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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#8401

David Currie

#86394

Overall Influence

David Currie is a Canadian conductor who was the music director and conductor for the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra from 1992 until 2016. Currie is also an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, where he teaches double bass and conducting, and conducts the university orchestra.

#8402

Carla Kihlstedt

Carla Kihlstedt

#129706

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Carla Kihlstedt is an American composer, violinist, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and currently working from a home studio on Cape Cod. She is a founding member of Tin Hat Trio , Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, The Book of Knots, Causing a Tiger, and Rabbit Rabbit. Other musical projects include 2 Foot Yard, Charming Hostess and Minamo . She is a recognized classical composer who has performed with the International Contemporary Ensemble , has worked occasionally on projects with Tom Waits, John Zorn, and Fred Frith, and recorded numerous albums as a guest or session musician.

#8403

Uriya Shavit

#90241

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Uriya Shavit is an Israeli author and full professor of Islamic studies at Tel Aviv University . Since 2016, he has served as the head of TAU’s Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies and the Graduate Program in Religious Studies. Since 2021, Shavit serves as head of the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry as well as co-head of the Shandong-Tel Aviv Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. Shavit also worked as a senior staff writer and editor for “Haaretz” and other Israeli newspapers and authored novels and books for young readers. He specializes in the study of cont...

#8404

Julian Bleecker

Julian Bleecker

#57161

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Julian Bleecker is an artist and technologist with a history developing innovative mobile research projects. Career Bleecker holds a Ph.D. from the History of Consciousness Program at University of California, Santa Cruz where he studied with Donna Haraway, Angela Davis, Victor Burgin, and James Clifford.

#8405

Johannes Piersig

#95310

Overall Influence

1907 - 1998 (91 years)

Johannes Piersig was a German Kantor, docent for organ playing, music education and music theory, and later in 1979/80 rector of the Free University of Hamburg. Life Born in Geestemünde, Piersig studied singing and organ playing at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig. After several concert tours, he took up the position of cantor at St Elizabeth's Church, Wrocław in 1932. In 1941, he became Kirchenmusikdirektor at the university there and at the same time taught as a lecturer at the Hochschulinstitut für Musikerziehung.

#8406

Masaaki Suzuki

#175894

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

#8407

Elizabeth Gilels

Elizabeth Gilels

#154816

Overall Influence

1919 - 2008 (89 years)

Elizabeth Gilels was a Soviet violinist and professor. Biography Elizabeth Gilels was born on the 30th of September 1919 in Odessa into a Jewish family. Her father, Grigory Gilels, was a clerk at a sugar refinery, and her mother, Gesya Gilels, was a housewife. Gilels had multiple siblings, including children from previous marriages, by both of her parents. Despite not being directly connected to the music scene, the family would include two musicians: Emil Gilels and Elizabeth.

#8408

Mel Tomlinson

#64771

Overall Influence

1954 - 2019 (65 years)

Mel Alexander Tomlinson was an American dancer and choreographer. At the time of his debut with the New York City Ballet in 1981, he was the only African-American dancer in the company. Ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille referred to Tomlinson as "the most exciting black dancer in America." Throughout his ballet career, he danced with New York City Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Agnes de Mille Dance Theatre, North Carolina Dance Theatre, and Boston Ballet. In his later life, Tomlinson received a degree from Carolina University of Theology and was ordained as a Baptist minister.

#8409

Brian Lynch

#108871

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Brian Lynch is an American jazz trumpeter. He has been a member of Eddie Palmieri's Afro-Caribbean Jazz group and has led the Latin Side of Miles project with trombonist Conrad Herwig. Lynch has worked with Buena Vista Social Club alumnus Barbarito Torres, recorded with dance remixers Joe Claussell, Little Louie Vega and the Latin alternative group Yerba Buena. He arranged for Japanese pop star Mika Nakashima and producer Shinichi Osawa, has written string charts for Phil Woods, and has played with Maxwell, Prince, and Sheila E.

