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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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Literature,

#5851

Aaron Barlow

#96112

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Aaron Barlow was a Cultural Studies scholar and a Professor of English at New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York. Background Barlow was born in Durham, North Carolina. He earned his B.A. at Beloit College and his M.A. and Ph.D. at The University of Iowa with a dissertation on Philip K. Dick.

#5852

Paz Battaner

#169753

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

María Paz Battaner Arias is a Spanish philologist and lexicographer. Since 29 January 2017 member of Spanish Royal Academy. She was elected on December 3, 2015, to fill the chair s, vacant since the death in 2013 of José Luis Pinillos Díaz. She has directed and published several dictionaries and carried out numerous works on the didactics of the language. Her main lines of research are lexicology and lexicography, 19th century political language, specialised language and the didactics of the Spanish language.

#5853

Helen Phillips

#159441

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Helen Phillips is an American novelist. She is a winner of the Story Prize. Biography She was born in Colorado. When she was a child, she was affected by alopecia, and by the age of 11, she had lost all of her hair.

#5854

Kim Bridgford

#118767

Overall Influence

1959 - 2020 (61 years)

Kim Suzanne Bridgford was an American poet, writer, critic, and academic. In her poetry, she wrote primarily in traditional forms, particularly sonnets. She was the director of Poetry by the Sea: A Global Conference, established in 2014 and first held in May 2015. She directed the West Chester University Poetry Conference from 2010-14.

#5855

Charles Messina

#49832

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Charles Messina is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and co-founder of NahNotOutsideMyHouse! Productions. He is of Italian-American descent. He attended Xavier High School and then later, New York University.

#5856

Michael Malone

#138067

Overall Influence

1942 - 2022 (80 years)

Michael Christopher Malone was an American author and television writer. He was noted for his work on the ABC Daytime drama One Life to Live, as well as for his novels Handling Sin , Foolscap , and the murder mystery First Lady .

#5857

Judith P. Hallett

#162890

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Judith P. Hallett is Professor and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher Emerita of Classics, having formerly been the Graduate Director at the Department of Classics, University of Maryland. Her research focuses on women, the family, and sexuality in ancient Greece and Rome, particularly in Latin literature. She is also an expert on classical education and reception in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

#5858

Damian Dressick

#170293

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Damian Dressick is an American author from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Career Dressick is the author of the novel 40 Patchtown , and the story collection Fables of the Deconstruction . His story “Four Hard Facts about Water” appeared in New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, an anthology published by W. W. Norton in 2019.

#5859

Fernanda Trías

#151093

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Fernanda Trías is a Uruguayan author and translator. Her novels include ‘’La Azotea’’ , ‘’La ciudad invencible’’ , and ‘’Mugre rosa’’ , as well as the short story collection ‘’No soñarás Flores’’ and the chapbook ‘’El regreso’’.

#5860

Christian Campbell

#164219

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Christian Campbell is a Trinidadian-Bahamian poet, essayist and cultural critic who has lived in the Caribbean, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Trained as an academic, he was an assistant professor in the Department of English at the University of Toronto.

#5861

Emily Critchley

#171646

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Emily Critchley is an experimental writer and academic. She has had poems long listed for the National Poetry Competition and Highly Commended by the Forward Prize for poetry . She was a runner-up in the Pacuare Nature Poetry Competition, Trinidad and Tobago and winner of the national Jane Martin Prize for Poetry , the John Kinsella-Tracy Ryan Prize for Poetry and The Other Prize for best original play . Her work has been translated into several languages.

#5862

Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner

#86873

Overall Influence

1989 - Present (37 years)

Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner is a poet and climate change activist from the Marshall Islands. Early life Jetn̄il-Kijiner was born in the Marshall Islands and raised in Hawaii. Her mother is Hilda Heine, former President of the Marshall Islands. Jetn̄il-Kijiner received her B.A. from Mills College in California and her MA in Pacific Island Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

#5863

Philip Stratford

#109340

Overall Influence

1927 - 1999 (72 years)

Philip Stratford was a Canadian translator, professor and poet. Winner of the 1988 Governor General’s Award, Stratford was also well recognized for his translations of works by Antonine Maillet, René Lévesque and Robert Melaçon and published articles on English and French-Canadian literature and translation. He has been collected by libraries.

#5864

Jared Curtis

#94358

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Jared Ralph Curtis is Professor Emeritus of English at Simon Fraser University. Curtis received his BA from Yale University in 1957, his MA from the University of Michigan in 1961 and his PhD from Cornell University in 1966. After jobs at Susquehanna University, Indiana University and the University of Arizona, he joined Simon Fraser University as an associate professor in 1971. From 1979 to 1995 he was professor of English at Simon Fraser.

#5865

Lisa Olstein

#171306

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Lisa Olstein is an American poet and non-fiction writer. Biography Lisa Olstein was born in 1972. She grew up near Boston, Massachusetts. She received a BA from Barnard College and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She undertook additional studies at Harvard Divinity School.

#5866

Erin Cressida Wilson

Erin Cressida Wilson

#105140

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Erin Cressida Wilson is an American playwright, screenwriter, professor, and author. Wilson is known for the 2002 film Secretary, which she adapted from a Mary Gaitskill short story. It won her the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay and holds a rating of 75% on Rotten Tomatoes. She also wrote the screenplays for the 2006 film Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, starring Nicole Kidman; for the 2009 erotic thriller Chloe, directed by Atom Egoyan ; for the 2014 drama Men, Women & Children, co-written with its director Jason Reitman ; and the 2016 mystery thriller The Girl on the Train, from the Paula Hawkins novel of the same name.

#5867

Lauren Anderson

#61923

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Lauren Anderson is an American ballet dancer and a former principal dancer with the Houston Ballet. In 1990, she was one of the first African-American ballerinas to become a principal for a major dance company, an important milestone in American ballet. She appeared in many ballets such as Don Quixote, Cleopatra, and The Nutcracker. She retired from the Houston Ballet in 2006 and retired from dance altogether in 2009. In 2016, Anderson had her pointe shoes from her final performance placed in the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

#5868

Shawn Sturgeon

#170682

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Shawn Sturgeon is a poet and professor. He was educated at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and did postgraduate work in English at the University of North Texas and the University of Cincinnati .

#5869

Howard W. Robertson

Howard W. Robertson

#163037

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

Howard W. Robertson was an American poet and novelist. Early life Robertson was born in Eugene, Oregon. He married Margaret Collins on August 10, 1991 and has two daughters and two sons. He received a B.A. in Russian and an M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of Oregon as well as a Master's in Library Science from the University of Southern California. Robertson is part-Cherokee.

#5870

David Joy

#75451

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

David Joy is an American novelist and short-story writer. Career David Joy is the author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel Where All Light Tends To Go , as well as the novels The Weight Of This World , The Line That Held Us , and When These Mountains Burn . He is also the author of the memoir Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey , which was a finalist for the Reed Environmental Writing Award and the Ragan Old North State Award.

#5871

Paul Collins

#104412

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Paul Collins is an American writer, editor and Chair of English at Portland State University, in Portland, Oregon. He is best known for his work with McSweeney's and The Believer, as editor of the Collins Library imprint for McSweeney's Books, and for his appearances on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon. His own books deal primarily with quirky forgotten figures from history, sometimes interwoven with memoir. Damian Kulash of the band OK Go has stated that the chapter in Collins' book "Banvard's Folly" about Augustus Pleasonton's patent on blue light led to th...

#5872

Adam DeVine

#99635

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Adam Patrick Devine is an American actor, comedian, singer, screenwriter, and producer. He is one of the stars and co-creators of the Comedy Central comedy television series Workaholics and Adam DeVine's House Party.

#5873

José Juan Arrom

#136620

Overall Influence

1910 - 2007 (97 years)

José Juan Arrom was a leading authority on Latin American cultural studies and a pioneer in shaping the field in the United States at a time when most Spanish departments mainly taught about peninsular Spain. He is particularly well-known for his studies of Latin American theater, Cuban culture and lexicology, and the myths of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Caribbean. He was a professor of Latin American Literature at Yale University for nearly 40 years.

#5874

La Vinia Delois Jennings

#106710

Overall Influence

La Vinia Delois Jennings is an American literary scholar and critic of twentieth-century American literature and culture, currently a Distinguished Humanities Professor at the University of Tennessee, and also formerly a Lindsay Young Professor and a 1998 Fulbright Senior Lecturer appointed to the University of Málaga in Spain.

#5875

Roberta Hodes

#70366

Overall Influence

1927 - 2021 (94 years)

Roberta Olivia Hodes was an American writer, director, producer, and script supervisor who was active from the 1950s through the 1980s. Biography After graduating from Vassar College, she took acting classes in New York City alongside people like Rod Serling, Harry Belafonte, and Rod Steiger. She then spent time in Israel, where she got her first taste of the film industry working on a documentary.

#5876

John Mohawk

#41432

Overall Influence

1945 - 2006 (61 years)

John Mohawk was an American historian, writer, and social activist. Background He was a Seneca, born into the Turtle clan on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, located in western New York State. He graduated from Hartwick College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1967, and later earned a Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo.

