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,

#10601

Mark Applebaum

#128538

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Mark Applebaum is an American composer and full professor of music composition and theory at Stanford University. Biography Applebaum received his PhD in music composition from the University of California, San Diego where he studied with Brian Ferneyhough, Joji Yuasa, Rand Steiger, and Roger Reynolds. Prior to Stanford, he taught at UCSD, Mississippi State University, and Carleton College.

#10602

Arthur Green

#174721

Overall Influence

Arthur Green is the fourth and current bassist for the extreme metal band, Living Sacrifice. He, along with brothers Cory Brandan Putman and Matthew Putman, founded the mathcore band Eso-Charis. History Arthur Green was born in the Philippines, with his father being an American citizen in the United States Military. Growing up in the U.S., Green would play bass in a few punk bands in the Arkansas area. After meeting Cory Brandan Putman and Matthew Putman, the three formed a band called Funnel. In 1995, Green formed Elliot, with Cory on vocals, Matt on drums, and Matt Depper on guitars. They recorded the EP The Plateau Green before Depper quit.

#10603

Sally Pinkas

#177904

Overall Influence

Sally Pinkas is a pianist, born and raised in Israel. She is Professor of Music at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and pianist-in-residence of the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.

#10604

Ian Christie

#182493

Overall Influence

1927 - 2010 (83 years)

Ian Christie was an English jazz clarinetist best known for playing in a number of trad jazz ensembles of the 1950s, including the Christie Brothers' Stompers, featuring Ken Colyer and Dickie Hawdon, with his brother, Keith Christie.

#10605

Kolja Lessing

#169790

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Kolja Lessing is a German violinist, pianist, composer and academic teacher. His focus as a soloist and chamber musician has been the neglected repertoire by composers who were ostracised under the Nazi regime. His recordings include four volumes of works by students of Franz Schreker in his master classes in Vienna and Berlin.

#10606

Justin Hollander

#181040

Overall Influence

Justin B. Hollander is an American urban planning and design scholar. He is a professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tufts, a Masters in Regional Planning from the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a Ph.D. degree from the E.J. Bloustein School of Policy and Planning at Rutgers.

#10607

Makoto Satō

#185881

Overall Influence

1957 - 2007 (50 years)

Makoto Satō was a Japanese documentary film director. Among his best-known films were Living On the River Agano, which describes people around the Agano River where incidents of Niigata Minamata disease were discovered, and Self and Others.

#10608

Michael Gough

#172898

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Michael Gough is an American voice actor and musician. He is known for providing the voices of Deckard Cain in the Diablo series of video games, Gopher in the Winnie the Pooh franchise, The Carmine Brothers in the Gears of War series of video games, many Nords in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Ulrich Vogel in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Zorro in The New Adventures of Zorro, Captain James "Jim" Gordon in Batman: Arkham Origins, Jambalaya Jake in Darkwing Duck, Colonel Spigot in TaleSpin, Osmund Saddler in Resident Evil 4, Officer Pete in Doc McStuffins, Parasite in All-Star Superman, Scarec...

#10609

Ludwik Margules

#175011

Overall Influence

1933 - 2006 (73 years)

Ludwik Margules Coben was a Polish-born Mexican theatre, opera and film director. Being an active member of the Mexican theatre circuit for more than fifty years, Margules taught acting and directing methods in several institutions, eventually founding his own acting academy, the Foro Teatro Contemporáneo in 1991.

#10610

Alden Jenks

#183650

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Alden Jenks is an American composer. Biography Alden Jenks was born in Michigan and received a B.A. from Yale University and an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. He studied composition with Lawrence Moss, Andrew Imbrie and Seymour Shifrin. He also studied composition in 1967 with Karlheinz Stockhausen at the University of California, Davis, and electronic music with David Tudor and Anthony Gnazzo.

#10611

Helen Callus

#178575

Overall Influence

Helen Callus is a British violist who teaches at Northwestern University. Callus studied with Ian Jewel at the Royal Academy of Music in London, earning an Honorary ARAM . She then continued her studies at the Peabody Conservatory, where she served as the teaching assistant to Paul Coletti. At age 26, she was appointed to the faculty of the University of Washington, where she taught for seven years before accepting a position at UCSB. In 2016, she accepted the position of Professor of Viola at Northwestern University's Bienen School of Music.

