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 Mathematics,

#8751

Liza Johnson

#153524

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (55 years)

Liza Johnson is an American film director, producer, and writer. Biography Johnson was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1970. She attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, graduating with a B.A. in Visual Arts in 1992. She then went to the University of California, San Diego, where she received her MFA in 1995.

#8752

Hélène Velasco-Graciet

#98754

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (62 years)

Hélène Velasco-Graciet is a French professor of geography and was the president of the Bordeaux Montaigne University from 2016 to 2020. Velascho-Graciet's work has touched on geography, borders, and culture.

#8753

Andrew Cahn

#104657

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (74 years)

Sir Andrew Thomas Cahn, KCMG is a non-executive director of Nomura, chair of the board of governors of Birkbeck, University of London, and a former senior civil servant. Career In January 2011, Cahn stepped down after five years in charge of UK Trade & Investment, the government department that promotes exports and attracts foreign direct investment. Prime Minister, David Cameron, said: "Andrew has been a wonderful chief executive of UK Trade & Investment and a fantastic ambassador for the UK. He has been central to the Government’s efforts to make Britain an attractive place to invest and to...

#8754

Sidiga Washi

#133582

Overall Influence

1955 - 2018 (63 years)

Sidiga Abdelrahim Washi was a Sudanese academic specializing in population, reproductive health and nutrition. Sidiga Washi is a Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences/Community Nutrition and former Dean of the School of Family/Health Sciences and former Director Nutrition and Health Research and Training at Ahfad University for Women in Sudan. She is currently the Director of the Quality Assurance and Institutional Assessment Office at the University.

#8755

Stephen Medcalf

#83142

Overall Influence

1936 - 2007 (71 years)

Stephen Ellis Medcalf was a reader in English in the School of European Studies, University of Sussex, from its inception in 1963 to retirement in 2005. An academic and scholar of classics and European literature, he once alerted authorities to an abandoned newborn baby in a telephone box. Medcalf was a student of Iris Murdoch, friend of Anthony Nuttall, colleague of Gabriel Josipovici and teacher of novelist Ian McEwan. Obituaries appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Telegraph, The Times, and Church Times.

#8756

Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan

Mohamed Hag Ali Hassan

#190489

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (78 years)

Mohamed Hag Ali Hag el Hassan OMRI GCONMC FAAS FIAS FTWAS is a Sudanese-Italian mathematician and physicist who co-founded numerous scientific councils. He is the President of The World Academy of Sciences and Sudanese National Academy of Sciences.

#8757

Nikolai Chernov

#191842

Overall Influence

1956 - 2014 (58 years)

Nikolai Chernov was a Ukrainian-American mathematician. Since 1994, he worked at University of Alabama at Birmingham. In 2012, he became a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.

#8758

Klaus Rinke

#73597

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (86 years)

Klaus Rinke is a German contemporary artist. Life and work Born in Wattenscheid, Rinke trained as a decorative artist and poster painter in Gelsenkirchen from 1954 to 1957. After studying painting from 1957 to 1960 at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, he maintained various studios in Paris and Reims from 1960 to 1964. In 1962, he had his first solo exhibition at the Le Portulan Gallery in Le Havre, France.

#8759

David Cleevely

#180758

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

David Douglas Cleevely, CBE, FREng, FIET is a British entrepreneur and international telecoms expert who has built and advised many companies, principally in Cambridge, UK. Telecommunications In 1985 Cleevely founded the telecommunications consultancy Analysys which became Analysys Mason, when it was acquired by Datatec in 2004. Whilst at Analysys he made a significant contribution to the theory and practice of calculating Universal Service Obligation costs and was involved with a report to the European Commission on VoIP creating the framework for VoIP within the EU and the identification o...

#8760

Ed Wilson

#108348

Overall Influence

1925 - 1996 (71 years)

Edward N. Wilson, Jr. was an African-American sculptor. His work was featured in the landmark 1976 exhibition Two Centuries of Black American Art.

#8761

Martin Barratt

#136530

Overall Influence

1936 - 2014 (78 years)

Thomas Martin Barratt was a British paediatrician and professor of paediatric nephrology. Barratt was most notable for developing a specialist service for children with kidney diseases in Britain, bringing peritoneal dialysis, haemodialysis, and later renal transplantation to ever younger children. Barratt was an early advocate for multidisciplinary care and developed a model that was later taken up by many other specialist centres across the world. His research led to a new treatments for many types of childhood kidney diseases., and for research into childhood Nephrotic syndrome and Hemoly...

