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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Literature,

#5951

Lynn G. Gref

#70999

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Lynn Gref is an American technologist and systems engineer, who has done pioneering work in missile systems; command, control and communications systems; and satellite systems. He and Dr. William Spuck developed the Rapid Development Methodology that was employed in the development of a number of C3 systems for the U.S. Department of Defense. RDM is a form of software development classified as iterative and incremental development. A primary distinction of RDM is that the user is left with a usable capability at the end of every iteration. He pioneered the development of C3 systems using the Ada programming language.

#5952

Hugh Maxton

#174223

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Hugh Maxton , alias W. J. McCormack, is an Irish poet and academic. As a lecturer at the University of Leeds in Yorkshire, he focused on 19th- and 20th-century Irish literature. In addition to co-translating poetry from Hungarian and German, he has produced several volumes of poetry of his own, the most recent being Same Bridge Perhaps .

#5953

John Ross

#95254

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

John Franklin Ross was an American gun rights activist. He is author of the popular underground novel Unintended Consequences, and wrote a regular column on the Internet. He was a Democratic candidate for US Congress in 1998 in Missouri's 2nd congressional district.

#5954

Larissa Szporluk

#107557

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Larissa Szporluk is an American poet and professor. Her most recent book is Embryos & Idiots . Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including Daedalus, Faultline, Meridian, American Poetry Review, and Black Warrior Review. Her honors include two The Best American Poetry awards, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from Guggenheim, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council.

#5955

Sandra Alcosser

#175729

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Sandra B. Alcosser is an American poet. She was appointed the first state poet laureate of Montana from July 13, 2005 - August 13, 2007 and was superseded by Greg Pape. Life She started the MFA in writing program at San Diego State University and is on the faculty of the low-residency MFA in writing program at Pacific University.

#5956

Ham Jeung-im

#133207

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Ham Jeung Im is a South Korean writer, professor, and former literary editor. She began writing articles on Korean literature for the journal Monthly Literature & Thought when she graduated from university, and went onto become the editor-in-chief of the journal Writer’s World and the publisher Solbook. She made her literary debut in 1990 when her short story “Gwangjangeuro ganeun gil” won the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer's Contest and has written prolifically since. In 1993, she married Kim So-jin, a leading realist writer in South Korea. She stayed with him until his death in 1997. Her experienc...

#5957

E. San Juan Jr.

#102920

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Epifanio San Juan Jr., also known as E. San Juan Jr. , is a known Filipino American literary academic, Tagalog writer, Filipino poet, civic intellectual, activist, writer, essayist, video/film maker, editor, and poet whose works related to the Filipino Diaspora in English and Filipino writings have been translated into German, Russian, French, Italian, and Chinese. As an author of books on race and cultural studies, he was a "major influence on the academic world". He was the director of the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Storrs, Connecticut in the United States. In 1999, San Juan r...

#5958

Liz Gloyn

#154663

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Gloyn is a Reader in Latin Language and Literature at Royal Holloway, the University of London and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research focuses on the intersection between Latin literature, ancient philosophy and gender studies; as well as topics of classical reception, and the history of women in the field of Classics.

#5959

Mary Bucci Bush

#108022

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Mary Bucci Bush is an American author and a professor of English and creative writing at California State University, Los Angeles. Bush won a PEN/Nelson Algren award for her collection of short stories, A Place of Light, in 1987; a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in 1995; and the Tillie Olsen Book Prize from the Working Class Studies Association for her novel, Sweet Hope, in 2012.

#5960

Louis Phillips

#125091

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Louis Phillips is an American poet, playwright, editor, and author of children's stories. Phillips was born on June 15, 1942, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He received a BA from Stetson University in 1964, and MAs from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and CUNY in 1965 and 1967, respectively. Since 1977 he has served as professor of humanities at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he teaches creative writing.

