to Profile#8238
Eileen Cheng-yin Chow
#116764
Overall Influence
Eileen Chengyin Chow is a sinologist, Chinese translator and University Teacher. She works for the Duke University and for the Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan. She graduated in Literature from Harvard University and studied her Ph.D in Comparative Literature at Stanford University. Together with Carlos Rojas, in 2009 she translated to English Brothers, the longest novel written by the Chinese novelist Yu Hua. The novel was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and was awarded France's Prix Courrier International in 2008.
Go to Profile#8239
John Beck
#121689
Overall Influence
John Beck is a British songwriter, producer, keyboard player and guitarist known for his work with Tasmin Archer and Corinne Bailey Rae. Beck was signed to EMI Records along with Archer after writing her first hit, "Sleeping Satellite", which went on to be a #1 hit in 16 countries. The album sold 1.5 million copies and went on to receive a Brit Award.
Go to Profile#8240
Nabil Maleh
#134062
Overall Influence
1936 - 2016 (80 years)
Nabil Maleh was a Syrian film director, screenwriter, producer, painter and poet; he is thought to be a father of Syrian cinema. Nabil has published more than 1,000 articles short stories, essays and poems. He is the writer and director of 120 short, experimental and documentary works and 12 feature-length films including The Extras and The Leopard. He has more than 60 awards at international film festivals, including several lifetime achievement awards. Several of his films are in the curriculum of international film schools and he has taught film direction, acting, writing and aesthetics at...
Go to Profile#8241
Takehito Koyasu
#130723
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
is a Japanese voice actor from Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. He is affiliated with and representative of T's Factory, a voice acting agency he founded in October 1998. His son is , a fellow voice actor. Koyasu has taken over many of the characters played by Kaneto Shiozawa after his death.
Go to Profile#8242
Scott Robinson
#145921
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Scott Robinson is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist. Robinson is best known for his work on multiple saxophones, but he has also performed on clarinet, alto clarinet, flute, trumpet, sarrusophone, and other, more obscure instruments.
Go to Profile#8243
David Perlov
#170362
Overall Influence
1930 - 2003 (73 years)
David Perlov was an Israeli documentary filmmaker. Biography David Perlov was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up in Belo Horizonte. At the age of 10, he went to live with his grandfather in São Paulo. At the age of 22, he moved to Paris and worked as a projectionist for the newly established Cinematheque. In 1957, he made his first short film, Tante chinoise , based on drawings of a 12-year-old girl of the French provincial bourgeoisie of 1890 which he found in the cellar of the Paris house in which he was living. In 1958, Perlov immigrated to Israel, settling with his wife Mira on Kibbutz Bror Hayil.
Go to Profile#8244
Ilya Grubert
#124080
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Ilya Haimovich Grubert is a Dutch classical violinist and a professor. Biography Ilya Grubert began his violin studies at the Emīls Dārziņš Music School. He later studied at the Moscow Central Music School and the Moscow Conservatory with Yuri Yankelevich, Zinaida Gilels, and Leonid Kogan. He is a multiple prizewinner of prestigious violin competitions. Earning his first international success by receiving 2nd prize at the Sibelius Competition in 1975, he subsequently won 1st prizes in both Paganini Competition in 1977, and Tchaikovsky Competition in 1978.
Go to Profile#8245
Ashley Solomon
#127001
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Ashley Solomon is a British flute and recorder player. He is both professor of recorder and head of the historical performance department of the Royal College of Music in London. He has taught there since 1994, and became the first head of the historical performance department in 2006. In 2014 he was appointed to a new chair in historic performance created for him by the college.
Go to Profile#8246
Trombone Shorty
#91539
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (40 years)
Troy Andrews , also known by the stage name Trombone Shorty, is an American musician from New Orleans, Louisiana. He has worked with some of the biggest names in rock, pop, jazz, funk, and hip hop. Andrews is the younger brother of trumpeter and bandleader James Andrews III and the grandson of singer and songwriter Jessie Hill. Andrews began playing trombone at age four, and since 2009 has toured with his own band, Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.
Go to Profile#8247
Matthew Stevens
#151427
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (44 years)
Matthew Stevens is a Canadian jazz guitarist and composer. Biography Stevens was born on 8 January 1982 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and studied piano and guitar at a young age. Since graduating from Berklee College of Music in 2004, Stevens has established himself in the contemporary jazz scene performing and recording with numerous artists including Christian Scott, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Esperanza Spalding.
Go to Profile#8248
Scott Marr
#101111
Overall Influence
Scott Marr is an American lacrosse coach. He is currently the head coach for the University at Albany Great Danes men's lacrosse team. He previously served as the offensive coordinator at the University of Maryland and University of Delaware. Marr led the Great Danes to the school's first ever NCAA tournament appearance in 2003. In 2007, Albany won its first NCAA tournament game, and the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association named Marr the Coach of the Year.
Go to Profile#8249
John Clayton
#96180
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
John Lee Clayton Jr. is an American jazz musician, classical double bassist, arranger, and composer. He is the father of pianist Gerald Clayton and the brother of saxophonist Jeff Clayton, with whom he formed The Clayton Brothers; and The Clayton–Hamilton Jazz Orchestra with Jeff Hamilton.
Go to Profile#8250
Mark Roberts
#127407
Overall Influence
1921 - 2006 (85 years)
Robert Ellis Scott was an American stage, film and television actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1938 and 1994, according to the Internet Movie Database. Sometimes he was credited as Mark Roberts, Bob Scott, Robert E. Scott, or Robert Scott.
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