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,

#10201

Andrew Glover

#176343

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

#10202

İstemihan Taviloğlu

İstemihan Taviloğlu

#170961

Overall Influence

1945 - 2006 (61 years)

İstemihan Taviloğlu was a Turkish composer and a music educator. He's most known piece is the Clarinet Concerto which happens to be the first ever Clarinet Concerto composition from a Turkish composer. He is also the co-founder of the Musicology department in Ankara State Conservatory. He is also known as the teacher of all the musicians that came from conservatories in Turkey.

#10203

Tim Cobb

#167919

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Timothy Cobb is the American current principal double bassist with the New York Philharmonic. He previously taught at the Peabody Institute of Music, and joined the Manhattan School of Music faculty in 1992. Cobb also currently teaches at SUNY Purchase, Lynn University, Rutgers University: Mason Gross School of the Arts, YOA Orchestra of the Americas, and Mannes School of Music Preparatory Division. He is the current chair of the double-bass department at the Juilliard School, where he has been on faculty since 2002.

#10204

Christopher P. Sloan

#149125

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Christopher P. Sloan is an artist, science communicator, art director, author, and avocational paleontologist. He describes himself as a conceptual realist and is an advocate for Art for Our Sake, a term he uses to distinguish art with a purpose from art for art's sake. He teaches modern approaches to science art, animal anatomy, and information visualization online for the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and the Maryland Institute College of Art . Sloan is a four-time award-winning author of children's books written for the National Geographic Society. Sloan started a science media and exhibitions company, Science Visualization, in 2010.

#10205

Eddie Barbash

#110786

Overall Influence

Eddie Barbash is an American saxophonist known for his work as a core member of Jon Batiste and Stay Human, and was part of the house band for Late Show with Stephen Colbert through 2016. Early life Barbash was born in West Islip, New York, but spent his first years living in Oaxaca, Mexico. His family moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was two years old. At eight years old he began playing Saxophone in his elementary school band. Barbash studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in high school. During college, he attended Juilliard and The New School. In 2008 he began play...

#10206

Anthony Brown

#181508

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Anthony Brown is an American jazz percussionist, composer, bandleader, ethnomusicologist, and educator. He is known for leading, performing, and recording with the Grammy-nominated Asian American Orchestra since its founding in 1998. His compositions blend jazz instruments and improvisation with traditional Asian instruments and sensibilities, and include musical scores for documentary films, for theatrical and dance premieres, and for spoken word and poetry presentations.

#10207

Joe Negri

#122996

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Joseph Harold Negri is an American jazz guitarist and educator. He appeared as himself and as "Handyman Negri" in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe segments on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He appeared on the 1959 children's television program Adventure Time and with Johnny Costa on the 1954 TV series 67 Melody Lane hosted by Ken Griffin.

#10208

Igor Lazko

#176392

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Igor Lazko , , is a Russian classical pianist who has made a distinguished international career as performer, recording artist and teacher of other pianists. Early career in Russia Igor Lazko is descended from a family renowned for its musicians through several generations. When he was six years old, he was admitted to the special school for young musicians in the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory, where his professors were Pavel Serebryakov and Sophia Lekhovitskaya. He was profoundly affected by the example of Glenn Gould's playing during his tour in the Soviet Union in 1957, and from this and fr...

#10209

Bob James

#152451

Overall Influence

1952 - 2021 (69 years)

Robert Dennis James was an American rock singer-songwriter who was best known for his work with the band Montrose. Born in Struthers, Ohio, James moved to the South Bay area of Los Angeles in 1963. His early bands The Symbols of Time, Shatterminx, and Swan included David Pack , Joe Puerta , Robert Fleischman , and Marc Droubay . In early 1975 he was chosen by Ronnie Montrose as the replacement for vocalist Sammy Hagar in the band Montrose and is featured as lead vocalist and co-songwriter on the Montrose albums Warner Brothers Presents... Montrose! and Jump On It .

