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 Political Science,

#3501

Stephen Egerton

#153709

Overall Influence

1932 - 2006 (74 years)

Sir Stephen Loftus Egerton KCMG was a British diplomat from the Egerton family. Early life Egerton was born in Indore, India, on 21 July 1932. He was a son of William le Belward Egerton, grandson of William Egerton, and great-grandson of Philip Henry Egerton.

#3502

Eileen Baldry

#124670

Overall Influence

Eileen Baldry is an Australian criminologist and social justice advocate. She is Deputy Vice-Chancellor Equity Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Criminology at the University of New South Wales .

#3503

Eric M. Bost

#31512

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Eric Michael Bost is the former United States Ambassador to South Africa. He was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa by President George W. Bush on July 20, 2006, after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate on June 29. Bost presented his credentials to South African President Thabo Mbeki on August 15, 2006. He completed his tour as ambassador on January 20, 2009.

#3504

Louise Dandurand

#176552

Overall Influence

1950 - 2016 (66 years)

Louise Dandurand was a Canadian political scientist and administrator of university research in Canada. Education and early career Dandurand earned an MA in the history of science from Université de Montréal in 1973, and a PhD in political science from University of Toronto in 1982. Early in her career, she taught for five years in the Department of Political Science at University of Ottawa. She then spent more than 35 years in the administration of university research.

#3505

Vivian Thomson

#171994

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Vivian E. Thomson has been an American environmental policy academic, a public official, and a podcast producer. She was a professor at the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences from 1997 to 2017. She has produced The Meaning of Green podcast since 2019.

#3506

Katherine Rake

#169938

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (57 years)

Katherine Rake is director of Lucent, a consultancy supporting organisations with a social purpose to see clearly, make connections and inspire change. She was previously chief executive of HealthWatch England, the Family and Parenting Institute and the Fawcett Society. She is currently trustee of the charity United Response and has held a range of trustee and governing roles including as Governor of the London School of Economics, trustee of Centre for Ageing Better and Chair of RISE Mutual. Katherine was formerly a lecturer in social policy at LSE during which time she was seconded to the Cabinet Office.

#3507

Alex T. Johnson

#123923

Overall Influence

Alex Thomas Johnson was the first African-American chief of staff of the U.S. Helsinki Commission since its establishment in 1976. Education Alex T. Johnson, originally from Portland, holds a BS in natural resources then an MPP in 2006 both from Oregon State University.

#3508

Walter Russell Mead

#183042

Overall Influence

#3509

Bartholomew Nnaji

#167860

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Bartholomew Nnaji is a Nigerian engineer, innovator and one of the inventors of the E-Design concept. Biography He was born in Enugu State, Nigeria and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics at St John's University, New York USA. He then proceeded to the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University for his Masters and PhD in Engineering. He also obtained a Post Doctorate Certificate in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, .

#3510

Roland Dannreuther

#183147

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (63 years)

Ronald Dannreuther is an international relations scholar and academic administrator, who has been Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Westminster and formerly Dean of its Social Sciences and Humanities Faculty and Head of Politics and International Relations there .

#3511

Tilman Nagel

#113016

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (83 years)

Tilman Nagel is a German Orientalist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Göttingen. He is the author of books including The Koran and Timor the Conqueror. His book, Mohammed: Life and Legend, depicts what he sees as the historic reality of the life of Muhammad. One reviewer considers this "monumental piece of research" to remain "highly relevant for decades to come".

#3512

Peyton R. Helm

#82441

Overall Influence

Peyton Randolph "Randy" Helm was the eleventh president of Muhlenberg College, located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Helm took office on July 1, 2003, and departed on June 30, 2015. Biography Education Helm earned a B.A. in archaeology from Yale University. He holds a doctorate in ancient history, specializing in ancient Greek and Near Eastern history and literature, from the University of Pennsylvania.

#3513

Sven Widmalm

#113365

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Sven Emil Widmalm is a Historian of Science and Ideas in Sweden, professor at the department of History of Science and Ideas at the University of Uppsala. Biography Sven Widmalm was awarded a Ph.D. in History of Science and Ideas in 1990 from Uppsala University. Between 2005 and 2011, he was Chair of the Swedish National Committee for History of Science and Technology. From 2005 to 2016 he was a member of the board of Uppsala University's Centre for Science and Technology Studies. Since 2006 he has been a member of the advisory board of the Centre for History of Science at the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences.

#3514

Olamide Samuel

#65860

Overall Influence

1992 - Present (33 years)

Olamide Mobolaji Samuel is a Nigerian arms control, nuclear policy and international security expert. He is a political and strategic advisor on arms control and a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London.

#3515

Frank Bealey

#169104

Overall Influence

1922 - 2013 (91 years)

Frank William Bealey was a British political scientist who was a pioneering founder of the academic study of politics and was a campaigner for democracy in Eastern Europe. Life Born in Bilston, Bealey was educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Stourbridge, and during World War II, he served in the Royal Navy 1941–1946, serving on several ships, including HMS Marne and HMS Tortola, experiencing Arctic Convoys on both. He survived HMS Marne's torpedoing on the 12th November 1942 during Operation Torch. Bealey was de-mobbed in January 1946, entering a term late at The London School of Econom...

#3516

Luc Pauwels

#37638

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Luc Maria Alfons Pauwels is a Belgian visual sociologist and communication scientist, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and director of its Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center . He is known for his work on visual research methods.

#3517

George Sanford

#171577

Overall Influence

1943 - 2021 (78 years)

George Sanford was a professor of politics at the University of Bristol, England. He specialised in Polish and East European studies. In particular, he is considered an expert on the Katyn massacre, and published a book on that topic in 2005. On several occasions he was interviewed on Polish affairs in the mass media.

#3518

Erika Franklin Fowler

#175748

Overall Influence

Erika Franklin Fowler is an American political scientist. She is an Associate professor of Government at Wesleyan University, having previously served as a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

#3519

Rodolfo de la Garza

#128784

Overall Influence

1942 - 2018 (76 years)

Rodolfo O. de la Garza was an American political scientist. De la Garza was born in Tucson, Arizona, on August 17, 1942. He attended Tucson High School, graduating in 1960 and earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona in 1972. He then worked for the United States Agency for International Development in South America. De la Garza began his teaching career at the University of Texas at El Paso, and later moved to the University of Texas at Austin, where he was Mike Hogg Professor of Community Affairs. In 2001, de la Garza joined the Columbia University faculty. At Columbia, he was appointed Eaton Professor of Administrative Law and Municipal Science.

#3520

Carl Esbeck

#133593

Overall Influence

Carl H. Esbeck is the R.B. Price Distinguished Professor and the Isabelle Wade & Paul C. Lyda Professor of Law at the University of Missouri School of Law. He joined the law faculty in 1981. He has published in the areas of church-state relations and civil rights. He has taken the lead in advancing a structural view of the establishment clause of the first amendment, and is also credited as the primary author of the original charitable choice language in the 1996 welfare reform bill.

#3521

Paul Dobrescu

#168419

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (79 years)

Paul Dobrescu is professor and founder of the Faculty of Communication and Public Relations of the National School of Political and Administrative Studies in Bucharest. He was also rector of this university from 2008 to 2012.

#3522

José Félix Tezanos

#169315

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (79 years)

José Félix Tezanos Tortajada is a Spanish sociologist, politician, and professor. He serves as President of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas since 2018. Biography Born on 5 August 1946 in Santander, he obtained a PhD degree in Political Science and Sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid . He became a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in 1973, and became linked to the guerrista faction within the party.

#3523

Diana Coole

#88751

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (73 years)

Diana Hilary Coole is Professor of Political and Social Theory in the School of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck, University of London. Her main field of research covers, broadly, contemporary continental philosophy with special interests in poststructuralism , and feminism and gender in political thought. Coole also sits on the editorial boards of several journals including Contemporary Political Theory and the European Journal of Political Theory.

#3524

Balachandra Rajan

#81884

Overall Influence

1920 - 2009 (89 years)

Balachandra Rajan was an Indian diplomat and a scholar of poetry and poetics. Life and career Focusing particularly on the poetry of John Milton, Rajan was Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Western Ontario and Rajan was Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1944 to 1948, but left England to return to his native India, where he served in the Indian Foreign Service until 1961. During that period he served on the Indian Delegation to the United Nations, working extensively with UNESCO and UNICEF, and chairing an international anti-malaria effort. He served as Chairman of the UNICEF Executive Board from 1955 to 1956.

