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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#16051

William Henry Holmes

1812 - 1885 (73 years)

William Henry Holmes was an English pianist and composer, and a teacher at the Royal Academy of Music. Early life Holmes was born in Sudbury, Derbyshire in 1812, the son of a musician. He entered the Royal Academy of Music in 1822, the year it opened, and he gained two of the first medals given by the Academy, for composition and the piano.

#16052

Karl Weigl

1881 - 1949 (68 years)

Karl Ignaz Weigl was a Jewish Austrian composer and pianist, who later became a naturalized American citizen in 1943. Biography Weigl was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a bank official who was also a keen amateur musician. Alexander Zemlinsky took him as a private pupil in 1896. Weigl went to school at the Franz-Joseph-Gymnasium and graduated from there in 1899. After that, he continued his studies at the Vienna Music Academy, where he became a composition pupil of Robert Fuchs, and also enrolled at the University of Vienna, studying musicology under Guido Adler, with Anton Webern as his classmate.

#16053

Hanns Jelinek

1901 - 1969 (68 years)

Hanns Jelinek was an Austrian composer of Czech descent who is also known under the pseudonyms Hanns Elin, H. J. Hirsch, Jakob Fidelbogen. Biography Jelinek was born and died in Vienna. His father was a machine operator . At the age of 6 he began violin lessons and at age 7, began learning the piano. In 1918 he became a member of the newly founded Communist Party of Austria.

#16054

Lola Gjoka

1910 - 1985 (75 years)

Lola Gjoka Aleksi was an Albanian pianist during the period of the Communist regime. Life Gjoka was born in Sevastopol in 1910, into an Albanian family. She began learning the piano at the age of six, and her success was such that her father arranged for her to have lessons from the pianist Karalovy. In 1932 her family moved to Korçë, where Gjoka worked as an accompanist for singers including the soprano Tefta Tashko-Koço, the Albanian folk singer Marie Kraja, and Mihal Ciko.

#16055

Polibio Fumagalli

1830 - 1900 (70 years)

Polibio Fumagalli was an Italian composer, organist, and pianist. Fumagalli studied organ at the Milan Conservatory; beginning in 1873 he taught organ at that institution. Among his students were Marco Enrico Bossi and Pietro Yon. He also served as choirmaster of the Church of San Celso.

#16056

István Kniezsa

1898 - 1965 (67 years)

István Kniezsa was a Hungarian linguist and Slavist, corresponding and regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He was one of the most significant figures in Hungarian language historical research in the 20th century, achieving significant scientific results in the study of place and personal names in the Carpathian Basin, in researching the medieval state and writing practice of the Hungarian language, as well as in the exploration of foreign words of Slavic origin. His major contribution was to the research of Slavic loanwords in the Hungarian language and toponymy. He was awa...

#16057

Richard Hofmann

1844 - 1918 (74 years)

Richard Hofmann was a German composer and music teacher who worked in Leipzig. Richard Hofmann was born in Delitzsch where his father was the municipal music director. He studied with Raimund Dreyschock and Salomon Jadassohn and settled in Leipzig as a music teacher. He was Professor at Leipzig Conservatory and leader of the Leipzig Choral Society.

#16058

Stanislaw Schayer

1899 - 1941 (42 years)

Stanislaw Schayer was a linguist, Indologist, philosopher, professor at the University of Warsaw. In 1922, he founded, and was the first director, of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw. He was a member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Warsaw Scientific Society.

#16059

Nikolaus Selnecker

Nikolaus Selnecker

1530 - 1592 (62 years)

Nikolaus Selnecker was a German musician, theologian and Protestant reformer. He is now known mainly as a hymn writer. He is also known as one of the principal authors of the Formula of Concord along with Jakob Andreä and Martin Chemnitz.

#16060

Luella Gear

1897 - 1980 (83 years)

Luella Gear was an American actress. She appeared in numerous films, TV series and theatrical productions throughout the 1910s to the 1960s Early life Gear was born in New York in 1897. She attended the Spence School and was educated in Brussels, Belgium.

#16061

Frank Miller

1912 - 1986 (74 years)

Frank Miller was a principal cellist and music director whose professional career spanned over a half-century. Miller studied at the Curtis Institute of Music, under Felix Salmond, and at age 18, joined the Philadelphia Orchestra. His longest stints were principal cellist of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and conductor of the Evanston Symphony Orchestra. A 1950 segment of Miller playing cello in "The Swan" from Carnival of the Animals with an orchestra on The Voice of Firestone is sometimes shown on Classic Arts Showcase.

