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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Education,

#551

Mikhail Shvydkoy

#23167

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Mikhail Yefimovich Shvydkoy is a Soviet and Russian theater critic, drama, social and political activist. Laureate of the State Prize of Russia. The artistic director of the Moscow theater musical, supervisor of the Faculty of the Graduate School of cultural policy and management in the humanitarian sphere, Moscow State University.

#552

Khan Sarwar Murshid

Khan Sarwar Murshid

#36083

Overall Influence

1924 - 2012 (88 years)

Khan Sarwar Murshid was a Bangladeshi educationist, diplomat and intellectual. Early life and education Sarwar Murshid was born on 1 July 1924 in his maternal home, the Munsef Bari of Comilla in Tipperah District, Bengal Province. He belonged to a Bengali Muslim family of Khans hailing from the village of Nasirabad in Nabinagar, Brahmanbaria. His father, Ali Ahmed Khan, was an advocate and All-India Muslim League politician, and served as a member in both the Bengal Legislative Assembly and the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly.

#553

Peter Selz

#24880

Overall Influence

1919 - 2019 (100 years)

Peter Howard Selz was a German-born American art historian and museum director and curator who specialized in German Expressionism. Biography Peter Selz was born in Munich of Jewish parents. In 1936, aged 17, he fled Nazi Germany because his parents wanted to send him to study in the United States. His family managed to escape Germany just before the Night of Broken Glass, with the help of some nuns, whom his optometrist father had treated for free. He spent one year at Columbia University and discovered that he was distantly related to Alfred Stieglitz, who became his mentor. After serving in World War II he received an A.M.

#554

Larry Johannessen

#60371

Overall Influence

1947 - 2009 (62 years)

Larry R. Johannessen was an American educator, academic, and author. Early life and military service Johannessen was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. When he went to register for classes in high school, his counselor scheduled him into the vocational curriculum based on his address in the working class section of his community. Johannessen elected to leave high school before graduating and enlisted in the U.S. Marines Corps, joining the same unit in which his father had served: B Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division. Johannessen served two tours of duty in Vietnam. ...

#555

Jerome Klein

#69771

Overall Influence

Jerome Klein was an American art historian and art critic and a founding member of the American Artists' Congress . Education Klein graduated from Columbia College in 1925 and the Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1932.

#556

Dale Allender

#75852

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Dale Allender is a Black American educator. He is an Associate Professor of language and literacy in the Department of Teaching Credentials at California State University-Sacramento where he teaches courses in Academic Literacy, Ethnic Studies and Racial Social Justice Education. Allender is known for his work on Expanding the Canon, a television series on teaching multicultural literature produced in collaboration with Thirteen/WNET and AnnenbergCPB.

#557

Paul A. Cobb,

#118276

Overall Influence

#558

Ronald James Baker

#66941

Overall Influence

1924 - 2020 (96 years)

Ronald "Ron" James Baker, was a Canadian academic administrator. He was the first president of the University of Prince Edward Island . Born in London, England, Baker served with the Royal Air Force from 1943 to 1947 and trained in Manitoba. In 1947, he emigrated to Canada. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 and a Master of Arts degree in 1953 from the University of British Columbia both in English. From 1954 to 1956, he did graduate work in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. In 1962, he was appointed associate professor at the University of British Columbia.

#559

Carol Kuhlthau

#74789

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Carol Collier Kuhlthau is a retired American educator, researcher, and international speaker on learning in school libraries, information literacy, and information seeking behavior. Biography She was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S., Kuhlthau graduated from Kean University in 1959, completing a master's degree in Librarianship in 1974 at Rutgers University, and a doctorate in Education in 1983. She was on the faculty of the Rutgers University Department Library and Information Science for more than 20 years and Professor Emeritus since 2006.

#560

Harold Taylor

#57905

Overall Influence

1914 - 1993 (79 years)

Harold A. Taylor was the president of Sarah Lawrence College. He is remembered for his writing on education and philosophy, and his stand against McCarthyism's interference with American education. Biography Born in Canada in 1914, he studied philosophy and literature at the University of Toronto and received his Bachelor of Arts in 1935. He received a Moss Scholarship for his "accomplishments as an athlete, musician, writer, and student," which funded his research for his Master of Arts in 1936, also at Toronto. After completing his Master's, Taylor received a fellowship to study philosophy at the University of Cambridge.

#561

Miriam David

#72248

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Miriam E. David FRSA FAcSS is a British educator. She is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London and Associate Director of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme.

