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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Subdiscipline

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List of the most influential people in Communications,

#4551

Yuri Temirkanov

#67924

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Yuri Khatuevich Temirkanov was a Soviet and Russian conductor, People's Artist of the USSR. Early life Born in 1938 in the North Caucasus city of Nalchik, Temirkanov attended the Leningrad School for Talented Children where he continued his studies in violin and viola.

#4552

Stan Tracey

#91365

Overall Influence

1926 - 2013 (87 years)

Stanley William Tracey was a British jazz pianist and composer, whose most important influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk. Tracey's best known recording is the 1965 album Jazz Suite Inspired by Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood", which is based on the BBC radio drama Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas.

#4553

Robert Woods

#64601

Overall Influence

Robert Woods, born July 8, 1947, is a classical music producer. Woods is a founder and former president of the independent record label Telarc International Corporation. Woods has won 13 Grammy Awards, with seven as solo awards for Producer of the Year, Classical and six as producer in collaboration with others including two each for Best Classical Album and Best Orchestral Performance, as well as a Best Surround Sound Album and Best Classical Crossover Album.

#4554

Mark Berger

#84560

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Mark Berger is an American sound engineer. He has won four Academy Awards for Best Sound. He holds the Academy Award record for "perfect score" with 4 nominations and 4 wins. He is best known for his work on The Godfather Part II , One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Apocalypse Now . He has worked on more than 170 films since 1973.

#4555

Bonnie Bramlett

#53272

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Bonnie Bramlett is an American singer and occasional actress known for performing with her husband, Delaney Bramlett, as Delaney & Bonnie. She continues to sing as a solo artist. Life and career Early life Bonnie O'Farrell was born in Granite City, Illinois, the daughter of a steelworker. When she was young her parents divorced and remarried other spouses. She was raised with an extended family that included four half-and step-siblings. She began singing as a child. When she was five years old, she sang "Beautiful Golden Harbor" at the family church in Granite City. Bonnie started her musical career at the age of fifteen singing around St.

#4556

John Clark

#104725

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

John Clark is an American jazz horn player and composer. In Allmusic, Clark is described as "possibly the most fluent jazz French horn soloist since the great Julius Watkins in the 1950s." Biography John Clark was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Rochester, New York. In 1966 he received a B.A.from the University of Rochester, where he also studied horn with Verne Reynolds at the Eastman School of Music. From 1967 until 1971 he played in the United States Coast Guard Band. Clark received a M.M. degree from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1973. He studied composition and improvisation ...

#4557

Thea Musgrave

#81713

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

Thea Musgrave CBE is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music. She has lived in the United States since 1972. Biography Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Musgrave was educated at Moreton Hall School, a boarding independent school for girls near the market town of Oswestry in Shropshire, followed by the University of Edinburgh, and in Paris as a pupil of Nadia Boulanger from 1950 to 1954. In 1958 she attended the Tanglewood Festival and studied with Aaron Copland. In 1970 she became guest professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a position which confirmed her increasing involvement with the musical life of the United States.

#4558

Miro Kačić

#94949

Overall Influence

1946 - 2001 (55 years)

Miro Kačić was a Croatian linguist. After finishing primary school in Pučišća and high school in Zagreb, he enrolled in Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zagreb where he graduated in Romance studies . After 1977 he worked as a lecturer in Croatian in France, where he received his Ph.D. at the University of Aix-en-Provence with a thesis Le theorie des ensembles et l'analyse linguistique in which he developed his theories of algebraic linguistics and which has been published, due to the scientific prominence, at the expense of French government. After 1988 he worked at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zadar, where he taught general and French syntax, and applied linguistics.

#4559

Pete Rugolo

#78854

Overall Influence

1915 - 2011 (96 years)

Pietro Rugolo , known professionally as Pete Rugolo, was an American jazz composer, arranger, and record producer. Life and career Rugolo was born in San Piero Patti, Sicily. His family emigrated to the United States in 1920 and settled in Santa Rosa, California. He began his career in music playing the baritone horn, like his father, but he quickly branched out into other instruments, notably the French horn and the piano. He received a bachelor's degree from San Francisco State College and then went on to study composition with Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California, and earn...