#8410

Paolo Ferrari

#138226

Overall Influence

1929 - 2018 (89 years)

Paolo Ferrari was an Italian actor, voice actor and television presenter. Biography Ferrari was born in Brussels as his father was at the time the Italian consul in the Belgian Congo, and was in Belgium for a diplomatic mission. His mother, Giulietta, was a concert pianist. He made his acting debut at 9 years old, in Alessandro Blasetti's Ettore Fieramosca and he appeared in over 45 films between 1938 and 2018. He became first known as "the balilla Paolo", a character he played in numerous radio programs for children and teenagers during the fascist era. After the war he studied at the Silvio...

#8411

Lin Yushan

#64521

Overall Influence

1907 - 2004 (97 years)

Lin Yushan , originally named Lin Yinggui , was a Taiwanese visual artist. Early life Lin was raised in a family-owned picture framing store. Lin grew up with an early passion for painting, and his first instructors were folk painters hired by his family. He also spent much of his early years learning from artists such as Tan Ting-pho and Isaka Kyokko.

#8412

David Crumb

#170585

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

David Crumb is an American contemporary composer born into a musical family. His father was composer George Crumb, and his sister was singer Ann Crumb. His music is not as avant-garde or experimental as his father's; it has been called "attractive, accessible, imaginative, well-crafted" by the Chicago-Sun Times, and "expressive and beautiful" by the American Record Guide: reviews listed on the Presser bio.

#8413

Dave Fortman

#60648

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Dave Fortman is an American record producer and musician. He is the guitarist for rock band Ugly Kid Joe, and has worked with bands including Godsmack, Superjoint Ritual, Snot, Atomship, Eyehategod, Mudvayne, Otep, Slipknot , and Simple Plan. He also worked on both of Evanescence's multi-platinum selling albums The Open Door and Fallen.

#8414

Joseph Grigely

#97470

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Joseph Grigely is an American visual artist and scholar. His work is primarily conceptual and engages a variety of media forms including sculpture, video, and installations. Grigely was included in two Whitney Biennials , and is also a Guggenheim Fellow. He lives and works in Chicago, where he is Professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

#8415

Matti Lehtinen

#128619

Overall Influence

1922 - 2022 (100 years)

Matti Kalervo Lehtinen was a Finnish operatic baritone, a long-term member of the Finnish National Opera, and professor of singing at the Sibelius Academy. He appeared at the Savonlinna Opera Festival and international opera houses, and as an oratorio and lieder singer.

#8416

Robert Wierzel

#99290

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Robert Wierzel is an American lighting designer. Mr. Wierzel has worked with artists, directors and designers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds in theatre, dance, contemporary music, museums and opera on stages throughout the United States and abroad. He has a long collaboration with choreographer & director Bill T. Jones and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company . Mr. Wierzel is also well known for his extensive work in the American regional theatre.

#8417

Jeff Loomis

#67534

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Jeff Loomis is an American musician, best known for his role as lead guitarist in the progressive metal band Nevermore during its existence from 1991 to 2011, as well as brief tenures in its precursor, Sanctuary. In 2014, he joined Swedish melodic death metal band Arch Enemy, and in 2021 he joined Graham Bonnet's Alcatrazz as well. As a solo artist he has released two albums and one EP.

#8418

James Akins

#124052

Overall Influence

James Akins is an American tubist, music professor, and both a player and maker of Native American flutes. Education Akins studied the tuba with Ronald Bishop of the Cleveland Orchestra, Arnold Jacobs of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Robert Ryker of the Montreal Symphony, Fredrick Schaufele Jr. at Lakewood High School, and Robert LeBlanc of Ohio State University. He received his Bachelor of Music in 1978 and Master of Music in 1982 from Ohio State University.

#8419

Arthur Wills

#153483

Overall Influence

1926 - 2020 (94 years)

Arthur William Wills OBE was an English musician, composer and professor, born in Coventry. He was director of music at Ely Cathedral from 1958 to 1990 and also held a professorship at the Royal Academy of Music in London from 1964 until 1992. He toured extensively as a recitalist in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. He also broadcast, appeared on television and made many recordings, both as a soloist and with Ely Cathedral Choir.

