The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#9751
Carolin Widmann
#179409
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Carolin Widmann is a German classical violinist. She focuses mainly on contemporary music. She plays a violin made in 1782 by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. Career Born in Munich, Widmann studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno in London. As a soloistist she has been conducted by Sir Roger Norrington, Sylvain Cambreling, Heinz Holliger, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, Daniel Harding and Esa-Pekka Salonen. She has collaborated with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Wolfgang Rihm, Salvatore Sciarrino, Enno Poppe and Rebecca Saunders, who have written several works especially for her.
Go to Profile#9752
William O. Stanley
#100919
Overall Influence
1903 - Present (123 years)
William Oliver Stanley, Jr. is a former professor in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the Urbana College of Education. He was one of the founders of the social foundations of education, an approach to the sociology of education.
Go to Profile#9753
Alexis Hauser
#116756
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Alexis Hauser is an Austrian conductor and professor at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Winner of the Koussevitzky Conducting Prize of the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival in 1974, Alexis Hauser has established an international conducting career with numerous appearances in Europe, North and South America, and the Far East.
Go to Profile#9754
Charo
#167857
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (85 years)
María Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza, professionally known by her stage name Charo, is a Spanish-born actress, singer, comedian, and flamenco guitarist who rose to international prominence in the 1960s on American television, as well as starring in several films.
Go to Profile#9755
Stephen Baird
#171774
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Stephen Baird is an American singer-songwriter, and member of The Galapagos Mountain Boys. His specialty is adapting and parodying Christmas carols and hymns, replacing their original content with scientific and secular themes and lyrics.
Go to Profile#9756
Richard Kennington
#107259
Overall Influence
1921 - 1999 (78 years)
Richard H. Kennington was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at Pennsylvania State University and the Catholic University of America. He is known for his research on early modern philosophy and his translation of Descartes' Discourse on the Method.
Go to Profile#9757
Mildred Miller
#168743
Overall Influence
1924 - Present (102 years)
Mildred Miller was an American classical mezzo-soprano who had a major career performing in operas, concerts, and recitals during the mid twentieth century. She was notably a principal artist at the Metropolitan Opera from 1951 through 1974. In 1978 she founded the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, serving as the company's Artistic Director through 1999.
Go to Profile#9758
Paul Pedersen
#175151
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Paul Richard Pedersen is a Canadian composer, arts administrator, and music educator. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, he is particularly known for his works of electronic music; a number of which utilize various forms of multi-media. In 2014 he was made an Honorary Member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community. Early on in his career, he wrote non-electronic compositions which exhibited a free atonal style.
Go to Profile#9759
Claudio Spies
#127708
Overall Influence
1925 - 2020 (95 years)
Carlos Claudio Spies was a Chilean American composer. Biography Early life Born in Santiago, Chile, of German Jewish parents, Spies completed primary and secondary education in Santiago in 1941, when he passed the Bachillerato. Erich Kleiber and Fritz Busch were mentors to Spies at an early age.
Go to Profile#9760
Hilda Paredes
#175661
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Hilda Paredes is one of Mexico's leading contemporary composers, and has received many prestigious awards for her work. She currently resides in London, and is married to the noted English violinist, Irvine Arditti.
Go to Profile#9761
Steven Mackey
#108677
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Steven "Steve" Mackey is an American composer, guitarist, and music educator. Biography As a musician growing up listening to and performing vernacular American musics as well as classical music, Mackey's compositions are influenced by rock and jazz, though in an avant-garde vein. He favors the electric guitar and frequently performs his own compositions for the instrument, which include a concerto for electric guitar and orchestra and two works for electric guitar and string quartet . As an electric guitar soloist, he has performed with the Kronos Quartet , the Arditti Quartet, New World ...
Go to Profile#9762
Ron Nelson
#178648
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Ron Nelson is a Toronto-based DJ, broadcaster, music promoter, producer, educator, and performer best known for his role in popularizing both hip hop music and later dancehall and reggae music in Canada. He helped promote and develop early Canadian hip hop acts such as Maestro Fresh Wes, Michie Mee, Rumble & Strong and the Dream Warriors.
Go to Profile#9763
Carlo Domeniconi
#175466
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Carlo Domeniconi is an Italian guitarist and composer. Although his compositions include a wide variety of genres and instrumentation choices, he is best known for his works for solo guitar, and particularly the Koyunbaba suite. Domeniconi's style is characterized by his adoption of multicultural influences. His works explore and borrow from a wide variety of national traditions, including Turkish, Indian, Brazilian, and many more.
Go to Profile#9765
Evidence
#96314
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (50 years)
Michael Taylor Perretta , known professionally as Evidence, is an American rapper and record producer from Venice, Los Angeles, California. He is also a member of the group Dilated Peoples, as well as being one-half of Step Brothers with The Alchemist. Before creating music, Perretta was a graffiti artist.
Go to Profile#9766
Eleazar de Carvalho
#150232
Overall Influence
1912 - 1996 (84 years)
Eleazar de Carvalho was a Brazilian conductor and composer. Biography De Carvalho's parents were Manuel Afonso de Carvalho and Dalila Mendonça. He studied in the United States with Serge Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center, and later became a conducting assistant to Koussevitzky, at the same time as Leonard Bernstein. He received a Ph.D. in music from Washington State University in 1963.
Go to Profile#9767
Ney Rosauro
#177409
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Ney Rosauro is a Brazilian composer and percussionist. His compositions include solo works written for marimba, vibraphone, and multi-percussion, as well as several concerti for solo percussion and orchestra. A common theme in his work is the use of traditional Brazilian rhythm and melodies.
Go to Profile#9768
Simon Emmerson
#117461
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Simon Emmerson is an electroacoustic music composer working mostly with live electronics. He was born in Wolverhampton, UK, on 15 September 1950. Simon Emmerson studied at Cambridge and at City University, London where he founded the electroacoustic music studio in 1975, remaining until 2004 when he joined De Montfort University, Leicester as Professor in Music, Technology and Innovation, and where he is now Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Sonic Creativity. He has been a composer and writer on electroacoustic music since the early 1970s. Commissions include: Intermodulation, Singcircle...
Go to Profile#9769
Julia Reichert
#136223
Overall Influence
1946 - 2022 (76 years)
Julia Bell Reichert was an American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist. She was a co-founder of New Day Films. Reichert's filmmaking career spanned over 50 years as a director and producer of documentaries.
Go to Profile#9770
Sarah Hawkins
#183188
Overall Influence
Sarah Hawkins is a British phonetician and Emeritus Professor of Speech and Music Science at Cambridge University. She is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America.
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Terell Stafford
#137320
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Terell Stafford is a professional jazz trumpet player and current Director of Jazz Studies at the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University. Terell Stafford was born in Miami, Florida, and raised in both Chicago, Illinois, and Silver Spring, Maryland. He went on to get a degree in music education from University of Maryland in 1988 and a degree in classical trumpet performance from Rutgers University in 1993. Originally a classical trumpet player, Stafford soon branched out to jazz with the University of Maryland jazz band.
Go to Profile#9772
Nas
#121446
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones , better known by his stage name Nas , is an American rapper. Rooted in East Coast hip hop, he is regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time. The son of jazz musician Olu Dara, Nas began his musical career in 1989 under the moniker "Nasty Nas", and recorded demos for fellow East Coast rapper Large Professor. He was later featured on the 1991 song "Live at the Barbeque" by his group, Main Source.
Go to Profile#9773
James Larkin
#113026
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
James Larkin is an English actor, most notable for his portrayal of the character Dylan in EastEnders, Inspector Lapointe in Granada's Maigret and Tony Blair in the 2005 The Government Inspector. Larkin was born in Surrey, and has also written for the screen. His works include Int. Bedsit - Day and Dead on Time and worked as a director, especially on 18 episodes of Doctors during 2008. In 2011, he returned to the soap playing villain Harrison Kellor.
Go to Profile#9774
Mark Camphouse
#148520
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Mark Camphouse is an American composer and conductor who has written primarily for symphonic band, but whose output also includes works for orchestra, choir and chamber brass. A product of the rich, cultural life of Chicago, Camphouse received his formal musical training at Northwestern University. His first Symphony was composed at age 17. It was premiered by the Northern Colorado Philharmonic in 1974 in the historic Central City Opera House. His second Symphony, for narrator and symphonic band, honors General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. His third Symphony, for soprano and wind orche...
Go to Profile#9775
Damian Tambini
#47492
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Damian Tambini is a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics, and an associate fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Oxford Internet Institute. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and serves on the advisory Groups of the Oxford Media Convention and Polis. He also teaches for the TRIUM Global Executive MBA Program, an alliance of NYU Stern, the London School of Economics and HEC School of Management. Damian Tambini is on the Advisory Board of the Center for International Media Ethics.
Go to Profile#9776
Julian Gavin
#179367
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Julian Gavin is an Australian-born British operatic tenor who has sung leading roles both in the United Kingdom and internationally. His full-length opera recordings include Don José in Carmen and the title roles in Ernani and Don Carlos for Chandos Records.
Go to Profile#9777
Billy Martin
#135972
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Billy Martin is an American jazz drummer, best known as a member of jazz-funk trio Medeski Martin & Wood. Biography Before becoming part of Medeski, Martin & Wood, Martin was part of the New York City Brazilian scene in the 1980s. He performed regularly with Pe De Boi, Batucada and several Bob Moses bands for over a decade. He also joined Chuck Mangione's touring group for three years. Most notably he has developed as a percussionist for The Lounge Lizards and with the John Lurie National Orchestra, and has collaborated with artists such as John Zorn, DJ Logic, Dave Burrell and Miho Hatori. He has also started his own record label, Amulet Records, specializing in eclectic percussion albums.
Go to Profile#9778
Robert Willis
#146074
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Robert Andrew Willis KStJ DL is an Anglican priest, theologian, chaplain and hymn writer. He was Dean of Canterbury from 2001 to 2022, having previously served as Dean of Hereford between 1992 and 2000. During the COVID-19 pandemic, after public worship was suspended, Willis received media attention for his popular daily video broadcasts of Morning Prayer from the deanery garden at Canterbury Cathedral.
Go to Profile#9779
Christof Perick
#155750
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Christof Prick is a German orchestra conductor. He uses the name Christof Perick in English-speaking countries. His father was the concertmaster of the Hamburg Philharmonic. Biography Born in Hamburg, Prick studied at the University of Music and Theater in his hometown Hamburg. He was appointed to the Theater Saarbrücken as Germany's youngest general music director in 1974. From 1977 to 1986, he was responsible for the Staatstheater Karlsruhe and the Badische Staatskapelle in the same position. He was Generalmusikdirektor of the Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester and of the Staatsoper Hann...
Go to Profile#9780
Orin O'Brien
#129176
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Orin O'Brien is an American double bassist. She has been a member of the New York Philharmonic since joining in 1966 under the direction of Leonard Bernstein; she was the first woman to join the orchestra. She was on the faculty at the Juilliard School , and currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music, and Mannes College The New School for Music. O'Brien is also currently on the Preparatory Division faculty at the Manhattan School.
Go to Profile#9781
Rakesh Sharma
#106885
Overall Influence
Rakesh Sharma is an Indian documentary filmmaker. His most notable work is the feature-length documentary Final Solution on the 2002 Gujarat riots. Rakesh Sharma spent his formative years in Agra, before moving to Delhi to finish school and college education. He started career as television journalist in 1986. He graduated from SRCC, University of Delhi in 1984 with a BA Honours degree. He studied MA in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia MCRC in 1986.
Go to Profile#9782
Jay Reise
#171886
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Jay Reise is an American composer. Biography Reise spent his childhood surrounded by classical music and jazz, but began his composition studies with Jimmy Giuffre and Hugh Hartwell in 1970. After graduating at Hamilton College in 1972, he pursued composition study at McGill University , the University of Pennsylvania , Tanglewood, and Carnatic rhythm with Adrian L'Armand.
Go to Profile#9783
Jody Diamond
#144840
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Jody Diamond is an American composer, performer, writer, publisher, editor, and educator. She specializes in traditional and new music for Indonesian gamelan and is active internationally as a scholar, performer, and publisher.
Go to Profile#9784
Ivan Moravec
#174356
Overall Influence
1930 - 2015 (85 years)
Ivan Moravec was a Czech concert pianist whose performing and recording career spanned nearly half a century. Media and critics worldwide often called Moravec "a poet of the piano" or "pianist supreme". He is considered one of the greatest interpreters of Chopin.
Go to Profile#9785
Natasha Bertrand
#27183
Overall Influence
1992 - Present (34 years)
Natasha Bertrand is an American journalist who is a Pentagon correspondent for CNN covering national security. Early life and career Bertrand attended Vassar College and the London School of Economics, where she double-majored in political science and philosophy and graduated in 2014.
Go to Profile#9786
Bernhard Kontarsky
#163188
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Bernhard Kontarsky is a German conductor, pianist, and teacher. Kontarsky studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. In 1964 he began his conducting career as Kapellmeister at the Staatstheater Stuttgart. From 1981 Kontarsky has been Professor of Orchestral Conducting at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.
Go to Profile#9787
Mary Featherston
#179362
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Mary Bronwyn Featherston is an Australian interior designer and designer of child-friendly play and learning environments. She is known both for her furniture and design collaboration with Grant Featherston, as well as her work researching and designing educational spaces for children. Featherston was inducted into the Design Institute of Australia Hall of Fame in 1996. She is currently Adjunct Professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University.
Go to Profile#9788
W. Stephen Smith
#136624
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
William Stephen “Steve” Smith is an American voice teacher, author and baritone singer. He is a professor of Voice and Opera at the Bienen School of Music of Northwestern University, voice faculty for the Ryan Opera Center of Lyric Opera of Chicago, voice faculty emeritus of the Aspen Music Festival and School and founder/director of the Naked Voice Institute.
Go to Profile#9789
Folke Bohlin
#127663
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
Folke Bohlin is a Swedish musicologist and choral conductor. His chief area of research is Swedish church music, particularly that after the Reformation, and he is a former Professor emeritus of musicology at Lund University.
Go to Profile#9790
J. Douglas Miller
#183261
Overall Influence
#9791
Robert Brown
#115378
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Robert Brown , sometimes known as Captain Robert, is an American musician and multi-instrumentalist. He is best known as the lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the steampunk band Abney Park. Brown was born in Pullman, Washington, United States. A large part of Brown's childhood was spent traveling in South East Asia with his mother Carolyn Brown Heinz, a well known cultural anthropologist. Brown spent time in India, China, Thailand, and Polynesia, with his mother during her research.
Go to Profile#9792
Ken MacKinnon
#152668
Overall Influence
1933 - 2021 (88 years)
Ken MacKinnon was a British linguist who is known as the father of Scottish Gaelic sociolinguistics. Early life and career MacKinnon was born in the Poplar in the East End of London on 26 August 1933 to parents whose families came from the Scottish Isle of Arran and Northern Ireland. During the London Blitz he was sent to Cornwall as many other children of the time. By 1944, he and his family had settled in the town of Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. He took a double degree in sociology and economics at the London School of Economics, followed by National Service in Germany. Following his return from ...
Go to Profile#9793
Philip Lasser
#173534
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Philip Lasser is an American composer, pianist, and music theorist. He is a member of the faculty at the Juilliard School in New York City. Career and contributions Lasser was born in New York City and began taking piano lessons at the age of five. At age sixteen, he entered the Ecole d'Arts Americaines in the Palace of Fontainebleau, France. He studied at Harvard University and, following receipt of a Bachelor's degree, he lived in Paris from 1985 to 1988.
Go to Profile#9794
Scott Healy
#155406
Overall Influence
Scott Healy is an American pianist, keyboardist and composer best known as the keyboardist for Conan O'Brien. He was the keyboard player for the Jimmy Vivino and the Basic Cable Band on Conan on TBS. His association with O'Brien dates back to the original Late Night with Conan O'Brien show in 1993, and the subsequent The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. He was nominated for a Grammy for 'Best Instrumental Composition' for 'Koko On The Boulevard'
Go to Profile#9795
Michael Howard
#179226
Overall Influence
1922 - 2002 (80 years)
Michael Stockwin Howard was an English choral conductor, organist and composer. He was an important part of the Early Music movement in the middle of the last century, in particular as a celebrated interpreter of 16th century polyphony In his later years he made notable recordings of the late French Romantic school of organ composers, particularly César Franck, on the Cavaillé Coll organ at St. Michael's Abbey in Farnborough. The National Pipe Organ Register now claims that the organ appears in a list of organs by Mutin .
Go to Profile#9796
Michael Billington
#165540
Overall Influence
1941 - 2005 (64 years)
Michael Billington was a British film and television actor. He was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, England. Career Television In 1966 Billington appeared in Incident at Vichy at the Phoenix Theatre in London, but was best known for his role as Colonel Paul Foster in the 1970 science fiction TV series UFO and for creating the character of Daniel Fogarty from 1971 to 1974 in the historical drama The Onedin Line. He also appeared as Sergeant Jacko Jackson of the Royal Wessex Rangers in the series Spearhead and as Czar Nicholas II in the ITV drama series Edward the Seventh . He played gangster Jo...
Go to Profile#9797
Wolfram Rieger
#172070
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Wolfram Rieger is a German classical pianist, who is known internationally as accompanist of singers and in chamber music. Training Born in Waldsassen, Rieger received his first piano lessons from his parents and later from Konrad Pfeiffer in Regensburg. He quickly developed a strong affection for song interpretation and therefore continued his studies at the Musikhochschule München with the lieder pianists Erik Werba and Helmut Deutsch. After graduating with distinction in 1987, he took part in the master classes of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.
Go to Profile#9798
Manuel Barrueco
#139773
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Manuel Barrueco is a Cuban classical guitarist. During three decades of concert performances he has performed and recorded across the United States and has been involved in many successful collaborations. In addition, he teaches at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.
Go to Profile#9799
Mara Servetto
#125502
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Margherita Servetto , better known as Mara, is an Italian architect and designer. Biography She studied at the Polytechnic University of Turin, where she received her degree in architecture under the supervision of Achille Castiglioni. When Castiglioni obtained a teaching position at the Polytechnic University of Milan, she moved to Milan in order to collaborate with Castiglioni, which she did until 1990.
Go to Profile#9800
Anatoliy Solovianenko
#124351
Overall Influence
1932 - 1999 (67 years)
Anatoliy Solovianenko was a Ukrainian operatic tenor, People's Artist of the USSR , People's Artist of Ukraine, and State Taras Shevchenko prize-winner. He was born into a mining family in Donetsk and graduated from Donetsk Polytechnic Institute in 1954. He also studied singing with Alexander Korobeichenko from 1950. Solovianenko began his career in Donetsk, where there is now a monument in his memory. He made twelve performances at the Metropolitan Opera in Kyiv, then graduated from Kyiv Conservatory in 1978. For 30 years, he was soloist at the Taras Shevchenko National Opera and Ballet Theatre in Kyiv, and performed at Expo 67 in Montreal.
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