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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

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School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people

#25051

Iain Stewart

#25062

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Iain Simpson Stewart is a Scottish geologist who is currently Jordan-UK El Hassan bin Talal Research Chair in Sustainability at the Royal Scientific Society in Jordan. He is a UNESCO Chair in Geoscience and Society and formerly a member of the Scientific Board of UNESCO's International Geoscience Programme. Described as geology's "rock star", Stewart is best known to the public as the presenter of a number of science programmes for the BBC, notably the BAFTA nominated Earth: The Power of the Planet .

#25052

Nicoli Nattrass

#25063

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Nicoli Nattrass is a South African development economist who is professor of economics at the University of Cape Town . She is the co-director of the Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa and was the founding director of the Centre for Social Science Research .

#25053

Ian F. Akyildiz

Ian F. Akyildiz

#25064

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Ian F. Akyildiz received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, in 1978, 1981 and 1984, respectively. Currently, he is the President and CTO of the Truva Inc. since March 1989. He retired from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech in 2021 after almost 35 years service as Ken Byers Chair Professor in Telecommunications and Chair of the Telecom group.

#25054

Edward Kolb

#25065

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Edward W. Kolb, known as Rocky Kolb, is a cosmologist and a professor at the University of Chicago as well as the dean of Physical Sciences. He has worked on many aspects of the Big Bang cosmology, including baryogenesis, nucleosynthesis and dark matter. He is author, with Michael Turner, of the popular textbook The Early Universe . Additionally, alongside his co-author Michael Turner, Kolb was awarded the 2010 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics.

#25055

Guinevere Kauffmann

#25066

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Guinevere Alice Mei-Ing Kauffmann was born in California. She is an astrophysicist and is known for her work studying galaxies among other subjects. Academic career Kauffmann obtained a B.Sc. in applied mathematics at the University of Cape Town in 1988 and an M.Sc. in astronomy in 1990. She obtained her Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Cambridge in 1993, working with Simon White, whom she later married.

#25056

Anthony Seaton

#25067

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Anthony Seaton qualified in medicine from Cambridge University in 1962, and after training in Liverpool was appointed assistant professor of medicine at the University of West Virginia, USA in 1969. He became consulting chest physician at the University of Wales in 1971, and was named director of the Institute of Occupational Medicine at Edinburgh in 1978. Seaton became the head of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at the University of Aberdeen in 1988 and on retiring in 2003 became emeritus professor. He continues to write and teach and has active research interests ...

#25057

Mahesh Bhatt

#25068

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Mahesh Bhatt is an Indian film director, producer and screenwriter known for his works in Hindi cinema. A stand-out film from his earlier period is Saaransh , screened at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. It became India's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for that year. The 1986 film Naam was his first piece of commercial cinema. In 1987, he turned producer with the film Kabzaa under the banner, "Vishesh Films", with his brother Mukesh Bhatt.

#25058

Attahiru Jega

#25069

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Attahiru Muhammadu Jega is a Nigerian academic and former vice-chancellor of Bayero University, Kano. On 8 June 2010, he was nominated by then President Goodluck Jonathan as the new Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission , subject to Senate confirmation, as a replacement for professor Maurice Iwu, who vacated the post on 28 April 2010. Jega retired on 30 June 2015, handing over his position to Amina Zakari according to a directive by President Muhammadu Buhari.

#25059

Eli Capilouto

#25070

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Eli Capilouto is the twelfth president of the University of Kentucky. He was elected president by the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees in 2011, after serving as provost of the University of Alabama at Birmingham . Under his leadership, the Commonwealth's flagship and land-grant research university has grown from $2.7 billion to $6.8 billion in total operations and has gained significant momentum in fulfilling its multi-faceted mission of teaching, research, service and health care.

#25060

Nigel Lawson

#25071

Overall Influence

1932 - 2023 (91 years)

Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, was a British politician and journalist. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Member of Parliament for Blaby from 1974 to 1992, and served in Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet from 1981 to 1989. Prior to entering the Cabinet, he served as the Financial Secretary to the Treasury from May 1979 until his promotion to Secretary of State for Energy. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in June 1983 and served until his resignation in October 1989. In both Cabinet posts, Lawson was a key proponent of Thatcher's policies of privatisation of several...

