The Most Influential People Across History
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.
List of the most influential people in Communications,
#3851
Steve Swallow
#80268
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (86 years)
Steve Swallow is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar.
Go to Profile#3852
Shura Baryshnikov
#67638
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (45 years)
Aleksandra "Shura" Lange Baryshnikov is an American dancer, choreographer, dance educator, and actress. Early life Aleksandra Lange Baryshnikov is the daughter of ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and actress Jessica Lange. She is of Finnish descent through her maternal grandmother and of German descent through her maternal grandfather. She has five half-siblings; three on her father's side, including actress Anna Baryshnikov, and two on her mother's side. Baryshnikov trained in classical ballet as a child, and grew up accompanying her mother to different filming locations. In high school Baryshnikov competed in diving, ran track, rode horses, and played field hockey.
Go to Profile#3853
Peter Schreier
#73762
Overall Influence
1935 - 2019 (84 years)
Peter Schreier was a German tenor in opera, concert and lied, and a conductor. He was regarded as one of the leading lyric tenors of the 20th century. Schreier was a member of the Dresdner Kreuzchor conducted by Rudolf Mauersberger, performing as an alto soloist. He became a tenor, focused on concert and lieder singing, well known internationally for the Evangelist parts in Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Passion. A member of the Berlin State Opera from 1963, he appeared in Mozart roles such as Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, and in the title role of Pfitzner's Palestrina, among others.
Go to Profile#3854
John Dehner
#66336
Overall Influence
1915 - 1992 (77 years)
John Dehner was an American stage, radio, film, and television actor. From the late 1930s to the late 1980s, he amassed a long list of performance credits, often in roles as sophisticated con men, shady authority figures, and other smooth-talking villains. His credits just in feature films, televised series, and in made-for-TV movies number almost 300 productions. Dehner worked extensively as a radio actor during the latter half of that medium's "golden age,” accumulating hundreds of additional credits on nationally broadcast series. His most notable starring role was as Paladin on the radi...
Go to Profile#3855
Theodore Kuchar
#83665
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (63 years)
Theodore Kuchar is an American and Ukrainian conductor of classical music and a violist. Biography Kuchar was born in 1963 in New York City. He started to learn to play the violin at ten years of age, later switching to viola. He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his viola instructor was Robert Vernon, in 1982.
Go to Profile#3856
Charles Berger
#54272
Overall Influence
1950 - 2018 (68 years)
Charles R. Berger was an American professor emeritus of communication at the University of California, Davis. Berger died on September 25, 2018, from health complications arising from cancer. Education Berger received his B.S. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University. After completing his undergraduate studies, he attended Michigan State University where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication.
Go to Profile#3857
Paul Silverthorne
#102232
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
Paul Silverthorne is an English viola soloist and was principal violist of the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. Biography Silverthorne studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Clarence Myerscough, Max Gilbert and Sidney Griller. In 1988, Silverthorne was made principal of the specialist contemporary music ensemble London Sinfonietta. In 1990, he started playing with the London Symphony Orchestra and appointed principal viola of the Orchestra the following year. In addition to his orchestral work, Paul Silverthorne is an active viola soloist and has performed with major ...
Go to Profile#3858
Burning Spear
#57746
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Winston Rodney OD , better known by the stage name Burning Spear, is a Jamaican roots reggae singer-songwriter, vocalist and musician. Burning Spear is a Rastafarian and one of the most influential and long-standing roots artists to emerge from the 1970s.
Go to Profile#3859
William F. Shipley
#81488
Overall Influence
1921 - 2011 (90 years)
William F. Shipley was an American linguist whose main area of research was the now-extinct Maidu language of Northern California. He was one of the last speakers of the language. Life Shipley was a student of anthropologist and linguist Alfred Kroeber, and linguist Mary Haas at UC Berkeley. During World War II, he was part of a program to teach US Army soldiers to speak Mandarin Chinese at Berkeley.
