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,

#11701

Dennis Trembly

#181991

Overall Influence

Dennis Trembly is Professor of string bass at the University of Southern California. He is also one of two principal bassists for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Musical history Trembly learned to play the double bass with the help of David Borkenhagen, John Palacios, Peter Mercurio, and Nat Gangursky. Just before his senior year in high school, Trembly studied with Stuart Sankey at the Aspen School of Music on a full scholarship, and the following three years continued this collaboration at the Juilliard School on a Naumberg scholarship.

#11702

Rick Gentile

#182799

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Rick Gentile is an American television, radio, and digital media sports program producer and executive. He had been a broadcaster and CBS Sports’ Executive Producer and Senior Vice President. Gentile won 10 Emmy Awards for his work with CBS.

#11703

Dmitry Paperno

#187033

Overall Influence

1929 - 2020 (91 years)

Dmitry Paperno was a Soviet and American concert pianist. In 1955, Paperno won 6th Prize in the V International Chopin Piano Competition, and then recorded and performed widely throughout the Soviet Union. He attended the Moscow Conservatory where he studied under Alexander Goldenweiser. Paperno recorded for Melodiya and prior to recording with Cedille Records. Paperno became a tenured professor at DePaul University after moving to the United States in 1976. He is the author of the book Notes of a Moscow Pianist.

#11704

Lauren Wolkstein

Lauren Wolkstein

#176234

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Lauren Wolkstein is an American film director, writer, producer and editor. She is known for directing, writing, and editing the 2017 film The Strange Ones with Christopher Radcliff and serving on the directorial team for the third season of Ava DuVernay's Queen Sugar, which she followed with a producing director role in the fifth season. She is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia.

#11705

Michael Kugel

#181321

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Michael Kugel is a Ukrainian viola player and composer. Biography Born in Kharkiv, USSR, he studied at the Beethoven School of Music, at the Music College in Kharkiv and later at the Leningrad Conservatory.

#11706

Bill Brown

#169209

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Bill Brown IV is an American composer known for creating music for several video games and films. He is best known for his work on Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, composing the system sounds as well as music for the tour software. His father was renowned New York City radio disc jockey, Bill Brown .

#11707

Alex McLean

#147112

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Alex McLean is a British musician and researcher. He is notable for his key role in developing live coding as a musical practice, including for creating TidalCycles, a live-coding environment that allows programmer musicians to code simply and quickly, and for coining the term Algorave with Nick Collins.

#11708

Midori Matsuya

#186031

Overall Influence

1943 - 1994 (51 years)

Midori Matsuya, 松谷翠 was a Japanese pianist, graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, studied under Kichigoro Sato, Noboru Toyomasu, Naoya Fukai and Lay Lev. His father was a Japanese Jazz pianist, Minoru Matsuya . He taught him how to play the piano since he was a child. He was brought up in an environment to learn both classical and jazz music since his childhood. Also, he learned harmony and composition under Roh Ogura in Kamakura.

#11709

Franco Oppo

#181639

Overall Influence

1935 - 2016 (81 years)

Franco Oppo was an Italian composer and scholar. Born in Nuoro, Oppo studied at the Conservatory of Cagliari, graduating in piano , choral music and choral conducting , and composition . Since 1965 he won several international composition competitions. He was professor of composition and experimental composition at the Conservatory of Cagliari and professor of music theory at the Cagliari University.

#11710

Shashwati Talukdar

#179726

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Shashwati Talukdar is an India-born academic-filmmaker based in New York City, with more than twelve films and videos to her name, and who has become well known on the international film-making stage, particularly for her documentaries on cultural identity and representation.

#11711

Frances Greer

#186202

Overall Influence

1917 - 2005 (88 years)

Frances Greer was an American soprano. A leading performer at the Metropolitan Opera and the Philadelphia Opera Company, she recorded 13 albums, mostly musical operettas with RCA Victor, and made several concert appearances at Carnegie Hall. For many years she was the featured singer on CBS’s Friday evening radio program, Musicland USA.

