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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Ranking

List of the most influential people

#16301

Victor Basili

#16312

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Victor R. Basili , is an emeritus professor at the Department of Computer Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, and the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin and two honorary degrees. He is a fellow of both the Association for Computing Machinery and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers .

#16302

Gardner Lindzey

#16313

Overall Influence

1920 - 2008 (88 years)

Gardner Edmund Lindzey was an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . After completing a doctorate at Harvard University, Lindzey served as a professor or administrator at several universities, edited a well-known textbook in social psychology and led a 1982 National Academy of Sciences panel that recommended the legalization of marijuana.

#16303

Deborah Britzman

#16314

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Deborah P. Britzman is a professor and a practicing psychoanalyst at York University. Britzman's research connects psychoanalysis with contemporary pedagogy, teacher education, social inequality, problems of intolerance and historical crisis.

#16304

Bruce Arena

#16315

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Bruce Arena is an American soccer coach who most recently served as the head coach and sporting director of the New England Revolution. He is a member of the National Soccer Hall of Fame and the NJCAA Lacrosse Hall of Fame. Arena has had a long and distinguished coaching career and is considered to be one of the most successful coaches in North American soccer history, having won five College Cup titles and five MLS Cup titles. He was the United States national team head coach at the 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 FIFA World Cup and the 2006 FIFA World Cup, head coach of the New York Red Bulls, D.C.

#16305

Sally Field

#16316

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Sally Margaret Field is an American actress. Known for her extensive work on screen and stage, she has received many accolades throughout her career spanning over five decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for a Tony Award and two British Academy Film Awards. She was presented with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2014, the National Medal of Arts in 2014, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2019, and the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2023.

#16306

Jean Jouzel

#16317

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Jean Jouzel is a French glaciologist and climatologist. He has mainly worked on the reconstruction of past climate derived from the study of the Antarctic and Greenland ice. Career Jean Jouzel's career occurred mostly at the CEA , the French nuclear public organization. In 1991 he became vice-president of LMCE, the CEA laboratory dedicated to environment and climate; in 1995 he became its research director. In 1998 he became director of climate research of the LSCE, which resulted from the fusion of LMCE with another environmental research laboratory. From 2001 to 2008 he was director of the ...

#16307

Barry Hannah

#16318

Overall Influence

1942 - 2010 (68 years)

Barry Hannah was an American novelist and short story writer from Mississippi. Hannah was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on April 23, 1942, and grew up in Clinton, Mississippi. He wrote eight novels and five short story collections.

#16308

Robert Owen

#16319

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Sir Robert Michael Owen FRSA is a former British judge of the High Court of England and Wales. Legal career Owen read law at the University of Exeter graduating with lower second class honours and then was called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1968 and elected an Inner Temple bencher in 1995. He was appointed a Recorder in 1987, being qualified as a deputy High Court judge from 1994, and made a Queen's Counsel in 1988. From 1991 to 1993, he served as Vice-Chairman of the London Common Law and Commercial Bar Association, and as its Chairman 1993 to 1995. In 1997, Owen served as Chairman of the General Council of the Bar, having served as Vice-Chairman the previous year.

#16309

John J. Donohue III

#16320

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

John J. Donohue III is an American law professor, economist, and the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. He is widely known for his writings on effect of legalized abortion on crime and for his criticism of John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime.

#16310

Muzaffar Alam

#16321

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Muzaffar Alam is the George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Biography Muzaffar Alam is a historian trained at Jamia Millia Islamia , Aligarh Muslim University and Jawaharlal Nehru University , where he obtained his doctorate in history in 1977. Before joining the SALC at the University of Chicago in 2001, he taught three decades at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and has held visiting positions in the Collège de France , Leiden University, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the EHESS .

#16311

Jørgen Slots

#16322

Overall Influence

Jørgen Slots is a Danish-born periodontist notable for his contributions to the field of periodontology. He is currently professor of periodontology and microbiology at the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC, and served as chairman of periodontology from 1991 to 2001.

#16312

George Wallace

#16323

Overall Influence

1919 - 1998 (79 years)

George Corley Wallace Jr. was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. He is notoriously remembered for his staunch segregationist and populist views. During Wallace's tenure as governor of Alabama, he promoted "industrial development, low taxes, and trade schools." Wallace sought the United States presidency as a Democratic Party candidate three times, and once as an American Independent Party candidate, being unsuccessful each time. Wallace opposed desegregation and supported the policies of "Jim Crow" during the Civil Rights Movement, declaring in ...