#8762

Adolfo Rumbos

#191871

Overall Influence

Adolfo J. Rumbos is an American mathematician whose research interests include nonlinear analysis and boundary value problems. He is the Joseph N. Fiske Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

#8763

Steven M. Greer

Steven M. Greer

#7965

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (70 years)

Steven Macon Greer is an American ufologist and retired physician who founded the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence and the Disclosure Project, which seeks the disclosure of alleged classified UFO information.

#8764

Igor Mashechkin

Igor Mashechkin

#138524

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Igor Mashechkin is a Russian mathematician, Professor, Dr.Sc., a professor at the Faculty of Computer Science at the Moscow State University. He defended the thesis «Multifunctional cross-programming system» for the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences .

#8765

John Heard

#158087

Overall Influence

1938 - 2021 (83 years)

John William Heard was an American bass player and artist. His recording credits include albums with Pharoah Sanders, George Duke, Oscar Peterson, Count Basie, Zoot Sims, Ahmad Jamal, Frank Morgan, George Cables. His professional jazz performance career lasted from the 1960s to the early 2010s, during which he also worked as a visual artist, producing drawings, paintings, and sculptures.

#8766

Petru Soltan

#173614

Overall Influence

1931 - 2016 (85 years)

Petru Soltan was a Moldovan mathematician. He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and an honorary member of the Romanian Academy. Petru Soltan was a member of the Mathematical Society of Moldova.

#8767

Peter Stein

#107267

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

Peter Gonville Stein, QC, FBA was a British legal scholar. He was Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Aberdeen from 1956 to 1968 and Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Cambridge from 1968 until his retirement in 1993.

#8768

Siobhan Vivian

#160280

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (46 years)

Siobhan Vivian is a bestselling American novelist, editor, and screenwriter. Early life and education Siobhan Vivian was born in New York City on January 12, 1979. At a young age, Vivian moved to Rutherford, New Jersey where she went to school and often got in trouble for sneaking out and not doing her homework. A 1997 graduate of Rutherford High School, Vivian has used her childhood in Rutherford as a "deep well" of ideas for her work.

#8769

Kenneth Cortsen

#84437

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (49 years)

Kenneth Cortsen is a Danish sport management researcher from Aarhus School of Business, Aarhus University and Associate Professor from University College of Northern Denmark , Department of Sport Management. His work places research at the heart of commercialization of sports.

#8770

Neža Mramor–Kosta

#191532

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (71 years)

Nežka Mramor Kosta is a Slovenian mathematician working at University of Ljubljana. She is known for her work on computational logic and is a member of the Institute for Mathematics, Physics and Mechanics of Slovenia.

#8771

Omar Lara

#183623

Overall Influence

1941 - 2021 (80 years)

Luis Omar Lara Mendoza was a Chilean poet, translator, and editor. Awards 2007, Premio Casa de América de Poesía Americana

#8772

Francis Stock

#113231

Overall Influence

1914 - 1997 (83 years)

Francis Edgar Stock CBE was a British academic and academic administrator. He was educated at Colfe's Grammar School, King's College London and the University of Edinburgh. He was a lecturer at the University of Liverpool from 1946 to 1948 then Professor of Surgery at the University of Hong Kong from 1948 to 1963. He was Commodore of Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club from 1957 to 1963. He then returned to the University of Liverpool where he was Professor of Surgery from 1964 to 1970. He then served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Natal from 1970 to 1977. He was made a CBE in 1977.

#8773

Hans-Volker Niemeier

#137883

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Hans-Volker Niemeier is a German mathematician who in 1973 classified the Niemeier lattices, the even positive definite unimodular lattices in 24 dimensions.

#8774

Bella Feldman

#178975

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (95 years)

Bella Tabak Feldman is an American sculptor. Her work addresses the themes of sexuality, war, and the persistent anxiety of the industrial age. Feldman is known for pioneering the use of glass with steel. Her work has affinities with Surrealism, Post-Minimalism, and the Feminist art movement, although she has no formal affiliation with these. She is a Professor Emeritus at the California College of the Arts. Feldman lives and works in Oakland, California and in London, England.

#8775

Federico Silva

#98177

Overall Influence

1923 - 2022 (99 years)

Federico Silva was a Mexican painter and sculptor. Biography An autodidact, Silva became the assistant of David Alfaro Siqueiros before beginning to paint his own murals in 1950. He founded and directed the magazine 1935, where he collaborated with Diego Rivera, Leopoldo Méndez, José Revueltas, and others.

#8776

Shlomo Karhi

#132747

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (43 years)

Shlomo Karhi is an Israeli academic and politician. He is currently a member of the Knesset for Likud and serving as the Minister of Communications in the thirty-seventh government. Early life and education Karhi was born in Ramat Gan as the eldest of seventeen siblings in a religious family, to mother Mazal and father Rabbi David Karhi, an Israeli-born Sabra of Tunisian Jewish heritage from Djerba. At the age of four Shlomo Karhi moved to Zimrat, a religious moshav. He was educated at the Kisse Rahamim and Mercaz HaRav yeshivas.