#16062

John Thomson

1805 - 1841 (36 years)

John Thomson was a Scottish classical composer. He was born in Sprouston, Roxburghshire, the son of Andrew Mitchell Thomson, the minister of Sprouston Church. Life and career Thomson studied in Germany with a letter of introduction to the Mendelssohn family, and his Drei Lieder were published in Leipzig in 1838. John Purser contends that we have to look to Schumann to find anything comparable to these songs published two years before Schumann composed any songs in his mature style. The first song, Keiner von den Schönheit Töchtern, is based on the poem There be none of beauty's daughters by ...

#16063

George Muirhead

1715 - 1773 (58 years)

George Muirhead was a Scottish linguist. Life Muirhead was born at Dunipace. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh , he was ordained as a Minister of the Kirk in 1746. He was professor of oriental languages at the University of Glasgow , until his appointment as Chair of Humanity in 1754. Muirhead was elected Clerk of Senate in 1769.

#16064

Fanny Arthur Robinson

1831 - 1879 (48 years)

Fanny Arthur Robinson was an English pianist, music educator and composer who spent most of her career in Dublin, Ireland. Biography Fanny Robinson was born in Southampton and studied the piano in London with William Sterndale Bennett and Sigismund Thalberg. She performed in Dublin in February 1849 where she met her future husband Joseph Robinson, conductor, composer and chorister at St. Patrick's Cathedral. They married on 17 July 1849. She appeared as a pianist in London and Paris, and in 1856 made her performing debut in Ireland. She took a teaching position at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in the same year.

#16065

Judith Raskin

1928 - 1984 (56 years)

Judith Raskin was an American lyric soprano, renowned for her fine voice as well as her acting. Life and work Raskin was born in New York to Harry A. Raskin, a high school music teacher, and Lillian Raskin, a grade school teacher. Her father aroused her childhood interest in music, leading her to study violin and piano, before she turned her focus to singing. In 1945, she graduated from Roosevelt High School, Yonkers and attended Smith College, where she majored in music. It was during her college years that she began taking singing lessons, which she continued after graduation in order to...

#16066

Seymour Simons

1896 - 1949 (53 years)

Seymour Simons was an American pianist, composer, orchestra leader, and radio producer. Biography Simons born in Detroit, Michigan, was originally trained in engineering and went to work as a research engineer at a Detroit motor plant, but the First World War intervened and he spent it in aeronautical research

#16067

Bobby Mitchell

1935 - 1986 (51 years)

Bobby Mitchell was an American, New Orleans-based, rhythm & blues singer and songwriter. Mitchell was born in the Algiers section of New Orleans. He was a popular recording artist in the 1950s and early 1960s, making records for Imperial Records, Show Biz Records and Rip Records. He first recorded in his teens with the doo-wop group "The Toppers", which was broken up as most of the members were drafted. Mitchell's single "Try Rock 'n Roll," hit the top 20 of the US Billboard R&B chart in 1956. Many of his sessions were arranged by Dave Bartholomew. His single "I'm Gonna Be a Wheel Someday...

#16068

Julia Perry

1924 - 1979 (55 years)

Julia Amanda Perry was an American classical composer and teacher who combined European classical and neo-classical training with her African-American heritage. Life and education Born in Lexington, Kentucky, as a child Perry moved with her family to Akron, Ohio. She went on to study voice, piano, and composition at the Westminster Choir College 1943–48. It was there that she received her B.M. and M.M. She continued on to her graduate studies at Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, where she was a student of Luigi Dallapiccola, and then later studied at the Juilliard School of Music. Around...

#16069

James Kwast

1852 - 1927 (75 years)

James Kwast was a Dutch-German pianist and renowned teacher of many other notable pianists. He was also a minor composer and editor. Biography Jacob James Kwast was born in Nijkerk, Netherlands, in 1852. After studies with his father and Ferdinand Böhme in his home country, he became a student of Carl Reinecke at the Leipzig Conservatory, and had later studies in Berlin under Theodor Kullak, and Brussels under Louis Brassin and François-Auguste Gevaert. He settled in Germany in 1883, initially as a teacher at the Cologne Conservatory, and later at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt and the Klindworth-Scharwenka and Stern conservatories in Berlin.

#16070

Edgar Stillman Kelley

Edgar Stillman Kelley

1857 - 1944 (87 years)

Edgar Stillman Kelley was an American composer, conductor, teacher, and writer on music. He is sometimes associated with the Indianist movement in American music. Life Kelley was of New England stock, his ancestors having come to America from England before 1650. He himself was born in Sparta, Wisconsin. His mother was from a musical family, and herself was skilled in music; she became his first teacher. Kelley's own college career was interrupted by bouts of poor health. He was a talented artist and writer, but he decided to devote his life to music after a performance of Felix Mendelssohn's music for A Midsummer Night's Dream.

