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

#29351

Alexander Saxton

#29362

Overall Influence

1919 - 2012 (93 years)

Alexander Plaisted Saxton was an American historian, novelist, and university professor. He was the author of the pioneering Indispensable Enemy , one of the founding texts in Asian American studies.

#29352

Frederick Hart

#29363

Overall Influence

1943 - 1999 (56 years)

Frederick Elliott Hart was an American sculptor. The creator of hundreds of public monuments, private commissions, portraits, and other works of art, Hart is most famous for Ex Nihilo, a part of his Creation Sculptures at Washington National Cathedral, and The Three Servicemen , at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

#29353

Thomas N. Seyfried

#29364

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Thomas N. Seyfried is an American professor of biology, genetics, and biochemistry at Boston College. He received his PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1976. His postdoctoral fellowship studies were in the Department of Neurology at the Yale University School of Medicine where he served as an assistant professor in neurology. He did undergraduate work at the University of New England, formerly St. Francis College, and received a master's degree in genetics from Illinois State University, Normal.

#29354

Paul Wilson

#29365

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Paul Robert Wilson is a Canadian translator and writer. In 1967 he moved to Czechoslovakia where he performed as a singer with The Plastic People of the Universe. Because he was a member of this group, he was expelled from Czechoslovakia in 1977. This band was banned in Czechoslovakia and their recordings could not be officially released. Wilson later founded a record label Boží Mlýn and released some of their recordings in Canada.

#29355

Paul Barker

#29366

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

Paul Barker was an English journalist and writer. Barker was born in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He grew up in Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge. He was educated at local schools in the Calder Valley and won an Exhibition to Brasenose College, Oxford, to read French. Before taking up his place at Oxford, he did national service and was commissioned as an officer in the Intelligence Corps, and while in the Army studied Russian language at Cambridge University in the Joint Services School for Linguists with Dennis Potter in the next hut and Potter's producer Kenith Trodd in the same hut as Barke...

#29356

Arnold Heertje

#29367

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

Arnold Heertje was a Dutch economist and professor at the University of Amsterdam, writer and columnist. He became more generally known for his opposition to the Betuweroute. Life and career Heertje was born on 19 February 1934 in Breda, the son of Maurits Heertje and Estella Philips. Heertje grew up primarily in Arnhem. Due to their Jewish background, during the Second World War the whole family had to go in hiding after 12 November 1942. The eight-year-old Arnold ended up with a Reformed family in the Haarlemmermeer. Impressed by their faith, he planned to become a minister. Together with his parents he survived the war.

#29357

Kevin Leyton-Brown

Kevin Leyton-Brown

#29368

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Kevin Leyton-Brown is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He received his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 2003. He was the recipient of a 2014 NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, a 2013/14 Killam Teaching Prize, and a 2013 Outstanding Young Computer Science Researcher Prize from the Canadian Association of Computer Science. Leyton-Brown co-teaches a popular game theory course on Coursera.org, along with Matthew O. Jackson and Yoav Shoham. Leyton-Brown serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, the Artificial In...

#29358

Hedo Türkoğlu

#29369

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Hidayet "Hedo" Türkoğlu is a Turkish basketball executive and former professional player. A forward, Türkoğlu played for six teams in his 15-season career in the National Basketball Association . He won the NBA's Most Improved Player for the 2007–08 NBA season and played in the NBA Finals for the Magic in 2009. He also played for Turkey's national team in international competition. Türkoğlu has served as president of the Turkish Basketball Federation since October 2016.

#29359

Thomas F. Gieryn

#29370

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Thomas F. Gieryn is Rudy Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. He is also the Vice Provost of Faculty and Academic Affairs. In his research, he focuses on philosophy and sociology of science from a cultural, social, historical, and humanistic perspective. He is known for developing the concept of "boundary-work," that is, instances in which boundaries, demarcations, or other divisions between fields of knowledge are created, advocated, attacked, or reinforced. He has served on many councils and boards, including the Advisory Board of the exhibition on "Science in American Life" by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

#29360

Reiner Grundmann

#29371

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Reiner Grundmann , is Professor of Science and Technology Studies at the University of Nottingham and Director of its interdisciplinary STS Research Priority Group. He is a German sociologist and political scientist who has resided in the UK since 1997. Previous appointments include Aston University and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.

#29361

Bernt Hagtvet

#29372

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Bernt Hagtvet is a Norwegian political scientist. He is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Oslo. Among his areas of interest are European politics, extremist movements and human rights. He was born in Oslo and is married to historian Guri Hjeltnes. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. He was among the founders and stayed on as a board member at Human Rights House Foundation. He is now the interim chair of the board.

#29362

Khem Shahani

#29373

Overall Influence

1923 - 2001 (78 years)

Khem Shahani was an Indian microbiologist who conducted pioneer research on probiotics . Career Khem Shahani is best known for his discovery of the DDS-1 strain of Lactobacillus acidophilus in 1959, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. One of his many contributions to biology in the years to come, in this landmark discovery, Shahani observed the high level of stability and nutritional viability of the DDS-1 strain. This unique feature meant that the probiotics were able to pass through the stomach acid and implant in the intestine where it could multiply over 200-fold. Shahani would later n...

#29363

Serena Nanda

#29374

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Serena Nanda is an American author, anthropologist, and professor emeritus. She received the Ruth Benedict Prize in 1990 for her monograph, Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Biography Serena Nanda was born on August 13, 1938, in New York City and received her PhD in anthropology from New York University. She is the co-author of two anthropology textbooks: Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology and Cultural Anthropology . Among her areas of specialty was the topic of gender diversity, having written the major reference book on the hijras of India. As of Augu...

#29364

Richard Kraut

#29375

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Richard Kraut is the Charles and Emma Morrison Professor in the Humanities at Northwestern University. Biography Richard Kraut got his M.S. from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1969.

#29365

Johann van der Westhuizen

#29376

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Johann van der Westhuizen Early life Van der Westhuizen was born in Windhoek, South West Africa . He went to school there and in Pretoria. He received a BA in 1973, an LLB in 1975 , and an LLD in 1980, all from the University of Pretoria.

#29366

Polly O'Hanlon

#29377

Overall Influence

Rosalind O’Hanlon is an early modern historian and specialist in the colonial history of India. She is a retired Professor in Indian History and Culture at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Oxford. O'Hanlon is an Emeritus Fellow of Clare College. She was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2020.

#29367

Ana Celia Zentella

#29378

Overall Influence

Ana Celia Zentella is an American linguist known for her "anthro-political" approach to linguistic research and expertise on multilingualism, linguistic diversity, and language intolerance, especially in relation to U.S. Latino languages and communities. She is Professor Emerita of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego.

#29368

Jesmyn Ward

#29379

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Jesmyn Ward is an American novelist and a professor of English at Tulane University, where she holds the Andrew W. Mellon Professorship in the Humanities. She won the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction for her second novel Salvage the Bones and won the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction for her novel Sing, Unburied, Sing. She also received a 2012 Alex Award for the story about familial love and community in facing Hurricane Katrina. She is the only woman and only African American to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice. All of Ward's first three novels are set in the fictitious Mississippi town of Bois Sauvage.

#29369

Steven M. Weinreb

#29380

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Steven M. Weinreb is an American chemist and is a professor of chemistry at Pennsylvania State University in United States. Together with Steven Nahm, he developed the Weinreb ketone synthesis, which allows for mono-addition of an organometallic reagent such as a Grignard reagent or organolithium reagent to an amide.

#29370

Arieh Iserles

#29381

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Arieh Iserles is a computational mathematician, currently Professor of the Numerical Analysis of Differential Equations at the University of Cambridge and a member of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.

