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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Education,

#1701

Leigh Markopoulos

#182142

Overall Influence

1968 - 2017 (49 years)

Leigh Markopoulos was an American art critic, curator, and teacher. Markopoulos was the chair of the graduate program in curatorial practice at California College of the Arts. She had curated over 50 exhibitions, including ones at the Serpentine Gallery and the Hayward Gallery. Her focus was the art and artworld of the 1960s and 1970s.

#1702

Christopher Murray

#186659

Overall Influence

#1703

Christopher Day

#186686

Overall Influence

#1704

Vivek Wadhwa

#174716

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Vivek Wadhwa is an Indian-American technology entrepreneur and academic. He is Distinguished Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley and Distinguished Fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He is also author of books Your Happiness Was Hacked: Why Tech Is Winning the Battle to Control Your Brain—and How to Fight Back, Driver in the Driverless Car, Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology, and Immigrant Exodus.

#1705

Jonathan Mane-Wheoki

Jonathan Mane-Wheoki

#117161

Overall Influence

1943 - 2014 (71 years)

Jonathan Ngarimu Mane-Wheoki was a New Zealand art historian, academic, and curator. Of Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī and English descent, he was a pioneer in the study of contemporary Māori and Pacific art history.

#1706

Jay Noren

#79774

Overall Influence

Jay Noren is the former President of Wayne State University and former Provost of Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi. Life On Tuesday, July 20, 2010, Jay Noren announced his resignation from Wayne State University for personal reasons.

#1707

Colleen Denney

#115155

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Colleen Jo Denney is an American art historian and educator. A scholar of British art during the Victorian era, Denney is Professor of Art History and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Wyoming.

#1708

Zeinabu irene Davis

Zeinabu irene Davis

#178568

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Zeinabu irene Davis is an American filmmaker and professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, San Diego. In 1985, she received her M.A in African studies at UCLA and went on to earn her M.F.A in Film and Television production in 1989. Davis is known as one of the graduates and filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion. The L.A. Rebellion refers to the first African-American students who studied film at UCLA. Through their collective efforts, they sought to put an end to the prejudices of Hollywood by creating experimental and unconventional films. The main goal of these films was to create original Black stories and bring them to the main screens.

#1709

Barbette Spaeth

#68777

Overall Influence

Barbette Stanley Spaeth is an American academic who is an associate professor at College of William and Mary, and is an expert in Roman mythology. She is past secretary of the Williamsburg Society, Archaeological Institute of America, and president of the Society for Ancient Mediterranean Religions.

#1710

Liz James

#105105

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Liz James is a British art historian who studies the art of the Byzantine Empire. She is Professor of the History of Art at the University of Sussex. Career James is originally from Derby, East Midlands. She received an undergraduate degree at the University of Durham in Ancient History and Archaeology. She completed a master's degree in Byzantine studies at the University of Birmingham. She received her doctorate at the Courtauld Institute in London in 1989, studying under Robin Cormack. Her thesis discussed light and colour in Byzantine art and was entitled Colour Perception in Byzantium. Upon completion, she embarked on postdoctoral fellowships, notably at the Barber Institute.

#1711

Kenneth A. Schwartz

#81340

Overall Influence

Kenneth A. Schwartz, FAIA is an architect, community designer, planner, and educator based in New Orleans, LA. He is a Favrot Professor and former Dean of the Tulane School of Architecture. Schwartz received a Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Architecture and Urban Design from Cornell University. He arrived at the University of Virginia School of Architecture in 1984 after teaching for several years at Cornell and Syracuse University. He also served as a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University from 1986 to 1987.

#1712

Jean Lacy

#185592

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Jean Lacy was an American museum education specialist and visual artist who works primarily in mixed media and collage. She was of African American heritage, and believes her family is descended from indentured Africans at Jamestown Colony. Her work is inspired by creation myths and religious stories, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American culture. From 1975-77 she held the position of Curator of Education and Exhibitions at the Museum of African-American Life and Culture in Dallas, Texas. From 1977-88 she served as the Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Center of the...

#1713

Barbara Ruszczyc

#178518

Overall Influence

1928 - 2001 (73 years)

Barbara Ruszczyc was a Polish Egyptologist and art historian. She was curator at the Department of Ancient Art at the National Museum in Warsaw from 1973 to 1990. In 1987, Ruszczyc was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.

#1714

Ivory Lee Toldson

#171890

Overall Influence

Ivory Lee Toldson was a psychologist and professor at Temple University and Southern University. Education Toldson was valedictorian of his class at McCall Senior High School, from which he graduated at the age of sixteen. He attended Coahoma Junior College before going on to attend Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Industrial Arts Education in 1966. Toldson continued his education, earning a Master's of Science in Educational Psychology from Butler University , a Doctorate in Education in Counseling Psychology from Ball State University...

#1715

Hans-Martin Hinz

#131873

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Prof. Dr Hans-Martin Hinz is a German museum professional. From 2010 to 2016 he was President of the International Council of Museums . Career Early years Hans-Martin Hinz completed a commercial apprenticeship and worked then in the tourism branch from 1963 to 1967. He acted as manager of a youth association in Berlin from 1968 to 1970 and earned his university entrance qualifications through the so-called second education route from 1970 to 1972. Hinz studied History, Geography, Pedagogics and Philosophy at the Free University of Berlin from 1972 to 1978, followed by receiving his doctorate in Geography with the aid of a study and doctoral scholarship from the Cusanuswerk, Bonn.

#1716

Christine Panushka

#152879

Overall Influence

Christine Panushka is an independent filmmaker, freelance animator, artist, and teacher. She is a Professor in the John Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.

#1717

Zygmunt Świechowski

#110944

Overall Influence

1920 - 2015 (95 years)

Zygmunt Świechowski was a Polish art historian and architectural conservator with a particular interest in the Romanesque era. Świechowski was also a leading figure in architectural preservation and restoration work in Poland, and he used photography extensively to illustrate his books as well as in a number of public exhibitions. His best-known work is Romanesque Art in Poland, with 28 editions published between 1982 and 1990 in six languages.

#1718

Alison Fields

#90491

Overall Influence

Alison Lynne Fields is an American art historian and educator. Fields is currently the Mary Lou Milner Carver Professor of Art of the American West at University of Oklahoma. Career Fields received a Bachelor of Arts in English and Native American Studies from Colgate University in 2001. There, she was part of the Student Government Association. Fields then proceeded to receive a Master of Arts in American Civilization from Brown University in 2003, and a Doctor of Philosophy in American Studies from the University of New Mexico in 2009. Fields wrote a doctoral dissertation titled "False Clos...

#1719

Crescentius Richard Duerr

#151423

Overall Influence

1922 - 2005 (83 years)

Brother Crescentius Richard, F.S.C., was an American De La Salle Brother who was instrumental in the transformation of De La Salle University in the Philippines into a pillar of Philippine education. He was President of De La Salle University from 1961 to 1966 and was named its President Emeritus in 1981.

#1720

Tina Barton

#123837

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Christina Joy Barton , known as Tina Barton, is a New Zealand art historian, curator, art writer and editor. She was director of the Adam Art Gallery between 2007 and 2023. Education Barton completed a Masters of Art in art history at the University of Auckland in 1987. Her thesis topic was the history of post-object art in New Zealand between 1969 and 1979. She was awarded a Higher Doctorate for her published work in art history in 2022.

#1721

Jill M. Norris

#186958

Overall Influence

#1722

Claus Pias

#74982

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Claus Pias is a German media theorist and media historian. He is a professor for history and epistemology of media at the Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media at Leuphana University in Lueneburg., Germany.

#1723

Hart Day Leavitt

#106573

Overall Influence

1909 - 2008 (99 years)

Hart Day Leavitt was a longtime English teacher at Phillips Andover Academy, amateur jazz musician, the author of a bestselling book on grammar and writing, and the professor of many notable Andover graduates, including Jack Lemmon, H. G. Bissinger and President George H. W. Bush.

#1724

Peter Murray

#80522

Overall Influence

1920 - 1992 (72 years)

Peter John Murray was a British art historian and the Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck College, London from 1967 to 1980. Together with his wife, Linda Murray, he wrote primers on Italian Renaissance art which have been used by generations of students. In 1959 they published the highly successful Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists, which was frequently updated and reissued. In 1963, they published two substantial introductory texts The Art of the Renaissance, and a book that became a classic primer The Architecture of the Renaissance.

#1725

Kim Hong-nam

#170932

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Kim Hong-nam was the South Korean director of the National Museum of Korea, art historian, and currently professor of Ewha Womans University. Before she moved to Seoul , she served the Asia Society, New York , as the curator in charge of the Rockefeller Collection of Asian Art. Back in her native country Korea, she enjoyed the most distinguished career in Korea's museum field as director of three leading museums, Ewha Womans University Museum , National Folk Museum , and National Museum of Korea . She was also the first woman to hold the position of director at two national museums.

#1726

Roberta Kevelson

#47964

Overall Influence

1931 - 1998 (67 years)

Roberta "Bobbie" Kevelson was an American academic and semiotician. She was an acknowledged authority on the pragmatism theories of Charles Sanders Peirce. Personal life Kevelson was born in Fall River, Massachusetts and graduated from B.M.C. Durfee High School in 1948. Although married at 17, she returned to college in the 1960s and received her PhD in semiotics from Brown University in 1978.

#1727

Chidananda Dasgupta

Chidananda Dasgupta

#111795

Overall Influence

1921 - 2011 (90 years)

Chidananda Das Gupta —family name sometimes spelled 'Dashgupta' and 'Dasgupta'—was an Indian filmmaker, film critic, a film historian and one of the founders of Calcutta Film Society with Satyajit Ray in 1947. He lived and worked in Calcutta and Santiniketan.

#1728

Jeffrey F. Hamburger

#60803

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Jeffrey F. Hamburger is an American art historian specializing in medieval religious art and illuminated manuscripts. In 2000 he joined the faculty of Harvard University, where in 2008 he was appointed the Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture. Hamburger received his B.A., M.A and Ph.D from Yale and has previously held professorships at Oberlin College and the University of Toronto. Elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy in 2001, he has won numerous awards for his publications, among them: the Charles Rufus Morey Prize of the College Art Association , the Roland H. Bainton Bo...

#1729

George Baker

#123610

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

George Thomas Baker is an American art historian of modern and contemporary art. He is especially known for his writings on photography. He is a professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles and an editor of the journal October. Reviewing a book that Baker wrote on Dada, Merlin James wrote "What Baker really offers, perfectly reasonably, is high-end, post-modern theorising, with just a touch of unconventionality in honour of his subject’s way-outness."

#1730

Paul Sharits

#141796

Overall Influence

1943 - 1993 (50 years)

Paul Jeffrey Sharits was a visual artist, best known for his work in experimental, or avant-garde filmmaking, particularly what became known as the structural film movement, along with other artists such as Tony Conrad, Hollis Frampton, and Michael Snow.

#1731

Rocco Sinisgalli

#82805

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Rocco Sinisgalli is an Italian art historian, writer and architectural theoretician. Early life Sinisgalli was born in Gallicchio, in the province of Potenza and was educated in an Italian classical Liceo. He received a degree for Architecture in 1973 in the University of Rome La Sapienza. He currently teaches and carries out his research at the Faculty of Architecture Valle Giulia in the University of Rome La Sapienza.

#1732

Houra Merrikh

#89216

Overall Influence

Houra Merrikh is an Iranian-American microbiologist. She is a full professor at Vanderbilt University in the Department of Biochemistry. Her field of work is antibiotic resistance and bacterial evolvability.

#1733

Jennifer Montagu

#82511

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Jennifer Iris Rachel Montagu is a British art historian with emphasis in the study of Italian Baroque sculpture. Early life Montagu is a daughter of Ewen Montagu, a British judge, writer and Naval intelligence officer. She was educated at Brearley School, New York, Benenden School, Kent, and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she gained a BA in PPE, then studied under Ernst Gombrich at the Warburg Institute, London, where she gained her PhD degree.

#1734

Sharon Cather

#178421

Overall Influence

1947 - 2019 (72 years)

Sharon Cather was an art historian who taught at Cambridge University and was a professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she specialised in the preservation of wall paintings. Early life and education Cather was born at Berkeley, California, and graduated in art history from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She spent ten years working in the art department offices there, before undertaking MA study at Princeton University and going on to undertake PhD work under Professor John Shearman on Sebastiano Serlio.

#1735

John Eggleston

#175341

Overall Influence

1926 - 2001 (75 years)

Samuel John Eggleston was an English educationist and publisher. He was a professor and head of the Department of Education at Keele University from 1967 to 1984. He was a professor of education at the University of Warwick from 1985 to 1996, and he chaired the Department of Education there from 1985 to 1991. In 1983, he and Gillian Klein co-founded Trentham Books. He was the founding editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed academic journal Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning.

#1736

Phil Solomon

#154820

Overall Influence

1954 - 2019 (65 years)

Philip Stewart Solomon was an American experimental filmmaker noted for his work with both film and video. In recent years, Solomon had earned acclaim for a series of films that incorporate machinima made using games from the Grand Theft Auto series. His films are often described as haunting and lyrical.

#1737

Sally Brinkman

#186641

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Dr. Sally Brinkman is a social epidemiologist with a focus on early childhood development and the impact of society on children's short and long term outcomes. Brinkman led the development and implementation of the Early Development Instrument for population level data across Australia, now known as the nationwide Australian Early Development Census measuring over 300,000 children in how they have developed by the time they start their first year of full-time school. Brinkman works for international organisations including World Bank, UNICEF and AusAID, and has over 100 publications covering child development and education.

#1738

Herman James

#187187

Overall Influence

1943 - 2010 (67 years)

Herman James was an American educator who served as the 5th president of Glassboro State College, later Rowan College of New Jersey, and then Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey from 1984 to 1998. During his tenure as president, Rowan University received a $100 million gift from Henry Rowan and his wife Betty. At the time, it was the largest ever gift by a private individual to a public university. Following his retirement as university president in 1998, James continued to serve as a professor until 2007. James died in Voorhees, New Jersey on October 2, 2010. In 2012, the Education Hall at Rowan University was named Dr.

#1739

Jean-Loup Rivière

#79915

Overall Influence

1948 - 2018 (70 years)

Jean-Loup Rivière was a French playwright and drama critic. Biography Jean-Loup Rivière was born on 10 January 1948 in Caen, France. He studied philosophy at the University of Caen, and led the Theatrical Research Group from 1969 to 1972. He wrote his doctoral thesis at École pratique des hautes études and began teaching at Paris West University Nanterre La Défense on 15 December 2001.

#1740

Leslie King-Hammond

#172074

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Leslie King Hammond is an American artist, curator and art historian who is the Founding Director of the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she is also Graduate Dean Emeritus.

#1741

Jane Halonen

#177720

Overall Influence

Jane Simmons Halonen is an American educational psychologist whose career has focused on advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology. She holds the position of Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida where she also served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2012.Halonen is a contributing writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

#1742

Michael Diers

#52704

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Michael Diers is a German art historian and professor of art history in Hamburg and Berlin. Diers studied art history, literature, and philosophy in Münster and Hamburg, where he received his doctorate with a thesis on Aby Warburg. He also received his postdoctoral lecture qualification in 1994. From 1990 to 1992 he was assistant professor at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut, Essen, and subsequently at the Department of Art History, Universität Hamburg, in the joint research project "Politische Ikonographie". In 1994 he became lecturer at the Universität Jena, in 1999 at the Humboldt-Uni...

#1743

Margie Hohepa

#187265

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Margie Kahukura Hohepa , sometimes Margie Ratapu , is a New Zealand education academic specialising in Māori education. She is Māori, of Te Māhurehure, Ngāpuhi and Te Ātiawa descent and are currently a full professor at the University of Waikato.

#1744

Ben Rivers

#170643

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Ben Rivers is an artist and experimental filmmaker based in London, England. His work has been screened at film festivals and galleries around the world and have won numerous awards. Rivers' work ranges in themes, including exploring unknown wilderness territories to candid and intimate portraits of real-life subjects.

#1745

Michael Silbermann

Michael Silbermann

#104628

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Michael Silbermann is an Israeli maxillofacial surgeon and health educator. He is currently the executive director of the Middle East Cancer Consortium. Background Silbermann was born on January 19, 1935, in the old quarters of the Arab city of Acre then part of Mandatory Palestine under British administration. His parents, Herbert and Marga-Miriam emigrated from their native Germany to Palestine in 1934.

#1746

James Credle

#170766

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

James Credle was an American academic administrator, counselor, and Veterans and LGBT rights activist. He was assistant dean of student affairs at Rutgers University–Newark and was a founding member of several Veterans and LGBTQ associations. For his heroic actions in the Vietnam War, Credle received the Purple Heart, Bronze Star Medal with "V" device, Gallantry Cross, and an Army Commendation Medal.

#1747

Axel Dalberg Poulsen

#168305

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Axel Dalberg Poulsen is a Danish naturalist, botanist, and curator. His research interests are the flora of Denmark and its surroundings, taxonomy and biology of the Orchidaceae, and conservation biology.

#1748

Massimo Bacigalupo

Massimo Bacigalupo

#119334

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Massimo Bacigalupo is an experimental filmmaker, scholar, and translator of poetry, an essayist and literary critic. He was a founding member of the Cooperative of Independent Filmmakers in Rome. As a filmmaker of the Italian Independent Cinema , he was influenced by the New American Cinema.

#1749

Eduardo Geada

#165175

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Eduardo Geada is a Portuguese film director, screenwriter and professor. Generic He graduated in Anglo-American Studies at the Faculty of Arts of Lisbon University in 1976. He was active in the film club movement of the sixties, where he assimilated techniques and theories.

#1750

Václav Blažek

#25225

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Václav Blažek is a Czech historical linguist. He is a professor at Masaryk University and also teaches at the University of West Bohemia . His major interests include Indo-European languages, Uralic languages, Altaic languages, Afroasiatic languages, Nostratic languages, Dené–Caucasian languages, and mathematical linguistics .

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