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,
#8251
Adele Marcus
#141559
Overall Influence
1906 - 1995 (89 years)
Adele Marcus was an American pianist and instructor whose career was based at the Juilliard School in New York City. Life and career Marcus was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the youngest of 13 children of a rabbi and his wife, who were of Russian descent. When the family moved to Los Angeles, Marcus and her sister Rosamund formed a piano duo, locally known as the Two Prodigies, and were the students of Desider Josef Vecsei and Alexis Kall. She later studied under Josef Lhévinne and Artur Schnabel in New York City. After winning the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Award in 1928, she made a series of solo recital debuts in Chicago, San Francisco and New York City.
Go to Profile#8252
Vladimir Menshov
#115479
Overall Influence
1939 - 2021 (82 years)
Vladimir Valentinovich Menshov was a Soviet and Russian actor and film director. He was noted for depicting the Russian everyman and working class life in his films. Although Menshov mostly worked as an actor, he is better known for the films he directed, especially for the 1979 melodrama Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Actress Vera Alentova, who starred in the film, is the mother of Vladimir Menshov's daughter Yuliya Menshova.
Go to Profile#8253
Dan Golding
#147169
Overall Influence
Daniel "Dan" Golding is an Australian writer, composer, broadcaster, and academic. Early life and education Golding holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne. Academic career Golding is Deputy Chair of Media and Communication at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Victoria.
Go to Profile#8254
Klaus J. Kohler
#131724
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Klaus J. Kohler is a German phonetician. Selected publications Kommunikative Aspekte satzphonetischer Prozesse im Deutschen. In: H. Vater , Phonologische Probleme des Deutschen. Studien zur deutschen Grammatik 10, 13-39. Tübingen: Gunter Narr .Dimensions in the perception of fortis and lenis plosives. Phonetica 36, 332-343 .F0 in the production of lenis and fortis plosives. Phonetica 39, 199-218 .F0 in the perception of lenis and fortis plosives. JASA 78, 21-32 .Invariance and variability in speech timing: from utterance to segment in German. In: J. S. Perkell, D. H. Klatt , Invariance and Variability in Speech Processes, 268-289.
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Aaron Rosand
#158291
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Aaron Rosand was an American violinist. Life and career Born in Hammond, Indiana, he studied with Leon Sametini at the Chicago Musical College and with Efrem Zimbalist at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he taught from 1981 until his death. Particularly noted for his insightful and passionate performances of the romantic repertoire and his beautiful tone, Rosand recorded prolifically and appeared all over the world with many major orchestras and concert organizations.
Go to Profile#8256
Ingeborg Hallstein
#155121
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
Ingeborg Hallstein is a German coloratura soprano, known for the purity and range of her voice. She had an international career as a guest singer on the opera houses of Europe and was a member of the Bavarian State Opera from 1961 to 1973. Her signature roles were the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss. She created roles including Scolatella in Henze's König Hirsch.
Go to Profile#8257
Ștefan Niculescu
#140625
Overall Influence
1927 - 2008 (81 years)
Ștefan Niculescu was a Romanian composer. Niculescu was born in Moreni, Dâmbovita. He was credited with introducing his own brand of heterophony, a technique based on superimposing melodic material onto variations of itself in order to create textures that are propelled by thematic energy as well as by the more common textural factors of density and levels of activity. This creative approach bears similarities with György Ligeti's micropolyphony, but important aesthetic and stylistic differences set them apart.
Go to Profile#8258
Bob Bennett
#132442
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Bob Bennett is an American contemporary Christian music singer, guitarist and songwriter from Downey, California. Bennett is known for his distinctive baritone voice, Christian lyrics and folk-inspired guitar playing.
Go to Profile#8259
Siegfried Strohbach
#152371
Overall Influence
1929 - 2019 (90 years)
Siegfried Strohbach was a German composer and conductor. He founded and directed choirs and the vocal ensemble Collegium Cantorum and is notable for the composition of choral music. He was a conductor of major theaters of Lower Saxony and a professor of the Musikhochschule Hannover as well as a composer.
