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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Communications,

#3651

Joshua Bell

#46079

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Joshua David Bell is an American violinist and conductor. He plays the Gibson Stradivarius. Early life and education Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, to Shirley Bell, a therapist, and Alan P. Bell, a psychologist, professor emeritus at Indiana University , and former Kinsey researcher. His father is of Scottish descent and his mother is Jewish .

#3652

Sheila Whiteley

#34461

Overall Influence

1941 - 2015 (74 years)

Sheila Whiteley was an English musicologist known for studying popular music, such as progressive rock music and Britpop. In 1999, she was named professor and chair of popular music at the University of Salford, the first such position in Great Britain. From 1999 to 2001, she was the general secretary of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. She held visiting professorships at the University of Aarhus in 2008, and at the University of Brighton from 2007 to 2009.

#3653

Jeroen Groenendijk

#60314

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Jeroen Antonius Gerardus Groenendijk , was a Dutch logician, linguist and philosopher, working on philosophy of language, formal semantics, pragmatics. Groenendijk wrote a joint Ph.D. dissertation with Martin Stokhof on the formal semantics of questions, under the supervision of Renate Bartsch and Johan van Benthem. He was also an important figure in the development of dynamic semantics . His later work was mainly focused on studying and developing the recently founded framework of inquisitive semantics.

#3654

Robert Ivie

#96024

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Robert Lynn Ivie is an American academic known for his works on American public rhetoric concerning war and terrorism. Education and career Ivie obtained a Ph.D. in rhetoric and communication in 1972 from Washington State University. He taught at Gonzaga University from 1972-1974, at Idaho State University from 1974-1975, at Washington State University from 1975-1986 and at Texas A&M University from 1986-1993. In 1993, he came to Indiana University where he was a professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University until he retired in ...

#3655

Peter Sculthorpe

#61359

Overall Influence

1929 - 2014 (85 years)

Peter Joshua Sculthorpe was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighboring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aboriginal Australian music with that of the heritage of the West. He was known primarily for his orchestral and chamber music, such as Kakadu and Earth Cry , which evoke the sounds and feeling of the Australian bushland and outback. He also wrote 18 string quartets, using unusual timbral effects, works for piano, and two operas. He stated that he wanted his music to make people feel better and happier for having listened to it.

#3656

Julie Kristeva

#104693

Overall Influence

#3657

Donald Byrd

#60033

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Donald Byrd is an American modern dance choreographer, known for themes relating to social justice, and in particular, racism. Career For 24 years, beginning 1978, Byrd was the founding artistic director of Donald Byrd/The Group, which toured extensively, nationally and internationally until 2002, when he suspended operations due to financial duress. The Group was based in Los Angeles from 1978 to 1983 and in New York City from 1983 to 2002. For years, since 2002, Byrd has been artistic director of The Spectrum Dance Theater, based in Seattle. He is credited for having elevated Spectrum to...

#3658

Douglas Gomery

#60105

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Douglas Gomery is Resident Scholar at the Broadcasting Archives at the University of Maryland and Professor Emeritus at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park. He holds a doctorate in Communications from the University of Wisconsin and has taught mass media history at the University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University, New York University, the University of Utrecht , and the University of Maryland.

#3659

Georg Heike

#84892

Overall Influence

1933 - 2023 (90 years)

Georg Heike is a German phonetician and linguist. He studied musicology, phonetics, communication science and psychology at the University of Bonn and finished his doctoral thesis in 1960 at the Department of Phonetics and Communication Research headed by Prof. Dr. Werner Meyer-Eppler. He was senior scientist at Marburg University before he moved to the University of Cologne. From 1969 to 1998 he headed the Departement of Phonetics at the University of Cologne. Among his topics of research are phonetics, phonology, articulatory synthesis, musicology.

#3660

Soupy Sales

#39693

Overall Influence

1926 - 2009 (83 years)

Milton Supman , known professionally as Soupy Sales, was an American comedian, actor, radio-television personality, and jazz aficionado. He was best known for his local and network children's television series, Lunch with Soupy Sales , a series of comedy sketches frequently ending with Sales receiving a pie in the face, which became his trademark. From 1968 to 1975, he was a regular panelist on the syndicated revival of What's My Line? and appeared on several other TV game shows. During the 1980s, he hosted his own show on WNBC in New York City.

