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 …
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List of the most influential people in Communications,
#4351
Tom Hardy
#38099
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Tom Hardy is an American design strategist and Professor of Design Management at Savannah College of Art and Design . As corporate design advisor to Samsung Electronics Hardy was instrumental in transforming their brand image from follower to innovation leader by creating a new brand-design ethos: "Balance of Reason & Feeling", and building significant global brand equity through judicious use of design strategy and management. While at IBM , he was an award-winning industrial designer and later served as corporate head of the IBM Design Program responsible for worldwide identity. His lea...
Go to Profile#4352
John Miles
#76491
Overall Influence
1949 - 2021 (72 years)
John Miles was an English rock singer, guitarist and keyboard player best known for his 1976 top 3 UK hit single "Music", which won an Ivor Novello Award, and his frequent appearances at Night of the Proms. He won the "Outstanding Musical Achievement" award at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards. He released 10 albums from 1976 to 1999 and was also the touring musician for Tina Turner in 1987.
Go to Profile#4353
Shirley Verrett
#79002
Overall Influence
1931 - 2010 (79 years)
Shirley Verrett was an American operatic mezzo-soprano who successfully transitioned into soprano roles. Verrett enjoyed great fame from the late 1960s through the 1990s, particularly well known for singing the works of Verdi and Donizetti.
Go to Profile#4354
Béla Fleck
#52031
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. An acclaimed virtuoso, he is an innovative and technically proficient pioneer and ambassador of the banjo, playing music from bluegrass, jazz, classical, rock and various world music genres. He is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Fleck has won 15 Grammy Awards and been nominated 33 times.
Go to Profile#4355
Myung-whun Chung
#84501
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Myung-whun Chung is a South Korean conductor and pianist. Career Performer Chung studied piano with Maria Curcio and won joint second-prize in the 1974 International Tchaikovsky Competition. He performed in the Chung Trio with his sisters, violinist Kyung-wha Chung and cellist Myung-wha Chung.
Go to Profile#4356
Sarah Banet-Weiser
#65166
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (60 years)
Sarah Banet-Weiser is a distinguished professor of communication and author. She is currently a joint professor at the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California and at the University of Pennsylvania. She previously was the head of the London School of Economics and Political Science's Media and Communication Department between September 2018 and June 2021. In July 2014, Banet-Weiser became director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication.
Go to Profile#4357
Anthony Aristar
#59544
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
#4358
Craig Smith
#75646
Overall Influence
1947 - 2007 (60 years)
Craig Smith was an American conductor who is considered a seminal figure in Boston's Baroque music revival of the 1970s and 1980s. At the beginning of his career, in 1970, he founded Emmanuel Music, a widely recognized organization that continues to focus on performances of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Go to Profile#4359
Sam Moore
#62324
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (91 years)
Samuel David Moore is an American singer who was best known as a member of the soul and R&B duo Sam & Dave from 1961 to 1981. He is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame , and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.
Go to Profile#4360
Tom Waits
#56508
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Thomas Alan Waits is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on the underbelly of society and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He worked primarily in jazz, blues, country, and spoken word during the 1970s, but his music since the 1980s has reflected greater influence from rock, vaudeville, German Expressionism and experimental genres.
Go to Profile#4361
Wanda Jackson
#50062
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (89 years)
Wanda LaVonne Jackson is an American singer and songwriter. Since the 1950s, she has recorded and released music in the genres of rock, country and gospel. She was among the first women to have a career in rock and roll, recording a series of 1950s singles that helped give her the nickname "The Queen of Rockabilly". She is also counted among the first female stars in the genre of country music.
Go to Profile#4362
James Arthur
#53629
Overall Influence
1988 - Present (38 years)
James Arthur is an English singer and songwriter. He rose to fame after winning the ninth series of The X Factor in 2012. His debut single, a cover of Shontelle's "Impossible", was released by Syco Music after the final, and debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart. Since then, it has gone on to sell over 2.5 million copies worldwide, making it the most successful winner's single in the show's history.
Go to Profile#4363
Wendy Perron
#61347
Overall Influence
Wendy Perron is an American dancer, choreographer, and teacher who was the editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine from 2004 to 2013. She is the author of Through the Eyes of a Dancer, Selected Writings, published by Wesleyan University Press in November 2013.
