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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Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#11051

Nikka Costa

#171532

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Domenica "Nikka" Costa is an American singer whose music combines elements of pop, soul, and blues. She also had a career as a child singer starting in the early 1980s. She is the daughter of music producer Don Costa.

#11052

Edith Borroff

#183984

Overall Influence

1925 - 2019 (94 years)

Edith Borroff was an American musicologist and composer. Her compositions include over 60 commissioned works, including pieces for the stage; for her primary instrument—the organ; choral, vocal, and orchestral music; and several critical editions of works by previous composers such as Jubilate by J.-J. Cassanéa de Mondonville . She also wrote at least 7 books, including the textbook Music in Europe and the United States: a History , as well as various peer-reviewed articles and publications.

#11053

Monica Ulmanu

#190078

Overall Influence

Monica Ulmanu is a Romanian journalist and graphics editor. She has worked as a graphics editor for The Washington Post since 2018, where she has specialised in working on climate and health-related topics.

#11054

Johannes P. M. van der Ploeg

#108492

Overall Influence

1909 - 2004 (95 years)

Johannes Petrus Maria "Jan" van der Ploeg was a Dutch Dominican specialist in Hebrew, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Syriac manuscript research. He was Professor of Old Testament and Semitic studies at the Catholic University of Nijmegen from 1951 to 1979, after which time he spent most of his time in Kerala. He was raised to the dignity of chorbishop in the Syriac Catholic Church in 1963.

#11055

Alan Stout

#183988

Overall Influence

1932 - 2018 (86 years)

Alan Burrage Stout Jr was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Stout studied at Johns Hopkins University and at the Peabody Conservatory. His instructors included Henry Cowell, Wallingford Riegger, John Verrall, and Vagn Holmboe, the latter at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark for a year. He then studied at the University of Washington, obtaining a M.A. in 1959.

#11056

Linda Aldoory

#121549

Overall Influence

Linda Aldoory is an American academic administrator and heath communications professor. She has served as the dean of the American University College of Arts and Sciences and a professor of health studies since July 2022.

#11057

Kathy Smith

#175217

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Kathy Smith is an Australian independent animator, painter, new media artist, and Professor with the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Smith chaired the John C. Hench Division of Animation & Digital Arts from 2004 - 2009 & 2010 - 2014.

#11058

Elliot Silverstein

#168253

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (99 years)

Elliot Silverstein was an American film and television director. He directed the Academy Award-winning western comedy Cat Ballou , and other films including The Happening , A Man Called Horse , Nightmare Honeymoon , and The Car . His television work includes four episodes of The Twilight Zone .

#11059

David Boe

#176131

Overall Influence

1936 - 2020 (84 years)

David Stephen Boe was an American organist and head of the organ department of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where he taught from 1962 to 2008. He was most notable for his work as a pedagogue, having trained a large number of organists during his time at the conservatory.

#11060

William Snyder

#187925

Overall Influence

#11061

Greg Lyne

#53238

Overall Influence

Dr. Greg Lyne was an American choral director, arranger, composer and vocal educator. Lyne worked full-time as a coach for choruses and quartets and as a clinician for musical ensembles of all types. He conducted over 300 Festival and All-State Choirs throughout the US, including Alaska and Hawaii, and in Canada, England, Scotland and Russia. In Russia, he presented master classes at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music to European musicians. Lyne is the only American listed in the Russian version of Who's Who. He also served as a guest conductor of the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.

#11062

Garry L. Hagberg

#144775

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Garry L. Hagberg is an author, professor, philosopher, and jazz musician, He is currently the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics at Bard College. Career He received his B.A., M.A. and Ph. D. at the University of Oregon and conducted his postdoctoral research at Cambridge University.

#11063

Max Lifchitz

#171451

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Max Lifchitz is a classical pianist, composer, and conductor. Lifchitz was born and grew up in Mexico City. After one year of study in Mexico, he moved to the United States in 1966 and graduated from The Juilliard School of Music and Harvard University. He has appeared in concert and recital throughout the US, Latin America and Europe. In 1980, he founded the North/South Consonance Ensemble, which is dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music from the Americas; he serves as the ensemble's director.

#11064

Roy Rogers

#59060

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Roy Rogers is an American blues rock slide guitarist and record producer. He was named after the singing cowboy. Rogers plays a variety of guitar styles related to the Delta blues, but is most often recognized for his virtuoso slide work.

#11065

Phoebe Carrai

#182836

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Phoebe Carrai is an American cellist. Carrai studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where she earned both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. In 1979, Carrai undertook post-graduate studies in Historical Performance Practice with Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria.

#11066

Aaron Cassidy

#177129

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Aaron Cassidy is an American composer. Education Cassidy was born in Illinois. He received a Bachelor of Music degree, with distinction, from the Northwestern University Bienen School of Music in Evanston, Illinois, where his main instructors in composition were Jay Alan Yim, Alan Stout, and Michael Pisaro. He went on to study composition with David Felder and Jeffery Stadelman at the State University of New York at Buffalo where he received a Ph.D. in composition in 2003. He also participated in masterclass and lessons with composers including Richard Barrett, Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyho...

#11067

Rohit Sharma

#178307

Overall Influence

Rohit Sharma is an Indian film composer, most famously known for being the music director of the film The Kashmir Files. His film composing career began during the early 2010s when he composed the song 'Naham Janami' which was featured in the critically acclaimed film Ship Of Theseus. Since then, he has composed music for films such as Buddha in a Traffic Jam , Anaarkali of Aarah , The Tashkent Files , The Kashmir Files and more. In the OTT space, Rohit Sharma has worked on prominent titles such as Aspirants by The Viral Fever and Maharani 2 among others.http://Vishaloppo.blogspot.com

#11068

Bahira Abdulatif

Bahira Abdulatif

#102889

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Bahira Abdulatif Yasin is an Iraqi writer, translator and professor living in Madrid. She's an associate professor at Autonomous University of Madrid's Arabic and Islamic Studies department. An expert in Spanish philology, Abdulatif has also served in the Faculty of Languages at the University of Baghdad. She came to Madrid after United Nations imposed Sanctions against Iraq following its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. She has also taught at Complutense University of Madrid, University of Salamanca and written fictional works in Arabic.

#11069

Abd Al-Ali Wadghiri

#179448

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Abd Al-Ali Wadghiri Moroccan academic, writer and linguist, born on January 20, 1944, in the outskirts of Fez, Morocco His biography He studied in cities: Fez, Rabat and Paris, he obtained a BA in Arabic literature in 1970, and a doctorate in the third corps in 1976,state doctorate in Arabic language and literature in 1986. He continued his postgraduate studies at the Sorbonne universities in Paris and Muhammad ben Abdullah university in Fez, and Mohammed V University in Rabat. He worked as a professor of secondary and university education in the Faculties of Arts in Fez and Rabat. He also wor...

#11070

Robert Trehy

#176801

Overall Influence

1921 - 2009 (88 years)

Robert F. Trehy was an American baritone who had an active career singing in operas, concerts, and recitals during the 1940s through the 1980s. Early life and education Born in New York City, Trehy was the son of James and Julia Kighery Trehy. He had three brothers, William, James and John, and one sister, Mary. He graduated from Xavier High School and then served in the United States armed forces during World War II. Following the war, he entered the Mannes School of Music where he was a voice major. He then pursued further studies in singing in Vienna, and apprenticed in opera studies in Europe.

#11071

Martha Blackman

#185438

Overall Influence

1927 - 2021 (94 years)

Martha Elizabeth Blackman was an American viola da gamba player and lutenist. Biography Blackman was born in Dallas, Texas. She studied cello at the Juilliard School under Leonard Rose. Receiving a Fulbright Scholarship , she studied the viola da gamba, first in Munich and then at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. She returned to the USA in 1954 and appeared as a leading gamba soloist, and also joining the New York Pro Musica working under Noah Greenberg from 1954 to 1961, during which she did most of her recording. Together with Paul Maynard and Bernard Krainis, she formed the New York Pro...

#11072

Ramnad Raghavan

#175499

Overall Influence

1927 - 2009 (82 years)

Ramnad V. Raghavan was a player of the mridangam. He was born in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, to P. Vaidyanatha Ayyar of Kooniyur, Tirunelveli district, and Brhannayaki. His elder brother Ramnad Krishnan was a famous Carnatic vocalist.

#11073

Bill Cole

#173494

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

William Shadrack Cole is an American jazz musician, ethnomusicologist, professor of music, professor of African-American studies, and author. As All About Jazz jazz journalist Dan McClenaghan put it, "Cole – a rare breed of jazz artist who has focused his efforts on uniting Eastern sounds with the American art form – is a musical seeker who has, over the better part of four decades [since 1974], mastered an array of non-traditional, non-Western [wind] instruments." Cole specializes in the Ghanaian atenteben, the Chinese suona, the Korean hojok and piri, the South Indian nagaswaram, the North Indian shehnai, the Tibetan trumpet, and the Australian didjeridu.

#11074

Selim Giray

#128595

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Selim Giray is a Turkish-American violinist, researcher, clinician and conductor. Biography Giray was born in Istanbul to Crimean Tatar parents. Giray is director of orchestral studies at University of Mississippi. Previously, he served as assistant professor of music education and violin pedagogy at Wichita State University School of Music . Between 2007 and 2015, he served as concertmaster of The Ohio Light Opera, where he performed for 20,000 patrons each season and has been featured on eight CDs for Albany Records. Giray served as associate professor of violin, viola and artistic director...

#11075

Mark Nicolson

#182523

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Mark Nicolson is an American tenor opera singer residing in New York City. Mark Nicolson was born in Galesburg, Illinois and grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where he attended Bradley University. He subsequently studied at University of North Texas College of Music and Indiana University, where he studied with bel-canto soprano, Virginia Zeani and bass, Nicola Rossi-Lemeni. He later studied with tenor legends Franco Corelli and James King. In New York, he won the Liederkranz Competition, received a Citation of Excellence from the Birgit Nilsson Prize Competition, won five study grants from the New York Wagner Society, and received a fellowship from Jerome Hines Opera-Music Theatre Institute.

#11076

Bonnie Gritton

#177383

Overall Influence

Bonnie Gritton is an American classical pianist. As well as performing in concert, she teaches piano performance and pedagogy at the University of Utah. Dr. Gritton made her debut performance at age 15, when she played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, accompanied by the Utah Symphony Orchestra. She has performed in concerts in Europe, Israel, and the U.S. Recent tours have taken her to Greece, Spain and Hawaii.

#11077

Ezra Schabas

#174750

Overall Influence

1924 - 2020 (96 years)

Ezra Schabas, was a Canadian musician, educator and author. He was active in Canada's musical life beginning in 1952, when he emigrated from Cleveland with his family. During his time in Canada, he was a leading musical educator, clarinetist, and administrator in Toronto's musical institutions. He wrote several books on Canadian and American musical history, and he was appointed to the Order of Ontario and made a Member of the Order of Canada.

#11078

James Murphy

#107892

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

James Franklin Murphy is an American guitarist. He is best known for his work in metal bands Cancer, Obituary, Death and Testament. He founded Disincarnate, an early death metal band. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2001 but recovered. In October 2011, Murphy stated that the tumor had returned but that it was non-cancerous and that it was being treated pharmacologically. He is working on a tribute album to Death founder Chuck Schuldiner who died from pneumonia, caused by complications of his treatment for a brain tumor. He also produced Deron Miller's band World Under Blood. He also co...

#11079

Pascal Pons

#187559

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Pascal Pons, born on 9 November 1968 in Nice, is a French percussionist. Biography A specialist in contemporary repertoire, French percussionist Pascal Pons has worked in close collaboration with several composers. Dedicatee of “Phosphor”, a concerto for percussion and orchestra by Johannes Schöllhorn, he performed the world première in Basel and the German première in Freiburg in April 2006 with the Basel Sinfonieta under the direction of Cristóbal Halffter, and he reprised this work in October 2006 with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège conducted by Pascal Rophé for the French première a...

#11080

Edan Everly

#174895

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Edan Donald Everly is an American musician and singer-songwriter. Early life Everly is the son of Don Everly and nephew to Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers. His mother is actress Venetia Stevenson. His siblings are sisters Stacy Everly and Erin Everly; he has a half sister, Venetia Everly. His maternal grandparents were the director Robert Stevenson and actress Anna Lee. His paternal grandparents were Ike and Margaret Everly.

#11081

Feng Xiaogang

#173595

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Feng Xiaogang is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, actor, producer and politician. He is well known in China as a highly successful commercial filmmaker whose comedy films do consistently well at the box office, although Feng has broken out from that mold by making some drama and period drama films. Feng was a member of the 12th National Committee of the CPPCC.

#11082

Amadeus Webersinke

#178783

Overall Influence

1920 - 2005 (85 years)

Amadeus Webersinke was a German pianist and organist. Webersinke studied from at the Institut für Kirchenmusik in Leipzig with Karl Straube, Johann Nepomuk David, and Otto Weinreich. He was a lecturer at the Felix Mendelssohn College of Music and Theatre. Until 1953, he worked mainly as an organist, and later only as a pianist.

#11083

Leonard Hokanson

#175143

Overall Influence

1931 - 2003 (72 years)

Leonard Hokanson was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Early life and education Born in Vinalhaven, Maine, he attended Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and Bennington College in Vermont, where he received a master of arts degree with a major in music. He made his concert debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the age of eighteen. He was drafted into the U.S. Army after graduate school, and in December 1955, he was a private performing in the 11th Airborne Division Band at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Later, he was posted to Augs...

#11084

Johann Helton

#172841

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Johann Helton is a guitarist, bassist, teacher and sound engineer currently residing in Boise, Idaho. For 20 years he was a member of the folk group The Highwaymen. He has recorded five CDs of original material and appears on five Highwaymen albums. He is an adjunct professor of guitar at Boise State University. Idaho Statesman Entertainment Editor Michael Deeds has referred to Helton as one of "Idaho's long-loved guitarists".

#11085

Aleksey Nasedkin

#179390

Overall Influence

1942 - 2014 (72 years)

Alexei Nasedkin was a Russian pianist and composer. Nasedkin showed a talent for music at a young age, composing an opera at age 7, The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish , and performing in public at age 9. He attended the Central Music School in Moscow from 1949 to 1961, where his teachers included Anna Artobolevskaya. From 1961 to 1966, he studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where his piano teachers included Heinrich Neuhaus and Lev Naumov. He was also a composition student of Sergei Balasanyan at the conservatory. He was a sixth-prize winner at the 1962 International Tchaikovsky Comp...

#11086

Valentin Bibik

#186463

Overall Influence

1940 - 2003 (63 years)

Valentin Savich Bibik was a Ukrainian composer, teacher and professor. Honored Artist of Ukraine. Biography In 1966, Valentin Bibik graduated from the Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University of Arts, with Dmitri Klebanov.

#11087

Claudia Pinza Bozzolla

#169917

Overall Influence

1925 - 2017 (92 years)

Claudia Pinza Bozzolla was an Argentine-American operatic soprano, vocal coach, and voice teacher of Italian origin. As a singer she performed in operas throughout Italy and the United States, including appearances at La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, and the San Francisco Opera.

#11088

Zuill Bailey

#125861

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is a celebrated, Grammy Award-winning American cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxing...

#11089

Hyo Kang

#150477

Overall Influence

Hyo Kang has had a distinguished and versatile career as violinist, teacher and artistic director for the past five decades. Currently, he is on the faculty of the Juilliard School , and Yale School of Music . In the past, Mr. Kang was on the faculties of the Aspen Music School in Colorado from 1978–2005 and the Japan-Aspen Music Festival in Nagano, Japan from 1994-97. His students have distinguished themselves with top prizes at the world’s most prestigious competitions and are performing with major orchestras worldwide. Mr. Kang’s former students include David Chan, Gil Shaham, Sarah Chang, ...

#11090

Fabio Terribile

#184836

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Fabio Terribile is an Italian agricultural scientist and professor at the University of Naples Federico II. He is a pedologist and coordinator of the EU project Landsupport. Life and work After completing his degree in agricultural sciences at the University of Naples Federico II , he earned a doctorate in philosophy in soil science at the University of Aberdeen with a research thesis in pedology with his dissertation on the characterization of two Italian vertisoles with a focus on light and Electron Microscopy, Clay Mineralogy, and Image Analysis . This was followed by activities as a res...

#11091

Kari Suomi

#188054

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Kari Suomi was a Finnish linguist who was an assistant professor from 1985 to 2012 in the Department of Phonetics at the University of Oulu. He has researched English, Swedish and Finnish phonology. His textbook Introduction to Speech Acoustics has been used for university teaching in Finnish phonetics, speech therapy and vocology since 1990.

#11092

Joan Myers Brown

#101016

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Joan Myers Brown is an American dance instructor. Early life and education Brown is the only child of Nellie Lewis, a nuclear scientist, and Julius Myers, a chef and restaurateur, born on 25 December 1931 in Philadelphia. Native to both Philadelphia and North Carolina, she grew up mainly on 47th Street and Paschall Avenue of Southwest Philadelphia.

#11093

Christopher Young

#177745

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Christopher Young is an American composer and orchestrator of film and television scores. Many of his compositions are for horror and thriller films, including Hellraiser, Species, Urban Legend, The Grudge, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Drag Me to Hell, Sinister, Deliver Us from Evil and Pet Sematary. Other works include Rapid Fire, Copycat, Set It Off, Entrapment, The Hurricane, Swordfish, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 3 and The Shipping News, for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

#11094

Andréa Sardinha Taschetto

#187104

Overall Influence

Andréa Sardinha Taschetto or A. S. Taschetto; Andréa Taschetto is a climate change scientist at the University of New South Wales, and winner of the Dorothy Hill award. She was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in 2016. Her research has contributed to improved understanding of the role of oceans, on climate variability at regional scales, and from seasonal to mulit-decade timescales. This research also has assisted with future climate projections.

#11095

Herbert Thomas Mandl

Herbert Thomas Mandl

#174142

Overall Influence

1926 - 2007 (81 years)

Herbert Thomas Mandl was a Czechoslovak-German-Jewish author, concert violinist, professor of music, philosopher, inventor and lecturer. He authored novels, stories and dramas that are inspired by the extraordinary events of his life.

#11096

Alcides Lanza

#170573

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Alcides Emigdio Lanza , known professionally as alcides lanza, is a Canadian composer, conductor, pianist, and music educator of Argentinian birth. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1976. As both a composer and performer he is known as an exponent of contemporary classical music and avant-garde music. His works often utilize a combination of traditional and unusual instruments, and incorporate electronic sounds and extensions. He is also known for using special lighting effects when presenting his music. Many of his compositions are published by Boosey & Hawkes, and lanza himself owns his own publishing company, Shelan Editions.

#11097

Julian Wachner

#177236

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Julian James Wachner is an American composer, conductor, and keyboardist. From 2011 to 2022, he served as the Director of Music and the Arts at Trinity Wall Street, conducting the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra, and NOVUS NY. Wachner recorded five albums with these ensembles, primarily for the Musica Omnia label. From 2008 to 2017, he served as the Director of The Washington Chorus. In March 2018, Wachner was named Artistic Director of the Grand Rapids Bach Festival, an affiliate of the Grand Rapids Symphony, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

#11098

Hermann Haller

#168874

Overall Influence

1914 - 2002 (88 years)

Hermann Haller was a Swiss composer. Life Hermann Haller was born in Burgdorf, Switzerland. His uncle was the sculptor Hermann Haller. After his matura in 1933 he studied at the conservatory of Zurich: Volkmar Andreae, Paul Müller-Zürich and Rudolf Wittelsbach were his teachers. In 1938–39 he studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.

#11099

Álvaro Pierri

#183918

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Álvaro Pierri is a classical guitarist. He is a professor at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. He received his early musical education from his mother, Ada Estades and aunt, Olga Pierri, on the guitar. Later he studied with Abel Carlevaro, the composer Guido Santórsola at the Uruguayan National Institute of Musicology.

#11100

Nader Mashayekhi

Nader Mashayekhi

#179563

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Nader Mashayekhi is an Iranian composer. From 2006 to July 2007 he was conductor of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. He is the son of Jamshid Mashayekhi. Mashayekhi studied under Roman Haubenstock-Ramati at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.

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