#562

Philip Eliasoph

#70278

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Philip Eliasoph is an American art historian, critic and curator. Eliasoph began his teaching career in 1975 at Fairfield University where he is currently Professor of Art History in the Department of Visual & Performing Arts. In May 2023, he was appointed as Special Assistant to the President for Arts and Culture. He is also the Sam & Bettie Roberts Endowed Lecturer in Judaic Studies at the university's Carl and Dorothy Bennett Center for Judaic Studies, a position he has held since 2005. In 1996, Eliasoph founded, and remains director and moderator, of the “Open VISIONS Forum,” a public affairs series held at Fairfield University's Regina A.

#563

Maurice Berger

#25284

Overall Influence

1956 - 2020 (64 years)

Maurice Berger was an American cultural historian, curator, and art critic, who served as a Research Professor and Chief Curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Berger was recognized for his interdisciplinary scholarship on race and visual culture in the United States.

#564

Christian Tümpel

#46973

Overall Influence

1937 - 2009 (72 years)

Christian Tümpel was a German art historian active in the Netherlands. Tümpel was born in Bielefeld. He first studied theology and philosophy before continuing his education at Heidelberg in art history and archeology, receiving his doctorate from Hamburg with a dissertation on Rembrandt. From 1970 when their catalog for a Rembrandt bible exhibition was well-received, he collaborated with his wife Astrid Tümpel, who was also an art historian. They are known for their publications on art, but most notably their catalog raisonné on Rembrandt while Christian was professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen.

#565

Marilyn Fleer

#117377

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Marilyn Fleer is an Australian professor of early childhood education and development at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She was awarded the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship by the Australian Research Council in 2018.

#566

Beryl Paston Brown

#87998

Overall Influence

1909 - 1997 (88 years)

Dame Beryl Paston Brown, was a British academic and educator. Career Beryl Paston Brown was born in London and educated at Streatham Hill High School and Newnham College, Cambridge. She did a teacher training course in London, however the Great Depression made it very difficult to secure a teaching post. As Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge University, from 1961–71, Dame Beryl was credited with having developed a contemporary, relatively liberal social and academic life for students, as well as a teaching course degree which was validated by London University. A proposal for the estab...

#567

Clifton L. Ganus Jr.

#71467

Overall Influence

1922 - 2019 (97 years)

Clifton L. Ganus Jr. was an American theologian and educator. He served as the third president of Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas from 1965 to 1987. He was closely associated with National Education Program, a conservative organization within the university that was later known as the American Studies Program. The involvement of Ganus and President Benson was with this group continued until 1954, when they disassociated with the group in order for the school to gain accreditation. He previously was a professor of history, chair of the department of history and social science, and vice president of the college.

#568

John Everett Robbins

#29180

Overall Influence

1903 - 1995 (92 years)

John Everett Robbins was a Canadian educator and encyclopedia editor. He served as the director of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics and helped found Carleton College. Robbins was a former President of Brandon University and the first Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See.

#569

Michael Ann Holly

#44338

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Michael Ann Holly is an American art historian who has worked on historiography and the theory of art history. Personal life Born in 1944 in Alton, Illinois, the daughter of Peggy and George Mueller, Holly worked at the Wesleyan University Press from 1963 to 1966 and the Center for Brain Research at the University of Rochester before beginning her academic career.

#570

Laurie Cutting

#81087

Overall Influence

Laurie Cutting is an American scholar of psychology and pediatrics. She is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Special Education, Psychology and Human Development, Radiology, and Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. In addition, she is associate director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and a member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, training faculty for Vanderbilt's Neuroscience Ph.D. program.

#571

Joan Garfield

#68630

Overall Influence

Joan B. Garfield is an American educational psychologist specializing in statistics education. She is retired from the University of Minnesota as a professor emeritus of educational psychology. Education Garfield entered the University of Wisconsin intending to study anthropology, but graduated in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in education and a minor in mathematics. She became a middle school mathematics teacher but, realizing she needed more preparation as a teacher, returned to graduate school. She chose the University of Minnesota hoping to work with Donovan Johnson, whose works she had read, but he had retired and she instead worked with his student Robert Jackson.

#572

Charles Morgan Reigeluth

#119618

Overall Influence

#573

William Brantley Aycock

William Brantley Aycock

#26403

Overall Influence

1915 - 2015 (100 years)

William Brantley Aycock was an American educator who served as chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1957 until 1964 and was the retired Kenan Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law. He was born in Lucama, North Carolina in 1915.

#574

Stephen Ainlay

#66857

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Stephen Charles Ainlay is a former president of Union College. He became the 18th president of the institution in June 2006, succeeding interim president James Underwood, who succeeded Roger Hull after Hull retired in June 2005. He was succeeded by David R. Harris on July 1, 2018.

#575

Charles Causley

Charles Causley

#24637

Overall Influence

1917 - 2003 (86 years)

Charles Stanley Causley CBE FRSL was a British poet, school teacher and writer. His work is often noted for its simplicity and directness as well as its associations with folklore, legends and magic, especially when linked to his native Cornwall.

#576

Leonie Pihama

#101286

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Leonie Eileen Pihama is a New Zealand kaupapa Māori academic. Career Pihama was born in 1962. She wrote her 1993 master's thesis at the University of Auckland with the title Tungia te ururua, kia tupu whakaritorito te tupu o te harakeke: a critical analysis of parents as first teachers. She completed her PhD at the same institution in 2001 and her doctoral thesis had the title Tīhei mauri ora: honouring our voices: mana wahine as a kaupapa Māori: theoretical framework. She won a Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Scholar Award and is now a Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga principal investigator. She...

#577

Peter Daempfle

#53372

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Peter A. Daempfle is an American educator and author in the field of popular science. He currently teaches biology at SUNY Delhi. Biography Early life and education Daempfle was born in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, May 5. 1970, a child of German refugees. He was class valedictorian at Forest Hills High School in 1988. He earned a B.A. in Biology from Hartwick College, an M.S. in Biology from University at Albany, an M.S. in Education from The College of Saint Rose, and a Ph.D. in Biology Education from University at Albany.

#578

Shael Polakow-Suransky

Shael Polakow-Suransky

#88892

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Shael Polakow-Suransky is the president of the Bank Street College of Education. Previously he was the New York City Department of Education Chief Academic Officer and Senior Deputy Chancellor. Early years and education Polakow-Suransky was born in Witbank, South Africa, where his parents, Valerie Polakow and Leonard Suransky, were anti-apartheid activists.

#579

Roy Strong

#10292

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Sir Roy Colin Strong, is an English art historian, museum curator, writer, broadcaster and landscape designer. He has served as director of both the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Strong was knighted in 1982.

#580

David Breashears

David Breashears

#16997

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

David Finlay Breashears is an American mountaineer, filmmaker, author, and motivational speaker. In 1985, he reached the summit of Mount Everest a second time, becoming the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest more than once. He is perhaps best known as the director and cinematographer of Everest —which became the highest-grossing IMAX documentary—and for his assistance in the rescue efforts during the 1996 Everest disaster, which occurred during the film's production.

#581

Edward W. Crosby

Edward W. Crosby

#85292

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Edward Warren Crosby , was an African-American professor/administrator emeritus, in the Department of Pan-African Studies at Kent State University . As a pioneer in the field of Black education his most notable accomplishments include the establishment of Black History Month and the Department of Pan-African Studies at KSU. The Institute for African American Affairs and the Center of Pan-African Culture were two of the first institutions of their kind to be established at institutions of higher education.

#582

David M. Wilson

#38534

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, FBA is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. From 1977 until 1992 he served as the Director of the British Museum, where he had previously worked, from 1955 to 1964, as an assistant keeper. In his role as director of the museum, he became embroiled in the controversy over the ownership of the Elgin Marbles with the Greek government, engaging with a "disastrous" televised debate with Greek Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri.

#583

Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert

#84309

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert is an educational researcher whose work examines literacy, learning, early childhood development, teacher development, writing and children's literature. The main thrust of her work addresses literacy learning among at-risk youth in American classrooms. Currently, she is the CEO and president of TextProject, Inc., an agency that is dedicated to bringing beginning and struggling readers to high levels of literacy through a variety of strategies and tools, particularly through using science and social studies texts, used for reading instruction.

#584

Robert Blendon

#40818

Overall Influence

Robert J. Blendon is an American academic who is the Richard L. Menschel Professor of Public Health and Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis, Emeritus and Acting Director for the Division of Policy Translation and Leadership Development at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He previousy held appointments as a Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Hhe directs the Harvard Opinion Research Program and co-directs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health project on understanding Americans’ Health Agenda.

#585

Richard M. Dougherty

#57167

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Richard M. Dougherty is an American librarian and educator who was the director of libraries at both the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Michigan. He served as the president of the American Library Association from 1990 to 1991, focusing on bringing attention to information access issues and supporting children's literacy.