Go to Profile#3860
Marvin Stamm
#86912
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Marvin Louis Stamm is an American jazz trumpeter. Career Stamm was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Stamm began on trumpet at age twelve. He attended North Texas State University, where he was a member of the One O'Clock Lab Band. He was a member of Stan Kenton's Mellophonium Orchestra from 1961 to 1963, then worked with Woody Herman from 1965 to 1966. Following this he was with The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra from 1966 to 1972 and with Benny Goodman from 1974 to 1975.
Go to Profile#3861
Tsunku
#43103
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Mitsuo Terada, known professionally as Tsunku, is a Japanese singer, record producer, and songwriter. He is the lead singer of the rock band Sharam Q. As a songwriter, Tsunku is the primary producer for Morning Musume and other Hello! Project acts, such as Coconuts Musume, Berryz Kobo, Cute, V-u-den, Aya Matsuura, and Maki Goto. He has also produced music for artists such as EE Jump and Sonim. Aside from musical acts, Tsunku has also produced soundtracks for anime and video game series such as Rhythm Heaven and ClassicaLoid. The total sales of the singles he has written exceed 37.9 million cop...
Go to Profile#3862
Michael Gielen
#72588
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Michael Andreas Gielen was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aiding his ability to interpret the complex contemporary music he specialized in.
Go to Profile#3863
James E. Falen
#83779
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
James E. Falen is a professor emeritus of Russian at the University of Tennessee. He published a translation of Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin in 1990 which was also influenced by Nabokov's translation, but preserved the Onegin stanzas . This translation is considered to be the most faithful one to Pushkin's spirit according to Russian critics and translators.
Go to Profile#3864
J Milton Cowan
#88230
Overall Influence
1907 - 1993 (86 years)
J Milton Cowan was an American linguist. Life Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, Cowan was the son of a butcher, who, hesitating between the first names James and John when the boy was born, decided to give him neither but to let the boy make the choice himself when he grew up. However, Cowan never chose one, referring to himself as "J, no period, Milton Cowan".
Go to Profile#3865
Tikhon Khrennikov
#60083
Overall Influence
1913 - 2007 (94 years)
Tikhon Nikolayevich Khrennikov was a Russian and Soviet composer, pianist, and General Secretary of the Union of Soviet Composers , who was also known for his political activities. He wrote three symphonies, four piano concertos, two violin concertos, two cello concertos, operas, operettas, ballets, chamber music, incidental music and film music.
Go to Profile#3866
Dennis Russell Davies
#63051
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Dennis Russell Davies is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director and chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic. Biography Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School, where he received his doctorate. He was Music Director of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra from 1972 to 1980. In 1977 he co-founded the American Composers Orchestra with composer Francis Thorne, and he was its music director until 2002. Davies was music director of the Brooklyn Philharmonic from 1991 to 1996.
Go to Profile#3867
Richard Heeks
#68981
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Richard Heeks is Professor of Digital Development in the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, UK. He is Director of the University's Centre for Digital Development. Background Richard Heeks was born in Reading, England; studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge, and completed an MPhil at the University of Leicester and a PhD at the Open University, UK.
Go to Profile#3868
Uday Shankar
#32345
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Uday Shankar is an Indian media executive and former journalist. As of 2021, he was the President of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific, and chairman of Star India and The Walt Disney Company India.
Go to Profile#3869
Mary Brian
#70238
Overall Influence
1906 - 2002 (96 years)
Mary Brian was an American actress who made the transition from silent films to sound films. Early life Brian was born in Corsicana, Texas, the daughter of Taurrence J. Dantzler and Louise B. Her brother was Taurrence J. Dantzler, Jr.
Go to Profile#3870
Richard Leacock
#48372
Overall Influence
1921 - 2011 (90 years)
Richard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of direct cinema and cinéma vérité. Early life and career Leacock was born in London on 18 July 1921, the younger brother of film director and producer Philip Leacock. Leacock grew up on his father's banana plantation in the Canary Islands until being sent to boarding schools in England at the age of eight.
Go to Profile#3871
David Bradley
#82237
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
David Bradley is a British journalist specializing in science and technology. After graduating in 1988 with a degree in chemistry from Newcastle University, he began his career in technical editing at the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1989 and built up a freelance writing business in his spare time before going full-time freelance in the mid-1990s. He has contributed to a wide range of popular science publications, including Popular Science, American Scientist, New Scientist and Science. As well as numerous newspapers and trade magazines , and websites .