#8777

Kathleen E. Harring

#80679

Overall Influence

Kathleen E. Harring is an American educator and the 13th president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Early life and education Herring graduated high school in 1976 from Tri-Valley High School in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Harring received her bachelor's in psychology from Franklin & Marshall College, and then earned her master's and Ph.D. in social psychology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

#8778

Jack Douglas

#54501

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (25 years)

Jack Douglas is an American record producer. He is known for his work with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Cheap Trick, and the New York Dolls, among other rock artists in the 1970s and 1980s; notably he produced three successful albums for Aerosmith.

#8779

Nii Quaynor

#27690

Overall Influence

Nii Narku Quaynor is a Ghanaian scientist and engineer who has played an important role in the introduction and development of the Internet throughout Africa. Biography Quaynor graduated in engineering science from Dartmouth College in 1972, and received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the Thayer School of Engineering in 1973. He then studied Computer Science, obtaining an M.S. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1974, and a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1977. He attended the Kinbu Secondary Technical School, Adisadel College and Achimota School in Ghana.

#8780

Robert Montgomery

Robert Montgomery

#81279

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (53 years)

Robert Montgomery is a Scottish-born, London-based poet, artist and sculptor known for his site-specific installations created from light and text, as well as his 'fire poems'. Montgomery works in a "melancholic post-Situationist" tradition, primarily in public spaces. He is regarded as a leading figure in the conceptual art world.

#8781

Zhao Meng

#175483

Overall Influence

1957 - 2019 (62 years)

Zhao Meng was a Chinese sculptor and art educator. He served as Vice President and Party Secretary of the Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University. Biography Zhao Meng was born on 28 June 1957 in Kaifeng, Henan, China. After graduating from the Central Academy of Arts and Design in September 1982, he was hired by the academy as a faculty member.

#8782

Ben Hur Villanueva

#103443

Overall Influence

1938 - 2020 (82 years)

Ben-Hur Gorospe Villanueva was a Filipino sculptor, painter, educator, lecturer, and art entrepreneur based in Baguio. He has also served as a president for the Society of Philippine Sculptors , as Art director for the Ephpheta Foundation for the Blind, Inc., and as vice president-treasurer for Unesco's International Art Association .

#8783

Werner Gysin

#131784

Overall Influence

1915 - 1998 (83 years)

Werner Gysin was a Swiss mathematician who introduced the Gysin sequence and Gysin homomorphism in his only published paper . Gysin obtained his Ph.D from ETH Zurich in 1941 with a thesis written under the direction of Heinz Hopf and Eduard Stiefel.

#8784

John Romano

#172939

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (77 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.

#8785

Oddvar Vormeland

#178919

Overall Influence

1924 - 2013 (89 years)

Oddvar Vormeland was a Norwegian educationalist and civil servant. He was born in Hof i Solør as a son of folk high school manager Ola Vormeland and his wife Gyda, née Hval. In 1949 he married Sigrun Røed, who was also a daughter of a school manager. He took commerce school in 1942, the examen artium in 1943 and teachers' college in 1948.

#8786

Yutaka Yamamoto

#192041

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

, is a Japanese mathematician working in systems theory, control theory, and signal processing. External links Personal website at Kyoto University

#8787

Stephen Twinoburyo

#191560

Overall Influence

1970 - 2019 (49 years)

Stephen Twinoburyo was a Ugandan scientist, mathematician, lecturer, and entrepreneur. He was the CEO of Scimatic Solutions, a South African company which helps students with maths and science tuition.

#8788

Peter Briggs

#176944

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (81 years)

Peter Briggs OBE was Master of the Company of Educators in the City of London in 2011/2012. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2010 New Year Honours, shortly after his retirement from Roehampton University. At Roehampton, he was both Principal of Southlands College and a Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University. Prior to taking up his role at Roehampton, Briggs had been Chief Executive of the British Association for the Advancement of Science , which was subsequently rebranded the British Science Association in 2009. He spent 22 years at the BA, initially being ...

#8789

Clive Coleman

#23178

Overall Influence

Clive Coleman is an English barrister turned journalist, who, from 2010 to 2020, has been the BBC News Legal Correspondent. He is also a playwright, film and sitcom writer. Early Years Coleman grew up in North London attending Dame Alice Owen's School and then University College School. He studied English Literature at York University from 1981–84, before taking a Law conversion course and then the Bar Finals in 1985 to qualify as a barrister.

#8790

John Henderson Sinclair

John Henderson Sinclair

#126680

Overall Influence

1935 - 2009 (74 years)

John Henderson Sinclair was emeritus professor of conveyancing at the University of Strathclyde and the first director of the Glasgow Graduate School of Law in Glasgow, Scotland. Education John Henderson Sinclair was born in Glasgow and educated at Craigholme School, Glasgow Academy and Strathallan School in Perthshire. He graduated with a BA from Queen's University Belfast and with an LLB from the University of Glasgow.

#8791

Stanley Hartt

#186174

Overall Influence

1937 - 2018 (81 years)

Stanley Herbert Hartt, was a Canadian lawyer, lecturer, businessman, and civil servant. He was Chief of Staff to Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney from 1989 to 1990. Early life and education Hartt was born in Montreal, Quebec to Maurice Hartt, a Quebec MNA and MP, and brother of the late Joel Hartt . He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1958, a Master of Arts degree in 1961, and a Bachelor of Civil Law degree in 1963 from McGill University. He was called to the Quebec Bar in 1965 and created a Queen's Counsel in 1984. Hart was married to Linda Hartt from 1961 to 1978 and had four children: Heather Hartt-Sussman , Michael Hartt , and twins James Hartt and Douglas Hartt .

#8792

Johannes Boersma

#178785

Overall Influence

1937 - 2004 (67 years)

Johannes Boersma was a Dutch mathematician who specialized in mathematical analysis. His PhD advisor at the University of Groningen was Adriaan Isak van de Vooren. Selected publications

#8793

Michael Hollingshead

#13624

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (94 years)

Michael Hollingshead was a British researcher who studied psychedelic drugs, including psilocybin and LSD, at Harvard University in the mid-20th century. He was the father of comedian Vanessa Hollingshead. He evangelized the use of LSD to many notable figures.

#8794

Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer

#66817

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (68 years)

Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer , is Professor of Jewish studies at the University of Freiburg. Biography After her education Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer worked as Teacher at the comprehensive school Kallern, at several junior high schools and at the Kantonsschule Rämibühl Zürich.

#8795

Bjørn Tysdahl

#177023

Overall Influence

1933 - 2020 (87 years)

Bjørn Tysdahl was a Norwegian literary historian. He grew up in Kampen, Oslo. He took his education at the University of Oslo, from 1961 as a research fellow. Following the doctoral thesis Joyce and Ibsen: A Study in Literary Influence, he worked at the University of Sussex before becoming a professor of English literature at the University of Oslo. He was especially known for his biography on Oscar Wilde. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1988.

#8796

Hilail Gildin

#146135

Overall Influence

1928 - 2015 (87 years)

Hilail Gildin was an American scholar and editor. He served as professor of philosophy at Queens College, City University of New York. He was also the editor-in-chief of Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy.

#8797

Madeline Held

#114578

Overall Influence

2000 - 2020 (20 years)

Madeline Held MBE was a British academic in the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, London South Bank University. She had been the Director of the LLU+ . The unit ran the largest professional development centre in the UK, undertaking capacity building for teacher training in further, higher and community education.

#8798

Chet Kalm

#175128

Overall Influence

1925 - 2017 (92 years)

Chet Kalm was an American painter, teacher, and illustrator. He was an instructor and administrator at the Parsons School of Design, where he also established the Foundation Department. His work was featured in more than thirty solo exhibits throughout the United States and Europe and displayed in galleries such as the Norman Rockwell Museum and the Everhart Museum.

#8799

Frances Joseph

#187455

Overall Influence

Frances Joseph is an Australian-born sculptor and academic. She is a full professor at Auckland University of Technology. Academic career Joseph has a BA in visual art from the University of Tasmania and a Master of Fine Art from the College of Fine Arts at the University of New South Wales. She was awarded a PhD by Auckland University of Technology in 2010. The title of her doctoral thesis was Mnemotechne of design — ontology and design research theories. Joseph moved to New Zealand in 1997, working in the School of Art and Design. In 2007 she became director of AUT's Textile and Design Lab and in 2009 director of CoLab.

#8800

Manfred Angerer

#119425

Overall Influence

1953 - 2010 (57 years)

Manfred Angerer was an Austrian musicologist. Life Born in Pöchlarn , Angerer studied piano as a concert subject at the Vienna Academy of Music from 1970 and musicology as well as art history and philosophy at the University of Vienna from 1972. He completed his doctorate in 1979 with a dissertation on Alexander Scriabin's late works. Two years later he became assistant to Walter Pass at the Institute for Musicology of the University of Vienna, becoming a lecturer in 1984. In 1990 he habilitated with a thesis on Joseph Haydn. Angerer was married to the musicologist Eike Rathgeber .

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions