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

#10801

Ramsey Clark

#10811

Overall Influence

1927 - 2021 (94 years)

William Ramsey Clark was an American lawyer, activist, and federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal, he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, serving as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969; previously, he was Deputy Attorney General from 1965 to 1967 and Assistant Attorney General from 1961 to 1965.

#10802

Tim Vine

#10812

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Timothy Mark Vine is an English comedian, actor, writer, and presenter best known for his one-liners and his role on the sitcom Not Going Out . He has released a number of stand-up comedy specials and has written several joke books.

#10803

Iring Fetscher

#10813

Overall Influence

1922 - 2014 (92 years)

Iring Fetscher was a German political scientist and researcher on Hegel and Marxism. Fetscher was born on 4 March 1922 at Marbach am Neckar, and was brought up in Dresden. After the Second World War he studied at Tübingen and Paris, receiving a doctorate in 1950. He belatedly published his thesis in 1970. He habilitated in 1959 with a dissertation on the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

#10804

John E. Exner

#10814

Overall Influence

1929 - 2006 (77 years)

John E. Exner, Jr. , born in Syracuse, New York, was an American psychologist. He received a BS and an MS degree in psychology from Trinity University and a PhD in clinical psychology from Cornell University in 1958. From 1968 to 1969 he served as a director for the East Asia/Pacific and North Africa, Near East, South Asia Regions of the Office of Selection, Peace Corps of the United States of America. Later he became a faculty member at Long Island University, where he was director of clinical training from 1969 to 1979. He became professor emeritus in 1984.

#10805

Arthur Green

#10815

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Arthur Green is an American scholar of Jewish mysticism and Neo-Hasidic theologian. He was a founding dean of the non-denominational rabbinical program at Hebrew College in Boston. He describes himself as an American Jew who was educated entirely by the generation of immigrant Jewish intellectuals cast up on American shores by World War II.

#10806

Ray Davies

#10816

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Sir Raymond Douglas Davies is an English musician. He was the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter for the rock band the Kinks, which he led with his younger brother Dave on lead guitar and backing vocals. He has also acted in, directed and produced shows for theatre and television. Known for focusing his lyrics on rock bands, English culture, nostalgia and social satire, he is often referred to as the "Godfather of Britpop", though he disputes this title. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Kinks in 1990. After the dissolution of the Kink...

#10807

Michael Welner

#10817

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Michael Mark Welner is an American forensic psychiatrist and Chairman of The Forensic Panel. Welner is best known for his work in sensitive and complex litigation. He has acted as lead forensic psychiatric examiner in numerous criminal or court proceedings of national and international prominence, including precedent-setting trials and higher court decisions. Welner is also known for a number of innovations in forensic science, forensic psychiatry and justice, including protocols for prospective peer review in forensic medicine consultation, research to standardize an evidence-based distinct...

#10808

Claudia Dreifus

#10818

Overall Influence

Claudia Dreifus is an American journalist, educator and lecturer, producer of the weekly feature “Conversation with…” of the Science Section of The New York Times, and known for her interviews with leading figures in world politics and science. She is adjunct associate professor of international affairs and media at the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University.

#10809

Edwin G. Pulleyblank

#10819

Overall Influence

1922 - 2013 (91 years)

Edwin George "Ted" Pulleyblank was a Canadian sinologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He was known for his studies of the historical phonology of Chinese. Life and career Edwin G. "Ted" Pulleyblank was born on August 7, 1922, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His father, William George Edwin Pulleyblank, was a teacher of mathematics who later became a school vice-principal, and his mother, Ruth Pulleyblank, had also been a teacher. Pulleyblank was an avid student with a bright intellect and an excellent memory for details, and taught himself Ancient Greek while in high school.

#10810

Brian D. Ripley

#10820

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Brian David Ripley FRSE is a British statistician. From 1990, he was professor of applied statistics at the University of Oxford and is also a professorial fellow at St Peter's College. He retired August 2014 due to ill health.

#10811

Charles Frazier

#10821

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Charles Frazier is an American novelist. He won the 1997 National Book Award for Fiction for Cold Mountain. Biography Early life Frazier was born in Asheville, North Carolina, grew up in Andrews and Franklin, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1973. He earned an M.A. from Appalachian State University in the mid-1970s, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of South Carolina in 1986. A 1985 published work by Frazier was a trail guide to the Andes and environs for the Sierra Club.

