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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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people

#21601

Joel Shapiro

#21612

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Joel Elias Shapiro is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly defined through the materials used, without allusions to subjects outside of the works. He lives and works in New York City. He is married to the artist Ellen Phelan.

#21602

Gregory Petsko

#21613

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Gregory A. Petsko is an American biochemist and member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He is currently Professor of Neurology at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He formerly had an endowed professorship in Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College and is still an adjunct professor of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, and is also the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor, Emeritus, in biochemistry and chemistry at Brandeis University.

#21603

James Montgomery Boice

#21614

Overall Influence

1938 - 2000 (62 years)

James Montgomery Boice was an American Reformed Christian theologian, Bible teacher, author, and speaker known for his writing on the authority of Scripture and the defence of Biblical inerrancy. He was also the Senior Minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 until his death.

#21604

Ortrud Oellermann

#21615

Overall Influence

Ortrud R. Oellermann is a South African mathematician specializing in graph theory. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Winnipeg. Education and career Oellermann was born in Vryheid. She earned a bachelor's degree, cum laude honours, and a master's degree at the University of Natal in 1981, 1982, and 1983 respectively, as a student of Henda Swart. She completed her Ph.D. in 1986 at Western Michigan University. Her dissertation was Generalized Connectivity in Graphs and was supervised by Gary Chartrand.

#21605

Christian Vieri

#21616

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Christian "Bobo" Vieri is an Italian former professional footballer who played as a centre forward. Having been born in Italy, Vieri moved with his family to Australia as a child, before returning to Italy to pursue his professional career at a young age. He then spent the bulk of his career playing in the Serie A.

#21606

Mohamed Ghoneim

#21617

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Mohamed Ahmed Ghoneim is an Egyptian urologist. Career Ghoneim is a graduate of the University of Cairo. He is one of the founders of the Ghoneim Urology and Nephrology Center for Management of Renal and Urological Disorders . He is a member of the International Society of Urology, and a member of both the British and the American Urology Associations. He is a colleague of Professor Nils Kock, the inventor of the Kock pouch.

#21607

Claude S. Fischer

#21618

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Claude Serge Fischer is an American sociologist and Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in urban sociology, research methods, and American society at UC Berkeley. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2017.

#21608

Susan Pedersen

#21619

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Susan Pedersen is a Canadian historian, and James P. Shenton Professor of the Core Curriculum at Columbia University. Pedersen focuses on 19th and 20th century British history, women's history, settler colonialism, and the history of international institutions.

#21609

Joshua Pearce

#21620

Overall Influence

Joshua M. Pearce is an academic engineer at Western University and Michigan Tech known for his work on protocrystallinity, photovoltaic technology, open-source-appropriate technology, and open-source hardware including RepRap 3D printers.

#21610

Stuart Orkin

#21621

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Stuart Holland Orkin is an American physician, stem cell biologist and researcher in pediatric hematology-oncology. He is the David G. Nathan Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Orkin's research has focused on the genetic basis of blood disorders. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

#21611

Stamatios Krimigis

#21622

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Stamatios M. Krimizis is a Greek-American scientist in space exploration. He has contributed to many of the United States' unmanned space exploration programs of the Solar System and beyond. He has contributed to exploration missions to almost every planet of the Solar System. In 1999, the International Astronomical Union named the asteroid 8323 Krimigis in his honor.

#21612

Kerry Chamberlain

#21623

Overall Influence

Kerry Chamberlain is a Professor of Social and Health Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand. He is a critical health psychologist who has been prominent internationally in promoting qualitative research within health psychology. His main research interests include health in everyday life and understanding of disadvantage.

#21613

Edgar Bright Wilson

#21624

Overall Influence

1908 - 1992 (84 years)

Edgar Bright Wilson Jr. was an American chemist. Wilson was a prominent and accomplished chemist and teacher, recipient of the National Medal of Science in 1975, Guggenheim Fellowships in 1949 and 1970, the Elliott Cresson Medal in 1982, and a number of honorary doctorates. He was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the United States National Academy of Sciences. He was also the Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at Harvard University. One of his sons, Kenneth G. Wilson, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1982.

#21614

Colin Lucas

#21625

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Sir Colin Renshaw Lucas, is a British historian and university administrator. From 1997 to 2004, he was the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. In May 2006, he was appointed Chair of the Board of the British Library for a four-year term ending 2010.

