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

#18701

Carolyn Abbate

#18712

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Carolyn Abbate is an American musicologist, described by the Harvard Gazette as "one of the world’s most accomplished and admired music historians". She is currently Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University. From her earliest essays she has questioned familiar approaches to well-known works, reaching beyond their printed scores and composer intentions, to explore the particular, physical impact of the medium upon performer and audience alike. Her research focuses primarily on the operatic repertory of the 19th century, offering creative and innovative approaches to understanding these works critically and historically.

#18702

Timothy R. Lannon

#18713

Overall Influence

Timothy Ryan Lannon, S.J. was the 24th president of Creighton University from July 1, 2011, to January 20, 2015. He was previously the president of Saint Joseph's University. Biography Early life Timothy Ryan Lannon, S.J., is a native of Mason City, Iowa. His father, James Lannon, played football at Creighton University, where he earned a medical degree during the 1930s.

#18703

Bernd Brinkmann

#18714

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Bernd Brinkmann is a German forensic pathologist. Biography Bernd Brinkmann was the director of the Institute of Legal Medicine of the University of Münster in Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany from 1981 until 2007. From 1990 until 2009 he served as the Coordinating Editor of the International Journal of Legal Medicine.

#18704

Ted Osius

#18715

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Theodore George Osius III is an American diplomat and the former United States Ambassador to Vietnam. Early life and education Osius grew up in Annapolis, Maryland. He attended The Putney School in Vermont, graduating in 1979.

#18705

Joseph Dauben

#18716

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Joseph Warren Dauben is a Herbert H. Lehman Distinguished Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He obtained his PhD from Harvard University. His fields of expertise are the history of science, the history of mathematics, the scientific revolution, the sociology of science, intellectual history, the 17th and 18th centuries, the history of Chinese science, and the history of botany.

#18706

John Goldsmith

#18717

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

John Anton Goldsmith is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, with appointments in linguistics and computer science. Biography Goldsmith obtained his B.A. at Swarthmore College in 1972, and completed his PhD in Linguistics at MIT in 1976, under the linguist Morris Halle. He was on the faculty of the Department of Linguistics at Indiana University before joining the University of Chicago in 1984. He has taught at the LSA Linguistic Institutes and has held visiting appointments at many universities, such as McGill, Harvard, and UCSD. In 2007, Gol...

#18707

Solomon Mutswairo

#18718

Overall Influence

1924 - 2005 (81 years)

Solomon Mangwiro Mutswairo, also spelt Mutsvairo , was a Zimbabwean novelist and poet. A member of the Zezuru people of central Zimbabwe, he wrote the first novel in the Shona language, Feso. In his late years, Mutswairo was a central figure in Zimbabwean academic and cultural circles. He was the first person to be named Writer-in-Residence at the University of Zimbabwe, and was the Chairman of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe during the late 1990s. Mutswairo wrote the text for "Simudzai mureza weZimbabwe", the Zimbabwean national anthem.

#18708

Michael Walker

#18719

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Michael Angus Walker is a Canadian economist. He is best known as the founder of the Fraser Institute. He is a journalist, broadcaster and consultant. Biography Walker earned a BA from St. Francis Xavier University, and went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario. He worked at the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance Canada. He then taught at the University of Western Ontario and Carleton University. Under his leadership, a series of conferences were started in the mid-1980s to measure economic freedom and rank countries accordingly.

#18709

Colin Kidd

#18720

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Colin Craig Kidd is a historian who specializes in American and Scottish history. He is currently Professor of History at the University of St Andrews, after he served as Professor of Intellectual History and the History of Political Thought at Queen's University Belfast, where he has worked since he left the University of Glasgow in 2010.

#18710

Katherine Baicker

#18721

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Katherine Baicker is an American health economist best known for the Oregon Medicaid health experiment. She serves as the provost of the University of Chicago. Biography Baicker received her B.A. in Economics from Yale University in 1993 and her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1998. She began her academic career teaching economics at Dartmouth College from 1998 to 2005 and her political career in 2001, serving as a senior economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisors. From 2005 to 2007, she taught public policy at the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Affairs.

#18711

Peter Fonda

#18722

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Peter Henry Fonda was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fonda was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Easy Rider , and the Academy Award for Best Actor for Ulee's Gold . For the latter, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Fonda also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for The Passion of Ayn Rand .

#18712

Rita Ora

#18723

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Rita Sahatçiu Ora is a British singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence in February 2012 when she featured on DJ Fresh's single, "Hot Right Now", which reached number one in the UK. Her debut studio album, Ora, released in August 2012, debuted at number one in the United Kingdom. The album contained the UK number-one singles, "R.I.P." and "How We Do ". Ora was the artist with the most number-one singles on the UK Singles Chart in 2012, with three singles reaching the top position.