Go to Profile#3872
Peter Erskine
#56113
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Peter Clark Erskine is an American jazz drummer who was a member of the jazz fusion groups Weather Report and Steps Ahead. Early life and education Erskine was born in Somers Point, New Jersey, U.S. He began playing the drums at the age of four. He graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, then studied percussion at Indiana University.
Go to Profile#3873
George Brock
#87985
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (75 years)
George Brock is a professor of journalism at City, University of London. He held the position of head of department from September 2009 to September 2014. Career After beginning his career in 1973 as a reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Press, Brock was a journalist for The Observer and The Times , where he held positions from foreign correspondent to managing editor.
Go to Profile#3874
Salvador Bucca
#99918
Overall Influence
1920 - 2005 (85 years)
Salvador Bucca was professor of linguistics at the University of Buenos Aires. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1958. He was a specialist in the Kitsai language and the indigenous languages of Argentina. His papers and recordings relating to his work are stored in the Archive of the Indigenous Languages of Latin America at the University of Texas at Austin. He donated materials on Chorote, Irish and Thai to the Laboratory of Documentation and Investigation of Linguistics and Anthropology in Buenos Aires.
Go to Profile#3875
Ali Mohammad Haghshenas
#88771
Overall Influence
1940 - 2010 (70 years)
Ali Mohammad Haghshenas was an Iranian linguist and emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Tehran. He was a winner of Iran's Book of the Year Award. Books Phonetics, Tehran: AgahFarhang e Hezareh, Tehran: Farhang-e Moaser
Go to Profile#3876
Jerry Lewis
#56627
Overall Influence
1926 - 2017 (91 years)
Jerry Lewis was an American comedian-actor, filmmaker, singer, humanitarian and entertainer. He was the most popular movie star from the 1940s to the 1960s, and he was an early and prominent user of video assist.
Go to Profile#3877
Cornelius
#62148
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
, also known by his moniker , is a Japanese musician and producer who co-founded Flipper's Guitar, an influential Shibuya-kei band, and subsequently embarked on a solo career. In 1997, he released the album Fantasma, which landed him praise from American music critics, who called him a "modern-day Brian Wilson" or the "Japanese Beck". In 2007, Rolling Stone Japan named two of Oyamada's albums amongst the "100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time", with Fantasma ranking in 10th place and Camera Talk by Flipper's Guitar ranking in 35th place.
Go to Profile#3878
Linda Steiner
#89956
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Linda Claire Steiner is a professor at Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland. She is also the editor-in-chief of the journal Journalism & Communication Monographs, and sits on the editorial board of Critical Studies in Media Communication.
Go to Profile#3879
Richard Smith
#81831
Overall Influence
Richard Smith is an American jazz guitarist. Smith teaches at University of Southern California's Thorton School of Music. Solo albums Rockin The Boat 1989Puma Creek 1989Bella Firenze 1991From My Window 1994First Kiss 1997Flow 1999Natural Soul 2002SOuLIDIFIED 2003LA Chillharmonic 2008Tangos 2014 - with Dutch/Colombian pianist, Tico Pierhagen, Brian Bromberg and Gene Coye . A Chillharmonic Media release
Go to Profile#3880
Sergio Castellitto
#78992
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Sergio Castellitto is an Italian film director, actor, and screenwriter. Biography Sergio Castellitto was born in Rome in 1953, to parents from Molise and Abruzzo, Southern Italy. After graduating from the Silvio D'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Art in 1978, he began his theatrical career in Italian public theater with Shakespeare's Measure for Measure at the Teatro di Roma and with roles in other plays such as La Madre by Brecht, Merchant of Venice, and Candelaio by Giordano Bruno. At the Teatro di Genova he starred in the roles of Tuzenbach in Chekhov's Three Sisters and Jean in Strindberg's Miss Julie, both under the direction of Otomar Krejka.
Go to Profile#3881
Per Mollerup
#69248
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (84 years)
Per Mollerup is a Danish designer, academic, and author. He is known for his emphasis on simplicity in design and for his wayshowing design at airports in Copenhagen, Oslo, and Stockholm, as well as the Copenhagen Metro. He is currently a Professor of Communication Design at Swinburne University of Technology's School of Design.
