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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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Law,

#2751

Jon T. Johnsen

#119687

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Jon Thorvald Johnsen is a Norwegian legal scholar. He graduated with the cand.jur. degree in 1969. In his early career he worked as a research assistant at the University of Oslo, deputy judge, research fellow at the University of Tromsø and researcher for the Norwegian Ministry of Justice. He became an associate professor at the University of Oslo in 1978, took his dr.juris degree in 1986 and was promoted to professor in 1990.

#2752

Lauritz Jenssen Dorenfeldt

#104731

Overall Influence

1909 - 1997 (88 years)

Lauritz Jenssen Dorenfeldt was a Norwegian jurist. Personal life He was born in Kristiania as a son of engineer Lauritz Jenssen Dorenfeldt and Aagot Bødtker . He was a grandson of Lauritz Jenssen, grandnephew of Hans Jørgen Darre and a nephew of Hans Jørgen Darre-Jenssen and Worm Hirsch Darre-Jenssen. On the maternal side he was a nephew of Sigurd Bødtker.

#2753

Miren Ortubay Fuentes

#70070

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Miren Ortubay Fuentes is a Spanish lawyer and criminologist, as well as a professor at the University of the Basque Country , specializing in gender-related violence and prisoners' rights. Biography Ortubay Fuentes graduated in law from the University of Deusto in 1980, and holds a Ph.D. in law from the same university. Her 1994 doctoral thesis was entitled, . She holds a diploma in Criminology from the Complutense University of Madrid, and did postgraduate studies in criminology at the university of Louvain-la-Neuve .

#2754

Benoît Pelletier

#106676

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Benoît Pelletier is lawyer, academic, and politician in the Canadian province of Quebec. He was a Liberal member of the National Assembly of Quebec from 1998 to 2008 and was a prominent cabinet minister in the government of Jean Charest. He is best known for promoting the concept of "asymmetric federalism" to incorporate Quebec nationalism into a decentralized Canadian federal structure.

#2755

Stephanie J. Jones

Stephanie J. Jones

#112922

Overall Influence

Stephanie J. Jones is an American lawyer, writer and former senior government official, and is the President of The Call to Justice Foundation. She was the federal government's first Chief Opportunities Officer and the former Editor-in-Chief of The State of Black America.

#2756

Arthur Furst

#55451

Overall Influence

1914 - 2005 (91 years)

Arthur Furst was an American born toxicologist and cancer researcher. He was involved in the creation of the Cancer Chemotherapy Laboratory at Stanford Medical School. Early life and education He was born in Minneapolis, and orphaned at the age of four. He earned an A.A. in Psychology at City College of Los Angeles. Later he transferred to UCLA, where he earned an A.B. in Chemistry with minors in mathematics, physics, and psychology, and an M.A. in Chemistry with minors in mathematics and education. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford in 1948.

#2757

Derek Byerlee

#147917

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Derek Byerlee is an Australian agricultural researcher, economist and policy advisor. He has held senior positions at Michigan State University, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the World Bank.

#2758

Maamun al-Kuzbari

#92346

Overall Influence

1914 - 1998 (84 years)

Maamun al-Kuzbari was a Syrian literary personality, politician and acting head of state from a prominent Damascus family. Career He studied International law at the University of Lyon's affiliate Saint Joseph University in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and became an attorney in Damascus in 1943 and a professor at Damascus University in 1948. He entered parliament as an independent in 1953, allying himself with military strongman Adib al-Shishakli. He was elected Speaker of parliament and chairman of the Constitutional Assembly charged by Shishakli to amend the constitution. Shishakli also appointed him secretary general of the Arab Liberation Movement , Shishakli's political vehicle.

#2759

Józef Ciągwa

#129090

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Józef Ciągwa, slov. Jozef Čongva – Polish lawyer of Slovak origin, translator, lecturer at University of Silesia in Katowice, professor of jurisprudence and president of the management board of Slovaks in Poland Association.

#2760

James D. Spaniolo

James D. Spaniolo

#54049

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

James D. Spaniolo is an American attorney, professor, and former university administrator. He was the president of the University of Texas at Arlington from 2004 until his retirement in 2013. As an attorney, he specializes in communications and constitutional law. He served in various legal and executive capacities with the Miami Herald, the Detroit Free Press, the American Newspaper Publishers Association, and the Knight Foundation. He was dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University for nine years before becoming president of University of Texas at Arl...

#2761

Richard Jencks

#97145

Overall Influence

1921 - 2014 (93 years)

Richard William Jencks was an American television executive, lawyer, former president of the CBS Broadcast Group, and former member of CBS' board of directors. He retired from his position as Corporate Vice President of CBS in 1976. Jencks was also a former president of the Alliance of Television and Film Producers, or ATFP, which is now called the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

#2762

Derrick Wyatt

#144889

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Derrick Arthur Wyatt, KC is a legal scholar, retired barrister and retired academic. He was Professor of Law at the University of Oxford from 1996 to 2009 and has been a fellow of St. Edmund Hall since 1978.

#2763

Amos N. Guiora

#103118

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Amos Neuser Guiora is an Israeli-American professor of law at S. J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, specializing in institutional complicity, enabling culture, and sexual assaults. Guiora’s scholarship explores institutional complicity in relation to the victimization of young people by college sports coaches, trainers, doctors, and Catholic priests. As a result of this work, Guiora has become not just an academic but also an advocate for sexual assault victims.

#2764

Lin Fritschi

#159797

Overall Influence

#2765

Ronald William Dworkin

#159811

Overall Influence

#2766

Michael Tate

#109455

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Michael Carter Tate AO is a legal academic and former Australian Labor Party politician who later became an ambassador and then a Catholic priest. Early life and education Tate was born in Sydney in 1945. He was educated at St Virgil's College in Hobart, and then studied law at the University of Tasmania, where he resided at St. John Fisher College and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours in 1968. He attributed his achievement to the long hours he spent in libraries, rather than in sporting or social activities, while recovering from a serious road accident in 1963, whi...

#2767

Millard Ruud

#123018

Overall Influence

1917 - 1997 (80 years)

Millard Ruud was executive director of the Association of American Law Schools. A noted scholar of legislation and commercial law, Ruud graduated from the University of Minnesota and the University of Minnesota Law School, where he served as president of the Minnesota Law Review twice. He also served as John S. Redditt Professor and associate dean of law at the University of Texas-Austin. He was given an Outstanding Achievement Award by the University of Minnesota in 1980.

#2768

Giovanni Sartor

#159887

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

#2769

Anne M. Lofaso

#142781

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Anne Marie Lofaso is Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development and a professor at the West Virginia University College of Law. In 2010, she was named WVU College of Law Professor of the Year. She is also a four-time recipient of the WVU College of Law faculty-scholarship award.

#2770

Géza Herczegh

#92998

Overall Influence

1928 - 2010 (82 years)

Géza Herczegh was a Hungarian judge and academic. In 1990, Herczegh was appointed to the Constitutional Court of Hungary. From 1993 to 2003, he was unanimously elected by the United Nations to one of the International Court of Justice, succeeding Manfred Lachs. He filled the remaining year of Lachs' nine-year term and was re-elected to a full term in 1994. In 2003, he was succeeded by Peter Tomka. His daughter, Judge Anita Herczegh, is married to János Áder, former President of Hungary. His successor at the ICJ, Tomka, described him as "a dedicated and open-minded judge interested in finding ...

#2771

Xiaohong Rose Yang

#35435

Overall Influence

Xiaohong Rose Yang is an American biomedical scientist researching the genetics of dysplastic nevus syndrome and chordoma, and etiologic heterogeneity of breast cancer. She is a senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute. Yang leads breast cancer studies in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.

#2772

Leonidas Ralph Mecham

Leonidas Ralph Mecham

#77243

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Leonidas Ralph Mecham was the former Director of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, having served in that position from 1985 to 2006. He was appointed to the position by United States Chief Justice Warren Burger in July 1985.

#2773

Jesús Leguina

#121458

Overall Influence

1941 - 2016 (75 years)

Jesús Leguina Villa was a Spanish jurist and civil servant. He served as a judge of the Constitutional Court of Spain from 1986 until 1990, having previously served as a member of the General Council of the Judiciary. He was then selected as a director of the Bank of Spain, serving from 1994 until 2000 and again from 2004 until 2010. He also served as Vice Chancellor of the University of the Basque Country. He was married to María Emilia Casas, a former President of the Constitutional Court, and had four children.

#2774

Matthew D. Breyer

#160385

Overall Influence

#2775

Armand de Mestral

#95271

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Armand de Mestral was a Canadian academic and international arbitration expert. Born in Montreal, Quebec, de Mestral was educated at Whitgift School in Croydon, United Kingdom. He was a law professor at the McGill University and an expert in international law. He taught courses on constitutional law and the law of the European Union. He was also a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

#2776

Daniel E. Ho

#124185

Overall Influence

Daniel E. Ho is an American lawyer, currently the William Benjamin Scott and Luna M. Scott Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. Education and training Ho earned his B.A. degree at the University of California, Berkeley, his Ph.D. in government at Harvard University in 2004, and his J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 2005.

#2777

Tracy S. Robinson

#67883

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Tracy S. Robinson is Jamaican attorney and lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of the West Indies . She served as commissioner on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from 2012 to 2015 and in 2014 was elected as chair of the organization. She has served as the Rapporteur on the Rights of Women since January 2012 for the Organization of American States and helped establish the Rapporteurship on the rights of LGBTI, serving as its first Rapporteur.

#2778

Ivan Head

#94125

Overall Influence

1930 - 2004 (74 years)

Ivan Leigh Head was a Canadian lawyer, legal scholar, and civil servant. He was an influential foreign policy adviser of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Born in Calgary, Alberta, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 and a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1952 from the University of Alberta. He was called to the Bar of Alberta in 1953 and was created a Queen's Counsel in 1974. He practiced law in Calgary from 1953 to 1959. He was then awarded Harvard University's Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship and received a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School in 1960.

#2779

Marsha Moses

#130669

Overall Influence

Marsha A. Moses is an American physician who is the Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital. Her research considers the biochemical mechanisms that are responsible for tumor growth and progression. She is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#2780

Ruth Kern

#124810

Overall Influence

1914 - 2002 (88 years)

Ruth Ellen Kern was an American lawyer, community leader and feminist. Kern was an early pioneer in law for women in El Paso, Texas. She was also outspoken against myths regarding violence against women, sharing her own experiences with rape with the public. Kern was an active member of the American Civil Liberties Union , and a law suit she filed for an inmate led to El Paso County to construct a new jail with better conditions for inmates.

#2781

Harold Joseph Berman

#161603

Overall Influence

#2782

Melynda Price

#43032

Overall Influence

Dr. Melynda J. Price is the Robert E. Harding, Jr. Professor of Law and the Director of the African American and Africana Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on race, gender and citizenship, the politics of punishment and the role of law in the politics of race and ethnicity in and bordering the U.S.

#2783

Tamar Herzog

#62932

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Tamar Herzog is a historian and jurist. She is the Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs at Harvard University, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor, and an Affiliated Faculty Member at the Harvard Law School. She previously taught at Stanford University, University of Chicago and Autonomous University of Madrid. Her work concentrates on early modern European history, colonial Latin American history, imperial history, Atlantic history, and Legal history.

#2784

John Banzhaf

#91732

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

John Francis Banzhaf III is an American public interest lawyer, legal activist and law professor at George Washington University Law School. He is the founder of an antismoking advocacy group, Action on Smoking and Health. He is noted for his advocacy and use of lawsuits as a method to promote what he believes is the public interest.

#2785

Colleen Sheppard

#131569

Overall Influence

Colleen Sheppard is a professor of law at McGill University Faculty of Law. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2016. Sheppard's scholarship focuses on human rights issues and constitutional law.

#2786

José Antonio Kast

#67436

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

José Antonio Kast Rist , also known by his initials JAK, is a Chilean lawyer and politician. Kast ran for president in 2021, winning the first round and losing in the second round run-off to Gabriel Boric.

#2787

Alberto Febbrajo

Alberto Febbrajo

#120027

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Alberto V. Febbrajo is an Italian legal scholar and sociologist. Febbrajo studied under the political philosopher Bruno Leoni at the University of Pavia and graduated in Law with a thesis on Max Weber’s sociology of law. He continued his studies at the Universities of Berlin and Freiburg im Breisgau and at the German University of Administrative Sciences in Speyer. He is Professor of Sociology of Law at the University of Macerata, Italy.