#21615

N. Randy Smith

#21626

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Norman Randy Smith is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He lives and maintains chambers in Pocatello, Idaho. Background A native of southeastern Idaho, Smith attended Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1974. He received his Juris Doctor from J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in 1977. Following law school, he returned to Idaho and practiced from 1977 to 1981 as associate and assistant general counsel for the J.R. Simplot Company, one of the largest privately owned companies in the world.

#21616

Gene Nichol

#21627

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Gene Ray Nichol, Jr. was the twenty-sixth president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. He succeeded Timothy J. Sullivan and officially served from July 1, 2005, to February 12, 2008. It was the shortest tenure for a William & Mary president since the Civil War. During each year of his presidency, however, the college continued to break its own application records.

#21617

Cicely Popplewell

Cicely Popplewell

#21628

Overall Influence

1920 - 1995 (75 years)

Cicely Mary Williams was a British software engineer who worked with Alan Turing on the Manchester Mark 1 computer. Early life and education Popplewell was born on 29October 1920 in Bramhall, Stockport, England. Her parents were Bessie and Alfred Popplewell, a chartered accountant. She attended Sherbrook Private Girls School at Greaves Hall in Lancashire.

#21618

Tetsuro Matsuzawa

Tetsuro Matsuzawa

#21629

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Tetsuro Matsuzawa is a primatologist who was a past director of the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University. He graduated from Kyoto University with a B.A. degree in 1974, a Psy.M. degree in 1976 and a Ph.D. degree in Science in 1989.

#21619

Paul von Ragué Schleyer

#21630

Overall Influence

1930 - 2014 (84 years)

Paul von Ragué Schleyer was an American physical organic chemist whose research is cited with great frequency. A 1997 survey indicated that Dr. Schleyer was, at the time, the world's third most cited chemist, with over 1100 technical papers produced. He was Eugene Higgins Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, professor and co-director of the Institute for Organic Chemistry at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany, and later Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. He published twelve books in the fields of lithium chemistry, ab initio molecular orbital theory and carbonium ions.

#21620

Roger D. Launius

Roger D. Launius

#21631

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Roger D. Launius is an American historian and author of Lithuanian descent, a former chief historian of NASA. He retired in 2016 as Associate Director for Collections and Curatorial Affairs for the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Launius is a consulting historian in air and space history. He has written many books on space flight, and also published on the history of the Latter Day Saint movement.

#21621

Emmanuel Breuillard

#21632

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Emmanuel Breuillard is a French mathematician. He was the Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge, and is now Professor of Pure Mathematics at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford as of January 1, 2022. He had previously been professor at Paris-Sud 11 University.

#21622

Charles Wheelan

Charles Wheelan

#21633

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Charles J. Wheelan is an American professor, journalist, speaker, and is the founder and co-chairman of Unite America. Wheelan is the author of Naked Statistics, Naked Economics, and Naked Money. He was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate in the special election for Illinois's 5th congressional district, the seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel.

#21623

Aris Poulianos

#21634

Overall Influence

1924 - Present (102 years)

Aris Poulianos is a Greek anthropologist and archaeologist. Early life and career Before becoming an anthropologist, Poulianos fought during World War II as a member of ELAS in 1942 and 1943. During the Greek Civil War, he fought on the side of the DSE in 1948 and 1949. After the war, Poulianos studied biology at Queens College, New York and then anthropology in Moscow.

#21624

Indumathi D.

#21635

Overall Influence

Indumathi D. is an Indian particle physicist and a professor at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences , Chennai, India. She has been an active member of the Indian Neutrino Observatory project since its inception.

#21625

Mu-ming Poo

#21636

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Mu-ming Poo is a Chinese-American neuroscientist. He is the Paul Licht Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and the Founding Director of the Shanghai-based Institute of Neuroscience of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the 2016 Gruber Prize in Neuroscience for his pioneering work on synaptic plasticity. At ION, Poo led a team of scientists that produced the world's first truly cloned primates, a pair of crab-eating macaques called Zhongzhong and Huahua in 2017, using somatic cell nuclear transfer .

#21626

Sasikanth Manipatruni

#21637

Overall Influence

Sasikanth Manipatruni is an American engineer and inventor in the fields of Computer engineering, Integrated circuit technology, Materials Engineering and semiconductor device fabrication. Manipatruni contributed to developments in silicon photonics, spintronics and quantum materials.

#21627

Ellis Henican

#21638

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Ellis Henican is an American columnist at Newsday and AM New York as well as a political analyst on the Fox News Channel. He hosts a nationally syndicated weekend show on Talk Radio Network and is the voice of "Stormy" on the Cartoon Network series Sealab 2021. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller The Party's Over: How the Extreme Right Hijacked the GOP and I Became a Democrat.

#21628

Morton I. Abramowitz

Morton I. Abramowitz

#21639

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Morton Isaac Abramowitz is an American diplomat and former U.S. State Department official. Starting his overseas career in Taipei, Taiwan after joining the foreign service, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand and Turkey and as the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. He retired from the State Department with the rank of Career Ambassador. He then became president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and founded the International Crisis Group.

#21629

John Vincent Atanasoff

John Vincent Atanasoff

#21640

Overall Influence

1903 - 1995 (92 years)

John Vincent Atanasoff, , was an American physicist and inventor credited with inventing the first electronic digital computer. Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer in the 1930s at Iowa State College . Challenges to his claim were resolved in 1973 when the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand lawsuit ruled that Atanasoff was the inventor of the computer. His special-purpose machine has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.

#21630

Vincent Lafforgue

#21641

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Vincent Lafforgue is a French mathematician who is active in algebraic geometry, especially in the Langlands program, and a CNRS "Directeur de Recherches" at the Institute Fourier in Grenoble. He is the younger brother of Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue.

#21631

Clare Cavanagh

#21642

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Clare Cavanagh is an American literary critic, a Slavist, and a translator. She is the Frances Hooper Professor in the Arts and Humanities and Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. An acclaimed translator of contemporary Polish poetry, she is currently under contract to write the authorized biography of Czesław Miłosz. She holds a B.A from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.A. and PhD from Harvard University . Before coming to Northwestern University, she taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her work has been transla...

#21632

Haynes Johnson

#21643

Overall Influence

1931 - 2013 (82 years)

Haynes Bonner Johnson was an American journalist, author, and television analyst. He reported on most of the major news stories of the latter half of the 20th century and was widely regarded as one of the top American political commentators.

#21633

Rudolf Schlesinger

#21644

Overall Influence

1909 - 1996 (87 years)

Rudolf Berthold Schlesinger was a German American legal scholar known for his contributions to the study of comparative law, a discipline that examines the differences and similarities among the legal systems of nations.

#21634

Ariella Azoulay

#21645

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay is an Israeli author, art curator, filmmaker, and theorist of photography and visual culture. She is a professor of Modern Culture and Media and the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University and an independent curator of Archives and Exhibitions.

#21635

Kim Kashkashian

#21646

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Kim Kashkashian is an American violist. She has spent her career in the U.S. and Europe and collaborated with many major contemporary composers. In 2013 she won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. She is recognized as one of the world's top violists.

#21636

Ivan Bratko

#21647

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Ivan Bratko is a Slovene computer scientist working as a D. Sc. Professor of Computer and Information Science at the Faculty of Computer and Information Science at the University of Ljubljana. Early life and education Bratko was born in Ljubljana in 1946. He earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering, Master of Science in mechanical engineering, and PhD in computer science from the University of Ljubljana.

#21637

Jere H. Lipps

#21648

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Jere Henry Lipps is Professor of the Graduate School, University of California, Berkeley, and Curator of Paleontology at the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Lipps was the ninth Director of the museum and chair of the department of Integrative Biology at Berkeley . He served as president of the Paleontological Society in 1997, and the Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research Inc. three times

#21638

Don McLean

#21649

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Donald McLean III is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. Known to fans as the "American Troubadour" or "King of the Trail", he is best known for his 1971 hit song "American Pie", an eight-and-a-half-minute folk rock "cultural touchstone" about the loss of innocence of the early rock and roll generation. His other hit singles include "Vincent" , "Dreidel", and "Wonderful Baby"; as well as his renditions of Roy Orbison's "Crying" and the Skyliners' "Since I Don't Have You".