#8420

Ralph Berkowitz

#160688

Overall Influence

1910 - 2011 (101 years)

Ralph Berkowitz was an American composer, classical musician, and painter. Biography Berkowitz was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Romanian Jewish couple, Matilda and William Berkowitz who had emigrated from Roman and Bucharest. His father was instrumental in shaping young Ralph's musical culture and experience. In 1927, he enrolled at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia where he later became a member of the teaching staff. In 1940, he became accompanist for Gregor Piatigorsky, with whom he appeared until the cellist's death in 1976. Other musical partners included the tenor Jan Peerce, cellist Felix Salmond, and violinist and composer George Enescu.

#8421

Ira Gitler

#101237

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Ira Gitler was an American jazz historian and journalist. The co-author of The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz with Leonard Feather—the most recent edition appeared in 1999—he wrote hundreds of liner notes for jazz recordings beginning in the early 1950s and wrote several books about jazz and ice hockey, two of his passions.

#8422

Urmi Desai

#170346

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Urmi Ghanshyam Desai is a Gujarati writer and linguist from Gujarat, India. She received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2017 for her critical work Gujarati Vyakaran Na Baso Varsh . She was born on 5 April 1938 in Mumbai to her mother, Rambhabahen, and her father, Kameshwar Vyas. Her family originates from Chorvad. After matriculation in 1955, she completed her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees on Gujarati and Sanskrit subjects. She received her PhD in 1967 under the supervision of Harivallabh Bhayani for her research work Gujarati Bhashana Angasadhak Pratyayo. In 1969, she completed her Diploma in Linguistics.

#8423

Vikki Carr

#139024

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Florencia Vicenta de Casillas-Martínez Cardona , known by her stage name Vikki Carr, is an American vocalist. She has a singing career that spans more than five decades. Born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican parents, she has performed in a variety of musical genres, including pop, jazz and country, while her greatest success has come from singing in Spanish. She established the Vikki Carr Scholarship Foundation in 1971. Vikki Carr has won three Grammys and was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 at the 9th Annual Latin Grammy Awards.

#8424

Henrik Liljegren

#86320

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Henrik Liljegren is a linguist and Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Stockholm University. He does fieldwork on languages of northern Pakistan, particularly the Hindukush–Karakoram region, and studies typology of and genetic relations between languages of the region. His most recent project is investigating Language contact and relatedness in the Hindukush region, funded by the Vetenskapsrådet .

#8425

Ruby Braff

#114360

Overall Influence

1927 - 2003 (76 years)

Reuben "Ruby" Braff was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. Jack Teagarden was once asked about him on the Garry Moore television show and described Ruby as "the Ivy League Louis Armstrong". Braff was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. He was renowned for working in an idiom ultimately derived from the playing of Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. He began playing in local clubs in the 1940s. In 1949, he was hired to play with the Edmond Hall Orchestra at the Savoy Cafe of Boston. He relocated to New York in 1953 where he was much in demand for band dates and recordings.

#8426

Harolyn Blackwell

Harolyn Blackwell

#138866

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Harolyn Blackwell is an American lyric coloratura soprano who has performed in many of the world's finest opera houses, concert halls, and theaters in operas, oratorios, recitals, and Broadway musicals. Initially known for her work within musical theater during the early 1980s, Blackwell moved into the field of opera and by 1987 had established herself as an artist within the soubrette repertoire in many major opera houses both in the United States and in Europe. Feeling that she was being "type cast" into one particular kind of role, Blackwell strove to establish herself within the lyric coloratura repertoire beginning in the mid-1990s.

#8427

Jackie Robinson

#175660

Overall Influence

Jackie Robinson is a Jamaican singer, best known as the lead vocalist with The Pioneers, but who has also recorded solo material both under his own name, and under the pseudonym Harry Hippy. Biography Jackie Robinson became the lead singer of The Pioneers in 1967. Robinson recorded extensively with The Pioneers for the next twenty years and still performs with the group. He also recorded solo material, including the "Over & Over" single in 1968, and "Heart Made of Stone" in 1970. In the 1970s, his partner in The Pioneers, Sydney Crooks, moved into production, and worked with Dennis Brown while he was in the United Kingdom.

#8428

Yoon Kwon

#92744

Overall Influence

Yoon Kwon is a South Korean-born American violinist and member of the first violins section of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. Life and career Born in Seoul, South Korea, Kwon began her studies at the age of three, initially studying piano under the tutelage of her mother. At the age of six, she began studying violin, was quickly recognized as a Child prodigy and was accepted into Juilliard two years later at the age of 8. There, she studied with Dorothy DeLay. In 1997, she was the youngest winner of the Juilliard School Concerto Competition, which resulted in her Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center debut that year.

#8429

Earl Kim

#127147

Overall Influence

1920 - 1998 (78 years)

Earl Kim was an American composer, and music pedagogue. He was of Korean descent. Early life, education, and training Kim was born on January 6, 1920, in Dinuba, California, to immigrant Korean parents. He began piano studies at age 9, studying under Homer Grun, and he soon developed an interest in composition.

#8430

Apo Hsu

#94426

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Apo Hsu or Hsu Ching-hsin is a conductor born in Taiwan and resident of both Taiwan and the United States. Hsu served as music director of the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Springfield, Missouri. Her past appointments include serving as artistic director of The Women's Philharmonic in San Francisco, California, and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon. She has been a mentor for many young conductors on both sides of the world through her work at NTNU and at The Conductor's Institute at Bard College in New York.

#8431

Konrad Jarnot

#142558

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Konrad Jarnot is an English baritone who works in opera and oratorio and is a notable performer of Lieder. He is a professor at the Robert Schumann Hochschule. Early life Born at Brighton, Jarnot studied voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, with Rudolf Piernay, and was awarded the school's Gold Medal. He also took masterclasses at London's Wigmore Hall and at Stuttgart with Helmuth Rilling.

#8432

John Beckwith

#110591

Overall Influence

1927 - 2022 (95 years)

John Beckwith was a Canadian composer, writer, pianist, teacher, and administrator. Born in Victoria, British Columbia, he studied piano with Alberto Guerrero at the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1945. He received a Mus.B. in 1947 and a Mus.M. in 1961 from the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music. From 1950 to 1951, he studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He started teaching in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto in 1952. From 1970 to 1977, he was the dean of the faculty. He was founding director of the Institute for Canadian Music at the University of Toronto. He retir...

#8433

Stefania Serafin

#164640

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Stefania Serafin is a professor at the Department of Architecture, Design and Media technology at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. Education Stefania Serafin completed her master's degree in acoustics, computer science and signal processing applied to music, from IRCAM in 1997. Following, she received her PhD in computer-based music theory and acoustics from Stanford University in 2004.

#8434

Melinda Wagner

#142338

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Melinda Jane Wagner is a US composer, and winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in music. Her undergraduate degree is from Hamilton College. She received her graduates degrees from University of Chicago and University of Pennsylvania. She also served as Composer-in-Residence at the University of Texas and at the 'Bravo!' Vail Valley Music Festival. Some of her teachers included Richard Wernick, George Crumb, Shulamit Ran, and Jay Reise.

#8435

Vahram Martirosyan

#170145

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Vahram Martirosyan is an Armenian writer, screenwriter and journalist. His first novel, Landslide was a bestseller in Armenia, and one of the few modern Armenian novels translated abroad, as Glissement de terrain in French.

#8436

Natalie Hemby

#86096

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Natalie Nicole Hemby Wrucke is an American country music songwriter and singer. She has written songs for Lee Ann Womack, Eli Young Band, Toby Keith, Miranda Lambert, Sunny Sweeney, Little Big Town, Jon Pardi, Kacey Musgraves, Lauren Daigle, and Lady Gaga. In 2019, she joined the quartet The Highwomen alongside Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires and Maren Morris.

#8437

Jane Powell

#127771

Overall Influence

1929 - 2021 (92 years)

Jane Powell was an American actress, singer, and dancer who first appeared in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals in the 1940s and 50s. With her soprano voice and girl-next-door image, Powell appeared in films, television and on the stage, performing in the musicals A Date with Judy , Royal Wedding , Seven Brides for Seven Brothers , and Hit the Deck .

#8438

Aaron Levinson

#121962

Overall Influence

Aaron Levinson is a Grammy award-winning producer, musician, composer and record label owner. He has produced and released dozens of albums since starting his career with Inner City Records in 1981. Range Recording Studios, Staff,

#8439

Steve Kuhn

#115367

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Steve Kuhn is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, bandleader, and educator. Biography Kuhn was born in New York City, New York, to Carl and Stella Kuhn , and was raised in Newton, Massachusetts. His parents were Hungarian-Jewish immigrants. At the age of five, he began studying piano under Boston piano teacher Margaret Chaloff, mother of jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff, who taught him the "Russian style" of piano playing. At an early age he began improvising classical music. As a teenager, he appeared in jazz clubs in the Boston area with Chet Baker, Coleman Hawkins, Vic Dic...

#8440

Scipio Colombo

#147745

Overall Influence

1910 - 2002 (92 years)

Scipio Colombo was an Italian dramatic baritone, and was known for his abilities as a musician and singing-actor. Born in Vicenza, Italy, Colombo first studied philosophy at the University of Padua, before turning to music. He studied in Milan with Giuseppe Venturini and in Rome with Giuseppe de Luca, and made his debut in Alessandria, as Marcello in La bohème, in 1937.

#8441

Pierre Mariétan

#153746

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Pierre Mariétan is a Swiss composer. Biography Born in Monthey, Mariétan studied first at the Geneva Conservatory in 1955–60 with Marescotti and later with, amongst others, Pierre Boulez, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Henri Pousseur, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and his earliest works are squarely in the serialist camp. During the 1960s he began creating outline sketches for improvisation, and beginning in the 1970s became increasingly interested in environmental sound and the problem of noise pollution.

#8442

Normand Lockwood

#155945

Overall Influence

1906 - 2002 (96 years)

Normand Lockwood was an American composer born in New York, New York. He studied composition at the University of Michigan from 1921 to 1924, and then traveled to Rome and studied composition under Ottorino Respighi from 1925 to 1926, and during this time he also had composition lessons with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. He won a Prix de Rome in 1929 that allowed him to continue his work in Rome. He was a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international professional music fraternity.

#8443

Pierre Rolland

#174200

Overall Influence

1931 - 2011 (80 years)

Pierre Rolland C.M. was a Canadian oboist, english horn player, radio broadcaster, music critic, music educator, and arts administrator. He is the father of cellist Sophie Rolland and violinist Brigitte Rolland.

#8444

Steve Wariner

#63919

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Steven Noel Wariner is an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Initially a backing musician for Dottie West, he also worked with Bob Luman and Chet Atkins before beginning a solo career in the late 1970s. He has released eighteen studio albums and over fifty singles for several different record labels.

#8445

Brian Juden

#159303

Overall Influence

1920 - 2008 (88 years)

Professor Brian Juden M.A. D.èsL. was Professor of French and Head of the Department at Royal Holloway College, which is now known as Royal Holloway, part of the University of London, from 1970 to 1985. He was one of the leading authorities on the links between French literary creativity and political, religious and aesthetic thought.

#8446

Mark Trombino

#63112

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Mark Trombino is an American multi-platinum record producer, musician, and audio engineer. He has produced, engineered, and mixed tracks for many artists including Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182, The Starting Line, Finch, Motion City Soundtrack, and All Time Low. As a drummer, he recorded and toured with Drive Like Jehu, aMiniature, Night Soil Man, and First Offense.

#8447

John Eaton

#115293

Overall Influence

1935 - 2015 (80 years)

John Charles Eaton was an American composer. Born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Eaton attended Princeton University, where he graduated in 1957. He later lived in Rome , returning to Princeton to earn a PhD in 1970. He subsequently held faculty appointments at Indiana University and the University of Chicago .

#8448

Julio García Espinosa

#105304

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

Julio García Espinosa was a Cuban film director and screenwriter. He directed fourteen films between 1955 and 1998. His 1967 film The Adventures of Juan Quin Quin was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival.

#8449

Carlos Rojas

#128310

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Carlos Rojas is an American sinologist and translator. He is currently Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University's Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. He is a cultural historian and his work and teachings primarily focus on Chinese culture. He also teaches the subjects of film, gender, sexuality, and feminist studies. He received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1995 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2000. Before his professorship at Duke, Rojas was Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Literature and Film at the University of Florida. Rojas lives in Durham, Nort...

#8450

Richard Elliott

#117229

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Richard Louis Elliott is the principal organist of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. Biography Elliott was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He originally planned to become a studio musician and studied organ as part of this goal. In his late teens Elliott was part of a rock band.

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