#5961

David Marconi

#141479

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

David Marconi is an American screenwriter, film producer and film director. His writing credits include the screenplays for Enemy of the State, Live Free or Die Hard, and The Foreigner. Filmography Rumble Fish The Outsiders The Sky's No Limit G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero The Harvest Enemy of the State Camera Live Free or Die Hard The Fulfillment The Nobistor Affair Collision The Contract The Foreigner

#5962

Gibbons Ruark

#151897

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Gibbons Ruark is a contemporary American poet. Known for his deeply personal often elegiac lyrics about his native North Carolina and beloved Ireland, Ruark has had poetry in such publications as The New Yorker, The New Republic, and Poetry. His collections include Rescue the Perishing, Small Rain, Keeping Company, Reeds, A Program for Survival, Passing Through Customs: New and Selected Poems, Staying Blue, and, most recently, The Road to Ballyvaughan. He has won numerous awards including three Poetry Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie C...

#5963

Yoo An-jin

#164135

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Yoo An-Jin is a South Korean poet, essayist, and professor. Life Yoo An-Jin was born April 21, 1941, in Andong, Gyeongsangbuk-do. Yu graduated from Seoul National University Teacher's College's Department of Education and then received her graduate degree and Ph.D. in Education from the University of Florida. She has taught at Dankook University and Seoul National University. Her literary debut was in 1965.

#5964

Lee Hall

#86865

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

Lee Hall was an American painter, writer, educator, and a university president. She was an abstract landscape painter. She served as the 13th president of Rhode Island School of Design . In 1993, Hall wrote a controversial book on the artists Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning.

#5965

Helen Carr

#150695

Overall Influence

Helen Carr is a journalist and emeritus professor of English and comparative literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her book on the imagist movement was described by Ian Sansom in The Guardian as "the most comprehensive book on the subject ever written."

#5966

Paul Harding

#159997

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Paul Harding is an American musician and author, best known for his debut novel Tinkers , which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2010 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize among other honors. He is currently the director of the Creative Writing and Literature MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, as well as Interim Associate Provost of SUNY-Stony Brook's Lichtenstein Center.

#5967

Bill Chott

#170473

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Bill Chott is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Mr. Laritate on the Disney Channel series Wizards of Waverly Place. Early life During his school years, Chott appeared in numerous plays and musicals. He graduated from Ritenour High School, and in 2010 was inducted into their Alumni Hall of Fame. He continued pursuing theater in college at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri, acting in a wide variety of plays. He was also in Chi Delta fraternity while at Central Methodist as well as Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia's Beta Mu chapter. He left Missouri in 1992, a...

#5968

Laurent Laplante

#88073

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

Joseph Lucien Laurent Laplante was a Canadian journalist, essayist and detective writer. He is the author of 20 books. Early life Laurent Laplante was born in 1934 in Verdun, Quebec, Canada. He studied literature, history, philosophy and government.

#5969

Magda Cârneci

#98483

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Magda Cârneci is a poet, essayist, and art historian born in Romania. She took a Ph.D. in art history at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and received several international grants in literature and art history . Member of the well-known “generation of the ‘80s” in Romanian literature, of which she was one of the theoreticians, after the Revolution of December 1989 she became actively involved in the political and cultural Romanian scene of the 1990s. In the 2000s, after working as a visiting lecturer at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations in Paris, she was the director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris .

#5970

Barrie Jean Borich

#176472

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Barrie Jean Borich is an American writer. She is best known for her memoirs My Lesbian Husband: Landscapes of a Marriage, which won a Stonewall Book Award in 2000 and was a shortlisted Lambda Literary Award nominee for Lesbian Biography at the 12th Lambda Literary Awards, and Body Geographic, which won the Lambda for Lesbian Biography/Memoir at the 26th Lambda Literary Awards.

#5971

Eckhard Alt

#171310

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Eckhard U. Alt is a German scientist and physician known for his contributions in cardiology and research. Early life After attending the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and University in Rhode Island, Alt completed his Staatsexamen as valedictorian in 1974. He completed his specialization in internal medicine, intensive care medicine and cardiology at the Klinikum Rechts der Isar of the Technische Universität München after which he habilitated in 1984.

