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 …

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Mathematics,

#8351

Wei-min Liu

#185462

Overall Influence

#8352

Steven Bochco

#21156

Overall Influence

1943 - 2018 (75 years)

Steven Ronald Bochco was an American television writer and producer. He developed a number of television series, including Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Doogie Howser, M.D., Cop Rock, and NYPD Blue. Early life Bochco was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Mimi, a painter, and Rudolph Bochco, a concert violinist and Polish immigrant. He was educated in Manhattan at the High School of Music and Art. His elder sister is actress Joanna Frank.

#8353

Victor S. Miller

#185496

Overall Influence

#8354

Karl James Jalkanen

Karl James Jalkanen

#137509

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (67 years)

Karl James Jalkanen, FRSC, , is a research scientist in molecular biophysics. He is currently a research scientist at the Gilead Sciences new La Verne, California manufacturing facility in the Department of Technical Services.

#8355

Lee Smith

#70069

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (65 years)

Lee Smith, ACE, is an Australian film editor who has worked in the film industry since the 1980s. He began his film career as a sound editor before establishing himself as an editor. His breakthrough came when he began collaborating with director Peter Weir. Smith is best known for his work on several of Christopher Nolan's films, including Batman Begins , The Dark Knight , Inception , The Dark Knight Rises , Interstellar and Dunkirk , for which he won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing.

#8356

Toby Howard

#77184

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

Toby L. J. Howard is an Honorary Reader in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester in the UK. He was appointed Lecturer in 1985, and was Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department 2011–2019. He retired from the University in 2020 and was appointed to an Honorary position.

#8357

Sarah J. Greenwald

#183190

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (56 years)

Sarah J. Greenwald is professor of mathematics at Appalachian State University and faculty affiliate of gender, women's and sexuality studies. Research Greenwald's research interests include geometry and the scholarship of teaching and learning. She also investigates connections between mathematics and society, such as women, minorities and popular culture. For example, she was part of a team that looked into allusions to mathematics in The Simpsons.

#8358

Hein Heinsen

#57708

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (90 years)

Hein Olaf Heinsen is a Danish artist who has contributed to the Lutheran art of Scandinavia. He made his debut on the Danish art scene in the 1960s as part of the minimalistic movement. Heinsen served as a Professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts from 1980 to 1989. Heinsen has primarily been working with bronze sculptures and large installation projects since the mid-1980s. He is currently working as a consultant for the TRINITY MACHINE project.

#8359

Mark E. Lewis

#133417

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Mark Edwin Lewis is an American industrial engineer and professor at Cornell University. He was the first African-American faculty member hired in Industrial Engineering at University of Michigan and the first tenured African-American faculty member at the School of Operations Research and Information Engineering at Cornell University. Lewis' research is focused on stochastic processes, and queueing theory and Markov decision processes in particular.

#8360

Prem Kumar Bhatia

#183210

Overall Influence

1937 - 2020 (83 years)

Prof. Prem Kumar Bhatia FNASc, FRAS, MIAU, FIMA was an Indian mathematician and astrophysicist. He worked as Emeritus Professor in Jai Narain Vyas University until his death in his permanent residence at Jodhpur.

#8361

Alaa A. Abdel Bary

#183591

Overall Influence

Alaa A. Abdel Bary is an Egyptian professor of mathematics at the Department of Basic & Applied Science Department, in the College of Engineering & Technology, at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, & Maritime Transport, Alexandria, Egypt. He is the Vice President for Postgraduates Studies and Scientific Research, a former vice president for Student Affairs and a former Dean of Student Affairs of the institution.

#8362

Harry Hurt

#69630

Overall Influence

1927 - 2009 (82 years)

Hugh Harrison Hurt, Jr., was an American researcher on motorcycle safety. He was the author of the 1981 Hurt Report, described as "the most comprehensive motorcycle safety study of the 20th century."