#16071

G. Ramanathan

Gopalan Iyer Ramanathan was an Indian music composer for Tamil movies. He is also known as Isai Methai or Sangeetha Chakravarthy and is considered to be one of the influential Tamil music composers to take Carnatic music to the masses. Notable for his association with M. K. Thyagaraja Bhagavathar. G. Ramanathan also composed for films of Salem Modern Theatres and Coimbatore Central Studios. His career lasted until his death in 1963. During the 1950s G.Ramanathan's music dominated most of the box office hits of the then leading Tamil movie stars Shivaji Ganesan and M. G. Ramachandran.

#16072

Liane Haid

1895 - 2000 (105 years)

Juliane "Liane" Haid was an Austrian actress and singer. She has often been referred to as Austria's first movie star. Biography Juliane Haid was born in Vienna on 16 August 1895, the first child to Georg Haid and Juliane Haid . She had two younger sisters, Grit, who also became an actress, and Johanna .

#16073

Zheng Xiaocang

1892 - 1979 (87 years)

Zheng Xiaocang , was a Chinese writer, translator, and educator. He is well known for his large publications about education in China. Zheng was a former acting president of Zhejiang University, and former president of Zhejiang Normal University.

#16074

Julius Rietz

1812 - 1877 (65 years)

August Wilhelm Julius Rietz was a German composer, conductor, cellist, and teacher. His students included Woldemar Bargiel, Salomon Jadassohn, Arthur O'Leary, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. He also edited many works by Felix Mendelssohn for publication.

#16075

Eddie López

1940 - 1971 (31 years)

Manuel Eduardo López Rolón a.k.a. Eddie López was a Puerto Rican journalist. Early life and career Eddie López was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico in 1940, the son of Manuel López Canals and Teresa Rolón Perez . Brother to María Esperanza Teresa López Rolón, who was then born in 1953. He lived in Fajardo, Mayagüez, Toa Alta, Bayamón and Guaynabo where he finally settled with his wife Margarita Alicea and three sons; Jorge Luis, Carlos, and Victor Antonio until his death. He attended Santa Rosa High School in Bayamón, and did two years at Notre Dame University in Indiana.

#16076

Jack Cassidy

1927 - 1976 (49 years)

John Joseph Edward Cassidy was an American actor, singer and theater director known for his work in the theater, television and films. He received multiple Tony Award nominations and a win, as well as a Grammy Award, for his work on the Broadway production of the musical She Loves Me. He also received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. He was the father of teen idols David Cassidy and Shaun Cassidy.

#16077

Eric Porter

1911 - 1983 (72 years)

Eric Ernest Porter was an Australian filmmaker and animator who specialised in documentaries and commercials, but also made several features. He directed Australia's first animated feature, Marco Polo Junior Versus the Red Dragon . That film's financial failure forced him to close his animation studio.

#16078

Leo Smith

1881 - 1952 (71 years)

Joseph Leopold Smith was an English composer, writer, music critic, music educator, and cellist who was primarily active in Canada. His compositional output consists of works for cello, piano, choir and orchestra and a considerable amount of chamber music .

#16079

J.-J. Gagnier

1885 - 1949 (64 years)

Jean-Josaphat Gagnier was a Canadian conductor, composer, clarinetist, bassoonist, pianist, arts administrator, and music educator. His compositional output mainly consists of works for orchestra and band, although he did write some choral pieces, songs, works for solo piano and organ, some incidental music for the theatre, and a work for solo harp. His compositions are written in a wide variety of styles from romanticism to impressionism to 20th century idioms.

#16080

David Owen

1712 - 1741 (29 years)

David Owen was a Welsh harpist, best remembered as the composer of the popular song, "Dafydd y Garreg Wen" , which according to tradition Owen composed as he was dying. Dafydd y Garreg Wen was later adapted and published by harpist Edward Jones. David Owen was the son of Owen Humphreys of Ynyscynhaearn in Caernarfonshire . His mother's maiden name was Gwen Roberts. He composed several well-known airs. He was buried in the churchyard of St Cynhaiarn's Church in his home village of Ynyscynhaearn.

#16081

Richard Henry Mather

1835 - 1890 (55 years)

Richard Henry Mather was a professor of Greek at Amherst College. Biography He graduated at Amherst, was tutor of Greek, assistant professor of that branch, professor of Greek and German in 1864, and professor of Greek and lecturer on sculpture in 1878.

#16082

Eugene L. Roberts

Eugene L. Roberts

1880 - 1953 (73 years)

Eugene Lusk "Timpanogos" Roberts was head of the department of physical education and a coach of sports including track and field at Brigham Young University starting in 1910. Early life Roberts was born in Provo. Roberts was the child of William D. Roberts and his wife the former Julia Lusk. The family ran the Roberts Hotel in Provo. He studied at Brigham Young Academy from 1898-1904. He also studied at BYU itself receiving at B.A. degree. He then studied at Yale University. He later went to the University of Southern California from which he received a master's degree.

#16083

Schahan Berberian

1891 - 1956 (65 years)

Schahan R. Berberian was an Armenian philosopher, composer, and psychologist. Biography Early years Berberian was born in Constantinople . Shortly thereafter, along with his parents Retheos and Zaruhi and his elder brother Onnig, Berberian moved to Geneva, Switzerland to escape the atrocities against the Armenians perpetrated by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II from 1894 to 1896.

#16084

Winifred Copperwheat

1905 - 1976 (71 years)

Winifred May Copperwheat was an English classical viola player and teacher. She studied under English violist Lionel Tertis at the Royal Academy of Music. Tertis later said after one of her recitals, that she had "played like an angel".

#16085

David Stanley Smith

1877 - 1949 (72 years)

David Stanley Smith was an American composer. Smith started his studies with Horatio Parker in 1895 at Yale University, where his friends included Charles Ives, and was appointed organist at the Center Church in New Haven. He traveled to Europe, and became the pupil of Ludwig Thuille in Munich and Vincent d'Indy in Paris. He returned to the United States in 1902.

#16086

Richard Henry Walthew

1872 - 1951 (79 years)

Richard Henry Walthew, often known as Richard H. Walthew was an English composer and pianist, and an important figure in English chamber music during the first half of the 20th century. Life Richard Henry Walthew was born in Islington in Middlesex, the only son of Richard Frederick Walthew and his wife Emily Jeffreys , and was educated at Islington Proprietary School. William Heath Robinson was also at the school and he remained a lifelong friend. Walthew was a pupil of Hubert Parry for four years at the Royal College of Music . A contemporary at the RCM was Ralph Vaughan Williams. Recogniti...

#16087

Vladimír Šmilauer

Vladimír Šmilauer

1895 - 1983 (88 years)

Vladimír Šmilauer was a Czech linguist, Bohemist and Slovakist. Biography Vladimír Šmilauer was born on 5 December 1895. He studied Czech and German at the Faculty of Arts of the Charles University in Prague. From 1921 to 1938 he worked as a high school professor. In 1938 he was appointed professor at Charles University. During the German occupation, he left his job at Charles University and worked at the Slavonic Institute in Prague. After World War II, he returned to the university.

#16088

Tosca Kramer

1903 - 1976 (73 years)

Tosca Berger Kramer was a New Zealand-born American violinist and violist. Kramer, along with her parents, was instrumental in bringing classical music performance and instruction to the state of Oklahoma.

#16089

M. S. Baburaj

1921 - 1978 (57 years)

Mohammad Sabir Baburaj was an Indian music composer. He is often credited for the renaissance of Malayalam film music. Baburaj has rendered music to many evergreen Malayalam film songs. Early years Baburaj was born on 3rd March 1921 in Kozhikode, then known as Calicut. His early childhood was spent in destitution and poverty. His father, Jan Muhammed Khan, who was a Hindustani musician from Bengal who frequently held concerts in Kerala, deserted his Malayali mother when he was very young, and returned to his native Kolkata. Baburaj thus became fatherless, often singing songs in trains to make a living.

#16090

Cheng Maoyun

1900 - 1957 (57 years)

Cheng Maoyun was a Chinese composer and a professor at National Central University and Hangzhou Societal University . He composed the National Anthem of the Republic of China. Early life and education He was born in Xinjian , Jiangxi to a family of officials. He studied music in Jiangxi Provincial Higher Normal School , and the Ueno Music Academy in Tokyo. He majored in violin, then music theory, and composition.

#16091

Miloslav Ištvan

1928 - 1990 (62 years)

Miloslav Ištvan was a Czech composer whose work was inspired by the works of Béla Bartók and by the orientation of the modal style of folk songs. He studied Romanian and African folklore. He also attempted a synthesis of classical and pop music genres.

#16092

Gustav Dannreuther

1853 - 1923 (70 years)

Gustav Dannreuther was an American violinist, instructor, chamber musician, and conductor. Dannreuther may best be remembered by connoisseurs of chamber music, particularly those of Boston and New York City, for his numerous string quartet concerts and an associated appreciation of string quartet music. He introduced new harmonic factors of color and atmosphere in string quartet literature, which set the standard for Franz Kneisel.

#16093

Alexander Ilyinsky

Alexander Ilyinsky

1859 - 1920 (61 years)

Alexander Alexandrovich Ilyinsky was a Russian music teacher and composer, best known for the Lullaby , Op. 13, No. 7, from his orchestral suite "Noure and Anitra", and for the opera The Fountain of Bakhchisaray set to Pushkin's poem of the same name.

#16094

Arthur O'Leary

1834 - 1919 (85 years)

Arthur O'Leary was an Irish composer, pianist and teacher. Biography O'Leary was born in Tralee, County Kerry, both his father and uncle Daniel having been talented musicians, too. Arthur Senior was said to be first cousin to Arthur Sullivan's grandfather in an obituary for O'Leary written by W. H. Grattan Flood. When young Arthur's talents were discovered at the age of ten, a visiting barrister, Wyndham Goold became his patron: in May 1844 he sent him to school in Dublin and secured private piano tuition. With financial backing from others, including John Stanford , and with letters of intr...

#16095

Billy Taylor

1906 - 1986 (80 years)

William Taylor Sr. was an American jazz bassist. He was born Washington, D.C., and died in Fairfax, Virginia. Taylor began playing tuba but later picked up bass alongside it. After moving to New York City in 1924, he played with Elmer Snowden , Willie Gant and Arthur Gibbs , Charlie Johnson , Duke Ellington , McKinney's Cotton Pickers , Fats Waller , and Fletcher Henderson. He recorded with Jelly Roll Morton on three sessions in 1930. From 1935 to 1940, he again played with Ellington, and it is for this association that he is best remembered; he often played with a second bassist in the orchestra, at times Hayes Alvis or Jimmie Blanton.

#16096

Sascha Gorodnitzki

1904 - 1986 (82 years)

Sascha Gorodnitzki was an American concert pianist, recording artist and pedagogue at the Juilliard School of Music. Biography Early life and education Born in Kyiv, Russian Empire Gorodnitzki emigrated as an infant to Brooklyn, NY, where his parents founded a college of music. He was a child prodigy, but his parents had refused to allow him to embark on a performing career as a child. His teachers included his mother, then Percy Goetschius, William J. Henderson, Edwin Hughes, and Krehbiel at the Institute of Musical Art, which later became the Juilliard School. He entered the Juilliard Graduate School in 1926, where he was awarded teaching fellowship.

#16097

Douglas Fairbanks

Douglas Fairbanks

1883 - 1939 (56 years)

Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. was an American actor and filmmaker. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films, including The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro, but spent the early part of his career making comedies.

#16098

John Vincent

1902 - 1977 (75 years)

John Nathaniel Vincent Jr. was an American composer, conductor, and music educator. Vincent was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music under Frederick Converse and George Chadwick graduating with a diploma in 1927. He continued his studies at George Peabody College where he earned a bachelor's and a master's degree followed by doctoral studies at Harvard University from 1933 to 1935. While at Harvard studying under Walter Piston he won the John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship for two years of study with Nadia Boulanger. He was able to study original manuscripts of all classical composers at Paris Bibliotech Fransaise.

#16099

Annelies Kupper

1906 - 1987 (81 years)

Annelies Kupper , was a German operatic soprano, particularly associated with Mozart and the German repertory. Kupper was born at Glatz in Lower Silesia. She studied in Breslau and was a music teacher there before making her operatic debut in 1935. She then appeared in Schwerin , Weimar , Hamburg , Munich . She sang Eva in Die Meistersinger at the Bayreuth festival, in 1944, and returned as Elsa in Lohengrin in 1960. She created Danae in Richard Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae at the Salzburg festival, in 1952.

#16100

John Rippiner Heath

1887 - 1950 (63 years)

John Rippiner Heath was a British composer, violinist and physician who lived and worked for most of his life in Wales. Life Heath was born in Birmingham the son of Professor Robert Heath, principal of Birmingham University's Mason College. He was educated at Clifton College before studying medicine at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a musician he was largely self taught, though he led many string quartets for the University Musical Club. In 1913 he became a medical practitioner in Barmouth, Wales. During the Great War he served as a doctor in the Royal Army Medical Corps, stationed in the Bal...

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions