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,

#9851

Dorothy Runk Mennen

Dorothy Runk Mennen

#107624

Overall Influence

1915 - 2011 (96 years)

Dorothy Runk Mennen was a pioneer in the creation of a voice curriculum for the university training of theatre actors and professional performers. She was also a prolific author regarding the training of the voice and Professor Emerita of Theatre at Purdue University.

#9852

Anne LeBaron

#168372

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Alice Anne LeBaron is an American composer and harpist. Career LeBaron was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She holds a B.A. in music from the University of Alabama , an M.A. in music from Stony Brook University , and a doctorate in music from Columbia University , where she studied with Chou Wen-chung and Mario Davidovsky. As a Fulbright Scholar in 1980–81, she studied with Mauricio Kagel and György Ligeti LeBaron has also studied Korean traditional music at the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts in Seoul . Although trained in piano from childhood, she took up the harp in ...

#9853

Dick Griffin

#147541

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

James Richard Griffin is an American jazz trombonist known for his work on Strata-East Records, and with Rahsaan Roland Kirk. As a child he studied piano, soon switching to trombone. After earning his bachelor's degree in 1963, Griffin began teaching high school while working on his Master's. Griffin is most known for his technique of circular phonics, combining multiphonics with circular breathing. He taught music theory and the history of jazz at Wesleyan University. Later in life, Griffin became an accomplished painter, with showings in New York City and Europe.

#9854

Bill Elliott

#138609

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Bill Elliott is an American pianist, bandleader, Hollywood composer and Broadway orchestrator. In 2015, he won a Tony Award for best orchestration for the Broadway musical, An American in Paris. In 2012 he was nominated for both Tony and Grammy awards for Broadway's Nice Work if You Can Get It. Elliott won Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Orchestrations in 2017 for the Broadway Musical Bandstand.

#9855

John Stuart Wilson

John Stuart Wilson

#174416

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

John Stuart Wilson is a British mathematician and former professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge and an Honorary Professor of the University of Leipzig. He specialises in algebra and group theory. He also composes music for choirs and for vocal and instrumental ensembles.

#9856

Sarah Jaffe

#135876

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Sarah L. Jaffe is a labor journalist. She is the author of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt and Work Won't Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone . Jaffe is a columnist for The Progressive and New Labor Forum, and her work has appeared in such outlets as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and The New Republic. She also cohosts a podcast called Belabored.

#9857

Billy Branch

#155449

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Billy Branch is an American blues harmonica player and singer of Chicago blues. Branch is a three-time Grammy nominee, a retired two-term governor of the Chicago Grammy Chapter, an Emmy Award winner, and a winner of the Addy Award. In addition, he has received numerous humanitarian and music awards.

#9858

Billy Hughes

#180694

Overall Influence

1908 - 1995 (87 years)

Everette Ishmael "Billy" Hughes was a Western Swing musician and songwriter. Born in Sallisaw, Oklahoma, he left for California during the Okie exodus of the 1930s. Billy Hughes and His Buccaroos performed during the 1940s and early 1950s. He also owned an independent recording company, Fargo Records. As a writer he is best known for "Tennessee Saturday Night" which was recorded by Red Foley and became a No. 1 hit in 1949. He died in Horatio, Arkansas.

#9859

Benjamin Holman

#178100

Overall Influence

1930 - 2007 (77 years)

Benjamin F. Holman was a pioneering American newspaper and television reporter. Holman was born in Columbia, South Carolina. His father died when he was four years old, and his mother moved with him and his sister to Bloomfield, New Jersey. As a young man, he hoped to combine his love for writing, music, and engineering by creating musical theater. Before he graduated from high school, however, he had decided to become a journalist.

#9860

David J. Elliott

#93485

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

David J. Elliott is a musician and academic. He is a professor of music and music education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development of New York University, in New York in the United States. He previously taught at the University of Toronto in Canada. He has published several books, including:David J. Elliott . Music Matters: A New Philosophy of Music Education. New York: Oxford University Press. . Praxial Music Education: Reflections and Dialogues. New York: Oxford University Press.Kari K. Veblen, Stephen J. Messenger, Marissa Silverman, David J. Elliott . Community Music Today.