#586

Carol Armstrong

#20360

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Carol Armstrong is an American professor, art historian, art critic, and photographer. Armstrong teaches and writes about 19th-century French art, the history of photography, the history and practice of art criticism, feminist theory and women and gender representation in visual culture.

#587

Joseph Steven Krajcik

#120718

Overall Influence

#588

Akhtar Imam

#56410

Overall Influence

1917 - 2009 (92 years)

Akhtar Imam was a Bangladeshi educationist, feminist and social activist. Early life Imam was born on 30 December 1917 in Narinda, Old Dhaka. She completed her matriculation and intermediate exams from Eden Girl's High School and Intermediate College, Dhaka in 1933 and 1935 respectively. In 1937, she completed her honors in philosophy from Bethune College of Calcutta University. She was awarded the Gangamani Devi Medal for being first in her batch. In 1946, she finished her master's degree in philosophy from the University of Dhaka. In 1952 she was awarded a scholarship from the Bengal Muslim Education Fund by the Pakistani Government in 1952 to pursue higher education outside the country.

#589

Edmund Barry Gaither

#104792

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Edmund Barry Gaither is known for his education and museum-related activities. He was born in 1944 in Great Falls, a small town in South Carolina, United States. His interest and passion for art began at an early age, but because he grew up in a small town, he had no way to visit museums. After high school, Edmund Gaither attended Morehouse College in Georgia, only male historically black college in the United States. College was an extremely important time for Gaither, because it allowed him access to the artwork he had such a passion for, a population where he fit in, and an atmosphere to f...

#590

Jeroen Huisman

#121000

Overall Influence

#591

H. Allen Brooks

#56617

Overall Influence

1925 - 2010 (85 years)

H. Allen Brooks was an architectural historian and longtime professor at the University of Toronto. Brooks wrote on Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School and on the early years of Le Corbusier.

#592

Orville Dahl

#63586

Overall Influence

1910 - 1994 (84 years)

Orville Dahl was an American academic. He was the first president of California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California from 1959-1962. A graduate of St. Olaf College, he obtained his degree with honors in 1935 and stayed at his alma mater for the next seven years to direct the college's forensics program and to serve as the coach of the college football team. He continued his studies at University of Minnesota, Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley where he obtained a doctorate degree in education administration. During World War II, he was an executive officer and commander in the U.S.

#593

Paula Harper

#40242

Overall Influence

1930 - 2012 (82 years)

Paula Hays Harper was an American art historian, credited as "one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture". She co-authored a biography on the French impressionist Camille Pissarro and was a well-known contemporary art critic.

#594

Wayne K. Hoy

#121198

Overall Influence

#595

Robert J. Tierney

#70814

Overall Influence

Robert J. Tierney is a professor of linguistics and literature and currently a professor at University of British Columbia, having previously held an Honorary Professorship at University of Sydney, and is also a published author of articles and books, largely collected by libraries worldwide.

#596

James Edward Ysseldyke

#121302

Overall Influence

#597

Alicia Ostriker

Alicia Ostriker

#15180

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry. She was called "America's most fiercely honest poet" by Progressive. Additionally, she was one of the first women poets in America to write and publish poems discussing the topic of motherhood. In 2015, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2018, she was named the New York State Poet Laureate.

#598

Roderick J. McDavis

Roderick J. McDavis

#82113

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Roderick J. McDavis is the former 20th president of Ohio University, located in Athens, Ohio. McDavis has more than thirty-five years of service in higher education, including roles as both a professor and an academic administrator.

#599

Betty Kitchener

#39502

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Betty Ann Kitchener is an Australian mental health educator who co-founded Mental health first aid training. Career Betty Kitchener trained as a teacher, counsellor and nurse. She is also a mental health consumer advocate, having experienced recurrent major depression. She has held academic appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Until the end of 2016, she was CEO of Mental Health First Aid Australia. She held an honorary Adjunct Professorship at Deakin University from 2013 to 2019.

#600

Meinhart Volkamer

#109470

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Meinhart Volkamer is a German educator. Life Born in Leipzig, Volkamer passed the first Staatsexamen in Freiburg im Breisgau in the topics sport and German language and passed the second Staatsexamen as a student assistant for these two subjects in Marburg. Afterwards he was a research assistant at the University of Kiel for six years. At the same time, he studied psychology - the subject in which he received his doctorate in 1969.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions