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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Ranking

List of the most influential people

#34151

Julien Chaisse

#34163

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Julien Chaisse is a professor of law at the City University of Hong Kong, specializing in international law, with a particular focus on globalization, foreign investment and on digital asset. Education Chaisse received his LLB degree from the Faculty of Law and Political Science, Aix-Marseille University in 1998. He earned his master's degree from the University of Tübingen in 1999 and an LLM degree from the University of Rennes 1 in 2000. In 2004, Chaisse started his doctoral dissertation at the Institut d'etudes politiques d'Aix-en-Provence of Paul Cézanne University Aix-Marseille III, wher...

#34152

Sanjeev Goyal

#34164

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Sanjeev Goyal FBA is an Indian-British economist, best known for his pioneering research on networks. He is currently Arthur C. Pigou Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. He received a BA from Delhi University and an MA and PhD from Cornell University, all in economics. His book, Connections: an introduction to the economics of networks, was published by Princeton University Press in 2007; his second book, Networks: An Economics Approach, was published by MIT Press in 2023.

#34153

Gene D. Phillips

#34165

Overall Influence

1935 - 2016 (81 years)

Gene D. Phillips, S.J. was an American author, educator, and Catholic priest. Life and career Phillips was raised near Springfield, Ohio. He received his A.B. and M.A. degrees from Loyola University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in English Literature from Fordham University in 1970. Phillips was a member of the Society of Jesus , and was ordained a priest in 1965. His decision to become a Jesuit at age 17 was strongly affected by his viewing of the film The Keys of the Kingdom as a boy. Since 1970 Phillips had taught at Loyola University of Chicago. He had written or edited more than 20 books on ...

#34154

Jason Crump

#34166

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Jason Philip Crump is a former international motorcycle speedway rider from Australia . He is a three-time Speedway World Champion, a World Cup winner and a former World Under-21 Champion. In a 21-year career in Speedway, Jason Crump finished with 7 World Championship titles to his name , making him one of the most successful Australian motorcycle racers of all time . He holds the all-time record for Grand Prix wins with 23.

#34155

Alvar Ellegård

#34167

Overall Influence

1919 - 2008 (89 years)

Alvar Ellegård was a Swedish linguist and scholar. He was professor of English at the University of Gothenburg, and a member of the academic board of the Swedish National Encyclopedia. He is the author of a number of books and papers on English language and linguistics, including A Statistical Method for Determining Authorship . He also became known outside the field for his work on the conflict between religious dogma and science, and for his promotion of the Jesus myth theory, the idea that Jesus did not exist as an historical figure. His books about religion and science include Darwin and the General Reader , The Myth of Jesus , and Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ.

#34156

Luke Donald

#34168

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Luke Campbell Donald MBE is an English professional golfer and former world number one. He plays mainly on the U.S.-based PGA Tour but is also a member of the European Tour. Donald had an outstanding year in 2011, winning several tournaments and awards. He won the PGA Tour money list and European Race to Dubai to complete a historic double, becoming the first player to win both money lists on the PGA and European Tours in the same year. He was named the PGA Player of the Year and the European Tour Golfer of the Year. He also became the first Englishman to win the PGA Tour Player of the Year award, the PGA Tour's Vardon Trophy and the Mark H.

#34157

Gloria Careaga Pérez

#34169

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Gloria Angélica Careaga Pérez is a Mexican social psychologist and feminist. She has taught at the Faculty of Psychology in the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1979. She is co-founder of Mexican organization El Closet de Sor Juana and former co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

#34158

Jean-Yves Le Drian

#34170

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Jean-Yves Le Drian is a French politician who served as Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs in the governments of Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and Jean Castex and as Minister of Defence under President François Hollande . A former member of the Socialist Party, he had been an Independent from 2018 before founding Territories of Progress in 2020.

#34159

Michael Apted

#34171

Overall Influence

1941 - 2021 (80 years)

Michael David Apted, was a British television and film director and producer. Apted began working in television and directed the Up documentary series . He later directed Coal Miner's Daughter , which was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture. His subsequent work included Gorillas in the Mist , Nell , James Bond film The World Is Not Enough , and Enigma . His film Amazing Grace premiered at the closing of the Toronto International Film Festival that year.

#34160

Monica Bonvicini

#34172

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Monica Bonvicini is a German-Italian artist. In her work, Bonvicini investigates the relationship between power structures, gender and space. She works intermediately with installation, sculpture, video, photography and drawing mediums.

#34161

LaWanda Cox

#34173

Overall Influence

1909 - 2005 (96 years)

LaWanda Fenlason Cox was a pioneering historian of the American Civil War and the period of Reconstruction. Cox was born on September 24, 1909, in Aberdeen, Washington. She attended Washington High School in Portland, Oregon. Later, she received her Bachelors at the University of Oregon in 1931, her masters from Smith College and her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1941. Cox studied at Smith College with Merle Curti a social historian, and at Berkeley with John Schuster Taylor an economist. She was a member of the history faculty at Hunter College and the City University of New York's Graduate Center from 1940, until her retirement from teaching in 1971.

#34162

Lance Berkman

#34174

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

William Lance Berkman , nicknamed "Fat Elvis" and "Big Puma", is an American baseball coach and former professional baseball outfielder and first baseman, who is the current head baseball coach of the Houston Christian Huskies. He played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers. Berkman is a six-time MLB All-Star and won a World Series championship and the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award with the Cardinals in 2011. He stands , and weighs . Berkman spent various seasons of his career as a regular at al...

#34163

Christian Schwarzenegger

#34175

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Christian Michael Schwarzenegger is a Swiss academic lawyer and professor of criminal law, criminal procedure and criminology at the University of Zurich. Early life and education Schwarzenegger was born 11 November 1959 in Zürich, Switzerland to Austrian-born Gerold Schwarzenegger , a musician who later turned engineer and a Swiss mother. His father was a cousin of Arnold Schwarzenegger who immigrated to Switzerland from Styria in the 1950s.

#34164

Arthur Shapiro

#34176

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Arthur M. Shapiro is a professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis. He graduated with an AB in biology from University of Pennsylvania and completed his PhD in Entomology at Cornell in 1970.

#34165

Nicholas Varopoulos

#34177

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Nicholas Theodore Varopoulos is a Greek mathematician, who works on harmonic analysis and especially analysis on Lie groups. Varopoulos is the son of the Thessaloniki mathematics professor Theodore Varopoulos . Nicholas Varopoulos received his PhD in 1965 from Cambridge University under John Hunter Williamson. There he was in 1965 a lecturer in mathematics. In the academic year 1966–1967 he was at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Varopoulos became a professor at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie .

#34166

Farai Chideya

#34178

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Farai Chideya is an American novelist, multimedia journalist, and radio host. She produced and hosted Pop and Politics with Farai Chideya, a series of radio specials on politics for 15 years. She is the creator and host of the podcast Our Body Politic, which launched in September 2020.

#34167

Leila Haaparanta

#34179

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Leila Tuulikki Haaparanta is a Finnish philosopher who works in analytic philosophy and the philosophy of logic. She is retired from the University of Tampere as a professor emerita. Education and career Haaparanta was born on 20 October 1954 in Kalvola. She studied philosophy at the University of Helsinki, earning a bachelor's degree in 1976, a master's degree in 1978, a licenciate in 1979, and a Ph.D. in 1985; her dissertation was Frege's Doctrine of Being.

#34168

J. Rodman Williams

#34180

Overall Influence

1918 - 2008 (90 years)

J. Rodman Williams , regarded as the father of modern renewal theology, was a Presbyterian charismatic theologian and professor of renewal theology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Born on August 21, 1918, in Clyde, North Carolina, Williams earned an AB from Davidson College, a BD and ThM from Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, and a PhD in philosophy of religion and ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York, taking time in between to serve as a chaplain in the United States Marine Corps . He was ordained in the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1943 and served as a pastor for several years before becoming a full-time educator.