#3661

Saki

#77584

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

is a Japanese heavy metal musician and songwriter. She is best known as guitarist of the all-female band Mary's Blood from 2012 until they began an indefinite hiatus in 2022. She is currently a member of the all-female band Nemophila and one-half of the duo Amahiru with Frédéric Leclercq. Saki has been sponsored by Killer Guitars for over ten years, and often uses custom-made Fascist models. In 2021, they released her signature model, the seven-string KG-Fascinator Seven the Empress.

#3662

Doug Liman

#37617

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Douglas Eric Liman is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing the films Swingers , Go , The Bourne Identity , Mr. & Mrs. Smith , Jumper , Edge of Tomorrow , and American Made .

#3663

Thomas Bayrle

#85041

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Thomas Bayrle is a German sculptor, painter, graphic artist and video artist. He is known as a pop artist. Life Thomas Bayrle is the son of the painter and graphic artist Alf Bayrle and the art historian Elisabeth Weiss. Bayrle wanted to become a textile engineer, and completed a two-year apprenticeship as a pattern designer and weaver in 1956. While working on Jacquard looms in Göppingen, Bayrle became inspired by the machine's rhythmic sound and the repetitive patterns of the fabric.

#3664

Virginia Spencer Carr

Virginia Spencer Carr

#49616

Overall Influence

1929 - 2012 (83 years)

Virginia Spencer Carr was a biographer of Carson McCullers, John Dos Passos and Paul Bowles. Carr was also a college professor for more than 25 years at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, and Georgia State University in Atlanta.

#3665

Jay Livingston

#61074

Overall Influence

1915 - 2001 (86 years)

Jay Livingston was an American composer best known as half of a song-writing duo with Ray Evans that specialized in songs composed for films. Livingston wrote music and Evans the lyrics. Early life and career Livingston was born in McDonald, Pennsylvania to Jewish parents. He had an older sister, Vera, and a younger brother, Alan W. Livingston, who became an executive with Capitol Records, and later with NBC television.

#3666

Guy Cook

#80316

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Guy W. D. Cook is an applied linguist. he is Emeritus Professor of Language in Education at King's College London in the UK. He was Chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics from 2009–2012 and Chair Mentor from 2012–2013. He teaches and writes about English language teaching, literary stylistics, discourse analysis, advertising, and the language of food politics.

#3667

Ian Bostridge

#83626

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ian Charles Bostridge CBE is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera and lieder singer. Early life and education Bostridge was born in London, the son of Leslie Bostridge and Lillian . His father was a chartered surveyor. Bostridge is the brother of writer and critic Mark Bostridge, and they are the great-grandsons of the Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper from the early twentieth century, John "Tiny" Joyce.

#3668

Subhash Ghai

#35909

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Subhash Ghai is an Indian film director, producer, actor, lyricist, music director and screenwriter, known for his works predominantly in Hindi cinema. He was one of the most prominent and successful filmmakers of Hindi cinema throughout 80s and 90s. His most notable works include Kalicharan , Vishwanath , Karz , Hero , Vidhaata , Meri Jung , Karma , Ram Lakhan , Saudagar , Khalnayak , Pardes and Taal .

#3669

Leon Fleisher

#63310

Overall Influence

1928 - 2020 (92 years)

Leon Fleisher was an American classical pianist, conductor and pedagogue. He was one of the most renowned pianists and pedagogues in the world. Music correspondent Elijah Ho called him "one of the most refined and transcendent musicians the United States has ever produced".

#3670

Tré Cool

#42699

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Frank Edwin Wright III , better known by his stage name Tré Cool, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the drummer for the rock band Green Day. He replaced the band's former drummer, John Kiffmeyer, in 1990 as Kiffmeyer felt that he should focus on college. Cool has also played in the Lookouts, Samiam, Dead Mermaids, Bubu and the Brood and the Green Day side projects the Network and the Foxboro Hot Tubs.

