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,

#13851

Josef Lhévinne

1874 - 1944 (70 years)

Josef Lhévinne was a Russian pianist and piano teacher. Lhévinne wrote a short book in 1924 that is considered a classic: Basic Principles in Pianoforte Playing. Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest it was lay-VEEN.

#13852

Niels Gade

1817 - 1890 (73 years)

Niels Wilhelm Gade was a Danish composer, conductor, violinist, organist and teacher. Together with Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann, he was the leading Danish musician of his day, in the period known as the Danish Golden Age.

#13853

James Wong Howe

James Wong Howe

1899 - 1976 (77 years)

Wong Tung Jim, A.S.C. , known professionally as James Wong Howe , was a Chinese-born American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films. During the 1930s and 1940s, he was one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood due to his innovative filming techniques. Howe was known as a master of the use of shadow and one of the first to use deep-focus cinematography, in which both foreground and distant planes remain in focus.

#13854

Eric Coates

1886 - 1957 (71 years)

Eric Francis Harrison Coates was an English composer of light music and, early in his career, a leading violist. Coates was born into a musical family, but, despite his wishes and obvious talent, his parents only reluctantly allowed him to pursue a musical career. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder and Lionel Tertis , and played in string quartets and theatre pit bands, before joining symphony orchestras conducted by Thomas Beecham and Henry Wood. Coates's experience as a player added to the rigorous training he had received at the academy and contributed to his ...

#13855

Elmore James

1918 - 1963 (45 years)

Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bandleader. Noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice, James was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. His slide guitar technique earned him the nickname "King of the Slide Guitar".

#13856

Chick Webb

1905 - 1939 (34 years)

William Henry "Chick" Webb was an American jazz and swing music drummer and band leader. Early life Webb was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to William H. and Marie Webb. The year of his birth is disputed. The Encyclopædia Britannica and Allmusic indicate 1905, and this seems to be supported by census information. Other publications claim other years. During Webb's lifetime, a December 1937 DownBeat magazine article, "The Rise of a Crippled Genius", stated he was born in 1909, which is the year that appears on his grave marker. In 1939, The New York Times stated that Webb was born in 1907, the...

#13857

Jacob Obrecht

1457 - 1505 (48 years)

Jacob Obrecht was a Flemish composer of masses, motets and songs. He was the most famous composer of masses in Europe of the late 15th century and was only eclipsed after his death by Josquin des Prez.

#13858

Sonny Stitt

1924 - 1982 (58 years)

Sonny Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording more than 100 albums. He was nicknamed the "Lone Wolf" by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern because of his tendency to rarely work with the same musicians for long despite his relentless touring and devotion to jazz. Stitt was sometimes viewed as a Charlie Parker mimic, especially earlier in his career, but gradually came to develop his own sound and style, particularly when performing on tenor saxophone and even occasionally ...

#13859

Hermann Carl George Brandt

1850 - 1920 (70 years)

Hermann Carl George Brandt was a German-American scholar who published German grammars and German-English dictionaries among other works. Biography Brandt was born at Vilsen, Germany. He graduated in 1872 from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and was an instructor there from 1874 to 1876. From 1876 to 1882, he was associate professor of German at the Johns Hopkins University. In 1883, he was appointed professor of German language and literature at Hamilton, and remained in that position for the rest of his life. His publications include a German-English and English-German dictionary, an...

#13860

Kenny Dorham

1924 - 1972 (48 years)

McKinley Howard "Kenny" Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention or public recognition from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did. For this reason, writer Gary Giddins said that Dorham's name has become "virtually synonymous with underrated." Dorham composed the jazz standard "Blue Bossa", which first appeared on Joe Henderson's album Page One.

#13861

Carlo Battisti

1882 - 1977 (95 years)

Carlo Battisti was an Italian linguist and actor, famed for his starring role in Vittorio De Sica's Umberto D.. Biography Battisti was born in Trento, Austria-Hungary in 1882 . He studied linguistics at the University of Vienna and founded, along with Ettore Tolomei, the nationalist journal Archivio per l'Alto Adige in 1906. In the early 1920s he became professor of glottology of the University of Florence. Throughout his life he published numerous books and articles on a wide gamut of linguistic topics, ranging from phonetics to Italian dialectology to toponomastics and Vulgar Latin. In reco...

#13862

Edwin Forrest

1806 - 1872 (66 years)

Edwin Forrest was a prominent nineteenth-century American Shakespearean actor. His feud with the British actor William Macready was the cause of the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849. Early life Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Rebecca and William Forrest. His father, a Scottish merchandise peddler, moved from Dumfriesshire to Trenton, New Jersey in 1791. His mother was a member of an affluent German-American family. A business setback led William to relocate to Philadelphia, where he married Rebecca and was able to secure a position with a local branch of the United States Bank.

#13863

Achille Rivarde

Achille Rivarde

1865 - 1940 (75 years)

Achille Rivarde was an American-born British violinist and teacher, who worked mainly in Europe and London. Biography Serge Achille Rivarde was born in New York City to a Spanish father and an American mother. He studied under Felix Simon, Henryk Wieniawski and José White Lafitte. At the age of eleven, he became a pupil of Charles Dancla at the Paris Conservatoire, sharing the first prize with František Ondříček in 1879.

#13864

William Henry Monk

William Henry Monk

1823 - 1899 (76 years)

William Henry Monk was an English organist, church musician and music editor who composed popular hymn tunes, including "Eventide", used for the hymn "Abide with Me", and "All Things Bright and Beautiful". He also wrote music for church services and anthems.

#13865

Mordechai Finzi

1440 - 1475 (35 years)

Mordechai ben Abraham Finzi was a Jewish mathematician, astronomer, grammarian and physician in Mantua. Work Finzi's astronomical tables were published under the title Luḥot, probably before 1480. He wrote glosses to Efodi's Hebrew grammar, Ḥesheb ha-Efod.

#13866

Johnny Dodds

1892 - 1940 (48 years)

Johnny Dodds was an American jazz clarinetist and alto saxophonist based in New Orleans, best known for his recordings under his own name and with bands such as those of Joe "King" Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Lovie Austin and Louis Armstrong. Dodds was the older brother of drummer Warren "Baby" Dodds, one of the first important jazz drummers. They worked together in the New Orleans Bootblacks in 1926. Dodds is an important figure in jazz history. He was the premier clarinetist of his era and, in recognition of his artistic contributions, he was posthumously inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame....

#13867

Lee Hays

1914 - 1981 (67 years)

Lee Elhardt Hays was an American folk singer and songwriter, best known for singing bass with the Weavers. Throughout his life, he was concerned with overcoming racism, inequality, and violence in society. He wrote or cowrote "Wasn't That a Time?", "If I Had a Hammer", and "Kisses Sweeter than Wine", which became Weavers' staples. He also familiarized audiences with songs of the 1930s labor movement, such as "We Shall Not Be Moved".

#13868

Gower Champion

1919 - 1980 (61 years)

Gower Carlyle Champion was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer. Early years Champion was born on June 22, 1919, in Geneva, Illinois, as the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Carlisle. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, where he graduated from Fairfax High School. He studied dance from an early age and, at the age of fifteen, toured nightclubs with friend Jeanne Tyler billed as "Gower and Jeanne, America's Youngest Dance Team". In 1939, "Gower and Jeanne" danced to the music of Larry Clinton and his Orchestra in a Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film short-subj...

#13869

William Farnum

1876 - 1953 (77 years)

William Farnum was an American actor. He was a star of American silent cinema, and he became one of the highest-paid actors during this time. Biography Farnum was born on July 4, 1876, in Boston, Massachusetts, but he grew up in Bucksport, Maine.

#13870

James Reese Europe

1880 - 1919 (39 years)

James Reese Europe was an American ragtime and early jazz bandleader, arranger, and composer. He was the leading figure on the African American music scene of New York City in the 1910s. Eubie Blake called him the "Martin Luther King of music".

#13871

Ed Begley

1901 - 1970 (69 years)

Edward James Begley was an American actor of theatre, radio, film, and television. He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the film Sweet Bird of Youth and appeared in such classics as 12 Angry Men , Odds Against Tomorrow and The Unsinkable Molly Brown . He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Matthew Harrison Brady in a television adaptation of Inherit the Wind. He is the father of actor and environmental activist Ed Begley Jr.