#16313

Travis Smith

#16324

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Travis Smith is an American graphic artist best known for designing heavy metal album art. He has been called "renowned" by Alternative Press and "unquestionably one of the most talented graphic artists in metal today" by Chronicles of Chaos. Smith has done work for many established rock and metal bands, including Death, Devin Townsend, Katatonia, Nevermore, Opeth, Anathema, CKY, Soilwork, King Diamond, Novembre, Avenged Sevenfold, Strapping Young Lad, Persefone, Riverside and Overkill.

#16314

Harold C. Fleming

#16325

Overall Influence

1926 - 2015 (89 years)

Harold Crane Fleming was an anthropologist and historical linguist specializing in the cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he stresses the integration of physical anthropology, linguistics, archaeology, and cultural anthropology in solving anthropological problems.

#16315

Valeriy Zaporozhan

#16326

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Valeriy Zaporozhan is ex-rector of Odessa State Medical University , Ukrainian researcher. His initial specialization was obstetrics and gynaecology, which further broadened to cryosurgery and endoscopy, immunology, reproductive medicine, genetic medicine, stem cells, and bioethics. He also developed the concept of nooethics — a further specialization of bioethics in the conditions of noosphere.

#16316

Peter Carmeliet

#16327

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Peter, Baron Carmeliet is a Belgian physician and professor at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven . He is also Adjunct Director of the VIB Vesalius Research Center, KU Leuven. Among his research interests are vasculogenesis, angiogenesis, and vascular endothelial growth factor . In 2016, Carmeliet identified neuron-producing stem cells in the brain.

#16317

James Elliott Coyne

James Elliott Coyne

#16328

Overall Influence

1910 - 2012 (102 years)

James Elliott Coyne, was the second Governor of the Bank of Canada, from 1955 to 1961, succeeding Graham Towers. During his time in office, he had a much-publicized debate with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, a debate often referred to as the "Coyne Affair" , which led to his resignation and, eventually, to greater central-bank independence in Canada.

#16318

Kassym-Jomart Tokayev

#16329

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Kassym-Jomart Kemeluly Tokayev is a Kazakh politician and diplomat who has served as President of Kazakhstan since 2019. Between 20 March and 12 June 2019, he served as acting president after the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had been president for nearly three decades.

#16319

Murray Silverstein

#16330

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Murray Silverstein co-authored the books A Pattern Language and The Oregon Experiment. At that time, he taught architecture courses at the University of California, and subsequently taught at the University of Washington. He had also written several articles on pattern languages. As a young designer, he worked for noted California architect Richard Neutra.

#16320

Takahiro Kawai

#16331

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Takahiro Kawai is a Japanese mathematician working on algebraic analysis. He is a professor emeritus at RIMS. He was a student of Mikio Sato at the same time as Masaki Kashiwara with whom he later shared the Asahi Prize in 1987.

#16321

Jerker Porath

#16332

Overall Influence

1921 - 2016 (95 years)

Jerker Porath, was a Swedish biochemist who invented several separation methods for biomolecules. He was born in Sala. Porath studied at Uppsala University and initially did research in organic chemistry under Arne Fredga, where he got his licentiate degree. After a scholarship to an institute in Heidelberg he got an interest in biochemistry and switched to Arne Tiselius' department. Tiselius recommended Porath to make a research visit to Choh Hao Li and his Hormone Research Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley where Porath stayed 1951–1952. Back in Uppsala he developed methods for zone electrophoresis and ion exchange chromatography for hormone purification.

#16322

Wojciech Kurtyka

#16333

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Wojciech Kurtyka is a Polish mountaineer and rock climber, one of the pioneers of the alpine style of climbing the biggest walls in the Greater Ranges. He lived in Wrocław up to 1974 when he moved to Kraków. He graduated as engineer in electronics . In 1985 he climbed the "Shining Wall," the west face of Gasherbrum IV, which Climbing magazine declared to be the greatest achievement of mountaineering in the twentieth century. In 2016, he received the Piolet d'Or for lifetime achievement in mountaineering.

#16323

Thomas Muster

#16334

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Thomas Muster is an Austrian former world No. 1 tennis player. One of the world's leading clay court players in the 1990s, he won the 1995 French Open and at his peak was called "The King of Clay". In addition, he won eight Masters 1000 Series titles. Muster is one of the nine players to win Super 9/ATP Masters Series/ATP World Tour Masters 1000 titles on clay, hardcourt and carpet.

#16324

Robie Macauley

#16335

Overall Influence

1919 - 1995 (76 years)

Robie Mayhew Macauley was an American editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned more than 50 years. Biography Early life Robie Mayhew Macauley was born on May 31, 1919, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was the older brother of the noted photographer and movie producer C. Cameron Macauley. His uncle owned and published the Hudsonville newspaper, The Ottawa Times , and Macauley used the printing press to publish his first books of fiction and poetry. At age 18 he printed and bound a limited edition of Solomon's Cat, a previously unpublished poem by Walter Duranty, setting the type...