#5972

Gilles Poitras

#97753

Overall Influence

Gilles Poitras is a Canadian author of books relating to anime and manga. He is a librarian at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. In addition to the books he has authored, Poitras also regularly contributed columns to Newtype USA, a former monthly magazine which covered anime and manga industry and related popular culture.

#5973

Lowell Mick White

#169816

Overall Influence

Lowell Mick White is an American fiction writer living in Texas whose work focuses on the changing relationships between physical place and the individual. Early life and education Born in Marion, Ohio, White grew up in Mankato, Minnesota, and Coxs Mills, West Virginia, and settled in Austin, Texas. After working a variety of jobs—including stints as a shade-tree salesman, bureaucrat, and cab driver—White received a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Texas A&M University.

#5974

Sarah Kay

#117365

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (38 years)

Sarah Kay is an American poet. Known for her spoken word poetry, Kay is the founder and co-director of Project V.O.I.C.E. , a group dedicated to using spoken word as an educational and inspirational tool.

#5975

Robert Pack

#121250

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Robert Pack was an American poet and critic, and Distinguished Senior Professor in the Davidson Honors College at the University of Montana - Missoula. For thirty-four years he taught at Middlebury College and from 1973 to 1995 served as director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He is the author of twenty-two books of poetry and criticism. Pack has been called, by Harold Bloom, an heir to Robert Frost and Edwin Arlington Robinson, and has himself published a volume of admiring essays on Frost's poetry. He has co-edited several books with Jay Parini, including Writers on Writing: A Bread...

#5976

John Fulton

#140046

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

John Fulton is an American author based in Boston, Massachusetts, where he teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He grew up in Utah and Montana, studied at Whitman College, and lived in Europe for five years. He is a 1997 graduate of the University of Michigan Creative Writing MFA Program. His story collection, The Animal Girl, was published in 2007 by Louisiana State University Press. He is the author of Retribution, which won the 2001 Southern Review Short Fiction Award for the best first collection of short stories. His novel, More Than Enough, was a Barnes ...

#5977

Maurya Simon

#165346

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Maurya Simon is an American poet, essayist, and visual artist. She is the author of ten collections of poetry. Her most recent volume of poetry is The Wilderness: New and Selected Poems . Early life and education Born in New York City, Simon is the daughter of the Los Angeles visual artist, Baila Goldenthal, and the ethnomusicologist and composer, Robert Leopold Simon. She spent her early years living in Europe with her family, and later moved to Hermosa Beach in southern California, where she lived from 1959–1968. Simon attended the University of California, Berkeley , where she was a student of Robert Grenier, Angela Davis, and Richard Tillinghast.

#5978

Jeffrey Harrison

#125516

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Jeffrey W. Harrison is an American poet. Born in Cincinnati, he was educated at Columbia University, where he studied with Kenneth Koch and David Shapiro. His most recent poetry collection is Into Daylight , which follows The Names of Things: New & Selected Poems . His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines, including The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Yale Review, Poets of the New Century. His honors include Pushcart Prizes, Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, and Amy Lowell Traveling fellowships. He has taught at George Washington University, Phillips Academy, and College of the Holy Cross.

#5979

Liliane Kerjan

#149480

Overall Influence

1940 - 2021 (81 years)

Liliane Kerjan was a French historian. She specialized in American literature. Biography Kerjan earned a degree in English from Rennes 2 University and a doctoral degree from Blaise Pascal University in 1977. She would go on to serve as Vice-President of Rennes 2 and subsequently was Rector of the Académie de Limoges from 2000 to 2005. As part of the Fulbright Program, she was a visiting professor at the University of San Diego and Yale University.

#5980

Ben Doller

#158282

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Ben Doller is an American poet and writer. Life Ben Doller is the author of several books of poetry. He currently teaches at University of California, San Diego. He graduated from the State University of New York at Oswego, and West Virginia University.

#5981

Joseph Osmundson

#98787

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Joseph S. Osmundson is an American biophysicist and writer. He is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Biology at New York University. Osmundson is the author of various books exploring bodies, queerness, race, and geography.

