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,

#6801

Peter Anderson

#176532

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Peter Anderson is a Canadian-American playwright. Anderson studied at the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre before moving to Canada in 1977. He has a BA in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Michigan Residential College . He lives in Vancouver with his wife Melody Anderson.

#6802

Henrik Williams

#143559

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Henrik Williams is a noted expert on runes. He is currently a Professor of Scandinavian Languages at Uppsala University, Sweden. Early life and education Williams was born in Kalmar, Sweden. After graduating from school in his hometown, he spent a year as an exchange student in Ohio. After returning to Sweden in 1978, he settled in Uppsala and enrolled at Uppsala University. He studied Scandinavian languages, and in 1983, when he spent some time as a faculty assistant at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, he became interested in researching runestones. When returning to Sweden he ...

#6803

Francis J. Mulhern

#78046

Overall Influence

Frank Mulhern is an American academic who is Associate Dean of Research at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Mulhern specializes in research on marketing communications, marketing research and database analysis and the role of employees in marketing strategy. He has published papers on retail pricing and promotions, the effectiveness of coupons, and the purchase behavior of ethnic consumer groups. More recent research involves analysis of the role of employees in brand strategy and the integration of internal communications with traditional and interactive media. Hi...

#6804

Barbara Samson

#91608

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Barbara Samson is a French poet who was infected with HIV at the age of seventeen. Her story was made into the French television film Being Seventeen. Samson sought treatment for an eating disorder at the age of seventeen. While staying in a French health clinic, she fell in love with another patient who wrote love poems for her. She later discovered that the poems were translations of Jim Morrison's lyrics of The Doors' rock songs. Her lover had also concealed his HIV-positive status, which Samson in turn contracted. She told nobody about her illness, because she was so ashamed. Barbara met ...

#6805

Jose Luis Ramos Escobar

#183860

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

José Luis Ramos Escobar is a Puerto Rican writer and playwright who is also directed several plays and written television scripts. He currently serves as Dean of Humanities at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, where he is also a professor at the Drama Department.

#6806

John Fraser

#125760

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (98 years)

John Fraser is a British academic, writer and art critic. He spent much of his career in the United States and at Dalhousie University in Canada. He wrote three printed books and many other works published in digital form, and publicised the work of his late wife, the American artist Carol Hoorn Fraser.

#6807

Gösta Ågren

#182377

Overall Influence

1936 - 2020 (84 years)

Sven Gösta Ågren was a Finland-Swedish author who won the Finlandia Prize in 1988 for . Gösta Ågren, who wrote his works in Swedish, praised the Gospel of Mark for its literary values and published the collection in reference to it. He was known for his left-wing sympathies, which can be seen in his autobiographical work concerning the rural "proletariat." His brothers Leo and Erik were also writers.

#6808

François-Marc Gagnon

#171018

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

François-Marc Gagnon was a Canadian art historian and professor at Concordia University in Montreal. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a member of the Order of Canada. He is the author of three books published by the Art Canada Institute: Paul-Émile Borduas: Life & Work ; Louis Nicolas: Life & Work ; and Jean Paul Riopelle: Life & Work .

#6809

Brian Cummings

#186586

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Brian Cummings, is Anniversary Professor in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 2016. Selected publications Mortal Thoughts: Religion, Secularity and Identity in Shakespeare and Early Modern Culture .The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662 : Runner-Up, Atlantic Book of the Year 2012.The Literary Culture of the Reformation: Grammar and Grace : Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year for 2003.

#6810

Peter Boxall

#186808

Overall Influence

Peter Boxall is a British academic and writer. He is Professor of English in the Department of English at the University of Sussex. He works on contemporary literature, literary theory and literary modernism. Boxall is notable as the editor of the well-established journal of literary theory, Textual Practice, for his editorship of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and The Oxford History of the Novel, Volume 7: British and Irish Fiction Since 1940, and for his work on contemporary fiction, most notably Twenty-First-Century Fiction and The Value of the Novel .

