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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people

#37601

Mirella Lapata

#37613

Overall Influence

Mirella Lapata FRSE is a computer scientist and Professor in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Working on the general problem of extracting semantic information from large bodies of text, Lapata develops computer algorithms and models in the field of natural language processing .

#37602

Miriam Butt

#37614

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Miriam Butt is Professor of Linguistics at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Konstanz, where she leads the computational linguistics lab. Education and research Butt earned her doctorate in linguistics in 1993 at Stanford University. She subsequently held research and teaching positions at the Institut für Maschinelle Sprachverarbeitung at the University of Stuttgart, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and the University of Tübingen before taking up her current position at the University of Konstanz.

#37603

Charles Grodin

#37615

Overall Influence

1935 - 2021 (86 years)

Charles Sidney Grodin was an American actor, comedian, author, and television talk show host. Known for his deadpan delivery and often cast as a put-upon straight man, Grodin became familiar as a supporting actor in many Hollywood comedies of the era. After a small part in Rosemary's Baby in 1968, he played the lead in Elaine May's The Heartbreak Kid where he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

#37604

Shawn Bradley

#37616

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Shawn Paul Bradley is a German-American former professional basketball player who played center for the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Nets, and Dallas Mavericks of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "the Stormin' Mormon", Bradley is one of the tallest players in NBA history at . Bradley was born in Landstuhl, West Germany, as his family was stationed at the U.S. military base medical facility, and grew up in Castle Dale, Utah. He holds citizenship in both the United States and Germany.

#37605

Doug Liman

#37617

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Douglas Eric Liman is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing the films Swingers , Go , The Bourne Identity , Mr. & Mrs. Smith , Jumper , Edge of Tomorrow , and American Made .

#37606

Fred Landman

#37618

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Fred Landman is a Dutch-born Israeli professor of semantics. He teaches at Tel Aviv University has written a number of books about linguistics. Biography Fred Landman was born in Holland. He immigrated to Israel in 1993. He was married to London-born linguist Susan Rothstein until her death in 2019. The couple had one daughter and resided in Tel Aviv.

#37608

David W. Chappell

#37620

Overall Influence

1940 - 2004 (64 years)

David Wellington Chappell was a professor of Buddhist studies whose specialties were Chinese Buddhist traditions and interreligious dialogue. After receiving a B.A. from Mount Allison University and a B.D. from McGill University, he completed a Ph.D. in the history of religions at Yale University. His subsequent teaching career included three decades as a professor of religion at the University of Hawaii, where he founded the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1981, edited it through 1985, then helped found the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies in 1987. His publications include Buddh...

#37609

Édouard Roger-Vasselin

Édouard Roger-Vasselin

#37621

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (43 years)

Édouard Roger-Vasselin is a French professional tennis player who primarily specialises in doubles. He won his first Grand Slam title at the 2014 French Open, winning the men's doubles partnering Julien Benneteau, and also finished runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships in both 2016 and 2019, alongside Benneteau and Nicolas Mahut respectively. Roger-Vasselin reached his career-high doubles ranking of world No. 6 in November 2014, and has won 28 doubles titles on the ATP Tour, including three Masters titles.

#37610

Lanny Frattare

#37622

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Lanny Lawrence Frattare is an American former sportscaster. For 33 years he was a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates, the longest such tenure in the team's history. In 2008, he was nominated for the Ford Frick Award, which is given by the Baseball Hall of Fame for broadcasting excellence.

#37611

Paolo Boffetta

#37623

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Paolo Boffetta is an Italian epidemiologist. He is doing research on cancer and other chronic diseases, where he contributed to the understanding of the role of occupation, environment, alcohol, smoking and nutrition in disease development.

#37612

Chris Mason

#37624

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Christopher Richard Mason is an English journalist, who has been the political editor of BBC News since 2022. He is also a presenter of the podcast and television programme Newscast . He was formerly the BBC's political correspondent.

#37613

Ashok Venkitaraman

#37625

Overall Influence

Ashok Venkitaraman is a British cancer researcher of Indian origin. He is the Director of the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, and Program Director at A*STAR, Singapore. From 1998 to 2020, he was the inaugural holder of the Ursula Zoellner Professorship of Cancer Research at the University of Cambridge, a Professorial Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and from 2006 to 2019, was the Director of the Medical Research Council Cancer Unit

#37614

David O. Meltzer

David O. Meltzer

#37626

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

David Owen Meltzer is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago. He holds faculty appointments in the Department of Medicine, Department of Economics and the Harris School of Public Policy. He is Chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, and is the Director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences , as well as the Director of the Urban Health Lab in Chicago, IL. In 2015 he was appointed a member of the faculty for the forthcoming Barack Obama Presidential Center which will be located in Chicago's South Side.