#13872

Jack Teagarden

1905 - 1964 (59 years)

Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden was an American jazz trombonist and singer. According to critic Scott Yannow of Allmusic, Teagarden was the preeminent American jazz trombone player before the bebop era of the 1940s and "one of the best jazz singers too". Teagarden's early career was as a sideman with the likes of Paul Whiteman and lifelong friend Louis Armstrong.

#13873

Jim Backus

1913 - 1989 (76 years)

James Gilmore Backus was an American actor. Among his most famous roles were Thurston Howell III on the 1960s sitcom Gilligan's Island, the father of James Dean's character in Rebel Without a Cause, the voice of the near-sighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo, the rich Hubert Updike III on the radio version of The Alan Young Show, and Joan Davis' character's husband on TV's I Married Joan. He also starred in his own show of one season, The Jim Backus Show, also known as Hot Off the Wire.

#13874

George Duvivier

George Duvivier

1920 - 1985 (65 years)

George Duvivier was an American jazz double-bassist. Biography Duvivier was born in New York City, the son of Leon V. Duvivier and Ismay Blakely Duvivier. He attended the Conservatory of Music and Art, where he studied violin. At age sixteen, he worked as assistant concertmaster for the Central Manhattan Symphony Orchestra. He began playing double bass and concentrated on composition at New York University. In the early 1940s, he accompanied Coleman Hawkins, Lucky Millinder, and Eddie Barefield. After serving in the U.S. Army, he worked as an arranger for Jimmie Lunceford, then as arranger an...

#13875

Carl C. Mose

1903 - 1973 (70 years)

Carl Christian Mose was an American sculptor and art teacher. Life Mose was born in Copenhagen, Denmark circa 1903. He emigrated to the United States with his family as a child and he grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He was trained by sculptor Lorado Taft.

#13876

Roy Del Ruth

1893 - 1961 (68 years)

Roy Del Ruth was an American filmmaker. Early career Beginning his Hollywood career as a writer for Mack Sennett in 1915, Del Ruth later directed his first short film Hungry Lions for the producer. By the early 1920s, he had moved over to features including Asleep at the Switch , The Hollywood Kid , Eve's Lover and The Little Irish Girl .

#13877

William Primrose

1904 - 1982 (78 years)

William Primrose CBE was a Scottish violist and teacher. He performed with the London String Quartet from 1930 to 1935. He then joined the NBC Symphony Orchestra where he formed the Primrose Quartet. He performed in various countries around the world as a soloist throughout his career. He also taught at several universities and institutions. He authored several books on viola technique.

#13878

Alexander Dovzhenko

Alexander Dovzhenko

1894 - 1956 (62 years)

Alexander Petrovich Dovzhenko, also transliterated Oleksandr Petrovych Dovzhenko , was a Ukrainian Soviet screenwriter, film producer and director. He is often cited as one of the most important early Soviet filmmakers, alongside Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and Vsevolod Pudovkin, as well as being a pioneer of Soviet montage theory.

#13879

Antonio Sacchini

Antonio Sacchini

1730 - 1786 (56 years)

Antonio Maria Gasparo Gioacchino Sacchini was an Italian composer, best known for his operas. Sacchini was born in Florence, but raised in Naples, where he received his musical education. He made a name for himself as a composer of serious and comic opera in Italy before moving to London, where he produced works for the King's Theatre. He spent his final years in Paris, becoming embroiled in the musical dispute between the followers of the composers Gluck and Niccolò Piccinni. His early death in 1786 was blamed on his disappointment over the apparent failure of his opera Œdipe à Colone. Howev...

#13880

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

1915 - 1973 (58 years)

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar. She was the first great recording star of gospel music, and was among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm and blues and rock and roll audiences, later being referred to as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll". She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry...

#13881

John Ogdon

1937 - 1989 (52 years)

John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer. Biography Career Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended the Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall included Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr, Elgar Howarth and Peter Maxwell Davies. Together they formed New Music Manchester, a group dedicated to the performances of serial and other modern works. His tutor there was Claud Biggs. As a boy he had studied with Iso Elinson and after leaving c...