#2788

Daria Roithmayr

#128089

Overall Influence

Daria Roithmayr is the George T. and Harriet E. Pfleger Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. She is a leading scholar on the subject of racial inequality. Education Roithmayr graduated from University of California, Los Angeles, and from the Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude. She clerked for Judge Marvin J. Garbis, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

#2789

Gillian Whalley

Gillian Whalley

#65387

Overall Influence

Gillian Amanda Whalley is a New Zealand Professor of Clinical Sonography at the University of Otago. Academic career Whalley first became a sonographer in 1985. She practised for five years before becoming a researcher in 1990.

#2790

Juanita Westmoreland-Traoré

#65950

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Juanita Westmoreland-Traore, is the first black judge in the history of Quebec. She is also the first black dean of a law school in Canada's history. Early life and education Westmoreland-Traoré was born in Verdun, now part of Montreal, Quebec, in 1942, the daughter of immigrants from Guyana. She studied at Marianopolis College, and subsequently obtained a law degree from the Université de Montréal and a doctorate from the University of Paris.

#2791

Derek Crowther

#162751

Overall Influence

#2792

Cynthia Nance

#105269

Overall Influence

Cynthia "Cyndi" Nance is Dean and the Nathan G. Gordon Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. She has taught at Arkansas since 1994. She previously served as the dean of the law school from 2006 to 2011. Her scholarship focuses on labor and employment law.

#2793

Roderick Macdonald

#163024

Overall Influence

#2794

Jennifer Mary Weller

#48438

Overall Influence

Jennifer Mary Weller is a New Zealand anaesthesiology academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career Weller graduated from University of Adelaide, with her post-graduation training in hospitals in Canberra, Nottingham and Adelaide. She moved to Wellington Hospital in 1994 as a full-time specialist anaesthetist, eventually taking a Masters of Clinical Education from the University of New South Wales and taking on teaching at Victoria University of Wellington as well as medical duties. A move to Auckland and the University of Auckland led to a PhD in 2005.

#2795

Liu Chao-shiuan

#59021

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Liu Chao-shiuan is a Taiwanese educator and politician. He is a former president of the National Tsing Hua University and Soochow University and a former Premier of the Republic of China . Early life Liu was born in Changsha, Hunan in 1943. He received his bachelor's degree from National Taiwan University in 1965, a master's from Université de Sherbrooke in 1968, and a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1971. He earned all of his academic degrees in the field of chemistry.

#2796

Henry Kwasi Prempeh

#96136

Overall Influence

Henry Kwasi Prempeh is a Ghanaian lawyer, educationalist and executive director of the Ghana Center for Democratic Development . Education Prempeh graduated with a B.sc Admin. degree from the University of Ghana. He obtained a master's degree in Business Administration from Baylor University . He is a graduate of Yale Law School , where he served as a teaching fellow and on the Yale Law Journal as an editor.

#2797

Thomas Mensah

#100451

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Thomas A. Mensah was a Ghanaian judge, law professor and diplomat who served as judge and president of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from 1996 to 1999 and continued as a judge from 1999 to 2005. He was the first president of the tribunal. Before his appointment to the tribunal, Mensah was Ghana's High Commissioner to South Africa and a former Assistant Secretary-General at the International Maritime Organization .

#2798

Jacinta Ruru

#115787

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Jacinta Arianna Ruru is a New Zealand academic and the first Māori professor of law. Ruru is currently a professor at the University of Otago. Academic career Ruru completed a Master's at the University of Otago in 2001, with a thesis on the Treaty of Waitangi and national parks in New Zealand. After a 2012 Fulbright-funded PhD at the University of Victoria in Canada, Ruru returned to New Zealand and the University of Otago, rising to full professor in 2016.

#2799

George Siber

#99781

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

George Rainer Siber is a medical researcher and vaccine expert with years of experience in developing numerous vaccines, therapeutic antibodies, and diagnostic agents for infectious diseases. Siber is a former Harvard professor, current adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, former executive vice president and chief science officer of Wyeth, and advisory committee member of the World Health Organization, US National Institutes of Health, Gates Foundation, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

#2800

Michael Wachter

#100586

Overall Influence

1943 - 2022 (79 years)

Michael Wachter is the William B. and Mary Barb Johnson Professor of Law and Economics Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and Co-Director of the Institute for Law & Economics. Biography Wachter was born in New York City, and earned a B.S. from Cornell University in 1964, an M.A. from Harvard University in 1967, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1970. From 1964 to 1965 he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow.

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