#37615

Colin Hughes

#37627

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Colin Anfield Hughes was a distinguished British-Australian academic specialising in electoral politics and government. He was Emeritus professor of political science at the University of Queensland, and chairman of the Queensland Constitutional Review Commission .

#37616

Richard M. Lerner

#37628

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Richard M. Lerner is professor of Human Development at Tufts University, occupying the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science. Also at Tufts, he directs the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development.

#37617

Ismail Merchant

Ismail Merchant

#37629

Overall Influence

1936 - 2005 (69 years)

Ismail Merchant was an Indian film producer. He worked for many years in collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions which included film director James Ivory as well as screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

#37618

Stuart Gitlow

#37630

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Stuart Gitlow is a general, forensic, and addiction psychiatrist and Past President of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. Biography Gitlow was born on November 29, 1962. Following completion of his bachelor of science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he earned an M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Pittsburgh and Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Rhode Island . His psychiatric and public health training were at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Harvard Unive...

#37619

Lynn Kimsey

#37631

Overall Influence

Lynn Kimsey is an entomologist, taxonomist, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis since 1989. Her specialties are bees and wasps; and insect diversity and evolution.

#37620

Vikas Mishra

#37632

Overall Influence

1924 - 2008 (84 years)

Dr Vikas Mishra was an Indian Economist and a vice-chancellor of Kurukshetra University, Haryana. He joined the university in the Department of Economics in 1962 after serving in the Delhi School of Economics & the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi. With his M.A. in Economics from the University of Manchester, Dr Mishra completed his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and research under the guidance of Nobel laureate Sir William Arthur Lewis.

#37621

Kellie Jones

#37633

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Kellie Jones is an American art historian and curator. She is a Professor in Art History and Archaeology in African American Studies at Columbia University. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

#37622

Nancy A. Moran

#37634

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

For the American folk-rock singer-songwriter, see Nancy Moran. Nancy A. Moran is an American evolutionary biologist and entomologist, University of Texas Leslie Surginer Endowed Professor, and co-founder of the Yale Microbial Diversity Institute. Since 2005, she has been a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences. Her seminal research has focused on the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum and its bacterial symbionts including Buchnera . In 2013, she returned to the University of Texas at Austin, where she continues to conduct research on bacterial symbionts in aphids, bees, and other insect species.

#37623

Lee McIntyre

#37635

Overall Influence

Lee Cameron McIntyre is a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and an Instructor in Ethics at Harvard Extension School. He has published books and articles on the philosophy of the social sciences, as well as attempts to undermine science and the appropriate response to these attempts to scientists.

#37624

Karen Khachanov

Karen Khachanov

#37636

Overall Influence

1996 - Present (30 years)

Karen Abgarovich Khachanov is a Russian-Armenian professional tennis player. Khachanov has won five ATP Tour singles titles, including a Masters 1000 title at the 2018 Paris Masters, has claimed an Olympic silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and has reached two Major semifinals at the 2022 US Open and 2023 Australian Open. He has also won one doubles Masters 1000 title at the 2023 Madrid Open partnering Andrey Rublev. He achieved his career-high singles ranking of world No. 8 on 15 July 2019. He also has a career high ranking of No. 57 in doubles achieved on 6 November 2023.

#37625

Pamela Taylor

#37637

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Pamela Jane Taylor, is a British psychiatrist and academic, who specialises in the links between psychosis and violence, and mental and physical health in the criminal justice system. Since 2004, she has been Professor of Forensic Psychiatry in the Department Institute of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences of Cardiff University.

#37626

Luc Pauwels

#37638

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Luc Maria Alfons Pauwels is a Belgian visual sociologist and communication scientist, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and director of its Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center . He is known for his work on visual research methods.

#37627

Lisa Tickner

#37639

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Lisa Tickner FBA is a British art historian. She has taught at Middlesex University , Northwestern University, and the Courtauld Institute of Art . In 2008 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

#37628

Jesse Mugambi

#37640

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi is a professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of Nairobi with professional training in education and philosophy of religion. Biography Early life Mugambi was born on 6 February 1947 in Kiangoci. Both of his parents were committed Anglicans. His father was a lay leader, preacher, and evangelist.