#10612

Roderick Watkins

#131150

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Roderick Watkins, DL is a composer and the Vice Chancellor at Anglia Ruskin University, England. He was appointed to the University in 2014 and served briefly as Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences. He was appointed as Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at Anglia Ruskin in 2015 before becoming Vice Chancellor in 2019. He was previously Professor of Composition and Contemporary Music at Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, England from 2005 to July 2014, where he was Programme Director for undergraduate Music and taught compositio...

#10613

Joseph Allard

#89082

Overall Influence

1910 - 1991 (81 years)

Joseph Allard was a professor of saxophone and clarinet at the Juilliard School, the New England Conservatory, and the Manhattan School of Music. He also held adjunct positions at many other schools. He succeeded Vincent J. Abato as the saxophone instructor at Juilliard in 1956 and held that position until the end of the 1983–84 school year. Allard was the first saxophonist with the NBC staff orchestra in New York City, and played on "Firestone Hour" and "Bell Telephone Hour" on TV and radio. He played with Red Nichols and the Five Pennies, played for a brief period with Red Norvo's orchestra...

#10614

Steve Moore

#147998

Overall Influence

Steve Moore is an American, New York–based multi-instrumentalist/producer/film composer, best known for his synthesizer and bass guitar work with Zombi. Moore also plays bass guitar for Brooklyn progressive rock band Titan, and has worked with Microwaves, Red Sparowes, Lair of the Minotaur, Ghost, Goblin, Maserati, Municipal Waste, Sally Shapiro and Panthers. Moore releases solo material as well, occasionally adopting pseudonyms . His solo work also includes film scores, predominantly low-budget horror films, and remixes for a wide range of artists including Washed Out, Lower Dens, Voivod and ...

#10615

Michael Tree

#175942

Overall Influence

1934 - 2018 (84 years)

Michael Tree , born Michael Applebaum, was an American violist. Biography Tree was born in Newark, New Jersey. His principal studies were with Efrem Zimbalist on violin and viola at the Curtis Institute of Music. Zimbalist insisted that Tree change his name from Applebaum to advance his career. Subsequent to his Carnegie Hall recital debut at the age of 20, Tree appeared as violin and viola soloist with major orchestras, including the Philadelphia, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and New Jersey. As a founding member of the Marlboro Trio and the Guarneri Quartet, he played throughout the world and recorded more than 80 chamber music works.

#10616

David Willison

#186543

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

David Willison is an English pianist. Between 1961 and 1999 he was the regular accompanist of the baritone Benjamin Luxon in recitals and recordings. David Willison's earliest performing experience was in the piano trio formed with his brothers John, a violinist and Peter, cellist. This group played nationwide for several years, and performed a series of Wigmore Hall concerts.

#10617

Victor Axelrod

#112087

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Victor Axelrod is an American musician, producer, and audio engineer from Brooklyn, New York. Since the mid-1990s, he has worked primarily in the genres of reggae, Afrobeat and soul, recording and producing under his own name and using the alias Ticklah.

#10618

Paula Ortiz

#103402

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Paula Ortiz Álvarez is a Spanish director, screenwriter and producer who works for Get in the Pictures Productions and Amapola Films, teaches Audiovisual Communication at the University of Barcelona, and collaborates with the University of San Jorge in Zaragoza.

#10619

John Hardy

#183239

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

John Hardy is an English-born composer who has been commissioned by the Arts Council/National Lottery, the BBC, Welsh National Opera and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, among others. His work includes opera, choral and orchestral pieces, site-specific theatre events and film.

#10620

Samuel Akpabot

#177117

Overall Influence

1932 - 2000 (68 years)

Samuel Akpabot was a Nigerian music composer, ethnomusicologist and author. Early life and education Samuel Ekpe Akpabot was born in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, to parents of Ibibio heritage. He was educated at Baptist Academy and King's College, Lagos; at the latter, he was classmates with Emeka Ojukwu, Lateef Jakande and Alex Ekwueme. During his time at King's College, he took up playing football, becoming captain of the college's team in his senior year. From King's College, he proceeded to work as a sports journalist with the Daily Times. His love for football continued in the 1980s a...