#6811

Huh Young-ja

#186195

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Introduction Huh Young-ja is a Korean female poet. She is called "The Poet of Love and Moderation,"embodying Oriental lyricism such as han', love and waiting in a highly condensed beauty. She is regarded as a unique poet who combines traditional and modern sentiments.

#6812

Andreas Schönle

#177893

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Andreas Xavier Schönle, FBA is a Swiss linguist and literary and cultural scholar. Since 2018 he has been Professor of Russian and Head of the School of Modern Languages at the University of Bristol. Born in Geneva, Schönle completed his licence ès lettres at the University of Geneva in Russian and German, before Harvard University awarded him a doctorate in 1995. He lectured at the University of Michigan from then until his appointment as Professor of Russian at Queen Mary University of London in 2005, where he taught until 2018.

#6813

Jonathan Newman

Jonathan Newman

#126493

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Jonathan Newman is a British filmmaker and writer. Newman made his first feature film at the age of 25. Being Considered starred James Dreyfus and David Tennant. His recent movies include the action adventure film Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box, starring Sam Neill, Michael Sheen, Lena Headey and Keeley Hawes, with the lead of Mariah Mundi played by Welsh actor Aneurin Barnard. Retitled The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box, the film was released theatrically in USA on 10 January 2014. In 2012 Newman wrote and directed the critically acclaimed film Foster, starring Toni Collette, Ioan Gruffudd, Richard E.

#6814

Don Shaw

#177403

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Don Shaw is a British screenwriter and playwright. His credits include Survivors, Doomwatch, Orde Wingate, and Bomber Harris. Shaw stated that before he took on writing for Survivors, 'I was very much an up-and-coming hot-shot writer. I was being sought after by The Wednesday Play and Play for Today and things like that.'

#6815

Hussein El-Wad

#187897

Overall Influence

1948 - 2018 (70 years)

Hussein el-Wad was a Tunisian academic, poet, critic and novelist. He was born in Moknine in northern Tunisia and studied for his doctorate at the University of Tunis. He was also a professor at King Saud University in Riyadh.

#6816

Edward Topol

#103160

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Eduard Vladimirovich Topol , real name Topelberg is a Russian writer, film producer and screenwriter. Biography Born in Baku, Topol spent his teenage years finishing local school in Baku and graduated from Azerbaijan State Economic University. He also did his military service in Estonia. He worked as journalist for newspapers such as Bakinskiy Rabochiy and Komsomolskaya Pravda and wrote the screenplays for seven movies, of which two were banned due to censorship under the Soviet government.

#6817

Françoise Lionnet

#185455

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Françoise Lionnet serves as acting chair of the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University, where she is professor of Romance languages and literatures, comparative literature, and African and African American studies. She is distinguished research professor of comparative literature and French and Francophone studies at UCLA, and a research associate of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She served as director of the African Studies Center and Program Co-Director of UCLA's Mellon Postdoctoral Fell...

#6818

Fritz Alwin Breithaupt

#178292

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Fritz Breithaupt is a scholar and critic in the fields of German literature, intellectual history, and cognitive science. Currently, he is chair of the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University Bloomington.

#6819

Julia Ferrer

#106282

Overall Influence

1925 - 1995 (70 years)

Julia Ferrer , born in Lima, Peru, was a Peruvian poet and writer. She was fluent in English and French, and spoke some German, Portuguese and Quechua. Ferrer took courses in theater at the National Institute of Dramatic Art , and took courses at the School of Fine Arts of Lima.

#6820

Steven R. Nagel

Steven R. Nagel

#12029

Overall Influence

1946 - 2014 (68 years)

Steven Ray Nagel , , was an American astronaut, aeronautical and mechanical engineer, test pilot, and a United States Air Force pilot. In total, he logged 723 hours in space. After NASA, he worked at the University of Missouri College of Engineering as an instructor in its Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department.

