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,

#9951

Galina Pisarenko

#170251

Overall Influence

1934 - 2022 (88 years)

Galina Alekseyevna Pisarenko was a Soviet-born Russian soprano and teacher. She showed musical promise as a child, and her aunt enrolled her in the Gnessin Institute of Music, where she graduated with a diploma in piano. She later chose to study voice instead at the Moscow Conservatory with Nina Dorliak, who became her lifelong mentor. For a time, Pisarenko studied concurrently at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; then economics, English, and Norwegian at Moscow State University and the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages.

#9952

Muhammad Ali

#178977

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Muhammad Ali is an American free jazz drummer. Early life Ali was born and raised in Philadelphia where he, along with his father and brothers, converted to Islam. His older brother, Rashied Ali, was also a drummer.

#9953

Fusheini Hudu

#175733

Overall Influence

Fusheini Hudu Angulu is a Ghanaian linguist and specialist in Dagbani language phonology. He lectures at the University of Ghana department of Linguistics. Publications

#9954

Aaron Goldberg

#124953

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Aaron Goldberg , is an American jazz pianist. Described by The New York Times as a "post-bop pianist of exemplary taste and range," Goldberg has released five albums as a solo artist and has performed and collaborated with Joshua Redman, Wynton Marsalis, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Guillermo Klein, among others.

#9955

Hardy

#103370

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Michael Wilson Hardy , known professionally as Hardy , is an American country music singer and songwriter. He has written songs for Florida Georgia Line, Chris Lane, Blake Shelton, Dallas Smith, Thomas Rhett, and Morgan Wallen. He released his debut album A Rock for Big Loud Records, as well as the mixtape Hixtape, Vol. 1. He has charted the singles "Give Heaven Some Hell" and "One Beer" and was featured on "Some Things Never Change". His most recent album, The Mockingbird & the Crow, topped the country music charts in early 2023.

#9956

Carroll Parrott Blue

#127320

Overall Influence

1943 - 2019 (76 years)

Carroll Parrott Blue was an American filmmaker, director and author. Based in Houston, Texas, she was part of the L.A. Rebellion film movement. She was noted for her documentary film and interactive multimedia works, particularly for her project The Dawn at My Back: Memoir of a Black Texas Upbringing. Blue was a research professor at the University of Houston. She worked to preserve and celebrate the history of the African American community in Houston.

#9957

Sahana Bajpaie

#142037

Overall Influence

Sahana Bajpaie is an Indian singer-songwriter and a contemporary Rabindra Sangeet vocalist in Bengali. Born in Santiniketan, by the age of three she started singing. She released her debut album Notun Kore Pabo Bole in 2007 from Dhaka, Bangladesh, which was a collection of Rabindra Sangeet. Her second album Shikawr released in 2014 with several musicians from West Bengal. Sahana's second Rabindra Sangeet album Ja Bolo Tai Bolo was released in 2015 and the latest solo album, Mon Bandhibi Kemone in 2016.

#9958

Hale Smith

#134205

Overall Influence

1925 - 2009 (84 years)

Hale Smith was an American composer, arranger, and pianist. Biography Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he learned piano at an early age and played mellophone in the high school band. As a teenager, he played jazz piano in local nightclubs. When he was sixteen, he met Duke Ellington, who commented on his compositions.

#9959

Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez

#149421

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Carlos Sánchez-Gutiérrez is a Latin-American composer and teacher. He currently resides near Rochester, New York. Sanchez-Gutierrez grew up in Guadalajara and later studied at the University of Guadalajara, the Peabody Conservatory of Music, Yale University, Princeton University, and the Tanglewood Music Center with Henri Dutilleux, Jacob Druckman, and Martin Bresnick.