#3525

Nathan J. Brown

#183746

Overall Influence

#3526

Haljand Udam

#63437

Overall Influence

1936 - 2005 (69 years)

Haljand Udam was an Estonian orientalist and translator. Early life and career Udam was born in Rakvere in 1936 and graduated from Tartu University as a geologist, but soon became interested in Eastern culture, including Ancient Iranian literature. He studied oriental languages in Tashkent university and Moscow State University Initially specializing in Indology, he became interested in traditionalist philosophers like Guénon. In Moscow, Udam defended his candidate's thesis in 1971 . Udam has translated several works from Arabic , Persian , Urdu, Tajik, and other languages into Estonian, including Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat.

#3527

Bhim Singh

#174956

Overall Influence

1941 - 2022 (81 years)

Bhim Singh was an Indian politician, activist, lawyer and author. He was the founder, president and chief patron of the socialist and secular Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party . Singh was Panthers Party chairman for 30 years from 1982-2012, chief patron from 2012-2021, and president from 14 February 2021-31 May 2022. In effect with over 40 years of controlling leadership, he was India’s longest serving political party leader, and one of the longest serving leaders in the world.

#3528

Timothy Feddersen

#180402

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (67 years)

Timothy J. Feddersen is an American economist and political scientist. He is the Wendell Hobbs Professor of Managerial Politics, Professor of Managerial Economics & Decision Sciences, and Chair of the Personnel Committee at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He earned his B.A. degree in mathematics from Indiana University in 1985 and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester in 1993. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2015.

#3529

Dov S. Zakheim

#171566

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (77 years)

Dov S. Zakheim is an American businessman, writer, and former official of the United States government. In the Reagan administration, he held various Department of Defense positions. In 2000, Zakheim was a member of "The Vulcans", a group of foreign policy advisors assisting George W. Bush's presidential campaign. From 2001 to 2004 he was Under Secretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer of the Department of Defense.

#3530

Qu Dongyu

#90443

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (62 years)

Qu Dongyu is a Chinese diplomat who took up office as the ninth Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on 1 August 2019. He is the first Chinese national to head the Organization. Qu won the nomination on the first round of voting at the 41st FAO Conference on 23 June 2019, obtaining 108 of the 191 votes cast by the 194 member countries. He is married, with one daughter.

#3531

William B. Macomber Jr.

#102883

Overall Influence

1921 - 2003 (82 years)

William Butts Macomber Jr. was an American diplomat who served in several positions in the United States Department of State. He was the 12th president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Early life and education Macomber was born in Rochester, New York, on March 28, 1921. He attended Phillips Academy, graduating in 1940, and Yale University, graduating in 1943.

#3532

Joan DeBardeleben

#179714

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Joan DeBardeleben is a scholar of Russian and European politics and professor of political science at Carleton University in Canada. She graduated from University of Wisconsin; she is a Chancellor Professor and a Jean Monet Scholar. Her work on Russia deals mostly with regional politics, patronage at the regional level and the impact of EU enlargement.

#3533

Dmitry Krasilnikov

Dmitry Krasilnikov

#172324

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (54 years)

Dmitriy Georgievich Krasilnikov is a Russian politologist, a public character, Doctor of Political Science, a professor, and a rector of the Perm University . A chairman of the Perm Civic Chamber. A vice-rector for Strategic Development, Economics and Legal Affairs , a vice-rector for common questions , a Head of Chair of State and municipal management of the Perm University. A researcher of the administrative reform in contemporary Russia and transitional political developments.

#3534

Brian Schaffner

#168053

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (75 years)

Brian Frederick Schaffner is an American political scientist. He is the Newhouse Professor of Civic studies at Tufts University and a faculty associate at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He is also the founding director of the UMass Poll and a co-principal investigator for the Cooperative Congressional Election Study , a survey of about 50,000 U.S. voters. He has criticized President Donald Trump for citing a 2014 study based on data from the CCES as proof that voter fraud is widespread in the United States. Of this study, Schaffner told CNN that "Of the people ...

#3535

Carolyn Curiel

#174589

Overall Influence

Carolyn Curiel is an American academic, journalist and former diplomat. Curiel was born in 1954. She was a clinical professor of communication at Purdue University Brian Lamb School of Communication, executive director of the defunct Purdue Institute for Civic Communication . The PICC was closed at the end of 2017 and Curiel left Purdue University.

#3536

William Smaldone

#105217

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (67 years)

William "Bill" Smaldone is the E. J. Whipple Professor of European history at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, United States. Education and career Bill Smaldone received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degrees from the State University of New York at Brockport.

#3537

Bill Zimmerman

#130638

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (85 years)

Bill Zimmerman is an American political consultant and author who was an anti-war activist during the Vietnam War. Life Bill Zimmerman worked briefly for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Mississippi in 1963, then joined the civil rights and antiwar movements while being trained as a research scientist at the University of Chicago. He received a Ph.D. in 1967 and taught at Brooklyn College and the University of Chicago .

#3538

Yoo Jin-ryong

#175487

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

Yoo Jin-ryong is a South Korean politician who formerly served as the Minister of Culture. Life and career Yoo Jin-ryong was born on September 2, 1956, in Incheon. In 1979, he graduated from Seoul National University with a bachelor's degree in Commerce and Trade, followed by a master's degree in Public Administration from Hanyang University a few years later.

#3539

Hsu Szu-chien

#178845

Overall Influence

Hsu Szu-chien is a Taiwanese politician who has served as the Deputy Secretary-General at the National Security Council of Taiwan since 11 June 2020. Education Hsu obtained his bachelor's degree in political science from National Taiwan University in 1985 and master's and doctoral degrees from Columbia University in the United States in 1990 and 1997 respectively.

#3540

David A. Sonnenfeld

#134391

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (72 years)

David Allan Sonnenfeld is an American sociologist and Professor of Sociology and environmental policy at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, known for his work in the field of ecological modernisation.

#3541

Thomas A. Spragens

#127066

Overall Influence

1917 - 2006 (89 years)

Thomas Arthur Spragens was an American administrator who was the 17th president of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Spragens worked for the state and federal government early in his career, before joining the staff at Stanford University as a presidential advisor. He was the president of Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, for a five-year term, and left Stephens to go to Centre in 1957.

#3542

John Delaney

#122079

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (69 years)

John Adrian Delaney is an American lawyer, politician, and university and college President. He served as mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, from 1995 to 2003, and as the president of the University of North Florida from 2003 to 2018. In 2021, he was named President of Flagler College after a few months as Interim. He is a member of the Republican Party.

#3543

Marjorie Thorpe

#66213

Overall Influence

Marjorie Ruth Thorpe is a Trinidadian academic, lecturer, former diplomat and the first woman to have chaired the Public Service Commission in Trinidad and Tobago. She is also a development practitioner with a particular interest in gender issues.

#3544

Vernon Jordan

#134187

Overall Influence

1935 - 2021 (86 years)

Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr. was an American business executive and civil rights attorney who worked for various civil rights movement organizations before becoming a close advisor to President Bill Clinton.

#3545

Ortensio Zecchino

#106105

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (82 years)

Ortensio Zecchino is an Italian academic and politician, former Minister of University and Research. Biography After teaching History of Medieval Institutions at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, Zecchino joined the Christian Democracy and was elected regional councilor of Campania, holding the seat from 1970 to 1979, until he has been elected to the European Parliament.

#3546

Harold Crouch

#184536

Overall Influence

#3547

Gregory J. Moore

#181098

Overall Influence

Gregory J. Moore is an American political scientist specializing in international relations, international security and Chinese politics and foreign policy. He is currently Stanton Fellow at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. Prior to that he was a professor of global studies and politics at Colorado Christian University, and taught political science and international relations at universities in China such as Zhejiang University and University of Nottingham Ningbo for roughly a decade.

#3548

Pigga Keskitalo

#105231

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (53 years)

Pigga Päivi Kristiina Keskitalo is a member of the Sámi Parliament of Finland and education researcher at the University of Helsinki, University of Lapland, and the Sámi University. Biography Keskitalo was born in Utsjoki in 1972. She earned her first degree in education in 1997 from the University of Lapland and worked as a teacher. She graduated with a MA in 2008, from the same university. She undertook doctoral research at the University of Lapland and graduated in 2010 with a PhD which explored Sámi cultural sensitivity through educational anthropology.

#3549

Sarah Childs

#134198

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (56 years)

Professor Sarah Childs is a British Professor who has worked at Bristol University, Birkbeck, Royal Holloway and the University of Edinburgh where she holds their Personal Chair of Politics and Gender.

#3550

Daniel Amneus

#68655

Overall Influence

1919 - 2003 (84 years)

Daniel Amneus was an emeritus professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles. He specialized in Shakespearean textual criticism. Amneus was the only man listed in Who's Who of American Women.

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