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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List of the most influential people in Law,

#3451

José Rodríguez Elizondo

#106724

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

José Alejandro Vladimir Rodríguez Elizondo is a Chilean lawyer and diplomat who was awarded with the National Prize of Humanities and Social Sciences in 2021. He finished his Bachelor of Arts in laws in 1960 at the University of Chile, his alma mater.

#3452

Saritha Komatireddy

#183554

Overall Influence

#3453

Bill Owens

#173718

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

William Lewis Owens is an American attorney and former U.S. Representative from New York, a post he held from 2009 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party and currently serves on the advisory board of the Canadian American Business Council. The district he represented, the state's largest and most rural, includes most of the North Country, as well as the northern suburbs of Syracuse.

#3454

Douglas NeJaime

#188331

Overall Influence

Douglas George NeJaime is an American legal scholar. He is the Anne Urowsky Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where his teaching focuses on family law, legal ethics, law and sexuality, and constitutional law. Prior to Yale, NeJaime taught at the UCLA School of Law, where he served as Faculty Director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

#3455

David Koepsell

#181578

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

David Richard Koepsell is an American author, philosopher, attorney, and educator whose recent research focuses on how ethics and public policy deal with emerging science and technology. He has been a practicing attorney, been employed as an ontologist, been a university professor, and has lectured worldwide. He is a visiting professor of research ethics at National Autonomous University of Mexico, director of research and strategic initiatives at Comisión Nacional de Bioética Mexico, an adjunct professor at University at Buffalo and a senior fellow and education director of the Center for I...

#3456

William Vandercreek

#189344

Overall Influence

1930 - 2012 (82 years)

William VanDercreek was a Professor of the Law School of Florida State University. He taught civil procedure and complex litigation courses and at the College of Law from 1968 until his retirement in 1993. He was Moot Court advisor for twenty-five years.

#3457

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi

#179531

Overall Influence

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi is a Nigerian lawyer and civil rights activist. She is the founding Director of Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center , a non-governmental maternal and reproductive health advocacy organization which major objective is to promote women's rights, human rights, governance and rule of law.

#3458

Spencer Abraham

#179506

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Edward Spencer Abraham is an American attorney, author, and politician who served as the 10th United States Secretary of Energy from 2001 to 2005, under President George W. Bush. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a United States Senator from Michigan from 1995 to 2001. Abraham is one of the founders of the Federalist Society, and a co-founder of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. As of 2023, he remains the last Republican to serve as a U.S. senator from Michigan.

#3459

Evangelia Tastsoglou

#186829

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Evangelia Tastsoglou , also known as Evie Tastsoglou, is a Greek-Canadian sociologist and lawyer. She is Professor of Sociology and International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University in Canada. She is known for her research relating to issues of gender and international migration, migration and globalization, immigrant and minority women and citizenship, and sexual and gender-based violence during forced migration.

#3460

Paco Rabanne

#105227

Overall Influence

1934 - 2023 (89 years)

Francisco Rabaneda Cuervo , more commonly known under the pseudonym of Paco Rabanne , was a Spanish fashion designer. Rabanne rose to prominence as an enfant terrible of the fashion world in the 1960s with his use of unconventional materials such as metal and plastic in his clothing, and for his incorporation of futuristic elements in his designs, gaining notoriety for his space-age style. He collaborated with a range of iconic fashion houses and designed costumes for films. Rabanne was also the recipient of several awards, including the Legion of Honour, which recognised his contributions to ...

#3461

Issey Miyake

#105928

Overall Influence

1938 - 2022 (84 years)

was a Japanese fashion designer. He was known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances, such as L'eau d'Issey, which became his best-known product. Life and career Miyake was born Kazunaru Miyake on 22 April 1938 in Hiroshima. He was still living in the city seven years later when the U.S. military dropped an atomic bomb there in August 1945. He first disclosed this in 2009, when Barack Obama advocated for global nuclear disarmament.

#3462

Valentino

#123627

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani , known mononymously as Valentino, is an Italian fashion designer, the founder of the Valentino brand and company. His main lines include Valentino, Valentino Garavani, Valentino Roma, and R.E.D. Valentino.

#3463

Dan Bartlett

#172455

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Daniel Joseph Bartlett is an American political advisor who served as counselor to the president and communications director in the administration of George W. Bush. Early life and education Bartlett grew up in Rockwall, Texas and is a 1989 graduate of Rockwall High School. He earned a bachelor of arts degree in political science from the University of Texas at Austin.

#3464

Anna Sui

#104126

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Anna Sui is an American fashion designer. She was named one of the "Top 5 Fashion Icons of the Decade", and in 2009 earned the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America , joining the ranks of Yves Saint Laurent, Giorgio Armani, Ralph Lauren, and Diane von Furstenberg. Her brand categories include several fashion lines, footwear, cosmetics, fragrances, eyewear, jewelry, accessories and home goods

#3465

Héctor Rodríguez Castro

#178608

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (42 years)

Héctor Rodríguez Castro is a Venezuelan lawyer and politician. He is currently the governor of Miranda. Political career On 9 January 2014, he was appointed as Minister of Popular Power for Education until his dismissal on 4 September 2015 to be a candidate for deputy to the National Assembly of Venezuela. He was elected deputy list by the Bolívar state for the period 2016–2021 in the parliamentary elections of 6 December 2015 by the Great Patriotic Pole. He won the regional elections in Miranda in 2017.

#3466

Joseph Abboud

#19751

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Joseph Abboud is an American menswear fashion designer and author. Early life and education Joseph Abboud was born in Boston, Massachusetts. The Abbouds were a working-class Lebanese Maronite Catholic family that started out in the South End of Boston, and later moved to Roslindale. Abboud's father Joseph worked in a candy factory and his mother, Lila, was a seamstress. He had one sister, Nancy Ash; she and Lila died of breast cancer.

#3467

Caroline Forell

#188913

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Caroline A. Forell is a professor emerita at the University of Oregon School of Law. She retired in December 2019. Forell grew up in Gold Coast, Queensland and is a dual American-Australian citizen. Initially, she wanted to work as a journalist, but turned to law when her application for a newspaper job was explicitly rejected in favor of a lesser qualified male candidate because they already had a woman reporter. After receiving a full scholarship from the University of Queensland, she attended the University of Iowa College of Law where she was an editor of the Iowa Law Review before joining the University of Oregon School of Law faculty in 1978.

#3468

David Hiller

#180928

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

David Dean Hiller is a lawyer and former media executive for Chicago-based Tribune Company. On May 18, 2009, he was appointed president and CEO of the McCormick Foundation, a leading charitable organization with more than $1 billion in assets. He previously served on the board of directors for the McCormick Foundation and is active in executive and civic organizations in Chicago. He formerly served as publisher, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Times, and before that, as publisher of the Chicago Tribune. From 2006 to 2008, Hiller was at the center of controversy over the editorial cont...

#3469

Paule Valery Joseph

#86671

Overall Influence

Paule Valery Joseph is an American nurse and researcher at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She is the 2022 National Academy of Medicine American Academy of Nursing Fellow. Early life and education Joseph is from Venezuela. She spent her childhood watching her mother acting as the community nurse. Her father was a teacher. She earned her Associate of Applied Science in nursing at Hostos Community College. She moved to the College of New Rochelle for her Bachelor of Science in Nursing . She moved to Pace University for her graduate studies, where she earned a master's degree in nursing.

#3470

Barry Furrow

#189635

Overall Influence

Barry R. Furrow is an American lawyer, currently at Drexel University and was former Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.

#3471

Trond Waage

#113439

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Trond Waage is a child rights expert at the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy. Previously, he was for eight years Norway's Ombudsman for Children. In this role he initiated the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children and was involved in setting up ombuds offices for children in Europe and Africa. Norway was the first country to establish an Ombudsman for Children, in 1981.

#3472

John White

#126718

Overall Influence

1911 - 2007 (96 years)

Sir John Charles White was a New Zealand jurist. During World War II, he served as personal assistant and aide-de-camp to General Bernard Freyberg. After some years as solicitor-general, he was appointed a judge at the Supreme Court.

#3473

James P. Whyte Jr.

#189710

Overall Influence

1921 - 2007 (86 years)

James Primrose Whyte Jr. was an American attorney and educator. He was a professor at William & Mary Law School and served as the school's dean from 1965 until his resignation to return to full-time teaching in 1975.

#3474

Bertrall Ross

#185849

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Bertrall L. Ross II is an American legal scholar. Ross completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado–Boulder, and earned a Master's in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 2003, as well as a second master's degree from the London School of Economics. Ross obtained his degree in law from Yale Law School. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley as Chancellor's Professor of Law, until joining the University of Virginia School of Law in 2021 as Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished Professor of Law.

#3475

Ellen P. Goodman

#189745

Overall Influence

#3476

Pam Sykes

#173157

Overall Influence

Pamela Sykes is an Australian medical scientist and Chair of the Institutional Biosafety Committee at the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer at Flinders University. She is a Strategic Professor in the area of Preventive Cancer Biology and leads a research group which studies the biological effects of low-dose radiation. She is a member of the Radiation Protection Committee which advises the Government of South Australia. Her research has been published in Radiation Research, Epigenetics, Transgenic Research, Cell Biology and Toxicology, PLOS ONE, Mutation Research and the Journal of Clinical Pathology.