#37629

Klaas van Berkel

#37641

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Klaas van Berkel is a Dutch historian, historian of science, and professor of Modern History at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, known from his work on the history of science in the Netherlands, particularly the work of Isaac Beeckman, Simon Stevin and Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis.

#37630

Hessam Nowzari

#37642

Overall Influence

Hessam Nowzari is the Director of the University of Southern California Advanced Periodontics program, since 1995, and is a diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology. Biography Nowzari was born in Shiraz, Iran and was the youngest director at the University of Southern California Advanced Periodontics program where he established a program that mirror's Nowzari's stances on key issues in periodontology.

#37631

Priti Patel

#37643

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Dame Priti Sushil Patel is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she was Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2017. Patel has been the Member of Parliament for Witham since 2010. She is ideologically on the right wing of the Conservative Party; she considers herself to be a Thatcherite and has attracted attention for her socially conservative stances.

#37632

John Westcott

#37644

Overall Influence

1920 - 2014 (94 years)

John Hugh Westcott FRS, FREng, Hon FIEE was a British scientist specialising in control systems and Professor of Computing and Automation at Imperial College London. Career Westcott was educated at Wandsworth Grammar School, the City and Guilds College, both in London, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His career began in radar research during World War II. After a year in Germany with the Allied Commission, he obtained a scholarship to the MIT where many scientists returning from the services were addressing the early possibilities of computer applications.

#37633

Stuart White

#37645

Overall Influence

Stuart White is a recording and mix engineer. He is best known for his work with Beyoncé, namely on studio albums Beyoncé, Lemonade, and Renaissance. White has three Grammy awards and has been nominated ten times.

#37634

Vinny Del Negro

Vinny Del Negro

#37646

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Vincent Joseph Del Negro is an American former professional basketball player. He was the head coach of the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls from 2008 to 2010, and the Los Angeles Clippers from 2010 to 2013. Del Negro is currently an analyst with NBA TV.

#37635

Prince Fielder

#37647

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (42 years)

Prince Semien Fielder is an American former professional baseball first baseman and designated hitter, who played in Major League Baseball for the Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, and Texas Rangers. He was selected in the first round of the 2002 Major League Baseball draft by the Brewers out of Eau Gallie High School in Melbourne, Florida, and spent the first seven years of his MLB career with the Brewers before signing with the Tigers, in January 2012. In November 2013, Fielder was traded to the Rangers, where he played the remainder of his career.

#37636

Erwin Wickert

#37648

Overall Influence

1915 - 2008 (93 years)

Erwin Wickert was a German diplomat who, during the 1970s, served as the ambassador to Romania and China. Early life and education Born in Bralitz and raised in Wittenberg, Wickert applied to join the Sturmabteilung at the age of 18 before ultimately enrolling at the University of Berlin in 1934, where he studied philosophy. The following year, in 1935, he won a scholarship to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and transferred there to complete his studies, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and political science in 1936.

#37637

Tony Wright

#37649

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Tony Wright , also known as Sue Ab Surd, is an artist who created album covers such as Bob Marley's Natty Dread and Traffic's The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and others including Bob Dylan's Saved. His art work for The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and Steve Winwood's Arc of a Diver were listed amongst Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Album Covers. The cover for The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.

#37638

Olof B. Widlund

#37650

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Olof B. Widlund , is a Swedish-American mathematician. He is well known for his leading role in and fundamental contributions to domain decomposition methods. He received his Ph.D. at Uppsala University in 1966 and is professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of New York University.

#37639

Arie Luyendyk

#37651

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Arie Luijendijk , nicknamed "The Flying Dutchman," is a Dutch former auto racing driver, and winner of the 1990 and 1997 Indianapolis 500 races. He was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 2009, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2014.

#37640

Margaret Urban Walker

#37652

Overall Influence

1948 - 2017 (69 years)

Margaret Urban Walker is an American philosopher and academic who is the Donald J. Schuenke Chair Emerita in Philosophy at Marquette University. Before her appointment at Marquette, she was the Lincoln Professor of Ethics at Arizona State University, and before that she was at Fordham University. She has also previously held visiting appointments at Washington University in St. Louis, University of South Florida, and Catholic University of Leuven.

#37641

Simon Phillips

#37653

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Simon Phillips is a US-based English jazz, fusion and rock drummer, songwriter, and record producer. He worked with rock bands during the 1970s and 1980s and was the drummer for the band Toto from 1992 to 2014.

#37642

June Whitfield

#37654

Overall Influence

1925 - 2018 (93 years)

Dame June Rosemary Whitfield was an English radio, television, and film actress. Her big break was a lead in the radio comedy Take It from Here, which aired on the BBC Light Programme in 1953. Television roles soon followed, including appearances with Tony Hancock throughout his television career. In 1966, Whitfield played the leading role in the television sitcom Beggar My Neighbour, which ran for three series. She also appeared in four Carry On films: Carry On Nurse , Carry On Abroad , Carry On Girls , and Carry On Columbus .

#37643

Brigitte C. Madrian

#37655

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Brigitte C. Madrian is a behavioral economist and is the ninth dean of the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University . She is the first woman to serve as dean and has a joint appointment in the Department of Finance and the George W. Romney Institute of Public Service and Ethics.

#37644

Vladimir R. Legoyda

#37656

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Vladimir Romanovich Legoyda is a Russian public figure, journalist, university professor, expert in cultural studies, political science and religious studies. He is Candidate of Political Sciences and professor of the Department of World literature and culture, Moscow State Institute of International Relations; co-founder, editor-in-chief of Foma magazine, Chairman of the Department for Church's Society and Mass Mediа Relations and Acting Head of the Press Service of the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'.

#37645

Barbara J. King

#37657

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Barbara J. King is professor emerita, retired from the Department of Anthropology at the College of William & Mary where she taught from 1988 to 2015, and was chair of the department of Anthropology.

#37646

Paolo Giubellino

Paolo Giubellino

#37658

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Paolo Giubellino is an experimental particle physicist working on High-Energy Nuclear Collisions. Currently he is the joint Scientific Managing Director of the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research and the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research and Professor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

#37647

Peter Taylor

#37659

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Peter John Taylor is an English former footballer who was most recently manager of Maldon & Tiptree. He was previously manager at Dartford, Enfield, Southend United, Dover Athletic, Leicester City, Brighton and Hove Albion, Hull City, Crystal Palace, Kerala Blasters, Stevenage Borough, Wycombe Wanderers, Bradford City and Gillingham, leaving the last role at the end of 2014. He also had two spells as head coach of the England under-21 team and took charge of the England national team as caretaker manager for one game against Italy, for which he made David Beckham captain of England for the first time.

#37648

Peter Kay

#37660

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Peter John Kay is an English actor, comedy writer, director and stand-up comedian. He has written, produced, directed and acted in several television and film projects, and has written three books. Born and brought up in Farnworth, Kay studied media performance at the University of Salford. He began working part-time as a stand-up comedian, winning the North West Comedian of the Year award. In 1997, he won Channel 4's So You Think You're Funny contest and the following year was nominated for a Perrier Award for his show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. With his public profile raised, in 2000 he co-wrote and starred in That Peter Kay Thing for Channel 4.

#37649

Jean-Claude Pecker

Jean-Claude Pecker

#37661

Overall Influence

1923 - 2020 (97 years)

Jean-Claude Pecker was a French astronomer, astrophysicist and author, member of the French Academy of Sciences and director of the Nice Observatory. He served as the secretary-general of the International Astronomical Union from 1964 to 1967. Pecker was the President of the Société astronomique de France , the French amateur astronomical society, from 1973–1976. He was awarded the Prix Jules Janssen by the French Astronomical Society in 1967. A minor planet is named after him. Pecker was a vocal opponent of astrology and pseudo-science and was the president of the Association française po...

#37650

DeMarcus Cousins

DeMarcus Cousins

#37662

Overall Influence

1990 - Present (36 years)

DeMarcus Amir Cousins is an American professional basketball player for the Mets de Guaynabo of the Baloncesto Superior Nacional league of Puerto Rico. Nicknamed "Boogie", he played college basketball for the Kentucky Wildcats, where he was an All-American in 2010. He left Kentucky after one season, and was selected with the fifth overall pick in the 2010 NBA draft by the Sacramento Kings. In his first season with the Kings, Cousins was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team, and from 2015 to 2018, he was named an NBA All-Star four times. He is also a two-time gold medal winner as a member o...

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