#25061

Wei Zhang

#25072

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Wei Zhang is a Chinese mathematician specializing in number theory. He is currently a Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Education Zhang grew up in Sichuan province in China and attended Chengdu No.7 High School. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Peking University in 2004 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2009 under the supervision of Shou-Wu Zhang.

#25062

Robert Barron

#25073

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Robert Emmet Barron is an American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester since 2022. He is the founder of the Catholic ministerial organization Word on Fire, and was the host of Catholicism, a documentary TV series about Catholicism that aired on PBS. He served as rector at Mundelein Seminary from 2012 to 2015 and as auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 2015 to 2022.

#25063

Mike Keenan

#25074

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Michael Edward Keenan is a Canadian professional hockey coach currently serving as head coach of the Italian men's national ice hockey team. Previously, he served as head coach and/or general manager with several NHL teams between 1984 and 2009. He currently ranks fifth in playoff wins with 96. He is noted for his early career success in coaching Team Canada to win the 1987 Canada Cup round-robin tournament in a thrilling best-of-three series finale against Viktor Tikhonov's Red Army team. He is one of three coaches to coach in a playoff Game 7 ten times, for which he won five times.

#25064

Nina Jablonski

#25075

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Nina G. Jablonski is an American anthropologist and palaeobiologist, known for her research into the evolution of skin color in humans. She is engaged in public education about human evolution, human diversity, and racism. In 2021, she was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and in 2009, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. She is an Evan Pugh University Professor at The Pennsylvania State University, and the author of the books Skin: A Natural History, Living Color: The Biological and Social Meaning of Skin Color, and the co-author of Skin We Are In.

#25065

Leroy Cronin

#25076

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Leroy "Lee" Cronin FRSE FRSC is the Regius Chair of Chemistry in the School of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and appointed to the Regius Chair of Chemistry in 2013. He was previously the Gardiner Chair, appointed April 2009.

#25066

Ahmad Rashad

#25077

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Ahmad Rashad is an American sportscaster and former professional football wide receiver. He was the fourth overall selection of the 1972 NFL Draft, taken by the St. Louis Cardinals. He was known as Bobby Moore before changing his name in 1973.

#25067

Gary Hill

#25078

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Gary Hill is an American artist who lives and works in Seattle, Washington. Often viewed as one of the foundational artists in video art, based on the single-channel work and video- and sound-based installations of the 1970s and 1980s, he in fact began working in metal sculpture in the late 1960s. Today he is best known for internationally exhibited installations and performance art, concerned as much with innovative language as with technology, and for continuing work in a broad range of media. His longtime work with intermedia explores an array of issues ranging from the physicality of language, synesthesia and perceptual conundrums to ontological space and viewer interactivity.

#25068

Kerry Collins

#25079

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Kerry Michael Collins is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League for 17 seasons. Collins was a member of six NFL teams, most notably the Carolina Panthers, New York Giants, and Tennessee Titans. He played college football at Pennsylvania State University, where he won the Maxwell Award, Davey O'Brien Award, and Sammy Baugh Trophy as a senior.

#25069

Matt Leinart

#25080

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Matthew Stephen Leinart is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League for seven seasons. His mother is Linda Leinart and his father is Bob Leinart. He played college football for the USC Trojans, winning the Heisman Trophy and leading his team to an undefeated season as a junior, culminating with a victory in the 2004 BCS National Championship. Selected 10th overall by the Arizona Cardinals in the 2006 NFL Draft, Leinart primarily served as Kurt Warner's backup for four seasons. He spent his final three seasons in a backup role for the Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders.

#25070

Henry Kautz

#25081

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Henry A. Kautz is a computer scientist, Founding Director of Institute for Data Science and Professor at University of Rochester. He is interested in knowledge representation, artificial intelligence, data science and pervasive computing.

#25071

Abbe Mowshowitz

#25082

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (87 years)

Abbe Mowshowitz is an American academic, a professor of computer science at the City College of New York and a member of the Doctoral Faculty in Computer Science at The City University of New York who works in the areas of the organization, management, and economics of information systems; social and policy implications of information technology; network science; and graph theory. He is known for his work on virtual organization, a concept he introduced in the 1970s on information commodities, on the social implications of computing and on the complexity of graphs and networks.

#25072

Roland Levinsky

Roland Levinsky

#25083

Overall Influence

1943 - 2007 (64 years)

Professor Roland Levinsky was an academic researcher in biomedicine and a university senior manager. His last post, which he held at the time of his death, was as vice-chancellor of the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom.

#25073

Javier Zanetti

#25084

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Javier Adelmar Zanetti is an Argentine former professional footballer. He is regarded as one of the best players of his generation, and is especially well known for having dedicated almost his entire career at Inter Milan, having a key role in the historic treble-winning 2009–10 season. Zanetti was known for his versatility as well as his adeptness on both the left and right wing, having played as a Right Wing-back on both flanks in addition to being a midfielder. He is currently the Vice-President of Inter.

#25074

Roy Halladay

#25085

Overall Influence

1977 - 2017 (40 years)

Harry Leroy "Roy" Halladay III was an American professional baseball pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball for the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies between 1998 and 2013. His nickname, "Doc", was coined by Toronto Blue Jays announcer Tom Cheek, and was a reference to Wild West gunslinger Doc Holliday. An eight-time All-Star, Halladay was one of the most dominant pitchers of his era. Known for his outstanding durability, he led the league in complete games seven times, the most of any pitcher whose career began after 1945. He also led the league in strikeout-to-walk ratio fi...

#25075

Teruko Ishizaka

#25086

Overall Influence

1926 - 2019 (93 years)

Teruko "Terry" Ishizaka was a Japanese scientist and immunologist who along with her husband Kimishige Ishizaka discovered the antibody class Immunoglobulin E in 1966. Their work was regarded as a major breakthrough in the understanding of allergy, and for this work she received the 1972 Passano Award and the 1973 Gairdner Foundation International Award. She was known in the science world for her generosity and collaborative spirit.

#25076

Udo Ulfkotte

#25087

Overall Influence

1960 - 2017 (57 years)

Udo Ulfkotte was a German journalist and conspiracy theorist who maintained that journalists and leading newspapers published material that had been fed to them, or bought, by the CIA and other Western intelligence and propaganda agencies. Several media outlets rejected Ulfkotte's claims as frivolous. He was a political journalist for the German main daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for several years until 2003. From the end of the 1990s, he wrote several bestsellers and increasingly advocated right-wing populist, Islamophobic, and conspiracy-theory positions.

#25077

Barbara A. Schaal

Barbara A. Schaal

#25088

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Barbara Anna Schaal American scientist, evolutionary biologist, is a professor at Washington University in St. Louis and served as vice president of the National Academy of Sciences from 2005 to 2013. She is the first woman to be elected vice president of the academy. From 2009 to 2017, Schaal served on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology .

#25078

Mike Chapman

#25089

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Michael Donald Chapman is an Australian record producer and songwriter who was a major force in the British pop music industry in the 1970s. He created a string of hit singles for artists including The Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Smokie, Mud and Racey with business partner Nicky Chinn, creating a sound that became identified with the "Chinnichap" brand. He later produced breakthrough albums for Blondie and The Knack. Chapman received a Medal of the Order of Australia in the 2014 Australia Day Honours.

#25079

Richard Losick

#25090

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Richard Marc Losick is an American molecular biologist. He is the Maria Moors Cabot Professor of Biology at Harvard University and a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is especially noted for his investigations of endospore formation in Gram positive organisms such as Bacillus subtilis.

