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 Literature,

#5301

W. H. Oliver

#42539

Overall Influence

1925 - 2015 (90 years)

William Hosking Oliver , commonly known as W. H. Oliver but also known as Bill Oliver, was an eminent New Zealand historian and a poet. From 1983, Oliver led the development of the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

#5302

K. Ludwig Pfeiffer

#86828

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

K. Ludwig Pfeiffer is a German scholar in literary, media and cultural studies, born on February 23, 1944, in Neustadt an der Aisch, Middle Franconia, Germany. Besides his own publications, he is the editor and co-editor of 14 volumes in various research disciplines.

#5303

Andrew Szanton

#55194

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Andrew Szanton is an American collaborative memoirist. During his career he has worked with a wide range of subjects including civil rights pioneer Charles Evers, Nobel Prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner, former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs John Whitehead, former United States Senator Edward Brooke, founding director of Xerox PARC George Pake, eminent surgeon Dr. Charles Epps, head of the Missouri Botanical Garden Peter Raven, and former Boston mayor Raymond Flynn.

#5304

William Virgil Davis

#128795

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

William Virgil Davis is an American poet. He has published poems in Poetry, The Nation, The Hudson Review, The Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, The Gettysburg Review, The New Criterion, The Sewanee Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Denver Quarterly, and Shenandoah, among others. He has also published several books of literary criticism, as well as critical essays in numerous periodicals. He is Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at Baylor University.

#5305

Harold G. Wren

#58916

Overall Influence

1921 - 2016 (95 years)

Harold G. Wren , known as "Hal," was a lawyer, law professor, and dean of three American law schools. In addition, he was the author of multiple editions of the well reviewed legal guidebook, The Of Counsel Agreement.

#5306

Mary Baine Campbell

#108417

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Mary Baine Campbell is an American poet, scholar, and professor. She teaches medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as creative writing, at Brandeis University. Awards 1999 James Russell Lowell Prize, awarded to the best book of the year in literary studies, from the Modern Language Association, for Wonder and Science.2000 Susanne C. Glasscock Humanities Book Award1988 Barnard Women Poets Prize

#5307

Meelis Friedenthal

Meelis Friedenthal

#97672

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Meelis Friedenthal is an Estonian academic and writer. Biography Meelis Friedenthal graduated from high school in Tartu in 1992 and studied theology at the University of Tartu from 1992 to 1996. After completing his bachelor's degree, he spent the 1996/1997 academic year at Heidelberg University. He then took a master's degree in Tartu. After completing his master's degree in 2001, he went on to study for a doctorate, which he completed in 2008.

#5308

Iryna Kalynets

#134043

Overall Influence

1940 - 2012 (72 years)

Iryna Onufriyivna Kalynets was a Ukrainian poet, writer, activist and Soviet dissident during the 1970s. Kalynets was the wife of another Soviet dissident, Ihor Kalynets. Childhood Iryna Kalynets was born in a Christian family of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who was exiled at the time of the USSR. Her father was Onufrii Ivanovych Stasiv, a worker from the Bratkovychi village, Horodotsky district. Her mother was Hanna Dmytrivna Stasiv from a peasant family in the Malnivska Volya village, Mosty district. Among the relatives of Iryna Stasiv were people connected with the OUN. In the post-war years, she observed the mass deportation of Ukrainians to Siberia.

#5309

Emanuel Pastreich

Emanuel Pastreich

#104734

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Emanuel Pastreich is an American professor, director, and polyglot who is an international relations expert and serves as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Tokyo, Seoul and Hanoi. He is also a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation where he strives to solve geopolitical tensions in Northeast Asia. Pastreich was briefly an independent candidate for president of the United States 2020. In September 2023, Pastreich officially became a candidate for the Green Party’s presidential nomination in September, 2024 but had to abandon the campaign because of a failure to gain financial support within the party.

#5310

Kim Myeongin

#152908

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Kim Myeongin is a South Korean poet and author. Life Kim Myeongin was born on September 2, 1946, in Uljin, Gyeongsangbuk-do. He attended Hupo High School, and graduated from Korea University with a degree in Korean Literature. He received his Ph.D. from Korea University in 1985. Kim is currently a professor of Korean Literature at Korea University. Kim has been a visiting professor at Brigham Young University, USA, and at Far Eastern College, Russia. Along with Lee Jongok and Kim Myeongsu, Kim is a member of the literary coterie Anti-Poetry.