#11712

Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie

Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie

#168170

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie is a Seminole-Muscogee-Navajo photographer, museum director, curator, and professor. She is living in Davis, California. She serves as the director of the C.N. Gorman Museum and teaches at University of California, Davis.

#11713

Claes-Håkan Ahnsjö

#187519

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Claes-Håkan Ahnsjö is a Swedish operatic tenor particularly associated with the baroque repertoire and Mozart works. Life and career Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Ahnsjö first obtained a degree in teaching before turning to musical studies in 1967. He joined the Opera School of the Royal Swedish Opera with private studies with Erik Saedén, Aksel Schiøtz and Max Lorenz. He made his debut at the Royal Swedish Opera in 1969, as Tamino in The Magic Flute, later singing Belmonte, Idamante, Don Ottavio and Ferrando. From 1969, he also became a regular at the summer opera festival at Drottningholm Pala...

#11714

Aaron Wyatt

#184031

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Aaron Wyatt is a Noongar man, viola player, composer and conductor from Perth, Western Australia. Wyatt is recognised as the first Australian First Nations person to conduct one of the major orchestras in Australia, conducting the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's performance of “Long Time Living Here” by Deborah Cheetham.

#11715

David Cullen

#123948

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

David Thompson Cullen is an American guitarist, composer, and arranger of various styles of guitar music, including classical, jazz, and world music. He is an artist in residence at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

#11716

Tofig Bakikhanov

Tofig Bakikhanov

#172695

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Tofig Ahmed-agha oglu Bakikhanov is a composer. He was awarded the title People's Artiste of the Azerbaijan SSR . Biography Tofig Bakikhanov, a descendant of Baku khans, was born on 8 December 1930 in Baku, in the family of Ahmed–agha Bakikhanov, People's Artist of Azerbaijan. He began his musical activity as a violinist. In 1953, Bakikhanov graduated from the Azerbaijan State Conservatory specializing in violin, where Fikret Amirov was his teacher. In 1957, he majored in music composing, where his teacher was another prominent Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev.

#11717

Günter Neubert

#182484

Overall Influence

1936 - 2021 (85 years)

Günter Neubert is a German composer and tonmeister. Life Born in Crimmitschau, Saxony, after his Abitur at a secondary school in Crimmitschau in 1954, Neubert studied school music at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig from 1954 to 1955 and from 1955 to 1960 sound engineering at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler". He completed his studies in 1960 with the Staatsexamen and diploma. From 1959 to 1965 he was a guest auditor with Rudolf Wagner-Régeny. From 1965 to 1967 he was its aspirant and acquired the teaching qualification for music theory at the Berlin Musikhochschule. From 196...

#11718

James Houlik

#170309

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

James Houlik is an American classical tenor saxophonist and saxophone teacher. Family life Houlik is married for the third time, and has fathered four children. He has four grand children and four daughters.

#11719

Ernst-Wiggo Sandbakk

#187690

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Ernst-Wiggo Sandbakk is a Norwegian jazz musician and music tescher. Known from a series of concerts, festival performances and records with the likes of DumDum Boys, Thorgeir Stubø, Frode Alnæs, Palle Mikkelborg, Terje Bjørklund, Vigleik Storaas, Bjørn Alterhaug, Nils Petter Molvær, Knut Riisnæs, John Pål Inderberg, Sondre Meisfjord, Jan Gunnar Hoff, Kjersti Stubø and Henning Sommerro.

#11720

Ronald Muldrow

#187518

Overall Influence

1949 - 2007 (58 years)

Ronald Muldrow was a soul jazz and hard bop jazz guitarist. As an emerging jazz guitarist in the early 1970s, Muldrow connected with soul-jazz saxophonist Eddie Harris and contributed to many of his Atlantic albums from 1971 to 1976 and reunited with the saxophonist on Listen Here .

#11721

Iulian Chifu

#111627

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Iulian Chifu is a Romanian foreign policy analyst and former presidential adviser. Biography Iulian Chifu was born on 28 July 1968 in Iași, Romania. Chifu was an advisor to the former President of Romania Traian Băsescu on strategic issues and international security.