Go to Profile#4364
Rolf Liebermann
#88281
Overall Influence
1910 - 1999 (89 years)
Rolf Liebermann , was a Swiss composer and music administrator. He served as the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera from 1959 to 1973 and again from 1985 to 1988. He was also Artistic Director of the Paris Opera from 1973 to 1980.
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Judith Davidoff
#102710
Overall Influence
1927 - 2021 (94 years)
Judith Davidoff was an American viol player, cellist, and performer on the medieval bowed instruments. She was considered the “Grande Dame of the viol”, "a master of the viola da gamba and other stringed instruments" and "a central part of the early-music scene." Her recorded performances reflect her wide range of repertoire and styles, including such works as Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht and 13th-century monody. She is responsible for the catalog of 20th- and 21st-century viol music.
Go to Profile#4366
Michael Parks
#62441
Overall Influence
1943 - 2022 (79 years)
Michael Parks was an American journalist, editor, and educator who wrote on various political events around the world throughout his career. He served as editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1997 to 2000. He won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting award in 1987 for his reports about the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. He also taught at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and served several stints as its director.
Go to Profile#4367
Joe Morello
#65681
Overall Influence
1928 - 2011 (83 years)
Joseph Albert Morello was an American jazz drummer best known for serving as the drummer for pianist Dave Brubeck, as part of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, from 1957 to 1972, including during the quartet's "classic lineup" from 1958 to 1968, which also included alto saxophonist Paul Desmond and bassist Eugene Wright. Morello's facility for playing unusual time signatures and rhythms enabled that group to record a series of albums that explored them. The most notable of these was the first in the series, the 1959 album Time Out, which contained the hit songs "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo à la Turk"....
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Ritu R. Agarwal
#114408
Overall Influence
#4369
Lera Auerbach
#86349
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Lera Auerbach is a Soviet-born Austrian-American classical composer, conductor and concert pianist. Early life and education Auerbach was born to a Jewish family in Chelyabinsk, a city in the Ural Mountains. Her mother was a piano teacher, many of whose ancestors had also been musicians. Lera began composing her own music at an early age; she later told an interviewer, "I was born to do this, to work in art... I had this feeling when I was four and I had it when I came to New York...". She received permission to visit the United States on a concert tour in 1991; although she spoke no English, she decided to stay in the country to pursue her musical career.
Go to Profile#4370
Jason Robert Brown
#59517
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Jason Robert Brown is an American musical theatre composer, lyricist, and playwright. Brown's music sensibility fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics. He is the recipient of three Tony Awards for his work on Parade and The Bridges of Madison County.
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Carlos Kleiber
#80082
Overall Influence
1930 - 2004 (74 years)
Carlos Luis Bonifacio Kleiber was an Austrian conductor who is widely regarded as among the greatest conductors of all time. Early life Kleiber was born as Karl Ludwig Bonifacius Kleiber in Berlin in 1930, the son of the eminent Austrian conductor Erich Kleiber and American Ruth Goodrich, from Waterloo, Iowa. In 1935, the Kleiber family emigrated to Buenos Aires and Karl was renamed Carlos. As a youth, he had an English governess and grew up in English boarding schools. He also composed, sang, and played piano and timpani. While his father noticed his son's musical talents, he nevertheless d...
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Beverly Schmidt Blossom
#51340
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Beverly Schmidt Blossom was an American modern dancer, choreographer, and teacher. She was an original member and soloist with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theater, a modern dance choreographer for Illinois Dance Theatre, Blossom & Co. and others, and a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Go to Profile#4373
David Callahan
#34124
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
David Callahan is an American writer and editor. He is the founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a digital media site, and Blue Tent Daily, which offers in-depth reporting on progressive organizations and the Democratic Party. Previously, he was a senior fellow at Demos, a public policy group based in New York City that he co-founded in 1999. He is also an author and lecturer. He is best known as the author of the books The Givers and The Cheating Culture.
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Dan the Automator
#51888
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (59 years)
Daniel M. Nakamura , better known by his stage name Dan the Automator, is an American music producer from San Francisco, California. He is the founder of the publishing company Sharkman Music and the record label 75 Ark.
