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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Law,

#2701

Scott Arthur Tomlins

#153955

Overall Influence

#2702

Adelle Blackett

#107451

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Adelle Blackett is a Canadian legal scholar working as a professor of law at McGill University Faculty of Law. Education Blackett earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University at Kingston in 1989, a Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Laws from the McGill University Faculty of Law in 1994, and a Master of Laws and Doctor of Law from Columbia Law School.

#2703

Peter Jensen

#55092

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Peter Jensen is a clothing designer. Background Jensen initially studied graphic design, embroidery and tailoring at The Royal Danish Academy of Design in Copenhagen before moving to London in 1997 to undertake an MA in menswear at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. He graduated in 1999 and formed his eponymous menswear label afterwards, subsequently also introducing womenswear. Jensen has regularly shown his collections on the main schedule at London Fashion Week, Copenhagen Fashion Week and New York fashion week.

#2704

Joseph S. Iseman

#110276

Overall Influence

1916 - 2006 (90 years)

Joseph S. Iseman was an attorney and educator known for his work with National Television, Children's Television Workshop, also known as Sesame Workshop, and Bennington College , as well as the American University of Paris, where he served for a time as the vice chair. As a lawyer at the firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, Iseman notably managed the estates of composer Cole Porter, writer Vladimir Nabokov, writer Jean Stafford, poet Robert Lowell, writer A. J. Liebling, artist Robert Motherwell, writer and historian Theodore H. White, Saturday Review and its editor Norman Cousins, and playwright Arthur Miller.

#2705

Ralph James Mooney

#133357

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Ralph James Mooney is the Wallace & Ellen Kaapcke Professor emeritus of Business Law at the University of Oregon School of Law. His specialty is American legal history and contract law. Education and early career He received his B.A. from Harvard University and his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School . He joined the University of Oregon School of Law faculty in 1972, after working with the San Francisco law firm of Howard, Prim, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady & Pollak, specializing in commercial litigation

#2706

Annarosa Leri

#96170

Overall Influence

Annarosa Leri is a medical doctor and former associate professor at Harvard University. Along with former professor Piero Anversa, Leri was engaged in biomedical research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Since at least 2003 Anversa and Leri had investigated the ability of the heart to regenerate damaged cells using cardiac stem cells.

#2707

James D. Gordon III

#120267

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

James D. Gordon III is an American legal academic who has also held administrative positions at Brigham Young University . As a young man, Gordon served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Italy.

#2708

Paul R. Williams

#117475

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Paul R. Williams holds the Rebecca Grazier Professorship in Law and International Relations at American University, where he teaches in the School of International Service and the Washington College of Law. He is the president and co-founder of the Public International Law & Policy Group , a Non-Governmental Organization which provides pro bono assistance to countries and governments involved in peace negotiations, drafting post-conflict constitutions, and prosecuting war criminals, and was consultant at the London based Bosnian Institute for years.

#2709

Bob Miller

#86199

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Robert Joseph Miller is an American former attorney and politician who served as the 26th governor of Nevada from 1989 to 1999. A member of the Democratic Party, he is Nevada's longest-serving governor. He is also, as of 2023, the most recent Nevada governor to have a lieutenant governor from the opposing party, having served with Republicans Sue Wagner and Lonnie Hammargren. Before ascending to the governorship, Miller was the 29th lieutenant governor of Nevada from 1987 to 1989.

#2710

David Chardavoyne

#87743

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

David G. Chardavoyne is an American attorney, professor, and author of several works on the legal history of Michigan. His first book A Hanging in Detroit: Stephen Gifford Simmons and the Last Execution Under Michigan Law. The book is a historical account of Stephen G. Simmons, a fifty-year-old tavern keeper and farmer, who, in September 1830, was hanged in Detroit for murdering his wife, Levana Simmons, in a drunken, jealous rage. Simmons was the second and last person to be executed under Michigan law. The book also chronicles Michigan's abolition of capital punishment in 1846, making it the first government in the world to do so.

#2711

Lisa A. Kloppenberg

#138485

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Lisa A. Kloppenberg is the former Provost and former Interim President of Santa Clara University. She previously served as Dean of the Santa Clara University School of Law from 2013 until her tenure as Interim Provost beginning in 2019. She is the former Dean of the University of Dayton School of Law and taught at the University of Oregon School of Law from 1992 to 2001. Before becoming a law professor, she clerked for Judge Dorothy Wright Nelson of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced law at Kaye Scholer in Washington, D.C.

#2712

Roger C. Cramton

#133253

Overall Influence

1929 - 2017 (88 years)

Roger Conant Cramton was appointed by President Richard M. Nixon to be chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States in 1970, and in 1972 became the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. He was known for voicing opposition to Nixon during the Watergate scandal.

#2713

Ken Trujillo

#101415

Overall Influence

Ken Trujillo is a former Democratic candidate for Mayor of Philadelphia. As one of five children in a family often facing poverty, Trujillo attended public schools and became the only one in his family to graduate from college. He then went on to graduate Penn Law School in 1986, where he now teaches as an adjunct professor. Trujillo founded The Food Stamp Clinic in West Philadelphia, worked at Community Legal Aid Services, and spent two decades growing Congreso into one of the largest anti-poverty advocates in the nation. Trujillo also served Philadelphia as City Solicitor and an Assistant U.S.

#2714

Martin Daubney

#122179

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Alfred Martin Daubney was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2007. He is an honorary fellow of the Australian Catholic University, a member of the senate of the University of Queensland and president of the King’s College council at the University of Queensland. In July 2021 he was appointed chancellor of the Australian Catholic University and took up the position in January 2022.

#2715

Hazel R. O'Leary

#40987

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Hazel Reid O'Leary is an American lawyer, politician and university administrator who served as the 7th United States secretary of energy from 1993 to 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, O'Leary was the first woman and first African American to hold that post. She also served as the 14th president of Fisk University from 2004 to 2013, a historically black college and her alma mater. O'Leary's tenure at Fisk came amid financial difficulty for the school, during which time she increased enrollment and contentiously used the school's art collection to raise funds.

#2716

Laurence Gower

#75392

Overall Influence

1913 - 1997 (84 years)

Laurence Cecil Bartlett Gower known as 'Jim' and universally credited as "LCB Gower" in his writings, was a lawyer and academic who was Vice Chancellor of the University of Southampton from 1971–79.

#2717

Michele Caraglia

#155231

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

#2718

Mary Lee Smith

#155290

Overall Influence

#2719

Clay F. Semenkovich

#155388

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

#2720

Claire Breen

#112172

Overall Influence

Claire M. Breen is a New Zealand law academic, and as of 2021 is a full professor at the University of Waikato. Her work focuses on children's legal rights, international human rights and international peace and security.

#2721

Adolfo J. de Bold

#90819

Overall Influence

1942 - 2021 (79 years)

Adolfo José de Bold was a Argentinian-born Canadian cardiovascular researcher, best known for his discovery of atrial natriuretic peptide , a polypeptide hormone secreted by heart muscle cells. The hormone plays a role in regulating blood pressure, blood volume, and cardiovascular growth, and its discovery proved the endocrine function of the heart.

#2722

Mizuho Fukushima

#65038

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Mizuho Fukushima is a Japanese politician, attorney. A native of Nobeoka, Miyazaki, she has been a member of the House of Councillors since 1998, was re-elected in 2004 and 2010, and was the head of the Social Democratic Party of Japan , from 2003 to 2013. She was elected as the leader of the party for a second time in February 2020.

#2723

Richard Moorhead

#102922

Overall Influence

Richard Moorhead is a Professor of Law and Professional Ethics at the University of Exeter. Prior to his appointment at Exeter, Moorhead was the first Chair of Law and Professional Ethics and Vice Dean in the Faculty of Laws at University College London . His work focuses on lawyers, their ethics, regulation and professional competence. He is the co-editor of After Universalism: Re-Engineering Access to Justice.

#2724

Moshe Arditi

#155843

Overall Influence

#2725

Hershel Jick

#27243

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Hershel M. Jick is an American medical researcher and associate professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, where he was formerly the director of the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program.

#2726

Robert N. Clinton

#143309

Overall Influence

Robert N. Clinton is an American constitutional lawyer and native-American tribal judge. He serves as a judge for numerous tribal appellate courts, including as Chief Justice of the Winnebago Supreme Court. Clinton taught as a law professor from 1973-2018. He retired from Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in 2018 after 45 years of teaching.

#2727

Adil Ahmad Haque

#81954

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Adil Ahmad Haque is a professor of law and Judge Jon O. Newman Scholar at Rutgers University. His scholarship focuses on the international law of armed conflict and the philosophy of international law. His first book, Law and Morality at War, was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. He is also an executive editor of Just Security, based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security in NYU Law School. His father was comparative literature scholar Aijaz Ahmad.

#2728

Chris Guthrie

#123157

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Chris Guthrie is dean of Vanderbilt Law School, one of eight graduate schools located on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Guthrie was named Vanderbilt Law School’s dean in 2009, succeeding Edward L. Rubin. He joined Vanderbilt’s law faculty in 2002 and served as the law school’s associate dean for academic affairs from 2004-08.

#2729

Tim E. May

#156176

Overall Influence

#2730

Carl E. Schneider

#123700

Overall Influence

Carl E. Schneider was an American lawyer and bioethicist. He served as Chauncey Stillman Professor of Law and as Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He was educated at Harvard College and received his JD from the University of Michigan, where he served as editor-in-chief of the law review. Schneider subsequently clerked for Judge Carl McGowan of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; he served in the same capacity for Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court. In 1981, he joined the law faculty at the University of Michigan.

#2731

Laura Nirider

#112738

Overall Influence

Laura Nirider is an American attorney and legal scholar working as an associate professor of law and the co-director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. An expert on false confessions, Nirider specializes in representing young people who confessed to crimes they did not commit, and working to reform the process of police interrogation. Nirider's work gained international visibility following her involvement in several high-profile cases involving juvenile confessions. Her clients have included Brendan Dassey, whose case was profiled on the ...

#2732

Muneer Ahmad

#89381

Overall Influence

Muneer Ahmad is a professor of law at the Yale Law School. He is a specialist in international human rights and immigration law. He is known for his work as co-counsel for Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was detained at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.

#2733

Christian Jorgensen

#156598

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

#2734

Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws

#62385

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Helena Ann Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, KC, FRSA, HonFRSE , is a Scottish barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. She was Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, from 2011 to 2018.

#2735

Kyu Ho Youm

#108770

Overall Influence

Kyu Ho Youm is a professor and the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. Personal life In 1982, he earned a Master of Arts degree in journalism from Southern Illinois University, where he went on to pursue his Ph.D. in media law under the supervision of First Amendment scholar Harry Stonecipher; a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale Law School; and a Master in Law degree from Oxford University, where he focused his master's comparative thesis on the First Amendment to the US Constitution vs. the European Convention on...

#2736

Pak Un-jong

#95204

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Pak Un-jong or Park Un-jong is a South Korean bioethics expert previously served as President Moon Jae-in's first chairperson of Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. She is the sixth person and second woman to lead the Commission ever since it was created in 2008.

#2737

Marshall B. Kapp

#157094

Overall Influence

#2738

Ülkü Azrak

#105285

Overall Influence

1933 - 2020 (87 years)

Ali Ülkü Azrak was a Turkish lawyer and academic. Personal life He had two sons from his marriage to Hannelore Azrak, who was of German origin. He spent the majority of his time between Turkey and Germany. Their children Deniz and Atilla live in Germany.

#2739

James Salzman

#114570

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

James Salzman is the Donald Bren Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law with joint appointments at the UCLA School of Law and the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

#2740

Danladi Umar

#69383

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Danladi Umar is a Nigerian jurist from Bauchi State in northeastern Nigeria. Prior to becoming Chairman of the Code Of Conduct Tribunal of Nigeria, he was a lawyer and a Chief Magistrate in Bauchi State, Nigeria. Appointed at age 36 to the CCT as acting chairman, Danladi Umar went on to become the youngest chairman of the CCT four years later.

#2741

Ade Ipaye

#79239

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Adeola Rahman Ipaye is a Nigerian lawyer who served as the deputy chief of staff to the president of Nigeria from 2015 to 2023. He was also attorney general and commissioner for justice in Lagos State from 2011 to 2015.

#2742

Ken Gormley

#116416

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Kenneth Gerald Gormley is an American lawyer, academic and novelist who is the 13th president of Duquesne University. He is a former dean and a professor of constitutional law at Duquesne University School of Law. He is also a legal counsel for the Appellate Practice Group at the law firm Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP. His scholarly work focuses particularly on the Watergate scandal and special prosecutors.

#2743

Amira Elmissiry

#91064

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (41 years)

Amira Elmissiry, is a lawyer who works as the Chief Equity and Chief Catalytic Investment Officer, in the Private Sector Operations Division at the African Development Bank, based in Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast. She previously advised Donald Kaberuka, the former President of the bank.

#2744

Elizabeth Murray

#72242

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Murray was a British general practitioner and professor of e-health and primary care at University College London. In 2003 she established the eHealth Unit at UCL where she was co-director, and she was also Deputy Director of the UCL Institute of Healthcare Engineering.

#2745

Tom Noonan

#84074

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Tom Noonan is an American actor, director, and screenwriter, best known for his roles as Francis Dolarhyde in Manhunter , Frankenstein's Monster in The Monster Squad , Cain in RoboCop 2 , The Ripper in Last Action Hero , Sammy Barnathan in Synecdoche, New York , Reverend Nathaniel in Hell on Wheels , the Pallid Man in 12 Monkeys and as the voice of everyone but the two main characters in Anomalisa .

#2746

Tom Mulcair

#75132

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Thomas Joseph Mulcair is a Canadian retired politician who served as the leader of the New Democratic Party from 2012 to 2017 and leader of the Official Opposition from 2012 to 2015. He was elected to the House of Commons in 2007 and sat as the member of Parliament for Outremont until 2018.

#2747

Steven Reed

#61527

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Steven L. Reed is an American jurist, politician, and the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a probate judge in Montgomery County. Reed is the first black mayor of Montgomery.

#2748

Deborah Denno

#121754

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Deborah West Denno is an American legal scholar and criminologist who studies the intersection of biology, neuroscience, and criminal law. She is the Arthur A. McGivney Professor of Law at the Fordham University School of Law, where she is also the founding director of the Neuroscience and Law Center. In 2007, she was named one of the fifty most influential women lawyers in the United States by the National Law Journal. She is known for her writings on the constitutionality of certain methods of capital punishment, such as lethal injection. A 2006 article in the Washington Post described her ...

#2749

Oscar Chase

#132456

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Oscar G. Chase is an American legal academic. Chase earned a degree in English literature at New York University in 1960, and completed his legal studies at Yale Law School in 1963. Chase began his career in legal scholarship as a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School from 1972 to 1978, and began teaching at the New York University School of Law in 1980, where he was later named Russell D. Niles Professor of Law.

#2750

Sabine Tejpar

#158573

Overall Influence

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