#18713

Barney Frank

#18724

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Barnett Frank is a former American politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1981 to 2013. A Democrat, Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2011 and was a leading co-sponsor of the 2010 Dodd–Frank Act. Frank, a resident of Newton, Massachusetts, was considered the most prominent gay politician in the United States during his time in Congress.

#18714

Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain

#18725

Overall Influence

1956 - 2018 (62 years)

Anthony Michael Bourdain was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition.

#18715

Tracy Chapman

#18726

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Tracy Chapman is an American singer-songwriter. Chapman is best known for her hit singles "Fast Car" and "Give Me One Reason" . She was signed to Elektra Records by Bob Krasnow in 1987. The following year she released her debut album, Tracy Chapman, which became a commercial success, boosted by her appearance at the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert, and was certified 6× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album received six Grammy Award nominations, including one for Album of the Year, three of which she won: Best New Artist, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single "Fast Car", and Best Contemporary Folk Album.

#18716

Clive Barker

#18727

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Clive Barker is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the Books of Blood, which established him as a leading horror writer. He has since written many novels and other works. His fiction has been adapted into films, notably the Hellraiser series, the first installment of which he also wrote and directed, and the Candyman series. He was also an executive producer of the film Gods and Monsters, which won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

#18717

Tyehimba Jess

#18728

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Tyehimba Jess is an American poet. His book Olio received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Biography Early life Tyehimba Jess was born Jesse S. Goodwin. He grew up in Detroit, where his father worked in that city's Department of Health. His father later became the first vice president of Detroit's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People . Jess's mother was a teacher and nurse, who founded a nursing school at Wayne County Community College in 1972.

#18718

Martin Gore

#18729

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Martin Lee Gore is an English musician and songwriter. He is one of the founding members of the electronic rock band Depeche Mode and is the band's main songwriter. He is the band's guitarist and keyboardist, and occasionally provides lead vocals. Gore possesses a tenor singing voice which contrasts with lead vocalist Dave Gahan's dramatic baritone. He is also known for his flamboyant and androgynous stage persona. Gore has also released several solo albums and collaborated with former Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke as part of VCMG.

#18719

James B. Smith

#18730

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

James B. Smith is the former United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Selected by President Barack Obama, he was sworn in on September 16, 2009. He left his post on September 27, 2013. Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Smith had served in a variety of executive positions with Raytheon Company involving corporate strategic planning, aircraft manufacturing, and international business development.

#18720

Jawed Siddiqi

#18731

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Jawed Siddiqi FBCS is a Pakistani British computer scientist and software engineer. He is professor emeritus of software engineering at Sheffield Hallam University, England. He is the president of NCUP National Council of University Professors in the UK.

#18721

Roy Harris

#18732

Overall Influence

1931 - 2015 (84 years)

Roy Harris was a British linguist. He was Professor of General Linguistics in the University of Oxford and Honorary Fellow of St Edmund Hall. He also held university teaching posts in Hong Kong , Boston and Paris and visiting fellowships at universities in South Africa and Australia, and at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.

#18722

Predrag Vranicki

#18733

Overall Influence

1922 - 2002 (80 years)

Predrag Vranicki was a Marxist Humanist and member of the Praxis school in the 1960s in Yugoslavia. Life Vranicki was born in 1922, in Benkovac, Croatia. During World War II he fought with the National Liberation Army against the Fascist occupation of Yugoslavia. He received a diploma in philosophy from the University of Zagreb in 1947 and earned his PhD from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy in 1951. From 1964 to 1966 he was dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, and rector of the Zagreb University from 1972 to 1976. Vranicki became president of the Yugoslav Society for ...

#18723

Daniel Greenberger

#18734

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Daniel M. Greenberger is an American quantum physicist. He has been professor of physics at the City College of New York since 1964. He is also a fellow of the American Physical Society and—alongside Anton Zeilinger—founded the APS Topical Group on Quantum Information.

#18724

Gottfried Boehm

#18735

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (84 years)

Gottfried Boehm is a German art historian and philosopher. Life Boehm studied art history, philosophy and German in Cologne, Vienna and Heidelberg. He obtained his Promotion in philosophy in 1968 and his Habilitation in 1974 in art history. From 1975 to 1979 he taught art history at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. In 1979 he was made professor of art history at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen. In 1986 Boehm moved to the University of Basel, where since 2005 he has also been director of the Swiss national research project "Eikones / NCCR Iconic Criticism".

#18725

Martijn Katan

#18736

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Martijn Bernard Katan is a Dutch nutritionist, an emeritus professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and author of two popular science books on nutrition. Career Katan was born in Arnhem in 1946. He studied chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Amsterdam. He obtained his PhD in molecular biology in 1977 under Piet Borst from the same university. Katan started working at Wageningen University in 1976 where he researched "Nutrition and risk factors for cardiovascular disease". In 1998, he was appointed professor of human nutrition at the university. He was also the "Nutrition Foundation Professor" at the University of Nijmegen from 1985 to 1998.

#18726

Paul Schrader

#18737

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Paul Joseph Schrader is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first became widely known for writing the screenplay of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver . He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing Raging Bull , The Last Temptation of Christ , and Bringing Out the Dead . Schrader is more prolifically a director-- his 22 films include Blue Collar , Hardcore , American Gigolo , Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters , Light Sleeper , Affliction , and First Reformed , with the last of these earning him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work...

#18727

William Bennett

#18738

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

William John Bennett is an American conservative politician and political commentator who served as secretary of education from 1985 to 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He also held the post of director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George H. W. Bush.

#18728

David J. Howe

#18739

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

David J. Howe is a British writer, journalist, publisher, and media historian. Biography David Howe was born on 24 August 1961 and established himself as an authoritative media historian through writing articles for fanzines and other publications. In the early 1990s, he began to write the first in-depth critical texts of the British television series Doctor Who, and, as a result, has become closely associated with the show's history. He has written or co-written over thirty titles about the show, and continues to be involved with a variety of publications, often acting as consultant or revi...

#18729

Georg Nagel

#18740

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Georg Nagel is a biophysicist and professor at the Department for Neurophysiology at the University of Würzburg in Germany. His research is focused on microbial photoreceptors and the development of optogenetic tools.

#18730

Michael Keating

Michael Keating

#18741

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Michael Keating is a political scientist specialising in nationalism, European politics, regional politics, and devolution. He is Professor of Scottish Politics at the University of Aberdeen and Fellow of the Centre on Constitutional Change at the University of Edinburgh.

#18731

Alberto Dines

#18742

Overall Influence

1932 - 2018 (86 years)

Alberto Dines was a Brazilian journalist and writer. Biography With a career spanning over five decades, Dines directed and launched several magazines and newspapers in Brazil and Portugal. He has taught journalism since 1963, and was a visiting professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism in 1974.

#18732

Rorden Wilkinson

#18743

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Rorden Wilkinson FAcSS FRSA is a British academic and author. He is Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of International Political Economy at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He was previously Pro Vice-Chancellor and Professor of International Political Economy at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; Deputy Pro Vice-Chancellor , Professor of Global Political Economy, and a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex; and Professor of International Political Economy and Research Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester.

#18733

Steve Bell

#18744

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

Stephen Scott Bell was an American journalist and educator. He was news anchor of the ABC News programs Good Morning America and World News This Morning, and a professor emeritus of telecommunications at Ball State University.

#18734

Gavan McCormack

#18745

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Gavan McCormack is a researcher specializing in East Asia who is Emeritus Professor and Visiting Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History of the Australian National University. He is also a coordinator of an award-winning open access journal The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.

#18735

Cyrus Derman

#18746

Overall Influence

1925 - 2011 (86 years)

Cyrus Derman was an American mathematician and amateur musician who did research in Markov decision process, stochastic processes, operations research, statistics and a variety of other fields. Early life Derman grew up in Collingdale Pennsylvania. He was the son of a grocery store owner who came to the US from Lithuania. As a young boy he was often invited to play the violin at a Philadelphia radio show for talented children. Although his initial dream was to become a concert violinist, in the end he chose to study mathematics. Indeed, after he finished his undergraduate degree at the Un...

#18736

Ty Dolla Sign

#18747

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Tyrone William Griffin Jr. , better known by his stage name Ty Dolla Sign , is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He first gained recognition for his feature on rapper YG's 2010 single "Toot It and Boot It". In 2012, he signed to Atlantic Records, and in 2013 signed with rapper Wiz Khalifa's Taylor Gang Entertainment. He's since released three studio albums, Free TC , Beach House 3 , and Featuring Ty Dolla Sign , the latter of which reached number 4 on the Billboard 200.

#18737

Rodolfo Coria

#18748

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Rodolfo Aníbal Coria , is an Argentine paleontologist. He is best known for having directed the field study and co-naming of Argentinosaurus in 1993, and Giganotosaurus , in 1996 among other landmark South American dinosaurs, including Mapusaurus, Aucasaurus, and Quilmesaurus. He is a member of the Argentine Paleontological Association, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Paleontological Society and The Explorers Club.

#18738

Dave Goulson

#18749

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Dave Goulson is Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex. Specializing in the ecology and conservation of insects, particularly bumblebees, Goulson is the author of several books, including Bumblebees: Their Behaviour and Ecology , Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse , and more than 200 academic articles. In 2006 he founded the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, a charity that aims to reverse the decline in the bumblebee population.

#18739

Martin Kippenberger

Martin Kippenberger

#18750

Overall Influence

1953 - 1997 (44 years)

Martin Kippenberger was a German artist known for his extremely prolific output in a wide range of styles and media, superfiction as well as his provocative, jocular and hard-drinking public persona.

#18740

Raj Aggarwal

#18751

Overall Influence

Raj Aggarwal is an author and contributor to the fields of finance and international business studies. Aggarwal was the dean of the University of Akron College of Business Administration from 2006 until 2009. He was elected as a fellow of the Academy of International Business. He has worked as an engineer, financial analyst, strategic planner, department chair, university budget planner and corporate board member. He has authored or co-authored over a dozen books or monographs and over a hundred scholarly articles that have cited over 5,000 times according to his profile in Google Scholar.

#18741

Carlo Ratti

#18752

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Carlo Ratti is an Italian architect, engineer, inventor, educator and activist. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he directs the MIT Senseable City Lab, a research group that explores how new technologies are changing the way we understand, design and ultimately live in cities. Ratti is also a founding partner of the international design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, which he established in 2004 in Torino, Italy, and now has a branch in New York City, United States. Ratti was named one of the "50 most influential designers in America" by F...

#18742

Ann Nelson

#18753

Overall Influence

1958 - 2019 (61 years)

Ann Elizabeth Nelson was a particle physicist and professor of physics in the Particle Theory Group at the University of Washington from 1994 until her death. Nelson received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004, and she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. She was a recipient of the 2018 J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics, presented annually by the American Physical Society and considered one of the most prestigious prizes in physics.

#18743

Genichiro Takahashi

#18754

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Genichiro Takahashi is a Japanese novelist. Life and career Takahashi was born in Onomichi, Hiroshima prefecture and attended the Economics Department of Yokohama National University without graduating. As a radical student, he was arrested and spent half a year in prison, which caused Takahashi to develop a form of aphasia. As part of his rehabilitation, his doctors encouraged him to start writing. Critics have compared him to Thomas Pynchon, Donald Barthelme, and Italo Calvino.

#18744

Mitch Altman

#18755

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Mitch Altman is a Berlin-based hacker and inventor of TV-B-Gone. He is a featured speaker at hacker conferences, an international expert on the hackerspace movement, and teaches introductory electronics workshops. He is also Chief Scientist and CEO of Cornfield Electronics.

#18745

Christian Tomuschat

#18756

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Christian Tomuschat is a German jurist. He is emeritus professor of public international law and European law at the Humboldt University in Berlin and is a former member of the UN Human Rights Committee and the UN's International Law Commission.

#18746

Samuel Farber

#18757

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Samuel Farber is an American writer born and raised in Cuba. Born and raised in Mariano, Cuba, Farber came to the United States in February 1958. He obtained a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969 and taught at a number of colleges and universities including UCLA and, most recently, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, where he is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science. His scholarship on Cuba is extensive and includes many articles and two previous books: Revolution and Reaction in Cuba, 1933-1960 and The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered .

#18747

Anna Sokolow

#18758

Overall Influence

1910 - 2000 (90 years)

Anna Sokolow was an American dancer and choreographer. Sokolow's work is known for its social justice focus and theatricality. Throughout her career, Sokolow supported of the development of modern dance around the world, including in Mexico and Israel.

#18748

Jan Lenica

#18759

Overall Influence

1928 - 2001 (73 years)

Jan Lenica was a Polish graphic designer and cartoonist. A graduate of the Architecture Department of Warsaw Polytechnic, Lenica became a poster illustrator and a collaborator on the early animation films of Walerian Borowczyk. From 1963 – 1986 he lived and worked in France, while from 1987 he lived and worked in Berlin. He was a professor of graphic, poster, animated cartoon for many years at German high schools and the first professor of the animation class at the University of Kassel, Germany, in 1979. He used cut-out stop motion animation in his numerous films, which included two feature...

#18749

Steven Laureys

#18760

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Steven Laureys is a Belgian neurologist. He is principally known as a clinician and researcher in the field of neurology of consciousness. Career Prof. Laureys graduated as a Medical Doctor from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, in 1993. While specializing in neurology he entered a research career and obtained his MSc in Pharmaceutical Medicine working on pain and stroke using in vivo microdialysis and diffusion MRI in the rat . Drawn by functional neuroimaging, he moved to the Cyclotron Research Center at the University of Liège, Belgium, where he obtained his PhD studying residual brain function in the vegetative state in 2000.

#18750

Henri Blocher

#18761

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Henri A. G. Blocher is a French Baptist evangelical theologian. Biography Blocher earned a B.D. degree from Gordon Divinity School . Ministry In 1961, he became a professor at the Biblical Institute of Nogent-sur-Marne until 2016. In 1965, he became professor of systematic theology at the :fr:Faculté libre de théologie évangélique de Vaux-sur-Seine in Vaux-sur-Seine, in France, until 2003, of which he is one of the honorary deans. In 2003, he became professor of systematic theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton until 2008.

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