Go to Profile#3882
Marianne Ignace
#17779
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
Marianne Boelscher Ignace is a Canadian linguist and anthropologist. Married into the Shuswap people, she is a Full professor in the departments of Linguistics and Indigenous Studies at Simon Fraser University , and Director of SFU's Indigenous Languages Program and First Nations Language Centre. In 2020, Ignace was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada for her work in revitalizing and preserving indigenous languages.
Go to Profile#3883
Alan Rudolph
#67547
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Alan Steven Rudolph is an American film director and screenwriter. Early life Rudolph was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Oscar Rudolph , a television director and actor, and his wife. He became interested in film and was a protégé of director Robert Altman. Rudolph worked as an assistant director on Altman's film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and later on Nashville.
Go to Profile#3884
Khushwant Singh
#44141
Overall Influence
1915 - 2014 (99 years)
Khushwant Singh was an Indian author, lawyer, diplomat, journalist and politician. His experience in the 1947 Partition of India inspired him to write Train to Pakistan in 1956 , which became his most well-known novel.
Go to Profile#3885
Bill Gaither
#58410
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (90 years)
William James Gaither is an American singer and songwriter of Southern gospel and contemporary Christian music. He has written numerous popular Christian songs with his wife Gloria; he is also known for performing as part of the Bill Gaither Trio and the Gaither Vocal Band. In the 1990s, his career gained a resurgence , as popularity grew for the Gaither Homecoming series.
Go to Profile#3886
Edward Stabler
#79287
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Edward Stabler is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. His primary areas of research are Natural Language Processing , Parsing and formal language theory, and Philosophy of Logic and Language. He was a member of the faculty at UCLA from 1984 to 2016. His work involves the production of software for minimalist grammars and related systems.
Go to Profile#3887
Liza Donnelly
#58065
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Liza Donnelly is an American cartoonist and writer, best known for her work in The New Yorker and is resident cartoonist of CBS News. Donnelly is the creator of digital live drawing, a new form of journalism wherein she draws using a tablet, and shares impressions and visual reports of events and news instantly on social media. She has drawn this way for numerous media outlets, including CBS News, The New Yorker, Fusion, NBC and covered live the Oscars, Democratic National Convention, the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, among others. She writes a regular column for Medium on politics and glo...
Go to Profile#3888
Richard Sparks
#64090
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Richard Andrew Sparks is an American choral conductor. He is one of the leading figures in choral music in the Pacific Northwest and in Scandinavian, especially Swedish a cappella, choral music. Early life and education Sparks was raised in Seattle, Washington. He graduated from Shorecrest High School, and he received a bachelor of music in 1976 and a master of music in 1980, both from the University of Washington. While an undergraduate, Sparks founded Seattle Pro Musica, which he led until 1980. During this time, Seattle Pro Musica became known as a leader in the "authentic performance" of Baroque music, especially Johann Sebastian Bach's.
Go to Profile#3889
Kate Pierson
#49279
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Catherine Elizabeth Pierson is an American singer, lyricist, and founding member of the B-52's. She plays guitar, bass and various keyboard instruments. In the early years, as well as being a vocalist, Pierson was the main keyboard player and performed on a keyboard bass during live shows and on many of the band's recordings, taking on a role usually filled by a bass guitar player, which differentiated the band from their contemporaries. This, along with Pierson's distinctive wide-ranging singing voice, remains a trademark of the B-52's' unique sound. Pierson has also collaborated with many other artists including the Ramones, Iggy Pop and R.E.M.
Go to Profile#3890
Ray Brown
#51954
Overall Influence
1926 - 2002 (76 years)
Raymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist, known for his extensive work with Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald. He was also a founding member of the group that would later develop into the Modern Jazz Quartet.
Go to Profile#3891
Rahile Dawut
#46902
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Rahile Dawut is an Uyghur ethnographer known for her expertise in Uyghur folklore and traditions. Formerly a professor at Xinjiang University, where she founded the Minorities Folklore Research Centre, she was disappeared by the Chinese government in 2017 and has not been seen since. In 2023, Rahile received a life sentence for "endangering state security".
Go to Profile#3892
Leslie Jones
#89796
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Leslie Jones is an American film editor. She is known for her work on The Thin Red Line as well as her collaborations with director Paul Thomas Anderson. Biography Jones is the daughter of film editor Robert C. Jones and the granddaughter of editor Harmon Jones, each of whom has been nominated for an Academy Award for editing. Jones was the assistant editor for her father on two films, See No Evil, Hear No Evil and The Babe. She has several editing credits for independent films and documentaries, and was the associate editor on Grumpier Old Men. Her first editing credit on a major studio film was for Murder at 1600, which she co-edited with Billy Weber.
Go to Profile#3893
Julien Klener
#95843
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
Julien Klener is a Belgian linguist born in Ostend, Belgium in 1939. Life During World War II he was a hidden child in Brussels. Since 1945, being back in Ostend, he went to primary and secondary school and later on studied Germanic languages and Semitic languages . His main languages being Biblical Hebrew, Akkadian, Biblical Aramaic, Talmudic Aramaic, Ugaritic, Arabic and also a non-Semitic language, Indonesian.
Go to Profile#3894
Sheila Blumstein
#92902
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
Sheila Ellen Blumstein is professor emerita of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University, where she was the Albert D. Mead Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences. Among other distinctions, she served as the interim president of Brown University from February 2000 until July 2001 after Gordon Gee departed and before Ruth Simmons took the position. Although Dr. Simmons is deemed the first female president of the university, Dr. Blumstein's portrait hangs in Sayles Hall along with those of past presidents.
Go to Profile#3895
Yuri Otkupshchikov
#59369
Overall Influence
1924 - 2010 (86 years)
Yuri Otkupshchikov was a Soviet and Russian philologist and linguist. For more than 50 years, he taught at the St. Petersburg State University Faculty of Philology. Biography He was born in Kazan, Russia and graduated from high school there in 1942. Then he volunteered for war service and served with the Baltic Fleet. He took part in the battles of the Siege of Leningrad.
Go to Profile#3896
John Guillermin
#64544
Overall Influence
1925 - 2015 (90 years)
John Guillermin was a French-British film director, writer and producer who was most active in big-budget, action-adventure films throughout his lengthy career. His better-known films include I Was Monty's Double , Tarzan's Greatest Adventure , Never Let Go , Tarzan Goes to India , Waltz of the Toreadors , The Blue Max , The Bridge at Remagen , The Towering Inferno , King Kong , Death on the Nile , Sheena and King Kong Lives . In the 1980s, he worked on much less prestigious projects, and his final films consisted of lower-budgeted theatrical releases and TV movies.
Go to Profile#3897
Percy Heath
#67512
Overall Influence
1923 - 2005 (82 years)
Percy Heath was an American jazz bassist, brother of saxophonist Jimmy Heath and drummer Albert Heath, with whom he formed the Heath Brothers in 1975. Heath played with the Modern Jazz Quartet throughout their long history and also worked with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk and Lee Konitz.
Go to Profile#3898
Maria Teresa Cabré
#37738
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (79 years)
Maria Teresa Cabré i Castellví is a Catalan linguist. She is professor emeritus of Linguistics and Terminology at Pompeu Fabra University . Since 2021, she has been president of the Institute for Catalan Studies. Her areas of expertise are in lexicology, lexicography, terminology, and discourse analysis.
Go to Profile#3899
Merry Clayton
#57829
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Merry Clayton is an American soul and gospel singer. She contributed vocals to numerous tracks and worked with many major recording artists for decades, including a duet with Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones song "Gimme Shelter". Clayton is prominently featured in 20 Feet from Stardom, the Oscar-winning documentary about background singers and their contributions to the music industry.
Go to Profile#3900
Lionel Stander
#53840
Overall Influence
1908 - 1994 (86 years)
Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television. He is best remembered for his role as majordomo Max on the 1980s mystery television series Hart to Hart. Early life Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York City, to Russian-Jewish immigrants, the eldest of three children.
Go to Profile