#8363

Rachel Kyte

#63537

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

Rachel Elizabeth Kyte is a British academic who served as the 14th dean of The Fletcher School at Tufts University from October 2019 to June 2023, and the first woman to lead the oldest graduate-only school of international affairs in the United States. She was the former Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All, and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All.

#8364

Peter Eccles

#184970

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Peter John Eccles is a British mathematician and emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Manchester. Eccles specialises in homotopy theory and its applications to different topology. Eccles taught a wide variety of pure mathematics throughout his career, and published the book Introduction to mathematical reasoning in 1997.

#8365

Dalene Stangl

#170832

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Dalene Kay Stangl is an American statistician known for development and promotion of Bayesian statistical methods in health-related research. Education and career Stangl grew up on a farm in Cass County, Iowa, and was the first in her family to attain a Ph.D. She graduated from Iowa State University in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and sociology, and earned a master's degree in 1980 from the University of Iowa. She later attended graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University, she earned a second master's degree in statistics in 1988 and a Ph.D. in 1991. Her dissertation was Mode...

#8366

Alister McLellan

#86318

Overall Influence

1919 - 2012 (93 years)

Alister George McLellan was a New Zealand mathematician and physicist. Academic career Born in Christchurch and brought up in Westport, McLellan attended Nelson College and then the University of Otago, from where he graduated with a BSc and an MSc in mathematics and science. He joined the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research doing war work and after the war went to Edinburgh to do a PhD under Max Born. His thesis was entitled The radial distribution function and its application to the properties of fluids.

#8367

Leslie M. Moore

#127993

Overall Influence

Leslie Melissa Moore is a statistician at Los Alamos National Laboratory. At Los Alamos, she applies statistics to scientific experiments and simulations, as well as studying algorithms for statistical problems and the design of experiments for computerized studies.

#8368

Andriëtte Bekker

#169804

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (67 years)

Andriëtte Bekker is a South African mathematical statistician. She is a professor at the University of Pretoria, and head of the statistics department at the university. Education Bekker earned her Ph.D. in 1990 at the University of South Africa. Her dissertation, Veralgemening, samestelling en karakterisering as metodes om parameterryke verdelings te vind [Generalising, compounding, and characterising as methods to obtain parameter-rich distributions], was supervised by J. J. J. Roux.

#8369

Yves Meyer

#185830

Overall Influence

#8370

Iyanla Vanzant

#84414

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

Iyanla Vanzant is an American inspirational speaker, lawyer, New Thought spiritual teacher, author, life coach, and television personality. She is known primarily for her books, her eponymous talk show, and her appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. From 2012 to 2021, she served as host of OWN's Iyanla: Fix My Life.

#8371

John Maxwell Landers

#117624

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

John Maxwell Landers, is a British historian, anthropologist, and academic, who specialises in historical demography. He was Principal of Hertford College, Oxford, from 2005 to September 2011. Early life and education Landers was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Elstree, Southgate Technical College, Hertford College, Oxford and Churchill College, Cambridge . He is now a Doctor of Letters of the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

#8372

Maithili Sharan

#162603

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

Maithili Sharan is an Indian mathematician who specialises in mathematical modelling, biofluid mechanics, Air Pollution and atmospheric boundary layer. He was awarded in 1992 the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, the highest science award in India, in the mathematical sciences category. Maithili Sharan's notable findings relate to development of mathematical models for the transport of gases in pulmonary and systemic circulations including brain and dispersion of air pollutants in low wind conditions, numerical simulation of Bhopal gas leak, and weak wind nocturnal ...

#8373

Chris Morris

#47038

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (63 years)

Christopher J. Morris is an English comedian, radio presenter, actor, and filmmaker. Known for his deadpan, dark humour, surrealism, and controversial subject matter, he has been praised by the British Film Institute for his "uncompromising, moralistic drive".

#8374

Sue-Jane Wang

#172661

Overall Influence

Sue-Jane Wang is a biostatistician at the United States Food and Drug Administration , where she works as the Biostatistics Lead and as the liaison from the Office of Biostatistics to the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Biomarker Qualification Program. She is also deputy division director for biometrics in the Office of Biostatistics.