#29371

Anna Lysyanskaya

#29382

Overall Influence

Anna A. Lysyanskaya is an American cryptographer known for her research on digital signatures and anonymous digital credentials. She is a professor of computer science at Brown University. Early life and education Lysyanskaya grew up in Kyiv, Ukraine, and came to the US in 1993 to attend Smith College, where she graduated in 1997. She went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate study, earning a master's degree in 1999 and completing her Ph.D. in 2002. Her dissertation, Signature Schemes and Applications to Cryptographic Protocol Design, was supervised by Ron Rivest.

#29372

Bonnie Honig

#29383

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Bonnie Honig , is a political, feminist, and legal theorist specializing in democratic theory. In 2013-14, she became Nancy Duke Lewis Professor-Elect of Modern Culture and Media and Political Science at Brown University, succeeding Anne Fausto-Sterling in the Chair in 2014–15. Honig was formerly Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation.

#29373

David Ussishkin

#29384

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

David Ussishkin is an Israeli archaeologist and professor emeritus of archaeology. Biography David Ussishkin was born in Jerusalem. Ussishkin is the son of the lawyer Samuel Ussishkin and the grandson of the Zionist leader Menachem Ussishkin. He studied at Gymnasia Rehavia, in Rehavia and served in the Israel Defense Forces between 1953 and 1955 in the Giv'ati Brigade. He studied archaeology and Jewish History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem between 1955 and 1966. Received his B.A. in 1958, his Master of Arts degree in Archaeology and Jewish History in 1962 and his Ph. D. in 1966. His ...

#29374

Verene Shepherd

#29385

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Verene Albertha Shepherd is a Jamaican academic who is a professor of social history at the University of the West Indies in Mona. She is the director of the university's Institute for Gender and Development Studies, and specialises in Jamaican social history and diaspora studies. She has published prolifically in journals and books on topics including Jamaican economic history during slavery, the Indian experience in Jamaica, migration and diasporas and Caribbean women's history, and is a contributor to the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.

#29375

Jane C. Ginsburg

#29386

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Jane Carol Ginsburg is an American attorney. She is the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at the Columbia Law School. She also directs the law school's Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts. In 2011, Ginsburg was elected to the British Academy.

#29376

Roger Cressey

#29387

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Roger W. Cressey is a cyber security and counter-terrorism expert and served in senior positions under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is a former member of the United States National Security Council staff and the Founder and former President of the Good Harbor consulting group.

#29377

Donald Allan Darling

#29388

Overall Influence

1915 - 2014 (99 years)

Donald Allan Darling was an American statistician, known for the Anderson–Darling test. Darling was born in 1915 in Los Angeles. In 1934 Darling began his undergraduate study at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics in 1939. In 1940 he became a meteorologist at Pan American Airways and from 1942 to 1946, during World War II, he headed the statistics department of the Air Force Weather Research Project.

#29378

Nicole Dubilier

#29389

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Nicole Dubilier is a marine microbiologist and director of the Symbiosis Department at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology since 2013 and a Professor of Microbial Symbioses at the University of Bremen. She is a pioneer in ecological and evolutionary symbiotic relationships between sea animals and their microbial partners inhabiting environments that harbour low nutrient concentrations. She was responsible for the discovery of a new form of symbiosis between two kinds of bacteria and the marine oligochaete Olavius algarvensis.

#29379

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Jennifer Jason Leigh

#29390

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. She began her career on television during the 1970s before making her film breakthrough as Stacy Hamilton in Fast Times at Ridgemont High . She later received critical praise for her performances in Last Exit to Brooklyn , Miami Blues , Backdraft , Single White Female , and Short Cuts .

#29380

Patrick Sharkey

#29391

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Patrick Sharkey is an American urban sociologist and criminologist. He has been Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University since 2019. He was formerly Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at New York University, with an affiliation at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

#29381

David D. Sabatini

#29392

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

David Domingo Sabatini is an Argentine-American cell biologist and the Frederick L. Ehrman Professor Emeritus of Cell Biology in the Department of Cell Biology at New York University School of Medicine, which he chaired from 1972 to 2011. Sabatini's major research interests have been on the mechanisms responsible for the structural complexity of the eukaryotic cell. Throughout his career, Sabatini has been recognized for his efforts in promoting science in Latin America.