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Larry Levan
#67696
Overall Influence
1954 - 1992 (38 years)
Lawrence Philpot , known as Larry Levan , was an American DJ best known for his decade-long residency at the New York City night club Paradise Garage, which has been described as the prototype of the modern dance club. He developed a cult following who referred to his sets as "Saturday Mass". Influential post-disco DJ François Kevorkian credits Levan with introducing the dub aesthetic into dance music. Along with Kevorkian, Levan experimented with drum machines and synthesizers in his productions and live sets, ushering in an electronic, post-disco sound that presaged the ascendence of house music.
Go to Profile#4376
Susan Zaeske
#83288
Overall Influence
Susan Zaeske is Professor of Rhetoric and Public Culture in the Department of Communication Arts and Arts and was formerly Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities in the College of Letters & Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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John Fraser
#54384
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (82 years)
John Anderson Fraser is a Canadian journalist, writer and academic. He served as Master of Massey College in the University of Toronto from 1995 until his retirement in June 2014. He is currently the executive chair of the National NewsMedia Council of Canada.
Go to Profile#4378
Tommy Emmanuel
#66027
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
William Thomas Emmanuel is an Australian guitarist. Originally a session player in many bands, he has released many award-winning recordings as a solo artist. In June 2010, Emmanuel was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia ; in 2011, he was inducted into the Australian Roll of Renown. In 2019, he was listed by MusicRadar as one of the 10 best acoustic guitarists in the world.
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Carole Chaski
#76890
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Carole Elisabeth Chaski is a forensic linguist who is considered one of the leading experts in the field. Her research has led to improvements in the methodology and reliability of stylometric analysis and inspired further research on the use of this approach for authorship identification. Her contributions have served as expert testimony in several federal and state court cases in the United States and Canada. She is president of ALIAS Technology and executive director of the Institute for Linguistic Evidence, a non-profit research organization devoted to linguistic evidence.
Go to Profile#4380
Philippe Entremont
#99822
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (92 years)
Philippe Entremont is a French classical pianist and conductor. His recordings as a pianist include concertos by Tchaikovsky, Maurice Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saëns and others. Early life Philippe Entremont was born in Reims to musical parents, his mother being a Grand Prix pianist and his father an operatic conductor. Philippe first received piano lessons from his mother at the age of six. His father introduced him to the world of chamber and orchestral music.
Go to Profile#4381
Abraham Solomonick
#65225
Overall Influence
1927 - Present (99 years)
Abraham Solomonick, also Avraham Solomonick, Abraham Salomonick is an Israeli scientist, philologist, semiotician and philosopher, and is the author of Hebrew-English and English-Hebrew dictionaries.
Go to Profile#4382
Timothy Brown
#89959
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Timothy Brown is a British horn player, a leading chamber musician and co-principal of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. He was a member of the Melos Ensemble in its second phase. He teaches at the Royal College of Music.
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Jane Greer
#71065
Overall Influence
1924 - 2001 (77 years)
Jane Greer was an American film and television actress best known for her role as femme fatale Kathie Moffat in the 1947 film noir Out of the Past. In 2009, The Guardian named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.
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Bill Minutaglio
#74909
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (71 years)
Bill Minutaglio is a journalist, educator and author of nine books. He is the recipient of a PEN Center USA Literary Award and has served as a professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where he was given The Regents' Outstanding Teaching Award.
Go to Profile#4385
Mark Mancina
#66888
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
Mark Mancina is an American film composer. A veteran of Hans Zimmer's Media Ventures, Mancina has scored over sixty films and television series including Speed, Bad Boys, Twister, Tarzan, Training Day, Brother Bear, Criminal Minds, Blood+, and Moana.
Go to Profile#4386
Michael Lund
#68230
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Michael Lund is a journalist based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. He was the winner in the 2004 Queensland Media Awards for his report on the pitch invasion at the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He was also "highly commended" in the Walkley Awards for his report on Peter Hollingworth and Hollingworth's dealings with child abuse allegations when Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane.
Go to Profile#4387
David Weir
#64020
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (87 years)
David Weir is a journalist, author, and co-founder and former Executive Director of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He has written for publications including The Economist, HotWired, L.A. Weekly, Mother Jones, The Nation, New West, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner.. While at Rolling Stone, Weir and Howard Kohn revealed the "Inside Story" of Patty Hearst's odyssey while she was underground, following her kidnapping by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Other investigative pieces included FBI surveillan...
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Pete Rock
#35449
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
Peter O. Phillips , better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American music producer, DJ and rapper. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time, and is often mentioned alongside DJ Premier, RZA, and Q-Tip as one of the mainstays of 1990s East Coast hip hop production. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth. Early on in his career, he was also famed for his remix work.
Go to Profile#4389
James L. Gibson
#114615
Overall Influence
#4390
Chisato Moritaka
#51200
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (57 years)
Chisato Moritaka is a Japanese pop singer who also is notable as a songwriter. She is affiliated with Up-Front Create, a subsidiary of the Up-Front Group. Moritaka's singing career as the unrivaled "Dance Queen" began in May 1987 with the release of her debut album New Season. She differed from many other female Idol singers in Japan in that she wrote her own lyrics for majority of her albums. More than 60 of her songs were composed by Hideo Saitō. Moritaka also played drums on many of the tracks, as well as piano, guitar, recorder, clarinet, and other instruments. Her musical style was influenced by Pink Lady, Janet Jackson, Roger Taylor, and The Beatles.
Go to Profile#4391
Elie S. Dolgin
#114624
Overall Influence
#4392
Kevin Desouza
#37216
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (47 years)
Kevin C. Desouza is an Indian American academic. He is an ASU Foundation professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2012 to 2016 he served as Associate Dean for Research at the College of Public Service & Community Solutions.
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Mark-Anthony Turnage
#81309
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mark-Anthony Turnage CBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Life and career Mark-Anthony Turnage was born in Corringham, Essex on 10 June 1960. He began composing at age nine and at fourteen began studying at the junior section of the Royal College of Music.
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Elena Bashir
#82377
Overall Influence
Elena Bashir is an American linguist and senior lecturer in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations of the Humanities Division of the University of Chicago. She studies languages of Pakistan and the broader northwestern part of South Asia, and has published extensive linguistic work on the Dardic languages, Hindko, Saraiki, Balochi, Brahui, Wakhi and Hindustani, among other languages of the region. Bashir also teaches Urdu.
Go to Profile#4395
Judit Hidasi
#53050
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Judit Hidasi is a Hungarian linguist, professor of communication at Faculty of International Management and Business, Budapest Business School. Biography and career Hidasi was born on 11 July 1948 in Budapest. She earned M.A. degrees at the Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities, School of English and American Studies in English and Russian Philology in 1971, and in General and Applied Linguistics in 1976.
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John Huehnergard
#68632
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
John Huehnergard is a Canadian-American specialist in Semitic languages, notable for his work on categorization, etymology, and historical linguistics. Early life and education Huehnergard was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and was raised in the nearby city of Waterloo, Ontario. He graduated from the Kitchener–Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School in 1970. He received a B.A. from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1974 and a Ph.D from Harvard University in 1979, where he studied with William L. Moran, Thomas O. Lambdin, and Frank Moore Cross.
Go to Profile#4397
Carlo Bergonzi
#85288
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
Carlo Bergonzi was an Italian operatic tenor. Although he performed and recorded some bel canto and verismo roles, he was above all associated with the operas of Giuseppe Verdi, including many of the composer's lesser known works he helped revive. He sang more than forty other roles throughout his career.
Go to Profile#4398
Nick D'Virgilio
#74393
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (58 years)
Nicholas D'Virgilio , often abbreviated and referred to as NDV, is an American drummer, singer and guitarist, best known as a member of the progressive rock band Spock's Beard. He was also one of two drummers chosen to replace Phil Collins in Genesis on the Calling All Stations album. He has also done session work with many artists including Tears for Fears and Mystery, and is an official member of Big Big Train.
Go to Profile#4399
Bill Barber
#97512
Overall Influence
1920 - 2007 (87 years)
John William Barber was an American jazz tubist. He is considered by many to be the first person to play tuba in modern jazz. He recorded with Miles Davis on the albums Birth of the Cool, Sketches of Spain, and Miles Ahead.
Go to Profile#4400
José Manuel Pérez Tornero
#43190
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (72 years)
José Manuel Pérez Tornero is a Spanish researcher and journalist. He is Professor of Journalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona . Biography Born in Almería in 1954. He earned a licentiate degree in Hispanic Philology and a PhD in Communication Sciences.
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