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,

#10301

David R. Hekman

#50568

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

David R. Hekman is an associate professor of organizational leadership and information analytics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Hekman's research focuses on improving organizational health, including the demographic pay gap and the demographic power gap. His work has been written about in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Atlantic, and Forbes.

#10302

Joseph Ward

#182625

Overall Influence

1942 - 2019 (77 years)

Joseph Ward OBE was an English tenor, formerly a baritone, who created roles in operas by Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett. He has also made a career as a singing teacher – his pupils include Jane Eaglen – and opera producer.

#10303

Homer Keller

#175060

Overall Influence

1915 - 1996 (81 years)

Homer T. Keller was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He graduated from Oxnard Union High School in Oxnard, California in 1933, after which he attended the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Howard Hanson, obtaining B.M. and M.M. degrees. In 1939 he was awarded US$500 in the 1939 Henry Hadley Foundation competition.

#10304

Santidev Ghosh

#143488

Overall Influence

1910 - 1999 (89 years)

Santidev Ghose was an Indian author, singer, actor, dancer and maestro of Rabindra Sangeet. Sagarmoy Ghosh, the renowned editor of Bengali literary journal Desh, was his younger brother. As a teenager, Ghosh was selected by Rabindranath Tagore to be a teacher in Santiniketan and sent across India and even to Sri Lanka, Java and Bali to further his musical education for that purpose. Tagore also encouraged Ghosh to act and dance in the poet-laureate's dance dramas, for which Ghosh displayed an uncommon talent for singing, as well as dancing and acting. Some of the poems of Tagore which he co...

#10305

Uroš Krek

#134625

Overall Influence

1922 - 2008 (86 years)

Uroš Krek was a Slovenian composer. A native of Ljubljana, he died in Jesenice. He worked for many years for Radiotelevizija Slovenija, and composed a number of soundtracks. Krek was a pupil of Lucijan Marija Škerjanc.

#10306

Joachim Schlör

#84933

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Joachim Schlör is a culture scientist and professor at the Parkes Institute for Jewish/non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton. Previously, he lectured at the University of Potsdam and was director of the network of Jewish and rabbinical studies. He is the "intellectual father" of the post graduate program there and has contributed to what is called the "spatial turn" in Jewish studies.

#10307

Gordon Mote

#109778

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Gordon James Mote is an American Christian country/southern gospel singer, piano virtuoso, and worship leader. He was born blind. He has released eight studio albums. His album Don't Let Me Miss the Glory was his breakthrough on the Billboard charts.

#10308

Jeffrey Mumford

#135965

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Jeffrey Mumford is a U.S. composer whose orchestral works have been performed by the National Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and American Composers Orchestra. His music has been especially praised by The New York Times as being "a philosophy of music making that embraced both raw passion and a gentle imagistic poetry." Mumford's compositions, though thoroughly modern, are evocative, exploring the sensuous and tactile nature of sound in subtle and sophisticated ways.

#10309

Mike Dean

#125998

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Thomas Michael Dean is an American musician, best known as the bassist and occasional vocalist of heavy metal band Corrosion of Conformity. He is also a member of Lightning Born, a four-piece out of Raleigh, North Carolina, formed in 2016.

#10310

Antonio Zarro

#139169

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Antonio Zarro is an Italian-American, director and actor. Zarro received a Student Academy Award in 1987 for Bird in a Cage, a 60-minute 1986 student film made while attending the Christian Broadcasting Network University which received a positive review in the All Movie Guide. This film was the first from CBNU to win an Academy Award.