#3477

Susanna L. Blumenthal

#186844

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Susanna L. Blumenthal is the William Prosser Professor of Law and Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. She won the Merle Curti Award for her book Law and the Modern Mind. Life She graduated from Radcliffe College, and from Yale University, where she earned a Ph.D. and JD.

#3478

George Ferencz

#180303

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

George Ferencz was an American theater director, producer, and teacher. A major name in American theater, he was renowned for his innovative stagings of plays and musicals by Sam Shepard, Eugene O'Neill, Amiri Baraka.

#3479

Mirza Abdul Karim Roushan

#188686

Overall Influence

1903 - 1992 (89 years)

Mirza Abdul Karim Roushan Tehrani was an Iranian philosopher on mysticism, law, and the Quran. Authority When aged 28, he received permission of Ejtehad from Sayyid Mar'ashi Najafi. Character As a philosopher, he stressed the relationship between wisdom, mysticism and the Quran. He often advised his pupils to practice self-reflection, contemplating divine love, and praying.

#3480

Helen Brockman

#94954

Overall Influence

1902 - 2008 (106 years)

Helen Brockman was an American fashion designer, writer and professor. Biography Brockman was born in Palo, Iowa to Levi Lewis and Ida Mae Ashworth. She attended the University of Iowa and graduated with a B.A. in Latin and Greek. After college, she spent seven years teaching English and history in Schenectady, New York.

#3481

Carol Goodman

#118051

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Carol Goodman, also known under the pseudonym Juliet Dark, is an American professor and author of gothic fiction who has also written under the pseudonym Lee Carroll with husband Lee Slonimsky. Goodman currently serves as a creative writing professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

#3482

Ashok Venkitaraman

#37625

Overall Influence

Ashok Venkitaraman is a British cancer researcher of Indian origin. He is the Director of the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, and Program Director at A*STAR, Singapore. From 1998 to 2020, he was the inaugural holder of the Ursula Zoellner Professorship of Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge, a Professorial Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and from 2006 to 2019, was the Director of the Medical Research Council Cancer Unit

#3483

Yuji Iwasawa

#169545

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Yuji Iwasawa is a Japanese jurist. He has been a member of the International Court of Justice since 22 June 2018, following the resignation of Judge Hisashi Owada. He was re-elected on 12 November 2020. He formerly chaired the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

#3484

Karin Coonrod

#78694

Overall Influence

Karin Coonrod is an American theater director and writer who teaches at Yale School of Drama. Coonrod is known for her modern adaptations of classic plays by William Shakespeare and other playwrights. She often chooses to direct plays produced from unusual sources such as lesser-known works by notable playwrights, adaptations from non-dramatic sources, and the writings of notable figures in history.

#3485

David Young

#179576

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

David R. Young is an American lawyer, businessman, and academic. He served as a Special Assistant at the National Security Council in the Nixon administration and an Administrative Assistant to Henry Kissinger. He has lived in the United Kingdom since the mid-1970s.

#3486

Christopher Cox

#181366

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Charles Christopher Cox is an American attorney and politician who served as chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a 17-year Republican member of the United States House of Representatives, and member of the White House staff in the Reagan Administration. Prior to his Washington service he was a practicing attorney, teacher, and entrepreneur. Following his retirement from government in 2009, he returned to law practice and currently serves as a director, trustee, and advisor to several for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

#3487

Arnaud Montebourg

#175179

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Arnaud Montebourg is a French politician, lawyer and entrepreneur who served as the Minister of Industrial Renewal from 2012 to 2014, then as Minister of Economy, Industrial Renewal, and Digital Affairs, 31 March 2014 until his resignation on 25 August.

#3488

Felipe González Morales

#184216

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Felipe González Morales is a Chilean lawyer and academic, specializing in international human rights law. González Morales holds a bachelor's degree in legal and social science from the University of Chile, master's degrees in international law from American University in the United States and in advanced human rights studies from Carlos III University in Spain, and a doctorate in law, also from Carlos III University.

#3489

Satoshi Morimoto

#97074

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Satoshi Morimoto is a Japanese politician, scholar and critic specializing in international politics and national security. He was Minister of Defense from July to December 2012, and is professor at Takushoku University and member of the Congressional Forum for New Japan.