Go to Profile#8260
Katalin Kováts
#148245
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#8261
Kate Walsh
#148904
Overall Influence
1983 - Present (43 years)
Kate Walsh is an English singer from Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, England. A graduate of the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, she released her first album, Clocktower Park , in 2003 by Kitchenware Records. The album was named for a meeting place in her home town. In 2007, she released her second album, Tim's House. It quickly became the No. 1 album on the UK iTunes Store. The album also features her most popular song, "Your Song". She gained iTunes customers' attention when her song Talk of the Town became the iTunes Free Single of the Week from the week beginning 20 March 2007.
Go to Profile#8262
Robert Morris
#119003
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Robert Daniel Morris is a British-born American composer and music theorist. Early life and education Born in Cheltenham, England, in 1943, Morris received his musical education at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan , where he studied composition with John La Montaine, Leslie Bassett, Ross Lee Finney, and Eugene Kurtz.
Go to Profile#8263
David Hammond
#95017
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
David Hammond is an American director and acting teacher. He trained for the theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received his M.F.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University Drama Department. He did his undergraduate studies at Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude with a concentration in Elizabethan literature. He taught at the Juilliard School, the American Conservatory Theater, and the Yale School of Drama and later became the artistic director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company.
Go to Profile#8264
Conrad Susa
#133519
Overall Influence
1935 - 2013 (78 years)
Conrad Stephen Susa was an American composer. Born in Springdale, Pennsylvania, Susa studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the Juilliard School, where his teachers included William Bergsma, Vincent Persichetti and, by his own claim, P. D. Q. Bach, the fictitious spoof character created by American composer Peter Schickele.
Go to Profile#8265
John King
#58840
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
John King, also known as "King Gizmo", is an American music producer and one-half of the Los Angeles–based duo the Dust Brothers. As the Dust Brothers, King and Michael "E.Z. Mike" Simpson were noted for their dense sample-based music, notably on the Beastie Boys' 1989 album Paul's Boutique, and later in 1996 with Beck's Odelay.
Go to Profile#8266
Tim Hunter
#99992
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Tim Hunter is an American television and film director. Career Since the late 1980s he has mostly worked on television, directing episodes for dozens of televisions series including Breaking Bad, Carnivàle, Chicago Hope, Crossing Jordan, Deadwood, Falcon Crest, Homicide: Life on the Street, House, Law & Order, Lie to Me, Mad Men, Twin Peaks, Glee, Revenge, Pretty Little Liars and American Horror Story. During the early to mid-1980s, Hunter directed several feature films, including 1986's River's Edge, which won that year's award for Best Picture at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Go to Profile#8267
John Handy
#93628
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (93 years)
John Richard Handy III is an American jazz musician most commonly associated with the alto saxophone. He also sings and plays the tenor and baritone saxophone, saxello, clarinet, and oboe. Biography Handy was born in Dallas, Texas, United States. He first came to prominence while working for Charles Mingus in the 1950s. In the 1960s, Handy led several groups, among them a quintet with Michael White, violin, Jerry Hahn, guitar, Don Thompson, bass, and Terry Clarke, drums. This group's performance at the 1965 Monterey Jazz Festival was recorded and released as an album; Handy received Grammy n...
Go to Profile#8268
Helmut Braunlich
#168845
Overall Influence
1929 - 2013 (84 years)
Helmut Braunlich was a German-American violinist, composer, and musicologist. Education He received his formal musical education at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, where he studied violin with Christa Richter-Steiner, composition with Egon Kornauth, and music history with Eberhard Preußner. After his immigration to the United States in 1951 he played with various professional symphony orchestras and became a member of the U.S. Air Force Symphony Orchestra. He studied composition at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where one of his teachers was the great organist, Prof. Conrad Bernier.
Go to Profile#8269
Ineke Crezee
#154781
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Hendrika Martine Crezee , known as Ineke Crezee, is a New Zealand linguist. She is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology, specialising in healthcare interpreting and in the education of interpreters and translators.
Go to Profile#8270
David Ian Hanauer
#140793
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
David Ian Hanauer is Professor of Applied Linguistics/English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and the Lead Assessment Coordinator for the SEA-PHAGES program at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the editor of the Scientific Study of Literature journal, the official publication of IGEL . Hanauer is an applied linguist specializing in assessment and literacy practices in the sciences and poetic inquiry. He has authored or co-authored over 75 journal articles and book chapters as well as 8 books. Hanauer’s research agenda is typified by the combination of qualitative and quantitative metho...
Go to Profile#8271
Shimon Sharvit
#101486
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Shimon Sharvit is an Israeli Professor and college administrator. Childhood Shimon Sharvit was born in the Tafilalt region of Morocco, son of Eliyahu and Aliza Sharvit on Tamuz 20, 5699 , and immigrated to Israel in 1948 with his parents and seven siblings. The family settled in the city of Ramla, and Sharvit studied at the “Sinai” religious state school. His father, who was orphaned at an early age, did not complete his higher education, yet studied Torah and served his entire life as a synagogue cantor and leader in prayer on a voluntary basis. He lived a very long life, enjoying good heal...
Go to Profile#8272
Lubka Kolessa
#154359
Overall Influence
1902 - 1997 (95 years)
Lubka Oleksandrivna Kolessa was a classical pianist and professor of piano. Biography Education The Kolessa family was a prominent Ukrainian intellectual family living in Lemburg, Austro-Hungarian Empire, which treated music very seriously. The family included a number of professional composers and performers. Her uncle Filaret Kolessa was a noted ethnomusicologist devoted to the research of Ukrainian folk music. Her cousin Mykola Kolessa was a prominent Ukrainian composer and conductor. Chrystia Kolessa, Lubka's sister, was an illustrious cellist.
Go to Profile#8273
Mark Gasser
#122869
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Mark Gasser is a British concert pianist. Career Gasser was born in Sheffield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1972 to Austrian and Scottish parents. He studied with John Humphreys at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and with Frank Wibaut at the Royal Academy of Music, and is a fellow of both institutions. Later he also studied with Alfred Brendel and Peter Donohoe.
Go to Profile#8274
John Moore
#147480
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
John Sanford Moore , better known as John Moore, is a Canadian radio and television broadcaster, film critic, voice actor and comedian. He works for the CFRB 1010 radio station in Toronto, Ontario. Early life Moore was born in Montreal, Quebec, and grew up in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, a predominantly English-speaking area of Montreal. He attended West Hill High School, where he served as student body president. Moore began his post-secondary studies at Vanier College. While attending university he taught pre-school and worked in corporate public relations. He graduated with dual degrees in Commun...
Go to Profile#8275
Roger Ingram
#148960
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Roger O'Neal Ingram is a jazz trumpeter, educator, author, and instrument designer. He played trumpet for the orchestras of Maynard Ferguson, Woody Herman, Wynton Marsalis, Ray Charles, and Harry Connick Jr.
Go to Profile#8276
Brent David Ruben
#124728
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Brent David Ruben is a Distinguished Professor of Communication, Department of Communication, Rutgers School of Communication and Information. He also serves as Advisor for Strategy and Planning in the Office to the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, is Senior University Fellow in leadership and communication, and founder of the Rutgers Center for Organizational Leadership. Ruben is a member of faculties of Robert Wood Johnson School of Medicine and the Ph.D. Program in Higher Education in the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. Ruben's academic career has been devoted to advanc...
Go to Profile#8277
Fred Lipsius
#129858
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Fred Lipsius is an American musician who is the original saxophonist and arranger for the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat & Tears, for which he played alto saxophone and piano. He was with the band from 1967 to 1971 and has collected 3 GRAMMY Awards and 9 Gold Records.
Go to Profile#8278
Mark Tremonti
#40689
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (52 years)
Mark Thomas Tremonti is an American guitarist and singer, best known for his tenures with the rock bands Creed and Alter Bridge. He is a founding member of both bands, and has also collaborated with many other artists over the years. He formed his own band Tremonti in 2011 and has released five albums with them, including A Dying Machine, which was adapted by Tremonti and science fiction novelist John Shirley.
Go to Profile#8279
Andreas Schulze
#93593
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Andreas Schulze is a German painter. Early life and education Schulze was born in Hanover. From 1978 through 1983, Schulze attended the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied under the painter Dieter Krieg.
Go to Profile#8280
Johnny Adams
#126986
Overall Influence
1932 - 1998 (66 years)
Laten John Adams Jr. , was an American blues, jazz and gospel singer, known as "The Tan Canary" for the multi-octave range of his singing voice, his swooping vocal mannerisms and falsetto. His biggest hits were his versions of "Release Me" and "Reconsider Me" in the late 1960s.