#29382

Tsuguo Hongo

#29393

Overall Influence

1923 - 2007 (84 years)

Tsuguo Hongo was a Japanese mycologist who specialized in the biogeography and taxonomy of Agaricales. Hongo entered the Department of Biology at what is now Hiroshima University in 1943, where he studied botany until graduating in 1946 with a B.Sc. Hongo received his Ph.D. degree, entitled "Agaricales of Japan", from Kyoto University in 1961 while working under Dr. Shiro Kitamura.

#29383

Clint Eastwood

#29394

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (96 years)

Clinton Eastwood Jr. is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series Rawhide, Eastwood rose to international fame with his role as the "Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy of spaghetti Westerns during the mid-1960s and as antihero cop Harry Callahan in the five Dirty Harry films throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made Eastwood an enduring cultural icon of masculinity. Elected in 1986, Eastwood served for two years as the mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.

#29384

A. Wayne Wymore

A. Wayne Wymore

#29395

Overall Influence

1927 - 2011 (84 years)

Albert Wayne Wymore was an American mathematician, systems engineer, Professor Emeritus of Systems and Industrial Engineering of the University of Arizona, and one of the founding fathers of systems engineering.

#29385

Philip Hammond

#29396

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede is a British politician and life peer who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, and Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament for Runnymede and Weybridge from 1997 to 2019.

#29386

Michael L. Radelet

#29397

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Michael L. Radelet is a sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is a professor in, and chairs, the Department of Sociology at the university. In his research, Radelet focuses on his interests in criminology, deviance, capital punishment, societal reaction to crime, racial disparities in death sentencing and crime victims. Radelet has taught courses covering introductory sociology, criminology for both undergraduate and graduate levels, capital punishment for both undergraduate and graduate levels, sociology of mental health and illness for both undergraduate and graduate levels...

#29387

Ali Bongo Ondimba

#29398

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

#29388

Norman Carlson

#29399

Overall Influence

1933 - 2020 (87 years)

Norman A. Carlson was an American correctional officer and businessman. He was best known for his direction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 1970 to 1987 and long-time involvement with this bureau. During his involvement, he served in the United States Penitentiary of Leavenworth, Kansas, and also in the Federal Correctional Institution of Ashland, Kentucky. He was president of the American Correctional Association from 1978 to 1980 and was the adjunct professor for the Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota for 11 years . In 1978, he was awarded the Roger W. Jones Award ...

#29389

Nikolaos Loudovikos

#29400

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Nikolaos Loudovikos is a Greek Orthodox theologian, priest , psychologist, author and professor. Biography Fr. Nikolaos Loudovikos was born in Volos, Greece in 1959. He studied Psychology and Education at the University of Athens, Theology at the University of Thessaloniki, Philosophy at Paris IV, Philosophy and Roman Catholic Theology at the Catholic Institute of Paris, Philosophy and Protestant Theology at the University of Cambridge. He received a Ph.D. in 1989 from the Theological Faculty of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The title of his dissertation was: The Eucharistic Ontology in the Theological Thought of St.

#29390

Ahmed Sameh

#29401

Overall Influence

Ahmed Hamdy Mohamed Sameh is the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University. He is known for his contributions to parallel algorithms in numerical linear algebra. Biography Sameh received his BSc in civil engineering from the University of Alexandria, Egypt in 1961, MS in civil engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1964 and PhD in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1968 under the supervision of Alfredo Hua-Sing Ang.

#29391

Emyr Humphreys

#29402

Overall Influence

1919 - 2020 (101 years)

Emyr Humphreys was a Welsh novelist, poet, and author. His career spanned from the 1940s until his retirement in 2009. He published in both English and Welsh. Early life and career Humphreys was born on 15 April 1919 at Prestatyn in Denbighshire. He was educated at Rhyl High School, where, as E. O. Humphreys, he started composing poetry and wrote for The Welsh Nationalist, the monthly English-language newspaper of the Welsh Nationalist Party, later called by Plaid Cymru. He went on to study history and English at University of Wales, Aberystwyth, after winning a scholarship to study there.

#29392

Evan S. Connell

#29403

Overall Influence

1924 - 2013 (89 years)

Evan Shelby Connell Jr. was a U.S. novelist, short-story writer, essayist and author of epic historical works. He also published under the name Evan S. Connell Jr. In 2009, Connell was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize, for lifetime achievement. On April 23, 2010, he was awarded a Los Angeles Times Book Prize: the Robert Kirsch Award, for "a living author with a substantial connection to the American West, whose contribution to American letters deserves special recognition."

#29393

Jay Winsten

#29404

Overall Influence

Jay Winsten is an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Director of the School's Frank Stanton Center for Health Communication. He is best known for his work in social marketing, spearheading high-profile national social campaigns on designated driving, youth violence, and youth mentoring. He also serves as Senior Communications Advisor to the United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria.

#29394

Nathan Isgur

#29405

Overall Influence

1947 - 2001 (54 years)

Nathan Isgur was a theoretical physicist from the U.S. and Canada. Education Isgur was born in South Houston, Texas and finished high school at South Houston High School. He was a scholarship student at Caltech. where his initial interest was in biology, but he moved toward physics and graduated with a B.Sc degree in 1968. Isgur began work on his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley, but received his draft notice during his first year there. Denied a draft deferment to continue his education at Berkeley he went to Toronto in order to pursue his graduate studies and to avoid serving in a war he disagreed with on moral and political grounds.

#29395

Michael Hendricks

#29406

Overall Influence

Michael Lawrence Hendricks is an American psychologist, suicidologist, and an advocate for the LGBT community. He has worked in private practice as a partner at the Washington Psychological Center, P.C. in northwest Washington, D.C., since 1999. Hendricks is an adjunct professor of clinical psychopharmacology and has taught at Argosy University, Howard University, and Catholic University of America. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association .

#29396

Richie Benaud

#29407

Overall Influence

1930 - 2015 (85 years)

Richard Benaud was an Australian cricketer who played for New South Wales and Australia. Following his retirement from international cricket in 1964, Benaud became a highly regarded commentator on the game.

#29397

Gilbert Laporte

#29408

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Gilbert Laporte is a full professor of operations research at HEC Montréal. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management. Laporte has been awarded the Order of Canada and the Innis-Gérin Medal.

#29398

Stelio Frati

#29409

Overall Influence

1919 - 2010 (91 years)

Stelio Frati was an Italian mechanical engineer and aeroplane designer. He graduated from the Politecnico di Milano as a mechanical engineer in 1943, participating in the design of the Aeronautica Lombarda AR radio-controlled wooden cantilever monoplane, powered by a single radial engine - a flying bomb/drone, flown for the first time the same year. After teaching aircraft design he became a freelance aircraft designer, being responsible for many well known aircraft designs. One of his best known designs is the Falco F8L.

#29399

John A. Smolin

#29410

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

John A. Smolin is an American physicist and Fellow of the American Physical Society at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center. Smolin is best known for his work in quantum information theory, where, with collaborators, he introduced several important techniques, including entanglement distillation, for quantum error-correction and the faithful transmission of quantum information through noisy quantum channels, as well as for entanglement-assisted transmission of classical information. He helped elucidate the complex relations between classical and quantum capacities of various channels as we...

#29400

Hiroshi Komiyama

#29411

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Hiroshi Komiyama is a Japanese scientist. He was the president of University of Tokyo from April 2005 to March 2009. He is also the chairman of Mitsubishi Research Institute. His major research fields are Chemical engineering, Environmental engineering, functional material science and CVD reaction engineering. He is member of the World Knowledge Dialogue Scientific Board. When he was an undergraduate, he belonged to the American football club at University of Tokyo.

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