#9960

Ida Kavafian

#144567

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Ida Kavafian is an American classical violinist and violist. Biography Kavafian was born in Turkey to Armenian parents. She moved with her family to America in 1956, and began studying violin in Detroit at age six. Her teachers included Ara Zerounian, Mischa Mischakoff, Oscar Shumsky, and Ivan Galamian, the last two of which she studied under while attending the Juilliard School from 1969 to 1975. Her first major exposure came when she won the Vianna da Motta International Violin Competition in Lisbon in 1973. She won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1978 which led to her New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

#9961

Siegfried Landau

#80734

Overall Influence

1921 - 2007 (86 years)

Siegfried Landau was a German-born American conductor and composer. He was born in Berlin, the son of Ezekiel Landau, an Orthodox rabbi, and Helen Landau. He was a music student at the Stern and Klindworth-Scharwenka Conservatories in Germany. His family emigrated to London in 1939. In 1940, Landau came to New York City and was a pupil of Pierre Monteux. In 1943, he became a faculty member of the New York College of Music .

#9962

Phil Wilson

#117867

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Phillips Elder Wilson, Jr. is a jazz trombonist, arranger, and teacher. He has taught at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy and New England Conservatory.

#9963

Jörg Halubek

#183690

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Jörg Halubek is a German conductor, harpsichordist, organist and professor. Life and career Born in Beckum, Halubek studied church music, historical keyboard instruments and historically informed performance at the conservatories in Stuttgart, Freiburg and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. His teachers were Jon Laukvik, Robert Hill, Andrea Marcon and Jesper Bøje Christensen.

#9964

Hanno Müller-Brachmann

#177074

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Hanno Müller-Brachmann is a German bass-baritone who made an international career in both opera and concert. A member of the Berlin State Opera from 1998 to 2011, he first sang Mozart roles such as Papageno and Figaro, and created roles in premieres such as Mephistopheles in Dusapin's Faustus, the Last Night in 2006.

#9965

Ray Reach

#112446

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Raymond Everett Reach, Jr. is an American pianist, vocalist, guitarist, composer, arranger, music producer, and educator, named by AL.com as one of "30 Alabamians who changed jazz history." He serves as President and CEO of Ray Reach Music and Magic City Music Productions.

#9966

David Chan

#157187

Overall Influence

David Chan is an American violinist, conductor, and a concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He is one of the most sought-after violinists of his generation. He is a prizewinner at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, among many others. As a conductor, Chan is praised for his deep understanding of the music and interpretive depth.

#9967

Lee Tomboulian

#182772

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Leland Diran Tomboulian is an American jazz pianist, accordionist, composer, arranger, and educator. Early life and career Lee Tomboulian was born in White Plains into a music-loving family. He was the youngest of four children raised by Clyde Tomboulian and sculptor Norma Tomboulian. Lee Tomboulian displayed an affinity for music, and for the piano in particular, by age seven. He was encouraged in this pursuit with several years of private instruction. Tomboulian attended the University of Arkansas, majoring in music composition with a minor in theater arts. He continued to live and work in Arkansas for more than a decade.

#9968

Larysa Kuzmenko

#181684

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Larysa Kuzmenko is a Juno Awards-nominated Canadian composer and pianist based in Toronto, Ontario. She currently teaches on the music faculties of The Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto.

#9969

Pina Carmirelli

#179702

Overall Influence

1914 - 1993 (79 years)

Pina Carmirelli was an Italian violinist. She started studying music and playing in public when she was very young. She was a pupil of Michelangelo Abbado, and graduated from the Milan Conservatory in violin and composition . She won the Premio Stradivari in 1937 and the Premio Paganini in 1940. She married the cellist Arturo Bonucci.

#9970

Burton Paulu

#166064

Overall Influence

1910 - 2003 (93 years)

Burton Paulu was a pioneer in American educational radio and television, an internationally recognized scholar of comparative broadcasting, and a lifelong lover of classical music. Based for five decades at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Paulu was the author of five books and dozens of articles on radio and television in Great Britain and on the continent of Europe. His work introduced American scholars and the interested public to broadcasting systems in Eastern and Western European countries where the role of the government and of advertising contrasted sharply with US practices.