#3490

John Henderson

#171744

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

John Henderson is an English film and television director After leaving advertising, Henderson's first directing job was for Spitting Image on ITV, which won him a BAFTA nomination. Henderson's other television credits include the multi award-winning double series The Borrowers, winner of two BAFTAs, the 1999 Comic Relief Doctor Who skit The Curse of Fatal Death ; two series of the comedy How Do You Want Me? starring Dylan Moran two series of the BBC's Sci-fi comedy Hyperdrive, Saxondale, Benidorm and Shameless amongst others. He has also directed several feature films including Loch Ness, Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis, Two Men Went to War, and Mee-Shee: The Water Giant.

#3491

Robert Francis

#131793

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Sir Robert Anthony Francis, KC is a British barrister. He specialises in medical law, including medical and mental health treatment and capacity issues, clinical negligence and professional discipline. He has appeared as a barrister for and chaired several high-profile inquiries into medical controversies/scandals.

#3492

Ray Mabus

#179519

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Raymond Edwin Mabus Jr. is an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy from 2009 to 2017. Mabus previously served as the State auditor of Mississippi from 1984 to 1988, as the 60th governor of Mississippi from 1988 to 1992, and as the United States ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1994 to 1996.

#3493

Frances Farmer

#188863

Overall Influence

1909 - 1993 (84 years)

Frances Farmer was an American law librarian and professor. From 1944 to 1976, she headed the library at the University of Virginia School of Law, responsible for its growth, modernization, and prestige. She was also the first female full professor at the University of Virginia School of Law.

#3494

Gus Macey Hodges Jr.

#190349

Overall Influence

1908 - 1992 (84 years)

Gus Macey Hodges Jr. was an American lawyer, and the Albert Sidney Burleson Professor of Law from 1967 to 1970 at University of Texas at Austin. In 1984, the university established the Gus M. Hodges Regents Research Professorship, and in 1992, also established the Gus Macey Hodges Endowed Presidential Scholarship of Law.

#3495

Marc Harrison

#32211

Overall Influence

1936 - 1998 (62 years)

Marc Harrison, was an industrial designer and educator whose work aligned with the idea of universal design that makes products easier to use for people with disabilities as well as people without disabilities.

#3496

Jennifer Warren

Jennifer Warren

#104582

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Jennifer Warren is an American actress, producer and film director. Early life and education Warren's uncle was Yiddish theatre actor and director Jacob Ben-Ami. Career Warren made her Broadway debut in 1972 in 6 Rms Riv Vu, for which she won a Theatre World Award. She appeared in the short-lived P.S. Your Cat Is Dead! Warren's film credits include Sam's Song , Night Moves , Slap Shot , Another Man, Another Chance , Ice Castles , Mutant , and Fatal Beauty . She was listed as one of the 12 "Promising New Actors of 1975" in John Willis' Screen World, Volume 27. She also played a role in Steel Cowboy .

#3497

Dugald Cameron

#130534

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Dugald Cameron, OBE, FCSD, FRSA is a Scottish artist and industrial designer. Cameron was born in Glasgow in 1939 and raised near Clydebank, attending the High School of Glasgow. He obtained both a DA and a Postgraduate Diploma from Glasgow School of Art. He subsequently worked as a freelance industrial designer, during which time he designed a prototype medical ultrasound machine, the Lund machine , and the production version, the Diasonograph, working with medical physicist Tom Brown.

#3498

Sonia Rykiel

#115595

Overall Influence

1930 - 2016 (86 years)

Sonia Rykiel was a French fashion designer and writer. She created the Poor Boy Sweater, which was featured on the cover of French Elle magazine. Her knitwear designs and new fashion techniques led her to be dubbed the "Queen of Knits". The Sonia Rykiel label was founded in 1968, upon the opening of her first store, making clothing, accessories, and fragrances. Rykiel was also a writer, and her first book was published in 1979. In 2012, Rykiel revealed that she was suffering from Parkinson's disease. She died from complications of the disease on 25 August 2016.

#3499

Carroll Shelby

#135377

Overall Influence

1923 - 2012 (89 years)

Carroll Hall Shelby was an American automotive designer, racing driver, and entrepreneur. Shelby is best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and Mustang for Ford Motor Company, which he modified during the late 1960s and early 2000s. He established Shelby American in 1962 to manufacture and market performance vehicles. His autobiography, The Carroll Shelby Story, was published in 1967. As a race car driver, his highlight was as a co-driver of the winning 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans entry.

#3500

Stefan Weber

#172400

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Stefan Weber is an Austrian media researcher and writer. The mass media often call him "plagiarism hunter" . Biography Weber studied journalism and communication science at the University of Salzburg and subsequently worked in Salzburg as a journalist and university lecturer. In 2005 he completed his Habilitation at the University of Vienna.

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