#21639

Stan Van Gundy

#21650

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Stanley Alan Van Gundy is an American former basketball coach who is a television commentator for the NBA on TNT and College Basketball on CBS. Prior to TNT, Van Gundy was most recently the head coach for the New Orleans Pelicans of the NBA. He also served as the head coach and president of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons from 2014 to 2018. From 2003 to 2005, he was the head coach of the Miami Heat but resigned in 2005 mid-season, returning the job over to Pat Riley. Van Gundy then coached the Orlando Magic for five seasons from 2007 to 2012, leading them to the 2009 NBA Finals....

#21640

Eric Hehner

#21651

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Eric "Rick" C. R. Hehner is a Canadian computer scientist. He was born in Ottawa. He studied mathematics and physics at Carleton University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in 1969. He studied computer science at the University of Toronto, graduating with a Master of Science in 1970, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1974. He then joined the faculty there, becoming a full professor in 1983. He became the Bell University Chair in software engineering in 2001, and retired in 2012.

#21641

Albert Baez

#21652

Overall Influence

1912 - 2007 (95 years)

Albert Vinicio Báez was a Mexican-American physicist and the father of singers Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña, and an uncle of John C. Baez. He made important contributions to the early development of X-ray microscopes, X-ray optics, and later X-ray telescopes.

#21642

Douglas P. Lackey

#21653

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Douglas P. Lackey is an American philosopher and playwright who is also a professor at Baruch College of the City University of New York. Lackey was born in Staten Island, New York. As a graduate student, he studied under J. N. Findlay at Yale University. His post-graduate work on the ethics of nuclear warfare was influenced by his attention to earlier works by Bertrand Russell. His drama Kaddish in East Jerusalem was produced in 2003. The play was later expanded and revised as The Gandhi Nonviolent Soccer Club. He has also had plays produced about Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, and Lud...

#21643

Alain Duhamel

#21654

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Alain Maurice Jacques Duhamel is a prominent French journalist and political commentator. In 1963, Duhamel started working at Le Monde. He started giving talks on Europe 1 from 1974. He has also written in Libération since 1992, and in Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace.

#21644

Günter Abel

#21655

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Günter Abel is a German philosopher and former professor for theoretical philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin. Abel studied philosophy, history, romance studies and political science at the University of Marburg and the University of Lausanne. After finishing his PhD thesis on stoicism Abel habilitated in 1981 with a work on Friedrich Nietzsche. Since 1987 he is professor for theoretical philosophy at the Technical University of Berlin. From 1999 to 2001 he was vice-president of the Technical University of Berlin, from 2002 to 2005 he was president of the German Society of Philosophy .

#21645

Eva Moskowitz

#21656

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Eva Sarah Moskowitz is an American politician and education reform leader, who is the founder and CEO of the Success Academy Charter Schools. A member of the Democratic Party, Moskowitz served on the New York City Council, representing the 4th district on the Upper East Side, from 1999 to 2005. Moskowitz interviewed to be Donald Trump's Secretary of Education, but decided not to pursue the position.

#21646

Julian Peto

#21657

Overall Influence

Julian Peto is an English statistician and cancer epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was Cancer Research UK Chair of Epidemiology at the Institute of Cancer Research from 1983 until 2010. From 1974 to 1983 he worked as a research scientist under Sir Richard Doll at the University of Oxford.

#21647

Michael Scott

#21658

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Michael Scott is a British academic and university administrator. A professor of English literature, he was vice-chancellor of Glyndŵr University in Wrexham, Wales until 2015. Educated at the University of Wales, Lampeter and the University of Nottingham, Scott holds a PhD from De Montfort University. He was professor of English and head of the school of humanities at Sunderland Polytechnic, before becoming pro vice-chancellor of De Montfort University in 1989. Scott was, for 14 years, visiting professor of English at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

#21648

Judith Ortiz Cofer

Judith Ortiz Cofer

#21659

Overall Influence

1952 - 2016 (64 years)

Judith Ortiz Cofer was a Puerto Rican author. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents' and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2013, she won the university's 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award.

#21649

Vladimir Tretyakov

#21660

Overall Influence

1936 - 2021 (85 years)

Vladimir Evgenyevich Tretyakov was a Russian mathematician. He was the rector of the Ural State University from 1993 to 2006 and was its President until his death on 8 January 2021.

#21650

Alar Toomre

#21661

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Alar Toomre is an American astronomer and mathematician. He is a professor of applied mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Toomre's research is focused on the dynamics of galaxies. He is a 1984 MacArthur Fellow.

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