#10210

John Bell Young

#155929

Overall Influence

1953 - 2017 (64 years)

John Bell Young was an American concert pianist, music critic and author, best known for his performances and recordings of the music of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin. Early years, education and training Young spent his childhood on the north shore of Long Island. His mother was a librarian, and his father, of Cherokee descent, was an amateur pianist and inventor. As a child, his first piano teachers were Miriam Freundlich, whose brother-in-law Irwin was chair of the piano division at Juilliard, and later Kyriena Siloti, the daughter of Russian pianist Alexander Siloti.

#10211

Seiko Mikami

#91769

Overall Influence

1961 - 2015 (54 years)

Seiko Mikami was a Japanese artist known for her large-scale interactive art installations. Mikami was born in Shizuoka, Japan, in 1961, and she stepped into the art scene in the mid-1980s with large-scale art that studied information society and the human body. After moving to the United States in 1991, she studied computer science at the New York Institute of Technology, which lead her art to focus on the interaction between electronics and the human perception. She became a professor in the Department of Information Design at Tama University in 2000. Mikami died from cancer on January 2, ...

#10212

Daniel Ferro

#174015

Overall Influence

1921 - 2015 (94 years)

Daniel Ferro was an American bass-baritone and voice teacher. He was known primarily as a teacher whose students have included many prominent opera singers, but he also had a career as a singer himself both on the concert stage and in opera and musical theatre.

#10213

Allison Moorer

#92176

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Allison Moorer is an American country singer-songwriter. She signed with MCA Nashville in 1997 and made her debut on the U.S. Billboard Country Chart with the release of her debut single, "A Soft Place to Fall", which she co-wrote with Gwil Owen. The song was featured in Robert Redford's The Horse Whisperer and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999. Moorer performed at the Oscars ceremony the same year. She has made ten albums and has had songs recorded by Trisha Yearwood, Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Steve Earle, and Hayes Carll.

#10214

Amy Peikoff

#46450

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Amy Lynn Peikoff is an American writer, blogger, and a professor of philosophy and law. Peikoff is the Chief Policy Officer of social media platform Parler. Early life and education Amy Peikoff studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Applied Science in 1992 and her Juris Doctor in 1998, having attended her first year of law school at Pepperdine University. She was an editor of the UCLA Law Review. She then earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy at the University of Southern California in 2003.

#10215

Himesh Reshammiya

Himesh Reshammiya

#149609

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Himesh Reshammiya is an Indian playback singer, music director, songwriter, film & music producer and actor in Hindi cinema. He started his career as music director in the film Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya in 1998 and made his acting debut with the film Aap Kaa Surroor in 2007.

#10216

Alexander Toradze

#138559

Overall Influence

1952 - 2022 (70 years)

Alexander Davidovich "Lexo" Toradze was a Georgian-born American pianist, best known for his classical Russian repertoire, with a career spanning over three decades. He regularly appeared as soloist with many of the world's major orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He was a professor of piano at Indiana University South Bend from 1991 to 2017.

#10217

Kerstin Thieme

#176151

Overall Influence

1909 - 2001 (92 years)

Kerstin Thieme was a German composer, composition teacher, music educator and music writer. Life and career Thieme was born in Bad Schlema, Ore Mountains. After her Abitur at the in Aue, she studied music education and composition at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig with Hermann Grabner from 1929 to 1934. Her fellow students included Hugo Distler and Miklós Rózsa. In 1933, she successfully passed the Staatsexamen for teaching at secondary schools and received her doctorate in 1934 with a thesis on the topic of "Klangstil des Mozartorchesters". Her first teaching activities in Leipzig followed.

#10218

Tom Collier

#180867

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Tom Collier is a multi-instrumental percussionist and vibraphonist, with a career in music spanning more than fifty years. He has performed and recorded as a session musician with many important jazz, classical, and popular artists. He has also performed and recorded with his own jazz group and has released solo albums. He joined the faculty at the University of Washington in 1980.

#10219

Richard Ramirez

#166884

Overall Influence

Richard Ramirez is an American noise music artist originally from Houston, Texas, recording and performing both as a solo artist and as part of several groups, including Black Leather Jesus, Priest in Shit, An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter, House of the Black Death, Martyr of Sores, Last Rape and the "static noise" solo project Werewolf Jerusalem. He is notable for being one of the earliest American harsh noise artists.