#4560

Halyna Hnatyuk

#116975

Overall Influence

1927 - 2016 (89 years)

Halyna Makarivna Hnatyuk was a Ukrainian linguist, lexicographer, historian of Ukrainian language, doctor of philological sciences. She was a research fellow of the Potebnia Institute of Linguistics in 1956-1992.

#4561

Joe Pass

#52852

Overall Influence

1929 - 1994 (65 years)

Joe Pass was an American jazz guitarist. Pass is well known for his work stemming from numerous collaborations with pianist Oscar Peterson and vocalist Ella Fitzgerald, and is often esteemed as one of the most notable jazz guitarists of the 20th century.

#4562

Gregg Araki

#56827

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Gregg Araki is an American filmmaker. He is noted for his heavy involvement with the New Queer Cinema movement. His film Kaboom was the first winner of the Cannes Film Festival Queer Palm. Early life Araki was born in Los Angeles on December 17, 1959, to Japanese American parents. He grew up in nearby Santa Barbara, California and enrolled in college at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He graduated with a B.A. from UCSB in 1982. He later attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, where he graduated with a M.F.A. in 1985.

#4563

Florian Brody

#95408

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Florian Brody is an Austrian/American digital media creator, inventor, writer, public speaker, academic, and global business consultant. He is best known for his contributions to the invention and development of Expanded Books, an early form of E-books, at the Voyager Company, and for his writings and public speaking about digital media innovation and marketing, including TEDx talks in Austria, as well as his 1999 essay "The Medium is the Memory," originally published in MIT Press's The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media, edited by Peter Lunenfeld.

#4564

Maila Nurmi

#58536

Overall Influence

1922 - 2008 (86 years)

Maila Elizabeth Syrjäniemi , known professionally as Maila Nurmi, was an American actress who created the campy 1950s character Vampira. She was raised in Astoria, Oregon, where she worked in tuna and salmon canneries. She relocated to Los Angeles in 1940, with hopes of becoming an actress. After several minor film roles, she found success with her Vampira character, television's first horror host. Nurmi hosted her own series, The Vampira Show, from 1954 to 1955, on KABC-TV.

#4565

Richard Page

#48654

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Richard James Page is an American musician who is best known as the lead singer and bassist of 1980s band Mr. Mister. The band's hits include "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie". Page has also sung in other bands, been a solo artist, written songs for other artists, and worked as a background singer for other artists.

#4566

Derek Sherinian

Derek Sherinian

#44913

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Derek Sherinian is an American keyboardist who has toured and recorded for Alice Cooper, Billy Idol, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. He was also a member of Dream Theater from 1994 to 1999, is the founder of Planet X and also one of the founding members of Black Country Communion and Sons of Apollo. He has released nine solo albums that have featured a variety of prominent guest musicians, including guitarists Slash, Yngwie Malmsteen, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Lukather, Joe Bonamassa, Michael Schenker, Steve Vai and Al Di Meola.

#4567

Eddie Snyder

#93492

Overall Influence

1919 - 2011 (92 years)

Edward Abraham Snyder was an American composer and songwriter. Snyder is credited with co-writing the English language lyrics and music for Frank Sinatra's 1966 hit, "Strangers in the Night". Snyder was born in New York City on February 22, 1919. He studied piano at the Juilliard School before taking a job as a songwriter at the Brill Building. Eddie Snyder died on March 10, 2011, in Lakeland, Florida, at the age of 92.

#4568

Gabriel Jackson

Gabriel Jackson

#71579

Overall Influence

1921 - 2019 (98 years)

Gabriel Jackson was an American Hispanist, historian and journalist. He was born in Mount Vernon, New York in 1921. After his retirement he lived in Barcelona, Spain. A victim of McCarthyism, he studied at Harvard and Stanford before attaining his doctorate at Université de Toulouse. A Fulbright scholar , he obtained his professorship in 1965 and was Professor Emeritus at University of California, San Diego.

#4569

Owen Bradley

#47919

Overall Influence

1915 - 1998 (83 years)

William Owen Bradley was an American musician, bandleader and record producer who, along with Chet Atkins, Bob Ferguson, Bill Porter, and Don Law, was one of the chief architects of the 1950s and 1960s Nashville sound in country music and rockabilly.

#4570

Ian Wallace

#63256

Overall Influence

1946 - 2007 (61 years)

Ian Russell Wallace was an English rock and jazz drummer, most visibly as a member of progressive rock band King Crimson, as a member of David Lindley's El Rayo-X and as Don Henley's drummer. Early years Wallace was born in Bury and educated at Bury Grammar School. He formed his first band, The Jaguars, at school, before going on to join The Warriors with Jon Anderson in his pre-Yes days. .

#4571

Birdy

#87880

Overall Influence

1996 - Present (30 years)

Jasmine Lucilla Elizabeth Jennifer van den Bogaerde , better known by her stage name Birdy , is an English singer and songwriter. She won the music competition Open Mic UK in 2008, at the age of 12. Her debut single, a cover version of Bon Iver's "Skinny Love", was her breakthrough, charting all across Europe and earning platinum certification six times in Australia. Her self-titled debut album, Birdy, was released on 7 November 2011 to similar success, peaking at number one in Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Her second studio album, Fire Within, was released on 23 September 2013 in the UK.

#4572

Jonathan Curiel

#100636

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Jonathan Curiel is an American journalist, in San Francisco. Biography Curiel was educated at University of California at Berkeley and the University of Oxford. In 1993-1994, he lived in Lahore, Pakistan, where he taught at the University of the Punjab as a Fulbright Scholar. He was a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco Chronicle, Columbia Journalism Review, and Tablet Magazine,

#4573

Andrew Davis

#80801

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Sir Andrew Frank Davis is an English conductor. He is conductor laureate of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Early life and education Born in Ashridge, to Robert J. Davis and his wife Florence Joyce , Davis grew up in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and in Watford. Davis attended Watford Boys' Grammar School, where he studied classics in his sixth form years. His adolescent musical work included playing the organ at the Palace Theatre, Watford. Davis studied at the Royal Academy of Music and King's College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar, graduating in 1967.

#4574

Jonathan Dove

#87003

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Jonathan Dove is an English composer of opera, choral works, plays, films, and orchestral and chamber music. He has arranged a number of operas for English Touring Opera and the City of Birmingham Touring Opera , including in 1990 an 18-player two-evening adaptation of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen for CBTO. He was Artistic Director of the Spitalfields Festival from 2001 to 2006.

#4575

Ann Hui

#55313

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Ann Hui On-wah, is a film director, producer, screenwriter and actress from Hong Kong who is one of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers of the Hong Kong New Wave. She is known for her films about social issues in Hong Kong which include: literary adaptations, martial arts, semi-autobiographical works, women's issues, social phenomena, political changes, and thrillers. She served as the president of the Hong Kong Film Directors' Guild from 2004 to 2006.

#4576

Jeff Rawle

#92677

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Jeffrey Alan Rawle is an English actor. He is known for portraying George Dent in the news-gathering sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey, and Silas Blissett in Hollyoaks from December 2010 until 2012. Rawle returned to Hollyoaks in 2016, 2020 and 2022. He is also known for his role as Amos Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire , and has garnered notable notoriety for his performance as the character.

#4577

Michael Barrymore

#74096

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Michael Ciaran Parker , known by his stage name Michael Barrymore, is an English comedian and television presenter of game shows and light entertainment programmes on British television in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. These included Strike It Lucky, My Kind of People, My Kind of Music, Kids Say the Funniest Things, and his own variety show, Barrymore. In 1993, he headlined the Royal Variety Performance.

#4578

Babatunde Olatunji

#64994

Overall Influence

1927 - 2003 (76 years)

Michael Babatunde Olatunji was a Nigerian drummer, educator, social activist, and recording artist. Early life Olatunji was born in the village of Ajido, near Badagry, Lagos State, in southwestern Nigeria. A member of the Ogu people, Olatunji was introduced to traditional African music at an early age. His name, Bàbátúndé, means 'father has returned', because he was born two months after his father, Zannu, an Ogu man, died. Olatunji was considered to be a reincarnation of him. His father was a local fisherman who was about to rise to the rank of chieftain, and his mother was a potter who was a member of the Ogu people.