#8375

Lisa M. Sullivan

#176803

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (64 years)

Lisa Marie Sullivan is a biostatistician associated with the Framingham Heart Study. She is a professor of biostatistics at Boston University, where she is associate dean for education in the School of Public Health and the former chair of the biostatistics department.

#8376

Hamidou Toure

#180922

Overall Influence

Hamidou Touré is a Burkinabès mathematician who has played a significant role in the development of mathematics programs in Burkina Faso, from the pre-school level to university level. Life and career

#8377

Harald Schmidt

#185945

Overall Influence

#8378

Oleg Marichev

#185955

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Oleg Igorevich Marichev is a Russian mathematician. In 1949 he moved to Minsk with his parents. He graduated from the University of Belarus, where he continued to study for the Ph.D. degree. His scientific supervisor was Fedor Gakhov. He is the co-author of a comprehensive five volume series of Integrals and Series together with Yury Brychkov and A. P. Prudnikov. Around 1990 he received the D.Sc. degree in mathematics from the University of Jena, Germany. In 1992, Marichev started working with Stephen Wolfram on Mathematica. His wife Anna helps him in his job.

#8379

Don Rosa

#41392

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (74 years)

Keno Don Hugo Rosa , known as Don Rosa , is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his Disney comics stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, and other characters which Carl Barks created for Disney-licensed comic books, first published in America by Dell Comics. Many of his stories are built on characters and locations created by Barks; among these was his first Duck story, "The Son of the Sun" , which was nominated for a Harvey Award in the "Best Story of the Year" category.

#8380

Andrew Rowe

#185982

Overall Influence

#8381

Suzan Johnson Cook

#39151

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (68 years)

Suzan Denise Johnson Cook is a U.S. presidential advisor, pastor, theologian, author, activist, and academic who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom from April 2011 to October 2013. She has served as a policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and later to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry Cisneros, a dean and professor of communications at Harvard University, a professor of theology at New York Theological Seminary, a pastor at a number of churches, a television producer, and the author of nearly a dozen books. She was the fir...

#8382

Julian Cooper

#106438

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (80 years)

Julian Marc Cooper is a British academic, and specialist on Russian economic matters, including Russian defence budget and military expenditure. Cooper graduated from the University of Bath with a BSc degree in economics in 1968. He graduated from the Department of Industrial Economics and Business Studies and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at Birmingham University with a PhD in 1975 for a thesis on "The development of the Soviet machine tool industry, 1917–1941".

#8383

Fan Li

#171329

Overall Influence

Fan Li is a Chinese-American biostatistician whose research includes causal inference and propensity score matching, and their application to comparative effectiveness research in health care. She is a professor in the Duke University Department of Statistical Science, with a secondary appointment in Duke's Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics.

#8384

Julie Verhoeven

#88802

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (56 years)

Julie Verhoeven is a British illustrator and designer who has collaborated with brands such as Louis Vuitton, Versace and Peter Jensen. While she is recognised primarily for her work in fashion, she has also contributed illustrations to books, magazines and album covers. Her work has been widely exhibited, including at London's Hayward Gallery. She is a design academic at both Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art.

#8385

Isabelle Aubert

#184131

Overall Influence

Isabelle Aubert is a Canadian neuroscientist with expertise in developing regenerative therapies for neurodegenerative disorders . She is a senior scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute , and is a professor in laboratory medicine and pathobiology at the University of Toronto. In 2019, Aubert was appointed as a Canada Research Chair in Brain Repair and Regeneration.

#8386

Theresa Utlaut

#172949

Overall Influence

Theresa Lynn Utlaut is an American statistician, and a principal engineer at the Intel Corporation, where she develops statistical methods for Intel's microprocessor and integrated circuit manufacturing processes, as well as providing statistical consultation and training. She is also a user of the JMP statistical software package and its scripting language, and a coauthor of the book JSL Companion: Applications of the JMP® Scripting Language.

#8387

Mahouton Norbert Hounkonnou

#185416

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Mahouton Norbert Hounkonnou is a Beninese Professor, mathematician, physicist and writer. He is professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Abomey-Calavi. Biography He was born on June 7, 1956, in Adjohoun , and is married to Baï Arlette Lidwine Elisha , with three children.

#8388

Ding Xieping

#117502

Overall Influence

1938 - 2020 (82 years)

Ding Xieping was a Chinese mathematician and a professor at Sichuan Normal University. He served as Director of the Institute of Mathematics at the university. Biography Ding was born on 16 April 1938 in Zigong, Sichuan, Republic of China. After graduating from Sichuan University in 1961, he taught as an assistant professor at the Department of Mathematics of the former Chengdu University .

#8389

Frank Robinson Hartley

#48010

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (83 years)

Frank Robinson Hartley FRSC FRAeS is a former vice-chancellor of Cranfield University from 1989 to 2006. Early life and career He was the son of Sir Frank Hartley CBE a former vice chancellor of London University.

#8390

André Taylor

#170027

Overall Influence

André Taylor is an American scientist who is an associate professor of chemical engineering at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering. Taylor works on novel materials for energy conversion and storage. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2010, and named as one of The Community of Scholars' Most Influential Black Researchers of 2020.

#8391

Naoki Saito

#171809

Overall Influence

Naoki Saito is an applied mathematician specializing in applied and computational harmonic analysis, and interested in feature extraction, pattern recognition, graph signal processing, statistical signal processing, Laplacian eigenfunctions, and human and machine perception.

#8392

Lorenz Magaard

#122193

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

Lorenz Magaard was a German-American mathematician and oceanographer. He made essential contributions to the theory of ocean waves and earned particular credit for organizing education and research.

#8393

Lilly Sanathanan

#171996

Overall Influence

Lalitha Padman Sanathanan is an Indian statistician. Sanathanan's early research concerned estimation of population size from sampled data, in the context of particle physics. She completed her Ph.D. in 1969, at the University of Chicago; her dissertation, Estimating Population Size in the Particle Scanning Context, was supervised by David Lee Wallace. After several years as an assistant and associate professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, she moved to Argonne National Laboratory in the late 1970s.

#8394

Dina Merhav

#85424

Overall Influence

1936 - 2022 (86 years)

Dina Merhav was a Yugoslav-born Israeli sculptor. Biography Dina Gross was born in Vinkovci to a Yugoslav Jewish family of Zlatko and Steffi Gross. During World War II her father, as a Royal Yugoslav Army officer, was captured and imprisoned in a war camp in Germany. Merhav, her mother and rest of the family managed to escape to Split, from there to Switzerland through Italy. After the war they returned to Yugoslavia to be reunited with Dina's father. In 1949 the entire family made aliyah to Israel. In Israel she studied and graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem.

#8395

Stuart Ewen

#186315

Overall Influence

#8396

Zhan Shi

#186358

Overall Influence

#8397

Johan Wästlund

#185207

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (54 years)

Johan Wästlund is a Swedish mathematician currently at Chalmers University of Technology and, in 2013, was awarded Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences's Göran Gustafsson Prize.

#8398

Ralph S. Greco

#37529

Overall Influence

1942 - 2019 (77 years)

Ralph Steven Greco was the Johnson and Johnson Distinguished Professor, Emeritus of Surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. He was a leader of the resident Well Being in surgery movement and surgical training program leader.

#8399

Morten Nielsen

#186434

Overall Influence

#8400

Gwynn ap Gwilym

#82692

Overall Influence

1950 - 2016 (66 years)

Gwynn ap Gwilym was a Welsh poet, novelist, editor and translator. He was born in Bangor but raised in Machynlleth, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. He was educated at the University of Wales, University College, Galway , and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, with an MA degree.

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