#6821

Heinz Kamnitzer

Heinz Kamnitzer

#141392

Overall Influence

1917 - 2001 (84 years)

Heinz Kamnitzer was a German writer and historian. He was part of the political-cultural establishment and a vocal government supporter in the German Democratic Republic . Life Early years Kamnitzer was born into a Jewish family in Berlin at the height of the First World War. His father was a pharmacist. His younger brother Peter was an architect and a professor of Architecture and Urban Planning at UCLA, who emigrated to Los Angeles. In 1931 he joined the Socialist school students' League, and in Autumn 1933, while still at school, Kamnitzer was arrested for undertaking illegal political work.

#6822

Christine Eyene

#165121

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Christine Eyene is a Cameroonian art critic, art historian, and curator. Biography Born in 1970 in Paris, Christine Eyene studied the history of art at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, also in Paris. She obtained a Diplôme d’Études Approfondies in 1999, under the supervision of , and wrote a dissertation entitled Image and Body: representing the body in South African art from the 1960s to 1990s. She then pursued research on contemporary South African art with, as her main subject, the history of artists exiled during apartheid and their cultural exchange with the black diaspora in France and England.

#6823

Makoto Kobayashi

#142794

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Makoto Kobayashi is a Japanese manga artist who is best known for his unusual drawing style. One of his best known manga is What's Michael?, a manga about a curious orange cat and his many adventures that is often compared with Garfield. His earliest work is Grapple Three Brothers, which won the Shōnen magazine New manga artist award. He has twice won the Kodansha Manga Award, for in 1981 and What's Michael? in 1986.

#6824

Ralph Alan Cohen

#123076

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Ralph Alan Cohen is an American educator, scholar theatre director, and academic entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and Senior Advisor of the American Shakespeare Center, a theater company located in Staunton, Virginia. In 2001, as Executive Director of the ASC, he was also Project Director for the building of the Blackfriars Playhouse, a recreation of the Blackfriars Theatre, England’s first purpose-built indoor theatre, and home to Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men until the closing of the theatres in 1642.

#6825

Kerri French

#181630

Overall Influence

Kerri French is an American poet. Life Originally from North Carolina, she received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She graduated from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro's Master of Fine Arts program in 2006. She has taught at Boston University and Mount Ida College. Her latest project, for DIAGRAM magazine, is a series of poems focused on British singer Amy Winehouse.

#6826

Christina Duhig

#175472

Overall Influence

Christina Duhig is an American poet. Life Originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she studied at Case Western Reserve University and received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has taught at North Carolina A&T State University. and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Bronx Community College and Fordham University.

#6827

Tamsin Wilton

#168081

Overall Influence

1952 - 2006 (54 years)

Tamsin Elizabeth Wilton was an English lesbian activist, and the UK’s first Professor of Human Sexuality. She researched and wrote extensively about gay and lesbian health, the process of transitioning to lesbianism, and the marginalisation of lesbian issues within sexuality studies.

#6828

Robyn Rowland

#177144

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Robyn Lea Rowland is an Irish Australian poet, writer and retired academic. Biography Rowland, a third generation Irish Australian, was born in Sydney, New South Wales in 1952. While researching her PhD, Rowland worked as a part-time tutor at the University of Wollongong.

#6829

James W. Tankard Jr.

#173072

Overall Influence

1941 - 2005 (64 years)

James William Tankard Jr. , communication scholar, author of The Statistical Pioneers and coauthor of Communication Theories: Origins, Methods, Uses . Academic career and degrees At the time of his death, Tankard was Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, where he served on the faculty for 32 years and held the Jesse H. Jones Professorship in Journalism. Prior to joining the Texas faculty in 1972, he served on the journalism faculties of Temple University and the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

#6830

Lew McCreary

#111633

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Lew McCreary is an American author, editor, and speaker. McCreary was born on September 21, 1947. He has authored three novels to sparse but positive reviews; in the New York Times book review of 1991's The Minus Man, acclaimed author Anne Rice said, "This is a challenging, disturbing and deeply memorable novel." In 1999 The Minus Man was made into an independent film starring Owen Wilson, Brian Cox, Janeane Garofalo, Mercedes Ruehl and several other notable actors, as well as Sheryl Crow and Dwight Yoakam.

#6831

Kwame Kwei-Armah

Kwame Kwei-Armah

#172995

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Kwame Kwei-Armah is a British actor, playwright, director and broadcaster. He is best known for playing paramedic Finlay Newton in the BBC medical drama Casualty from 1999 until 2004. In 2005 he became the second black Briton to have a play staged in the West End of London. Kwei-Armah's award-winning piece Elmina's Kitchen transferred to the Garrick Theatre in 2005. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to drama. He is currently the artistic director of the Young Vic theatre in London, succeeding David Lan.

#6832

Raoul Șorban

#81637

Overall Influence

1912 - 2006 (94 years)

Raoul Șorban was a Romanian painter, journalist, writer, essayist, art historian, academic, and memoirist. Biography His father, the composer Guilelm Șorban, descended from an old ethnic Romanian noble family in Transylvania; his grandmother was of Alsatian origin.

#6833

Eunice Askov

#187149

Overall Influence

Eunice Nicholson Askov is an American literary scholar focusing on adult and family literacy, currently a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Education at Pennsylvania State University. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1969. She is an honorary affiliate of the International Reading Association and a 2007 inductee into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.

#6834

Alice Elliott Dark

#178992

Overall Influence

Alice Elliott Dark is a writer of short stories, novels and essays. She is the author of the story collections Naked to the Waist and In the Gloaming and the novels Think of England and Fellowship Point, published by Scribner/Marysue Rucci Books in July 2022.

#6835

Patrick Froehlich

Patrick Froehlich

#136927

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Patrick Froehlich is a French writer and physician. For several decades, he practiced surgery and has published seven novels. His main subjects are children's pain, the struggle against disease and the trauma resulting from situations on the edge of life. He contributed to the development of image-guided mini invasive surgery.

#6836

Susan Wood

#85920

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Susan Wood is an American poet and the Gladys Louise Fox Professor of English at Rice University. Life Wood received her B.A. from East Texas State University and her M.A. from University of Texas at Arlington before continuing her graduate studies at Rice University.

#6837

Ali Golzadeh Ghafouri

Ali Golzadeh Ghafouri

#83788

Overall Influence

1923 - 2010 (87 years)

Ali Golzadeh Ghafouri was an Iranian Shia cleric and religious progressive politician. Political career He ran as an independent candidate in the 1979 Iranian Constitutional Convention election. He criticized the conventional notions of private property by the establishment and enjoyed support by the People's Mujahedin of Iran, along with Mahmoud Taleghani. He was among the members of the post-revolutionary constituent assembly opposing to inclusion of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist in the constitution.

#6838

Stephania Bell

#24253

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Stephania Bell is an American physical therapist who has become an author, as well as both on-air and online sports commentator at ESPN where she serves as an American football injury analyst. Career Bell formerly served as an injury analyst for KFFL, RotoWire and XM Radio. Hired in 2007, she actively blogs National Football League injury analysis for ESPN where she is a regular columnist. Bell complements on-air journalists with analysis of breaking news. She serves as a co-host of Fantasy Focus on ESPN Radio and an analyst for SportsNation on ESPN.com. She co-authored The Clinical Orthopedic Assessment Guide.

#6839

René Saldaña Jr.

#185726

Overall Influence

René Saldaña Jr. is an American poet, novelist and educator. Currently, he is an associate professor of language and literature in the College of Education at Texas Tech University. He is also the author of several books for young readers, best known for The Jumping Tree and The Whole Sky Full of Stars. His publications have received many positive reviews and recognition from several literary circles.

#6840

Nancy Zafris

#104232

Overall Influence

Nancy Zafris is an American novelist and short story writer. She has won individual artist's grants, from the Massachusetts Arts Council, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and the Ohio Arts Council. She was a senior Fulbright fellow, and taught at Masaryk University . She has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Centre College, and Ohio State University.

#6841

David Feldshuh

#42669

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

David Mark Feldshuh is an American physician, playwright, and author. His 1992 play Miss Evers' Boys, based on the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, was a finalist for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The 1997 adaptation of Miss Evers' Boys was nominated for 11 Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards .

#6842

P. R. Nathan

#184787

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Payyanat Ravindra Nathan better known by his pen name P. R. Nathan, is a novelist, screenplay writer, dramatist, short story writer, travelogue writer and speaker from Palakkad, Kerala, India. He was awarded with the prestigious Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for overall contribution in 2014. He has written over 55 books in various genres. He is the recipient of 41 major awards across various categories in literature. He is an expert in Naturopathy and Reiki . He has done over 7000 speeches around the world on Vedas, Upanishads and Tantra. His book Vaayikenda oru Pusthakam was selected for the Sri Padmanabha Swamy Bala Sahithya Award instituted by the Gramam Samskarika Vedi.

#6843

Brandon Rogers

#176209

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (38 years)

Brandon George Rogers is an American YouTuber, actor, comedian, and composer. He plays many characters in his eponymous YouTube channel and co-wrote the adult animated web series Helluva Boss, in which he voices the main character Blitzø.

#6844

Sergei Medvedev

#89818

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Sergei Aleksandrovich Medvedev is a Russian scholar. He is currently a professor at the Charles University in Prague, and he has previously worked at the Marshall Center for Security Studies in Germany, the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki, the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome, and the Institute of Europe of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

#6845

Nick Lowe

#175690

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Nick Lowe is a British classical scholar and film critic. He is a reader in classics in the Department of Classics and Philosophy at Royal Holloway, a constituent college of the University of London, with interests including narratology and reception of Greek antiquity in historical fiction.

#6846

Irv Bauer

#183225

Overall Influence

1935 - 2015 (80 years)

Irv Bauer, also known as Irvin S. Bauer, was an American playwright, educator and television writer based in New York. He was most known for his plays A Dream Out of Time, A Fine and Private Place and Bulldog and The Bear. He also wrote multiple episodes of Courage the Cowardly Dog.

#6847

John Doyle

#122991

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

John Patrick Doyle AM is an Australian actor, writer, radio presenter and comedian best known for his character Rampaging Roy Slaven. Early life Doyle was born in Lithgow, New South Wales in 1953 into a music-loving, Catholic household with three sisters, Deanna, Cathy, and Jen, and a brother, Tony. His mother was a business woman and his father a railway fettler. He was an altar boy for a time but lost interest in Catholicism with the introduction of contemporary changes in the Mass among other things. He attended and was a prefect at De La Salle Academy in Lithgow before graduating from the then Newcastle Teachers' College in 1973 with a Diploma of Teaching .

#6848

Simon Roy

#185753

Overall Influence

1968 - 2022 (54 years)

Simon Roy was a Canadian author. He was also a professor of literature at the Collège Lionel-Groulx for more than thirty years. Biography Born on 14 June 1968 in Saint-Alexis, Roy married Marianne Marquis-Gravel, with whom he had two children, Romane and Colin. He was known for his 2014 novel Ma vie rouge Kubrick, which received the Prix des libraires du Québec in the category of Québécois novels.

#6849

Sanaa Shebbani

#183974

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Sanaa Shebbani is a Lebanese children's writer and translator. She wrote one play and has published more than 90 children's books. In 2010, UNESCO, Regional Bureau, Beirut, published her story book for youth " Hatta Ankoulouka Ila Alami" as she was chosen after attending a workshop as part of the program Beirut, World Book Capital, 2009: "Reinforcing the Cultural Diversity in the Storybooks Dedicated to Youth". In 2012, her book "What Have You Decided, Malik?" won the Sharjah Award for Children's Book. In 2017, her book "The Battle of Antara Ibn Shaddad" was shortlisted for Etisalat Award for Arabic Children's Literature in the Young Adult's Book category.

#6850

John Hughes

#165668

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

John Hughes is a Sydney-based Australian writer and retired teacher. His first book of autobiographical essays, The Idea of Home, published by Giramondo in 2004, was widely acclaimed and won both the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for Non-Fiction and the National Biography Award . In 2022, Hughes faced accusations of plagiarism in his 2021 book The Dogs.

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