#25080

Pam Shriver

#25091

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Pamela Howard Shriver is an American former professional tennis player and current tennis broadcaster, pundit, and coach. During the 1980s and 1990s, Shriver won 133 WTA Tour–level titles, including 21 singles titles, 111 women's doubles titles, and one mixed doubles title. This includes 22 major titles, 21 in women's doubles and one in mixed doubles. Shriver also won an Olympic gold medal in women's doubles at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, partnering with Zina Garrison. Shriver and regular doubles partner Martina Navratilova are the only women's pair to complete the Grand Slam in a calendar year, winning all four majors in 1984.

#25081

John Heidemann

#25092

Overall Influence

John Heidemann is an engineer at the USC Information Sciences Institute in Marina del Rey, California. He was named a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 2014 for his contributions to sensor networks, internet measurement, and simulations. He has authored more than two hundred and fifty scholarly papers in these fields. His research has been supported by the American National Science Foundation, among others.

#25082

Richard L. Coe

#25093

Overall Influence

1914 - 1995 (81 years)

Richard Livingston Coe was a theater and cinema critic for The Washington Post for more than forty years. Coe became known as one of the most influential theater critics outside New York City. He was the leading theater reviewer in Washington when that city was a major tryout stop for shows headed for New York. It was the postwar period that was considered Broadway's last golden era of prolific production. Consequently, it was often Coe's reviews that directors used to help smooth out productions before heading to the harsher lights of Broadway.

#25083

Ana María Cetto

Ana María Cetto

#25094

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Ana María Cetto Kramis is a Mexican physicist and professor. She is known for her contributions to quantum mechanics, stochastic, electrodynamics, and biophysics of light, and for her work as a pacifist. From 2003 to 2010 she was Deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency . She is also professor at the Faculty of Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico , of which she was also director. Cetto is responsible for several scientific literature programs in Latin America and for several international programs on the promotion and participation of women in sci...

#25084

Mu-Tao Wang

#25095

Overall Influence

Mu-Tao Wang is a Taiwanese mathematician and current Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University. Education He entered National Taiwan University in 1984, originally for international business, but after a year he switched to mathematics. He earned his BS in Mathematics at National Taiwan University in 1988 and his MS from the same institution in 1992. He received a PhD in Mathematics in 1998 from Harvard University with a thesis entitled "Generalized harmonic maps and representations of discrete groups." His thesis adviser at Harvard was Chinese Fields Medalist and differential geometer...

#25085

Ragnar Fjørtoft

#25096

Overall Influence

1913 - 1998 (85 years)

Ragnar Fjørtoft was an internationally recognized Norwegian meteorologist. He was part of a Princeton, New Jersey team that in 1950 performed the first successful numerical weather prediction using the ENIAC electronic computer. He was also a professor of meteorology at the University of Copenhagen and director of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute.

#25086

Jennifer Granholm

#25097

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Jennifer Mulhern Granholm is a Canadian-American politician. Since 2021, she has served as the 16th United States secretary of energy. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously served as the attorney general of Michigan from 1999 to 2003 and as the 47th governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011, as the first woman to hold both offices.

#25087

Susana López Charretón

#25098

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Susana López Charretón is a Mexican virologist specialized in understanding the mechanisms of infection of rotavirus. López Charretón has led a research program as principal investigator at the Biotechnology Institute in Cuernavaca, Mexico for over 25 years.

#25088

Bill Shoemaker

#25099

Overall Influence

1931 - 2003 (72 years)

William Lee Shoemaker was an American jockey, considered one of the greatest. For 29 years he held the world record for the most professional jockey victories. Early life Referred to as "Bill", "Willie," and "The Shoe", William Lee Shoemaker was born in the town of Fabens, Texas. At , Shoemaker was so small at birth that he was not expected to survive the night. Put in a shoebox on the oven to stay warm, he survived, but remained small, growing to and weighing . His diminutive size proved an asset as he went on to become a giant in thoroughbred horse racing, despite dropping out of El Monte...

#25089

Hermann Parzinger

Hermann Parzinger

#25100

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Hermann Parzinger is a German historian who is a specialist in the culture of the Scythians. He has been president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation since 1 March 2008 and the Executive President of Europa Nostra since 2018.

#25090

Sarah Lee Lippincott

#25101

Overall Influence

1920 - 2019 (99 years)

Sarah Lee Lippincott , also known as Sarah Lee Lippincott Zimmerman, was an American astronomer. She was professor emerita of astronomy at Swarthmore College and director emerita of the college's Sproul Observatory. She was a pioneer in the use of astrometry to determine the character of binary stars and search for extrasolar planets.

#25091

Susan L. Taylor

Susan L. Taylor

#25102

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Susan L. Taylor is an American editor, writer, and journalist. She served as editor-in-chief of Essence from 1981 through 2000. In 1994, American Libraries referred to Taylor as "the most influential black woman in journalism today".

#25092

Thomas Hearns

#25103

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Thomas Hearns is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 2006. Nicknamed the "Motor City Cobra", and more famously "The Hitman", Hearns's tall, slender build and oversized arms and shoulders allowed him to move up over fifty pounds in his career and become the first boxer in history to win world titles in five weight divisions: welterweight, light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight.

#25093

Dorothy Rowe

#25104

Overall Influence

1930 - 2019 (89 years)

Dorothy Rowe was an Australian-British psychologist and author, whose area of interest was depression. Biography Dorothy Conn was born on 17 December 1930 in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Rowe came to England in her forties, working at Sheffield University and was the head of Lincolnshire Department of Clinical Psychology. In addition to her published works on depression, she was a regular columnist in the UK.

#25094

Tamotsu Shibutani

#25105

Overall Influence

1920 - 2004 (84 years)

Tamotsu Shibutani was a Japanese American sociologist working on the tradition of symbolic interactionism. Biography Born in 1920, Shibutani majored in sociology and philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. He was sent with his family to the Tule Lake internment camp in 1942 during World War II, following the signing of Executive Order 9066.

#25095

Bill Ritter

#25106

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Bill Ritter is an American television news anchor and journalist. He has been with WABC-TV in New York City since 1998, initially anchoring on weekends before succeeding Bill Beutel on the 11 p.m. news in September 1999, then at 6 p.m. in February 2001. He is also a correspondent for the ABC News program 20/20.

#25096

Priyadarshan

#25107

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Priyadarshan is an Indian film director and screenwriter who predominantly works in Malayalam and Hindi cinema. He was one of the first directors in India to introduce rich color grading, clear sound and quality dubbing through his early Malayalam films.

#25097

Chris Parker

#25108

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Chris Parker is an American drummer. Biography Early life During his childhood, Parker's father, artist Robert Andrew Parker, attached wooden blocks to the hi-hat and bass drum pedals, so that Parker's feet could reach the pedals to play the drums along with records. His father, who was also a jazz drummer, introduced young Parker to the music of Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Leadbelly, Ray Charles, Woody Herman, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton, Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. When he became a teenager he began practicing with friends and finding out the nostalgia of rock and roll by listening to such jazz drummers as Roger Hawkins, D.

#25098

Phil Taylor

#25109

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Philip Douglas Taylor is an English former professional darts player, widely considered the greatest darts player of all time. Nicknamed The Power, he dominated darts for over two decades and won 214 professional tournaments, including a record 85 major titles and a record 16 World Championships. In 2015, the BBC rated Taylor among the ten greatest British sportsmen of the last 35 years.

#25099

Anaridis Rodriguez

#25110

Overall Influence

Anaridis Rodriguez-Starnino is an American journalist. She currently anchors and reports for the CBS owned-and-operated WBZ-TV in Boston. The journalist also worked for The Weather Channel. She is the former news anchor on America's Morning Headquarters.

#25100

Joe Sinnott

#25111

Overall Influence

1926 - 2020 (94 years)

Joseph Leonard Sinnott was an American comic book artist. Working primarily as an inker, Sinnott is best known for his long stint on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, from 1965 to 1981 , initially over the pencils of Jack Kirby. During his 60 years as a Marvel freelance artist and then remote worker salaried artist, Sinnott inked virtually every major title, with notable runs on The Avengers, The Defenders, and Thor.

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