#16325

Yadin Dudai

#16336

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Yadin Dudai is a neuroscientist, Professor of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and the Albert and Blanche Willner Family Global Distinguished Professor of Neural Science at New York University .

#16326

Fred Greenstein

#16337

Overall Influence

1930 - 2018 (88 years)

Fred Irwin Greenstein was an American political scientist, known for his work on political leadership and the US presidency. Born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1930, Greenstein completed a bachelor's degree at Antioch College in 1953 and a doctorate at Yale University in 1960. He began his teaching career at Yale in 1959, was a professor at Wesleyan University from 1962 to 1973, and then moved to Princeton University, where he served for the rest of his career.

#16327

Takatoshi Ito

#16338

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Takatoshi Ito is a Japanese economist. He is a professor of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and a senior professor of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.

#16328

Rachel Maines

#16339

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Rachel Pearl Maines is an American scholar specializing in the history of technology. Since 2015 she has been a visiting scientist at Cornell University's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Her book The Technology of Orgasm won the American Historical Association's Herbert Feis Award. The book was also the inspiration for the film Hysteria and the play In the Next Room. However, one of the main claims of the book has been debunked as false.

#16329

Mahendra Pal Singh

#16340

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Mahendra Pal Singh , is a jurist and a scholar of constitutional law, administrative law and comparative law, and Professor Emeritus at University of Delhi. Presently, he serves as a research professor of law, Distinguished Scholar in Public Law & Comparative Law, Director – Centre for Comparative Law and Chairman of the Law School Doctoral Committee at Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University. He is best known amongst students of Constitution of India as the author of V.N. Shukla's Constitution of India a standard textbook for lawyers on Constitution of India. Internationally how...

#16330

José Abueva

#16341

Overall Influence

1928 - 2021 (93 years)

José Veloso Abueva was a Filipino political scientist and public administration scholar who served as the 16th president of the University of the Philippines. A Ten Outstanding Young Men awardee for political science in 1962, he has devoted much of his career in academic circles. He has been faculty member of the National College of Public Administration and Governance of the University of the Philippines Diliman and visiting professor at Brooklyn College, City University of New York and Yale University. He has also worked with the United Nations University in Tokyo. Abueva's service to the ...

#16331

Simon Kitson

#16342

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Simon Kitson is a British historian. Life Kitson did his undergraduate studies at the University of Ulster and his post-graduate studies at the University of Sussex, under the supervision of Roderick Kedward. His doctoral thesis on the Marseille Police, was examined by Mark Mazower and Clive Emsley.

#16332

David Morrell

#16343

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

David Morrell is a Canadian-American author whose debut 1972 novel First Blood, later adapted as the 1982 film of the same name, went on to spawn the successful Rambo franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated into 30 languages. He also wrote the 2007–2008 Captain America comic book miniseries The Chosen.

#16333

John Tasioulas

#16344

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

John Tasioulas is a Greek-Australian moral and legal philosopher. He is the inaugural Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI , and Professor of Ethics and Legal Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship.

#16334

Neil Bartlett

#16345

Overall Influence

1932 - 2008 (76 years)

Neil Bartlett was a chemist who specialized in fluorine and compounds containing fluorine, and became famous for creating the first noble gas compounds. He taught chemistry at the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Berkeley.

#16335

Pavel Etingof

#16346

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Pavel Ilyich Etingof is an American mathematician of Russian-Ukrainian origin. He does research on the intersection of mathematical physics and representation theory, e.g., quantum groups. Biography Etingof was born in Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR, and studied in the Kyiv Natural Science Lyceum No. 145 in 1981–1984, and at the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1984–1986. He received his M.S. in applied mathematics from the Oil and Gas Institute in Moscow in 1989 and then went to the US in 1990. In 1994, he received his PhD in mathematics at Yale University under Igor Frenkel with thesis Representation Theory and Holonomic Systems.

#16336

Kelvin Lancaster

#16347

Overall Influence

1924 - 1999 (75 years)

Kelvin John Lancaster was an Australian mathematical economist and John Bates Clark professor of economics at Columbia University. He is best known for the development of the Theory of the Second Best with Richard Lipsey. Lancaster was also active in developing the calculus of qualitative economics, formulating the household production function, and applying the hedonic model to the estimation of housing prices.

#16337

Robert Ekelund

#16348

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Robert Burton Ekelund Jr. was an American economist. Early life and education Born on Galveston Island, Texas, Ekelund attended St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, earning his BBA in economics in 1962 and his MA in economics and history the next year. He was a member of the Order of the Barons and first worked as an instructor in economics while completing his master's degree.

#16338

Donna Leon

#16349

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Donna Leon is the American author of a series of crime novels set in Venice, Italy, featuring the fictional hero Commissario Guido Brunetti. The novels are written in English, and have been translated into many foreign languages, although at Leon's requestnot into Italian.

#16339

Jackson J. Spielvogel

#16350

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Jackson Joseph Spielvogel is Associate Professor Emeritus of History at Pennsylvania State University. His textbooks on world history, Western civilization and Nazi Germany are widely adopted in middle school, high school, and college history courses throughout the United States. Spielvogel holds a Ph.D. from Ohio State University where he specialized in Reformation history under the supervision of Harold J. Grimm.

#16340

Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob

Abdolhossein Zarrinkoob

#16351

Overall Influence

1923 - 1999 (76 years)

Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub was a scholar and professor of Iranian literature, history of literature, Persian culture and history. He was born in Borujerd, Iran, received his PhD from Tehran University in 1955 under the supervision of Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, and held faculty positions at universities such as Oxford University, Sorbonne and Princeton University.

#16341

Patrice Evra

#16352

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Patrice Latyr Evra is a French former professional footballer. Originally a forward, he primarily played as a left-back. Evra served as captain for both Manchester United and the France national team. His manager Sir Alex Ferguson praised Evra for his leadership, also describing him as one of the best left-backs in Europe.

#16342

Ralph Larkin

#16353

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Ralph Wild Larkin is an American sociologist and research consultant. He is the author of Suburban Youth in Cultural Crisis , Beyond Revolution: A New Theory of Social Movements , and Comprehending Columbine . He obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara and received a master's degree in education from California State University at Northridge.

#16343

Malcolm Barber

#16354

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Malcolm Charles Barber is a British scholar of medieval history, described as the world's leading living expert on the Knights Templar. He is considered to have written the two most comprehensive books on the subject, The Trial of the Templars and The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple . He has been an editor for The Journal of Medieval History and written many articles on the Templars, the Cathars, various elements of the Crusades, and the reign of Philip IV of France.

#16344

Haim Eshed

#16355

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Haim Eshed alternatively romanized as Chaim Eshed is an Israeli visiting professor of aeronautics and astronautics at various space technology research institutions. A retired brigadier general in Israeli Military Intelligence, Eshed was director of space programs for Israel Ministry of Defense for nearly 30 years, is former chair of the Space Committee of the National Council for Research and Development for the Ministry of Science, Technology and Space and a member of the steering committee of Israel Space Agency. Eshed is responsible for the launch of 20 Israeli made satellites, and he is ...

#16345

Joe Theismann

#16356

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Joseph Robert Theismann is an American former professional football player, sports commentator, corporate speaker and restaurateur. He rose to fame playing quarterback in the National Football League and Canadian Football League . Theismann spent 12 seasons with the Washington Redskins, where he was a two-time Pro Bowler and helped the team to consecutive Super Bowl appearances, winning Super Bowl XVII over the Miami Dolphins and losing Super Bowl XVIII. He played college football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2003.

#16346

Denis Donoghue

#16357

Overall Influence

1928 - 2021 (93 years)

Denis Donoghue was an Irish literary critic. He was the Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York University. Life and career Donoghue was born at Tullow, County Carlow, into a Roman Catholic family, the youngest of four surviving children. He was brought up in Warrenpoint, County Down, Northern Ireland, where his father, Denis, was sergeant-in-charge of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. His mother was Johanna Donoghue.

#16347

Gloria Álvarez

#16358

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Gloria Álvarez Cross is a Guatemalan radio and television presenter, author, and libertarian political commentator. She is the host of the Viernes de Gloria radio program in Guatemala. Álvarez is also the program director of the National Civic Movement of Guatemala, an organization that advocates for political participation in the national politics of Guatemala. She has also published books on political topics for a popular audience.

#16348

Jorge Stolfi

#16359

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Jorge Stolfi is a full professor of computer science at the State University of Campinas, working in computer vision, image processing, spliness and other function approximation methods, graph theory, computational geometry and several other fields. According to the ISI Web Of Science, he was the most highly cited computer scientist in Brazil. Outside of academia, Stolfi has accrued an online following due to his skepticism and comments on Bitcoin.

#16349

François Jullien

François Jullien

#16360

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

François Jullien is a French philosopher, Hellenist, and sinologist. Biography An alumnus of the École Normale Supérieure and holder of the agrégation, France's professorial degree, François Jullien studied Chinese language and thought at Peking University and Shanghai University from 1975 to 1977. He received his French university doctorate in 1978 and his French research doctorate in Far East studies in 1983.

#16350

Robert Jurmain

#16361

Overall Influence

Robert Jurmain is a professor emeritus of anthropology at San Jose State University. Jurmain holds an A.B. in anthropology from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Harvard. He joined the San Jose State faculty in 1975, and taught there until his retirement in 2004.

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