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

#23701

Alison Krauss

#23712

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, competing in local contests by the age of eight and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join Union Station, releasing her first album with them as a group in 1989 and performing with them ever since.

#23702

Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham

#23713

Overall Influence

1919 - 2009 (90 years)

Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other disciplines, including musicians John Cage, David Tudor, Brian Eno, and graphic artists Robert Rauschenberg, Bruce Nauman, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and Jasper Johns; and fashion designer Rei Kawakubo. Works that he produced with these artists had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance.

#23703

Richard Landes

#23714

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Richard Allen Landes is an American historian and author who specializes in medieval millennial thinking. Until 2015 he taught at Boston University, and then began working at Bar-Ilan University, where his current interests include defending the politics of Israel in the light of what he calls media manipulation by Palestinians.

#23704

Mark A. Smith

#23715

Overall Influence

1965 - 2010 (45 years)

Mark Anthony Smith was a professor of pathology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he also served as the Director of Basic Science Research at the University Memory and Aging Center. At the time of his death, he had been serving as Executive Director of the American Aging Association.

#23705

Bruce Jones

#23716

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Bruce Eliot Jones whose pen names include Philip Roland and Bruce Elliot, is an American comic book writer, novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose work included writing Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk from 2001 to 2005.

#23706

Martin Jol

#23717

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Maarten Cornelis "Martin" Jol is a Dutch football manager and former midfielder. He played over 400 games during his career which included spells in the Netherlands, Germany, and England, as well as earning three caps with the Netherlands national team. He subsequently became a manager and has worked for Roda JC, RKC Waalwijk and AFC Ajax in his homeland, as well as German Bundesliga club Hamburger SV and English Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham and Egypt's Al Ahly.

#23707

David Robie

#23718

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

David Robie is a New Zealand author, journalist and media educator who has covered the Asia-Pacific region for international media for more than two decades. Robie is the author of several books on South Pacific media and politics and is an advocate for media freedom in the pacific region.

#23708

Brian Bowditch

#23719

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Brian Hayward Bowditch is a British mathematician known for his contributions to geometry and topology, particularly in the areas of geometric group theory and low-dimensional topology. He is also known for solving the angel problem. Bowditch holds a chaired Professor appointment in Mathematics at the University of Warwick.

#23709

Basil Markesinis

Basil Markesinis

#23720

Overall Influence

1944 - 2023 (79 years)

Sir Basil Markesinis, KC, FBA was a Greek-British barrister and legal scholar, who was Jamail Regents Professor at the University of Texas, Austin. He was previously Professor of Common and Civil Law at University College London.

#23710

H. Pierre Noyes

#23721

Overall Influence

1923 - 2016 (93 years)

H. Pierre Noyes was an American theoretical physicist. He became a member of the faculty at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in 1962. Noyes specialized in several areas of research, including the relativistic few-body problem in nuclear and particle physics.

#23711

Michael Axworthy

#23722

Overall Influence

1962 - 2019 (57 years)

Michael George Andrew Axworthy was a British academic, author, and commentator. He was the head of the Iran section at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office between 1998 and 2000. Personal life and family Michael Axworthy was born in Woking on 26 September 1962. He spent his childhood in West Kirby, Radyr, Ilkley and Chester, where he attended The King's School.

#23712

Charles H. Henry

Charles H. Henry

#23723

Overall Influence

1937 - 2016 (79 years)

Charles H. Henry was an American physicist. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He received an M.S. degree in physics in 1959 from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. degree in physics in 1965 from the University of Illinois, under the direction of Charlie Slichter. In March 2008, he was featured in an article in the Physics Illinois News, a publication of the Physics Department of the University of Illinois.

#23713

Medbh McGuckian

Medbh McGuckian

#23724

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Medbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland. Biography She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster and her mother an influential art and music enthusiast. She was educated at Holy Family Primary School and Dominican College, Fortwilliam and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1972 and a Master of Arts degree in 1974 at Queen's University Belfast. Maeve McCaughan adopted the Irish spelling of her name, Medbh, when her university teacher, Seamus Heaney, wrote her name that way when signing books to her.

#23714

Arnold G. Kluge

#23725

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Arnold G. Kluge is professor emeritus of zoology and curator emeritus of amphibians and reptiles at the University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology. Kluge authored over 140 journal articles. He served as past president of the Willi Hennig Society and as editor-in-chief of its journal Cladistics. He served at the University of Michigan from 1965 until his retirement in 2003.

#23715

Gene Tierney

#23726

Overall Influence

1920 - 1991 (71 years)

Gene Eliza Tierney was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed for her great beauty, she became established as a leading lady. Tierney was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura , and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven .

#23716

Ioan Lewis

#23727

Overall Influence

1930 - 2014 (84 years)

Ioan Myrddin Lewis FBA , popularly known as I. M. Lewis, was a professor emeritus of anthropology at the London School of Economics. Early life and education Born in Scotland to a Welsh father and a Scottish mother, Lewis lived in Glasgow after the death of his father during his childhood.

#23717

David J. Barron

#23728

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

David Jeremiah Barron is an American lawyer who serves as the Chief United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and former S. William Green Professor of Public Law at Harvard Law School. He previously served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice.

#23718

Vladimir Barmin

Vladimir Barmin

#23729

Overall Influence

1909 - 1993 (84 years)

Vladimir Pavlovich Barmin was a Russian engineer in the former Soviet space program who is remembered for being the designer of the first Soviet rocket launch complexes in the Soviet space program. An asteroid, 22254 Vladbarmin, was named in his honor.

#23719

Daniel J. Siegel

#23730

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Daniel J. Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and executive director of the Mindsight Institute. Background Daniel J. Siegel received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. He served as a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at UCLA, studying family interactions with an emphasis on how attachment experiences influence emotions, behavior, autobiographical memory and narrative.

#23720

John Madey

#23731

Overall Influence

1943 - 2016 (73 years)

John M. J. Madey was a professor of Physics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, a former director of the Free Electron Laser Laboratory at Duke University, and formerly a professor at Stanford University. He is best known for his development of the free-electron laser at Stanford University in the 1970s.

#23721

Andrew Bogut

#23732

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Andrew Michael Bogut is an Australian former professional basketball player who spent the majority of his career in the National Basketball Association . The tall center was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the first overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft. He earned All-NBA Third Team honors with the Bucks in 2010. He was traded to the Golden State Warriors in 2012, and was named NBA All-Defensive Second Team in 2015, when he won an NBA championship with the Warriors.

#23722

W. B. Gallie

#23733

Overall Influence

1912 - 1998 (86 years)

Walter Bryce Gallie was a Scottish social theorist, political theorist, and philosopher. Career Early life Gallie was born in Lenzie, East Dunbartonshire, near Glasgow, the son of an engineer. He worked as a classics teacher at Sedbergh School between the wars and later published his memoirs of this in the book An English School.

#23723

Johan Goudsblom

#23734

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Johan Goudsblom was a Dutch sociologist. Life He was born on 11 October 1932. He died on 17 March 2020 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Education After completing his high school, he attended an American university.

#23724

Dominic Abrams

#23735

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

William Dominic Joshua Abrams, is a Professor of Social Psychology and the Director of the Centre for the Study of Group Processes in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent. His research examines social identity, social cohesion, inclusion and exclusion, prejudice, discrimination, social attitudes, social change and social influence in groups across the life course. It spans social and developmental psychology and gerontology and uses a wide range of methods, most frequently surveys and laboratory and field experiments.

#23725

Marian Czakański

#23736

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Marian Czakański is a Polish politician and economist. He briefly served as Minister of Health in the government of Marek Belka . Education He is a 1969 graduate of the Warsaw School of Economics attending the Department of Finance and Statistics.

#23726

Richard Leakey

#23737

Overall Influence

1944 - 2022 (78 years)

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician. Leakey held a number of official positions in Kenya, mostly in institutions of archaeology and wildlife conservation. He was Director of the National Museum of Kenya, founded the NGO WildlifeDirect, and was the chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Service. Leakey served in the powerful office of cabinet secretary and head of public service during the tail end of President Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi's government

#23727

Emma Dench

#23738

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Emma Dench is an English ancient historian, classicist, and academic administrator. She has been McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History at Harvard University since 2014, and Dean of its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences since 2018. Her previous positions include Professor of Ancient History at Birkbeck College, University of London and Professor of Classics and of History at Harvard.

#23728

Robert Phelps

#23739

Overall Influence

1926 - 2013 (87 years)

Robert Ralph Phelps was an American mathematician who was known for his contributions to analysis, particularly to functional analysis and measure theory. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Washington from 1962 until his death.

#23729

Evgenii Feinberg

#23740

Overall Influence

1912 - 2005 (93 years)

Evgenii L'vovich Feinberg was a Soviet physicist, recognized for his contributions to theoretical physics. He was the son of a physician, born in Baku, moving to Moscow in 1918 where he graduated from Moscow State University as a theoretical physicist in 1935. He did research at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Troitsk, Moscow Oblast from 1938, where he published over a hundred works in his field. Feinberg studied radio physics , statistical acoustics, the neutron, cosmic rays and particle physics. In his early years, he studied the beta-decay of ionized atoms , inelastic coherent processes ...

