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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Person Name

School

Gender

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Education,

#1851

Annie Ross

#165585

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Annabelle McCauley Allan Short , known professionally as Annie Ross, was a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Early life Ross was born in Surrey, England, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians John "Jack" Short and Mary Dalziel Short . Her brother was Scottish entertainer and theatre producer and director Jimmy Logan. She first appeared on stage at age three. At the age of four, she travelled to New York by ship with her family; she later recalled that they "got the cheapest ticket, which was right in the bowels of the...

#1852

Ben Caldwell

#169631

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Ben Caldwell is a Los Angeles-based arts educator and independent filmmaker. Early life and education A native of New Mexico, Ben Caldwell was first introduced to the visual arts at an early age. As a youth, Caldwell would help his grandfather project movies at a small theater in New Mexico. Working with his grandfather allowed Caldwell to develop an affinity for filmmaking. His early exposure to film inspired him to pursue an education and a career in filmmaking.

#1853

Helen Hills

#178736

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Helen Hills is a British art historian and academic. She was appointed Anniversary Reader of Art History at the University of York in 2005 and promoted to Professor of History of Art in 2008. Hence she was the first woman professor of Art History at that University Before this Helen Hills taught at the Universities of Keele and Manchester in the UK, at Queen's University in Canada and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published numerous books and articles on art and architectural history. She has particular research interests in the Baroque art movement, and was a gu...

#1854

Argile Smith

#104252

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Argile Asa Smith Jr. is an American clergyman and academic administrator who served as interim president of Louisiana Christian University from August 2014 to April 2015. Background Born in Poplarville, Mississippi, Smith received a B.A. in Religion from William Carey College in 1977 and a Master of Divinity and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, thereafter remaining at the seminary as a professor for fourteen years. He became dean of the Southern Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in 2011, and interim president in August 2014. In 2015, Smith was succeeded as president by ...

#1855

Adriano Alpago Novello

#79670

Overall Influence

1932 - 2005 (73 years)

Adriano Alpago-Novello was an Italian architect, art historian and professor. Adriano Alpago-Novello was born in Belluno by Alberto Alpago Novello, architect and urban planner, and Laura Carlotti. After classical studies at the Leone XXIII of Milan, in 1957 he graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano, where since 1958 become an assistant professor of History of Art and History and Styles of architecture. In the same year he is responsible for the organization of the site and of thearchitectural surveys of the excavation of the Roman theater in Caesarea, Israel: finding how littl...

#1856

Michele Alberto Matteini

#176192

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Michele A. Matteini is an art historian, a specialist of Luo Ping and a scholar of late imperial China . A graduate from the Institute of Fine Arts of the New York University, Mattini is a published author and co-curator of the show Eccentric Visions: The Worlds of Luo Ping, sponsored by Zurich's Museum Rietberg, Switzerland, which traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. The New York Times called the catalogue 'superb.' He currently lives in New York City and teaches at New York University, where he is Associate Professor of East Asian Art, Architecture and Visual Culture.

#1857

Peter Tomory

#171355

Overall Influence

1922 - 2008 (86 years)

Peter Alexander Tomory was a British art historian, museum curator and director. Biography Tomory was born in Hong Kong and educated in India and the UK. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and served for five and a half years, including patrols on the Murmansk run. After the War he undertook postgraduate study at University of Edinburgh.

#1858

Romita Ray

#92109

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Romita Ray Kapoor is an Indian-born American art historian, educator, and curator. Ray is currently Associate Professor of Art and Music Histories at Syracuse University. Career Born in Kolkata to Jyoti and Arundhati, Ray moved to the United States to attend Smith College, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1992. She then received three degrees in Art History from Yale University: a Master of Arts in 1994, a Master of Philosophy in 1995, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1999. Her dissertation, under the direction of Esther da Costa Meyer, was titled "The Painted Raj: The Art of the Picturesque in Bri...

#1859

David J. Clarke

#123501

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

David James Clarke is honorary professor of modern and contemporary art history at the University of Hong Kong where he taught from 1986 to 2017. He was born in Somerset, England, earned his PhD in art history from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, in 1983. As an art historian he specialises in the art of Europe, North America and China from the eighteenth century to the present day. He is also active as a visual artist, particularly as a photographer.