#10311

Arthur Jones

#184535

Overall Influence

1940 - 1998 (58 years)

Arthur Jones was an American Free Jazz alto saxophonist known for his highly energetic but warm tones. Jones was born in Cleveland, USA, and played for several years in a Rock and Roll band. After discovering music by Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy, he started appearing on the New York scene, playing in Frank Wright's group, where he took part in the recording of Your Prayer . He then also worked with Jacques Coursil. In 1968, he was a member of Sunny Murray's Acoustical Swing Unit, with which he went to Paris in 1969 and where he recorded two volumes of an album called Africanasia as the band leader with most of the musicians from the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

#10312

Stjepko Gut

#177426

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Stjepko Gut is a Belgrade-based jazz musician. Biography Gut studied jazz trumpet at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern, Switzerland, and at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. As a conductor, he won first place in the first Austrian Big Band Competition. He is one of the most famous jazz brass players from Serbia, others being Duško Gojković and Milivoje Marković. He was a member of the Lionel Hampton All Stars for two years, one of two white players at the time in that band. He made international tours, performances and recordings with Clark Terry, Wild Bill Davis, Curtis Full...

#10313

Vytautas Juozapaitis

#169483

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Vytautas Juozapaitis is a Lithuanian singer , recipient of Lithuanian National Prize, a soloist of Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre and Kaunas State Musical Theatre, a professor of Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and a docent of Vilnius College of Higher Education, and a television personality. He has performed in many international venues and is considered the most famous contemporary Lithuanian baritone.

#10314

Birgit Hein

#147365

Overall Influence

1942 - 2023 (81 years)

Birgit Hein was a German film director, producer, performance artist, university professor, and screenwriter who has made experimental films since 1960s, with her then husband Wilhelm Hein. Biography Hein was born in Berlin in 1942. With her structural films , performances, documentary film essays and film study publications, she is considered one of the decisive pioneers of German underground and experimental films. In 1964, she married Wilhelm Hein , with whom she collaborated on several experimental film projects. In 1968, she co-founded XSCREEN, an exhibition space in Cologne. In 1993, He...

#10315

Walter Hilgers

#177476

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Walter Hilgers is a German tuba player and conductor. He performs worldwide as orchestral musician, soloist, academic music teacher, arranger and conductor. Studies 1976-1978 Studies at the "University School of Music and Dance Cologne, Institute Aachen" - Tuba, Double Bass and PianoQualification: Artistic Diploma with distinction

#10316

Wolfgang Seifen

#141048

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Wolfgang Seifen is a German organist and composer. Seifen studied church music at the Gregoriushaus in Aachen. From 1973 to 1976 he was church musician in St Sebastian in Nettetal-Lobberich. In 1983 he became organist at the Marienbasilica in Kevelaer and in 2004 he was appointed the organist of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin.

#10317

Pavel Gililov

#179368

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Pavel Lvovich Gililov is a Russian classical pianist who has held German citizenship since 2003. Life Born in Donezk, Gililov's musical talent was discovered by the Russian composer Dmitry Kabalevsky. He completed his studies both in piano performance and Lied piano at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with distinction. While still a student, he won the 1972 Moscow National Piano Competition and was eventually the 4th prize winner of the 1975 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He was also a laureate of the International Viotti Piano Competition in Vercelli in 1978.

#10318

Andrea Polli

#119950

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Andrea Polli is an environmental artist and writer. Polli blends art and science to create widely varied media and technology artworks related to environmental issues. Her works are presented in various forms, she uses interactive websites, digital broadcasting, mobile applications, and performances, which allows her to reach a wider audience.

#10319

John Bernard Riley

John Bernard Riley

#130889

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

John Bernard Riley is an American jazz drummer and educator. He has performed with Woody Herman, Stan Getz, Milt Jackson, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Scofield, Bob Mintzer, Gary Peacock, Mike Stern, Joe Lovano, Franck Amsallem, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, John Patitucci, and Bob Berg.

#10320

Martin Mailman

#176107

Overall Influence

1932 - 2000 (68 years)

Martin S. Mailman was an American composer noted for his music for orchestra, chorus, multimedia, and winds. Biography He was born in New York City on June 30, 1932. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester earning a bachelor's degree in music composition in 1954, a master's degree in music composition in 1955, and a PhD in music composition in 1960. His teachers at Eastman included Louis Mennini, Wayne Barlow, Bernard Rogers, and Howard Hanson. He served for two years in the United States Navy, and he was among the first group of young contempora...

#10321

Wolfgang Sauseng

#166651

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Wolfgang Sauseng is an Austrian composer, conductor and organist.

#10322

Richard Hunt

#184632

Overall Influence

1930 - 2011 (81 years)

Richard Hunt was a Canadian pianist and composer of British birth. He is best known for his work with the Montreal ensemble Quartango. Early life and education Hunt was born in Great Britain. He was trained as a pianist at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at McGill University in Montreal where he was a pupil of István Anhalt, Bengt Hambraeus and Bruce Mather.

#10323

Bernadette Speach

#172457

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Bernadette Speach is an American avant-garde composer and pianist. Known for her minimalist approach, she often synthesizes improvisation and through-composed material. Biography Born in Syracuse, New York, Speach earned her B.S. in Music Education from the College of Saint Rose in 1971. Five years later, while studying abroad in Siena, Italy, she was introduced to Franco Donatoni and Morton Feldman. She went on to study with Feldman, alongside composers Lejaren Hiller and Leo Smit, at SUNY Buffalo, where she finished her M.A. and Ph.D. in Music Composition, and before that studied under Jacq...

#10324

Michael Nicholas

#184702

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Michael Bernard Nicholas FRCO, FRSCM is a British organist, conductor and composer, who was organist and master of choristers at Norwich Cathedral from 1971 to 1994 before becoming Chief Executive of the Royal College of Organists.

#10325

Eric Alexander

#148741

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Eric Alexander is an American jazz saxophonist. Early life and education Alexander was born in Illinois. He began as a classical musician, studying alto saxophone at Indiana University with Eugene Rousseau in 1986. He soon switched to jazz and the tenor saxophone, however, and transferred to William Paterson University, where he studied with Harold Mabern, Rufus Reid, Joe Lovano, Gary Smulyan, Norman Simmons, Steve Turre and others.

#10326

Eric Mandat

#177044

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Eric Paul Mandat is an American clarinetist and composer. Mandat began his clarinet studies under the tutelage of Richard Joiner of the Denver Symphony. He later studied with Lee Gibson, Keith Wilson, D. Stanley Hasty, and Charles Neidich. He received his undergraduate education at the University of North Texas and graduate degrees from Yale School of Music and Eastman School of Music.

#10327

Graham George

#173351

Overall Influence

1912 - 1993 (81 years)

Graham Elias George was a Canadian composer, music theorist, organist, choir conductor, and music educator of English birth. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre, his compositional output consists largely of choral works, many written for Anglican liturgical use. He also wrote three ballets, four operas, and some symphonic music. In 1938 he won the Jean Lallemand Prize for his Variations on an Original Theme. At first he employed traditional tertial harmony, but the influence of Hindemith led him to introduce quartal-quintal harmony as integral to his style. Successful completion of RCC...

#10328

Bo Burnham

#142289

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Robert Pickering "Bo" Burnham is an American comedian, musician, actor, and filmmaker. His work combines elements of filmmaking with comedy genres such as music, sketch, and stand-up, often with a dramatic or tragic twist.

#10329

Graham Hair

#183773

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Graham Barry Hair is an Australian composer, music scholar and retired academic. He was educated at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1964 and a Master of Music degree three years later. He then completed a doctorate at the University of Sheffield, which was awarded in 1973. He worked at Riverina College of Advanced Education between 1973 and 1975, before being appointed to a lectureship at La Trobe University in 1976. In 1980, he became Head of the School of Composition at the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music, where he remained until 1990, when he was appointed Gardiner Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow.

#10330

Joseph Malovany

#152541

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Joseph Malovany is an Israeli-born American tenor soloist. A world-famous cantor, serving as Hazzan of New York's Fifth Avenue Synagogue since 1973, and a Distinguished Professor of Liturgical Music at Philip and Sarah Belz School of Jewish Music, Yeshiva University. Malovany possesses a brilliant spinto tenor voice, described by the London Guardian as “most powerful, beautiful and expressive spinto technique…sturdy and heroic” and by the Swedish newspaper Goteborgs Posten as “Judaism’s Jussi Bjorling”.

#10331

Robert Aitken

#170752

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Robert Morris Aitken is a Canadian composer and flautist. He began his career as a teenager playing in a number of orchestras, notably becoming the youngest principal flautist in the history of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in 1958 at the age of 19. In 1971, he abandoned ensemble performance to pursue a highly successful solo career. He has appeared as a soloist with major symphony orchestras throughout North America, Europe and Asia and has made more than 40 commercial recordings.

#10332

Patrick Liddell

#175699

Overall Influence

Patrick Liddell is a composer and video artist living in Oakland, California. He earned his Doctor of Music from Northwestern University in 2009. His thesis is titled "Arrow To The Sun: Postmodernism As Compositional Tool", which outlines the contextual processes in postmodernist art, as well as includes a detailed description of the compositional, theoretical, and contextual framework for all his output. The music from "Arrow To The Sun" was the basis for Liddell's first solo studio release.

#10333

Florentine Mulsant

Florentine Mulsant

#184837

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Florentine Mulsant is a French composer. Life Born in Dakar, Mulsant studied harmony, counterpoint, fugue, musical analysis and orchestration at the Conservatoire de Paris and the Schola Cantorum de Paris, where she won a First Prize in 1987 for composition in Allain Gaussin's class. She followed the teaching of Franco Donatoni at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana and furthered her skill with Alain Bancquart.

#10334

Jennifer Warren

Jennifer Warren

#104582

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Jennifer Warren is an American actress, producer and film director. Early life and education Warren's uncle was Yiddish theatre actor and director Jacob Ben-Ami. Career Warren made her Broadway debut in 1972 in 6 Rms Riv Vu, for which she won a Theatre World Award. She appeared in the short-lived P.S. Your Cat Is Dead! Warren's film credits include Sam's Song , Night Moves , Slap Shot , Another Man, Another Chance , Ice Castles , Mutant , and Fatal Beauty . She was listed as one of the 12 "Promising New Actors of 1975" in John Willis' Screen World, Volume 27. She also played a role in Steel Cowboy .

#10335

Alf Clausen

#148116

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Alf Heiberg Clausen is an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen has scored or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1996.

#10336

Keith Stegall

#81348

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Robert Keith Stegall is an American country music recording artist and record producer. Active since 1980, Stegall has recorded two major-label studio albums: 1985's Keith Stegall and 1996's Passages, although he is mainly known for his production work.

#10337

Kim So-hyun

#115054

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Kim So-hyun is a South Korean musical theatre actress. A classically-trained former opera singer, she switched to musical theater and debuted in 2001 as Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera. She immediately rose to musical theatre stardom and has since starred in South Korean stage productions of Jekyll & Hyde, My Fair Lady, The Three Musketeers, Elisabeth, and Marie Antoinette.

#10338

Alice Ripley

#168688

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Alice Ripley is an American actress, singer, songwriter and mixed media artist. She is known, in particular, for her various roles on Broadway in musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal and Side Show. She most recently played three roles in the short-lived Broadway musical, American Psycho. Alice Ripley has released albums with her band, RIPLEY, including the single, "Beautiful Eyes", released in February 2012. She also performs as a solo artist, while in February 2011 she released Alice Ripley Daily Practice, Volume 1, a stripped-down collection of acoustic rock cover...

#10339

Jian Wang

#152493

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Jian Wang is a Chinese cellist. A soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and teacher, he was the first Chinese musician to ever sign an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. Early life and education Wang began to study the cello with his father when he was four. While a student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, he was featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary film, From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. In 1981, at twelve years old, he made his professional debut playing the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. In 1985, with Mr Ste...

#10340

Nosson Zand

#150487

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Nathan Isaac Zand , also known as Nosson Zand, is an American Chasidic rapper from Boston, Massachusetts. Biography Zand was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on December 11, 1981. He is best known by his Hebrew name Nosson.

#10341

Jack Smalley

#179063

Overall Influence

Jack Smalley was an American composer, orchestrator, and teacher of film and television scoring. After working for years as a jazz bassist, Smalley began to get jobs writing music for television, notably Charlie's Angels and Murder, She Wrote.

#10342

James Gayfer

#178247

Overall Influence

1916 - 1997 (81 years)

James McDonald Gayfer was a Canadian bandmaster, clarinetist, composer, conductor, organist, military officer, and music educator. His compositional output encompasses several orchestral works, including two symphonies, numerous works for band and solo piano, a modest amount of chamber music, and several songs, hymns, and choral works. In 1944 his string quartet won the CPRS award and in 1947 his Six Translations from the Chinese for tenor and small orchestra won the Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada competition. In 1953, he was appointed to the post of Director of Music of the Band of the Canadian Guards, serving until 1961.

#10343

Ted Rosenthal

#178004

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Ted Rosenthal is an American jazz pianist. He was featured on David Sanborn's series Night Music, and has performed worldwide, both as a leader and as a sideman with many jazz greats, including Gerry Mulligan, Art Farmer, Phil Woods, Bob Brookmeyer, and Jon Faddis. Rosenthal has released 15 CDs as a leader, which include Great American Songbook standards, jazz classical compositions, and Rosenthal's own original compositions. In addition to his career as a performing artist, Rosenthal holds faculty positions at the Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and The New School.

#10344

Hans Tutschku

#182838

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Hans Tutschku is a German composer. Born in Weimar, Tutschku has been a member of the Ensemble for Intuitive Music Weimar since 1982. He studied composition of electronic music at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber, Dresden, and since 1989 has participated in several concert cycles of Karlheinz Stockhausen to study the art of the sound direction. He further studied sonology and electroacoustic composition in 1991–92 at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, the Netherlands.

#10345

Eugene Kurtz

#181025

Overall Influence

1923 - 2006 (83 years)

Eugene Allen Kurtz was an American composer of contemporary classical music. He received an M.A. in music from the Eastman School of Music in 1949. His instructors included Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, and Max Deutsch. He served as a guest professor of composition at the University of Michigan, the Eastman School of Music, and several other universities. His notable students include John Burke, Roger Briggs, John S. Hilliard, and Robert Morris.

#10346

David Lee

#177253

Overall Influence

1941 - 2021 (80 years)

David Lee Jr. was an American jazz drummer and composer. Early life Lee was born in New Orleans on January 4, 1941. He played professionally from his early teens, and was a member of bands in the United States Army.

#10347

Takashi Fujinama

#103352

Overall Influence

1931 - 2012 (81 years)

Takashi Fujinuma was a Japanese translator of Russian and a Doctor of Philology. Biography Takashi Fujinuma was born in Liaoning Province, China. He graduated from Tokyo Waseda University, Faculty of Philology. Fujinuma taught Russian literature until his retirement in 1997.

#10348

Tom Götze

#185558

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Tom Götze is a German bassist and professor at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden for double bass and electric bass jazz/rock/pop. Life Götze's musical career began in Dresden. From 1984 to 1990, he studied tuba, bass guitar and double bass at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden. Since 1993, he has been active as a musician in the styles of jazz, rock, pop and classical as well as an actor .

#10349

Andrew Johnson

#176745

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Andrew Johnson is a British actor of South Asian descent. He is most famous for being one of the original cast members of EastEnders, playing the shop-keeper Saeed Jeffery from the first episode in February 1985 until December 1985. During his time on the show, Johnson's troubled character struggled in an arranged marriage to an unwilling wife, Naima .

#10350

Marjan Mozetich

#169349

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Marjan Mozetich is a Canadian composer who has written music for theatre, film and dance, as well as many symphonic works, chamber music, and solo pieces. He has written compulsory competition pieces for the 1992 Banff String Quartet Competition and the 1995 Montreal International Music Competition . Co-founder of Arraymusic in Toronto, Mozetich served as their artistic director from 1976 to 1978. After his work with Array, he worked for some time at the University of Toronto music library, and then became a freelance composer. Mozetich moved to Howe Island, near Kingston, Ontario, and taught composition at Queen's University in Kingston from 1991 to 2010.

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