#4579

Terence Donovan

Terence Donovan

#88132

Overall Influence

1936 - 1996 (60 years)

Terence Daniel Donovan was an English photographer and film director, noted for his fashion photography of the 1960s. A book of his fashion work, Terence Donovan Fashion, was published 2012. He also directed many TV commercials and oversaw the music video to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistible". The Guardian labelled “Addicted to Love“ as being "fashion's favourite video" since it was released.

#4580

Mike Seeger

#80385

Overall Influence

1933 - 2009 (76 years)

Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him.

#4581

Grace Bumbry

#80663

Overall Influence

1937 - 2023 (86 years)

Grace Melzia Bumbry was an American opera singer, considered one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation, who also ventured to soprano roles. She belonged to a pioneering generation of African-American classical singers, led by Marian Anderson. She was recognized internationally when Wieland Wagner cast her for the 1961 Bayreuth Festival as Venus in Tannhäuser, the first black singer to appear at the festival.

#4582

Janet Fletcher

#86891

Overall Influence

Janet Fletcher is an Australian linguist. She completed her BA at the University of Queensland in 1981 and then moved to the United Kingdom and received her PhD from the University of Reading in 1989.

#4583

David Gonzalez

#87368

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

David Gonzalez is a journalist at The New York Times. Among other posts, he has been the Times Bronx Bureau Chief, the "About New York" Columnist, and the Central America and Caribbean Bureau Chief. His coverage has ranged from the Oklahoma city bombing and Haiti’s humanitarian crises, to chronicling how the Bronx emerged from years of official neglect, to in-depth reports on how Latino immigration is shaping the United States.

#4584

Anthony Moore

#65402

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Anthony Moore is a British experimental music composer, performer and producer. He was a founding member of the band Slapp Happy, worked with Henry Cow and has made a number of solo albums, including Flying Doesn't Help and World Service .

#4585

Binnie Barnes

#91267

Overall Influence

1903 - 1998 (95 years)

Gertrude Maud Barnes , known professionally as Binnie Barnes, was an English actress whose career in films spanned from 1923 to 1973. Early life Barnes was born in Islington, London, the daughter of Rosa Enoyce and George Barnes, a policeman; 16 children were in her family. Before moving to Hollywood to become an actress, Barnes worked a series of jobs, such as chorus girl, nurse, and dance hostess.

#4586

Paul Badura-Skoda

#87185

Overall Influence

1927 - 2019 (92 years)

Paul Badura-Skoda was an Austrian pianist. Career A student of Edwin Fischer, Badura-Skoda first rose to prominence by winning first prize in the Austrian Music Competition in 1947. In 1949, he performed with conductors including Wilhelm Furtwängler and Herbert von Karajan; over his long career, he recorded with conductors including Hans Knappertsbusch, Hermann Scherchen, and George Szell. Along with his contemporaries Friedrich Gulda and Jörg Demus, he was part of the so-called "Viennese Troika".

#4587

Paula Escobar

#50494

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Paula Escobar Chavarría is a Chilean editor, columnist, journalist, professor and writer. She is a recipient of the Lenka Franulic Award. She is an opinion columnist at La Tercera, host and panelist on CNN Chile, Founder and executive director of The Women and Media Chair at Universidad Diego Portales, and tenured professor at The Faculty of Communications of UDP.

#4588

Colin Matthews

#86999

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and m...

#4589

Shintarō Arakawa

#87108

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Shintarō Arakawa is a Japanese linguist who specializes in the study of the extinct Tangut language. Biography Arakawa graduated from the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University in 1995. He stayed on for graduate studies at Kyoto University, from where he received his doctorate in 2002. Since 2003 he has been teaching at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, with the position of associate professor since 2007.

#4590

Kurt Barling

#82775

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

J. Kurt Barling is a British professor of journalism at Middlesex University. He previously worked as a journalist for the BBC for 25 years and before that as a lecturer at the London School of Economics. In 1997 he won the CRE's Reporter of the Year award. He is also an author and has been an independent film producer.

#4591

Jürgen Jürgens

#88874

Overall Influence

1925 - 1994 (69 years)

Jürgen Jürgens was a German choral conductor and academic teacher. He founded and directed the Monteverdi-Chor Hamburg, a pioneering ensemble for Monteverdi's music. Biography Born in Frankfurt am Main, Jürgens received his musical training at the Musisches Gymnasium Frankfurt with Kurt Thomas. Jürgens studied singing and choir direction with at the Musikhochschule Freiburg. In 1955, he founded the award-winning Monteverdi-Chor Hamburg. They recorded for Archiv Produktion, focussing on works of Claudio Monteverdi. Later the choir became involved in the Telefunken/Teldec Bach cantatas project with the Leonhardt-Consort.

#4592

King Sunny Adé

#70661

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Chief Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye , known professionally as King Sunny Adé, is a Nigerian jùjú singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is regarded as one of the first African pop musicians to gain international success, and has been called one of the most influential musicians of all time.

#4593

Susan Ehrlich

#69640

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Susan Lynn Ehrlich is a Canadian linguist known for her work in both language and gender, language and the law, and the intersections between them. She studies language, gender and the law, with a focus on consent and coercion in rape trials.

#4594

Sylvano Bussotti

#75557

Overall Influence

1931 - 2021 (90 years)

Sylvano Bussotti was an Italian composer of contemporary classical music, also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and manager, writer and academic teacher. His compositions employ graphic notation, which has often created special problems of interpretation. He was known as a composer for the stage. His first opera was La Passion selon Sade, premiered in Palermo in 1965. Later operas and ballets were premiered at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze, Teatro Lirico di Milano, Teatro Regio di Torino and Piccola Scala di Milano, among others. He was artistic director of La Fenice in Venice, the Puccini Festival and the music section of the Venice Biennale.

#4595

Martin Outram

#92771

Overall Influence

Martin Outram is an English viola soloist and violist of the Maggini Quartet. Biography Martin Outram studied at Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge University and later at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Outram is the violist of the Maggini Quartet.

#4596

Richard Todd

#77384

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Richard Todd is a French horn player from California. He was worked in jazz, classical, and pop music. Career A native of Placentia, California, Todd attended El Dorado High School, graduating in 1973. He has recorded on over 1000 motion picture soundtracks and has recorded with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Madonna, Clark Terry, Ray Brown, and Woody Herman. He won the gold medal at the 1980 Concours Internationale Toulon and the Pro Musicis International Foundation Award. He has been a member of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and has taught at the University of Miami Frost School of Mus...

#4597

Poo Bear

#57505

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Jason Paul Douglas Boyd, better known by his stage name Poo Bear, is an American songwriter, singer, and record producer. He is best known for being one of Justin Bieber's main collaborators, having co-written many of Bieber's hits , and for co-writing the song "Caught Up" from Usher's diamond-certified album Confessions .

#4598

Nathan Milstein

#75174

Overall Influence

1902 - 1992 (90 years)

Nathan Mironovich Milstein was a Russian-born American virtuoso violinist. Widely considered one of the finest violinists of the 20th century, Milstein was known for his interpretations of Bach's solo violin works and for works from the Romantic period. He was also known for his long career: he performed at a high level into his mid-80s, retiring only after suffering a broken hand.

#4599

Ralph Schraivogel

#117662

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Ralph Schraivogel is a Swiss graphic designer and lecturer. Professional career Ralph Schraivogel studied graphic design at the Schule für Gestaltung Zürich from 1977 to 1982. After receiving his diploma, he opened his own graphic design studio in Zurich. He designs print media and devotes himself above all to poster design. He had a long-standing collaboration with the Zurich art-house cinema Filmpodium, 1983–2006. From the Museum of Design Zurich, he frequently gets poster assignments since 1984. From 1989 to 2006 he designed the posters for the African film festival “Cinemafrica” that got special attention.

#4600

Jimmy Cobb

#69557

Overall Influence

1929 - 2020 (91 years)

Wilbur James "Jimmy" Cobb was an American jazz drummer. He was part of Miles Davis's First Great Sextet. At the time of his death, he had been the band's last surviving member for nearly thirty years. He was awarded an NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship in 2009.

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