#10621

Roger Humphries

#172861

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Roger Humphries is an American jazz drummer. Born into a family of ten children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Humphries began playing drums at age four, and went professional at age 14. He led an ensemble at Carnegie Hall at age 16. Early in the 1960s, he began touring with jazz musicians; one of his more prominent gigs was in a trio with Stanley Turrentine and Shirley Scott in 1962. In 1964, he worked with Horace Silver, appearing on the album Song for My Father, where he played on four tracks, including the title tune and in 1965, Humphries performed on the Horace Silver album The Cape Verdean Blues with Silver, tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, trumpeter Woody Shaw, trombonist J.J.

#10622

Santiago Rodriguez

#166519

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Santiago Rodriguez is a Cuban-American pianist. Rodriguez is an exclusive recording artist for Élan Recordings. His Rachmaninov recordings received the Rosette award in The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music and he is a silver medalist in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

#10623

Tamara Afifi

#177555

Overall Influence

Tamara Dawn Afifi is a communications scholar who focuses on topics such as family communication, stress, and communication. She is one of the creators of the Theory of Resilience and Relational Load and is currently a professor in the department of communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the editor of Communication Monographs. As of June 2020, Afifi has an h-index of 25.

#10624

Carol Rosenberger

Carol Rosenberger

#170326

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Carol Rosenberger is a classical pianist. In 1976, Rosenberger was chosen to represent America's women concert artists by the President's National Commission on the Observance of International Women's Year. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide. Rosenberger recorded over 30 albums on the Delos Productions, Inc. recording label. Rosenberger's memoir, To Play Again: A Memoir of Musical Survival was published in 2018 by She Writes Press.

#10625

JoAnn Hackos

#123061

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

JoAnn T. Hackos is a lecturer, consultant, and author of a number of books about technical communication. Now retired, Hackos is the founder of the Center for Information-Development Management and the president emeritus of Comtech Services in Denver, Colorado. She is also a fellow and past president of the Society for Technical Communication. She is a member of the IEEE Standards Association and active in the ISO SC7 Working Groups that is developing standards for information developers. She is the co-author of the standards on content management and information-development management.

#10626

Halina Harelava

#186538

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Halina Kanstancinaŭna Harełava, also known as Galina Gorelova , is a Belarusian contemporary composer. Biography Harełava was born in Minsk, Byelorussian SSR , and studied music at the National Conservatory in Minsk with Dźmitry Smolski, graduating in 1977. After completing her studies, she took at position teaching theory and composition at the Conservatory. She received the State Prize of Belarus in 1992 for Anno mundis ardentis.

#10627

Grant Gershon

#143917

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Grant Gershon is a Grammy Award winning American conductor and pianist. He is Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, formerly Resident Conductor of the Los Angeles Opera, member of the Board of Councillors for the USC Thornton School of Music and a former member of the Chorus America Board of Directors.

#10628

Leonard Sharrow

#176525

Overall Influence

1915 - 2004 (89 years)

Leonard Sharrow was one of the foremost American bassoonists of the 20th Century. Born in New York City, he joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra when it was first organized, eventually becoming principal bassoonist ; he also served in the U.S. Army in World War II. In 1951 he moved to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the invitation of then-Music Director Rafael Kubelik and served in a similar position there until 1964, when he retired and joined the music faculty at Indiana University Bloomington. He spent many summers on the faculty of the Aspen Music Festival before joining the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra as co-principal bassoonist in 1977.

#10629

Eunice Alberts

#171733

Overall Influence

1927 - 2012 (85 years)

Eunice Alberts was an American contralto who had an active career as a concert soloist and opera singer during the 1950s through the 1980s. Early life and education Born in Boston, Alberts attended the Girls' Latin School in her native city during her youth; earning her diploma in 1940. Subsequently, she studied singing with Cleora Wood and Rosalie Miller at the Longy School of Music, earning a certificate in vocal performance. She also studied at the Tanglewood Music Center where she drew the attention of conductor Serge Koussevitzky.

#10630

Michelle Kaufmann

Michelle Kaufmann

#69897

Overall Influence

Michelle Kaufmann is an American architect and designer. In 2002, Kaufmann founded Michelle Kaufmann Designs, which designed and built single-family and multi-family green homes using prefabricated modular technology. The firm was closed in May 2009 and Kaufmann started a new design firm, Michelle Kaufmann Studio. Kaufmann is also a co-founder of Flux.io, a company developing collaborative design software for the building design and construction industry.

#10631

Simon Sargon

#173859

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Simon Sargon was a composer, pianist, conductor, music educator, and major creative figure in contemporary American Jewish music. His compositions include liturgical and secular pieces; opera and musical theatre; works for youth ensemble; choral and art song; and chamber ensemble and symphonic works.

#10632

Peter Child

#172127

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Peter Burlingham Child is an American composer, teacher, and musical analyst. He is Professor of Music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a composer in residence with the New England Philharmonic.

#10633

Zhai Xiangjun

#177661

Overall Influence

1939 - 2019 (80 years)

Zhai Xiangjun was a Chinese translator and educator, particularly known for his translation of Gone with the Wind and his university-level English textbooks. He was a professor and vice chair of foreign languages at Fudan University and served as vice president of Shanghai Translators' Association.

#10634

Marc Garellek

#186636

Overall Influence

Marc Garellek is a Canadian linguist and Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, San Diego. He is known for his works on phonetics and laboratory phonology. Select publications Daland, R., Hayes, B., White, J., Garellek, M., Davis, A., & Norrmann, I. . Explaining sonority projection effects. Phonology, 28, 197–234. doi:10.1017/S0952675711000145Garellek, M., & Keating, P. . The acoustic consequences of phonation and tone interactions in Jalapa Mazatec. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 41, 185–205. doi:10.1017/S0025100311000193Garellek, M. . Voice quality strengthening and glottalization.

#10635

Joji Hattori

#150514

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

is a Japanese violinist and conductor. Biography Born in Japan but raised in Vienna, Joji Hattori studied violin at the Vienna Academy of Music and sociology at St. Antony's College, Oxford University, and furthered his violin studies with violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Vladimir Spivakov. Joji Hattori's international soloist career started after winning the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in 1989. In 1999 Hattori decided to start a conducting career and in 2002 won a prize at the Maazel-Vilar Conductor's Competition which led to conducting engagements in New York.

#10636

Norman Charles Suckling

#185098

Overall Influence

1904 - 1994 (90 years)

Norman Charles Suckling was an English biographer, composer, pianist, and writer on music. Born in the Forest Gate neighborhood of London, he studied at the Bancroft's School in Woodford Green, Essex in his youth. He then entered The Queen's College, Oxford where he earned a diploma in History. He taught at Liverpool College before joining the faculty of King's College, Newcastle where he was a professor of the French language. He contributed articles to a number of periodicals and is the author of several books, including biographies on Gabriel Fauré and Molière.

#10637

Kevin Kenner

#170417

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Kevin Kenner is an American concert pianist. Biography At the age of 17, Kenner was a finalist at the X International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Ten years later, in 1990 he returned to Warsaw and achieved second place at the XII International Chopin Piano Competition and the Special Prize for the Best Performance of a Polonaise. No first prize was awarded that year. Earlier that year he won the third prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Other awards include the International Terence Judd Award , prize for Best Performance of Chamber Music at the 1989 Van Cl...

#10638

John Solum

#171174

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

John Solum is an American musician, author, educator, and advocate for the arts. Professional career Early years Settling in New York City in 1958, John Solum launched an international solo and chamber music career. Notable concert appearances include recitals at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the Frick Collection in New York, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 1962 he was the first flutist to be soloist at the newly inaugurated Lincoln Center in New York. He performed at the White House in Washington in 1970 for a presidential state dinner honoring the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

#10639

Melissa Hui

#179269

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Melissa Hui is a Chinese-Canadian composer and pianist. She was born in 1966 in Hong Kong and currently resides in Montreal where she has been a faculty member at McGill University since 2010. Notable works by this artist include and blue sparks burn for violin and piano, Common Ground for orchestra, and San Rocco for oboe d'amore, SATB chamber choir, and chimes.

#10640

John Gray

#132117

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

John Gray is an American writer, director, producer. He is the creator of the CBS television series Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt. He has written and directed feature movies as well.

#10641

Ruby Lin

#150988

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Ruby Lin Xin-ru is a Taiwanese actress, television and film producer, and pop singer. American entertainment critic Derek Elley named Lin as "Taiwan's TV Drama Queen". 3 years after Lin made her acting debut in a TV commercial, she rose to national and regional prominence overnight for her role as Xia Ziwei in the TV series My Fair Princess 还珠格格 . My Fair Princess was highly popular in East and Southeast countries; launching Lin as a household name in Asia. She followed the success with other hit series including The Duke of Mount Deer , Romance in the Rain , Boy & Girl , Affair of Half a Lif...

#10642

Edgar Evans

#184460

Overall Influence

1912 - 2007 (95 years)

Edgar Evans was a Welsh opera singer. His most famous role was Hermann in Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Evans was born in Cwrtnewydd, Cardiganshire, Wales. In all, he sang some 45 roles – most of them major ones – at Covent Garden from 1946 – when, as one of its three principal tenors, he became a founder member of the Covent Garden Opera Company – to his retirement in 1975. In that time, he sang more roles and more performances at the Opera House than any other artist.

#10643

Markus Zahnhausen

#174761

Overall Influence

1965 - 2022 (57 years)

Markus Zahnhausen was a German recorder player and composer. Life Born in Saarbrücken, Zahnhausen studied at the with Hermann Elsner. He also learned Slavic studies and musicology at the University of Trier and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

#10644

Shirlee Emmons

#176215

Overall Influence

1923 - 2010 (87 years)

Shirlee Emmons was an American classical soprano, voice teacher, and author on vocal pedagogy. She began her career in the early 1940s as a concert soprano, eventually becoming one of the original singers in the Robert Shaw Chorale in 1948. She branched out into opera in the 1950s; performing mainly with regional companies in the United States. She achieved several honours as a performer, including winning the Marian Anderson Award in 1953 and an Obie Award in 1956.

#10645

Rahul Raj

#142895

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Rahul Raj is an Indian music composer. He has composed and produced scores and soundtracks predominantly for Malayalam movies. He is an alumnus of the prestigious Berklee College of Music and holds a postgraduate degree in scoring for films, TV and video games.

#10646

José Feghali

#178627

Overall Influence

1961 - 2014 (53 years)

José Feghali was a Brazilian pianist, who, until his death, was an Artist-in-Residence at Texas Christian University's school of music in piano. He was the gold medalist winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1985.

#10647

Jeff Gralnick

#175329

Overall Influence

1939 - 2011 (72 years)

Jeff Gralnick was a television journalist 47 years, as well as a professor of new media at Columbia University and Fairfield University. Gralnick served as a news consultant for NBC until his death. His experience includes: reporting on the field in Vietnam for CBS News. He served as a vice president and Executive Producer for ABC's World News Tonight, as an Executive Producer of NBC's Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and as an Executive overlooking the creation of ABCNews.com. He covered the astronaut Alan Shepard's mission in 1961, produced the coverage for every U.S. space flight through Apol...

#10648

Leigh Landy

#120938

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Leigh Landy is a composer and musicologist of Dutch and American citizenship. He holds a Research Chair at De Montfort University where he directs the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre.

#10649

Antonio Méndez Esparza

#185221

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Antonio Méndez Esparza is a Spanish filmmaker based in the United States. He teaches at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture Arts. Life and career Méndez Esparza was born in Madrid, where he obtained a law degree. He studied filmmaking at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at Columbia University, where he received an MFA.

#10650

Joji Yuasa

#117200

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Joji Yuasa is a Japanese composer of contemporary classical music. Early life and education Joji Yuasa was born in Kōriyama, Fukushima and is a self-taught composer. He first became interested in music while a pre medical student at Keio University, and in 1952 he joined a young artists’ group Jikken Kobo in Tokyo, an organization for the exploration of new directions in the arts, including multimedia.

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