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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#9301

Subodh Bhave

#119051

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Subodh Bhave is an Indian actor, writer, producer and director who is known for his work in Marathi cinema. He has acted in many commercially successful and critically acclaimed Marathi movies. He is best known for his work in Ani... Dr. Kashinath Ghanekar, Balgandharva, Katyar Kaljat Ghusali. He recently portrayed Vikrant Saranjame aka Gajendra Patil in Zee Marathi's Tula Pahate Re.

#9302

Lidia Milka-Wieczorkiewicz

#168030

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Lidia Anna Milka-Wieczorkiewicz is a Polish historian and diplomat, ambassador to Algeria and Tunisia . Life Education and academic work Milka-Wieczorkiewicz was born on 29 May 1956 in Niegoszowice. She graduated from high school in Dąbrowa Górnicza. Following her studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice, in 1979, she graduated in history from the University of Warsaw. She started academic career there. In 1988, she defended her doctoral thesis on France–Morocco relations. As a scientist, she has been interested in history of Middle East and North Africa countries. She has been carr...

#9303

Johannes Wildner

#116272

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Johannes Wildner is an Austrian conductor, conducting professor, and former member violinist with the Vienna Philharmonic. Biography Born in Mürzzuschlag, Austria, Wildner studied conducting, violin and musicology and has established himself as one of the foremost Austrian conductors.

#9304

Frank Guarrera

#171658

Overall Influence

1923 - 2007 (84 years)

Frank Guarrera was an Italian-American lyric baritone who enjoyed a long and distinguished career at the Metropolitan Opera, singing with the company for a total of 680 performances. He performed 35 different roles at the Met, mostly from the Italian and French repertories, from 1948 through 1976. His most frequent assignments at the house were as Escamillo in Georges Bizet's Carmen, Marcello in Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème, Valentin in Charles Gounod's Faust, and Ping in Puccini's Turandot. He was also an admired interpreter of Mozart roles, establishing himself in the parts of both Guglielmo and Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte and Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro.

#9305

Joel Rubin

#115992

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Joel Rubin is an American clarinetist, Klezmer musician, ethnomusicologist, and scholar of Jewish music. Since becoming involved in the Klezmer revival in the late 1970s, he has been researching, teaching and performing Klezmer music and related genres. He has been a member of, or performed with, such groups as Brave Old World, the Joel Rubin Ensemble, and Veretski Pass.

#9306

Makoto Shinozaki

#118375

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Makoto Shinozaki is a Japanese film director. Career Born in Tokyo, Shinozaki attended Rikkyo University, where he studied under Shigehiko Hasumi, made 8mm films, and appeared in the then amateur works of other Rikkyo graduates such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa. After graduating, he worked at the film company Cine Saison and starting writing about film and doing long interviews of directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Takeshi Kitano for magazines. While working as a projectionist for the Athénée Français Cultural Center in Tokyo, he saved up enough money to make his first 35mm film, Okaeri, for which he won the Wolfgang Staudte Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1995.

#9307

Michael Baskette

#83225

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Michael "Elvis" Baskette is an American music producer who has worked with artists such as Sevendust, Alter Bridge, Projected, Tremonti, Chevelle, Limp Bizkit, Falling in Reverse, Coldrain, The Classic Crime, Temple Agents, Clint Lowery and Slash.

#9308

Carter Brey

#113561

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Carter Brey is an American cello virtuoso. He had a prolific solo career from 1981 until 1996 when he became the principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic, a position he still holds today. Biography Carter Brey was born in Montclair, New Jersey and grew up in Westchester County, New York. He began playing the violin at age 9 and the cello at age 12 in school, although he did not seriously consider becoming a professional musician until he was 16. He studied under Laurence Lesser and Stephen Kates at Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute and later with Aldo Parisot at Yale University, where he was a Wardell Fellow and a Houpt Scholar.

#9309

Allan Vogel

#171559

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Allan Vogel is an American oboist and educator. He was the former Principal Oboe of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Education Vogel studied piano and voice at the New York High School for Music and Art, but eventually changed his focus to oboe. "From the moment I heard it, I fell in love", Vogel said. "I switched right away." "My voice hadn't quite changed yet", he says. "By the time my voice changed, I was already into the oboe. I've been fanatical about the oboe ever since. I fell in love with the sound of it, as many people do. I liked playing it, too, physically. I have the right personality for it, kind of tenacious.

#9310

Mark Dresser

#126527

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Mark Dresser is an American double bass player and composer. Career Dresser was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. In the 1970s, he was a member of Black Music Infinity led by Stanley Crouch and performed with the San Diego Symphony. During the next decade he moved to New York City and became a member of the Anthony Braxton quartet with Marilyn Crispell and Gerry Hemingway. He composed for the Arcado String Trio and Tambastics and for the film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

#9311

Yoon Sang

#146077

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Lee Yoon-sang , known professionally as Yoon Sang, is a South Korean composer, record producer, singer and songwriter. He currently serves as a contemporary music professor at Sungshin Women's University.

#9312

Hwang Jang-lee

#145233

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Hwang Jang-lee is a Japanese-born Korean martial artist and actor. He is a 9th-dan grandmaster in Tang Soo Do and Taekwondo who began training in 1957. Prior to his acting career, he was a martial arts instructor for the Korean military in Vietnam. As an actor, Hwang is perhaps best known for his role as "Thunderleg" in 1978's Drunken Master, "Sheng Kuan" in 1978's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Wong Chin in 1981's Hitman in the Hand of Buddha. He is famed for his kicking repertoire and wire-free jumping triple kicks. Variations of his name include Wong Cheng-lee and Wong Cheng-li, in the Cantonese Chinese equivalents.

#9313

Alain Gagnon

#165707

Overall Influence

1938 - 2017 (79 years)

Alain Gagnon was a Canadian composer and music educator based in Laval, Quebec. His compositions have been performed by ensembles throughout Canada. Early life and education Gagnon was born in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec. He began teaching himself the piano as a young child; in 1951, at the age of 13, he began taking music lessons at the Rimouski Seminary with Father Philippe-Antoine Lavoie with whom he studied until 1958. In 1960 he entered the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Québec where he was an organ student with Henri Gagnon.

#9314

Alasdair Graham

#172926

Overall Influence

1934 - 2016 (82 years)

Alasdair Graham was a Scottish concert pianist and accompanist, and later an academic at the Royal College of Music. Life Graham was born in Glasgow, son of James Graham, a joiner; christened Alexander, he later preferred the name Alasdair. The family moved soon afterwards to Kirkintilloch, and he was educated at Lenzie Academy. An aunt who was an accomplished pianist encouraged his interest in the piano. With a scholarship he went to the University of Edinburgh where he graduated in 1954; he studied at the Vienna State Academy for two years, and in Siena, Italy. In the UK he studied with Pet...

#9315

Günther Kaunzinger

#176309

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Günther Kaunzinger is a German organist and pianist. Life Born in Sulzbach, Kaunzinger studied organ, piano, conducting and composition in Nuremberg and Frankfurt , where he also worked as a coach at the Opera.

#9316

Paul Turner

#177433

Overall Influence

1945 - 2019 (74 years)

Paul Turner was a Welsh film director. His film Hedd Wyn became the first Welsh film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Born in Devon, Turner learned Welsh while working at the BBC in the early 1980s and was a vocal supporter of Plaid Cymru. He was reportedly "blacklisted" from the BBC for his nationalist views . S4C director called him "a man with vision and a fire in his heart for all things Welsh and the Welsh language and his desire to portray that on film".

#9317

Yoo Ha

#85055

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Yoo Ha is a South Korean film director, screenwriter and a contemporary poet. He directed the critically acclaimed films Marriage Is a Crazy Thing , Once Upon a Time in High School , A Dirty Carnival and Gangnam Blues . The latter is a gangster movie with allusions to Martin Scorsese films like Gangs of New York, Mean Streets and Goodfellas.

#9318

Jin Dinghan

#163051

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Jin Dinghan was a Chinese translator and professor. He was one of the foremost translators of Hindi literature. For his contributions to the introduction of Hindi literature to foreign readers, he was honored with the World Hindi Language Honorary Award in 1993 and the Dr. George Grierson Award in 2000.

#9319

S. P. Sailaja

#118663

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Sripathi Panditaradhyula Sailaja is an Indian singer and actress who had sung 7000 songs in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi films. She had sung most of the songs for Illayaraja , K. Chakravarthy , Ramesh Naidu, K.V. Mahadevan. In Tamil her most of hits are in Illayaraja , Chandra Bose music.

#9320

Michael Pisaro

#146527

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Michael Pisaro is a guitarist and composer. A member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, he has composed over 80 works for a great variety of instrumental combinations, including several pieces for variable instrumentation.

#9321

Richard Hagopian

#104270

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Richard Avedis Hagopian is an Armenian-American oud player and a traditional Armenian musician. Hagopian achieved popularity in the 1960s and 70s as a member of the Kef Time Band, performing kef music, a dance-oriented style of Armenian folk music popular with diaspora communities.

#9322

Georgios Vafopoulos

Georgios Vafopoulos

#97669

Overall Influence

1903 - 1996 (93 years)

Georgios Vafopoulos was a Greek poet, author, teacher and journalist of the 20th century. Biography Early years Vafopoulos was born on 6 September 1903 in Gevgelija, then Ottoman Empire . After the Second Balkan War, he settled in Edessa, in Fano of Kilkis, in Goumenissa and finally in Thessaloniki. In 1923 he moved to Athens, where he was enrolled in the Mathematic School of the University of Athens, but his studies got cancelled at the beginning of 1924 as he suffered from Tuberculosis. Then, he returned to Thessaloniki, and together with Kostas Kokkinos, they ran the management of the magazine "Makedonika Grammata" .

#9323

Roland Kiessling

#180911

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Roland Kiessling is a German linguist and Africanist. Kiessling's research interests include language documentation, phonetics, historical linguistics, Cushitic languages , Nilotic languages , Niger-Congo languages , and !Xoon.

#9324

Kathleen Kelly

#167539

Overall Influence

Kathleen Kelly is an American conductor, coach, and collaborative pianist. She has worked with the world's leading opera companies and young artist programs, including The Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, and San Francisco Opera, among others. She is currently on the faculty of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

#9325

Louise Wilson

#95731

Overall Influence

1962 - 2014 (52 years)

Louise Janet Wilson was a British professor of fashion design. Louise Wilson was based at the Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London, where she was the course director of their MA in Fashion from 1992 until 2014. Her former students include Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders, Louise Goldin, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab, Peter Jensen, Richard Nicoll, Christopher Shannon, Yu Lun Eve Lin, Charles Jeffrey and Sophia Kokosalaki.

#9326

Hervé

#167859

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Joshua Harvey, otherwise known as Hervé , is a producer/DJ from the UK. Hervé is known for bass-orientated as well as eclectic productions and DJ sets. He also runs the label Cheap Thrills, which has released music by Fake Blood, Jack Beats, Lone and Project Bassline, amongst others.

#9327

Joel Bernstein

#100088

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Joel Bernstein is a photographer, guitarist, and record producer based in Oakland, California. His photographs have appeared as the album covers for After the Gold Rush, 4 Way Street, Rita Coolidge, Wind on the Water, Running on Empty, CSN, Bob Dylan at Budokan, Rust Never Sleeps, Shadows and Light, Hard Promises and many others. His photographs have been published in Time, The New York Times, and Rolling Stone, among other publications, and there have been retrospective exhibits of his work in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and London. As a guitarist, he is most noted for support ...

#9328

Hiroshi Kawaguchi

#111632

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Hiroshi Kawaguchi is a Japanese video game music composer and keyboardist who works for Sega. He is among the oldest of the Sega sound team members, and one of the few from the 1980s still active today. He joined Sega in 1984 as a programmer before transferring to the sound department the following year.

#9329

Amy Kravitz

#172879

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Amy Kravitz is an independent filmmaker and teacher specializing in abstract animation. She is currently a Professor in the Film Department at the Rhode Island School of Design. Work As a young girl, Amy Kravitz began making and teaching animation in Yvonne Andersen's famed Yellow Ball Workshop. Amy went on to obtain a B.A. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, and received an MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts. During her studies at CalArts, she was mentored under Sky David and Jules Engel. She taught Animation at Harvard and the School of the Mu...

#9330

Anwar

#160566

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Anwar Hussain , known by the mononym Anwar, is an Indian playback singer. Early years Anwar was born in Mumbai on 1 February 1949. His father, Ashiq Hussain , was an accomplished sitar and harmonium player and an assistant music director to the musician Ghulam Haider. Anwar is the brother of actress Asha Sachdev, through Ashiq's first marriage to actress Ranjana Sachdev, and the half-brother of actor Arshad Warsi through his second marriage after divorce. The siblings have never lived together and are estranged from each other.

#9331

Randy Jackson

#143119

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Randy Jackson is an American musician, best known as frontman for the rock band Zebra. He was born and raised in New Orleans. In addition to his career with Zebra, he is a Long Island Music Hall of Fame inductee, a Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee, and has toured with Jefferson Airplane and tributes to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Doors.

#9332

Richard Dawson

#171721

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Richard Michael Dawson is an English folk-influenced musician from Newcastle upon Tyne. His 2014 album Nothing Important was released by Weird World and was met with critical acclaim. His 2017 album Peasant received similar acclaim, and was chosen by The Quietus as their album of the year. In 2019, he released the album 2020, again to critical acclaim. Henki, a collaborative album made with the Finnish band Circle, was released in 2021, followed by another solo effort, The Ruby Cord, in 2022.

#9333

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi

#123411

Overall Influence

1947 - 2014 (67 years)

Mohammad-Reza Lotfi was an Iranian classical musician renowned for his mastery of the tar and setar. He collaborated with singers such as Mohammad-Rezā Shajarian, Hengameh Akhavan, Shahram Nazeri and Alireza Shahmohammadi.

#9334

CP Lee

#167767

Overall Influence

1950 - 2020 (70 years)

Christopher Paul Lee was a British musician, author, broadcaster and lecturer from Manchester, England. Biography Lee was born in Didsbury, south Manchester. He was a writer, broadcaster, lecturer and performer who started playing in the North West folk and beat clubs of the 1960s with his band Greasy Bear and became a linchpin of the punk rock explosion with his next band Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias. In 1977 Lee wrote the "snuff-rock" musical Sleak, which ran for several months in London's Royal Court Theatre and the Roundhouse. It subsequently had a run at Privates in New York City in 1980.

#9335

Ray Drummond

#115256

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Ray Drummond is an American jazz bassist and teacher. He also has an MBA from Stanford University, hence his linkage to the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He can be heard on hundreds of albums and co-leads The Drummonds with Renee Rosnes and Billy Drummond.

#9336

David Russell Hulme

David Russell Hulme

#95547

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

David Russell Hulme is a Welsh conductor and musicologist. He is an emeritus reader and the former director of music at Aberystwyth University and is known for his research and publications on the music of Arthur Sullivan, the composer of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. He is also an authority on the music of Edward German.

#9337

Karabo Poppy

#178118

Overall Influence

1993 - Present (33 years)

Karabo Poppy Moletsane is a South African illustrator, graphic designer, and street artist. Early life Poppy was born in Vereeniging. She studied at Open Window Institute in Pretoria and has a degree in Visual Communication.

#9338

Denny Greene

#110662

Overall Influence

1949 - 2015 (66 years)

Frederick Dennis Greene was an American singer who was a member of Sha Na Na who were formed in 1969 at Columbia University in New York as the Columbia Kingsmen. The name change to Sha Na Na occurred because of another group with a similar name, which was known for the song "Louie Louie".

#9339

Annemarie Roelofs

#156645

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Annemarie Roelofs is a Dutch trombone player, violinist, and professor at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. She was a member of Henry Cow and the Feminist Improvising Group. Biography Roelofs studied violin at the Amsterdam Conservatory, and played trombone as a secondary instrument. She also enrolled in a course on free improvisation at the Conservatory and began improvising on trombone in salsa bands. In December 1977 Roelofs, unplanned and unannounced, played her trombone with Henry Cow at a concert at a club in Amsterdam. Impressed with her improvising, they invited her to join the band.

#9340

Daniel Abraham

#177620

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Daniel E. Abraham is an American conductor and musicologist. He studied conducting under Paul Traver at the University of Maryland and William Weinert at the Eastman School of Music. Known for both his research and knowledge in the area of early music and the music of the baroque period, Abraham has written several publications on the topic of historically informed performances.

#9341

Gennady Gladkov

#130954

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Gennady Igorevich Gladkov was a Soviet and Russian composer. He composed music for some of the most famous Soviet movies and cartoons, most notably The Bremen Town Musicians. Biography Gladkov was born in Moscow. He was a People's Artist of Russia . Commander of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" 4th class.

#9342

Upendra

#99587

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Upendra is an Indian actor, filmmaker, producer, screenwriter and politician who worked primarily in Kannada films. He has also worked in a few Telugu films. Upendra was known for his thematic representation of Indian politics and society in his films. In 2017, He joined the political party Karnataka Pragnyavanta Janata Paksha, before quitting the party in 2018 due to internal differences and formed another party named Uttama Prajaakeeya Party , which was based on the principles of Prajakiya . He received an Honorary Doctorate from Angkor University in 2015.

#9343

James Burton

#173463

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

James Burton is a British conductor and composer. He is currently the Boston Symphony Orchestra Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. He also holds the position of Director of Orchestral Activities and Master Lecturer in Music at Boston University.

#9344

Stan Wojewodski Jr.

#170709

Overall Influence

Stan Wojewodski Jr. is an American professor and theatre director. From 1975 to 1991 he was the Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage, from 1991 to 2002 he was the Dean of the Yale School of Drama, and from 2010 to 2018 was the Chair of Theatre at Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts, where he was appointed a Professor in 2007.

#9345

James Sutton

#143603

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

James Cook , better known as James Sutton, is an English actor. His television roles include John Paul McQueen in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks and Ryan Lamb in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale . Early life Sutton was born James Cook on 31 January 1983 in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, the son of Jeanette and Donald Cook. It is from his hometown that he derived the stage name "Sutton". He has a younger brother and two younger sisters. He grew up in Haughton, Staffordshire, and attended King Edward VI School in Stafford. At the age of 14, he moved to Newport, Shropshire, where he attended the Burton Borough School.

#9346

Rolf Reuter

#168737

Overall Influence

1926 - 2007 (81 years)

Rolf Reuter was a German conductor. Life Reuter was born as son of the composer Fritz Reuter in Leipzig. After studying music at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden he began his career in 1951 as Kapellmeister at the theatre in Eisenach. In 1956 he moved to Meiningen, from there Reuter went to Oper Leipzig as general music director in 1961. From 1978 to 1980 he was chief conductor of the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar. From 1981 Reuter was General music director of the Komische Oper Berlin, where he remained until 1993. His numerous guest performances an...

#9347

David Warburton

#157883

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

David John Warburton is a British former politician who served as the Member of Parliament for Somerton and Frome from 2015 until his resignation in 2023. On his election in the 2015 general election he represented the Conservative Party, but was suspended from the party in April 2022 pending the outcome of an Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme investigation into allegations of harassment and class A drug use. Prior to entering politics, he was the founder, chief executive and chairman of Pitch Entertainment Group. On 17 June 2023, Warburton announced his resignation as an MP, tri...

#9348

Dan Trueman

#173441

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Dan Trueman is a composer, fiddle player, improviser, new instrument creator and software designer. He plays the violin and the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. Trueman studied physics at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, composition and theory at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and composition at Princeton University. He taught composition at Columbia, Colgate, and since 2002, at Princeton. As a performer, Trueman has played at both contemporary and folk music festivals, among them Bang on a Can and Den Norske Folkemusikkveka. Trueman has written f...

#9349

Jill Godmilow

#154253

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Jill Godmilow is an American independent filmmaker, primarily of non-fiction works, and an advocate for Post-Realism in documentary. She is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. Godmilow is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

#9350

David Schrader

#173680

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

David Schrader is an American harpsichordist, organist, and fortepianist. He is a professor at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University where he teaches music history and conducts chamber music ensembles. Schrader was the organist at Church of the Ascension, Chicago for 35 years.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions