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,

#8351

David Bradley

#143507

Overall Influence

1920 - 1997 (77 years)

David Shedd Bradley was an American motion picture director, actor, film collector, and university instructor. He is known for the films 12 to the Moon and They Saved Hitler's Brain . Biography David Shedd Bradley was a grandson of Charles Banks Shedd, a prominent Chicago real estate investor, banker, and financier, and civic leader who also served as an executive officer of the Knickerbocker Ice Company of Chicago, which had been founded principally by Edward Avery Shedd, younger brother of Charles Banks Shedd. He attended the Todd School for Boys from 1935 to 1937, and Lake Forest Academy during 1937–1940.

#8352

Anner Bylsma

#134018

Overall Influence

1934 - 2019 (85 years)

Anner Bylsma was a Dutch cellist who played on both modern and period instruments in a historically informed style. He took an interest in music from an early age. He studied with Carel van Leeuwen Boomkamp at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and won the Prix d'excellence in 1957.

#8353

Ron Nelson

#126263

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Ronald Jack Nelson is an American composer of both classical and popular music and a retired music educator. Biography Ron Nelson was born December 14, 1929, in Joliet, Illinois. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, earning a bachelor's degree in 1952, a master's degree in 1953, and a doctorate in composition in 1957. His teachers at Eastman included Louis Mennini, Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. In 1954–1955 he studied with Tony Aubin in France at the Ecole Normale de Musique and at the Paris Conservatory under a Fulbright Grant. In 1956, Dr.

#8354

Vinu Chakravarthy

#104618

Overall Influence

1945 - 2017 (72 years)

Vinu Chakravarthy was an Indian actor, screenwriter and director who is known for acting in more than 1000 movies in Tamil and Malayalam films mostly as a comedian, supporting actor or in a villainous role. The 2007 released Tamil movie Muni was his landmark 1000th movie.

#8355

Samiran Chandra Chakrabarti

#127041

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Samiran Chandra Chakrabarti is an Indian Indologist and scholar of Onomastics & Vedic Studies, Author & Editor. He is currently Emeritus Fellow, UGC, Guest Lecturer in German, University of Calcutta, Honorary Visiting Professor, Centre for Indological Studies and Research, Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture.

#8356

Mignon Dunn

#136047

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Mignon Dunn is an American dramatic mezzo-soprano and voice teacher. Life and career Born in Memphis, Dunn grew up in Tyronza, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. She studied voice with Karin Branzell and Beverley Peck Johnson. She made her official debut, in the title role of Carmen, on September 8, 1955.

#8357

Susan Starr

#168982

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Susan Starr is an American pianist. Career Susan began her studies with Eleanor Sokoloff at age four. Starr began her studies at the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of seven where she studied with Rudolf Serkin from the age of thirteen until her graduation in 1961, and was one of the youngest pianists to have studied at the institute. She was a Silver Medalist at the 1962 Tchaikovsky Competition.

#8358

Johnson

#105942

Overall Influence

1953 - 2011 (58 years)

Thattil Antony Johnson , popularly known as Johnson Master, was an Indian film score composer and music director who has given music to some of the most important motion pictures of Malayalam cinema, including those for Koodevide, Namukku Paarkkan Munthiri Thoppukal, Oru Minnaminunginte Nurunguvettam, Vadakkunokkiyantram, Perumthachan, Njan Gandharvan, Ponthan Mada, and Bhoothakkannadi. Regarded as one of the finest composers in the industry, he was noted for his lyrical and expressive melodies together with simple but rich tonal compositions of thematic music. Johnson is a recipient of Nation...

#8359

Yaba Badoe

#121952

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Yaba Badoe is a Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker, journalist and author. Career Yaba Badoe was born in Tamale, northern Ghana. She left Ghana to be educated in Britain at a very young age. A graduate of King's College, Cambridge, Badoe worked as a civil servant at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ghana, before beginning her career in journalism as a trainee at the BBC. She also was a researcher at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana. She has taught in Spain and Jamaica and has worked as a producer and director making documentaries for the main television channels in Britain.

#8360

Thom Hannum

#75566

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Thomas Patrick "Thom" Hannum is an American percussionist and music educator, known for being the former associate director of the University of Massachusetts Minuteman Marching Band. He previously served as interim director after the sudden death of bandleader George N. Parks while the Minuteman Band was on a trip to Michigan, and served in this position until 2011, when Timothy Todd Anderson was named the new director.

#8361

Shirley Scott

#124194

Overall Influence

1934 - 2002 (68 years)

Shirley Scott was an American jazz organist. Her music was noted for its mixture of bebop, blues and gospel elements. She was known by the nickname "Queen of the Organ". Life and career Scott was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father operated a jazz club in the basement of the family home and her brother played Saxophone. At the age of eight, Scott began piano lessons. After enrolling at Philadelphia High School for Girls, where she was awarded a scholarship, Scott switched to trumpet and played in the all-city schools band.

#8362

Neil Chotem

#147902

Overall Influence

1920 - 2008 (88 years)

Neil Chotem was a Canadian composer, arranger, conductor, pianist, and music educator. Works Chotem's compositional style is tonal, and often incorporates elements of jazz and popular music. He composed a considerable body of works for television and radio and also wrote music for a number of leading Canadian performers like Maureen Forrester, Paul Piché, and Michel Rivard. In 1968 he, Paul de Margerie, and Marcel Lévêque were awarded a Montreal Festival du disque prize for 3-12, an LP for which the three men all worked together as conductors and arrangers. He received another prize from that...

#8363

Manfred Clynes

#69392

Overall Influence

1925 - 2020 (95 years)

Manfred Edward Clynes was an Austrian-born scientist, inventor, and musician. He is best known for his innovations and discoveries in the interpretation of music, and for his contributions to the study of biological systems and neurophysiology.

#8364

Anthony Dean Griffey

#129730

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Anthony Dean Griffey is an American opera tenor. He is a regular presence on the stages of opera houses and concert halls around the world. Griffey has also been noted for his acting talent in addition to his voice.

#8365

Sharon Isbin

#108869

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Sharon Isbin is a classical guitarist and the founding director of the guitar department at the Juilliard School. Personal life and education Sharon Isbin was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to attorney Katherine Brudnoy and Herbert S. Isbin, a nuclear scientist and professor at the University of Minnesota. She began her guitar studies at age nine with Aldo Minella in Varese, Italy. She later studied with Jeffrey Van, Sophocles Papas, Andrés Segovia, Oscar Ghiglia, Alirio Díaz and for ten years with the noted keyboard artist and Bach scholar Rosalyn Tureck. Isbin collaborated with Tureck in p...

#8366

David S. Ware

#132255

Overall Influence

1949 - 2012 (63 years)

David Spencer Ware was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. Biography Ware was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, and grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. While in high school he attended music camp at the University of Connecticut taught by Ron Carter, Charlie Mariano, and Alan Dawson and played in his school's bands as well as in the New Jersey All-State band. He graduated from Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School and briefly attended the Berklee College of Music in 1967–68.

#8367

Eduard Melkus

#171502

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Eduard Melkus is an Austrian violinist and violist. Following the Second World War, Melkus dedicated himself to the exploration of historically informed performance. He was a member of the 1949 Vienna viola da gamba quartet, the select group of musicians that included Alice and Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt who started the Early Music movement.

#8368

Martin Gründler

#118433

Overall Influence

1918 - 2004 (86 years)

Martin Gründler was a German voice teacher and university lecturer. Life and career From 1957, Gründler was professor of opera singing at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. Information about his students can be found in Karl-Josef Kutsch's and Leo Riemens' Großes Sängerlexikon.

#8369

Screaming Lord Sutch

#143684

Overall Influence

1940 - 1999 (59 years)

Screaming Lord Sutch was an English musician and perennial parliamentary candidate. He was the founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party and served as its leader from 1983 to 1999, during which time he stood in numerous parliamentary elections. He holds the record for contesting the most Parliamentary elections: 39 between 1963-97. As a singer, he variously worked with Keith Moon, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore, Charlie Watts, John Bonham, Noel Redding, Mitch Mitchell and Nicky Hopkins, and is known for his recordings with Joe Meek including "Jack the Ripper" .

#8370

Patric Standford

#168370

Overall Influence

1939 - 2014 (75 years)

Patric Standford was an English composer, supporter of composers' rights, educationalist and author. Early life and education Patric John Standford was born in Barnsley, moved to the West Riding of Yorkshire, and had a Quaker education at Ackworth School in West Yorkshire. He began his working life as a legal accountant and served in the Royal Air Force at 617 Squadron in Lincolnshire before arranging his own admission to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London in 1961, where he studied composition with Edmund Rubbra and Raymond Jones. While a student, he was awarded both the Carl ...

#8371

Vanessa Williams

Vanessa Williams

#105222

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Vanessa Lynn Williams is an American singer, actress, model, producer, and dancer. She gained recognition as the first African-American woman to receive the Miss America title when she was crowned Miss America 1984, but resigned her title amid a media controversy surrounding nude photographs of her being published in Penthouse magazine. Thirty-two years later, Williams was offered a public apology during the Miss America 2016 pageant for the events.

#8372

Mireya Cueto

#145047

Overall Influence

1922 - 2013 (91 years)

Mireya Cueto was a Mexican puppeteer, writer and dramaturg. She was also co-founder of the national marionette museum Museo Nacional de Títeres in Huamantla, Tlaxcala. Biography Cueto, born on February 3, 1922, in Mexico City, is one of two daughters of artists Lola and Gérman, who were also well-known puppeteers.

#8373

Georges Bohas

#150188

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Georges Bohas is a French professor emeritus at École normale supérieure de Lyon, a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, and a specialist in the editing and translation of Semitic and Arabic texts. He is a member of the laboratory ICAR.

#8374

Till Brönner

#106655

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Till Brönner is a jazz musician, trumpeter, flügelhorn player, singer, composer, producer and photographer. History From 1989–1991, Brönner was a member of the Peter Herbolzheimer Rhythm Combination & Brass. At the age of twenty, he became solo trumpeter of the RIAS Big Band Berlin under Horst Jankowski and later Jiggs Whigham.

#8375

M. Jayachandran

#95889

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Madhusoodanan Jayachandran is an Indian composer, singer, and musician. He has won the Kerala State Film Award for Best Music Director for a record number of nine times. In 2005, he also won the state award for best male singer. In 2015, he won the National Film Award for Best Music Direction for the film Ennu Ninte Moideen. He has composed music for 126 films.

#8376

Mandana Seyfeddinipur

Mandana Seyfeddinipur

#115079

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Mandana Seyfeddinipur is a linguist, author, and educator. She is also the Head of the Endangered Languages Archive. Early life and education Seyfeddinipur grew up in Germany. She studied linguistics and Persian studies at the Free University of Berlin and graduated with a Master's degree. She received her doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Radboud University Nijmegen from 2000 to 2005. Her dissertation was entitled Disfluency: Interrupting speech and gesture. She then worked as a Marie Curie postdoctoral work Stanford University from 2006 to 2009.

#8377

Michael J. Byron

#175409

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Michael J. Byron is an American visual artist. He holds a B.F.A from the Kansas City Art Institute and a M.F.A from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Byron currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri and is a former professor at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1996, Byron was the first person to hold the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellowship at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art.

#8378

Grant Goodeve

#103182

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Grant Goodeve is an American actor and television host. He is best known for his role as David Bradford, the eldest son on ABC television's Eight Is Enough from 1977 to 1981; he sang the theme song for the show, as well. More recent work includes stints on the Home & Garden Television cable channel, and voice roles such as the Engineer in the multiplayer video game Team Fortress 2, and Wolf O'Donnell in Star Fox: Assault.

#8379

Delroy Wilson

#104484

Overall Influence

1948 - 1995 (47 years)

Delroy George Wilson CD was a Jamaican ska, rocksteady and reggae singer. Wilson is often regarded as Jamaica's first child star, having first found success as a teenager. His youngest son, Karl "Konan" Wilson, has found success as part of British duo Krept and Konan.

#8380

Hamid Drake

#105167

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. By the close of the 1990s, Hamid Drake was widely regarded as one of the best percussionists in jazz and improvised music. Incorporating Afro-Cuban, Indian, and African percussion instruments and influence, in addition to using the standard trap set, Drake has collaborated extensively with top free jazz improvisers. Drake also has performed world music; by the late 1970s, he was a member of Foday Musa Suso's Mandingo Griot Society and has played reggae throughout his career.

#8381

Mark Herzig

#154873

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Mark Herzig is an American cinematographer and professor of the cinematic arts and the Director of the Short Film Program of the Sacramento French Film Festival. He has also taught at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, California, California State University in Sacramento, California, and the Prague Film School in Prague, Czech Republic. He was born in Pasadena, California.

#8382

Edda Moser

#129974

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Edda Moser is a German operatic soprano. She was particularly well known for her interpretations of music by Mozart. Her 1973 recital LP received the Grand Prix du Disque. Life and career Moser was born in Berlin, the daughter of the musicologist Hans Joachim Moser. She is aunt to cellist Johannes Moser and pianist Benjamin Moser. She studied at the Stern Conservatory with Hermann Weißenborn and Gerty König and made her debut as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1962. After singing in the Würzburg Opera Chorus from 1962 until 1963, she sang at the opera houses in Hagen, Bielefeld, Hamburg and Frankfurt, before joining the Vienna State Opera in 1971.

#8383

Benny Boom

#94680

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Benny Douglas , professionally known as Benny Boom, is an American director who has worked in music, television, and film. His most commercially successful film was the 2017 Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me.

#8384

Malvina Major

#123945

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Dame Malvina Lorraine Major is a New Zealand opera soprano. Early life and family Major was born in Hamilton on 28 January 1943, the daughter of Vincent and Eva Major. She grew up in a large musical family, and as a child she performed at various concerts, singing mainly country and western pop and music from the shows. She received her first classical training in 1955, from Sister Mary Magdalen at Ngāruawāhia, north of Hamilton. Sister Febronie continued with her voice training and Sister Liguori gave her piano tuition. As her potential blossomed, Major began travelling weekly to Ponsonby in Auckland, where she received further tuition from Dame Sister Mary Leo at St Mary's College.

#8385

Catherine O. Ringen

#175724

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Catherine Ringen is an American phonologist and professor emerita of linguistics at the University of Iowa. She is best known for her research on vowel harmony, especially in Finno-Ugric languages, and on laryngeal contrasts in obstruents, in particular in Germanic languages.

#8386

Alfred Hirschmeier

#139660

Overall Influence

1931 - 1996 (65 years)

Alfred Hirschmeier was a German production designer. In 1995, he was a member of the jury at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival. Selected filmography Five Cartridges Naked Among Wolves The Turning Point Spring Symphony

#8387

Lothar Koch

#113239

Overall Influence

1935 - 2003 (68 years)

Lothar Koch was a German oboist. He was one of the two principal oboists in the Berlin Philharmonic during the Herbert von Karajan era. He was also an active soloist and was regarded as one of the greatest oboe players of his era. One critic described him as the greatest musician of the last 150 years.

#8388

Bruno Weil

#148813

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Bruno Weil is a German symphonic conductor. He is principal guest conductor of Tafelmusik, the period-instrument group based in Toronto, Music Director of the Carmel Bach Festival in California, and artistic director of the period-instrument festival "Klang und Raum" in Irsee, Bavaria. He has served as General Music Director of Augsburg , and of Duisburg . He currently serves as Professor of Conducting at the State Academy for Music and Theater in Munich.

#8389

Bruce Mather

#148097

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Bruce Mather is a Canadian composer, pianist, and writer who is particularly known for his contributions to contemporary classical music. Career One of the most notable composers of microtonal music, he was awarded the Jules Léger Prize twice, first in 1979 for his Musique pour Champigny and again in 1993 for Yquem. Some of his other awards include the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada's Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux prize in 1987 for Barbaresco and the Serge Garant Prize from the Émile Nelligan Foundation in 2000.

#8390

M. Eric Johnson

#34834

Overall Influence

M. Eric Johnson is Dean of the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University. Formerly, he was Associate Dean and the Benjamin Ames Kimball Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. He was also Director of the Glassmeyer/McNamee Center for Digital Strategies. Prior to Tuck, he was a professor at management at Vanderbilt University and a development engineer at Hewlett-Packard.

#8391

Robert Holmes

#123711

Overall Influence

Robert Holmes is an English-born guitarist, best known for his work as guitarist/vocalist/writer in the American new wave band 'Til Tuesday, the former band of Aimee Mann. He first moved to America with his family at the age of seven.

#8392

Charles Ramirez

#125374

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Charles Ramirez is a Gibraltarian concert guitarist based in London. He is also Professor of guitar at the Royal College of Music. Biography Early life Charles Ramirez was born on 2 September 1953 in Gibraltar. He studied with William Gomez MBE who gave him his first lessons and such was his aptitude that, just two months later, he gave his first performance live on local television . He was a regular performer on Gibraltar television and radio prior to moving to London to study.

#8393

Cecil McBee

#92397

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Cecil McBee is an American jazz bassist. He has recorded as a leader only a handful of times since the 1970s, but has contributed as a sideman to a number of jazz albums. Biography Early life and career McBee was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States. He studied clarinet at school, but switched to bass at the age of 17, and began playing in local nightclubs. After gaining a music degree from Ohio Central State University, McBee spent two years in the U.S. Army, during which time he conducted the band at Fort Knox. In 1959, he played with Dinah Washington, and in 1962 he moved to Detroit, Mi...

#8394

Billy Mitchell

#128586

Overall Influence

1926 - 2001 (75 years)

William Melvin Mitchell was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Career Mitchell was born in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. He and his family moved to Detroit, where he received early music education at Cass Tech. He was known for his close association with trumpeter Thad Jones, who was also from Detroit, and worked in several big bands, including Woody Herman's when he replaced Gene Ammons. In 1949, Mitchell recorded with the Milt Buckner band, as well as making several recordings with Thad Jones.

#8395

Julián Orbón

#131894

Overall Influence

1925 - 1991 (66 years)

Julián Orbón de Soto Life Family and early years Julián Orbón was born on August 7, 1925, in Avilés, Spain, to Benjamín Orbón. Julián Orbón was exposed to music at a very early age because his father, Benjamín, was a composer and pianist. In 1932, Julián Orbón began taking piano lessons and basic music lessons from his father. At the age of ten, Julián Orbón attended the Oviedo Conservatory, where he received his first formal training.

#8396

Vincent Gallo

#120697

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Vincent Gallo is an American actor, filmmaker and musician. He has won several accolades, including a Volpi Cup for Best Actor, and has been nominated for numerous more, including the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, and the Bronze Horse.

#8397

Brent Mason

#65529

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Brent Mason is an American, Nashville, Tennessee-based recording studio guitarist and songwriter, performing primarily country music. Guitar World magazine listed Mason as one of the "Top Ten Session Guitarists of All Time". Discovered and mentored by Chet Atkins, Mason has been named "Guitarist of the Year" 12 times by the Academy of Country Music and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019. In addition to releasing two instrumental studio albums, he holds several credits as a songwriter.

#8398

Ali

#106090

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Ali is an Indian actor, comedian, and TV presenter who works predominantly in Telugu films and television. He acted in more than 1000 films in Telugu. He is a recipient of two Nandi Awards and two Filmfare Awards South.

#8399

Hiroshi Yoshimura

#133137

Overall Influence

1940 - 2003 (63 years)

Hiroshi Yoshimura was a Japanese musician and composer. He is considered a pioneer of ambient music in Japan. His music lies mostly in the minimalist genre of kankyō ongaku, or environment music—soft electronic melodies infused with the sounds of nature: babbling brooks, steady rain, and morning birds. However, not all Yoshimura's work included nature sounds. His album Green only contained them in the United States release, as they were excluded in the Japanese version.

#8400

Mylène Farmer

#165383

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Mylène Jeanne Gautier , known professionally as Mylène Farmer , is a French singer, lyricist, writer, and entrepreneur. Having sold more than 30 million records worldwide, she is among the most successful recording artists of all time in France, where she holds the record for the most number one hit singles, with twenty-one – eight of which were consecutive.

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