#5982

Antonella Anedda

Antonella Anedda

#66435

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Antonella Anedda is an Italian poet and essayist. Of Sardinian and Corsican descent, she was born in Rome and was educated there and in Venice, receiving a degree in the history of modern art from Sapienza University of Rome. Anedda received a scholarship from the Cini Foundation. She worked for the in Rome and taught at the University of Siena and the University of Lugano. Anedda has also participated in radio programs for Rai 3. Her work has appeared in various magazines such as alfabeta2, Rinascita, Ipso facto and Doppiozero and she has contributed articles on art criticism to various mag...

#5983

Peter Brinson

#106249

Overall Influence

1920 - 1995 (75 years)

Peter Neilson Brinson was a British writer and lecturer on dance. At various times he was a film-maker, writer, and academic, and did much to raise the profile of dance education in Britain and elsewhere.

#5984

Roberto Andorno

Roberto Andorno

#21135

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Roberto Andorno is Privatdozent at the Faculty of Law, University of Zurich . He is also Research Fellow at the University's Institute of Biomedical Ethics and Medical History, where he also coordinates the PhD Program in biomedical ethics and law. Originally from Argentina, he holds doctoral degrees in law from the Universities of Buenos Aires and Paris XII , both on topics related to the ethical and legal aspects of assisted reproductive technologies. Between 1999 and 2005 he conducted various research projects relating to global bioethics, human dignity, and human rights at the Laval Unive...

#5985

Bruno Corbucci

#103061

Overall Influence

1931 - 1996 (65 years)

Bruno Corbucci was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He was the younger brother of Sergio Corbucci and wrote many of his films. He was born in Rome, where he also died. The vast majority of his directorial efforts are lowbrow comedies. He also directed I figli del leopardo, a parody of Il gattopardo. His biggest success came with the long-running "Nico Giraldi" series, which starred Tomas Milian as a foul-mouthed Roman policeman.

#5986

Edward W. Tayler

#123280

Overall Influence

1931 - 2018 (87 years)

Edward William Tayler was an American literary scholar. He was born in Berlin on March 13, 1931, and moved to the United States, where he grew up in Westfield, New Jersey. He received a bachelor's degree from Amherst College and earned a doctorate in English from Stanford University. Tayler joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1960, and was named the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities. He was an awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1968. Tayler retired in 1999, although he returned briefly to teach Literature Humanities and a graduate section in the mid 2000s when he was in fair health.

#5987

Ardashir Vakil

#109395

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Ardashir "Ardu" Vakil is an Indian-born British author whose first novel, Beach Boy, won the Betty Trask Award in 1997 and was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award. His second novel, One Day was shortlisted for the Encore Award.

#5988

Robert Sharples

#55270

Overall Influence

1949 - 2010 (61 years)

Professor Robert William Sharples was a British educator and authority on ancient Greek philosophy. He was a member of the department of Greek and Latin at University College London for over 30 years, and won international distinction for his work in ancient philosophy, especially physics and in the Peripatetic tradition after Aristotle. His pioneering interest in previously under-studied figures such as Alexander of Aphrodisias led the way in the field.

#5989

Max D. Adams

#172485

Overall Influence

Max D. Adams is an American screenwriter and author. The winner of a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting and an Austin Film Festival screenwriting award, Adams went on to be dubbed “Red Hot Adams” by Daily Variety.

#5990

Kadir Mısıroğlu

#67539

Overall Influence

1933 - 2019 (86 years)

Kadir Mısıroğlu was a Turkish writer, publisher and conspiracy theorist. He was known for his staunch opposition to the early Kemalist regime of Turkey and advocating the restoration of the caliphate. Mısıroğlu's claims include that Joseph Stalin ordered his army to read the Quran on the sands against the Nazis, William Shakespeare being a secret Muslim, and that Karl Marx's Das Kapital was dictated by demons. He penned over 50 books, which include non-fiction, fiction, and poems. His works have been criticized for their approach, awareness and bias.

#5991

Edwin M. Duval

#101770

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Edwin M. Duval is a literary scholar specializing in works of the French Renaissance. Duval completed his bachelor's degree at Stanford University in 1968, followed by a master's degree and doctorate from Yale University in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Upon obtaining his doctorate, Duval joined the Princeton University faculty. In 1977, he began teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Duval returned to Yale as a professor in 1987, and was named Henri Peyre Professor of French in 2012.

#5992

Ed Allen

#107706

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Edward Allen is an American novelist and short story writer. Life Allen was born in New Haven, Connecticut, grew up in New York, graduated from Goddard College, and attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 1972.

#5993

Rebecca Tamás

#116634

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (38 years)

Rebecca Tamás is a British poet, writer, critic and editor, the daughter of Hungarian philosopher and public intellectual Gáspár Miklós Tamás. She was born in London in 1988. She studied creative writing at the University of Warwick and at the University of Edinburgh, where she won the Grierson Verse Prize, before completing a PhD at the University of East Anglia. She is a lecturer in creative writing at York St John University where she co-convenes The York Centre for Writing Poetry Series. She is the editor, with Sarah Shin, of the anthology Spells: 21st-century Occult Poetry . She has publi...

#5994

Steve Voake

#42078

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Steve Voake is a successful English children's author from Midsomer Norton, Somerset, whose books have sold all over the world. He started his teaching career at Midsomer Norton County Primary school in the late 80’s. In 2003 he was head teacher of a primary school in Kilmersdon, Somerset, when the BBC reported that he was being hailed as the next J. K. Rowling. A bidding war had broken out amongst publishers and film makers for the rights to his first novel, The Dreamwalker's Child. The publication deal he accepted with Faber and Faber enabled him to give up his teaching job to be a full-time...

#5995

Nick Carbó

#162604

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Nick Carbó is a Filipino-American writer from Legazpi, Albay, Philippines. Carbó writes poetry, essays, and edits magazines and anthologies. He is primarily known for his book of poetry titled Secret Asian Man Tia Chucha Press which won the Asian American Writers Workshop's Readers Choice Award. He also won the 2005 Calatagan Award from the Philippine American Writers & Artists for his book Andalusian Dawn Cherry Grove Collections. His most noted award is the 1999 Gregory Millard/New York City Department of Cultural Affairs New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

#5996

Yohanca Delgado

#171153

Overall Influence

Yohanca Delgado is an American writer. She won a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts grant. She graduated from Kenyon College, and American University. She was an editor at Folio, and Barrelhouse. She is a Stegner Fellow.

#5997

Kelwyn Sole

#165582

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Kelwyn Sole is a South African poet and academic. Sole was graduated with honours in English from the University of the Witwatersrand and following that, he was awarded an MA degree by the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies.

#5998

Debra Monroe

#111610

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Debra Monroe is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. She has written seven books, including two story collections, a collection of essays, two novels, and two memoirs, and is also editor of an anthology of nonfiction. Monroe has been twice nominated for the National Book Award, is a winner of the prestigious Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, and was cited on several "10 Best Books" lists for her nationally-acclaimed memoir, On the Outskirts of Normal: Forging a Family Against the Grain.

#5999

Swapan Kumar Chakravorty

Swapan Kumar Chakravorty

#50742

Overall Influence

1954 - 2021 (67 years)

Swapan Kumar Chakravorty was an Indian academic who was a distinguished Professor of Humanities at the Presidency University, Kolkata. He also served as a Professor of English, Jadavpur University, Director General of the National Library of India along with Secretary, and Curator of the Victoria Memorial Hall. Chakravorty was chairperson of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta , Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor on Library Matters, Ashoka University, and Distinguished Visiting Faculty, S. P. Jain School of Global Management.

#6000

Bo Burnham

#142289

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Robert Pickering "Bo" Burnham is an American comedian, musician, actor, and filmmaker. His work combines elements of filmmaking with comedy genres such as music, sketch, and stand-up, often with a dramatic or tragic twist.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions