Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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Person Name

School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Computer Science,

#12701

Pamela Manzi

#180114

Overall Influence

Pamela Manzi is an Italian biologist, who is active in the fields of analytical chemistry and food science; she is a researcher of the "Istituto nazionale di ricerca per gli alimenti e la nutrizione" since 1996.

#12702

Herb Sutter

#189734

Overall Influence

#12703

Dianne Hansford

#177131

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Dianne Carol Hansford is an American computer scientist known for her research on Coons patches in computer graphics and for her textbooks on computer-aided geometric design, linear algebra, and the mathematics behind scientific visualization. She is a lecturer at Arizona State University in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, and the cofounder of a startup based on her research, 3D Compression Technologies.

#12704

Arline Fisch

#111840

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Arline Fisch is an American artist and educator. She is known for her work as a metalsmith and jeweler, pioneering the use of textile processes from crochet, knitting, plaiting, and weaving in her work in metal. She developed groundbreaking techniques for incorporating metal wire and other materials into her jewelry.

#12705

David West

#189740

Overall Influence

#12706

William Lamson

#174581

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

William Lamson is an American installation artist, performance artist, and generative artist. He was born in Arlington, Virginia, and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Within his artistic career, he works both in the natural world and in his studio. His playful interaction with his environment includes small performances and actions that are captured on video. His diverse artistic practice involves working with elemental forces to create durational performative actions.

#12707

Jean Grossholtz

#116458

Overall Influence

1929 - 2021 (92 years)

Thelma Jean Grossholtz was an American professor emeritus of politics and women's studies at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Beyond her academic work she was also known as an activist for peace and against forced prostitution, and as a senior bodybuilder.

#12708

Enrique Chagoya

#55497

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Enrique Chagoya is a Mexican-born American painter, printmaker, and educator. The subject of his artwork is the changing nature of culture. He frequently uses shocking imagery, irony, and Mesoamerican icons to convey his point in his artwork. Chagoya teaches at Stanford University, in the department of Art and Art History. He lives in San Francisco.

#12709

Jed Perl

#68823

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Jed Perl is an American art critic and author in New York City. He was a longtime staff of The New Republic. Career Jed Perl initially trained as a painter. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College and also studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He decided to devote himself fully to criticism in the mid-1980s. "In my twenties I was very involved in making art as well as writing about art," he said an interview, "but in the early 80s I came to what I guess I would describe as a fork in the road, and around 1985 I just decided to stop painting. A lot of people were ...

#12710

Hunter Cole

#78044

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Hunter Cole is an artist and geneticist. She reinterprets science as art through the creation of living artworks, abstractions, digital art and installations confronting issues related to biotechnology in our culture.

#12711

Gerald Penn

#183301

Overall Influence

Gerald Penn is an American computer scientist specializing in mathematical linguistics and speech processing. He is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, a senior member of IEEE and AAAI, and a past chair of Association for Mathematics of Language.

#12712

Conceição Bettencourt

#187473

Overall Influence

Conceição Bettencourt works in the field of neuro-epigenetics. She studies the involvement of disrupted molecular pathways and DNA methylation in neurodegenerative diseases using human post-mortem brain tissue. She is research fellow of the Alzheimer's Research UK and co-leads the Genetics and Omics Working Group of the international Deep Dementia Phenotyping network.

#12713

Jesse Vincent

#186460

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Jesse Vincent is a computer programmer and entrepreneur, best known for his work with the Perl programming language. He created the ticket-tracking system Request Tracker and founded the company Best Practical Solutions.

#12714

Elicia Maine

#174579

Overall Influence

Elicia Maine is a Canadian academic. She is the W.J. VanDusen Professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship within Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business. She was the founding educational coordinator for New Ventures BC, and the founding Academic Director of Invention to Innovation , an award-winning graduate program in science & technology commercialization offered in traditional and online formats. Within Simon Fraser University, she serves as Associate Vice President, Knowledge Mobilization & Innovation, providing oversight of SFU Innovates.

#12715

Larry Miller

#45820

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Larry Miller is an American artist, most strongly linked to the Fluxus movement after 1969. He is "an intermedia artist whose work questions the borders between artistic, scientific and theological disciplines. He was in the vanguard of using DNA and genetic technologies as new art media." Electronic Arts Intermix, a pioneering international resource for video and new media art has said, "Miller has produced a diverse body of experimental art works as a key figure in the emergent installation and performance movements in New York in the 1970s... His installations and performances have integra...

#12716

David Freed

#169694

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

David Freed is an American artist based in Richmond, Virginia where he taught at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts. His art has been shown extensively throughout the world and is in the collections of major museums and private collections. He is known for his masterful prints using the intaglio technique of etching and for his collaboration with major poets such as Charles Wright and Larry Levis in creating artist's books combining his etchings with their poetry.

#12717

Tobin Im

#151673

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Tobin Im is a scholar of public administration and a professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration at Seoul National University. He specializes in public management, organization theory, and comparative administration.

#12718

Wendy R. Childs

#138471

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Wendy R. Childs is Emeritus Professor of Later Medieval History at the University of Leeds. Early life and education Childs was educated at Girton College, Cambridge where she completed the degrees of BA and PhD.

#12719

Matt Heavner

#189769

Overall Influence

#12720

Emmanuel O C Mkpojiogu

#189775

Overall Influence

#12721

Hisayo Momose

#178381

Overall Influence

Hisayo Sasaki Momose is a Japanese electrical engineer specializing in semiconductor devices, including MOSFETs and CMOS image sensors. She is a researcher at the Toshiba Center for Semiconductor Research and Development in Kawasaki.

#12722

Kara Lynch

#184220

Overall Influence

Kara Lynch is an American artist who teaches at Hampshire College. Biography Kara Lynch has an MFA in Visual Arts from the University of California, San Diego. Work Lynch works in video and time-based media. Her projects include Black Russians, Mouhawala Oula, The Outing, and Xing Over. Lynch recorded her time working in Moscow through video and in "a series of handwritten books" during her artist's residency in 1994.

#12723

Paul Jenkins

#50428

Overall Influence

Paul Jenkins is an American academic. He is Professor of Poetry at Hampshire College. Jenkins received an M.A. and a Ph.D. degree from the University of Washington, Seattle. Before moving to Hampshire, Jenkins taught at Elms College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

#12724

Brian O. Murdoch

#37259

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Brian Oliver Murdoch is a British philologist who is Emeritus Professor of German at the University of Stirling. He specializes in the study of early Germanic and Celtic literature, on which he has authored and edited several influential works.

#12725

E. J. Westlake

#128850

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

E.J. Westlake is a playwright and performance studies scholar. She won an Oregon Book Award in 1991. Biography Early life E.J. Westlake was born Jane Elizabeth Westlake in Dayton, Ohio, the daughter of Curtis Edison Westlake, a factory worker at Delco Products, and Joy Louise Hauser, a political activist and printer. After graduating from Colonel White Performing Arts School in Dayton, Ohio in 1982, Westlake attended the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis where she majored in Theatre Arts and Business .

#12726

Matthew A Barnes

#189797

Overall Influence

#12727

Denise Welch

#74042

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Jacqueline Denise Welch is an English actress, television personality, writer and broadcaster. Her roles include Natalie Barnes in Coronation Street , Steph Haydock in Waterloo Road , and Trish Minniver in Hollyoaks . Welch also appears as a regular panellist on the ITV chat show Loose Women .

#12728

Graydon Hoare

#188752

Overall Influence

#12729

Julia Smith

#111978

Overall Influence

1927 - 1997 (70 years)

Julia Cuthbert Smith was an English television director and producer. She is best known for being the co-creator of the BBC soap opera EastEnders, also working as a director and the first producer of the series.

#12730

Hilda Cerdeira

#177521

Overall Influence

Hilda Alicia Gómez de Cerdeira is an Argentine mathematical physicist whose research concerns nonlinear systems and the synchronization of chaos. She is a retired professor at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of São Paulo State University in Brazil.

#12731

Henry P. Monaghan

#141363

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Henry Paul Monaghan is an American legal scholar. He was the Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law at Columbia Law School from 1988 to 2019. Biography Monaghan graduated from Holyoke Junior College in 1953, and received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Massachusetts in 1955. He received his Bachelor of Laws from Yale Law School in 1958 and a Master of Laws from Harvard Law School in 1960.

#12732

Nancy J. Troy

#123705

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Nancy J. Troy is Victoria and Roger Sant Professor in Art at Stanford University. She was previously professor of modern art and chair of art history at the University of Southern California until 2010. Troy is a specialist in modern European art and has written books on the De Stijl movement, modernism and the decorative arts in France, and the works of Piet Mondrian.

#12733

Tom Stocky

#185119

Overall Influence

Tom Stocky is an American computer scientist and technology executive. He is senior vice president of lab & data platform at insitro, a drug discovery startup. He was previously vice president of Search at Facebook.

#12734

Zita Cabello-Barrueto

#173753

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Zita Cabello-Barrueto is a professor at San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California. She teaches classes on U.S. intervention in other countries, especially her native Chile. A staunch opponent of torture, Zita has made two films on the subject. She strongly opposes George W. Bush's stance against John McCain's anti-torture bill; Bush objects to the bill because it does not exempt the CIA. Her disdain for torture comes from her personal experience under Chile's CIA-initiated coup d'état and ensuing 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. The regime jailed, tortured, and murdered her brother in the 1970s.

#12735

Åsmund L. Strømnes

#104748

Overall Influence

1927 - 2009 (82 years)

Åsmund Lønning Strømnes was a Norwegian educationalist. He was born in Trondenes, and graduated from Volda Teacher's College in 1951. He worked ten years as a teacher before enrolling at the University of Oslo. He has a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Oslo , and worked as a docent there from 1970 to 1973. He was a professor at the University of Tromsø from 1973 to 1985 and at the University of Trondheim from 1985 to 1997. He was a dean during his time in Tromsø. He was given the honorary degree at Uppsala University in 2007, and was a fellow of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.

#12736

Ikuo Hirayama

#15131

Overall Influence

1930 - 2009 (79 years)

was a Japanese Nihonga painter and educator. Born in Setoda-chō, Hiroshima Prefecture, he was famous in Japan for Silk Road paintings of dreamy desert landscapes in Iran, Iraq, and China. Biography In 1952, he graduated from the Tokyo School of Art, or what is today's Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music , and became a disciple of Maeda Seison. Hirayama also served as President of his alma mater twice .

#12737

Carl-Alexander Graubner

#165511

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Carl-Alexander Graubner is a German civil engineer and since 1996 professor at the TU Darmstadt. Since 2007 he has been a member of the University Assembly TU Darmstadt and since 2012 chairman of the mirror committee "masonry" in the DIN.

#12738

Sholeh Maani

#102137

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Sholeh Maani is a New Zealand economics academic. She is a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career Maani is the first female Professor of Economics at the University of Auckland. She is a specialist in applied microeconomics, in particular the economics of the labour market, and the economics of education. Sholeh has a PhD degree in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After completing her PhD, titled A Study of Female Labor Force Participation and Fertility: A Cross-Cultural Approach, she moved to the University of Auckland, rising to full profe...

#12739

Joanna Clark

#137842

Overall Influence

1978 - 2022 (44 years)

Joanna Clark was professor of environmental science at the University of Reading. She worked on aspects of carbon and water cycles in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems from test-tube to catchment scale. She is founder and was director of the Loddon Observatory, which aims to bring together academia, charities, public sector and business to support sustainable societies.

#12740

Byron August Wilson

Byron August Wilson

#168274

Overall Influence

1918 - 1992 (74 years)

Byron August Wilson was an American mid-20th century artist and educator, known for his jewelry design. Life Wilson was born in Alameda, California. Although self-taught, he gained recognition for his jewelry design and art during the California studio jewelry movement in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

#12741

Keith Dyce

#112237

Overall Influence

1926 - 2014 (88 years)

Keith Macfarlane Dyce, DVM&S was a 20th-century British veterinarian who served as Dean of the Dick Vet School from 1980 to 1984. He was an expert on dog anatomy. Life Dyce was born in Edinburgh on 24 June 1926. He studied science at the University of Edinburgh then trained as a vet at the Dick Vet School in Edinburgh graduating with a BSc in 1947. He then lectured in the anatomy department at the Royal Veterinary College in London, gaining a doctorate in 1958.

#12742

Gordon Gilkey

#62626

Overall Influence

1912 - 2000 (88 years)

Gordon Waverly Gilkey was an American artist, educator, and promoter of the arts from Oregon. A native Oregonian, he served during World War II in Europe collecting art stolen by the Nazis for which he was award the Meritorious Service Medal and other accolades. He later served in the administration at Oregon State University and worked for the Portland Art Museum.

#12743

Sonia Arriaga

#185550

Overall Influence

Sonia Lorena Arriaga García is a Mexican biological engineer specializing in the bioremediation of hydrocarbon-based pollution, and in techniques for removing bioaerosols from indoor environments. She is a professor and researcher at the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica , in San Luis Potosí, Mexico.

#12744

Paul Smyth

#141490

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Paul Smyth is a professor of social policy in the School of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Education and early career Smyth initially trained as a Roman Catholic priest. Smyth then completed a Bachelor of Arts from Murdoch University in Perth, and a Doctor of Philosophy at the University of New South Wales. Smyth was a senior researcher at Uniya, a Jesuit social research and action centre in Sydney established by Frank Brennan. Paul was then Director of Social Policy and Research and Development at the School of Social Work and Social Policy at...

#12745

Roland Chaplain

#57686

Overall Influence

Dr. Roland Philip Chaplain, lectured in the psychology of education in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Chaplain has published numerous books on classroom management and stress from the perspective of teacher, head teacher and student. He also works as an Educational Consultant providing courses managing pupil behaviour, motivation and stress, coping and well-being to staff in primary and secondary schools

#12746

Giuseppe Chiari

#169520

Overall Influence

1926 - 2007 (81 years)

Giuseppe Chiari was an Avant-Garde Florentine conceptual artist and experimental musician active in Neo-Dada circles, specifically the Fluxus art movement. Chiari was a supporter of intermedia work conducted between music, speech, gesture and image.

#12747

Faruk Čaklovica

#38060

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Faruk Čaklovica is a Bosnian Professor of Bromatology and former Rector of the University of Sarajevo. He is member of the board at the Balkan Universities Network 2010. Biography Čaklovica received his BSci in veterinary medicine from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Sarajevo University in 1977, his MSci and Doctorate from the same Faculty in 1983 and 1987.

#12748

Maribel Rios

#171487

Overall Influence

Maribel Rios is a neuroscientist originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She received a Bachelor of Arts in neuroscience from Boston University, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from the Sackler School at Tufts University. Rios continued her studies by attending the Whitehead Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she completed her post-doctoral training in genetics. Following her education, she returned to Tufts where she serves as a professor of neuroscience.

#12749

Christopher Sperandio

#103351

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Christopher Sperandio is an American artist known for his collaborative work with British artist Simon Grennan. Biography Sperandio was born in Kingwood, West Virginia, and attended West Virginia University, receiving his Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking in 1987. He pursued graduate coursework at the University of Illinois at Chicago receiving a Master of Fine Arts in painting in 1991. Both Grennan and Sperandio were classmates of Tom Friedman. Sperandio is an assistant professor at Rice University in the School of Visual and Dramatic Arts.

#12750

Robert Davidson

#47520

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Robert Charles Davidson LL. D. D.F.A. , is a Canadian artist of Haida heritage. Davidson's Haida name is , which means "Eagle of the Dawn". He is a leading figure in the renaissance of Haida art and culture. He lives in White Rock, British Columbia.

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