#1860

Martha Leeb Hadzi

#146364

Overall Influence

1919 - 2003 (84 years)

Martha Leeb Hadzi was an art historian and an archeologist. Early life and education Hadzi was born on December 24, 1919. She grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, and graduated from the Beard School in Orange, New Jersey in 1937. Hadzi then earned her bachelor's degree at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. She completed her master's degree at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in New York City and her PhD at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

#1861

Piri Halasz

#92097

Overall Influence

Piri Halasz is an American art critic, educator and writer. Biography The daughter of diet-book author Ruth West, and theatrical critic, screenwriter George Halasz . She attended Barnard College, where she majored in English and served as the features editor of the Barnard Bulletin. She then went on to Time magazine where she was employed first as a researcher and next as a writer. In 1966, she wrote the famous cover story for the aforementioned periodical Swinging London. Subsequently, this led to her authoring a travel guide of the same name for Coward McCann first published in 1967 and reissued in 2010 under the iUniverse imprint as part of the Authors Guild "Back in Print" series.

#1862

Peter Hutton

#165395

Overall Influence

1944 - 2016 (72 years)

Peter Barrington Hutton was an American experimental filmmaker, known primarily for his silent cinematic portraits of cities and landscapes around the world. He also worked as a professional cinematographer, most notably for his former student Ken Burns, as well as cinematography for Lizzie Borden's "Born in Flames," Sheila McLaughlin and Lynne Tillman's "Committed," assorted films by artist Red Grooms and Albert Maysles' The Gates.

#1863

Vladimir Plugin

#124757

Overall Influence

1937 - 2003 (66 years)

Vladimir Alexandrovich Plugin was a Russian historian, art historian and university professor. He worked in the fields of the history of Russia, source criticism, art history, social and political history, war history, history of the army and navy. He specialized in Old Russian Chronicles, Russian icons . He penned Rublev's biography titled The Master of the Holy Trinity: Andrei Rublev's Works and Days .

#1864

Rena Matsui

#173483

Overall Influence

1991 - Present (33 years)

is a Japanese actress, singer, and novelist. Matsui is a former member of the Japanese idol girl groups SKE48 and Nogizaka46. As a member of the former, she also participated in the main lineup of AKB48's singles. As an actress, she has played roles in numerous films and television series, including Kamen Rider Build the Movie: Be the One and the 99th NHK asadora Manpuku.

#1865

Carol Mavor

#174336

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Carol Jane Mavor is an American writer and professor. Her work includes the books Pleasures Taken: Performances of Sexuality and Loss in Victorian Photographs, Becoming: The Photographs of Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden, and Blue Mythologies: Reflections on a Colour. She is Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Manchester.

#1866

Suzanne Wilson

#187731

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Suzanne M. Wilson is an American professor of education. She is currently the Neag Endowed Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Connecticut's Neag School of Education. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Education.

#1867

Gerald M. Ackerman

#82920

Overall Influence

1928 - 2016 (88 years)

Gerald "Jerry" Martin Ackerman OAL was an American art historian and educator. Ackerman was Professor of Art History Emeritus at Pomona College. He was a leading authority on the art of Jean-Léon Gérôme and Charles Bargue.

#1868

Adenike Akinsemolu

#174510

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (34 years)

Adenike Adebukola Akinsemolu is a Nigerian sustainability advocate, educator, author, and a social entrepreneur. She is a lecturer at Obafemi Awolowo University . She is known as one of the country's leading experts on environmental sustainability.

#1869

Shannon Walsh

#171990

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Shannon Walsh is a Canadian filmmaker, writer and scholar. She has directed the feature documentaries The Gig Is Up, H2Oil ,À St-Henri, le 26 août, Jeppe on a Friday and Illusions of Control. She has also directed music videos for the Montreal based artist Little Scream.

#1870

Kenworth Moffett

#97427

Overall Influence

1934 - 2016 (82 years)

Kenworth W. Moffett was an American art curator, museum director and author. Moffett took a degree in art history at Columbia University, where he studied with Meyer Schapiro and Philip Pouncey, and graduated in 1960. He then pursued graduate work at Harvard University, earning a Ph.D. in 1968. His dissertation on German art critic Julius Meier-Graefe served as the foundation for his first book, Meier-Graefe as Art Critic . A champion of Color Field painting, he wrote critical essays and reviews for major art periodicals including Artforum and Art International throughout the late '60s and 1970s.

#1871

David Bindman

#93648

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

David Bindman is emeritus Durning-Lawrence professor of the history of art at University College London and has been a research fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University since 2010.

#1872

John Pinto

#172601

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

John Pinto is an architectural historian specializing in Renaissance and Baroque Rome. He is the Howard Crosby Butler Memorial Professor of Art and Archaeology, Emeritus at Princeton University. Education Pinto received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

#1873

Tal Dekel

#177560

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Tal Dekel is an art historian, curator and academic. Her work deals with modern and contemporary art in Israel and around the world. Her research focuses on issues of visual culture, analyzing its interrelations with race, class, gender, sexuality and nationality, while using feminist theories and transnationalism. Her recent research revolves around case studies of women immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and the Philippines in Israel.

#1874

Klaus Berger

#122953

Overall Influence

1901 - 2000 (99 years)

Klaus Berger was a German art historian and professor at the University of Kansas. He wrote books on Gericault, Odilon Redon and Japonisme. Selected publications Das Problem der Entwicklung in der modernen Kunstwissenschaft. Erster Teil: Wölfflins Formauffassung und ihr Umkreis. Dissertation, Ms.; Auszug in: Jahrbuch der Philosophischen Fakultät Göttingen. 1924, S. 1–12.Géricault. Drawings and Watercolors. Bittner, Recklinghausen 1946.als Herausgeber: French Master Drawings of the Nineteenth Century. Harper, New York 1950.Géricault und Sein Werk. Schroll, Wien 1952 Odilon Redon. Phantasie und Farben.

#1875

Babette Mangolte

#139161

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Babette Mangolte is a French cinematographer, film director, and photographer who has lived and worked in the United States since 1970. Life and career Mangolte was born and raised in France and moved to New York City in 1970. She attended L'Ecole Nationale de la Photographie et de la Cinematographie, graduating in 1966. Her move to New York was prompted by a disillusionment with the French film industry's male dominated climate, and an interest in experimental works by American filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage. In the 1970s she began documenting the performance works of notable choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, and Yvonne Rainer.

#1876

Nana Mizuki

#114057

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Nana Kondō, better known by the stage name , is a Japanese voice actress, singer and narrator from Niihama, Ehime. She is represented by the agency StarCrew. Mizuki was trained as an enka singer, releasing one single under her birth name in 1993 and made her debut as a voice actress in 1996. Her prominent roles include Hinata Hyuga in the long-running ninja series Naruto as well in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Tamao Tamamura in Shaman King 2001 and 2021, Colette Brunel in Tales of Symphonia, Fate Testarossa in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Tsubasa Kazanari in Symphogear, Moka Akashiya in Rosario + Vampire, Tsubomi Hanasaki in Heartcatch Precure! and Ann Takamaki in Persona 5.

#1877

Carol Mattusch

#103918

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Carol C. Mattusch is the Mathay Professor of Art History at George Mason University. She is a specialist in Greek, Roman and 18th century art. Education Mattusch studied at Bryn Mawr College, graduating in 1969. She received her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975.

#1878

Wang Tao

#103619

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Tao Wang is a Chinese–British archaeologist and art historian specialising in early Chinese art. He is also known for his work on early inscriptions on oracle bones and ritual bronzes. He is married to numismatist and translator Helen Wang.

#1879

Michael Hirst

#107858

Overall Influence

1933 - 2017 (84 years)

David Michael Geoffrey Hirst, FBA , commonly known as Michael Hirst, was an art historian and an expert on Italian Renaissance art. He was Professor of the History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art from 1991 to 1997.