#3671

Robert B. Sherman

Robert B. Sherman

#51867

Overall Influence

1925 - 2012 (87 years)

Robert Bernard Sherman was an American songwriter, best known for his work in musical films with his brother, Richard M. Sherman. The Sherman brothers produced more motion picture song scores than any other songwriting team in film history. Some of their songs were incorporated into live action and animation musical films including Mary Poppins, The Happiest Millionaire, The Jungle Book, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Slipper and the Rose, and Charlotte's Web. Their best-known work is "It's a Small World " possibly the most-performed song in history.

#3672

Eddie Campbell

#51053

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Eddie Campbell is a British comics artist and cartoonist. He was the illustrator and publisher of From Hell , and the creator of the semi-autobiographical Alec stories collected in Alec: The Years Have Pants, and Bacchus , a wry adventure series about the few Greek gods who have survived to the present day.

#3673

Marti Webb

#66529

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Marti Webb is an English actress and singer, who appeared on stage in Evita, before starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one-woman show Tell Me on a Sunday in 1980. This included her biggest hit single, "Take That Look Off Your Face", a UK top three hit, with the parent album also reaching the top three.

#3674

Mark Thompson

#54662

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Mark Thompson is an American newscaster and a two-time Emmy award winner for writing, hosting and producing specials for the Fox Broadcasting Company stations. Television news Thompson reported on science and environmental issues for KRON-TV, then an NBC affiliate in San Francisco, before getting upped to the nightly weather anchor on the 5, 6 and 11:00 p.m. editions of NewsCenter 4, in addition to those duties.

#3675

Margaret Noodin

#83022

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Margaret A. Noodin is an American poet and Anishinaabemowin language teacher. She directs a tribal Head Start program in Minnesota. She was a professor of English and American Indian studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and the director of UW-M's Electa Quinney Institute,

#3676

Florian Coulmas

#23375

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Florian Coulmas is a German linguist and author. He is Senior Professor for Japanese Society and Sociolinguistics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. From 1968 to 1975, Florian Coulmas studied Sociology, Philosophy, and German Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and at Paris Sorbonne . He completed his PhD at Bielefeld University in 1977. In 1980, he finished his habilitation at Düsseldorf University where he worked as a privatdozent thereafter. In 1987, he became Professor of Sociolinguistics at Chūō University.

#3677

Shaan Rahman

#35908

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Shaan Rahman is an Indian composer and singer, best known for his compositions in the Malayalam cinema. Shaan made his debut as a music director in the 2009 film Ee Pattanathil Bhootham directed by Johny Antony. He got the chance to work in the film after the wide acceptance and popularity of his 2008 music album "Coffee at MG Road" which he did along with his friend, singer, and director Vineeth Sreenivasan.

#3678

Seo Kyoung-Duk

#56025

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Seo Kyoung-Duk is a South Korean scholar and social activist. Seo is a counselor at the Presidential Council on Nation Branding. Seo is a professor in Sungshin University and the creator of ‘Dokdo School’ , an educational institution with a strong patriotic orientation. Professor Seo criticizes Japan on comfort women and Liancourt Rocks disputes and actively involves in Sino-Korean cultural disputes.

#3679

Frederica von Stade

#64724

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Frederica von Stade OAL is a semi-retired American opera singer. Since her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1970, she has performed in operas, musicals, concerts and recitals in venues throughout the world, including La Scala, the Paris Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburger Festspielhaus, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and Carnegie Hall. Conductors with whom she has worked include Abbado, Bernstein, Boulez, Giulini, Karajan, Levine, Muti, Ozawa, Sinopoli, Solti and Tilson Thomas. She has also been a prolific and eclectic recording artist, attracting nine Grammy nominations for best classical ...

#3680

Brian Mansfield

#10566

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Brian Mansfield is an American writer and journalist. Early life and education Mansfield grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated from David Lipscomb High School. In 1984, Mansfield received a bachelor's degree cum laude from Berklee College of Music. From 1984 to 1987 he attended Belmont University in Nashville, taking classes in journalism and the music industry.

#3681

Mark Isham

#51512

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Mark Ware Isham is an American musician and film composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a film composer, having worked on numerous films and television series, including The Hitcher, Point Break, A River Runs Through It, Of Mice and Men, Warrior, Nell, Blade, Crash, The Black Dahlia, The Lucky One, October Sky, and Once Upon a Time.

#3682

Jean Kent

#82588

Overall Influence

1921 - 2013 (92 years)

Jean Kent, born Joan Mildred Field was an English film and television actress. Biography Born Joan Mildred Field in Brixton, London in 1921, the only child of variety performers Norman Carpenter Summerfield, who used the name "Norman Field", and Mildred Lilian, née Noaks, known as "Nina Norre". Kent started her theatrical career at age 10 in 1931 as a dancer. She used the stage name Jean Carr when she appeared as a chorus girl in the Windmill Theatre in London from which she was fired by Vivian Van Damm.

#3683

Geoffrey Lewis

#59127

Overall Influence

1920 - 2008 (88 years)

Geoffrey Lewis Lewis CMG FBA was an English Turkologist and the first professor of Turkish at the University of Oxford. He is known as the author of Teach Yourself Turkish and academic books about Turkish and Turkey.

#3684

John Kelly

#90469

Overall Influence

John Kelly is an American performance artist, visual artist and writer. His work first gained notoriety in the 1980s East Village art scene, and in the last 40 years Kelly has received two Bessie Awards, two Obie Awards, two NEA American Masterpiece Awards, an American Choreographer Award, a Herb Alpert Award in the Arts , a Visual AIDS Vanguard Award, and an Ethyl Eichelberger Award. His work has been presented at Lincoln Center and Brooklyn Academy of Music.

#3685

Ewa Wipszycka

#41096

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Ewa Maria Wipszycka-Bravo is a Polish historian and papyrologist specializing in ancient history; a humanities professor and professor emerita at the University of Warsaw. Life and career During her studies at the University of Warsaw she was a member of the Union of Polish Youth . She graduated in 1955, obtained her doctoral degree in 1962, and habilitation in 1972. She became a humanities professor in 1990. Between 1972-1990, she worked at the branch of UW in Białystok where she held the post of deputy dean and dean of the Department of the Humanities.

#3686

Omar Hakim

#47061

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Omar Hakim is an American drummer, producer, arranger and composer. His session work covers jazz, jazz fusion, and pop music. He has worked with Weather Report, David Bowie, Foo Fighters, Chic, Sting, Madonna, Dire Straits, Bryan Ferry, Journey, Kate Bush, George Benson, Miles Davis, Daft Punk, Mariah Carey, The Pussycat Dolls, David Lee Roth, and Celine Dion.

#3687

Franz Guenthner

#38097

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Franz Guenthner is a German linguist who is a professor of Computational Linguistics at the Center for Information and Language Processing at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, Germany. His background is in philosophy and linguistics.

#3688

Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga

#77481

Overall Influence

1920 - 2006 (86 years)

Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga was a Romanian comparatist and essayist. A native of the national capital Bucharest, she was educated at its main university, going on to become a professor there. Together with a focus on interdisciplinary studies, she was noted for devoting several studies to Mihai Eminescu. Meanwhile, Dumitrescu was a dignitary of the Romanian Communist Party. Following the Romanian Revolution, after several years spent in Rome, she retired to a monastery.

#3689

Diane Middlebrook

#41429

Overall Influence

1939 - 2007 (68 years)

Diane Helen Middlebrook was an American biographer, poet, and teacher. She taught feminist studies for many years at Stanford University. She wrote critically acclaimed biographies of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath , and jazz musician Billy Tipton.

#3690

Geoffrey Holder

Geoffrey Holder

#63274

Overall Influence

1930 - 2014 (84 years)

Geoffrey Lamont Holder was a Trinidadian-American actor, dancer, musician, and artist. He was a principal dancer for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet before his film career began in 1957 with an appearance in Carib Gold. In 1973, he played the villainous Baron Samedi in the Bond film Live and Let Die. He also carried out advertising work as the pitchman for 7 Up.

#3691

John Anderson

#37788

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

John Anderson is an American sports commentator who has served as host of the ESPN TV program SportsCenter since June 1999. Early life and education Anderson grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, graduating from Green Bay Southwest High School. He holds a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. He is active within the MU Alumni Association and can often be seen at Missouri Tigers sporting events, and served as the grand marshal at Missouri's 2002 homecoming football game.

#3692

Lucile Lawrence

#83964

Overall Influence

1907 - 2004 (97 years)

Lucile Lawrence was a leader among American harpists. At the end of her life, she was actively teaching as a faculty member of Boston University and the Manhattan School of Music as well as teaching privately.

#3693

Colin Metters

#84335

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Colin Metters is an English conductor, orchestral trainer and conducting pedagogue. He is Professor of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he founded the Conductors' Course in 1983. In September 2013, he retired as Head of Studies after serving in the post for 30 years. He remains as Professor of Conducting at the Academy's Postgraduate Conductors' Course.

#3694

Timothy Osborn

#40731

Overall Influence

Timothy John Osborn is a climatologist and Professor of Climate Science at the University of East Anglia. In January 2017 he replaced Phil Jones as the Research Director of the Climatic Research Unit.

#3695

Paul Phillips

#66347

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Paul Schuyler Phillips is an American conductor, composer and music scholar. He is the Gretchen B. Kimball Director of Orchestral Studies, with the rank of Associate Professor in Teaching, at Stanford University, where he directs the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and Stanford Philharmonia. He maintains an international career as a guest conductor and composer. As a scholar, he is best known for his writings on Igor Stravinsky and Anthony Burgess.

#3696

Peter Lamont

#62165

Overall Influence

1929 - 2020 (91 years)

Peter Curtis Lamont was a British set decorator, art director, and production designer most noted for his collaborations with filmmaker James Cameron, and for working on eighteen James Bond films, from Goldfinger to Casino Royale . The only Bond film that he did not work on during that period was Tomorrow Never Dies , as he was working on Cameron's Titanic at the time. He also worked extensively as a set dresser on the Carry On series in the 1960s.

#3697

Kōichi Iijima

#75161

Overall Influence

1930 - 2013 (83 years)

Kōichi Iijima was a Japanese poet, novelist, and translator. He was a member of the Japan Art Academy. Biography Born in Okayama City, Iijima graduated from the French Literature Department of Tokyo University. While in university he established together with, among others, Isamu Kurita the magazine Cahier. In 1956, he and Makoto Ōoka were among the founders of the Surrealism Research Society.

#3698

Bobby Bland

#46860

Overall Influence

1930 - 2013 (83 years)

Robert Calvin Bland , known professionally as Bobby "Blue" Bland, was an American blues singer. Bland developed a sound that mixed gospel with the blues and R&B. He was described as "among the great storytellers of blues and soul music... [who] created tempestuous arias of love, betrayal and resignation, set against roiling, dramatic orchestrations, and left the listener drained but awed." He was sometimes referred to as the "Lion of the Blues" and as the "Sinatra of the Blues". His music was also influenced by Nat King Cole.

#3699

Alan Vega

#54506

Overall Influence

1938 - 2016 (78 years)

Boruch Alan Bermowitz , known professionally as Alan Vega, was an American vocalist and visual artist, primarily known for his work with the electronic protopunk duo Suicide. Life and career Boruch Alan Bermowitz was raised in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Until the announcement of the 70th birthday release of his recordings in 2008, Vega was widely thought to have been ten years younger; the 2005 book Suicide: No Compromise lists 1948 as his birth year and quotes a 1998 interview in which Vega talks about watching Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show as a "little kid". A 1983 Los Angeles Times article refers to him as a 35-year-old, and several other sources also list 1948 as his birthdate.

#3700

Alex Kotlowitz

#32112

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Alex Kotlowitz is an American journalist, author, and filmmaker. His 1991 book There Are No Children Here was a national bestseller and received the Christopher Award and Helen Bernstein Award. He is a two-time recipient of both the Peabody Award and the Dupont Award for journalism. He co-produced the 2011 documentary The Interrupters, based on his New York Times Magazine article, which received an Independent Spirit Award and Emmy Award.

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