#9861

Ulf Söderblom

#170205

Overall Influence

1930 - 2016 (86 years)

Ulf Arne Söderblom was a Finnish conductor and music professor. He was the principal conductor of the Finnish National Opera from 1973 to 1993 and was a key figure in the revival of the Savonlinna Opera Festival. A champion of Finnish music, he has conducted the world premieres of several works by Finnish composers including Kokkonen's The Last Temptations and Sallinen's Kullervo and The Horseman.

#9862

Ira Sullivan

#112026

Overall Influence

1931 - 2020 (89 years)

Ira Sullivan was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, flautist, saxophonist, and composer born in Washington, D.C., United States. An active musician since the 1950s, he often worked with Red Rodney and Lin Halliday.

#9863

Lanfranco Ricci

#162304

Overall Influence

1916 - 2007 (91 years)

Lanfranco Ricci was an Italian Ethiopianist. Life Born in Belgirate, in 1952 Ricci became professor of Amharic language and literature at the Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples. In 1970 Ricci published an Italian translation of the hagiography of the 17th-century female saint Walatta Petros, within the Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium series. He based his translation on Carlo Conti Rossini's 1912 print edition, which has been criticized for its over-reliance on a single Paris manuscript.

#9864

Du Yun

#158585

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Du Yun is a Chinese-born American composer, performer, vocalist and performance artist. She won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her opera Angel's Bone, with libretto by Royce Vavrek. She was a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow. Du Yun was named as one of the 38 Great Immigrants by the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 2018, and received a 2019 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Classical Contemporary Composition for her work Air Glow. In its decade review, UK's Classic FM listed Du Yun's winning of the Pulitzer as No. 6 in "10 ways the 2010s changed classical music forever." Rolling Ston...

#9865

Karen Tanaka

#174701

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Karen Tanaka is a Japanese composer. Biography Karen Tanaka was born in Tokyo where she started piano and composition lessons as a child. After studying composition with Akira Miyoshi and piano with Nobuko Amada at Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, she moved to Paris in 1986 with the aid of a French Government Scholarship to study with Tristan Murail and work at IRCAM as an intern. In 1987, she was awarded the Gaudeamus International Composers Award at the International Music Week in Amsterdam. She studied with Luciano Berio in Florence in 1990–91 with funds from the Nadia Boulanger Foundation and a Japanese Government Scholarship.

#9866

Graeme Koehne

#137613

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Graeme John Koehne , is an Australian composer and music educator. He is best known for his orchestral and ballet scores, which are characterised by direct communicative style and embrace of tertian harmony. His orchestral trilogy Unchained Melody, Powerhouse, and Elevator Music makes allusions to Hollywood film score traditions, cartoon music, popular Latin music and other dance forms.

#9867

Diana Burrell

#175915

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Diana Elizabeth Jane Burrell is an English composer and viola player. Life and career Burrell was born on 25 October 1948 in Norwich, England. Her parents were Bernard Burrell, a schoolteacher by profession who served as an assistant organist at the cathedral, and Audrey Burrell . She attended Norwich High School for Girls before receiving her bachelor's of arts degree in music at Girton College, Cambridge. She began her career as a viola player, but soon became well known for her compositions and became a full-time composer. One of her first compositions was for the 1980 St Endellion Music Festival.

#9868

Olivia Gude

#63427

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Olivia Gude is an American artist and educator recognized for community public art mural and mosaic projects, and as the founding director of Spiral Workshops . Gude was a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was on the visual-arts writing team for the Next Generation National Core Arts Standards. She is now the Angela Gregory Paterakis Professor of Art Education at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a Senior Artist member of the Chicago Public Art Group and author of the book Urban Art Chicago: A Guide to Community Murals, Mosaics, and Sculptures.

#9869

Balint Vazsonyi

#130722

Overall Influence

1936 - 2003 (67 years)

Balint Vázsonyi was a Hungarian-born naturalized American pianist, educator, international recitalist/soloist with leading orchestras, and political activist and journalist. He made performance history in playing chronological cycles of all 32 piano sonatas by Beethoven over two days in New York, Boston, and London. During the last six years of his life, he became a commentator in Washington, D.C., on the state of American politics.

#9870

Yevgeny Malinin

#173766

Overall Influence

1930 - 2001 (71 years)

Yevgeny Malinin , PAU, was a Soviet and Russian pianist. Biography Malinin was born in Moscow. A disciple of Heinrich Neuhaus, he began his career while a student at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1949 he won the International Youth and Students Festival in Budapest, and was awarded the 7th prize at the IV International Chopin Piano Competition; four years later he tied with Philippe Entremont for the 2nd prize at the Long-Thibaud Competition. He graduated in 1954, and served as Neuhaus's assistant for three years.

#9871

Rafael Druian

#164965

Overall Influence

1923 - 2002 (79 years)

Rafael Druian , was an American violinist, conductor and music educator. He is remembered for his tenures as concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony and Minneapolis Symphony under Antal Dorati, the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and the New York Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez.

#9872

Jerry Granelli

#158469

Overall Influence

1940 - 2021 (81 years)

Gerald John Granelli was an American-Canadian jazz drummer. He was best known for playing drums on the soundtrack A Charlie Brown Christmas with the Vince Guaraldi Trio. Early life Granelli was born to Jack and Ida Granelli in the Mission District of San Francisco on December 30, 1940. Both his father and uncle played the drums and were passionate about jazz. Granelli initially learned the violin for a year, before switching to drums. He was consequently involved with the city's hard bop scene from a young age. A day spent with drummer Gene Krupa in 1948 informed his passion for percussion ...

#9873

Jeremy Beck

#156187

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Jeremy Beck is an American composer who "knows the importance of embracing the past while also going his own way." The critic Mark Sebastian Jordan has said that "Beck was committed to tonality and a recognizable musical vernacular long before that became the hip bandwagon it is today. Indeed, [he is] ... an original voice celebrating music."

#9874

Tony Ballantyne

#83442

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Tony Ballantyne is a British science-fiction author known for his debut trilogy of novels, titled Recursion, Capacity and Divergence. He is also Assistant Headteacher and an Information Technology teacher at The Blue Coat School, Oldham and has been nominated for the BSFA Award for short fiction.

#9875

David Friedman

#131107

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

David Allen Friedman is a film and theatre composer, songwriter, author, lyricist and conductor based in New York City. He received a 1997 Backstage Bistro Award for Composer of the Year and a 1997 Johnny Mercer Award for Songwriter of the Year, and a Special Lifetime Achievement Award at the 26th Annual MAC Awards. His oratorio, King Island Christmas, won a Frederick Loewe Award and Dramatists Guild Award. David's musical Desperate Measures won the 2018 Drama Desk Award for Best Music and Best Lyrics as well as the Outer Critic's Circle Award for Best Off Broadway Musical and the Off Br...

#9876

Ken Ueno

#174693

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Ken Ueno is an American composer. Career Ueno pursued initial studies in music at the United States Military Academy in West Point, NY, but soon transferred to Berklee College of Music, where he earned a B.M. in Film Scoring/Composition Summa Cum Laude ; his graduate studies at Boston University and Yale School of Music earned him Masters degrees; he later completed a doctorate at Harvard University.

#9877

Clint Eastwood

#162322

Overall Influence

Clint Eastwood is a Jamaican reggae deejay, who recorded as a solo artist in the late 1970s and early 1980s before teaming up with UK deejay General Saint as the duo Clint Eastwood & General Saint. Biography The younger brother of Trinity, Brammer took the trend of adopting the names of characters from Spaghetti Westerns as stage names a step further by recording and performing under the name of one of the genre's most successful actors, Clint Eastwood. Eastwood recorded three albums in 1978 - African Youth and Step It In a Zion for producer Bunny Lee, and Death In The Arena for Channel One. ...

#9878

Lojze Krakar

#104885

Overall Influence

1926 - 1995 (69 years)

Lojze Krakar was a Slovene poet, translator, editor, literary historian, and essayist. He also wrote poetry for children. Krakar was born in Semič in White Carniola in 1926. He studied Slavic languages and literature at the University of Ljubljana and graduated in 1954 and obtained a doctorate from the Frankfurt Goethe University in 1970. He worked as a lecturer, editor, and translator.

#9879

Dorothy Dow

#171533

Overall Influence

1920 - 2005 (85 years)

Dorothy Dow was an American classical dramatic soprano who had an active international career in concerts, operas, and recitals during the 1940s through the 1960s. After retiring from the stage in 1968, she embarked on a second career as an academic.

#9880

Donnacha Dennehy

Donnacha Dennehy

#167790

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Donnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer and leader of the Crash Ensemble specializing in contemporary classical music. According to musicologist Bob Gilmore, Dennehy's "high profile of his compositions internationally, together with his work as artistic director of Dublin’s Crash Ensemble, has distinguished him as one of the best-known voices of his generation of Irish composers".

#9881

George Morrison

#159023

Overall Influence

1922 - Present (104 years)

George Edward Morrison is an Irish director of film documentaries. His works include 1959 documentary Mise Éire and Saoirse?. Early life Morrison was born in Tramore, County Waterford. His mother was an actress at Dublin's Gate Theatre, while his father worked as a neurological anaesthetist. Morrison studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin but dropped out in order to pursue his ambition to work in films.

#9882

Jack Allen

#181317

Overall Influence

1907 - 1995 (88 years)

Robert John Lea Allen was an English film, theatre and television actor. Career He made his stage debut in 1931 at the Liverpool Playhouse, appearing in The Swan and had a long theatrical career which lasted until 1980, when he appeared as Old Siward at the Old Vic in a production of Macbeth.

#9883

Chico Freeman

#112554

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Chico Freeman is a modern jazz tenor saxophonist and trumpeter and son of jazz saxophonist Von Freeman. He began recording as lead musician in 1976 with Morning Prayer, won the New York Jazz Award in 1979 and earned the Stereo Review Record of the Year in 1981 for his album The Outside Within.

#9884

Philip Carr

#179211

Overall Influence

1953 - 2020 (67 years)

Philip Carr was a British linguist and Emeritus Professor in the English Department of the University of Montpellier. He is best known for his works on phonology and philosophy of linguistics. His book Phonology is a coursebook taught across the world in phonology courses. He was the father of three children and enjoyed raising his son and daughter in the sunny South of France.

#9885

Russell Sherman

#173413

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Russell Sherman was an American classical pianist, educator and author. He performed internationally, known especially for playing the music of Beethoven and Liszt. Driven by a "lifelong battle to reconstitute Liszt as a serious composer", he wrote for a recording of his Transcendental Études: "The poetic idea is central, and the virtuoso elements become so many layers to orchestrate the poetic content".

#9886

Fredell Lack

#171387

Overall Influence

1922 - 2017 (95 years)

Fredell Lack was an American violinist. Noted as a concert soloist, recording artist, chamber musician, and teacher, she was the C. W. Moores Distinguished Professor of Violin at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas.

#9887

Margaret Saunders Ott

#180039

Overall Influence

1920 - 2010 (90 years)

Margaret Saunders Ott was a distinguished American pianist and teacher. Her career included teaching positions at Lebanon Valley Conservatory , Bishop School , Washington State University , Gonzaga University , Payap University , and most notably, Whitworth College , where she taught for 25 years and was chair of the piano department.

#9888

Anton Nanut

#175369

Overall Influence

1932 - 2017 (85 years)

Anton Nanut was a renowned Slovenian international conductor of classical music. From 1981 to 1999 he served as the chief conductor of the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra. He was a professor of conducting at the Ljubljana Academy of Music and the artistic leader of the Slovene Octet in its most productive years.

#9889

Chester Biscardi

#162682

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Chester Biscardi is an Italian American composer and educator. He received a B.A. degree in English literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison ; he studied during 1969–1970 at the University of Bologna and the Conservatorio di Musica "G. B. Martini"; he received an M.A. in Italian literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison ; he received an M.M. in composition from the University of Wisconsin–Madison ; he received a M.M.A. in composition from Yale University ; and he received a D.M.A. in composition from Yale University .

#9890

Paul Barnes

#173857

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Paul Barnes is an American pianist. He concentrates particularly on the work of Liszt; Barnes also has worked extensively with Philip Glass, whose Piano Concerto No. 2 he premiered in 2004 at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. Barnes teaches at University of Nebraska-Lincoln school of music. He also teaches summer courses at the Vienna International Piano Academy.

