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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List of the most influential people

#51

John Romanides

#23768

Overall Influence

1927 - 2001 (74 years)

John Savvas Romanides was a theologian, Eastern Orthodox priest, and scholar who had a distinctive influence on post-war Greek Orthodox theology. Biography Born in Piraeus, Greece, on 2 March 1928, his parents emigrated to the United States when he was only two months old. He grew up in Manhattan, graduating from the Hellenic College, Brookline, Massachusetts. After attending Yale Divinity School, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Athens.

#52

L. Michael White

#24518

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

L. Michael White is an American Biblical scholar. He is Ronald Nelson Smith Chair in Classics and Christian Origins, and director of the Institute for the Study of Antiquity and Christian Origins, at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author or co-author of seven books, editor of four volumes and collected essays, and author of twenty-six articles. In 2011, White won the University of Texas' Robert W. Hamilton Book Award, a $10,000 prize, for his newest book Scripting Jesus . White also won the same award in 2006 for his book From Jesus to Christianity. In addition, White is Project...

#53

Richard Isay

#24555

Overall Influence

1934 - 2012 (78 years)

Richard A. Isay was an American psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, author and gay activist. He was a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and a faculty member of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. Isay is considered a pioneer who changed the way that psychoanalysts view homosexuality.

#54

Robert A. Rescorla

#24572

Overall Influence

1940 - 2020 (80 years)

Robert A. Rescorla was an American psychologist who specialized in the involvement of cognitive processes in classical conditioning focusing on animal learning and behavior. One of Rescorla's significant contributions to psychology, with co-creator Allan Wagner, was the Rescorla-Wagner Model of conditioning. This model expanded knowledge on learning processes. Rescorla also continued to develop research on Pavlovian conditioning and instrumental training. Due to his achievements, Rescorla received the American Psychological Association Awards of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 1...

#55

Nick Yee

#25150

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Nick Yee is an American researcher who studies self-representation and social interaction in virtual environments. Biography Yee earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Haverford College and received his Ph.D. in communication from Stanford University in 2007. He was a researcher at the Palo Alto Research Center in California from 2005 to 2012.

#56

George A. Kennedy

#25877

Overall Influence

1928 - 2022 (94 years)

George Alexander Kennedy was an American scholar of classical rhetoric and literature. Biography George Alexander Kennedy was born in Hartford, Connecticut on November 26, 1928. He received his Ph.D. in classics from Harvard University in 1954 with a dissertation entitled "Prolegomena and Commentary to Quintilian VIII ". Kennedy taught classics, comparative literature, and rhetoric at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for twenty-eight years. He retired as George L. Paddison professor of classics. He received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1959. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society.

#57

Anthony Aveni

#26199

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Anthony Francis Aveni is an American academic anthropologist, astronomer, and author, noted in particular for his extensive publications and contributions to the field of archaeoastronomy. With an academic career spanning over four decades, Aveni is recognized for his influence on the development of archaeoastronomy as a discipline in the latter 20th century. He has specialized in the study of ancient astronomical practices in the Americas, and is one of the founders of research into the historical astronomy of pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures. He held an endowed chair as the Russell Colga...

#58

George Lakey

#27018

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

George Russell Lakey is an activist, sociologist, and writer who added academic underpinning to the concept of nonviolent revolution. He also refined the practice of experiential training for activists which he calls "Direct Education". A Quaker, he has co-founded and led numerous organizations and campaigns for justice and peace.

#59

Kim Plofker

#27179

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Kim Leslie Plofker is an American historian of mathematics, specializing in Indian mathematics. Education and career Born in Chennai, India, Plofker received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Haverford College. She received her Ph.D. in 1995 while studying with adviser David Pingree from Brown University, where she conducted research and later joined as a guest professor.

#60

Howard Shelanski

Howard Shelanski

#27364

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Howard Shelanski is an American attorney, economist, and legal scholar. He is a professor of law at Georgetown University, where he holds the Sheehy Chair in Antitrust Law and Trade Regulation, and a partner in the law firm of Davis, Polk & Wardwell. He served in the Obama administration as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs , part of the Office of Management and Budget.

#61

Peter Dervan

#28226

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Peter B. Dervan is the Bren Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. The primary focus of his research is the development and study of small organic molecules that can sequence-specifically recognize DNA, a field in which he is an internationally recognized authority. The most important of these small molecules are pyrrole–imidazole polyamides. Dervan is credited with influencing "the course of research in organic chemistry through his studies at the interface of chemistry and biology" as a result of his work on "the chemical principles involved in sequence-specific recognition of double helical DNA".

#62

Edward Brinton

#29184

Overall Influence

1924 - 2010 (86 years)

Edward Brinton was a professor of oceanography and research biologist. His particular area of expertise was Euphausiids or krill, small shrimp-like creatures found in all the oceans of the world. Early life Brinton was born on January 12, 1924, in Richmond, Indiana to a Quaker couple, Howard Brinton and Anna Shipley Cox Brinton. Much of his childhood was spent on the grounds of Mills College where his mother was Dean of Faculty and his father was a professor. The family later moved to the Pendle Hill Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation, in Pennsylvania where his father and mother bec...

#63

Mark Kleiman

#30919

Overall Influence

1951 - 2019 (68 years)

Mark Albert Robert Kleiman was an American professor, author, and blogger who dealt with issues of drug and criminal justice policy. A professor of public policy for many years at UCLA, Kleiman in 2015 became the director of the Crime and Justice Program at New York University's Marron Institute of Urban Management. Kleiman was an expert in the field of crime and drug policy and authored several books in the field.

#64

Burton Pike

#31004

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Burton Pike was an American translator of Robert Musil, as well as a distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature and Germanic languages and literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. Life and career Burton Pike was born on June 12, 1930. He did his undergraduate studies at Haverford College and received his PhD from Harvard University. He taught at the University of Hamburg, Cornell University, and Queens College and Hunter College of the City University of New York. He was also a visiting professor at Yale University.

#65

Daniel I. Linzer

#31169

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Daniel I. H. Linzer is an American molecular biologist and academic administrator. Linzer was named provost of Northwestern University on September 1, 2007, until 2017 having previously served as Dean and Associate Dean of Northwestern's largest constituent school, the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

#66

Hunter R. Rawlings III

#31985

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Hunter Ripley Rawlings III is an American classics scholar and academic administrator. He is best known for serving as the 17th President of the University of Iowa from 1987 until 1995 and as the 10th President of Cornell University from 1995 until 2003. He also served as Cornell's interim president in 2005–2006 and again from 2016–2017. Currently, Rawlings is Professor and University President Emeritus at the Department of Classics.

#67

Jon Delano

#32146

Overall Influence

Jon Delano is the Money & Politics Editor for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a position he began on a full-time basis in 2001 after joining the station in 1994 as its political analyst. Career A graduate of Haverford College and University of Pennsylvania Law School, Delano spent 14 years working as chief of staff for Congressman Doug Walgren.

#68

Benjamin Taylor

#32918

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Benjamin Taylor is an American writer whose work has appeared in a number of publications including The Atlantic, Harper's, Esquire, Bookforum, BOMB, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde, The Georgia Review, Raritan Quarterly Review, Threepenny Review, Salmagundi, Provincetown Arts and The Reading Room. He is a founding member of the Graduate Writing Program faculty of The New School in New York City, and has also taught at Washington University in St. Louis, the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, Bennington College and Columbia University. He has served as Secretary of the Board of Trustees of P...

#69

George C. Fuller

#33483

Overall Influence

George C. Fuller . was Professor of Practical Theology, Emeritus, and former president of Westminster Theological Seminary. He served as president from 1984 to 1991. Fuller was a pastor in the Presbyterian Church in America .

#70

Terry Belanger

#33693

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Terry Belanger is the founding director of Rare Book School , an institute concerned with education for the history of books and printing, and with rare books and special collections librarianship. He is University Professor Emeritus at the University of Virginia , where RBS has its home base. Between 1972 and 1992, he devised and ran a master's program for the training of rare book librarians and antiquarian booksellers at the Columbia University School of Library Service. He is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow.

#71

Robert Bates

#33695

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Robert Hinrichs Bates is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government in the Departments of Government and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. From 2000–2012, he served as Professeur associé, School of Economics, University of Toulouse.

#72

Thomas R. Tritton

Thomas R. Tritton

#34282

Overall Influence

Thomas R. Tritton was the twelfth president of Haverford College, serving from 1997 to 2007. After his presidency, he served as president in residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. From 2008 to 2013, he served as president and CEO of the Chemical Heritage Foundation.

#73

William Van Alstyne

#36472

Overall Influence

1934 - 2019 (85 years)

William Warner Van Alstyne was an American attorney, law professor, and constitutional law scholar. Prior to retiring in 2012, he held the named position of Lee Professor of Law at William and Mary Law School. He was the Perkins Professor of Law at Duke Law School for more than 30 years. Among many others, he taught at Chicago Law School, Stanford Law School, University of California, Berkeley Law School, University of California, Los Angeles Law School, and Michigan Law School.

#74

Aaron Clauset

#36541

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Aaron Clauset is an American computer scientist who works in the areas of Network Science, Machine Learning, and Complex Systems. He is currently a professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder and is external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute.

#75

William S. Laughlin

#38415

Overall Influence

1919 - 2001 (82 years)

William S. Laughlin was an American anthropologist who carried on research and wrote about aboriginal peoples in the Aleutians and Greenland. William Sceva Laughlin was born in Canton, Missouri in 1919. He grew up in Salem, Oregon, where his father was a professor at Willamette University. His education included bachelor's and master's degrees in sociology, and master's and Ph.D. degrees in anthropology from Harvard University. His academic career in anthropology included professorships at the University of Oregon , the University of Wisconsin , and the University of Connecticut . His pri...

#76

R. Kent Weaver

#39215

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Kent Weaver is a professor at Georgetown University and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. His focus is on a variety of fields in U.S. political science, including comparative social policy, comparative political institutions, and the politics of expertise. Weaver joined the Georgetown Public Policy Institute in the fall of 2002, after 19 years at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to Brookings, Weaver taught in the Political Science Department at the Ohio State University for several years. He received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. in Po...

#77

Frank Conroy

#39238

Overall Influence

1936 - 2005 (69 years)

Frank Conroy was an American author. He published five books, including the highly acclaimed memoir Stop-Time. Published in 1967, this ultimately made Conroy a noted figure in the literary world. The book was nominated for the National Book Award.

#78

John F. Hawley

#40770

Overall Influence

1958 - 2021 (63 years)

John Frederick Hawley was an American astrophysicist and a professor of astronomy at the University of Virginia. In 2013, he shared the Shaw Prize for Astronomy with Steven Balbus. Early life John Hawley was born in 1958 in Annapolis, Maryland. He was the younger brother of former astronaut Steven A. Hawley. The family moved to Salina, Kansas when he was young. He graduated from Salina Central High School in 1976.

#79

Steven Hahn

#41742

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Steven Howard Hahn is Professor of History at New York University. Life Hahn was born on July 18, 1951, in New York City. Educated at the University of Rochester, where he worked with Eugene Genovese and Herbert Gutman, Hahn received his PhD degree from Yale University. His dissertation was overseen by C. Vann Woodward, and later Howard R. Lamar.

#80

Adam Zachary Newton

#41812

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Adam Zachary Newton is an American academic. He has served as university professor, Stanton Chair in Literature and Humanities, and chair of the Department of English at Yeshiva University. His previous appointment was as Jane and Rowland Blumberg Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught in the English Department, the Committee on Comparative Literature, the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, and the Program in Jewish Studies. More recently, he has held appointments as distinguished visiting professor at Emory University and Agnes Scott College in Atlanta,...

#81

Charles Mathias

#41848

Overall Influence

1922 - 2010 (88 years)

Charles McCurdy Mathias Jr. was an American politician and attorney. A Republican, he served as a member of the United States Senate, representing Maryland from 1969 to 1987. He was also a member of the Maryland House of Delegates from 1959 to 1961, and of the United States House of Representatives, representing the of Maryland from 1961 to 1969.

#82

Hugh Borton

#42105

Overall Influence

1903 - 1995 (92 years)

Hugh Borton was an American historian who specialized in the history of Japan, later serving as president of Haverford College. Biography Borton was born on May 14, 1903, to a devout Quaker household in Moorestown Township, New Jersey. His parents sent him to Quaker schools and after graduating from Haverford College in 1927, he and his wife Elizabeth Wilbur, proceeded to find a way of making a living that was in line with their Quaker beliefs. They looked to the American Friends Service Committee, which set up teaching posts for them at a small school in the foothills of the Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains.

#83

William C. Davidon

William C. Davidon

#42174

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

William Cooper Davidon was an American professor of physics and mathematics, and a peace activist. As the mastermind of the March 8, 1971, FBI office break-in, in Media, Pennsylvania, Davidon was the informal leader of the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI. The Media break-in resulted in the disclosure of COINTELPRO, which in turn led to subsequent investigations and reforms of the FBI.

#84

Douglas V. Steere

Douglas V. Steere

#42343

Overall Influence

1901 - 1995 (94 years)

Douglas Van Steere was an American Quaker ecumenist. Biography He served as a professor of philosophy at Haverford College from 1928 to 1964 and visiting professor of theology at Union Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1962. Steere organized Quaker post-war relief work in Finland, Norway and Poland, was invited to participate as an ecumenical observer in the Second Vatican Council and co-founded the Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality. He authored, edited, translated and wrote introductions for many books on Quakerism, as well as other religions and philosophy.

#85

Darwin Prockop

#43141

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Darwin Prockop is an American biochemist and progenitor cell researcher. He has held academic posts at several universities, and has been a faculty member at the Texas A&M Health Science Center since 2008. Prockop has been elected to several academic societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

#86

Harold E. Taylor

#44152

Overall Influence

1939 - 2001 (62 years)

Harold E. Taylor, Haverford College, MIT, and University of Iowa alumnus, was a professor of physics at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey for over 30 years. As one of the original faculty members, Taylor did research and instructed in the subjects of astrophysics, meteorology, astronomy, electronics, and general physics. One of the research projects Taylor instrumented was a large groundwater source heat pump system to heat and cool the entire academic complex at Stockton. This geothermal well-based system saves the institution around US$500,000 per year in electricity for heating and cooling.

#87

David Vladeck

#44396

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

David C. Vladeck is the former director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection of the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency of the United States government. He was appointed by the chairman of the FTC, Jon Leibowitz, on April 14, 2009, shortly after Leibowitz became chairman.

#88

William Chace

#45762

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

William Chace is a Professor of English Emeritus at Emory University as well as Honorary Professor of English Emeritus at Stanford University. He specializes in the work of James Joyce in addition to the work of W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Also the former president of Emory University, he lives in Palo Alto, California, with his wife JoAn Johnstone Chace.

#89

Gregory A. Voth

Gregory A. Voth

#46399

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Gregory A. Voth is a theoretical chemist and Haig P. Papazian Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He is also a professor of the James Franck Institute and the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics.

#90

Daniel Dae Kim

#46781

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Daniel Dae Kim is an American actor. He is known for his roles as Jin-Soo Kwon in Lost, Chin Ho Kelly in Hawaii Five-0, Gavin Park in Angel, and Johnny Gat in the Saints Row video game series. He also runs a production company, 3AD, which is currently producing the television series The Good Doctor. He portrayed Ben Daimio in the superhero film Hellboy and provided the voice of Chief Benja in the Disney animated film Raya and the Last Dragon .

#91

Anjan Chatterjee

Anjan Chatterjee

#47463

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Anjan Chatterjee is a professor of neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is director of the Penn Center for Neuroaesthetics and a member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. His research focuses on spatial cognition and its relationship to language. He also conducts neuroaesthetics research and writes about the ethical use of neuroscience findings in society.

#92

M. Gordon Wolman

#48630

Overall Influence

1924 - 2010 (86 years)

Markley Gordon Wolman was an American geographer, son of Abel Wolman. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Haverford College before being drafted into the U.S. Navy during World War II. After the war, he returned to Baltimore and graduated from the Johns Hopkins University in 1949 with a degree in Geography. He earned a doctorate in Geology from Harvard University in 1953.

#93

Michael Kaback

#50059

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Michael M. Kaback is an American geneticist, physician, and Professor of Pediatrics and Reproductive Medicine, and chief of the Division of Medical Genetics, at the University of California–San Diego.

#94

James Garson

#50156

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

James Garson is an American philosopher and logician. He has made significant contributions in the study of modal logic and formal semantics. He is author of Modal Logic for Philosophers and What Logics Mean by Cambridge University Press. Garson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Illinois at Chicago , and Rice University.

#95

Judd Nelson

#50198

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Judd Asher Nelson is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime in The Transformers: The Movie', John Bender in The Breakfast Club, Alec Newbury in St. Elmo's Fire, Alex in Cybermutt, Joe Hunt in Billionaire Boys Club, Nick Peretti in New Jack City, Billy Beretti in Empire, and Jack Richmond in the television series Suddenly Susan.

#96

Colin Harrison

#51178

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Colin Harrison is an American novelist and editor. Harrison is the author of eight novels: Break and Enter , Bodies Electric , Manhattan Nocturne , Afterburn , The Havana Room , The Finder , Risk , which was first published as a fifteen-part serial in The New York Times magazine in 2008, and You Belong to Me, published in June 2017. His books have been published in a dozen countries and four have been selected as Notable Books by The New York Times Book Review. The Finder was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2009 Dashiell Hammett Award. All are atmospheric novels o...

#97

Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

#51486

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Michael W. Carroll is a Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property at American University's Washington College of Law. Carroll is one of the founding Board Members of Creative Commons, a not-for-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others to legally build upon and share. He also is a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Library of Science PLOS and served on the National Academy of Sciences' Board on Research Data and Information from 2008 to 2013.

#98

Aryeh Kosman

#53609

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Aryeh Kosman was a scholar of ancient Greek philosophy and a professor of philosophy at Haverford College. Kosman was born in 1935 in Oakland, California. He earned undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD from Harvard University. He came to Haverford as an assistant professor in 1962, was promoted to full professor in 1973, and was appointed John Whitehead Professor of Philosophy at Haverford in 1984. He retired in 2010.

#99

Judith G. Voet

#54071

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Judith Greenwald Voet is a James Hammons Professor, Emerita in the department of chemistry and biochemistry at Swarthmore College. Her research interests include enzyme reaction mechanisms and enzyme inhibition. She and her husband, Donald Voet, are authors of biochemistry textbooks that are widely used in undergraduate and graduate curricula.

#100

Ronald Frank Thiemann

#56872

Overall Influence

1946 - 2012 (66 years)

Ronald Frank Thiemann was an American political theologian and Benjamin Bussey Professor of Theology at Harvard Divinity School. His research in large part focused on the role of religion in public life. He was dean of Harvard Divinity School from 1986 to 1998.

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