#9971

Dennis Smith

#170516

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Dennis L. Smith is an American television director, cinematographer and camera operator. Smith began his career as a news photojournalists for ABC winning United Press InternatIonal and Associated Press "Best Newsfilm of the Year" awards for his Documentaries. He also contributed to winning two George Foster Peabody's from the University of Georgia.

#9972

Junior Mance

#136116

Overall Influence

1928 - 2021 (93 years)

Julian Clifford Mance, Jr. , known as Junior Mance, was an American jazz pianist and composer. Biography Early life Mance was born in Evanston, Illinois. When he was five years old, Mance started playing piano on an upright in his family's home in Evanston. His father, Julian, taught Mance to play stride piano and boogie-woogie. With his father's permission, Mance had his first professional gig in Chicago at the age of ten when his upstairs neighbor, a saxophone player, needed a replacement for a pianist who was ill. Mance was known to his family as "Junior" , and the nickname stuck with...

#9973

Henry Strzelecki

#124602

Overall Influence

1939 - 2014 (75 years)

Henry Pershing Strzelecki was a Nashville studio musician who performed with Roy Orbison, Chet Atkins, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Eddy Arnold, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Ronnie Milsap, Merle Haggard, and many others.

#9974

Ajuan Mance

#113108

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Ajuan Maria Mance is an American visual artist, author, editor, and a professor of Ethnic Studies and English at Mills College in Oakland, California. She created the portrait series 1001 Black Men. Early life and education Mance was born in Daytona Beach, Florida. Her family moved north to Long Island, New York where she spent most of her formative years. Her parents were both educators. She holds a B.A. from Brown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

#9975

Anthony Smith

#172165

Overall Influence

Ralph Anthony Smith is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. As a Nashville recording artist, Smith's debut album, If That Ain't Country, on Mercury Records Nashville . Produced three Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. As a songwriter Smith has had over 250 songs recorded by other Nashville recording artist Such as George Strait, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts, Trace Adkins, Faith Hill and more.

#9976

Ludwig Hoelscher

#150211

Overall Influence

1907 - 1996 (89 years)

Ludwig Hoelscher was a German cellist. He played internationally as a soloist, and was well known as a chamber musician, first playing from 1932 in Elly Ney's piano trio, then in the Strub Quartet and other formations. He was an important cellist of the Nazi era, playing in propaganda concerts and teaching in Berlin and Salzburg. After the World War, he taught at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and played internationally. He played the world premieres of more than 50 compositions.

#9977

Rex Allen

#150918

Overall Influence

1920 - 1999 (79 years)

Rex Elvie Allen Sr. , known as "the Arizona Cowboy", was an American film and television actor, singer and songwriter; he was also the narrator of many Disney nature and Western productions. For his contributions to the film industry, Allen received a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1975, located at 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.

#9978

Philip Duffy

#171013

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Philip Duffy is a British church musician. He was the Master of Music at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral from 1966 to 1996 and a Principal Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University from 2000 to 2008. Duffy is also the founder and director of the Liverpool Bach Collective.

#9979

John Birch

#175653

Overall Influence

1929 - 2012 (83 years)

John Anthony Birch was a British organist and choral director. He was educated at Trent College, Derbyshire and left in July 1947 to study at the Royal College of Music, London. In 1953 he became Organist and Master of the Choristers at a prominent Anglo-Catholic church: All Saints, Margaret Street, London. In 1958 Birch moved to Chichester to be Organist and Master of the Choristers at Chichester Cathedral. During his time at the Cathedral, he worked closely with Dean Walter Hussey in the commissioning of new choral works for the Cathedral Choir, including pieces from composers Leonard Berns...

#9980

Carmen Petra Basacopol

#177179

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Carmen Petra Basacopol was a Romanian composer, pianist, musicologist and academic teacher. She taught at the National University of Music Bucharest, between 1962 and 2003, and at the Rabat Conservatoire in Morocco in the 1970s. As a musicologist, she achieved a PhD from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1976, with a dissertation about three Romanian composers who had influenced her, George Enescu, Mihail Jora and Paul Constantinescu, composers representing essential features of Romanian music.

#9981

Tony Levin

#180301

Overall Influence

1940 - 2011 (71 years)

Tony Levin was an English jazz drummer. Levin played at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in the 1960s with artists including Joe Harriott, Al Cohn, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Zoot Sims, and Toots Thielemanns. Biography Levin was born in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, where his family had been evacuated in the Second World War; they subsequently returned to Birmingham, where as a teenager Levin taught himself to play the drums and began an involvement with the jazz scene.

#9982

David Grossman

#137962

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

David Grossman is an American film and television director. He is best known for his work on the ABC series Desperate Housewives, where he also served as co-executive producer. Grossman's other television directing credits include Lost, Weird Science, MadTV, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dead Like Me, Malcolm in the Middle, Ally McBeal, Devious Maids, Revenge, 12 Monkeys, The InBetween, Grand Hotel, Why Women Kill, Tell Me a Story, 9-1-1: Lone Star, 9-1-1, Motherland: Fort Salem and In the Dark among other series.

#9983

Bobby Broom

#148636

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Robert Broom Jr. is an American jazz guitarist, composer, and educator. He was born and raised in New York City, then moved to Chicago, which has been his home town since 1984. He performs and records with The Bobby Broom Trio and his organ group, The Bobby Broom Organi-Sation. While versed in the traditional jazz idioms, Broom draws from a variety of American music forms, such as funk, soul, R&B, and blues.

#9984

Ivan Osorio

#104108

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Ivan Osorio is the books editor at the Cato Institute and a former senior policy analyst, columnist and editor at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. He specializes in labor policy and Latin American affairs. Before joining CEI, he wrote articles and policy studies for the Capital Research Center. His work is regularly published in conservative, libertarian, and free-market periodicals such as National Review, Human Events, and the American Spectator.

#9985

Fred Jackson

#174292

Overall Influence

1913 - Present (113 years)

Fred Jackson is an American rhythm and blues and jazz tenor saxophonist. Career Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Jackson began his career as an R&B saxophonist. He performed in Little Richard's band from 1951 until 1953. Jackson also accompanied vocalist Billy Wright, appearing on several recordings for Savoy Records. Later in the decade, he joined vocalist Lloyd Price's band, performing in concert tours during a peak in Price's popularity. Jackson also served as the bandleader for vocalist Chuck Willis. In 1961, Jackson recorded with B.B. King.

#9986

David Lumsdaine

#175430

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

David Newton Lumsdaine is an Australian composer. He studied at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music . He moved to England in 1952 and for a while shared a flat with fellow expatriate, the poet Peter Porter, with whom he collaborated on several projects including the cantata Annotations of Auschwitz . In London he studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music with Lennox Berkeley. In 1970 he took a lecturing position at Durham University. In 1981 he took a post as senior lecturer at King's College London. He is published by The University of York Music Press and Universal Editio...

#9987

Shanice

#147041

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Shanice Lorraine Wilson-Knox is an American singer-songwriter, actress and dancer. Shanice had the Billboard hit singles "I Love Your Smile" and "Silent Prayer" in 1991 and "Saving Forever for You" in 1993. In 1999, Shanice scored another hit song, "When I Close My Eyes", which peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Shanice is recognized for her coloratura soprano voice and her ability to sing in the whistle register.

#9988

Isaki Lacuesta

#124673

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Isaki Lacuesta is a Spanish film director from Catalonia. His work includes documentary film, narrative film and video art. Lacuesta was born into a family of Basque origin. He studied audiovisual communication at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and obtained his Master's Degree in documentary film making at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where he now works as a lecturer in documentary film making. He also teaches at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra University, the Centre d'estudis cinematogràfics de Catalunya, and the University of Girona.

#9989

Joel Puckett

#177835

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Joel Puckett is an American composer. He comes from a musical family; his father was a classical tubist and in his retirement still plays dixie-land jazz gigs around Atlanta. Joel completed his academic work at the University of Michigan, earning both a Masters of Music and a Doctorate of Musical Arts. His teachers include Michael Daugherty, William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Will Averitt, and Thomas Albert.

#9990

Miho Nakayama

#164571

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

is a Japanese singer and actress. She made her debut in the 1985 drama Maido Osawagase Shimasu, where her performance lead to instant stardom. Nakayama released her debut single, "C", shortly after, and finished the year with her film debut in the blockbuster Be-Bop High School. She became one of the most popular idols during its "Golden Age" in the 1980s.

#9991

Anat Cohen

#173340

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Anat Cohen is a New York City-based jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and bandleader from Tel Aviv, Israel. Biography Cohen began playing clarinet and saxophone. In 1996, she studied at the Berklee College of Music. She has also recorded with her brothers Avishai Cohen and Yuval Cohen .

#9992

Ronald Turini

#154449

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Ronald Turini is a Canadian pianist, and the first Canadian artist to win a prize at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition, and the Geneva International Music Competition.

#9993

Rustem Hayroudinoff

#168126

Overall Influence

Rustem Hayroudinoff is a Russian concert pianist. Tatar by nationality, he was born in Kazan, Russian Federation . His father, Afzal Hayroudinoff is a Professor of Cello at the Kazan State Conservatory. His sister, Halida Hayrutdinova, is also an acclaimed concert pianist.

#9994

Meg Bussert

#129692

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Meg Bussert is an American actress, singer and a university professor. Early life Born in Chicago, Illinois, Bussert received her BA degree from Purchase College and her MAT from Manhattanville College.

#9995

Max Baumann

#179016

Overall Influence

1917 - 1999 (82 years)

Max Georg Baumann was a German composer. Biography He studied conducting, piano, and trombone Berlin Hochschule für Musik with Konrad Friedrich Noetel and Boris Blacher. He spent two years as a choir director and deputy Kapellmeister at the opera in Stralsund . He taught piano and music theory at the Berlin College of Music . In 1960 he was appointed professor. After meeting French organist Jean Guillou during this time, Baumann wrote his first compositions for organ , which Guillou premiered in a concert on January 20, 1963, at St. Matthias church in Berlin. Baumann also appeared as conductor and choirmaster and, in 1963, became interim conductor of the choir at St.

#9996

Jeremy Geidt

#171572

Overall Influence

1930 - 2013 (83 years)

Charles Jeremy Wollaston Geidt was a British-born American stage actor, comedian and acting coach. He was a Professor of Acting at Yale University, and later at Harvard University, being a founding member of both the American Repertory Theater and the Yale Repertory Theatre.

#9997

Dan E. Davidson

Dan E. Davidson

#139293

Overall Influence

Dan E. Davidson is an American linguist working at the intersection of Russian studies, second-language acquisition and international educational development. He is the president emeritus and co-founder of American Councils for International Education and professor emeritus of Russian and Second Language Acquisition at Bryn Mawr College.

#9998

James Dapogny

#177090

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

James Elliot Dapogny was an American jazz musicologist, pianist, composer, arranger and bandleader, active principally in the traditional jazz revival scene. Early life Dapogny earned a Ph.D in composition, and taught at the University of Michigan beginning in 1966. Dapogny led an ensemble called James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band, founded in 1975, which played with Sippie Wallace and the Chenille Sisters and made many appearances on Prairie Home Companion.

#9999

Al Snow

#110892

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Allen Ray Sarven is an American professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Al Snow. He is best known as a wrestler for Smoky Mountain Wrestling, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and WWF/E. Snow has also held various backstage positions for professional wrestling promotions. Snow worked as a road agent for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling from 2010 to 2017 and has owned Ohio Valley Wrestling since 2018 .

#10000

Doseone

#104684

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Adam Drucker , better known by his stage name Doseone, is an American rapper, producer, poet and artist. He is a co-founder of the indie hip hop record label Anticon. He has also been a member of numerous groups including Deep Puddle Dynamics, Greenthink, Clouddead, Themselves, Subtle, 13 & God, Go Dark, Nevermen, and A7pha.

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