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,

#8701

Robert McDuffie

#74621

Overall Influence

Robert McDuffie is an American violinist. He has played as a soloist with many of the major orchestras around the world including those of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Minnesota, Houston, St. Louis, Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome as well as the major orchestras of Australia and East Asia.

#8702

Ben Foster

#131753

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Ben Foster is a BAFTA award-winning British composer, best known for his work on the BBC series Torchwood and as orchestrator for Murray Gold on Doctor Who and for Marc Streitenfeld on Prometheus and The Grey. He is also known for his work as the conductor for Peter Gabriel's Scratch my Back world tour and albums, and for the BBC Proms Doctor Who events.

#8703

Orlando Cole

#171961

Overall Influence

1908 - 2010 (102 years)

Orlando Cole was an American cello teacher who taught two generations of soloists, chamber musicians, and first cellists in a dozen leading orchestras, including David Cole, Lynn Harrell, Jonah Kim, Ronald Leonard, Lorne Munroe, Peter Stumpf and Marcy Rosen.

#8704

Howard Riley

#136260

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

John Howard Riley is an English pianist and composer, who worked in jazz and experimental music idioms. Riley was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England. He began learning the piano at the age of six, and began playing jazz as early as the age of 13. He studied at the University of Wales , Indiana University in America under David Baker , and then at York University . Alongside his studies he played jazz professionally, with Evan Parker and then with his own trio , with Barry Guy on bass and Alan Jackson, Jon Hiseman, and Tony Oxley for periods on drums. Additionally he worked with John McLaughlin , the London Jazz Composers Orchestra , and with Oxley's ensemble .

#8705

John Popper

#64794

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

John Popper is an American musician and songwriter, known as the co-founder, lead vocalist, and frontman of the rock band Blues Traveler. Early life John Popper was born in Chardon, Ohio. His father was a Hungarian immigrant who left Budapest in 1948. Through him, Popper is related to David Popper, a 19th-century European cellist whose many solo works for the cello are staples of the instrument's repertoire. Popper's mother and brother are lawyers.

#8706

Neil Black

#161968

Overall Influence

1932 - 2016 (84 years)

Neil Cathcart Black OBE was an English oboist. He held the post of principal oboe in four London orchestras, and taught at the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Early life and education Black was born in Birmingham on 28 May 1932. He starting playing the oboe at the age of 11, and played in the National Youth Orchestra between 1948 and 1951.

#8707

Hugh Bean

#160450

Overall Influence

1929 - 2003 (74 years)

Hugh Cecil Bean was an English violinist. He was born in Beckenham. After lessons from his father from the age of five, he became a pupil of Albert Sammons when he was nine years old. Later, he attended the Royal College of Music , where at age 17 he was awarded the principal prize for violin. A further year's study with André Gertler at the Brussels Conservatory on a Boise Foundation travelling award brought him a double first prize for solo and chamber music playing, and with two other prizewinners he formed the Boise Trio. In 1951, he was awarded second place in the Carl Flesch Intern...

#8708

Leon Lishner

#172963

Overall Influence

1913 - 1995 (82 years)

Leon Lishner was an American operatic bass-baritone. He was particularly associated with the works of Gian Carlo Menotti, having created parts in the world premieres of four of his operas. He performed in many productions with the New York City Opera and the NBC Opera Theatre during the 1950s and early 1960s.

#8709

Danilo Pérez

#124542

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Danilo Pérez is a Panamanian pianist, composer, educator, and a social activist. His music is a blend of Panamanian roots with elements of Latin American folk music, jazz, European impressionism, African, and other musical heritages that promote music as a multi-dimensional bridge between people. He has released eleven albums as a leader, and appeared on many recordings as a side man, which have earned him critical acclaim, numerous accolades, Grammy Awards wins and nominations. He is a recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship, and the 2009 Smithsonian Legacy Award.

#8710

Steve King

#47026

Overall Influence

1958 - 2014 (56 years)

Steven King was an American record producer and audio engineer from Detroit, most known for his work at 54 Sound in Ferndale, Michigan with Shady/Aftermath artists. He won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album at 45th Annual Grammy Awards for The Eminem Show.