#13882

Alois Hába

1893 - 1973 (80 years)

Alois Hába was a Czech composer, music theorist and teacher. He belongs to the important discoverers in modern classical music, and major composers of microtonal music, especially using the quarter-tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones , fifth-tones , and twelfth-tones. From the other microtonal conceptions, he discussed a "three-quarter tone" system in his theoretical works but he used scales in this tuning in sections of some of his compositions. In his prolific career, Hába composed three operas, an enormous collection of chamber music including 16 string quartets, piano, organ and choral pieces, some orchestral works and songs.

#13883

Václav Machek

1894 - 1965 (71 years)

Václav Machek was a Czech linguist. Life In years 1914–1921 Machek studied Czech and Latin language at Charles University in Prague . In years 1921-1924 he studied linguistics in Paris. Several years he taught at high schools in Czechoslovakia. From 1936 he was a professor of Slavic studies and comparative linguistics at then Jan Evangelista Purkyně University .

#13884

Leonardo Leo

1694 - 1744 (50 years)

Leonardo Leo , more correctly Leonardo Ortensio Salvatore de Leo, was a Baroque composer. Biography Leo was born in San Vito degli Schiavoni in the Apulia region, then part of the Kingdom of Naples.

#13885

Ernst Chladni

1756 - 1827 (71 years)

Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni was a German physicist and musician. His most important work, for which he is sometimes labeled as the father of acoustics, included research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases. He also undertook pioneering work in the study of meteorites and is regarded by some as the father of meteoritics.

#13886

Stefan Wolpe

1902 - 1972 (70 years)

Stefan Wolpe was a German-Jewish-American composer. He was associated with interdisciplinary modernism, with affiliations ranging from the Bauhaus, Berlin agitprop theater and the kibbutz movement to the Eighth Street Artists' Club, Black Mountain College, and the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music. He lived and worked in Berlin until the Nazi seizure of power forced him to move first to Vienna and Jerusalem before settling in New York City . In works such as Battle Piece and "In a State of Flight" in Enactments for Three Pianos , he responded self-consciously to the circumstances of ...

#13887

Noble Sissle

1889 - 1975 (86 years)

Noble Lee Sissle was an American jazz composer, lyricist, bandleader, singer, and playwright, best known for the Broadway musical Shuffle Along , and its hit song "I'm Just Wild About Harry". Early life Sissle was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, around the time his father Rev. George A. Sissle was pastor of the city's Simpson M. E. Chapel. His mother, Martha Angeline Sissle, was a school teacher and juvenile probation officer.

#13888

Qian Daosun

1887 - 1966 (79 years)

Qian Daosun was a Chinese writer and translator. His renowned translations include the Inferno part of the Divine Comedy, Man'yōshū and The Tale of Genji. Qian was born in a family of officials and scholars.

#13889

Al Sherman

1897 - 1973 (76 years)

Avrum Sherman , pen name Al Sherman, was a Russian-American songwriter and composer active during the Tin Pan Alley era in American music history. Some of his most recognizable song titles include: "You Gotta Be a Football Hero," "Now's the Time to Fall in Love" and "Lindbergh ." Sherman is one link in a long chain of family members who were musical. Most notably, his sons, Robert and Richard were to join the ranks of America's most highly regarded songwriters. Pairing up and mentoring the Sherman Brothers team has often been referred to as Al Sherman's greatest songwriting achievement.

#13890

Freddy Martin

1906 - 1983 (77 years)

Frederick Alfred Martin was an American bandleader and tenor saxophonist. Early life Freddy Martin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Raised largely in an orphanage and by various relatives, Martin started out playing drums, then switched to C melody saxophone and subsequently tenor saxophone, the latter the one with which he would be identified. Early on, he had intended to become a journalist. He had hoped that he would earn enough money from his musical work to enter Ohio State University, but instead, he wound up becoming an accomplished musician. Martin led his own band while he was in high school, then played in various local bands.

#13891

Marilyn Miller

1898 - 1936 (38 years)

Marilyn Miller was one of the most popular Broadway musical stars of the 1920s and early 1930s. She was an accomplished tap dancer, singer and actress, and the combination of these talents endeared her to audiences. On stage, she usually played rags-to-riches Cinderella characters who lived happily ever after. Her enormous popularity and famed image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, frequent illness, and ultimately her sudden death due to complications of nasal surgery at age 37.

#13892

Donald Dean Jackson

Donald Dean Jackson

1919 - 1987 (68 years)

Donald Dean Jackson was an American journalist, historian, and professor of American history involving early America and the Civil War mostly. He was the founding editor of the University of Virginia's George Washington Papers project. Apart from his editing and publishing of those papers, Jackson was also noted for his consulting and editorship in the Lewis and Clark project, gathering and compiling related manuscripts into one comprehensive study. Jackson was also considered an expert historian of the American West and its exploration and authored many books and journals in that area of stu...

#13893

Peter Estenberg

Peter Estenberg

1686 - 1740 (54 years)

Peter Estenberg lived in the late 17th - early 18th century and was a member of the Swedish nobility of the house of Estenberg, a noted scholar, and an ambassador to Poland. His family coat of arms is displayed in the Riddarhuset in Stockholm. In the early 18th century, Peter Estenberg became an advisor to Poland's King Stanislaw . Peter Estenberg was also a master of Greek language, a tutor to the Swedish royal family, and a professor of Greek studies and Philosophy at the University of Lund, and later the rector of Jamshog and Nasum's parishes.

#13894

George Edwin Taylor

George Edwin Taylor

1857 - 1925 (68 years)

George Edwin Taylor was an American journalist, editor, political activist, and politician. In 1904, he was the candidate of the National Negro Liberty Party for President of the United States. He was the first African American to run for president.

#13895

Michał Waszyński

Michał Waszyński

1904 - 1965 (61 years)

Michał Waszyński was first a film director in Poland, then in Italy, and later a producer of major American films, mainly in Spain. Known for his elegance and impeccable manners, he was known by his acquaintances as "the prince".

#13896

Paolo Tosti

1846 - 1916 (70 years)

Sir Francesco Paolo Tosti KCVO was an Italian composer and music teacher. Life Francesco Paolo Tosti received most of his music education in his native Ortona, Italy, as well as the conservatory in Naples. Tosti began his music education at the Royal College of San Pietro a Majella at the age of eleven. He studied violin and composition with Saverio Mercadante, who became so impressed with Tosti that he appointed him a student teacher, which afforded the young man a meagre salary of sixty francs a month. Poor health forced Tosti to leave his studies and return home to Ortona. He was confined to his bed for several months.

#13897

Wallingford Riegger

1885 - 1961 (76 years)

Wallingford Constantine Riegger was an American modernist composer and pianist, best known for his orchestral and modern dance music. He was born in Albany, Georgia, but spent most of his career in New York City, helping elevate the status of other American composers such as Charles Ives and Henry Cowell. Riegger is noted for being one of the first American composers to use a form of serialism and the twelve-tone technique.

#13898

Adam Kleczkowski

1883 - 1949 (66 years)

Adam Marian Kleczkowski was a Polish philologist and Professor of Linguistics at the Jagiellonian University. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Learning. He was a specialist in German linguistics.

#13899

Jakob Grün

1837 - 1916 (79 years)

Jakob Moritz Grün was an Austrian violinist of Hungarian origin. After positions as principal violinist in the court orchestras of Weimar and Hannover, he was, from 1868 to 1897, concertmaster of the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra. He taught notable players at the Vienna Conservatory from 1877 to 1908, including 20 future orchestra members, as well as Carl Flesch and Franz Kneisel.

#13900

Namik Resuli

1908 - 1985 (77 years)

Namik Resuli was an Albanian linguist and academic. Biography Born in Berat in 1908, after having accomplished elementary studies in Albania he went to Italy, where he finished his secondary studies and then graduated in glottology in the University of Turin. His doctorate thesis "Mbi shtresëzimet në gjuhën shqipe" was written under the guide of Professor Matteo Bartoli. Resuli returned in Albania in the 1930s and taught Albanian language in Elbasan Normal School, now Aleksandër Xhuvani University, as well as in Shkodër, and Tiranë. In 1939, he went to Rome to become assistant professor of Albanian language, working there for 10 years.

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