#1880

Elizabeth Hill Boone

#54320

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Elizabeth Hill Boone is an American art historian, ethnohistorian and academic, specializing in the study of Latin American art and in particular the early colonial and pre-Columbian art, iconography and pictorial codices associated with the Mixtec, Aztec and other Mesoamerican cultures in the central Mexican region. Her extensive published research covers investigations into the nature of Aztec writing, the symbolism and structure of Aztec art and iconography and the interpretation of Mixtec and Aztec codices.

#1881

Adelaide L. Sanford

#187673

Overall Influence

1925 - Present (99 years)

Adelaide Luvenia Sanford is an American leader, scholar, activist administrator, public speaker, and national advocate for African-centered education for students of African descent. She has been in the field of education for over 35 years as an educator, education activist, activist, principal, community organizer, and Vice Chancellor Emerita, Board of Regents University of the State of New York. She served on the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York from 1986 to 2007.

#1882

James Beck

#89524

Overall Influence

1930 - 2007 (77 years)

James H. Beck was an American art historian specialising in the Italian Renaissance. He was an outspoken critic of many high-profile restorations and re-attributions of artworks, and founded the pressure group ArtWatch International to campaign against irresponsible practices in the art world.

#1883

Sinclair Bell

#79121

Overall Influence

Sinclair Wynn Bell is an American classical archaeologist and art historian. He is a Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University where he teaches courses in Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art history, architecture, and archaeology, as well as museum studies. His research focuses on the art and archaeology of the Etruscans; sport and spectacle in the Roman imperial period, especially the Roman circus; and slavery in ancient Rome, especially the visual representation of slaves, freedmen, and foreigners in Roman art.

#1884

Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier

#174363

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (98 years)

Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier is a Polish-American art historian and a specialist in nineteenth century Russian art. Her work on the Peredvizhniki, first published in 1977, was part of a re-evaluation of their aims in breaking away from the Russian academy.

#1885

Catherine M. Sama

#177694

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Catherine M. Sama is a professor of Italian at the University of Rhode Island. Her research focuses on Early Modern and 18th-Century Italian Women Writers, Correspondence Networks, The Italian Enlightenment, Italian Women Artists, and Gender Studies. In 2013 she was a recipient of the National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship. She also serves as a board member of the URI Center for the Humanities. She has edited the work and written a biography of the 18th-century Italian writer Elisabetta Caminèr Turra.

#1886

Katie Scott

#174699

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Rachael Katherine Hannah Scott, Lady Deuchar is a British art historian, and Professor in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, since 2014. She was born in New York on 25 February 1958, the daughter of diplomat Sir Peter Scott, and Rachael Scott . She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College, University College London, where she earned a BA and a PhD, and Christ's College, Cambridge, where she earned an MA in 1985.

#1887

Taína Caragol

#124937

Overall Influence

Taína Caragol also known as Taína Beatriz Caragol-Barreto, is an American art historian, curator, and author. She currently serves as the curator for Latino Art and History at the National Portrait Gallery, since 2013. She previously held positions at Museum of Modern Art and at the Museo de Arte de Ponce.

#1888

Slobodan Ćurčić

#84211

Overall Influence

1940 - 2017 (77 years)

Slobodan Ćurčić was an American art historian and Byzantinist. Life After completing school in Belgrade, Ćurčić first studied architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he obtained a Bachelor of Architecture in 1964 and a Master of Architecture in 1965. In 1975, he received his doctorate in art history from New York University Institute of Fine Arts under Richard Krautheimer with a thesis on the monastery church of Gračanica.

#1889

Annemarie Jacir

Annemarie Jacir

#128994

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Annemarie Jacir is a Palestinian filmmaker, writer, and producer. Career Filmmaking Jacir has been working in independent cinema since 1998 and has written, directed and produced a number of award-winning films. Two of her films have premiered as Official Selections in Cannes, one in Berlin and in Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam, Toronto, and Telluride. All three of her feature films were selected as Palestine's Oscar Entry for Foreign Language Film. Her short film, like twenty impossibles was the first Arab short film to ever be an official selection of the Cannes International Film Festival and...

#1890

Kathleen James-Chakraborty

#162097

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Kathleen James-Chakraborty is a Professor of Art History and Architectural Historian at University College Dublin. She is an expert in American and German modernism, and is interested in modern sacred architecture. In 2018 She was awarded the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal for Humanities.

#1891

Walter Spink

#80203

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Walter M. Spink was an American art historian who was best known for his extensive study of Buddhist art in India, particularly the Ajanta Caves, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. About his work on the Ajanta caves, scholars have acknowledged that his ideas "revolutionized the history of the site". He was a professor of art history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

#1892

Marjorie Keller

#181102

Overall Influence

1950 - 1994 (44 years)

Marjorie Keller was an experimental filmmaker, author, activist, film scholar. J. Hoberman called her "an unselfish champion of the avant-garde." Early life and education Keller was born in 1950 in Yorktown, New York. The youngest of seven children, Keller grew up in a large, upper-middle-class, Protestant family. As a girl, Keller's mother schooled her in the feminine arts of cooking, gardening and entertaining.

#1893

Timo Maran

#55080

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Timo Maran is an Estonian biosemiotician and poet. He is the head Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu. Membership in organizations:Estonian Naturalists' Society Estonian Semiotics Association Estonian Literary SocietyEstonian Writers' UnionEuropean Association for the Study of Literature, Culture and Environment International Society for Biosemiotic Studies Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies

#1894

Holly Pittman

#172929

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Holly Pittman is a Near Eastern art historian and archaeologist, and an expert in Near Eastern glyptic art. She is the Bok Family Professor in the Humanities and a Professor in the History of Art Department of the University of Pennsylvania and serves as a curator in the Near East Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Before joining the University of Pennsylvania, she was a curator of Ancient Near Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1974 to 1989. Since 1972, she has conducted archaeological excavations throughout the Middle East, including projects in Syria, Turkey, Cyprus, Iran, and Iraq.

#1895

Carma Gorman

#181646

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Carma Ryanne Gorman is an American art historian known for her work in the area of design history. Her American Quarterly article "Educating the eye: Body mechanics and streamlining in the United States, 1925-1950" was one of ten reprinted in the Organization of American Historians' anthology The Best American History Essays 2008.

#1896

Tilmann Buddensieg

#64680

Overall Influence

1928 - 2013 (85 years)

Tilmann Buddensieg was a German art historian. Early life Tilmann Buddensieg was born in Berlin on 21 June 1928. He studied art history, classical and early Christian archeology and Byzantine studies. He promoted in 1956 at the University of Cologne with a work on The Basle Antependium in Paris. After his doctorate, he was a volunteer at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg until 1957.

#1897

Meenakshi Gopinath

Meenakshi Gopinath

#186166

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Meenakshi Gopinath is an Indian educationist, political scientist, writer and a former principal of Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi. She is the founder and incumbent director of the Women in Security Conflict Management and Peace , a non governmental organization promoting peace and socio-political leadership among the women of South Asia and a former member of the National Security Advisory Board, the first woman to serve the Government of India agency. She has served as a member of the selection panel of the Lokpal, a legal body which has jurisdiction over the legislators and government officials of India.

#1898

Andrea Giunta

#125953

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Andrea Graciela Giunta is an Argentine art historian, professor, researcher, and curator. Biography Andrea Giunta completed her secondary studies at the Instituto Tierra Santa and the Escuela Normal Superior No. 4 in Buenos Aires.

#1899

Frank Zöllner

#36551

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Frank Zöllner is a German art historian. He is among the leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci, about whom he has written numerous publications on. These include book-length studies on the Mona Lisa and one of the two modern catalogue raisonné of Leonardo's works, the other being by Pietro C. Marani.

#1900

Alice Ripley

#168688

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Alice Ripley is an American actress, singer, songwriter and mixed media artist. She is known, in particular, for her various roles on Broadway in musicals, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Next to Normal and Side Show. She most recently played three roles in the short-lived Broadway musical, American Psycho. Alice Ripley has released albums with her band, RIPLEY, including the single, "Beautiful Eyes", released in February 2012. She also performs as a solo artist, while in February 2011 she released Alice Ripley Daily Practice, Volume 1, a stripped-down collection of acoustic rock cover...

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