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,

#6601

Michael Irwin

#100727

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Thomas Arthur Michael Irwin, is a British Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kent and author of several works of fiction, as well as scholarly books. His 2013 novel, The Skull and the Nightingale is, according to WorldCat, held in more than 500 libraries.

#6602

Robert Eversz

#179544

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Robert McLeod Eversz is an American fiction writer, screenwriter, and educator. The author of the Nina Zero novels, he is a co-founder of the Prague Summer Program for writers, a study abroad program for creative writers in the English language.

#6603

Elizabeth Bartlett

#152770

Overall Influence

1911 - 1994 (83 years)

Elizabeth Bartlett was an American poet and writer noted for her lyrical and symbolic poetry, creation of the new twelve-tone form of poetry, founder of the international non-profit organization Literary Olympics, Inc., and known as an author of fiction, essays, reviews, translations, and as an editor.

#6604

E. Roger Boyle

#175436

Overall Influence

1908 - 1993 (85 years)

E. Roger Boyle was an American writer and scholar of drama. He taught playwriting at the University of Virginia from 1932 to 1977, where he chaired the drama department from 1960 to 1966. He also founded the Virginia Players and directed 350 plays. Under the pseudonym Robin Grey, Boyle wrote the best selling mystery novel, Puzzle in Porcelain, during the 1940s. Boyle was married to Sarah Patton Boyle, a civil rights activist in Virginia.

#6605

Benjamin Vogt

#177678

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Benjamin Vogt is an author and garden designer who lives in Nebraska. He has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He owns Monarch Gardens LLC, a prairie garden design company in eastern Nebraska, and speaks nationally on garden design and landscape ethics at conferences and seminars.

#6606

Catherine Chandler

Catherine Chandler

#80798

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Catherine M. Chandler is a Canadian poet and translator, born in Queens, New York City and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, emigrating to Canada in 1971. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and Spanish from Wilkes University and a Master of Arts in Education from McGill University. She and her husband currently divide their time between their homes in Saint-Lazare-de-Vaudreuil, Québec, and Punta del Este, Uruguay.

#6607

Elizabeth Socolow

#172862

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Elizabeth Socolow is an American poet. Life She is a native of New York City, has taught at Rutgers University, Vassar College, Yale University, Barnard College, Wayne State University, University of Michigan Dearborn.

#6608

Pamela Alexander

#121669

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Pamela Alexander is an American poet. Life She graduated from Bates College in 1970 and from the Iowa Writers' Workshop with a Master of Fine Arts in 1973. She teaches at Oberlin College. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Book Review, Orion, TriQuarterly, Poetry, The Journal, New Republic, American Scholar.

#6609

John Blair

#184724

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

John Blair is an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Life He was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He graduated from Florida State University, and Tulane University, with a Ph.D. His work appeared in Poetry, The Southern Review, Antioch Review, American Literature, The Georgia Review, The Sewanee Review, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, Southern Humanities Review, Studies in the Novel and some three dozen other literary magazines and scholarly journals.

#6610

Simon Fraser

#173503

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Simon Fraser is a British comics artist and writer best known for his work on Nikolai Dante, a series he created with writer Robbie Morrison in 2000 AD, and Tales of the Night Watchman for So What? Press.

#6611

Mojca Kumerdej

#109324

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Mojca Kumerdej is a Slovene writer, philosopher and critic. She works as the cultural chronicler for the daily newspaper Delo. Biography Kumerdej graduated in philosophy and sociology of culture from the University of Ljubljana. Her debut novel Krst nad Triglavom is a parody and a witty and ironical revision of one of Slovene literary history's most important works, the epic poem Krst pri Savici by France Prešeren. Her next two published books, Fragma and Temna snov, are collections of short stories. Her stories have been translated into many languages and have been published in various Slo...

#6612

Heather McDonald

Heather McDonald

#170576

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Heather McDonald is an American playwright, director, librettist, and professor. Early life Mcdonald is originally a Canadian citizen. She graduated from the University of Florida with a BFA in English. She is an MFA graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

#6613

Kim Todd

#175020

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Kim Todd is an American author. She is also a professor of creative writing at the University of Minnesota. She has written essays and several books of nonfiction, primarily about environmental history and the natural sciences.

#6614

Kenneth O. Hanson

#179243

Overall Influence

1922 - 2003 (81 years)

Kenneth O. Hanson was an American teacher, translator, and poet. Works Growing Old Alive Copper Canyon Press 1978 Anthologies Norton Anthology of Poets in 1979 External links Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library

#6615

Michael Noonan

#93025

Overall Influence

1921 - 2000 (79 years)

Michael John Noonan was an Australian / New Zealand novelist and radio script writer. He also created the Australian TV series Riptide. Noonan served with the Second Australian Imperial Force in New Guinea during World War II. He moved to England in 1957 but returned frequently to Australia and returned there to live in Brisbane in 1979.

#6616

Tzvetan Todorov

#185401

Overall Influence

#6617

Jordan Abel

#169652

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Jordan Abel is a Nisga'a poet who lives and works in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Life and work Abel, a Nisga'a poet, was born in British Columbia. Formerly a doctoral student at Simon Fraser University in the Department of English, he is currently a professor at the University of Alberta. Abel's work addresses settler-colonialism directly, often through conceptual poetic approaches to overtly colonial texts .

#6618

Martin Forward

#68549

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Martin Forward is a British, Methodist Christian lecturer and author on religion and Professor of History at Aurora University, Illinois. He has taught Islam at the Universities of Leicester, Bristol and Cambridge, and had spent a period of time in India where he was ordained into the Church of South India. He was also a senior tutor and lecturer in Pastoral and Systematic Theology , and was a member of the Cambridge University Faculty of Divinity. Currently, he is the Executive Director of Aurora University's Wackerlin Center for Faith and Action and the Helena Wackerlin Professor of Religion, and has participated in numerous Interfaith dialogues.

#6619

Eduardo Prado Coelho

Eduardo Prado Coelho

#102473

Overall Influence

1944 - 2007 (63 years)

Eduardo Prado Coelho was a Portuguese writer, journalist, columnist and university professor. He was also a political and cultural critic. Coelho was born on 29 March 1944 in Lisbon, Portugal. He was the son of Jacinto do Prado Coelho, a Portuguese professor and literary critic. Eduardo Prado Coelho began teaching at the New University of Lisbon in 1983.

#6620

Maurade Glennon

#185423

Overall Influence

1926 - Present (100 years)

Deirdre Maura Darrouzet , better known as Maurade Glennon, was an Irish-born American writer and teacher who lived in Texas. Glennon was born in Birr, Ireland, and received her early schooling at the Convent of Mercy in her hometown. She attended the Dominican College in Dublin from 1941 to 1943, St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas from 1959 to 1960, and University of Texas from 1961 to 1964. She has worked as a teacher and served on the board of directors of Austin Community Nursery Schools from 1963 to 1969.

#6621

Philip Matyszak

#58532

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Philip L. Matyszak is a British non-fiction author, primarily of historical works relating to ancient Rome. Biography Matyszak studied ancient history at Royal Holloway, University of London, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then studied Roman history at St John's College, Oxford, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy degree. His doctoral thesis submitted in 1993, and was titled "Dominance in the Roman senate from Sulla to the Principate".

#6622

Lynn Morris

#100420

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Lynn Morris was a Christian fiction author. She was the daughter of Gilbert Morris and co-wrote with him on most of her books. Books by Lynn Morris Cheney Duvall, M.D. Series This series was co-written with her father, Gilbert Morris.

#6623

Richard Lyons

#102504

Overall Influence

Richard Lyons is an American poet and teacher. Life He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, from the University of Arizona with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing , and from the University of Houston with a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing .

#6624

Leslie Cockburn

#95222

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Leslie Cockburn is an American investigative journalist, and filmmaker. Her investigative television segments have aired on CBS, NBC, PBS Frontline, and 60 Minutes. She has won an Emmy Award, The Hillman Prize, Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and the George Polk Award.

#6625

John Romano

#172939

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

John Romano is an American screenwriter and television writer and producer. Life and career Romano is a graduate of Colgate University and holds a Ph.D. from Yale in English and Comparative Literature. Before moving to Los Angeles in 1986 to join the staff of Hill Street Blues. he published a book on Charles Dickens , taught English at Columbia University and was a frequent book-reviewer at The New York Times.

#6626

David Orgon Coolidge

#86706

Overall Influence

1901 - 2002 (101 years)

David Orgon Collidge was the founder of The Marriage Law Project and was an editor, along with Lynn D. Wardle and Alan J. Hawkins, of the book Revitalizing Marriage in the Twenty-First Century: An Agenda for Strengthening Marriage.

#6627

Lorraine Warren

#76333

Overall Influence

Lorraine Warren is a New Zealand academic. She is a full professor at the Massey University. Academic career After receiving a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of Wales in 1983, Warren moved into the field of innovation and entrepreneurship, working at Loughborough University and University of Southampton in the UK, before moving to Massey University as a full professor.

#6628

Aaron Peck

#177855

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Aaron Peck is a Canadian writer and educator. He is the author of the novella The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis, published by Pedlar Press in 2008, and an art book, Letters to the Pacific, published by Publication Studio in 2010. In 2016, Peck authored the monograph Jeff Wall: North & West, which was nominated for the Melva J. Dwyer Award in the same year.

#6629

Guy Mark Foster

#141095

Overall Influence

Guy Mark Foster is an American writer and academic. His short story collection The Rest of Us was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Fiction at the 26th Lambda Literary Awards in 2014.

#6630

Ed J. Pinegar

#78306

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Ed Jolley Pinegar was a Latter-day Saint author, educator and leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . His books include Look to the Temple, Raising the Bar, and several works dealing with the study of the Book of Mormon. Many of his books were written with LDS author Richard J. Allen. With Rodger Dean Duncan, Pinegar is co-author of the book Leadership for Saints.

#6631

John Skoyles

#167437

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

John Skoyles is an American poet and writer. Early years John Skoyles was born in Flushing, New York, the son of Olga and Gerard Skoyles, an envelope salesman. He attended Mater Christi High School, graduating in 1967. He did his undergraduate work at Fairfield University in Connecticut, and earned an M.A. in English and an M. F. A. at the University of Iowa.

#6632

Steve Kistulentz

Steve Kistulentz

#185587

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Steve Kistulentz is an American novelist, poet, and screenwriter. He is the founding director of the graduate creative writing program at Saint Leo University in Florida. He is no longer serving as the Poet Laureate of Safety Harbor, FL. after admitting to transmitting child pornography.

#6633

Michael Gallagher

#177455

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Michael Gallagher is an American writer who has contributed to several comic books, as well as to the satire magazine Mad, to which he has contributed several two-page gags since the mid-1990s. He is the son of cartoonist John Gallagher, as well as the nephew of George Gately, creator of the comic strip Heathcliff. Besides Mad, Gallagher has contributed to Sonic the Hedgehog , as well as a comic book series based on the TV show ALF, and several works for both Marvel Comics and Archie Comics. Gallagher commented on his three-year run on Guardians of the Galaxy: "It was very cool to have the 'p...

#6634

Greg Clingham

#181260

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Greg Clingham is a British literary scholar and publisher. He was Professor of English at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, where he held the NEH Chair in the Humanities and the John P. Crozer Chair of English Literature . He was for twenty-three years, the director of Bucknell University Press .

#6635

Sarah Jones

#128108

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Sarah Jones is an American playwright, actress, and poet. Called "a master of the genre" by The New York Times, Jones has written and performed four multi-character solo shows, including Bridge & Tunnel, which was produced Off-Broadway in 2004 by Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, and then on to Broadway in 2006 where it received a Special Tony Award.

#6636

Wayne Kramer

#168175

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Wayne Kramer is a filmmaker and storyboard artist. Kramer has written and directed films such as the 2003 film The Cooler, which garnered an Oscar nomination for its star Alec Baldwin, as well as two Golden Globe nominations for Baldwin and Maria Bello. He also adapted his 1995 short film "Crossing Over" into a feature-length version which starred Harrison Ford, Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd and Jim Sturgess, and was released by the Weinstein Company in 2009. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Mindhunters, but the final script was heavily rewritten by others and bore little resemblance to Kr...

#6637

Norman MacKenzie

#63699

Overall Influence

1921 - 2013 (92 years)

Norman Ian MacKenzie was a British journalist, academic and historian who helped in the founding of the Open University in the late 1960s. Early years MacKenzie was born in New Cross, south-east London in 1921, the son of Thomas Butson MacKenzie , a credit draper, and his wife, Alice Marguerita, née Williamson . He attended Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Boys' School, the local Grammar School.

#6638

Jeff Unaegbu

#114430

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Jephthah Elochukwu Unaegbu is a Nigerian writer, research fellow, actor, artist and documentary film maker, the author of many books. Early years and education Unaegbu was born in Amankwo-Inyi village, Oji River LGA of Enugu State, Nigeria, the first child of five surviving children to Mr. John Ejike Unaegbu and Mrs. Cecilia Enonanma Unaegbu. He attended the Government Secondary School, Minna in 1990, studying sciences and graduated in 1996. He then attended Muhanatu Computer Institute, graduating in 2000 with distinctions in Certificate and Diploma in Computer Data Processing. He then atte...

#6639

Erica Funkhouser

#123208

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Erica Funkhouser is an American poet. She graduated from Vassar College with a BA and from Stanford University with a MA. She teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her work appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. She lives in Essex, Massachusetts.

#6640

Fang Weigui

#178846

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Fang Weigui is a Chinese comparative literature scholar, sinologist, and literary translator. Early Years Fang graduated from Shanghai International Studies University where he subsequently taught at the German Department before enrolling in a cooperative academic program of Beijing Foreign Studies University and Humboldt University of Berlin.

#6641

Antonette diPaolo Healey

#81762

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Antonette diPaolo Healey is a philologist and a scholar of Old English literature and language. She has published on lexicography, glossography, and history of the English language. diPaolo Healey edited seven releases of The Dictionary of Old English , overseeing the development of the dictionary from physical material, microfiche, CD-ROM, through to the creation of the website. She is currently Professor Emerita of English at University of Toronto.

#6642

Mann Rubin

#183220

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

Mann Rubin was an American film and television screenwriter, whose credits included The Best of Everything in 1959, Brainstorm in 1965, Warning Shot in 1967, The First Deadly Sin in 1980, and The Human Shield in 1991. He also taught screenwriting within the cinema and TV department at the University of Southern California for more than ten years.

#6643

Margaret Waller

#179735

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Margaret "Peggy" Waller is an American scholar of 19th-century French literature. She is the Mary Ann Vanderzyl Reynolds Professor of Humanities and Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

#6644

Laurie Stone

#184237

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Laurie Stone is an American writer and critic. Biography Stone is a graduate of Barnard College and holds an MA from Columbia University . She taught at Hunter College and Queens College from 1969 to 1975. After many years as a journalist at The Village Voice , she was appointed theater critic for The Nation and critic-at-large on NPR's Fresh Air. Her books include a story collection, My Life as an Animal , an essay collection, Laughing in the Dark , a novel, Starting with Serge , and an essay collection, Streaming Now: Postcards from the Thing That Is Happening .

#6645

Bennett Sims

#165303

Overall Influence

Bennett Sims is an American fiction writer with two book publications, the novel A Questionable Shape and the short story collection White Dialogues. He is an assistant professor at the University of Iowa.

#6646

Donald MacAulay

#157913

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Dòmhnall MacAmhlaigh was a Scottish Gaelic poet and professor. Early life He was born and raised in a Gaelic-speaking community on Great Bernera, near the Isle of Lewis, and excelled in his secondary studies at the Nicholson Institute. He got first class honours in his degree in Celtic and English at the University of Aberdeen. While MacAmhlaigh did National Service in the Royal Navy between 1955 and 1958, he learned Russian and spent time in Turkey. He married Ella Sangster in January 1957 and had two children and five grandchildren.

#6647

Fernando Galván

Fernando Galván

#176991

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Fernando Galván Reula OBE, FEA , is a literary scholar and former rector / president of the University of Alcalá , Madrid. Biography He holds a BA and a PhD in English from the University of La Laguna, Tenerife, a university where he was appointed Professor of English Language and Literature in 1990. He moved to the University of Alcalá in 1994, where he was appointed as Professor of English Literature, and later as rector / president between 2010 and 2018.

#6648

Aimee Bahng

#150743

Overall Influence

Aimee Bahng is an American academic. She is a professor of gender and women's studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California. Her previous denial of tenure at Dartmouth College sparked widespread protests about discrimination against racial minorities in academia.

#6649

Roy Gibson

#153554

Overall Influence

Roy Gibson is a British Classicist and Professor at Durham University. Specialising in Latin Literature, he has worked extensively on the imperial period, with a focus on Ovid and Pliny the Younger. Gibson is also the joint-chair of the Classical Association and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Roman Studies.

#6650

Leta Hong Fincher

#74197

Overall Influence

Leta Hong Fincher is an American journalist, feminist and writer. Biography Fincher was born in British Hong Kong, to a Chinese-American mother with roots in Xiamen, Fujian, and a European-American father. She grew up in Canberra after her parents received tenures at Australian National University. Her mother, a linguist, and her father, a historian, were both Chinese scholars, and she spent a significant portion of her childhood travelling to and from China. As a child, she spoke Mandarin at home with her mother.

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