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

#17201

Victor Pan

#17212

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Victor Yakovlevich Pan is a Soviet and American mathematician and computer scientist, known for his research on algorithms for polynomials and matrix multiplication. Education and career Pan earned his Ph.D. at Moscow University in 1964, under the supervision of Anatoli Georgievich Vitushkin, and continued his work at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. During that time, he published a number of significant papers and became known informally as "polynomial Pan" for his pioneering work in the area of polynomial computations. In late 1970s, he immigrated to the United States and held positions at several institutions including IBM Research.

#17202

Vijay K. Dhir

#17213

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Vijay K. Dhir is the former Dean of the University of California, Los Angeles Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, holding the position from March 2003 to January 2016. He is also a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, joining the UCLA faculty in 1974. He is the principal investigator of the Boiling eXperiment Facility - Nucleate Pool Boiling eXperiment , which was conducted in micro-g environment on the International Space Station to understand bubble growth, detachment and subsequent motion of single and large merged bubbles boiling in micro-g environment.

#17203

Fred Moten

#17214

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Fred Moten is an American cultural theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical theory, black studies, and performance studies. Moten is Professor of Performance Studies at New York University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of California, Riverside; he previously taught at Duke University, Brown University, and the University of Iowa. His scholarly texts include The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study which was co-authored with Stefano Harney, In the Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition, and The Universal Machine . He has published num...

#17204

Jun Murai

#17215

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Jun Murai is a Japanese professor and administrator known as "the father of Internet in Japan" and "Internet Samurai". He is a professor at Keio University. Murai is the founder of JUNET and founder of the WIDE Project. Murai graduated from Keio University in 1979 and received a Ph.D. from the same school in 1984. On October 1, 2009, Murai became the Dean of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies.

#17205

David J. Brown

#17216

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

David James Brown is an American computer scientist. He was one of a small group that helped to develop the system at Stanford University that later resulted in Sun Microsystems, and later was a co-founder of Silicon Graphics in 1982.

#17206

Dorian M. Goldfeld

Dorian M. Goldfeld

#17217

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Dorian Morris Goldfeld is an American mathematician working in analytic number theory and automorphic forms at Columbia University. Professional career Goldfeld received his B.S. degree in 1967 from Columbia University. His doctoral dissertation, entitled "Some Methods of Averaging in the Analytical Theory of Numbers", was completed under the supervision of Patrick X. Gallagher in 1969, also at Columbia. He has held positions at the University of California at Berkeley , Hebrew University , Tel Aviv University , Institute for Advanced Study , in Italy , at MIT , University of Texas at Austin and Harvard .

#17207

James Peter Allen

James Peter Allen

#17218

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

James Peter Allen is an American Egyptologist, specializing in language and religion. He was curator of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1990 to 2006. In 2007, he became the Charles Edwin Wilbour Professor of Egyptology at Brown University. In 2008, he was elected president of the International Association of Egyptologists. A graduate of Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, he received his PhD from the University of Chicago.

#17208

Wolfgang Abel

#17219

Overall Influence

1905 - 1997 (92 years)

Wolfgang Abel was an Austrian anthropologist and one of Nazi Germany's top racial biologists. He was the son of the Austrian paleontologist Othenio Abel. Early life and career From 1931 Wolfgang Abel was engaged at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. In 1933 he became a member of the NSDAP. He was involved in compulsory sterilization of children, who resulted from relationships between German women and dark-skinned French soldiers. In 1934 he wrote an article, which was published in the German newspaper "Neues Volk", with the title "Bastarde am Rhein" . In 1935 he joined the SS.

#17209

Tadeusz Piotrowski

#17220

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Tadeusz Piotrowski or Thaddeus Piotrowski is a Polish-American sociologist and author. He is a professor of sociology in the Social Science Division of the University of New Hampshire at Manchester in Manchester, New Hampshire.

#17210

Margaret Somerville

#17221

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Margaret Anne Ganley Somerville is a Catholic philosopher and professor of bioethics at University of Notre Dame Australia. She was previously Samuel Gale Professor of Law at McGill University. Early life and career Somerville was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and educated at Mercedes College . She received a A.u.A. from the University of Adelaide in 1963, a Bachelor of Law degree and the University Medal from the University of Sydney in 1973, and a D.C.L. from McGill University in 1978.

#17211

Daniel T. Barry

Daniel T. Barry

#17222

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Daniel Thomas Barry is an American engineer, scientist, television personality, and a retired NASA astronaut. He was a contestant on the CBS reality television program Survivor: Panama, as well as on BattleBots on ABC. He was at Singularity University from 2009 to 2012, where he was co-chair of the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and the chair of the graduate summer program. He is also a co-founder of Fellow AI, a telepresence robotics company, and the founder and president of Denbar Robotics.

#17212

David Cutler

#17223

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

David Matthew Cutler is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics at Harvard University. He was given a five-year term appointment of Harvard College Professor, which recognizes excellence in undergraduate teaching. He holds a joint appointment in the economics department and at Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard School of Public Health, is a faculty member for the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and serves as commissioner on the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission.

#17213

Ayi Kwei Armah

#17224

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Ayi Kwei Armah is a Ghanaian writer best known for his novels including The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born , Two Thousand Seasons and The Healers . He is also an essayist, as well as having written poetry, short stories, and books for children.

#17214

Andrew Ross

#17225

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Andrew Ross , a Scottish-born social activist and analyst, is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University . He has authored and edited numerous books, and written for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Nation, Newsweek, and Al Jazeera. Much of his writing focuses on labor, the urban environment, and the organisation of work, from the Western world of business and high-technology to conditions of offshore labour in the Global South. Making use of social theory as well as ethnography, his writing questions the human and environmental cost of economic growth.

#17215

Luciano Pietronero

#17226

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Luciano Pietronero is an Italian physicist and full professor at the department of Physics at the Sapienza University of Rome. He is also Director of the Institute of Complex Systems of the National Research Council .

#17216

Yoshihiro Kawaoka

#17227

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Yoshihiro Kawaoka is a virologist specializing in the study of the influenza and Ebola viruses. He holds a professorship in virology in the Department of Pathobiological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and at the University of Tokyo, Japan.

#17217

Thomas Ebbesen

#17228

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Thomas Ebbesen is a Franco-Norwegian physical chemist and professor at the University of Strasbourg in France, known for his pioneering work in nanoscience. He received the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for transformative contributions to the field of nano-optics that have broken long-held beliefs about the limitations of the resolution limits of optical microscopy and imaging”, together with Stefan Hell, and Sir John Pendry in 2014.

#17218

Bhupathiraju Somaraju

#17229

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Bhupathiraju Somaraju , shortly B. Somaraju, is an Indian cardiologist and was the chairman of CARE Hospitals, Hyderabad. Author of many medical articles in peer reviewed journals and an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medical Sciences, he was honoured by the Government of India, in 2001, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri.

#17219

Joseph Runzo

#17230

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Joseph Runzo is an American professor publishing mainly in the area of a global philosophy of religion. He is currently Life Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University. Bibliography BibliographyGlobal Philosophy of Religion: A Short Introduction. Tsinghua University Distinguished Translation Series in Philosophy, Forthcoming 2007.Human Rights and Responsibilities: The Contribution of the World Religions. Co-editor with Nancy M. Martin. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, The Library of Global Ethics and Religion, Fall 2003. 364 pp.Ethics in the World Religions. Co-editor with Nancy M. Martin. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, The Library of Global Ethics and Religion, 2001.

#17220

John Q. Trojanowski

#17231

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

John Quinn Trojanowski was an American academic research neuroscientist specializing in neurodegeneration. He and his partner, Virginia Man-Yee Lee, MBA, Ph.D., are noted for identifying the roles of three proteins in neurodegenerative diseases: tau in Alzheimer's disease, alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's disease, and TDP-43 in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and frontotemporal degeneration.

#17221

Christopher Tilley

#17232

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Chris Tilley is a British archaeologist known for his contributions to postprocessualist archaeological theory. He is currently a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at University College London.

#17222

Storrs L. Olson

#17233

Overall Influence

1944 - 2021 (77 years)

Storrs Lovejoy Olson was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known for his studies of fossil and subfossil birds on islands such as Ascension, St. Helena and Hawaii. His early higher education took place at Florida State University in 1966, where he obtained a B.A. in biology, and the University of Florida, where he received an M.S. in biology. Olson's doctoral studies took place at Johns Hopkins University, in what was then the School of Hygiene and Public Health.

#17223

Tobias Nipkow

#17234

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Tobias Nipkow is a German computer scientist. Career Nipkow received his Diplom in computer science from the Department of Computer Science of the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt in 1982, and his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester in 1987.

#17224

Felix Pirani

#17235

Overall Influence

1928 - 2015 (87 years)

Felix Arnold Edward Pirani was a British theoretical physicist, and professor at King's College London, specialising in gravitational physics and general relativity. Pirani and Hermann Bondi wrote a series of articles that established the existence of plane wave solutions for gravitational waves based on general relativity.

#17225

Stephen Quirke

#17236

Overall Influence

Stephen Quirke is an Egyptologist. He is the current Edwards Professor of Egyptian Archaeology and Philology at University College London. He has worked at the British Museum and since 1999 at the Petrie Museum in London. He has published several books, some of them translated into other languages.

#17226

Philip Cohen

#17237

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Sir Philip Cohen is a British researcher, academic and Royal Medal winner based at the Medical Research Council Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit, School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee.

#17227

Ernst R. G. Eckert

#17238

Overall Influence

1904 - 2004 (100 years)

Ernst Rudolph Georg Eckert was an Austrian American engineer and scientist who advanced the film cooling technique for aeronautical engines. He earned his Diplom Ingenieur and doctorate in 1927 and 1931, respectively, and habilitated in 1938. Eckert worked as a jet engine scientist at the Aeronautical Research Institute in Braunschweig, Germany, then via Operation Paperclip, began jet propulsion research in 1945 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. In 1951, Eckert joined the University of Minnesota in the department of mechanical engineering. Eckert published over 550 scientific papers and books.

#17228

Richard Lester

#17239

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Richard Lester Liebman is a retired American film director based in the United Kingdom, famous for his comedic and campy tone style of shooting movies and for his work in both USA and UK cinema. He is best known for directing the Beatles' films A Hard Day's Night and Help! , and the superhero films Superman II and Superman III . His other notable films as director include The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film , The Knack ...and How to Get It , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , How I Won the War , Petulia , The Three Musketeers and its two sequels, as well as Robin and Marian , and Butch and Sundance: The Early Days .

#17229

Peter Jensen

#17240

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Peter Frederick Jensen is a retired Australian Anglican bishop, theologian and academic. From 1985 to 2001, he was principal of Moore Theological College. From 2001 to 2013, he was the Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of the Province of New South Wales in the Anglican Church of Australia. He retired on his 70th birthday, 11 July 2013. In late 2007, Jensen was one of the founding members of the Global Anglican Future Conference , which he served as General Secretary. He stepped down in early 2019 and was succeeded by Benjamin Kwashi, former archbishop of Jos in Nigeria.

#17230

Herchel Smith

#17241

Overall Influence

1925 - 2001 (76 years)

Herchel Smith was an Anglo-American organic chemist. His discoveries include the key inventions underlying oral and injectable contraceptives. In later life, he was a major benefactor to university science. In England, the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London have been the major beneficiaries; and in the US, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Williams College. During his lifetime and after his death, Smith donated over US$200 million to Cambridge and US$100 million to Harvard, including endowments to expand student exchange between the two universi...

#17231

Marty Lederman

#17242

Overall Influence

Martin "Marty" S. Lederman is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel , appointed by President Obama in January 2009. He previously served as an Attorney Advisor in OLC from 1994 to 2002. He has concentrated on questions involving freedom of speech, the Religion Clauses, congressional power and federalism, equal protection, separation of powers, copyright, and food and drug law. He helped draft the June 2010 memorandum authorizing the assassination of U.S. citizen and Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

#17232

Michael Harris

#17243

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Michael Howard Harris is an American mathematician known for his work in number theory. He is a professor of mathematics at Columbia University and professor emeritus of mathematics at Université Paris Cité.

#17233

Ian Taylor

#17244

Overall Influence

1944 - 2001 (57 years)

Ian Taylor was a British sociologist. He was born in Sheffield. Taylor completed his undergraduate degree at Durham University, where he was an active socialist and involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. He continued his studies at Cambridge before returning to Durham for his doctorate.

#17234

Mauricio Pochettino

#17245

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Mauricio Roberto Pochettino Trossero is an Argentine professional football manager and former player who is the manager of Premier League club Chelsea. Pochettino played as a centre back and began his career in 1989 with Primera División club Newell's Old Boys, winning a league title and finishing as runner-up in the 1992 Copa Libertadores. In 1994, he transferred to newly promoted La Liga club Espanyol, helping establish their top-flight status and winning the 2000 Copa del Rey, their first trophy in 60 years. In 2001, he joined Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain, and then had a stint with Bordeaux before returning to Espanyol in 2004, winning another Copa del Rey in 2006.

#17235

Nicole Ellison

#17246

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Nicole Ellison is the Karl E Weick Collegiate professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She is best known for her research in the fields of computer-mediated communication, social media, and social networking sites. Her research has been cited over 63,000 times according to Google Scholar.

#17236

Safiya Noble

#17247

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Safiya Umoja Noble is a professor at UCLA, and is the co-founder and co-director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. She is the author of Algorithms of Oppression, and co-editor of two edited volumes: The Intersectional Internet: Race, Sex, Class and Culture and Emotions, Technology & Design. She is a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford. She was appointed a Commissioner to the University of Oxford Commission on AI and Good Governance in 2020. In 2020 she was nominated to the Global Future Council on Artificial Intelligence for Humanity ...

#17237

Richard Sylla

#17248

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Richard Eugene Sylla is the chairman of the board of trustees of the Museum of American Finance. Before his retirement in 2015, he served as the Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets and a professor of economics, entrepreneurship, and innovation at New York University Stern School of Business, where he taught courses in financial history, economic and business history of the United States, and comparative enterprise systems. Professor Sylla also taught for the TRIUM Global Executive MBA Program alliance of NYU Stern, the London School of Economics and H...

#17238

Peter Reid

#17249

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Peter Reid is an English football manager, pundit and former player. A defensive midfielder in his playing days, Reid enjoyed a long and successful career. He built his reputation as one of England's brightest midfield talents of the time at Bolton Wanderers, before signing for Everton in 1982. It was there that he enjoyed the most fruitful spell of his career, as he helped the club win domestic and European honours, including the English Football League twice. He was voted as the PFA Players' Player of the Year in 1985 and came fourth in the World Soccer Player of the Year award, behind Michel Platini, Preben Elkjær and Diego Maradona.

#17239

David Naccache

#17250

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

David Naccache is a cryptographer, currently a professor at the École normale supérieure and a member of its Computer Laboratory. He was previously a professor at Panthéon-Assas University. Biography He received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the École nationale supérieure des télécommunications. Naccache's most notable work is in public-key cryptography, including the cryptanalysis of digital signature schemes. Together with Jacques Stern he designed the similarly named but very distinct Naccache-Stern cryptosystem and Naccache-Stern knapsack cryptosystem.

#17240

Jerome Horwitz

#17251

Overall Influence

1919 - 2012 (93 years)

Jerome Phillip Horwitz was an American scientist; his affiliations included the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Michigan Cancer Foundation.

#17241

Jerry Kazdan

#17252

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Jerry Lawrence Kazdan is an American mathematician noted for his work in differential geometry and the study of partial differential equations. His contributions include the Berger–Kazdan comparison theorem, which was a key step in the proof of the Blaschke conjecture and the classification of Wiedersehen manifolds. His best-known work, done in collaboration with Frank Warner, dealt with the problem of prescribing the scalar curvature of a Riemannian metric.

#17242

Ian Maddieson

#17253

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Ian Maddieson is British-American linguist and professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of New Mexico, in the United States. He has served as Vice-President of the International Phonetic Association, and Secretary of the Association for Laboratory Phonology. Maddieson is best known for his work in phonetics, and phonological typology. He spent most of his academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he often collaborated with Peter Ladefoged in describing the patterns of speech sounds in the world's spoken languages.

#17243

George Gervin

#17254

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

George Gervin , nicknamed "the Iceman", is an American former professional basketball player who played in both the American Basketball Association and National Basketball Association for the Virginia Squires, San Antonio Spurs, and Chicago Bulls. Gervin averaged at least 14 points per game in all 14 of his ABA and NBA seasons, and finished with an NBA career average of 26.2 points per game. In 1996, Gervin was named as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, and in 2021, Gervin was named as one of the 75 greatest players in NBA history.

#17244

Miklós Laczkovich

Miklós Laczkovich

#17255

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Miklós Laczkovich is a Hungarian mathematician mainly noted for his work on real analysis and geometric measure theory. His most famous result is the solution of Tarski's circle-squaring problem in 1989.

#17245

Klaus Voormann

#17256

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Klaus Otto Wilhelm Voormann is a German artist, musician, and record producer. Voormann was the bassist for Manfred Mann from 1966 to 1969, and performed as a session musician on a host of recordings, including "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon, Lou Reed's Transformer album, and on many recordings of the former members of the Beatles. As a producer, Voormann worked with the band Trio on their worldwide hit "Da Da Da".

#17246

Padmanabhan Balaram

#17257

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Padmanabhan Balaram is an Indian biochemist and a former director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. He is a recipient of the third highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Bhushan as well as the TWAS Prize . He has been conferred the 2021 R. Bruce Merrifield Award by the American Peptide Society.

#17247

Tim Leunig

#17258

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Timothy Charles Leunig is an economist at the London School of Economics's Department of Economic History. After a long career as a Special Advisor, he became a Director at the economic consultants Public First.

#17248

Aykut Barka

#17259

Overall Influence

1951 - 2002 (51 years)

Aykut Barka was a Turkish earth scientist specialized in earthquake research. He is best known for his contributions to understanding the behaviour of the North Anatolian Fault Zone , one of the most dangerous active faults in the world.

#17249

Rafiqun Nabi

#17260

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Rafiqun Nabi , better known as Ranabi, is a Bangladeshi artist and cartoonist. He is best known for creating Tokai, a character symbolizing the poor street boys of Dhaka who lives on picking things from dustbins or begging and having a knack of telling simple yet painful truths about current political and socio-economic situation of the country. He was awarded Ekushey Padak in 1993 by the government of Bangladesh.

#17250

Nigel Simmonds

#17261

Overall Influence

Nigel Simmonds is Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Cambridge and former Dean of College at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. Career Simmonds attended one of the first comprehensive schools in Britain in Cumberland before going to study law at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1970. He then studied for the LL.M where he once again attained a First Class. After a PhD and some years of teaching at Manchester University, he returned to Cambridge where he was a University Professor in Jurisprudence until his retirement in 2018. At Corpus, Nigel Simmonds was Director of Studies in Law and Dean of College.

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