#8711

Peter Reulein

#109351

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Peter Reulein is a German composer, organ improviser, academic teacher and church musician, from 2000 at the church Liebfrauen in Frankfurt am Main. In 2016 he composed for the Catholic Diocese of Limburg the Franciscan oratorio Laudato si'.

#8712

David Breeden

#149846

Overall Influence

1946 - 2005 (59 years)

David McKee Breeden was an American clarinetist who was the principal clarinetist with the San Francisco Symphony for 25 years. In addition to performing with the San Francisco Symphony, Breeden had taught at Stanford University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He performed for several years with the U.S. Navy Band.

#8713

Noriko Ogawa

#156289

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Noriko Ogawa is a Japanese classical pianist, based in London. Biography Born in Kawasaki, Ogawa studied at the Tokyo College of Music and the Juilliard School in New York , and later with Benjamin Kaplan.

#8714

Alvin Goldfarb

#78408

Overall Influence

Alvin "Al" Goldfarb is an American academic administrator who served as the tenth president of Western Illinois University from 2002 to 2011. From 1977 to 2002, he was on the faculty of the department of theatre at Illinois State University in Normal, where he was also chairman of the theatre department, dean of fine arts from 1988 to 1998, and provost and vice president for academic affairs from 1998.

#8715

Abbey Lincoln

#136264

Overall Influence

1930 - 2010 (80 years)

Anna Marie Wooldridge , known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist and songwriter. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards as well as writing and singing her own material.

#8716

Jin Di

#92655

Overall Influence

1921 - 2008 (87 years)

Jin Di was a Chinese translator. He was the first Chinese translator who translated James Joyce's Ulysses into Chinese language, a project that took 16 years to complete. Biography Jin was born in Wuxing County , Zhejiang, in September 1921.

#8717

Kent Kennan

#136177

Overall Influence

1913 - 2003 (90 years)

Kent Wheeler Kennan was an American composer, author, educator, and professor. He learned to play the organ and the piano and received degrees in composition and music theory from the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music. At the age of 23, he was awarded the Rome Prize, which allowed him to study for three years in Europe, primarily at the American Academy in Rome. He was the half brother of the diplomat and historian George F. Kennan.

#8718

Yehezkel Braun

#110776

Overall Influence

1922 - 2014 (92 years)

Yehezkel Braun was an Israeli composer. Biography Yehezkel Braun was born in Breslau, Germany. The family moved to Mandate Palestine when he was two. He grew up surrounded by Jewish and East-Mediterranean traditional music that influenced his later compositions.

#8719

Gioconda de Vito

#159082

Overall Influence

1907 - 1994 (87 years)

Gioconda de Vito was an Italian-British classical violinist. Life De Vito was born, one of five children, in the town of Martina Franca in southern Italy, to a wine-making family. Initially she played the violin untaught, having received only music theory lessons from the local bandmaster. Her uncle, a professional violinist based in Germany, heard her attempting a concerto by Charles Auguste de Bériot when she was aged only eight, and decided to teach her himself. At age 11, she entered the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro to study with Remy Principe. She graduated at age 13, commenced a career as a soloist, and at age 17 became Professor of Violin at the newly founded conservatory in Bari.

#8720

Mark Lamos

#125066

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Mark Lamos is an American theatre and opera director, producer and actor. Under his direction, Hartford Stage won the 1989 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre and he has been nominated for two other Tonys. For more than 15 seasons, he has been artistic director of the Westport Country Playhouse. In May 2023, he announced he will leave the post in January 2024.

#8721

Marisa Robles

#170124

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Marisa Robles is a Spanish harpist and composer. She was born in Spain, where she studied the harp with Luisa Menarguez, and studied music at the Madrid Conservatory, graduating at the age of sixteen in 1953. She made her concert debut at seventeen, performing with flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal.

#8722

Brian Cherney

#169614

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Brian Cherney is a Canadian composer currently residing in Montreal, Quebec. Cherney was born in Peterborough, Ontario. He studied at the University of Toronto where he was a pupil of John Weinzweig, Samuel Dolin, and John Beckwith. In 1972 he joined Schulich School of Music of McGill University, where he has taught analysis and composition for over thirty years. His pieces, often characterized by carefully calculated formal trajectories and a rich harmonic language, give the impression of a quiet intensity, usually featuring "stillness" in some manner. His works have been played throughout North America, Europe, and elsewhere.

#8723

Radney Foster

#94397

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Radney Muckleroy Foster is an American country music singer-songwriter, musician and music producer. Initially a songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, Foster made his recording debut as part of the Foster & Lloyd duo, recording three studio albums and with nine singles on the country charts.

#8724

Jimmy Owens

#130158

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Jimmy Owens is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, lecturer, and educator. He has played with Lionel Hampton, Charles Mingus, Hank Crawford, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Herbie Mann, among many others. Since 1969, he has led his own group, Jimmy Owens Plus.

#8725

James Barnes

#147445

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

James Charles Barnes is an American composer. Life and career Barnes studied composition and music theory at the University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Music in 1974, and Master of Music in 1975. He studied conducting privately with Zuohuang Chen. In 1977 he joined the faculty at the University of Kansas as professor of music theory and composition. He retired in August 2015, but retains his emeritus status at KU.

#8726

Shyam

#97446

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Samuel Joseph , better known as Shyam, is a music composer who works in Malayalam cinema. From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, Shyam had a prolific run as a composer in the Malayalam film industry, composing for nearly 200 films. Working with all major directors of the time, Shyam had scored for many hits of Jayan and the early films of Mammootty and Mohanlal.

#8727

Levon Ambartsumian

#112169

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Levon Ambartsumian is an Armenian classical violinist and conductor. Levon Ambartsumian currently lives and works in Athens, Georgia, United States. Levon Ambartsumian studied in the Moscow Central Music School and then in the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where his teachers were Mikhail Garlitsky, Felix Andrievski, Yuri Yankelevich, Leonid Kogan and Igor Bezrodny. In 1977 he became the First Prize winner of Zagreb International Violin Competition headed by Henryk Szeryng. Two years later he was a prizewinner of the Montreal International Competition, and in 1981 he won the USSR Violin Com...

#8728

Andre Asriel

#154823

Overall Influence

1922 - 2019 (97 years)

Andre Asriel was an Austrian-German composer. Life Born in Vienna, Asriel first attended the Akademisches Gymnasium and then the Bundesgymnasium IX in Vienna, where the later Oscar winner and composer Ernest Gold was his classmate. Here he pursued musical studies at the same time, studying piano with Grete Hinterhofer and theory with Richard Stöhr at the State Academy of Music in Vienna from 1936 to 1938. He was extraordinarily gifted and an outstanding pianist even at a young age.

#8729

Katherine Dunham

Katherine Dunham

#114138

Overall Influence

1909 - 2006 (97 years)

Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance."

#8730

David Krackhardt

#12790

Overall Influence

David Krackhardt is Professor of Organizations at Heinz College and the Tepper School of Business, with courtesy appointments in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences and the Machine Learning Department , all at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, and he also serves a Fellow of CEDEP, the European Centre for Executive Education, in France. He is notable for being the author of KrackPlot, a network visualization software designed for social network analysis which is widely used in academic research. He is also the founder of the Journal of Social Structure.

#8731

Bill Evans

#110510

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Bill Evans is a choreographer, performer, teacher, administrator, writer and movement analyst. More than 250 of Evans' works have been performed by professional and pre-professional ballet, modern dance and tap dance companies throughout the United States, including his own Bill Evans Dance Company, Repertory Dance Theatre, Concert Dance Company of Boston, Ballet West, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Ruth Page Chicago Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theater, Stars of American Ballet at Jacob's Pillow, Chicago Tap Theatre, Rochester City Ballet, FuturPointe Dance and many other companies.

#8732

Saori Hayami

#159514

Overall Influence

1991 - Present (35 years)

is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with I'm Enterprise. As a singer, she is signed to Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Hayami won the 10th Seiyu Awards for Best Supporting Actress. Her most notable roles include Miyuki Shiba in The Irregular at Magic High School, Yukino Yukinoshita in My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected, Leona in Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, Himawari Uzumaki in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Shinobu Kochō in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Ryuu Lion in Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Yor Forger in Spy × Family, Yamato in ...

#8733

András Fejér

#110265

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

András Fejér is a Hungarian cellist. He is a member of the Takács Quartet, having founded it with three classmates at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest] in 1975. He was born into a musical family and became familiar with the chamber music repertoire at an early age, as his parents would spend the weekends playing music with their friends. András himself began playing the cello at age seven, and legend has it that he originally wanted to play violin but his father, unwilling to listen to the terrible scratching sounds produced by beginning violinists, forbade it.

#8734

Monica Huggett

#169894

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Monica Huggett is a British conductor and leading baroque violinist. Biography At the age of 16, Huggett started studying at the Royal Academy of Music, London, with Manoug Parikian and Kato Havas, baroque violin with Sigiswald Kuijken.

#8735

Jacques Abram

#154755

Overall Influence

1915 - 1998 (83 years)

Jacques Abram , born Jack Gregory Abram, an American classical pianist, was born in Lufkin, Texas and died in Tampa, Florida. Abram began improvising at age 3 and performing in public at age 6. As a youth he studied with Ima Hogg and Ruth Burr of Houston. At the urging of Ignace Jan Paderewski and Josef Hofmann, who had heard Abram in concert, his parents enrolled him in the Curtis Institute, where he studied with David Saperton. At age 13, Abram transferred to the Juilliard School, where he continued his studies with Ernest Hutcheson. The well-known pianist and Leschetizky pupil Arthur Shattuck also mentored Abram for many years.

#8736

Faith Esham

#142485

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Faith Esham is an American soprano and college professor of voice. Life and career Faith Lou Esham was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, and grew up in Vanceburg, Kentucky, the daughter of Dr. Elwood Esham and Ruth Louise Opfer Esham , a nurse. She graduated in psychology from Columbia Union College in Maryland. She completed study for a master's degree in clinical psychology at Eastern Kentucky University before transferring to the Juilliard School where she received her master's degree in music in 1978. Her voice teacher at Juilliard was Beverley Peck Johnson.

#8737

Kaye Ballard

#141529

Overall Influence

1925 - 2019 (94 years)

Kaye Ballard was an American actress, comedian, and singer. Early life Ballard was born Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, one of four children born to Italian immigrant parents, Lena and Vincenzo Balotta. Her parents immigrated to the United States from Calabria, a region of southern Italy.

#8738

Károly Schranz

#99693

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Károly Schranz is a Hungarian violinist and founding second violinist of the Takács Quartet. During his forty-three year career with the quartet he received awards from the Hungarian Government of the Knight's Cross and the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. As a member of the Takács he was awarded one Grammy and four nominations, several Gramophone Awards, as well as other awards of excellence.

#8739

Eric Reed

#151383

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Eric Scott Reed is an American jazz pianist and composer. His group Black Note released several albums in the 1990s. Biography Reed was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began playing piano at age two, was playing piano in his minister father's church by age five, and at age seven began formal study at Philadelphia's Settlement Music School. At age 11 his family moved to Los Angeles, and he studied at the R. D. Colburn School of Arts.

#8740

Paul Jeffrey

#141663

Overall Influence

1933 - 2015 (82 years)

Paul Jeffrey was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, arranger, and educator. He was a member of Thelonious Monk's regular group from 1970–1975, and also worked extensively with other musicians such as Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Lionel Hampton and B.B. King.

#8741

Alfred Koerppen

#162725

Overall Influence

1926 - 2022 (96 years)

Alfred Koerppen was a German organist, music pedagogue, composer and academic teacher. He taught composition and music theory at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover from 1948 to 1991. His compositions focus on choral music with and without accompaniment, but he also wrote symphonies, chamber music and stage works.

#8742

Vladimir Padunov

#171517

Overall Influence

1947 - 2022 (75 years)

Vladimir Padunov was an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh in the Slavic Languages and Literatures Department and also served as the associate director of the Film Studies Program. Padunov was the former deputy editor of Kinokultura, an online journal focusing on contemporary Russian cinema.

#8743

David Watson

#152101

Overall Influence

1940 - 2014 (74 years)

David William Watson was a British American actor of film, television and theatre. Watson was born in Austin, Texas. Subsequently, Watson's parents moved to London, where they had been brought up, and where Watson was then brought up.

#8744

Donnie McClurkin

Donnie McClurkin

#72866

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Donald Andrew McClurkin Jr. is an American gospel singer and minister. He has won three Grammy Awards, ten Stellar Awards, two BET Awards, two Soul Train Awards, one Dove Award and one NAACP Image Awards. He is one of the top selling gospel artists, selling over 10 million albums worldwide. Variety dubbed McClurkin as a "Reigning King of Urban Gospel".

#8745

David Petrarca

#123085

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

David Petrarca is an American director and producer of theatre, television and film. He was a director at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago from 1988 until 2005. His work as a director includes HBO's Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones, Big Love, Hung, and True Blood as well as Marco Polo, Jessica Jones and numerous other projects for Netflix. Other recent projects include The Alienist and Warrior. He worked as an executive producer on Those Who Kill, ABC series Eli Stone and Drop Dead Diva.

#8746

Tom Sancton

#131668

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Thomas Alexander Sancton is an American writer, jazz clarinetist and educator. From 1992 to 2001 he was Paris bureau chief for TIME Magazine, where he worked for 22 years, and he has contributed to numerous publications including Vanity Fair, Fortune, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. His acclaimed memoir, Song for My Fathers: a New Orleans Story in Black and White , recounts his early life among traditional jazzmen in his native New Orleans. He taught journalism at the American University of Paris from 2002 to 2004. In 2007 he was named Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Tulane University, where he taught creative writing until 2011.

#8747

Adele Stolte

#168953

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Adele Stolte was a German soprano singer in concert and Lieder, and an academic voice teacher. Biography Born in Sperenberg, Stolte attended schools in Lübeck and Potsdam. She studied voice with Anneliese Buschmann in Rostock. With the Thomanerchor she started broadcasting in 1958 and recording of Bach cantatas in 1960. In 1958 she sang in the premiere of Te Deum by Ernst Pepping in Dresden. She recorded the oratorio Das Gesicht Jesajas op. 41 of Willy Burkhard, with Kurt Huber, Jakob Stämpfli and the Bern Symphony Orchestra conducted by Martin Flämig. In the recording of Bach's St Matthew P...

#8748

Ian Wilson

#145452

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ian Wilson is an Irish composer. Career Wilson was born in Belfast, studied violin and piano, and graduated with a DPhil in composition from the University of Ulster at Jordanstown in 1990, where he was a research fellow, 2000–3. He has been a composer-in-residence with Leitrim County Council and was music director of the Sligo New Music Festival from 2003 to 2011. He received the Macaulay Fellowship from the Arts Council of Ireland in 1992, and in 1998 he was elected to Aosdána, Ireland's academy of creative artists. Since 2009, he has been a post-doctoral research fellow at Dundalk Institut...

#8749

John Macleod

#147009

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

John Macleod is a Canadian-born English songwriter and musician. Career Macleod moved to Britain in the 1940s, and lived in the Halifax area with his wife before moving to Brighton. In the 1950s, he was a member of the vocal group the Maple Leaf Four, with his brother, baritone Norman, Alan Harvey as tenor and Joe Melia as second tenor. The group made regular appearances on British TV, and released at least two albums, Home on the Range and Old Familiar Favourites.

#8750

Yukari Tamura

#147039

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

is a Japanese voice actress and singer affiliated with Amuleto . She debuted as a voice actress in 1997, releasing her debut single "Yūki o Kudasai" on March 26, 1997. Her role as Nanoha Takamachi in the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha series contributed to a rise in her popularity, as several of her singles were used as the ending themes for the franchise's anime adaptations. Besides Nanoha, she voices the title characters Haruka Minazuki / Red Angel in Kaitō Tenshi Twin Angel, Ringo Kinoshita in No-Rin, Yamada in B Gata H Kei and Kaoru Tsunashi in I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. O...

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