#10220

Paul Olefsky

#165962

Overall Influence

1926 - 2013 (87 years)

Paul Olefsky was an American cellist. Olefsky was born in Chicago. He earned a bachelor's degree from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Gregor Piatigorsky. Olefsky subsequently studied with Pablo Casals. He studied conducting with Herbert von Karajan and Pierre Monteux.

#10221

Gösta Werner

#179223

Overall Influence

1908 - 2009 (101 years)

Gösta Werner was a Swedish film director. He was married to Kaj Björkdahl. He primarily made his mark on European cinema during the 1940s. During the 1970s, Werner was first associate professor at Stockholm University, and then later Professor of Cinematography. He was born in Östra Wemmenhög, Skåne, Sweden. Werner turned 101 years old on 15 May 2009.

#10222

Robert Hughes

#179509

Overall Influence

1912 - 2007 (95 years)

Robert Watson Hughes AO MBE was a Scottish-born Australian composer. His melodies are driven by short motives and unrelenting ostinato figures. Hughes wrote orchestral works, music for ballet and film, some chamber works and an opera that has never been performed. While some of his works are available in published form, there are a number of well-crafted orchestral works that were recorded but never commercially published. Like other composers of his generation, including Dorian Le Gallienne, Raymond Hanson and Margaret Sutherland, Hughes has been considered by musicologists to write in a style reminiscent of the English pastoral school.

#10223

Lutz-Michael Harder

#178037

Overall Influence

1942 - 2019 (77 years)

Lutz-Michael Harder was a German lyric tenor known mostly for his interpretation of Mozart opera roles and as a baroque concert soloist. He was also an academic voice teacher at the Musikhochschule Hannover.

#10224

Izumi Tateno

#163488

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Izumi Tateno Tateno studied at the Tōkyō Geijutsu Daigaku and is today a professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. After a stroke during a concert on 9 January 2002, he had to take a break for some time. Even after medical rehabilitation, he still had paralysis of the right side of his body; since his comeback in May 2004, he has therefore played exclusively with his left hand. Numerous composers dedicated pieces to him specially tailored to his requirements. Tateno has won many prizes and awards. Since 17 September 1990, he has been chairman of the Japanese Sibelius Society , of which h...

#10225

Ian Munro

#168307

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Ian Munro is an Australian pianist, composer, and music educator. His career has taken him to many countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australasia. Early life and education Ian Munro attended Scotch College in Melbourne for his high school education.

#10226

John Worley

#150452

Overall Influence

1919 - 1999 (80 years)

John C. Worley was a saxophonist, conductor, professor, and a composer of classical, as well as more contemporary music for saxophone. He was born in Waltham, Massachusetts in 1919 and died on February 16, 1999. He served as conductor and director for many performing ensembles during his long teaching career, as well as a featured performer of saxophone and clarinet.

#10227

Robert Creech

#182137

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Robert Edward Creech was a Canadian french hornist, music educator, and arts administrator. He served as Director of the Canadian Music Council from 1975–1979 and Chairman of the Arts Advisory Council of the Canada Council from 1976-1978. In 1991, he was appointed the Chief Executive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society.

#10228

David Sanjek

#103798

Overall Influence

1952 - 2011 (59 years)

David Sanjek was a Professor of Popular Music and Director of the University of Salford Music Research Centre in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. Alongside his father, Russell Sanjek, they produced the first comprehensive written history of the American music industry; American Popular Music and Its Business: The First Four Hundred Years.

#10229

Ingolf Turban

#168647

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ingolf Turban is a German violinist. Life Born in Munich, Turban's mother was a pianist, his father a music-loving physician, his sister Dietlinde an actress. At the age of 12 he was accepted into the violin class of in Munich. He also attended courses in the US with Jens Ellermann and Dorothy DeLay.

#10230

Cynthia Folio

#157382

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Cynthia Folio is an American composer, flutist, and music theorist. She is a professor of Music Studies at Temple University, where she was honored with the Creative Achievement Award in 2012 and the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1994. Cynthia’s compositions have been described as “confident and musical in expressing ideas of great substance.” In addition, her work has been regarded as“ intriguing and enjoyable,” and “imaginatively scored.”