#9891

Bhupinder Singh

Bhupinder Singh

#136692

Overall Influence

1940 - 2022 (82 years)

Bhupinder Singh was an Indian musician, a ghazal singer and also a Bollywood playback singer. Early life Bhupinder Singh was born in Amritsar, Punjab to Natha Singhji, a musician and his introducer to music. Bhupinder's father was a stern teacher, and at one point, he detested music and its instruments.

#9892

Adrian Johnston

#175671

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Adrian Johnston is an English musician and composer for film and television, who resides in London and Samois-sur-Seine. Biography Born in the county of Lancashire, Johnston attended the University of Edinburgh, studying English. He has been a drummer in bands including Moles for Breakfast, The Waterboys, the Wanglers, Combo Zombo, and The Mike Flowers Pops. During his twenties, he travelled the world providing music accompaniment to silent films at film festivals. He later scored productions for the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company.

#9893

Anna Stella Schic

#183722

Overall Influence

1922 - 2009 (87 years)

Anna Stella Schic was a Brazilian pianist and author of a biography of composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. Life Schic gave her first piano recital at the age of six. She was taught by José Kliass, a former student of Martin Krause, who was in turn trained by Franz Liszt. Later on, she studied with Marguerite Long in Paris. Schic was married to French composer Michel Philippot, and according to her daughter Sandra Lechartre, she lived in France from 1971 on.

#9894

Eddie Johnson

#179193

Overall Influence

1920 - 2010 (90 years)

Edwin Lawrence Johnson was an American jazz and blues tenor saxophonist. Early life Johnson was born in Napoleonville, Louisiana, and moved with his family to Chicago at the age of two. As a teenager, Johnson sang in a vocal group. He graduated from Englewood High School and attended Wilson Junior College. In 1938, he and his bandmates were recruited to play for Kentucky State College, where Johnson received a scholarship and attended for eight months.

#9895

Geoffrey Nyarota

#109789

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Geoffrey Nyarota is a Zimbabwean journalist and human rights activist. Born in colonial Southern Rhodesia, he trained as a teacher before beginning his career with a Zimbabwean state-owned newspaper, The Herald. As editor of the state-owned Bulawayo Chronicle in 1989, he helped to break the "Willowgate" scandal, which resulted in several resignations from the cabinet of President Robert Mugabe.

#9896

Iiro Rantala

#178371

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Iiro Rantala is a Finnish jazz pianist. He studied piano in the jazz department of Sibelius Academy and classical piano at the Manhattan School of Music. He is one of the best known Finnish jazz pianists, both in Finland and abroad. Rantala is a pianist and composer with Trio Töykeät, a Finnish jazz trio. In addition to jazz, he has composed some classical pieces, most notably the Concerto for Piano and Concerto in G♯ΔA♭.

#9897

François Fayt

#179543

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

François Fayt is a French composer. Born in Argences, he studied music at the Conservatory of Versailles and then the École Normale de Musique de Paris. He took advanced courses with Marcel Ciampi and Aldo Ciccolini.

#9898

Max Bennett

#178249

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Max Bennett is an English actor. On television, he is best known for playing Monk Adderley in Poldark on the BBC, and Robert Southwell in Will for TNT. On film, he is best known for playing David in the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, and Brown in Guy Ritchie's crime caper The Gentlemen. He has worked extensively in London theatre, with leading roles in the West End, as well as for the Donmar Warehouse, Royal Court, Young Vic, Shakespeare's Globe and the National Theatre.

#9899

Gaston Allaire

#170097

Overall Influence

1916 - 2011 (95 years)

Joseph Georges-Émile Gaston Allaire was a Canadian musicologist, organist, pianist, composer, and music educator of American birth. His compositional output includes several preludes for organ, an organ work on French carols, some motets and other choral works, a communion service, a prelude and fugue for string orchestra, and a polyphonic mass. He also wrote Suite laurentienne for orchestra from which the Poème and the Menuet were premiered by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra in 1949, and composed the music for the 1953 film The Man on the Beach. His Marche and Petite Suite were both written ...

#9900

Roger Nixon

#169406

Overall Influence

1921 - 2009 (88 years)

Roger Alfred Nixon was an American composer, musician, and professor of music. He wrote over 60 compositions for orchestra, band, choir and opera. Nixon received multiple awards and honors for his works, many of which contain a feel of the rhythms and dances of the early settlers of his native state of California.

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