#23730

Avi Rubin

#23741

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Aviel David "Avi" Rubin is an expert in systems and networking security. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Professor of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University, Technical Director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins, Director of ACCURATE, and President and co-founder of Independent Security Evaluators. In 2002, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the USENIX Association for a two-year term.

#23731

Susanna Moore

#23742

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (81 years)

Susanna Moore is an American writer and teacher. Born in Pennsylvania but raised in Hawaii, Moore worked as a model and script reader in Los Angeles and New York City before beginning her career as a writer. Her first novel, My Old Sweetheart, published in 1982, earned a PEN Hemingway nomination, and won the Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She followed this with The Whiteness of Bones in 1989, and her third novel, Sleeping Beauties, in 1993. All three of these novels were set in Hawaii and charted dysfunctional family relationships.

#23732

Stathis Zachos

#23743

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Stathis K. Zachos is a mathematician, logician , pimp and theoretical computer scientist. Biography Zachos received his PhD from the ETHZ in Mathematics , 1978. He has held the posts of professor in Computer Science at UCSB, CUNY and NTUA and Adjunct professor at ETHZ. He has worked as a researcher at MIT, Brown-Boveri.

#23733

Michèle Roberts

#23744

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Michèle Brigitte Roberts FRSL is a British writer, novelist and poet. She is the daughter of a French Catholic teacher mother and English Protestant father , and has dual UK–France nationality. Early life Roberts was born to a French Catholic mother and English Protestant father in Bushey, Hertfordshire, but raised in Edgware, Middlesex. She was educated at a convent, expecting to become a nun, before reading English at Somerville College, Oxford, where she lost her Catholic faith. She also studied at University College London, training to be a librarian. She worked for the British Council i...

#23734

John Lloyd

#23745

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

John David Lloyd is a British graphic designer who in 1975 co-founded the international design consultancy Lloyd Northover. He has worked in all fields of graphic design but has specialised in corporate identity.

#23735

Svetlana Geier

#23746

Overall Influence

1923 - 2010 (87 years)

Svetlana Geier, born Svetlana Michailovna Ivanova, was a literary translator who translated from her native Russian into German. She lived in Germany from 1943 until her death in 2010. Biography Svetlana Geier was born in Kiev in 1923, the daughter of Russian parents. Her father was a scientist with a specialty in plant breeding. Her mother came from a family of Tsarist officers. Her father was arrested in 1938 during the period of Stalin's Great Purge, and died in 1939 from illnesses stemming from his time in prison. Geier had a sheltered childhood, receiving private tuition in both France and Germany early in her life.

#23736

Clifford Martin Will

#23747

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Clifford Martin Will is a Canadian-born theoretical physicist noted for his contributions to general relativity. Life and work Will was born in Hamilton, Ontario. In 1968, he earned a B.Sc. from McMaster University. At Caltech, he studied under Kip Thorne, earning his Ph.D. in 1971. He has taught at the University of Chicago and Stanford University, and in 1981 joined the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis. In 2012, he moved to a faculty position at the University of Florida.

#23737

Mark R. Cohen

#23748

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Mark R. Cohen is an American scholar of Jewish history in the Muslim world. Cohen is Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor Emeritus of Jewish Civilization in the Near East and Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.

#23738

Charles Alan Wright

Charles Alan Wright

#23749

Overall Influence

1927 - 2000 (73 years)

Charles Alan Wright was an American constitutional lawyer widely considered to be the foremost authority in the United States on constitutional law and federal procedure, and was the coauthor of the 54-volume treatise, Federal Practice and Procedure with Arthur R. Miller and Kenneth W. Graham, Jr., among others. He also served as a special legal consultant to President Richard Nixon during the congressional investigations into the Watergate break in and coverup, and for a time was the president's lead lawyer.

#23739

Ljubisav Rakić

#23750

Overall Influence

1931 - 2022 (91 years)

Ljubisav Rakić was a Serbian neurobiologist, professor and academic. Life and career Rakić was born in Sarajevo on 11 April 1931, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. His parents were teachers. He graduated from the Belgrade Medical School in 1956. After graduating, he became an Assistant Professor for physiology and biochemistry at the University of Belgrade's School of Medicine. In 1969, he was already a Full Professor. Since 1971, he was a Professor for postgraduate studies in neurobiology at University of Belgrade. Rakić was the founder of the International brain research laboratory in Kotor where ...

#23740

Leonard Carlitz

#23751

Overall Influence

1907 - 1999 (92 years)

Leonard Carlitz was an American mathematician. Carlitz supervised 44 doctorates at Duke University and published over 770 papers. Chronology 1907 Born Philadelphia, PA, USA1927 BA, University of Pennsylvania1930 PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1930 under Howard Mitchell, who had studied under Oswald Veblen at Princeton1930–31 at Caltech with E. T. Bell1931 married Clara Skaler1931–32 at Cambridge with G. H. Hardy1932 Joined the faculty of Duke University where he served for 45 years1938 to 1973 Editorial Board Duke Mathematical Journal 1939 Birth of son Michael1940 Supervision of his first doctoral student E.

#23741

Steve Scully

#23752

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Steven L. Scully is an American broadcast journalist. He is the host of "The Briefing with Steve Scully" on SiriusXM POTUS 124 and contributor to Hill.com. He is the former C-SPAN Political Editor, as well as host and producer for its morning call-in show Washington Journal, "Washington Today" on C-SPAN Radio and The Weekly, C-SPAN's podcast. Scully served on the board of the White House Correspondents Association for nine years, including as president from 2006 to 2007.

#23742

Volodymyr Semynozhenko

#23753

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Volodymyr Petrovych Semynozhenko is a Ukrainian politician and scientist. Semynozhenko is a former Vice Premier Minister of Ukraine and head of the Association of Ukrainian Scientists, and is now a member of the Board of the National Academy of Sciences, and served as the Chair of the Parliament Committee on Sciences and Technology. He is also the author of Ukrainian Legislation on Technology Parks. Semynozhenko was the party leader of the Party of Regions from late 2001 until early 2003. Since March 2009 Semynozhenko is party leader of the party New Politics. In addition, he created and se...

#23743

Jeffrey Mehlman

#23754

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Jeffrey Mehlman is a literary critic and a historian of ideas. He has taught at Cornell University, Yale University, and Johns Hopkins University, and is currently University Professor and Professor of French Literature at Boston University. He has held visiting professorships at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, CUNY Graduate Center, Washington University in St. Louis, and MIT. Over a number of years, he has been writing an implicit history of speculative interpretation in France in the form of a series of readings of canonical literary works.

#23744

Louis Leprince-Ringuet

Louis Leprince-Ringuet

#23755

Overall Influence

1901 - 2000 (99 years)

Louis Leprince-Ringuet was a French physicist, telecommunications engineer, essayist and historian of science. Leprince-Ringuet advocated strongly for the creation of the European Organization for Nuclear Research and remained its indefatigable supporter. He was vice chair and chair of CERN’s scientific policy committee. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

#23745

Renita J. Weems

#23756

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Renita J. Weems is an American Protestant biblical scholar, theologian, author and clergywoman. She is the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies in this country. She was influenced by the move in the last half of the 20th century which argues that context matters and shapes our scholarship and understanding of truth. She is best known for her significant contribution to womanist theology, feminist studies in religion and black religious thought. She is recognized as one of the first scholars to bring black women's ways of reading and interpreting the Bible into mainstream academic discourse.

#23746

John Aitchison

#23757

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

John Aitchison was a Scottish statistician. Career John Aitchison studied at the University of Edinburgh after being uncomfortable explaining to his headmaster that he didn’t plan to attend university. He graduated in 1947 with an MA in mathematics.

#23747

Gale Sayers

#23758

Overall Influence

1943 - 2020 (77 years)

Gale Eugene Sayers was an American professional football halfback and return specialist in the National Football League . In a relatively brief but highly productive NFL career, Sayers spent seven seasons with the Chicago Bears from 1965 to 1971, though multiple injuries effectively limited him to five seasons of play. He was known for his elusiveness and agility and was regarded by his peers as one of the most difficult players to tackle.

#23748

Agner Fog

#23759

Overall Influence

Agner Fog is a Danish evolutionary anthropologist and computer scientist. He is currently an associate professor of computer science at the Technical University of Denmark , and has been present at DTU since 1995. He is best known for coining the term "Regality Theory" and for writing extensive optimization manuals for machines running the x86 architecture.

#23749

Raynard S. Kington

Raynard S. Kington

#23760

Overall Influence

Raynard S. Kington is an American educator and the 16th Head of School of Phillips Academy in Andover. Previously, he was the 13th president of Grinnell College. He has served as the deputy director and acting director of the National Institutes of Health.

#23750

Patrick C. Walsh

#23761

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Patrick C. Walsh is an American urologist, researcher and writer, best known for developing "the anatomic approach to radical prostatectomy", involving nerve-sparing techniques which reduced the likelihood of impotence and urinary incontinence. He authored The Prostate: A Guide for Men and the Women Who Love Them and Dr. Patrick Walsh's Guide to Surviving Prostate Cancer.

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