#10231

Adel Heinrich

#181514

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Adel Verna Heinrich was an American composer, organist, and university teacher. She taught music at Colby College until her retirement in 1988. Personal life and career Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Heinrich graduated from Flora Stone Mather College with a Bachelor of Arts in 1951, and a master's degree in sacred music from the Union Theological Seminary in 1954. She studied the organ with Hugh Porter, John Harvey, E. Power Biggs, Andre Marchal, and Jean Langlais, the harpsichord with Eugenia Earle, and composition with Norman Coke-Jephcott. In 1976, she received a doctorate from the University of...

#10232

Helen Doron

#182312

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Helen Doron is a British-Israeli linguist and educator based in Israel. She is best known as the creator of the Helen Doron Method of teaching and as the Founder of Helen Doron Educational Group, an international pedagogic network for babies, children, and teens learning English and other programs, including Helen Doron Academy Kindergartens, Helen Doron International, MathRiders and Helen Doron Connect.

#10233

Andreas Rothkopf

#98887

Overall Influence

1909 - 1994 (85 years)

Andreas Rothkopf is a German organist, pianist and music educator. Life After his first piano lessons with his father, Rothkopf studied Catholic church music and music education with Robert Leonardy at the Hochschule für Musik Saar in Saarbrücken from 1972 to 1978. and Paul Schneider . As a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln . Supplementary organ studies followed with Marie-Claire Alain.

#10234

Lyn Christie

#172806

Overall Influence

1928 - 2020 (92 years)

Lyndon Van Christie was an Australian-born American-based jazz bassist. He earned a medical degree from Otago Medical School, New Zealand, and, while practising as a physician in Sydney from 1961, played in the local jazz scene until he moved to New York City in 1965.

#10235

Julia Rebekka Adler

#114774

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Julia Rebekka Adler is a German viola and viola d'amore player. Early life, family and education Julia Rebekka Mai was born in Heidelberg. She started playing viola at the age of six. Having won first prize at Jugend musiziert , she was invited to participate at the Interlochen Arts Camp and the Aspen Music Festival.

#10236

Evgeni Koroliov

#171336

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Evgeni Alexandrovich Koroliov is a Russian classical pianist. Koroliov studied at the Moscow Conservatory. Since 1978 he has been a teacher at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. He lives in Hamburg with his wife Ljupka Hadzigeorgieva. Together they also form a musical duo .

#10237

Aaron Marcus

#170213

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Aaron Marcus is an American user-interface and information-visualization designer, as well as a computer graphics artist. Biography Marcus was always interested in both science and technology as well as visual communication. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, in the 1950s, he was interested in astronomy and paleontology, and drawing cartoons. He learned painting, and calligraphy. In secondary school, he studied science and art, and was editor of his high-school newspaper.

#10238

Christopher Bunting

#180633

Overall Influence

1924 - 2005 (81 years)

Christopher Evelyn Bunting was an English cellist. He had an international reputation, and was a highly regarded teacher; he gave first performances of notable cello concertos. Life Bunting was born in London in 1924. His father was a civil engineer in India, and an amateur pianist; his mother, also an amateur musician, played cello and piano. He played the piano from age five, and the following year began playing the cello, studying with Ivor James.

#10239

Vladimir Khotinenko

Vladimir Khotinenko

#126559

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Vladimir Ivanovich Khotinenko is a Russian actor, film director and designer. Biography Born in the Altai Krai, Russian SFSR to Ivan Afanasyevich and Valentina Vasilievna Khotinenko. His father was Ukrainian, his mother came from Don Cossacks. In 1976, he received his diploma from the Institute of Architecture of Sverdlovsk, in what is now Ekaterinburg. After his military service, he was from 1978 to 1982, assistant designer at Studio-Film in Sverdlovsk, and was assistant director for the film by Nikita Mikhalkov, A Few Days from the Life of I. I. Oblomov. He collaborated on other films by Mi...

#10240

Robert Kyr

#179376

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Robert Harry Kyr is an American composer, writer, filmmaker, and Philip H. Knight Professor of Music Composition and Theory. Kyr is one of the most prolific composers of his generation, having written 12 symphonies, three chamber symphonies, three violin concerti, numerous large works for orchestra, oratorios and other large-scale choral works, and a wide variety of chamber music.

#10241

Peter Hill

#166158

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Peter P Hill is a British pianist and musicologist. Biography Hill, a native of Lyndhurst , was acquainted with the French composer Olivier Messiaen, and has written a book about him. As well as playing the complete works of Messiaen, he is also known for his performances of other 20th-century piano repertoire.

#10242

Cindy Cox

#181921

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Cindy Cox is an American composer and performer, and Professor of Music. Cox grew up in Houston. She holds a Bachelor of Music in piano performance from Texas Christian University, and her Masters and Doctorate in 1992 from Indiana University Bloomington in composition, where she studied with Harvey Sollberger, Donald Erb, Eugene O’Brien, and John Eaton. She has also studied with John Harbison at the Tanglewood Music Center, and Bernard Rands and Jacob Druckman at the Aspen Music Festival. As a pianist, she studied with the Mozart and Schubert specialist Lili Kraus. As of 2011, Cox is a pr...

#10243

Mark Kelly

#131034

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

#10244

John Jackson

#165826

Overall Influence

1924 - 2002 (78 years)

John Jackson was an American Piedmont blues musician. Music was not his primary activity until his accidental "discovery" by the folklorist Chuck Perdue in the 1960s. Jackson had effectively given up playing in his community in 1949.

#10245

Ik-Hwan Bae

#177738

Overall Influence

1956 - 2014 (58 years)

Ik-Hwan Bae was a South Korean-born American concert violinist. A native of Seoul, he made his professional debut with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 12. He attended New York City's prestigious High School of Performing Arts, graduating in 1975. While there, Bae also studied with Ivan Galamian at Juilliard's Pre-School. He went on to graduate from Juilliard four years later. His performances in recitals and concerto concerts took him to most of the major cities in Europe, Asia and the United States.

#10246

Craig Walsh

#185537

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Craig Thomas Walsh is an American composer of acoustic and electronic music. Dr. Walsh studied at the Mannes School of Music and Brandeis University . Walsh's awards for his original compositions include grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Meet the Composer, Concorso Internazionale Luigi Russolo, Lee Ettelson Award for Chamber Music, Siday Musical Creativity Award from the International Computer Music Association , Music Teachers National Association , and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers , among others. He previously taught at Brandeis Univer...

#10247

David "Happy" Williams

David "Happy" Williams

#155648

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

David "Happy" Williams , is a US-based Trinidadian jazz double-bassist, who was a long-time member of Cedar Walton's group. Williams has also worked with many other notable musicians, including Woody Shaw, Bobby Hutcherson, Stan Getz, Kenny Barron, Duke Jordan, Monty Alexander, Frank Morgan, Hank Jones, Charles McPherson, Larry Willis, George Cables, Abdullah Ibrahim, David "Fathead" Newman, Sonny Fortune, John Hicks, Louis Hayes, Jackie McLean, Clifford Jordan, Abbey Lincoln, Ernestine Anderson, and Kathleen Battle.

#10248

John White

#180492

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

John Michael White is a Canadian film, television and commercial actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Erik Stifler in American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile and its sequel American Pie Presents: Beta House .

#10249

John Fox

#179085

Overall Influence

1924 - 2015 (91 years)

John Fox was a British composer and conductor of light music. Fox was born in Sutton, Surrey and was educated at Sutton West School for Boys. He also took piano lessons and by his teens had formed his own group. This then led to him playing in an RAF band towards the end of the war, and upon being demobbed, he began his musical career, initially teaching during the day and playing ‘gigs’ at night. He then went on to study at the Royal College of Music , studying composition, piano and violin.

#10250

Gerhard Gleich

#78670

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Gerhard Gleich is an artist and professor emeritus of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Vienna, Austria. He grew up as Gerhard Feest and later adopted the name of his second wife, the Polish-Austrian painter Joanna Gleich. A student of Albert Paris Gütersloh, he was from 1972 to 1997 an assistant of the Viennese painter and art professor Wolfgang Hollegha. Today he works in the academy's Institute for Conceptual Art with Professor Marina Grzinic.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions