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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List of the most influential people

#34951

John Bourn

#34963

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Sir John Bryant Bourn was a British auditor who was the Comptroller and Auditor General and therefore a head of the National Audit Office. Early life and education Bourn was born in Hornsey, London, on 21 February 1934. He attended Southgate School from 1945 to 1951. He completed a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in economics at the London School of Economics.

#34952

Beth Kelly

#34964

Overall Influence

Beth Kelly is an American political theorist and feminist. Kelly is a professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Irish Studies at DePaul University. From 1997 to 2003, Kelly served as director of the department of Women's and Gender Studies at DePaul, and was a founder of DePaul's LGBT studies program. Since March 2010, Kelly has been chairperson of the Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, one of eight advisory councils to the Commission on Human Relations for the City of Chicago. Kelly received her PhD from Rutgers University.

#34953

John Simpson

#34965

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

John Simpson is an English lexicographer and was Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1993 to 2013. Life John Simpson was born in Cheltenham, where his father was employed at GCHQ, and attended Dean Close School. He gained a BA in English Literature at the University of York in 1975 and an MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Reading in 1976.

#34954

Alexander Rudensky

Alexander Rudensky

#34966

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Alexander Rudensky is an immunologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center known for his research on regulatory T cells and the transcription factor Foxp3. Career Rudensky received his Candidate of Sciences degree in 1986 from the Gabrichevsky Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology, Moscow, and completed his postdoctoral work at the Yale School of Medicine. He is now the Chair of the Immunology Program and Director of the Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering, as well as a professor at the Rockefeller University, Cornell University, Gerstner School of Graduate Studies, a...

#34955

Robinson O. Everett

#34967

Overall Influence

1928 - 2009 (81 years)

Robinson O. Everett was an American lawyer, judge and a professor of law at Duke University. Family and education Everett was born in Durham, North Carolina, to a family of lawyers: his grandfather and both of his parents were noted North Carolina attorneys. His father, Reuben Oscar Everett, was one of the first five law students at Duke and his mother, Kathrine Everett, was one of the first women to graduate from the University of North Carolina School of Law, where she ranked at the head of her class and was the first woman to argue and win a case before the North Carolina Supreme Court. In...

#34956

Shi Yinhong

#34968

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Shi Yinhong is a Chinese political scientist and international relations scholar. He is a cistinguished professor of international relations, chairman of the Academic Committee of the School of International Studies, and director of the Centre on American Studies at the Renmin University of China. He has served as a counsellor at the Counsellors' Office of the State Council of China since February 2011.

#34957

Damien Rice

#34969

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Damien George Rice is an Irish musician, singer and songwriter. He began his career as a member of the 1990s rock group Juniper, who were signed to Polygram Records in 1997. The band enjoyed moderate success in Ireland with two released singles, "The World is Dead" and "Weatherman". After leaving the band in 1998, Rice worked as a farmer in Tuscany and busked throughout Europe before returning to Ireland in 2001 and beginning a solo career. The rest of Juniper went on to perform under the name Bell X1.

#34958

Mark Chignell

#34970

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Mark H. Chignell is a Canadian academic specialising in usability and information science, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Toronto. Academic career He has a PhD in psychology , and an MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering .

#34959

John Emigh

#34971

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

John Emigh is Professor Emeritus from the Departments of Theatre, Speech and Dance and of English at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Emigh taught at Brown from 1967 to 2009. Since his retirement, he has mainly been teaching and directing in the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA program.

#34960

Charles Weibel

#34972

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Charles Alexander Weibel is an American mathematician working on algebraic K-theory, algebraic geometry and homological algebra. Weibel studied physics and mathematics at the University of Michigan, earning bachelor's degrees in both subjects in 1972. He was awarded a master's degree by the University of Chicago in 1973 and achieved his doctorate in 1977 under the supervision of Richard Swan . From 1970 to 1976 he was an "Operations Research Analyst" at Standard Oil of Indiana, and from 1977 to 1978 was at the Institute for Advanced Study. In 1978 he became an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

#34961

Stephen Bowen

#34973

Overall Influence

Stephen Bowen is an American biologist, educator, and educational administrator. From August 2005 until his retirement in May 2016 he served as the Dean and CEO of Oxford College of Emory University, located in Oxford, Georgia.

#34962

Martín Vizcarra

#34974

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Martín Alberto Vizcarra Cornejo is a Peruvian engineer and politician who served as President of Peru from 2018 to 2020. Vizcarra previously served as Governor of the Department of Moquegua , First Vice President of Peru , Minister of Transport and Communications of Peru , and Ambassador of Peru to Canada , with the latter three during the presidency of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

#34963

Ludovic Phalippou

#34975

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Ludovic Phalippou is a French financial economist. He is a Professor of Financial Economics and the Academic Area Head of the Finance, Accounting & Economics group at University of Oxford Saïd Business School. Phalippou specializes in the institutional investor related areas of private equity, including risk management, return benchmarking, legal and governance issues, liquidity and measurement of returns. He is the author of the book, Private Equity Laid Bare, now in its third edition, and host a podcast with the same name.

#34964

Sarah Stillman

#34976

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Sarah Stillman is an American professor and journalist focusing on immigration policy and the criminal justice system. She won a 2012 George Polk Award, and 2012 Hillman Prize. In 2016, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.

#34965

Hans-Peter Kriegel

#34977

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Hans-Peter Kriegel is a German computer scientist and professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and leading the Database Systems Group in the Department of Computer Science. He was previously professor at the University of Würzburg and the University of Bremen after habilitation at the Technical University of Dortmund and doctorate from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

#34966

Partha Sarathi Mukherjee

#34978

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Partha Sarathi Mukherjee is an Indian inorganic chemist and a professor at the Inorganic and Physical Chemistry department of the Indian Institute of Science. He is known for his studies on organic nano structures, molecular sensors and catalysis in nanocages and is a recipient of the Swarnajayanthi Fellowship of the Department of Science and Technology and the Bronze Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science an...

#34967

Alain Bashung

#34979

Overall Influence

1947 - 2009 (62 years)

Alain Bashung was a French singer, songwriter and actor. Credited with reviving the French chanson in "a time of French musical turmoil", he is often regarded in his home country as the most important French rock musician after Serge Gainsbourg. He rose to prominence in the early 1980s with hit songs such as "Gaby oh Gaby" and "Vertige de l'amour", and later had a string of hit records from the 1990s onward, such as "Osez Joséphine", "Ma petite entreprise" and "La nuit je mens". He has had an influence on many later French artists, and is the most awarded artist in the Victoires de la Musique...

#34968

Dwane Casey

#34980

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Dwane Lyndon Casey is an American basketball coach who most recently served as the head coach of the Detroit Pistons before transitioning to a front office position with the team. He is a former NCAA basketball player and coach, having played and coached there for over a decade before moving on to the NBA. He was previously the head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Toronto Raptors, with whom he won the NBA Coach of the Year Award in 2018.

#34969

Muhammad Imran Qadir

Muhammad Imran Qadir

#34981

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Muhammad Imran Qadir , also known as M. I. Qadir, is a Pakistani pharmaceutical scientist. Life and education Qadir received his early education from Shujabad, Multan. He received his B.Pharm degree from Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan. Later he attended Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and received his Ph.D degree in subject of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

#34970

Gavin Edwards

#34982

Overall Influence

Gavin Edwards is an American journalist and non-fiction writer. He has written 14 books, including The Tao of Bill Murray: Real-Life Stories of Joy, Enlightenment, and Party Crashing, and Bad Motherfucker:The Life and Movies of Samuel L. Jackson, the Coolest Man in Hollywood. He co-wrote MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios, a New York Times bestseller published in 2023.

#34971

Joel Mandelstam

#34983

Overall Influence

1919 - 2008 (89 years)

Joel Mandelstam FRS was a British microbiologist, a professor, at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford. He was a pioneer in using bacteria to study fundamental biological phenomena — such as development, differentiation, and the turnover of macromolecules — which had more usually been investigated in higher organisms.

#34972

Hazel Genn

#34984

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Dame Hazel Gillian Genn, DBE, KC , FBA is a leading authority on civil justice whose work has had a major influence on policy-makers around the world, and is a former Dean of the Faculty of Laws and Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at University College London.

#34973

Cemal Kafadar

#34985

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Cemal Kafadar is Professor of History and the Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies in the Harvard University Department of History. He is an honorary member of the Turkish Historical Society. Kafadar graduated from Robert College, then Hamilton College, and received his PhD from the McGill University Institute of Islamic Studies in 1987 and taught for two years in Princeton's Near Eastern Studies department before going to Harvard. Kafadar teaches seminars related to popular culture, hagiography and Ottoman historiography as well as the early modern history of the Middle East and Balkans. H...

#34974

Susan Trumbore

#34986

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Susan E. Trumbore is an earth systems scientist focusing on the carbon cycle and its effects on climate. She is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry and a Professor of Earth System Science at University of California, Irvine. She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Medal.

#34975

Ali A. Abdi

#34987

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Ali A. Abdi is a Somali-Canadian sociologist and educationist. Currently, he is a professor of social development education in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he previously served as head of department. Before that, he was a professor of International Education and International Development at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where he also served as the founding co-director of the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research . He is past president of the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada .

#34976

Jerzy Kroh

#34988

Overall Influence

1924 - 2016 (92 years)

Jerzy Kroh was a Polish chemist, the founder of a radiation chemistry school in Łódź, and the author or co-author of about 400 publications and several books. From 1981–1987, Kroh was rector of the Technical University of Lodz, and from 1962-1994 was in charge of the Interministerial Institute of Applied Radiation, of which he was a founder. From 1996–1998, Kroh was Vice President of Łódź, responsible for science and education. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Leeds and the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom, the University of Pavia in Italy, and the Technic...

#34977

Robert Reid-Pharr

Robert Reid-Pharr

#34989

Overall Influence

Robert Reid-Pharr is an American literary and cultural critic and professor. Early life and education A native North Carolinian, Reid-Pharr holds a B.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and both an M.A. in African American studies and a Ph.D. in American studies from Yale University.

#34978

Sarah Flannery

#34990

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Sarah Flannery was, at sixteen years old, the winner of the 1999 Esat Young Scientist Exhibition for her development of the Cayley–Purser algorithm, based on work she had done with researchers at Baltimore Technologies during a brief internship there. The project, entitled "Cryptography – A new algorithm versus the RSA", also won her the EU Young Scientist of the Year Award in 1999.

#34979

Louis Montrose

#34991

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Louis Adrian Montrose was an American literary theorist and academic scholar who retired from the academy in 2010 to pursue a career as a photographer. His scholarship addressed a wide variety of literary, historical, and theoretical topics and issues, and significantly shaped contemporary studies of Renaissance poetics, English Renaissance theatre, and Elizabeth I. Montrose was an influential early proponent of New Historicism, especially as it applied to the study of early modern English literature and culture. He was a professor of English Literature at the University of California, San ...

#34980

Manfred Morari

#34992

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Manfred Morari is a world-leading control theorist who has made pioneering contributions to the theory and applications of Model Predictive Control, Internal Model Control and Hybrid Systems. His book on Robust Process Control is considered to be definitive text on the subject. He is currently Peter and Susanne Armstrong Faculty Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1977. Dr. Morari held positions at the University of Wisconsin, Madison , the California Institute of Technology , and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich ETH Zurich.

#34981

Ash Carter

#34993

Overall Influence

1954 - 2022 (68 years)

Ashton Baldwin Carter was an American government official and academic who served as the 25th United States secretary of defense from February 2015 to January 2017. He later served as director of the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School.

#34982

Ronan O'Gara

#34994

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Ronan John Ross O'Gara is an Irish former rugby union player and current coach. O'Gara played as a fly-half and is Ireland's second most-capped player and second highest points scorer. He is currently head coach of La Rochelle in the French Top 14.

#34983

Lauren Kessler

#34995

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (125 years)

Lauren Kessler is an American author, and immersion journalist who specializes in narrative nonfiction. She teaches storytelling for social change at the University of Washington and for the Forum of Journalism and Media in Vienna.

#34984

Dan Connolly

#34996

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Dan Connolly is an American computer scientist who was closely involved with the creation of the World Wide Web as a member of the World Wide Web Consortium . Early years and education Connolly was born in 1967 and grew up with four siblings in Prairie Village, in the Kansas City metropolitan area, where he attended Bishop Miege High School. From 1986 to 1990 he attended University of Texas at Austin, earning a B.S. in computer science.

#34985

Dinesh Bhugra

#34997

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Dinesh Kumar Makhan Lal Bhugra is a professor of mental health and diversity at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London. He is an honorary consultant psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and is former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He has been president of the World Psychiatric Association and the President Elect of the British Medical Association.

#34986

Tony Schwartz

#34998

Overall Influence

1923 - 2008 (85 years)

Tony Schwartz was an American sound archivist, sound designer, pioneering media theorist, and advertising creator. Known as the "wizard of sound", he is perhaps best known for his role in creating the controversial "Daisy" television advertisement for the 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson campaign.

#34987

Stephen Lander

#34999

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Sir Stephen James Lander, KCB is a former chairman of the United Kingdom's Serious Organised Crime Agency , who also served as Director General of the British Security Service from 1996 to 2002. Career Lander attended Parkside School, then located in East Horsley, prior to its move to Cobham, Bishop's Stortford College and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he earned a doctorate in history entitled The diocese of Chichester 1508–1558 : Episcopal reform under Robert Sherburne and its aftermath. In 1975, after three years at the Institute of Historical Research where he was assistant editor of...

#34988

Lillian B. Rubin

#35000

Overall Influence

1924 - 2014 (90 years)

Lillian Breslow Rubin was an American writer, professor, psychotherapist and sociologist. She was a distinguished professor of sociology at Queens College and also worked as a senior researcher at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at the University of California, Berkeley. Rubin was a feminist.

#34989

Robb Willer

#35001

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Robb Willer is an American sociologist and social psychologist known for his work on political persuasion, polarization, democracy, and morality. He is a professor of sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior at Stanford University where he is the Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and Faculty Co-Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

#34990

Sherry Gong

#35002

Overall Influence

Sherry Gong is an American mathematician specializing in low-dimensional topology and known as one of the most successful female competitors at the International Mathematical Olympiad. She is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University.

#34991

Charles Alfred Coulson

#35003

Overall Influence

#34992

Leonard Michaels

Leonard Michaels

#35004

Overall Influence

1933 - 2003 (70 years)

Leonard Michaels was an American writer of short stories, novels, and essays, and a Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Early life and education Michaels was born in New York City to Jewish parents; his father was born in Poland. He attended New York University and was awarded a BA degree, and then went on to earn an MA and PhD in English literature from the University of Michigan. After receiving his doctorate, Leonard Michaels moved to Berkeley, California, where he was to spend most of his adult life and become Professor of English at the University of Califor...

#34993

Willem A. VanGemeren

Willem A. VanGemeren

#35005

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Willem A. VanGemeren is Professor Emeritus of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is the author of a number of books, including Interpreting the Prophetic Word and a commentary on Psalms in the Expositor's Bible Commentary series . He was a senior editor of the five-volume work The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis in which ten essays have been compiled to thoroughly explain proper hermeneutics and Biblical interpretation. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the Evangelical Theological Society, and...

#34994

F. Drew Gaffney

F. Drew Gaffney

#35006

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Francis Andrew "Drew" Gaffney is an American doctor and former astronaut. He previously worked for NASA and participated in the STS-40 Space Life Sciences Space Shuttle mission in 1991 as a payload specialist.

#34995

Skylar Grey

#35007

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (40 years)

Holly Brook Hafermann , known professionally as Skylar Grey, is an American singer and songwriter from Mazomanie, Wisconsin. In 2004, at the age of 17, Grey signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group and a recording contract with Machine Shop Recordings under the name Holly Brook. In 2006, she released her debut studio album, Like Blood Like Honey, under the aforementioned labels.

#34996

David R. Smith

#35008

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

David R. Smith is an American physicist and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University in North Carolina. Smith's research focuses on electromagnetic metamaterials, or materials with a negative index of refraction.

#34997

Harold C. Conklin

#35009

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

Harold Colyer Conklin was an American anthropologist who conducted extensive ethnoecological and linguistic field research in Southeast Asia and was a pioneer of ethnoscience, documenting indigenous ways of understanding and knowing the world.

#34998

George Zimmerman

George Zimmerman

#35010

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

George Michael Zimmerman is an American man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American boy, in Sanford, Florida, on February 26, 2012. On July 13, 2013, he was acquitted of second-degree murder in Florida v. George Zimmerman. After his acquittal, Zimmerman was the target of a shooting. The perpetrator was convicted of attempted murder.

#34999

Zhang Shuai

#35011

Overall Influence

1989 - Present (37 years)

Zhang Shuai is a Chinese professional tennis player. She is a two-time major champion in women's doubles, having won the 2019 Australian Open and the 2021 US Open, both alongside Samantha Stosur. Zhang also finished runner-up at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships with Elise Mertens, and has reached four further major semifinals across women's and mixed doubles. She has a career-high doubles ranking of world No. 2, achieved in July 2022, and has won 12 titles on the WTA Tour, including the 2021 Cincinnati Open with Stosur. Zhang has also qualified for the WTA Finals on two occasions.

#35000

Lamont Dozier

#35012

Overall Influence

1941 - 2022 (81 years)

Lamont Herbert Dozier was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer from Detroit. He co-wrote and produced 14 US Billboard number-one hits and four number ones in the UK. Career Dozier was a member of Holland–Dozier–Holland, the songwriting and production team responsible for much of the Motown sound and numerous hit records by artists such as Martha and the Vandellas, The Supremes, The Four Tops, and The Isley Brothers. Along with Brian Holland, Dozier served as the team's musical arranger and producer, while Eddie Holland concentrated mainly on lyrics and vocal production. Along w...

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