#11722

Josef Wallnig

#181236

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Josef Wallnig is an Austrian conductor. He studied piano and composition at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Mozarteum in Salzburg, and also studied piano, composition, and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien.

#11723

Alan Fletcher

#180406

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Alan Fletcher is president and CEO of the Aspen Music Festival and School and a music administrator and composer. He came to Aspen in March 2006 from the positions of Head of the School of Music and Professor of Music at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he had been since 2001, and before that from leadership and faculty positions including provost and senior vice president at the New England Conservatory, where he was engaged for 16 years. He holds doctorate and master's degrees from The Juilliard School and a bachelor's degree from Princeton University, and has studied with distinguished composers such as Roger Sessions, Milton Babbitt, Edward T.

#11724

Konstantia Gourzi

#187818

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Konstantía Gourzí is a Greek composer and conductor. She is professor of ensemble conducting and new music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. Life and studies Born in Athens, Konstantia Gourzi received her first piano lessons at the age of seven. At thirteen, she joined the conservatorium in Athens, where she studied composition and conducting as well as piano. From 1987 to 1992, she continued her studies at Hochschule der Künste Berlin. There, she founded her first ensemble attaca berlin.

#11725

Gloria Wilson Swisher

#186985

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Gloria Wilson Swisher was an American composer, music educator and pianist. She died July 23, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. Biography Gloria Wilson Swisher was born in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle where she received a Bachelor of Music, summa cum laude, Mills College in Oakland, California, where she earned a Master of Music in composition and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where she earned a Ph.D. in 1960. She studied composition under John Verrall, Darius Milhaud, Bernard Rogers, and Howard Hanson. She was a member of Th...

#11726

Henry Gibson

#157408

Overall Influence

1942 - 2002 (60 years)

"Master" Henry Gibson was an American percussionist, appearing on about 1200 albums, spanning a career of four decades. Born in the United States, Gibson began playing on the streets of Chicago. While a young man, he performed for Operation Push with Rev. Jesse Jackson. Later, he became an integral member of Phil Cohran's Artistic Heritage Ensemble. Gibson also played and recorded with the jazz ensemble Odell Brown and the Organizers. He spent a lot of time in Chicago recording studios, which allowed him to be noticed and picked up by professional musicians who took him on tour. Eventually, he began playing and recording with well-known artists such as Donny Hathaway and Curtis Mayfield.

#11727

Siegfried Kurz

#172312

Overall Influence

1930 - 2023 (93 years)

Siegfried Kurz was a German conductor, composer and academic. He influenced the musical scene of Dresden, as the conductor of the Semperoper for three decades, and a professor of conducting at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber. He conducted the world premiere of Udo Zimmermann's .

#11728

Rolf Martinsson

#185502

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Rolf Martinsson is a Swedish composer. Martinsson studied composition at Malmö Academy of Music, Lund University 1981-85 under Brian Ferneyhough, Sven-David Sandström, Hans Eklund, Sven-Eric Johanson, Jan W. Morthenson and Sven-Erik Bäck. Since 1987 he has taught composition and arranging at the same academy.

#11729

Minoru Nojima

#185555

Overall Influence

1945 - 2022 (77 years)

Minoru Nojima was a Japanese classical pianist. At the time of his death he was President of the Tokyo College of Music. Biography Minoru Nojima was a child prodigy in Japan, won a major nationwide competition there as a teenager, studied with Lev Oborin in Moscow and then with Constance Keene and Abram Chasins in New York City, and burst upon the international music scene as a second prize winner of the Van Cliburn piano competition in 1969. Although known and highly respected amongst pianists as a "pianist's pianist," he was not well known to most music lovers, largely because he did not lik...

#11730

Erica Dambach

#180565

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Erica Marie Dambach is an American college soccer coach. She is the head coach of Penn State Nittany Lions women's soccer. She led Penn State to the 2015 National Championship. She is a two-time NSCAA Coach of the Year, winning the award in 2012 and 2015.

#11731

Taimur Rahman

#149661

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Taimur Rahman is a Pakistani college professor, political activist and musician who is the Secretary-General of the Mazdoor Kisan Party , formerly Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party . He is the lead guitarist and spokesperson for the progressive music band Laal. He has taught political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences since 2002. He also taught economics at the Lahore School of Economics from 1998 to 2003.

#11732

Roberto Díaz

#177864

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Roberto Díaz is a Chilean-American violist, and the president/director of the Curtis Institute of Music, of which he is an alumnus. From 1996 to 2006 he held the position of principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has been principal viola of the National Symphony under Mstislav Rostropovich, a member of the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, and a member of the Minnesota Orchestra under Neville Marriner. He is the violist in the Díaz Trio, which includes cellist Andrés Díaz and violinist Andrés Cárdenes, former concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

#11733

John Garvey

#186203

Overall Influence

1921 - 2006 (85 years)

John Garvey was an American musician, orchestra leader, and academic who played viola in the Walden String Quartet for 23 seasons, introduced a jazz curriculum at the University of Illinois, and created its Jazz Big Band which he led until his retirement from the university in 1991. The jazz band dominated collegiate jazz festival awards in its early days and in 1969 was chosen by the state department to tour the USSR and Eastern Europe. Many members of Garvey's jazz bands went on to successful careers as professional musicians and academics.

#11734

James Yannatos

#180189

Overall Influence

1929 - 2011 (82 years)

James Yannatos was a composer, conductor, violinist and teacher. He was a senior lecturer at Harvard University until his retirement in 2009. Yannatos was born and educated in New York City. In 1943, he was invited to attend Camp Rising Sun, a tuition-free, international summer camp in upstate New York. He attended the High School of Music and Art and the Manhattan School of Music. Subsequent studies with Nadia Boulanger, Luigi Dallapiccola, Darius Milhaud, Paul Hindemith, and Philip Bezanson in composition, William Steinberg and Leonard Bernstein in conducting, and Hugo Kortschak and Ivan Ga...

#11735

John Van Houten

#186893

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

John Joseph Van Houten Jr. is an American orchestral tuba player. He is most notable for playing in various film soundtracks and “liking” all of his own Facebook posts. John holds a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in tuba performance from the University of Southern California, where he studied with Tommy Johnson. John is a freelance tubist in the Los Angeles area. Some of the ensembles he performed with include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Long Beach Opera, and New West Symphony.

#11736

Margaret Baxtresser

Margaret Baxtresser

#171636

Overall Influence

1922 - 2005 (83 years)

Margaret Barthel Baxtresser was an internationally renowned American concert pianist. She was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. At age 13, she was a soloist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. At age 28, she won the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation International Piano Competition. Her concert career included performing recitals and soloing with major symphony orchestras which took her to venues around the globe.

#11737

John Stephenson

#187281

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

John Stephenson, is a British director and a former vice-president and creative supervisor for Jim Henson's Creature Shop. He was nominated for a BAFTA film award in 1985 for Dreamchild and in 1991, he won an Academy Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

#11738

Theo Brandmüller

#178284

Overall Influence

1948 - 2012 (64 years)

Theo Brandmüller was a German composer of contemporary music, organist and university teacher. Life Brandmüller studied school and church music as well as composition with Giselher Klebe, Olivier Messiaen and Cristóbal Halffter and instrumental theatre with Mauricio Kagel; he was accepted as a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

#11739

Laura L. Koenig

#150670

Overall Influence

Laura L. Koenig is an American linguist and speech scientist. She is a professor of communication sciences and disorders at Adelphi University. She conducted her thesis work at Haskins Laboratories, and continues there as a Senior Scientist working on differences in laryngeal function across normal populations and on the development of speech production in children. Web of Science reports 20 papers in peer-reviewed journals, with over 200 citations. Much of her current work is conducted in collaboration with Jorge C. Lucero of the University of Brasilia. She teaches courses in phonetics, ling...

#11740

Gustav Ciamaga

#175382

Overall Influence

1930 - 2011 (81 years)

Gustav Ciamaga was a Canadian composer, music educator, and writer. An associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers, he was best known for his compositions of electronic music, although he produced several non-electronic works. His compositions have been performed throughout North America and Europe. His work Curtain Raiser was commissioned for the opening of the National Arts Centre in 1969. An honorary member of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community, he invented a number of electronic music apparatuses, including the Serial Sound Structure Generator.

#11741

Mike Murley

#179953

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Mike Murley is a Canadian jazz saxophonist and composer from Windsor, Nova Scotia who was a member of the Shuffle Demons from 1984 to 1989 and Time Warp. Education He graduated from the music program at York University in Toronto in 1986 with a BFA. He also studied saxophone with Don Palmer in Halifax, Pat LaBarbera in Toronto, and Dave Liebman at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and New York City. He studied improvisation and composition with Dave Holland in Banff and New York City.

#11742

Carlos Barbosa-Lima

Carlos Barbosa-Lima

#183816

Overall Influence

1944 - 2022 (78 years)

Antonio Carlos Ribeiro Barbosa Lima was a Brazilian classical and jazz guitarist. He spent most of his professional life as a resident in the United States, devoting much of his time as a recitalist on international concert tours. He appeared often as a soloist and with orchestras.

#11743

George Tibbits

#185034

Overall Influence

1933 - 2008 (75 years)

George Richard Tibbits was an Australian composer and architect. Tibbits was born in Boulder, Western Australia, to a family of mining prospectors, and when his father returned wounded from the First World War, the family moved to Colac, Victoria, to take up dairying. He studied architecture at the University of Melbourne, and eventually taught urban studies and architectural history there and established the urban studies program. He initiated the first heritage conservation study, the Beechworth Historical Reconstruction Project. He was also prominent in opposing the former Housing Commi...

#11744

Aleksander Kaczorowski

#142555

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Aleksander Kaczorowski is a Polish bohemist, journalist, editor, writer and translator. Life Kaczorowski has been studying at the Institute of Sociology of the University of Warsaw. In 1998, he graduated from Czech studies at the University of Warsaw.

#11745

Wolfgang Boettcher

Wolfgang Boettcher

#179558

Overall Influence

1935 - 2021 (86 years)

Wolfgang Boettcher was a German classical cellist and academic teacher. He was principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic, and a founding member of The 12 Cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic. From 1976, he was professor at the Hochschule für Musik Berlin. From 1986 to 1992 he was artistic director of the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker chamber music festival.

#11746

Lara Teeter

#184407

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Lara Teeter is an American dancer, actor, singer, theater director and college professor. Biography Born in Guthrie, Oklahoma, Teeter earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Oklahoma City University.

#11747

Don Lee

#186583

Overall Influence

1941 - 1995 (54 years)

Don Lee was a country singer, song writer, producer and guitarist who recorded in the 1960s and 1970s. He had a hit on the country charts with "16 Lovin' Ounces to the Pound". He also wrote a couple more songs that became hits. One became a hit for Jerry Naylor.

#11748

Hildegard Uhrmacher

#175590

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Hildegard Uhrmacher , married name Hildegard Kronstein-Uhrmacher, is a German operatic soprano who appeared at European opera houses in coloratura soprano roles such as Mozart's Konstanze, but also in contemporary works including Marie in Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten. She was a professor of voice at the Musikhochschule Hannover and the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. Her 2006 autobiography is entitled Hilde, du schaffst das.

#11749

Charles Chapman

#188547

Overall Influence

1955 - 2011 (56 years)

Charles H. Chapman was an American jazz guitarist, author, and instructor. He had a four-decade recording career and played with Kenny Burrell and Joe Negri. Early life and education Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Chapman studied at the Berklee College of Music, which offered him a teaching position after he graduated.

#11750

Jed Whedon

#166674

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Jed Tucker Whedon is an American screenwriter and musician, and the son of screenwriter Tom Whedon, grandson of screenwriter John Whedon, and the brother of screenwriter Zack Whedon and of filmmaker Joss Whedon.

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