Go to Profile#8281
Emma Lou Diemer
#142816
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Emma Lou Diemer is an American composer. Diemer has written many works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, keyboard, voice, chorus, and electronic media. Diemer is a keyboard performer and over the years has given concerts of her own organ works at Washington National Cathedral, The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, Grace Cathedral and St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco, and others.
Go to Profile#8282
Chris Perry
#144006
Overall Influence
1928 - 2002 (74 years)
Chris Perry , was an Indian musician, composer, songwriter, and film producer who combined jazz with Konkani music. He was known in India as the 'King of Cha Cha Cha' and the 'Man with the Golden Trumpet', and was the composer of the signature song of All India Radio.
Go to Profile#8283
Louis Krasner
#93661
Overall Influence
1903 - 1995 (92 years)
Louis Krasner was a Russian Empire-born American classical violinist who premiered the violin concertos of Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg. Biography Louis Krasner was born in Cherkasy, Ukraine, in the Russian Empire. He arrived in the United States at the age of 5, and graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1922. He continued his studies with Lucien Capet in Paris, Otakar Ševčík in Písek, Czechoslovakia, and Carl Flesch in Berlin. His concert career began in Europe, where he championed the concertos of Joseph Achron and Alfredo Casella.
Go to Profile#8284
Richard Davies
#146878
Overall Influence
Richard Davies is an Australian-American musician. Davies was born in Sydney, Australia. He first came to prominence in the early 1990s as leader of the Australian band The Moles. Upon moving to the United States, Davies joined with Eric Matthews to form Cardinal, whose debut album, Cardinal, was released by Flydaddy in 1994. He has since released several solo albums including There's Never Been a Crowd Like This , Telegraph , and Barbarians . In 2009, Davies and Guided by Voices front man Robert Pollard, collaborating under the name Cosmos, released an album, Jar of Jam / Ton of Bricks. In...
Go to Profile#8285
Chinyere Stella Okunna
#87143
Overall Influence
Chinyere Stella Okunna is the first female professor in Mass communication in Nigeria. She has served in various capacities as an administrator and educationist in the academia and in the public/political arena. Chinyere Stella Okunna research interest is in the area of communication for development, particularly women’s development from the perspective of women and the media. She has done considerable work on the role of the media in the effort to empower Nigerian women and improve their condition and status in the patriarchal male-dominated Nigerian society.
Go to Profile#8286
Ian Campbell
#136052
Overall Influence
1933 - 2012 (79 years)
Ian Campbell was a Scottish folk singer. As leader of the Ian Campbell Folk Group, he was one of the most important figures of the British folk revival during the 1960s. Born in Aberdeen, Campbell moved to Birmingham as a teenager, where he subsequently worked as an engraver in the city's Jewellery Quarter. His father, David Gunn Campbell, was a trade union leader who was originally from Shetland. He fell under the influence of the Birmingham Marxist writer George Thomson and joined the choir of the local branch of the Workers' Music Association, which was run by Thomson's wife. In 1957, he f...
Go to Profile#8287
John Heard
#158087
Overall Influence
1938 - 2021 (83 years)
John William Heard was an American bass player and artist. His recording credits include albums with Pharoah Sanders, George Duke, Oscar Peterson, Count Basie, Zoot Sims, Ahmad Jamal, Frank Morgan, George Cables. His professional jazz performance career lasted from the 1960s to the early 2010s, during which he also worked as a visual artist, producing drawings, paintings, and sculptures.
Go to Profile#8288
Atanas Slavov
#132560
Overall Influence
1930 - 2010 (80 years)
Atanas Vasilev Slavov was a Bulgarian writer, art critic, semiotician, poet, and screenwriter. He was a well-known public intellectual in Bulgaria and one of the prominent Bulgarian anti-communist dissidents of the 20th century, along with Georgi Markov.
Go to Profile#8289
Ketil Haugsand
#173107
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Ketil Are Haugsand is a Norwegian harpsichordist and conductor. Biography Haugsand started his musical studies in Trondheim and Oslo, and later studied in Prague and Haarlem. In 1973, he earned his solo diploma. In 1975, he was awarded the Prix d'Excellence at the Amsterdam conservatory, where he studied under Gustav Leonhardt.
Go to Profile#8290
Ulf Hoelscher
#153858
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Ulf Hoelscher is a German violinist. He has been soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. He has recorded numerous concertos by Schoeck, Beethoven, Berg, Bruch, Schumann, Spohr, Saint-Saëns, and Tchaikovsky.
Go to Profile#8291
Ana Chumachenco
#141972
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Ana Chumachenco is an Italian born violinist of Argentinian, Ukrainian, and German descent. Biography Ana Chumachenco was born in Padova, Italy, on 23 June 1945. From the age of four, Chumachenco practiced violin under the guidance of her father, a former student of Hungarian violinist Leopold Auer. She completed her studies in Buenos Aires under Ljerko Spiller and, until the age of 17, lived in South America. In 1963 at the age of 18, Ana moved to Europe where she would continue her violin studies and, in the same year, won the gold medal of the Carl Flesch Competition in London. Chumachenco ...
Go to Profile#8292
Denis Gougeon
#169427
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Denis Gougeon is a Canadian composer and music educator. His more than 80 compositions encompass a wide variety of genres, including orchestral works, chamber music, opera, ballet, and pieces for solo instruments and voice. Notable ensembles to have included his compositions in their performance repertoire include the Bavarian State Ballet, the Canadian Opera Company, the I Musici de Montréal Chamber Orchestra, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, New Music America, the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, the Quebec Contemporary Music Society, and the Vancouver New Music Society.
Go to Profile#8293
Michael White
#128587
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Michael White is a jazz clarinetist, bandleader, composer, jazz historian and musical educator. Jazz critic Scott Yanow said in a review that White "displays the feel and spirit of the best New Orleans clarinetists".
Go to Profile#8294
Kevin Burns
#70021
Overall Influence
1955 - 2020 (65 years)
Kevin Burns , was an American television and film producer, director, and screenwriter. His work can be seen on A&E, National Geographic Channel, E!, Animal Planet, AMC, Bravo, WE tv, Travel Channel, Lifetime, and The History Channel. Burns created and executive-produced more than 800 hours of television programming.
Go to Profile#8295
Robin Gee
#101986
Overall Influence
Robin M. Gee is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker. She serves on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro as a professor of dance in the UNCG College of Visual and Performing Arts and was the founding faculty advisor for Delta Chi Xi Honorary Dance Fraternity, Inc.
Go to Profile#8296
Arturo O'Farrill
#111625
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Arturo O'Farrill is a jazz musician, the son of Latin jazz musician, arranger and bandleader Chico O'Farrill, and pianist, composer, and director for the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. He is best known for his contributions to contemporary Latin jazz , having received Grammy Awards and nominations, though he has trained in other forms such as free jazz and experimented briefly with hip hop.
Go to Profile#8297
Delores Ziegler
#160672
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Delores Ziegler is an American mezzo-soprano who has had an active international performance career since the late 1970s. A former resident artist at the Cologne Opera, she has performed leading roles with many of the world's best opera houses, including La Scala, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Vienna State Opera. She is currently a professor of voice at the University of Maryland. While she has performed a broad repertoire, she is widely admired for her performances in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss; particularly Ch...
Go to Profile#8298
Paul Henderson
#112816
Overall Influence
1939 - 2018 (79 years)
Paul Henderson III was an American journalist and private investigator. In both roles, he helped win the freedom of 14 wrongfully convicted people, with nearly all being murder cases. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1982 as a reporter for The Seattle Times.
Go to Profile#8299
Maria Stader
#158304
Overall Influence
1911 - 1999 (88 years)
Maria Stader was a Hungarian-born Swiss lyric soprano, known particularly for her Mozart interpretations. Biography Stader was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, on November 5, 1911, as Maria Molnár. During and after World War I, the price of food in Budapest was so high that it was difficult for her parents to support their five children. Maria and her younger sister, Elisabeth, were taken to Switzerland by The Salvation Army to recuperate for three months after being diagnosed with malnutrition. There, Maria's foster parents requested she stay for a full nine months. However, once in Budape...
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Eduard Nazarov
#109088
Overall Influence
1941 - 2016 (75 years)
Eduard Vasilievich Nazarov was a Soviet and Russian animator, screenwriter, voice actor, book illustrator and educator, artistic director at the Pilot Studio , vice-president of ASIFA and a co-president of the KROK International Animated Films Festival. He was awarded People's Artist of Russia in 2012.
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