#34169

Umesh Varshney

#34181

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Umesh Varshney is an Indian molecular biologist, academician and the head of a laboratory at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. He is a J. C. Bose National Fellow of the Department of Science and Technology and is known for his studies on protein synthesis and DNA repair in Escherichia coli and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. An elected fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and the National Academy of Sciences , he is also a recipient of the National Bioscience Award for Career Development of the Government of India. The Council of Scientific and Indus...

#34170

Sabir Gusein-Zade

Sabir Gusein-Zade

#34182

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Sabir Medgidovich Gusein-Zade is a Russian mathematician and a specialist in singularity theory and its applications. He studied at Moscow State University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1975 under the joint supervision of Sergei Novikov and Vladimir Arnold. Before entering the university, he had earned a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad.

#34171

Dennis Nineham

#34183

Overall Influence

1921 - 2016 (95 years)

Dennis Eric Nineham was a British theologian and academic, who served as Warden of Keble College, Oxford, from 1969 to 1979, as well as holding chairs in theology at the universities of London, Cambridge, and Bristol.

#34172

Sammy Baugh

#34184

Overall Influence

1914 - 2008 (94 years)

Samuel Adrian Baugh was an American professional football player and coach. During his college and professional careers, he most notably played quarterback, but also played as a safety and punter. He played college football for the Horned Frogs at Texas Christian University, where he was a two time All-American. He then played in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins for 16 seasons from 1937 to 1952. After his playing career, he served as a college coach for Hardin–Simmons University before coaching professionally for the New York Titans and the Houston Oilers.

#34173

André Danthine

#34185

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

André Danthine was a professor of computer science at the University of Liège from 1967 to 1997; he is now a professor emeritus there. He specialized in computer networks and created the university's Research Unit in Networking in 1972.

#34174

Laura Walls

#34186

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Laura Dassow Walls is an American professor of English literature and currently the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. Areas of research Walls has researched the intersections of literature and science in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Alexander von Humboldt and related authors. She specializes in American Transcendentalism—especially Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, transatlantic romanticism, literature and science, and environmental literature and ecocriticism.

#34175

Irina-Camelia Begu

Irina-Camelia Begu

#34187

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

Irina-Camelia Begu is a Romanian professional tennis player. She reached a career-high singles ranking of No. 22 in the world, in August 2016. Two years later, she reached her highest WTA doubles ranking, also No. 22. Begu has won five singles titles and nine doubles titles on the WTA Tour. She also has won two singles titles on the WTA Challenger Tour, with 12 singles and 19 doubles titles on the ITF Women's Circuit.

#34176

J. Richard Landis

#34188

Overall Influence

J. Richard Landis is an American biostatistician and Emeritus Professor of Biostatistics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also the senior vice chair of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, director of the Biostatistics Unit within the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and faculty Director of the Clinical Research Computing Unit.

#34177

Paul Washer

#34189

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Paul David Washer is an American Protestant Christian evangelist with a Calvinist theology affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Biography Washer reports converting to Christianity while studying at the University of Texas at Austin to become an oil and gas lawyer. He moved to Peru and served there as a missionary for 10 years. In 1988, while in Peru, Washer founded the HeartCry Missionary Society to support indigenous missionaries witnessing to people of their own cultures. As of 2017, the organization supported 238 missionary families in 41 countries.

#34178

David Vanderbilt

#34190

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

David Vanderbilt is a professor of physics at Rutgers University researching condensed-matter physics since 1991, and named Board of Governors Professor of Physics in 2009. He received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1976 and his Ph.D. from MIT in 1981 studying under John D. Joannopoulos. He received the Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics in 2006. The Aneesur Rahman prize is the highest honor given by the American Physical Society for work in computational physics. In 2013 he was elected to the National Academy of Science.

#34179

Samir Okasha

#34191

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Samir Okasha , is a Professor of Philosophy of Science at University of Bristol. He is a winner of Lakatos Award for his book Evolution and the Levels of Selection. He was appointed a Fellow of the British Academy in 2018.