#10812

Homa Katouzian

#10822

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Homa Katouzian is an economist, historian, sociologist and literary critic, with a special interest in Iranian studies. Katouzian's formal academic training was in economics and the social sciences but he concurrently continued his studies of Persian history and literature at a professional academic level. He began studying the life and works of the modern Persian writer, Sadeq Hedayat, and that of the Prime Minister of Iran in the early 1950s, Mohammad Mosaddeq, while still a faculty member in the department of economics at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Having taught economics at uni...

#10813

Tarisi Vunidilo

#10823

Overall Influence

Tarisi Vunidilo is a Fijian archaeologist and curator who specialises in indigenous museology and heritage management. Biography Vunidilo was born in Suva, Fiji. Her parents are from the southern Fijian island of Kadavu. She also studied for a degree in Pacific Geography and Sociology at the University of the South Pacific from 1991 to 1994. In 1993 she spent a year at the University of Hawaii as a Cultural Exchange Student. In 1996 she graduated from the Australian National University with a postgraduate diploma in archaeology. After graduation she worked as Head of Archaeology at the Fiji Mu...

#10814

Paul R. Lawrence

#10824

Overall Influence

1922 - 2011 (89 years)

Paul Roger Lawrence was an American sociologist, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Harvard Business School, and consultant, known from his work with Jay W. Lorsch on "Differentiation and integration in complex organizations."

#10815

Jan G. Waldenström

#10825

Overall Influence

1906 - 1996 (90 years)

Jan Gösta Waldenström was a Swedish doctor of internal medicine, who first described the disease that bears his name, Waldenström's macroglobulinemia. He was born in Stockholm into a medical family: his father, Johann Henning Waldenström , was a professor of orthopedic surgery in Stockholm, and his grandfather Johan Anton Waldenström was professor of internal medicine in Uppsala.

#10816

David A. Nadler

#10826

Overall Influence

1948 - 2015 (67 years)

David A. Nadler was an American organizational theorist, consultant and business executive, known for his work with Michael L. Tushman on organizational design and organizational architecture. Biography Nadler obtained his BA in International Affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, his MBA from Harvard Business School and his MA and his PhD in Psychology at the University of Michigan.

#10817

A. G. Hopkins

#10827

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Antony Gerald Hopkins, is a British historian specialising in the economic history of Africa, European colonialism, and globalisation. He is Emeritus Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History at the University of Cambridge, an Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge and a fellow of the British Academy.

#10818

Diana Agrest

#10828

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Diana I. Agrest is a practicing architect and urban designer and an architecture and urban design theorist, in New York City. From the beginning of her career, while still a student, she started developing critical work on urban discourse as a result of the inefficiency of the existing urban design theories and models, and her need to find alternative ways to think about the city in relation to her practice. As a result, she developed critical work, both in theory and practice alternatively. She was on the forefront of a poststructuralist approach as a tool for critically re-thinking architec...

#10819

Alladi Ramakrishnan

Alladi Ramakrishnan

#10829

Overall Influence

1923 - 2008 (85 years)

Alladi Ramakrishnan was an Indian physicist and the founder of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai. He made contributions to stochastic process, particle physics, algebra of matrices, special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

#10820

Jan Kott

#10830

Overall Influence

1914 - 2001 (87 years)

Jan Kott was a Polish political activist, critic and theoretician of the theatre. A leading proponent of Stalinism in Poland for nearly a decade after the Soviet takeover, Kott renounced his Communist Party membership in 1957 following the anti-Stalinist Polish October of 1956. He defected to the United States in 1965. He is regarded as having considerable influence upon Western productions of Shakespeare in the second half of the 20th century.

#10821

James Polshek

#10831

Overall Influence

1930 - 2022 (92 years)

James Stewart Polshek was an American architect based in New York City. He was the founder of Polshek Partnership, the firm at which he was the principal design partner for more than four decades. He worked as design counsel to the legacy firm Ennead Architects, as well as being actively engaged as design lead on multiple projects.

#10822

Nikolay Brusentsov

Nikolay Brusentsov

#10832

Overall Influence

1925 - 2014 (89 years)

Nikolay Petrovich Brusentsov was a computer scientist, most famous for having built a ternary computer, Setun, together with Sergei Sobolev in 1958. In 1970 he designed Setun 70, implementing principles which were later proposed for the RISC architecture independently. He died on 4 December 2014.

#10823

Dennis Kavanagh

#10833

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Dennis Kavanagh is a British political analyst and since 1996 has been Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool, and now Emeritus Professor. He has written extensively on post-war British politics. With David Butler, he wrote the series of books on British general elections, such as The British General Election of 2010, and most recently, The British General Election of 2015.

#10824

Isabella Karle

#10834

Overall Influence

1921 - 2017 (96 years)

Isabella Karle was an American chemist who was instrumental in developing techniques to extract plutonium chloride from a mixture containing plutonium oxide. For her scientific work, Karle received the Garvan–Olin Medal, Gregori Aminoff Prize, Bower Award, National Medal of Science, and the Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award .

#10825

Jonathan Karl

#10835

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Jonathan D. Karl is an American political journalist and author. Throughout his career, Karl has covered the White House, Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the U.S. State Department, and has reported from more than 30 countries, covering U.S. politics, foreign policy, and the military.

#10826

Jermaine Dupri

#10836

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Jermaine Dupri Mauldin is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, record executive, entrepreneur, and DJ. Raised in Atlanta, he began his career artistry at the age of nine, as the son of Columbia Records executive Michael Mauldin. In 1991, he formed and produced the hip hop teen duo Kris Kross. Dupri wrote and produced their breakout 1992 single, "Jump" and established his own record label, So So Def Recordings a year later. In the subsequent years, he would work heavily with Mariah Carey, Usher, Destiny's Child, Monica, and Bow Wow, resulting in Dupri producing 11 chart-topping singles.

#10827

George Annas

#10837

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

George J. Annas is the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Health Law, Ethics & Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, School of Medicine, and School of Law.

#10828

Bill Reid

#10838

Overall Influence

1920 - 1998 (78 years)

William Ronald Reid Jr. was a Haida artist whose works include jewelry, sculpture, screen-printing, and paintings. Producing over one thousand original works during his fifty-year career, Reid is regarded as one of the most significant Northwest Coast artists of the late twentieth century.

#10829

Ntozake Shange

#10839

Overall Influence

1948 - 2018 (70 years)

Ntozake Shange was an American playwright and poet. As a Black feminist, she addressed issues relating to race and Black power in much of her work. She is best known for her Obie Award-winning play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf . She also penned novels including Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo , Liliane , and Betsey Brown , about an African-American girl run away from home.

#10830

James E. Krier

#10840

Overall Influence

James E. Krier is the Earl Warren DeLano Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. His teaching and research interests are primarily in the fields of property, contracts, and law and economics, and he teaches or has taught courses on contracts, property, trusts and estates, behavioral law and economics, and pollution policy.

#10831

Pat Barker

#10841

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Patricia Mary W. Barker, is a British writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels".

#10832

John Varley

#10842

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

John Herbert Varley is an American science fiction writer. Biography Varley was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in Fort Worth, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, graduated from Nederland High School—all in Texas—and went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship. He started as a physics major, switched to English, then left school before his 20th birthday and arrived in Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco just in time for the "Summer of Love" in 1967. There he worked at various unskilled jobs, depended on St. Anthony's Mission for meals, and panhandled outside t...

#10833

Eric M. Genden

#10843

Overall Influence

Eric M. Genden, MD, MHCA, FACS is a United States head and neck cancer surgeon at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. where he serves as the Isidore Friesner Professor and Chairman of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery and Professor of Neurosurgery and Immunology. According to his biography at Mount Sinai, Genden's professional titles also include Senior Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, He is Executive Vice President of Ambulatory Surgery, and Director of the Head and Neck Institute at the Mount Sinai Health System.

#10834

Malorie Blackman

Malorie Blackman

#10844

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Malorie Blackman is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She has used science fiction to explore social and ethical issues. Her critically and popularly acclaimed Noughts and Crosses series uses the setting of a fictional alternative Britain to explore racism. Blackman has been the recipient of many honours for her work including, most recently, the 2022 PEN Pinter Prize.

#10835

Paul Stamets

#10845

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Paul Edward Stamets is an American mycologist and entrepreneur who sells various mushroom products through his company. He is an author and advocate of medicinal fungi and mycoremediation. Early and personal life Stamets was born in Salem, Ohio. He grew up in Columbiana, Ohio with an older brother, John, older brother, Bill, an older sister, Lilly, his twin brother North, and younger siblings. He graduated from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington with a bachelor's degree in 1979. He worked as a logger. As of 2013, Stamets was married to Carolyn "Dusty" Yao. He has an honorary d...

#10836

Heinz Sielmann

#10846

Overall Influence

1917 - 2006 (89 years)

Heinz Sielmann was a German wildlife photographer, biologist, zoologist and documentary filmmaker. Early life Heinz's father was physician Paul Sielmann. His first film, in 1938, was a silent movie on bird life in East Prussia and the Memelland. Further work was interrupted by World War II. He was initially stationed in occupied Poland in Poznań , as an instructor at a radio-communications training unit of the Luftwaffe. Sielmann gained a degree in biology and specialized in zoology, in 1940, at the University of Posen, at that time a Germanized university. There he met Joseph Beuys, who was his trainee, and they both attended lectures in biology and zoology.

#10837

Chris Bosh

#10847

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Christopher Wesson Bosh is an American former professional basketball player. A Texas Mr. Basketball in high school, he played one season of college basketball for Georgia Tech before declaring for the 2003 NBA draft. Bosh was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors.

#10838

John Pearson

#10848

Overall Influence

1930 - 2021 (91 years)

John George Pearson was an English novelist and an author of biographies, notably of Ian Fleming , of the Sitwells, and of the Kray twins. Life and career Pearson was born in Epsom, Surrey. He was educated at King's College School, Wimbledon, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he gained a double first in history. He then worked for The Economist, BBC Television and The Sunday Times. He was Ian Fleming's assistant at the Sunday Times and went on to write the first biography of Fleming, The Life of Ian Fleming, published in 1966.

#10839

Ritchie Blackmore

#10849

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Richard Hugh Blackmore is an English guitarist and songwriter. He was a founding member of Deep Purple in 1968, playing jam-style hard rock music that mixed guitar riffs and organ sounds. He is prolific in creating guitar riffs and has been known for playing both classically influenced and blues-based solos.

#10840

Karel Vasak

#10850

Overall Influence

1929 - 2015 (86 years)

Karel Vasak or Karel Vašák was a Czech-French international official and university professor. Vasak was born in Czechoslovakia and later moved to France to study law. He decided to remain there after the Communist coup in Prague in February 1948. He acquired French citizenship and worked for the Council of Europe in several capacities.

#10841

Donovan McNabb

#10851

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Donovan Jamal McNabb is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League for 13 seasons, primarily with the Philadelphia Eagles. He played college football for the Syracuse Orange and was selected second overall in the 1999 NFL Draft by the Eagles, where he spent 11 seasons. McNabb also spent a year each with the Washington Redskins and Minnesota Vikings. He was inducted to the Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Fame in 2013.

#10842

Nguyễn Xuân Vinh

#10852

Overall Influence

1930 - 2022 (92 years)

Nguyễn Xuân Vinh was a Vietnamese-American aerospace scientist and educator. Vinh was Professor Emeritus of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he taught for nearly thirty years. His seminal work on the guidance, dynamics and optimal control of space vehicles and their interaction with the atmosphere played a fundamental role in space exploration and technological development.

#10843

Robin Thomas

#10853

Overall Influence

1962 - 2020 (58 years)

Robin Thomas was a mathematician working in graph theory at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Thomas received his doctorate in 1985 from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia , under the supervision of Jaroslav Nešetřil. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 1989, and became a Regents' Professor there, briefly serving as the department Chair.

#10844

John I. Jenkins

John I. Jenkins

#10854

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

John Ignatius Jenkins, C.S.C. is an American Catholic priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and the current president of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He previously served as its vice-president and associate provost. He replaced Edward Malloy as president.

#10845

Jennifer Robinson

Jennifer Robinson

#10855

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Jennifer Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer and barrister with Doughty Street Chambers in London. She is also an adjunct lecturer in Law at the University of Sydney Law School. Robinson is best known for her role as a long-standing member of the legal team defending Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. She has also provided legal assistance to activists from West Papua.

#10846

Katharine Way

#10856

Overall Influence

1902 - 1995 (93 years)

Katharine "Kay" Way was an American physicist best known for her work on the Nuclear Data Project. During World War II, she worked for the Manhattan Project at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago. She became an adjunct professor at Duke University in 1968.

#10847

Shu Shien-Siu

#10857

Overall Influence

1912 - 2001 (89 years)

Shu Shien-Siu , also known as S. S. Shu, was a Chinese/Taiwanese mathematician, engineer and educator. Biography Shu was born in Yongjia, Wenzhou, Zhejiang on 12 Sep 1912. Shu studied at Wenzhou High School. In 1935, Shu graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Tsinghua University in Beijing and obtained B.S. in mathematics. He worked as a teaching assistant at the department after his graduation.

#10848

John Donoghue

#10858

Overall Influence

John Philip Donoghue is an American neuroscientist; he is currently the Henry Merritt Wriston Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Engineering at Brown University, where he has taught since 1984.

#10849

Giorgi Melikishvili

#10859

Overall Influence

1918 - 2002 (84 years)

Giorgi Aleksandresdze Melikishvili was a Georgian historian known for his fundamental works in the history of Georgia, Caucasia and the Middle East. He earned international recognition for his research on Urartu.

#10850

Hafez al-Assad

#10860

Overall Influence

1930 - 2000 (70 years)

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