#5311

Mark Heap

#86309

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Mark Heap is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his roles in television comedies, including, Brass Eye, Big Train, Spaced, Jam, Green Wing, Friday Night Dinner, Upstart Crow, The World's End, and Benidorm.

#5312

John Gould

#89372

Overall Influence

1927 - 2001 (74 years)

John Philip Algernon Gould, was a British classical scholar. He specialised in Greek tragedy, but also had wider interests in ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek religion and anthropology. He began his academic career as a research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge , and then a tutor and student at Christ Church, Oxford . He was Chair of Classics at the University College of Swansea from 1968 to 1974, and the H O Wills Professor of Greek at the University of Bristol from 1974 to 1991.

#5313

David Bishop

#87476

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

David Bishop , also D. V. Bishop, is a New Zealand comic book editor and writer of comics, novels and screenplays. In 1990s he ran the UK comics titles Judge Dredd Megazine and 2000 AD . He has since become a prolific author and received his first drama scriptwriting credit when BBC Radio 4 broadcast his radio play Island Blue: Ronald in June 2006. In 2007, he won the PAGE International Screenwriting Award in the short film category for his script Danny's Toys, and was a finalist in the 2009 PAGE Awards with his script The Woman Who Screamed Butterflies.

#5314

Francisco Herrera Luque

#57609

Overall Influence

1927 - 1991 (64 years)

Francisco José Herrera Luque was a Venezuelan writer, psychiatrist and diplomat. He is the author of several well-known historical novels, including: Boves, el Urogallo , Los Amos del Valle and La Luna de Fausto .

#5315

Paloma Díaz-Mas

#147589

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Paloma Díaz-Mas is a Spanish writer and scholar. She was born in Madrid and studied journalism and philology at university. In 1981, she obtained her doctorate from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, with a thesis on the subject of Sephardic poetry. At present, she teaches and conducts research at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid. As a professor of Spanish literature and Sephardic literature, she has taught at the Universidad del País Vasco, the University of Oregon and Washington University in St. Louis.

#5316

Ulises Estrella

Ulises Estrella

#82875

Overall Influence

1939 - 2014 (75 years)

Ulises Estrella Moya was an Ecuadorian poet. He was the co-founder of Tzantzismo, a movement of the 1960s, Ecuador. He was also a film expert, who headed the film department of the House of Ecuadorian Culture for over 30 years.

#5317

Roberto Juarroz

#64936

Overall Influence

1925 - 1995 (70 years)

Roberto Juarroz was an Argentine poet famous for his "Poesía vertical" . Biography Born in Coronel Dorrego, Roberto Juarroz published 14 volumes of poetry in all, numbered successively 1 to 14, under the general title "Poesía vertical", the first appearing in 1958 and the final one posthumously in 1997. A fifteenth volume was edited by his wife, the poet and critic Laura Cerrato, and published after his death. W.S. Merwin published a bilingual selection of Juarroz' poems in 1977 which was re-issued in an enlarged edition in 1987 , both volumes entitled Vertical Poetry. In 1992 Mary Crow pu...

#5318

Pak Jaesam

#129984

Overall Influence

1933 - 1997 (64 years)

Park Jaesam was a Korean poet. Life Park Jaesam was born on April 10, 1933, in Japan. Park attended Korea University, but dropped out. He worked as a reporter for the Daehan-Ilbo and an Editor of the Hyundai Munhak-sa. In the 1960s Park was a member of the literary club Sahwajip , and He served as the first editorial committee of the bimonthly publication "The Han Kyorerh Literature" newly launched in 1993. and the Secretary General of the Korean Poets' Association. Park died on June 8, 1997.

#5319

Mark Boal

#93267

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Mark Boal is an American journalist, screenwriter, and film producer. Boal initially worked as a journalist, writing for outlets like Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, Salon, and Playboy. Boal's 2004 article "Death and Dishonor" was adapted for the film In the Valley of Elah, which Boal also co-wrote.