#34180

Dietmar Seyferth

#34192

Overall Influence

1929 - 2020 (91 years)

Dietmar Seyferth was an emeritus professor of chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He published widely on topics in organometallic chemistry and was the founding editor of the journal Organometallics.

#34181

Heinz Wismann

#34193

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (91 years)

Heinz Wismann is a Franco-German philologist and philosopher. Biography Heinz Wismann is the son of Heinz Wismann , an art historian, who was director of the Ministry of Education and Propaganda and vice-president of the Chamber of Literature of the Third Reich from 1935 to 1937.

#34182

Dave Grossman

#34194

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

Dave Grossman is an American game programmer and game designer, most known for his work at Telltale Games and early work at LucasArts. He has also written several children's books, and a book of "guy poetry" called Ode to the Stuff in the Sink.

#34183

Mariusz Szczygieł

Mariusz Szczygieł

#34195

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Mariusz Adam Szczygieł is a Polish journalist and writer. He is the winner of the 2009 European Book Prize for Gottland and the 2019 Nike Award, the most important prize in Polish literature, for his reportage Nie ma.

#34184

Ronald Crutcher

#34196

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Ronald Andrew Crutcher is an American classical musician and academic administrator who served as a professor of music and 10th president of the University of Richmond from 2015 to 2021. Early life Crutcher is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Miami University, where he graduated cum laude. He pursued graduate studies at Yale University as a Woodrow Wilson and Ford Foundation Fellow. In 1979, he was the first cellist to receive the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale. The recipient of a Fulbright Award, he is fluent in German and studied music at the University of Bonn.

#34185

W. Sidney Allen

#34197

Overall Influence

1918 - 2004 (86 years)

William Sidney Allen, , was a British linguist and philologist, best known for his work on Indo-European phonology. Early life and undergraduate education Allen was born in north London, the elder son of William Percy Allen, a maintenance engineer in a printing works, and Ethel Pierce, the daughter of a compositor. From childhood, he was primarily known as 'Sidney', to avoid confusion with his father.

#34186

Matthias Hentze

Matthias Hentze

#34198

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Matthias Werner Hentze is a German scientist. He is the director of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory , co-director of the Molecular Medicine Partnership Unit between EMBL and Heidelberg University, and Professor of Molecular Medicine at Heidelberg University.

#34187

Mallika Sengupta

#34199

Overall Influence

1960 - 2011 (51 years)

Mallika Sengupta was a Bengali poet, feminist, and reader of Sociology from Kolkata, known for her "unapologetically political poetry". Biography Mallika Sengupta was the head of the Department of Sociology in Maharani Kasiswari College, an undergraduate college affiliated with the University of Calcutta in Kolkata. She was much better known for her literary activity. The author of more than 20 books including 14 volumes of poetry and two novels, she was widely translated and was a frequent invitee at international literary festivals.

#34188

John Paxson

#34200

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

John MacBeth Paxson is an American basketball administrator and former player who was vice president of basketball operations for the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association from 2009 to 2020. He was their general manager from 2003 to 2009. Paxson played eleven NBA seasons for the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls, winning three championships as a member of the Bulls. He was an All-American college player at the University of Notre Dame.

#34189

Chihiro Sasakawa

#34201

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

is a Japanese bacteriologist well known for his pioneering research into the invasive mechanisms of pathogenic bacteria and the host’s subsequent immune response to infection. In his work on Shigella species and Helicobacter pylori, Sasakawa was an early adopter of a multi-disciplinary research strategy, combining molecular biology, cellular biology, biochemistry and immunological approaches. This research strategy and his discoveries greatly influenced later research on the invasive mechanisms of other pathogenic bacteria.

#34190

Victor Ling

#34202

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Victor Ling, is a Canadian researcher in the field of medicine. Ling's research focuses on drug resistance in cancer. He is best known for his discovery of P-glycoprotein, one of the proteins responsible for multidrug resistance.

#34191

Bill Ward

#34203

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

William Thomas Ward is an English musician. He was a co-founder and the original drummer for the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. Ward helped found Black Sabbath in 1968 alongside bandmates Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler .

#34192

Jerzy Buzek

#34204

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Jerzy Karol Buzek is a Polish politician and Member of the European Parliament from Poland. He has served as Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001, since being elected to the European Parliament in 2004, he served as President of the European Parliament between 2009 and 2012. He is married to Ludgarda Buzek and is the father of Polish actress Agata Buzek.

#34193

Tatsuro Yamashita

#34205

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Tatsurō Yamashita, occasionally credited as Tatsu Yamashita or Tats Yamashita, is a Japanese singer-songwriter and record producer, who is known for pioneering the city pop style of music. His most well-known song is "Christmas Eve", the best-selling single song released in Japan in the 1980s, appearing on the Japanese singles chart for over 35 consecutive years.

#34194

Bernard Greenhouse

#34206

Overall Influence

1916 - 2011 (95 years)

Bernard Greenhouse was an American cellist and one of the founding members of the Beaux Arts Trio. Life and career Greenhouse was born in Newark, New Jersey. He started his professional studies with Felix Salmond at the Juilliard School when he was eighteen. After four years of study with Salmond, Greenhouse proceeded to move on to studies with Emanuel Feuermann, Diran Alexanian, and then became one of the very few long-term students of Pablo Casals, studying with him from 1946 to 1948.

#34195

Devin Hester

#34207

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Devin Devorris Hester Sr. is an American former football wide receiver and return specialist who played in the National Football League . He was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the second round of the 2006 NFL Draft. He played college football for the Miami Hurricanes, where he was the first player in the university's recent history to play in all three phases of American football: offense, defense and special teams. In addition to Chicago, Hester also played for the Atlanta Falcons, the Baltimore Ravens and the Seattle Seahawks over his 11-season NFL career. He is also the first and only pla...

#34196

Daniel J. Klionsky

#34208

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Daniel Jay Klionsky is an American biochemist and molecular biologist. He is the Alexander G. Ruthven Professor of Life Sciences and professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at the University of Michigan. As a cell biologist, Klionsky pioneered the understanding of autophagy, the process by which cells break down to survive stress conditions such as starvation, and the role autophagy plays in cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and other areas of human health.

#34197

Brian Campbell Vickery

#34209

Overall Influence

1918 - 2009 (91 years)

Brian Campbell Vickery was a British information scientist and classification researcher, and Professor and director at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at University College London from 1973 to 1983.

#34198

Hugh Gusterson

#34210

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Areas of Specialization: Anthropology of Science Hugh Gusterson is an anthropologist and professor at the University of British Columbia. He formerly held the position of Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at George Washington University. He earned a B.A. from University of Cambridge, an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. from Stanford University. His research has focused on the anthropology of science through the lens of international security and nuclear culture. He has been active in advocacy for the protection of the role of anthropologists as a founder of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists.

#34199

Stig Strömholm

#34211

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Stig Fredrik Strömholm , Swedish, former rector magnificus of Uppsala University and past president of Academia Europaea. Strömholm received his education in Uppsala . He completed a doctorate in Law in Uppsala in 1966. He was Professor in Jurisprudence in Uppsala from 1969, and Professor in Private Law and Conflict of Laws there 1982–1997. After an appointment as prorector of Uppsala University 1978–1989, he was rector magnificus of the university 1989–1997. On 5 June 1992 Strömholm received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Humanities at Uppsala University, Sweden.

#34200

Margaret Conkey

#34212

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Margaret W. Conkey is an American archaeologist and academic, who specializes in the Magdalenian period of the Upper Paleolithic in the French Pyrénées. Her research focuses on cave art produced during this period. Conkey is noted as one of the first archaeologists to explore the issues of gender and feminist perspectives in archaeology and in past human societies, using feminist theory to reinterpret images and objects from the Paleolithic Era or the late Ice Age. She is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was named by Discover magazine in their ...

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