#5877

Alastair Minnis

#150565

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Alastair J. Minnis is a Northern Irish literary critic and historian of ideas who has written extensively about medieval literature, and contributed substantially to the study of late-medieval theology and philosophy. Having gained a first-class B.A. degree at the Queen's University of Belfast, he matriculated at Keble College, Oxford as a visiting graduate student, where he completed work on his Belfast Ph.D. , having been mentored by M.B. Parkes and Beryl Smalley. Following appointments at the Queen's University of Belfast and Bristol University , he was appointed Professor of Medieval Lit...

#5878

Carol Colatrella

#165409

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Dr. Carol Colatrella is a two-time Fulbright scholar and an award-winning teacher who is active in programmatic and administrative roles both on the Georgia Tech campus and externally. She is a Professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication and Associate Dean in the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

#5879

Clancy Sigal

#125752

Overall Influence

1926 - 2017 (91 years)

Clancy Sigal was an American writer, and the author of dozens of essays and seven books, the best-known of which is the autobiographical novel Going Away . Early life and education Sigal was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a poor family. His father, Leo Sigal, and mother, Jennie Persily, were both labor organizers; He "acquired his chutzpah and resilience in 30s Chicago," Kim Howells wrote in The Guardian, "raised by his tough Jewish mother in a neighborhood blighted by gangsters, poverty and violence." He later wrote a book about his mother, A Woman of Uncertain Character . There he describes joining the Communist Party at 15.

#5880

Andrew Davenport

#112678

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Andrew Davenport is an English writer, puppeteer, producer, composer, and actor, specialising in creating television, music, and books for young children. He is known as co-creator and writer of Teletubbies and writer, voice artist and puppeteer of "Tiny" on Tots TV. He is also the creator, writer, and composer of both In the Night Garden... and Moon and Me.

#5881

Jody Gladding

#109949

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Jody Gladding is an American translator and poet. She was selected by James Dickey for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. Life She graduated from Franklin & Marshall College, and Cornell University. Gladding, who also teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College, is the author of four books of poetry, one of which is a letterpress edition and one of which is a chapbook. She also has been involved in two performance/installations in collaboration with fellow poet and friend Suzanne Heyd. She has received numerous prizes, fellowships and awards for both her poetry and her translatio...

#5882

Mwatabu S. Okantah

#142353

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Mwatabu S. Okantah is an Americann poet, essayist, professor, and vocalist. Life and career Born Wilbur Thomas Smith in 1952 in Orange, New Jersey, he was raised in Vauxhall, NJ, and graduated from Union High School in 1970. He holds a B.A. degree in English and African Studies from Kent State University , where he studied with Halim El-Dabh and Fela Sowande. He earned a M.A. in creative writing from the City College of New York in 1982.

#5883

David Mark Cohen

#94799

Overall Influence

1952 - 1997 (45 years)

David Mark Cohen was an influential playwriting Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, who was affiliated with the Michener Center for Writers. Teaching Cohen held a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1974 and a master's of fine arts in Theatre Arts from Brandeis University in 1976. He also taught at the University of Montana, University of South Carolina, George Mason University, Hampshire College, and The College of Charleston.

#5884

Micah Ballard

#137049

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Micah Ballard is a poet born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on September 23, 1975. Since 1999 he has lived in San Francisco with his wife, poet Sunnylyn Thibodeaux. Under the imprints Auguste Press and Lew Gallery Editions they have printed over 30 books by various poets and artists.

#5885

Sarah McFarland Taylor

#69007

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Sarah McFarland Taylor is an American academic and author. She is currently Associate Professor of Religion in the Department of Religious Studies at Northwestern University, where she also teaches in the Environmental Policy and Culture Program and in American Studies. Areas of research focus include studies of media, religion, and culture; public moral engagement in environmental issues; and consumerism, marketing, and popular culture. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Brown University, a Master's degree from Dartmouth College, and a doctorate in Religion and American Culture from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

#5886

Jack Bedson

#98760

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

John William "Jack" Bedson is an Australian writer, poet, children's picture book author, and former university librarian. Early life and education Bedson was born in the Sydney suburb of Redfern and raised in Sydney's inner suburbs. His father William John Alexander Bedson, a metal moulder, grew up in Caroline St., Redfern, on the famous 'Block'. His mother, Lucy Clymer, suffered as a victim of the White Stolen Generations twice, firstly as a child removed from her father and fostered out without schooling, then placed in the Watt St. Mental Hospital, Newcastle, for nine years from the ages ...

#5887

Ray McManus

#124813

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Ray McManus is an American poet with three award-winning poetry collections. He is an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina Sumter. Life McManus was born in Columbia, South Carolina.

#5888

Yun Wang

#84972

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Yun Wang is a poet and cosmologist. She is originally from Gaoping, a small town near Zunyi, in Guizhou Province, China. Professional work in astrophysics Yun Wang received a bachelor's degree in physics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, after which she came to the United States and obtained her master's and doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University. A senior research scientist at California Institute of Technology since 2015, and a professor in the University of Oklahoma's department of physics and astronomy until 2017, she has published over 100 refereed papers, most recently special...

#5889

Laurie Lamon

#143416

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Laurie Lamon is an American poet. Education Lamon earned her bachelor's degree from Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington, her master's in fine arts from the University of Montana, and her doctorate in English literature from the University of Utah in 1988.

#5890

Paolo Isotta

#83043

Overall Influence

1950 - 2021 (71 years)

Paolo Isotta was an Italian musicologist and writer. Life Isotta graduated from the University of Naples, where he studied classic Letters and law. He also studied piano with Vincenzo Vitale and composition with Renato Parodi and Renato Dionisi. From 1971 to 1994, he was ordinary professor of history of music in the Conservatory of Turin and Naples. In February 2019, he was named Professor Emeritus.

#5891

Taije Silverman

#122491

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Taije Silverman is an American poet, translator, and professor. She currently teaches at the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Biography Taije Silverman was born in San Francisco, California . Her father was a real estate developer and architect and her mother an art teacher. She has lived in different cities in the United States including Houston, Berkeley, Atlanta, New York, D.C., Ithaca, Princeton, and Charlottesville. She is a 1996 graduate of Vassar College.

#5892

Susan Daitch

#87698

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Susan Daitch is an American novelist and short story writer. In 1996 David Foster Wallace called her "one of the most intelligent and attentive writers at work in the U.S. today." Biography Susan Daitch graduated from Barnard College and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program.

#5893

Nachoem Wijnberg

#76536

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Nachoem Mesoelam Wijnberg is a poet and author from the Netherlands. He studied at the University of Amsterdam and received his Ph.D. at the Rotterdam School of Management. Since 2005 he is lecturing business administration at the University of Amsterdam. In 2008 he won the Ida Gerhardt Poëzieprijs. In 2018, Wijnberg won the P.C. Hooft Award for his entire oeuvre.

#5894

Guadalupe Santa Cruz

#167813

Overall Influence

1952 - 2015 (63 years)

Guadalupe Santa Cruz , also known as Lupe Santa Cruz, was a Chilean writer, philosopher, visual artist and translator. She is considered one of the most energetic and varied protagonists of a generation of writers that emerged after the period of the 1973 Coup d'État in Chile. Author of numerous books, including Plasma, with which she received two important prizes in Chile: the Premio Novela Inédita Consejo Nacional del Libro y la Lectura and the Premio atenea. Also, in 2004, Plasma received the prize of the Book Council as a novel in the unpublished category. In addition, at the international...

#5895

Paula Martinac

#152365

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Paula Martinac is an American writer. She is most noted for her novel Out of Time, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction at the 3rd Lambda Literary Awards in 1991. The novel was also a finalist for the ALA Gay and Lesbian Book Award.

#5896

Jean Daoud

#67145

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Jean G. Daoud is the founder of the "Holistic Method" in actor training and "Play art and Creativity Therapy". he is a philosopher, poet, playwright, professor and researcher in acting, stage production and art therapy. He holds a degree in Cinema and Theatre Studies from University of Paris VIII, and is Professor of Drama and directing and Department Head of Theatre at the Lebanese University . He is an expert in "Creative Pedagogy" and Therapy through actor training. He is the founder of the Laboratoire de dramaturgie, d'actorat et de textes. He is the Secretary-general of "Beirut's Congres...

#5897

Ian Bailey

#80093

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Ian Bailey was the Head Buyer and later Financial Director of Games Workshop until 1985. He left Games Workshop to write books and develop games. He has had seven books published in three languages and three games in the UK and United States. He was a best-selling author in France with the Compton Murder, an interactive detective book, published by Éditions Gallimard.

#5898

Garielle Lutz

#126005

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Garielle Lutz is an American writer of fiction. In 2021, simultaneous with the publication of her book Worsted, Lutz came out as a transgender woman. In 2022, she was twice mentioned as an unlikely contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

#5899

Rose Ghorayeb

#91968

Overall Influence

1909 - 2006 (97 years)

Rose Ghorayeb was a Lebanese writer, author, literary critic, and feminist. She was a professor of Arabic literature at the Lebanese American University and was frequently referred to as the "first female critic in Arabic literature". Regarded as a pioneer in aesthetic criticism, her literary career spanned more than 70 years and included many children stories, articles, biographies and plays.

#5900

David Lloyd

#171485

Overall Influence

1934 - 2009 (75 years)

David Gibbs Lloyd was an American screenwriter and producer for television. He wrote for many sitcoms, such as The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show, Taxi, Cheers, Frasier and Wings. Lloyd wrote "Chuckles Bites the Dust", an October 1975 episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, for which he won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series.

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