#5320

John Kinloch Anderson

#109101

Overall Influence

1924 - 2015 (91 years)

John Kinloch Anderson was Professor of Classics and Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology Emeritus at University of California, Berkeley. Biography John Kinloch Anderson was born in Multan, Punjab, British India on January 3, 1924. He obtained his secondary education at Trinity College Glenalmond in Scotland from 1937 to 1942. He served in the Royal Highland Regiment during World War II, serving in campaigns in Europe and Asia. After the war, he studied Classics at Christ Church, Oxford, where he received his bachelor’s degree in 1949. From 1949–50, he attended the British School at Athens.

#5321

Arthur Adams

#89737

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Arthur Adams is an American comic book artist and writer. He first broke into the American comic book industry with the 1985 Marvel Comics miniseries Longshot. His subsequent interior comics work includes a number of Marvel's major books, including The Uncanny X-Men, Excalibur, X-Factor, Fantastic Four, Hulk, and Ultimate Comics: X, as well as books by various other publishers, such as Action Comics, Vampirella, The Rocketeer, and The Authority. Adams has also illustrated books featuring characters for which he has a personal love, such as Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Gum...

#5322

Mutlu Konuk Blasing

#131772

Overall Influence

1944 - 2021 (77 years)

Mutlu Konuk Blasing was a Turkish-American poetry critic and translator, Professor Emerita of English at Brown University. As well as four books on American poetry, she published ten books of translation and a biography of the Turkish poet Nâzım Hikmet.

#5323

Billy Mills

#100639

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Billy Mills is an Irish experimental poet. He was born in Dublin, and lived in Barcelona from 1986 to 1989, after which he taught English in Eastbourne. He lives in Limerick. Mills is the founder and co-editor of the hardPressed poetry imprint and the Journal. The goal of hardPressed poetry is to publish and distribute mainly Irish poetry "that you won't often find in your local bookshop".

#5324

David Zuckerman

David Zuckerman

#102254

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

David J. Zuckerman is an American television producer and writer and is best known as the original showrunner and executive producer of the animated comedy series Family Guy, as well as the creator of the American adaptation of the Australian television series of the same name, Wilfred.

#5325

Charles Fox

#112852

Overall Influence

1921 - 1991 (70 years)

Charles Richard Jeremy Fox was an English writer and broadcaster who specialised in jazz. He left school at 14 and trained as a draughtsman. His career in journalism began in the 1940s via letters to Melody Maker and jazz magazines of the era such as Jazz Music , Jazz Forum and Jazz Journal. He settled in London in the early 1950s working as a sub-editor on the Recorder newspaper and edited a poetry magazine entitled Ninepence founded with the poets Patrick Brangwyn and Christopher Logue. Fox was part of the group around McCarthy who founded Jazz Monthly magazine in 1955; the magazine continued publication until 1972.

#5326

Finuala Dowling

#113870

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Finuala Dowling is a South African poet and writer. Biography The seventh of eight children born to radio broadcasters Eve van der Byl and Paddy Dowling, Finuala Dowling obtained an MA in English from the University of Cape Town , and a D.Litt. from the University of South Africa , where she lectured in English for eight years.

#5327

Katie Farris

#132729

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Katie Farris is an American poet, fiction writer, translator, academic and editor. Her memoir in poems Standing in the Forest of Being Alive, was shortlisted for 2023 T.S. Eliot Prize. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Princeton University in New Jersey.

#5328

John McDonnell

#84727

Overall Influence

Austin McDonnell was an Irish playwright and journalist. McDonnell worked as a television critic on The Sunday Press. As a playwright his work is most closely associated with the Ulster Group Theatre, Belfast, where he wrote a string of successful comedy plays in the 1960s and 1970s in association with the actor and comedian James Young.

#5329

Carole Boston Weatherford

#106924

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Carole Boston Weatherford is an African-American author and critic, now living in North Carolina, United States. She is the winner of the 2022 Coretta Scott King Award for Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre. She writes children's literature and some historical books, as well as poetry and commentaries. Weatherford is best known for her controversial criticism of Pokémon character Jynx and Dragon Ball character Mr. Popo. Today, she often writes with her son, Jeffery Boston Weatherford, who is an illustrator and poet.

#5330

Aishah Rahman

#130215

Overall Influence

1936 - 2014 (78 years)

Aishah Rahman was an American playwright, author, professor and essayist. She was known for her participation and contribution to the Black Arts Movement, as well as her plays documenting various aspects of black life.

#5331

Paul Marius Martin

#103542

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Paul Marius Martin is a French Latinist and historian of ancient Rome. He was professor of Latin language and literature at the Paul Valéry University, Montpellier III. He is a specialist of the history of Roman Kingdom and Roman Republic, the historiography of the first centuries of Rome and of the Roman monarchical ideology.

#5332

Gary Young

#152677

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Gary Eugene Young is an American poet, printer and book artist. In 2010, he was named the first ever Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County. Life He graduated from University of California Santa Cruz and University of California, Irvine, with an M.F.A.

#5333

Nico Naldini

#150288

Overall Influence

1929 - 2020 (91 years)

Domenico Naldini was an Italian novelist, poet and film director. Some of his work has been translated into English. Naldini was born in Casarsa della Delizia, Pordenone to Antonio Naldini and Enrichetta Colussi. His mother was the sister of Susanna Colussi, the mother of Pier Paolo Pasolini, making him his first cousin. He was his cousin's biographer. He was a lecturer and professor at the University of Trento and professor of Italian literature at the University of Tunis. His work includes popularizing Italian literature and culture throughout the world.

#5334

Kim Seong-Dong

#121632

Overall Influence

1947 - 2022 (75 years)

Kim Seong-Dong was a Korean author. Life Kim Seong-Dong was born on 8 November 1947, in Boryeong, Chungcheongnam-do, a son of a communist organizer. In a violent bloodbath that resulted from ideological strife, he lost his father and members of both his paternal and maternal family and grew up stigmatized for his family's communist ties. Kim learned Chinese from his Confucian grandfather, and was able to continue his education in Seoul with the financial support of his relatives.

#5335

C. S. Giscombe

#92517

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

C. S. Giscombe is an African-American poet, essayist, and professor of English at University of California, Berkeley. Life A graduate of SUNY at Albany and Cornell University where he earned degrees, he was editor of Epoch magazine in the 1970s and 1980s. He has taught at Cornell University, Syracuse University, Illinois State University, and Pennsylvania State University. As of 2015, he teaches at University of California, Berkeley.

#5336

Jason R. Rudy

#115099

Overall Influence

Jason R. Rudy is Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. A noted scholar of Victorian poetry, Rudy is the author of the ambitious and widely reviewed Electric Meters: Victorian Physiological Poetics . His second monograph, Imagined Homelands: British Poetry in the Colonies, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2017. He has been the recipient of a 2010-11 National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship and a 2014 research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Rudy received his Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University and his B.A.

#5337

William M. Plater

#95805

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

William Marmaduke Plater is an American higher education consultant and Indiana University Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs, Philanthropy, and English, and Executive Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties Emeritus at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis .

#5338

Bronwyn Law-Viljoen

#66483

Overall Influence

Bronwyn Law-Viljoen is a South African writer, editor, publisher and professor. She is the co-founder of the publisher Fourthwall Books and owns a bookstore called Edition. She acts as the primary editor for works on law and history of South Africa and the architecture and building process of its constitutional court structures, along with artistic book publications of the work of William Kentridge. She has also published her own novel called The Printmaker.

#5339

Ágnes Lehóczky

#115463

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Ágnes Lehóczky is a Hungarian-British poet, academic and translator born in Budapest, 1976. Biography She completed her Masters in English and Hungarian Literature at Pázmány Péter Catholic University of Hungary in 2001 and an MA with distinction in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia in 2006. She holds a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing, also from the UEA which she obtained in July 2011. Lehóczky is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Sheffield and Co-Director of the Centre for Poetry and Poetics, Sheffield and Contributing Advisor to Blackbox Manifold l...

#5340

Emilio García Riera

#76601

Overall Influence

1931 - 2002 (71 years)

Emilio García Riera was an actor, writer and cinema critic. He has written exhaustively on Mexican cinema of 1929 and 1976, leaving behind an anthology in eighteen volumes, Historia documental del cine mexicano.

#5341

Jacqueline Kolosov

#126584

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Jacqueline Kolosov is an American poet, children's book author, and professor. Her most recent collection of poetry is Modigliani's Muse , and her most recent young adult novel is A Sweet Disorder . Her poetry has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Poetry, Passages North Orion, PRISM International, The Malahat Review, Ecotone, and Western Humanities Review, and her honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

#5342

Pak Hyeongjun

#167868

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Pak Hyeongjun is a South Korean poet and university professor. Life Pak Hyeongjun was born in 1966 in Jeongeup, North Jeolla Province, South Korea. He graduated from the Seoul Institute of the Arts with a degree in creative writing, then attended Myongji University for graduate school, where he earned his Master's degree and doctorate. While still relatively young Pak Hyeongjun moved from his countryside hometown of Jeongeup to Incheon, South Korea's third-most populated city after Seoul and Busan. Pak confessed that this experience inspired him to begin writing poetry, saying that, while he was living in Incheon, he "felt often as if I was stagnant even though I was endlessly drifting.

#5343

Beth Gylys

#81050

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Beth Ann Gylys is a poet and professor of English and Creative Writing at Georgia State University. She has published five poetry collections, three of which have won awards. Early life and education Gylys grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Allegheny College with a bachelor's degree in 1986. She went on to receive a master's degree from Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from University of Cincinnati. She has also attended the Stonecoast Writers Conference in Portland, Maine.

#5344

Michael Brooks

#58607

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Michael Edward Brooks is an English science writer, noted for explaining complex scientific research and findings to the general population. Career Brooks holds a PhD in Quantum Physics from the University of Sussex. He was previously an editor for New Scientist magazine, and currently works as a consultant for that magazine. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer, The Times Higher Education Supplement, and Playboy. His first novel, Entanglement, was published in 2007. His first non-fiction book, an exploration of scientific anomalies entitled 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, was published in 2009.

#5345

Janina Katz

#124496

Overall Influence

1939 - 2013 (74 years)

Janina Katz was a Polish-Danish writer. A Polish Jew, she emigrated to Denmark in 1969. In 1991, she published her first collection of poems Min mors datter . Biography Katz was born into a Jewish family in Krakow in 1939. Most of her relatives died in concentration camps but she was smuggled out of a Polish workers camp to live with a Polish couple she called her "war parents" who brought her up as a Catholic. After the war, she lived with her mother who had survived imprisonment in various concentration camps.

#5346

D. Sam Abrams

#67177

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

D. Sam Abrams is a poet, translator and critic. He is considered an authority on the Catalan language. He holds a degree in Hispanic Studies from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Bibliography

#5347

John Dale

#122569

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

John Dale is an Australian author of crime fiction and true crime books. He completed a Doctorate of Creative Arts at the University of Technology Sydney, in 1999, and subsequently joined the UTS writing Program where he was Professor of Writing and Director of the UTS Centre for New Writing until 2020.

#5348

Mark Williams

#84356

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Mark Williams is an English actor, comedian, presenter and screenwriter. He first achieved widespread recognition as one of the central performers in the popular BBC sketch show The Fast Show. His film roles include Horace in the 1996 version of 101 Dalmatians and Arthur Weasley in seven of the Harry Potter films. He made recurring appearances as Brian Williams in the BBC television series Doctor Who and as Olaf Petersen in Red Dwarf. Since 2013, Williams has portrayed the title character in the long-running BBC series loosely based on the Father Brown short stories by G. K. Chesterton.

#5349

Michael Stewart

#76794

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Michael Bonnin Stewart is a British writer and entrepreneur. Early career Having taken an MA from Christ Church, Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD , Michael Stewart joined PA Management Consultants in London as a Senior Consultant and later the Northern Ireland Finance Corporation as a Senior Executive. For a period thereafter, he became variously involved in turnkey construction projects in Saudi Arabia, international oil and gas broking and trading in liquidated consumer stocks.

#5350

Fred Gardaphé

#85989

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Fred Gardaphé is an American literary scholar, currently a Distinguished Professor of Italian and American Studies at Queens College, City University of New York.

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