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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people

#38551

Octavia Spencer

Octavia Spencer

#38563

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Octavia Lenora Spencer is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and a Golden Globe Award, and is the first black actress to receive two consecutive Oscar nominations.

#38552

Ronnie Dugger

#38564

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (95 years)

Ronnie Dugger is an American progressive journalist. Dugger attended the University of Texas and was editor of The Daily Texan 1950–1951. He was the founding editor of The Texas Observer from 1954 to 1961. Later he served as the Observer's publisher, spending more than 40 years with the political newsmagazine.

#38553

Hadi Soesastro

#38565

Overall Influence

1945 - 2010 (65 years)

Hadi Soesastro was an Indonesian economist, academic and public intellectual. Hadi was one of the founders of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies , a think tank founded in 1971, where he served as an executive director and economist. The Jakarta Post referred to Soesastro as "one of Indonesia’s foremost economists."

#38554

Anne Sauvagnargues

#38566

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Anne Sauvagnargues is a French philosopher specializing in the work of Gilles Deleuze. Biography A former student of the École Normale Supérieure in Fontenay-aux-Roses, she taught at the École normale supérieure of Lyon and has been professor at the University Paris X since 2010,

#38555

William Conrad

#38567

Overall Influence

1920 - 1994 (74 years)

William Conrad was an American actor, producer, and director whose entertainment career spanned five decades in radio, film, and television, peaking in popularity when he starred in the detective series Cannon.

#38556

Dieter Senghaas

#38568

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Dieter Senghaas is a German social scientist and peace researcher. Biography After studying political science, social science, philosophy and history from 1960 to 1967, Senghaas received his doctorate in Frankfurt in 1967. His dissertation, Kritik der Abschreckung , dealt with the field which has characterised his scientific activities since then: international relations, especially peace research, research on developing countries and conflict research. His studies were followed by work as an assistant at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt until 1968, and then a research residency in the USA with Karl W.

#38557

J. Donald Millar

J. Donald Millar

#38569

Overall Influence

1934 - 2015 (81 years)

John Donald Millar was a physician and public health administrator who rose to prominence as the director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health from 1981 through 1993. Education Donald Millar was born February 27, 1934, in Newport News, Virginia, to Dorothea and John Millar. Donald attended the University of Richmond, earning a B.S. in chemistry in 1956. He continued his education at the Medical College of Virginia. In 1957, he married Joan Phillips and two years later he completed his M.D. He completed his residency at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Millar began working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1961.

#38558

Kirk Hinrich

#38570

Overall Influence

1981 - Present (45 years)

Kirk James Hinrich is an American former professional basketball player. He has also been a member of the USA National Team. Growing up in Sioux City, Iowa, Hinrich was exposed to basketball at an early age. His father, Jim, coached him from the third grade through high school.

#38559

James Bradley

#38571

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

James Bradley is an American author from Antigo, Wisconsin, specializing in historical nonfiction chronicling the Pacific theatre of World War II. His father, John Bradley, was involved in the first raising of the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945.

#38560

Mochus

#38572

Overall Influence

Mochus , also known as Mochus of Sidon and Mochus the Phoenician, is listed by Diogenes Laërtius along with Zalmoxis the Thracian and Atlas of Mauretania, as a proto-philosopher. Athenaeus claimed that he authored a work on the history of Phoenicia. Strabo, on the authority of Posidonius, speaks of one Mochus or Moschus of Sidon as the author of the atomic theory and says that he was more ancient than the Trojan war. He is also referred to by Josephus, Tatian, Eusebius, and Damascius.

#38561

C. Shane Reese

#38573

Overall Influence

Christopher Shane Reese is an American statistician, academic administrator, and 14th president of Brigham Young University . At BYU, he previously served as Academic Vice President , dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and as the Melvin W. Carter professor of statistics.

#38562

Carlos E.M. Wagner

#38574

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Carlos Wagner is a particle physicist. He specializes in theoretical physics, elementary particles and supersymmetric theories. He currently works for the High Energy Physics division of the Argonne National Laboratory and is also a professor at the Physics Department of the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi Institute, and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago. He also functions as the Head of the ANL High Energy Physics Theory Group.

#38563

Penny Marshall

#38575

Overall Influence

1943 - 2018 (75 years)

Carole Penny Marshall was an American actress, director and producer. She is known for her role as Laverne DeFazio on the television sitcom Laverne & Shirley , receiving three nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy for her portrayal.

#38564

Éric Karsenti

#38576

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Éric Karsenti is a French biologist. Research Director at the CNRS, he was the scientific director of the Tara Oceans expedition. Biography After a thesis at the Pasteur Institute , he worked as a researcher on the molecular mechanisms that govern the cell cycle. He created the Department of Cellular Biology and Biophysics of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory .

#38565

Alberto Vecchio

#38577

Overall Influence

Alberto Vecchio is a physicist, professor at University of Birmingham in the School of Physics and Astronomy, and the Director of the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy. He was a contributor in the upgrade of LIGO to Advanced LIGO which resulted in the discovery of gravitational waves in February 2016.

#38566

Peter Sutcliffe

#38578

Overall Influence

1946 - 2020 (74 years)

Peter William Sutcliffe , also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was dubbed in press reports as the Yorkshire Ripper, an allusion to the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper. He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire. Criminal psychologist Dr. David Holmes characterised Sutcliffe as being an "extr...

#38567

Lawrence J. Giacoletto

#38579

Overall Influence

1916 - 2004 (88 years)

Lawrence Joseph Giacoletto was an American electrical engineer and inventor. He was known among others for his work in the field of semiconductor circuit technology, in particular by the eponymous Giacoletto equivalent circuit for transistors .

#38568

J. J. Cale

#38580

Overall Influence

1938 - 2013 (75 years)

John Weldon "J. J." Cale was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Though he avoided the limelight, his influence as a musical artist has been acknowledged by figures such as Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, Waylon Jennings, and Eric Clapton, who described him as one of the most important artists in rock history. He is one of the originators of the Tulsa sound, a loose genre drawing on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz.

#38569

Ty Detmer

#38581

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Ty Hubert Detmer is an American former professional football quarterback who played in the National Football League . He won the Heisman Trophy in 1990 while playing college football for the BYU Cougars. Detmer broke numerous NCAA records with BYU, and was twice recognized as a consensus All-American. A late-round pick in the 1992 NFL Draft, Detmer played for six NFL teams over 14 seasons, mostly in a back-up role. He is currently the head football coach for the American Leadership–Queen Creek Patriots.

#38570

Craig Huneke

#38582

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Craig Lee Huneke is an American mathematician specializing in commutative algebra. He is a professor at the University of Virginia. Huneke graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree in 1973 and in 1978 earned a Ph.D. from the Yale University under Nathan Jacobson and David Eisenbud . As a post-doctoral fellow, he was at the University of Michigan. In 1979 he became an assistant professor and was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Bonn . In 1981 he became an assistant professor at Purdue University, where in 1984 he became an associate professor and became a professor in 1987.

#38571

Mira Sorvino

#38583

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Mira Katherine Sorvino is an American actress. She won the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Woody Allen's Mighty Aphrodite . She also starred in the films Romy and Michele's High School Reunion , Mimic , Lulu on the Bridge , The Replacement Killers , Summer of Sam , Like Dandelion Dust , and Sound of Freedom . For her work in television, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her portrayal of Marilyn Monroe in Norma Jean & Marilyn , and twice nominated for a Golden Globe for Be...

#38572

Michael Gilkes

#38584

Overall Influence

1933 - 2020 (87 years)

Michael Arthur Gilkes was a Caribbean literary critic, dramatist, poet, filmmaker and university lecturer. He was involved in theatre for more than 40 years, as a director, actor and playwright, winning the Guyana Prize for Drama in 1992 and 2006, as well as the Guyana Prize for Best Book of Poetry in 2002. He was also respected for his insight into and writings on the work of Wilson Harris.

#38573

Richard Verrall

#38585

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Richard Verrall is a British Holocaust denier and former deputy chairman of the British National Front who edited the magazine Spearhead from 1976 to 1980. Under the nom de plume of Richard E. Harwood, Verrall wrote the pamphlet Did Six Million Really Die?

#38574

Robert Royal

#38586

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Robert Royal is a Catholic author and the president of the Faith & Reason Institute based in Washington, D.C. Early life and education Robert Royal was born in Connecticut and received his BA in English and MA in Italian Studies from Brown University and his PhD in Comparative Literature from The Catholic University of America. He was a Fulbright Scholar.

#38575

José Faur

#38587

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

José Faur was a Sephardic Hakham , teacher and scholar. He was a Rabbi in the Syrian-Jewish community in Brooklyn for many years. He was also a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, and Bar Ilan University, and was Professor of Law at Netanya Academic College.

#38576

Aurelio José Figueredo

#38588

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Aurelio José Figueredo is an American evolutionary psychologist. He is a professor of psychology, Family Studies and Human Development at the University of Arizona, where he is also the director of the Ethology and Evolutionary Psychology Laboratory. He is also a member of the interdisciplinary Center for Insect Science at the University of Arizona. His major areas of research interest are the evolutionary psychology and behavioral development of life history strategy, cognition, sex, and violence in human and nonhuman animals, and the quantitative ethology and social development of insects, birds, and primates.

#38577

Daniel O. Dahlstrom

#38589

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Daniel Oscar Dahlstrom is an American philosopher and John R. Silber Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. Books Identity, Authenticity, and Humility. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2017.The Heidegger Dictionary. New York: Bloomsbury Academics, 2013.Philosophical legacies: Essays on the Thought of Kant, Hegel, and their Contemporaries. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press CUA, 2008.Heidegger’s Concept of Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Das logische Vorurteil: Untersuchungen zur Wahrheitstheorie des frühen Heidegger. Vienna: Passagen, 1994.

#38578

Nimal Rajapakshe

#38590

Overall Influence

Nimal Rajapakse is a Sri Lankan-born academic and engineer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a professor of engineering at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada. Education After a year in a school in his village near Attanagalla, he came to Olcott College and after a year entered Ananda College in grade three. Four generations of his family studied at Ananda College. He gained admission to the University of Ceylon in 1973 from where he graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 1977.

#38579

Salome Maswime

#38591

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Salome Maswime is a South African clinician and global health expert. She is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and the Head of Global Surgery at the University of Cape Town. She advocates for women's health rights, equity in surgical and maternal care, and providing adequate health services to remote and underserved populations. She advises and consults for many institutions, including the World Health Organization. In 2017, she was honored with the Trailblazer and Young Achiever Award. She is a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa.

#38580

Laura Sjoberg

#38592

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Laura Elizabeth Sjoberg is an American feminist scholar of international relations and international security. Her work specializes in gendered interpretations of just war theory, feminist security studies, and women's violence in global politics.

#38581

Jerry L. Mashaw

#38593

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Jerry L. Mashaw is an American lawyer, currently the Sterling Professor Emeritus and professorial lecturer of law at Yale University, and also a published author. He is a Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mashaw is a Marshall Scholar. He teaches courses in administrative law, legislation, social welfare policy and law, and regulation.

#38582

Rebecca Stott

#38594

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Rebecca Stott is a British writer and broadcaster and, until her retirement from teaching in 2021, was Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2021.

#38583

Miss Elizabeth

#38595

Overall Influence

1960 - 2003 (43 years)

Elizabeth Ann Hulette , best known in professional wrestling circles as Miss Elizabeth, was an American professional wrestling manager, occasional professional wrestler and professional wrestling TV announcer. She gained international fame from 1985 to 1992 in the World Wrestling Federation and from 1996 to 2000 in World Championship Wrestling , in her role as the manager to wrestler "Macho Man" Randy Savage, as well as other wrestlers of that period. She died as a result of an acute toxicity on May 1, 2003, in the home she shared with wrestler Lex Luger.

#38584

Lev Polugaevsky

Lev Polugaevsky

#38596

Overall Influence

1934 - 1995 (61 years)

Lev Abramovich Polugaevsky was a Soviet chess player. He was awarded the title of International Grandmaster by FIDE in 1962 and was a frequent contender for the World Championship, although he never achieved that title. He was one of the strongest players in the world from the early 1960s until the late 1980s, as well as a distinguished author and opening theorist whose contributions in this field remain important to the present day.

#38585

Michel Devoret

#38597

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Michel Devoret is a French physicist and F. W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics at Yale University. He also holds a position as the Director of the Applied Physics Nanofabrication Lab at Yale. He is known for his pioneering work on macroscopic quantum tunneling, and the single-electron pump as well as in groundbreaking contributions to initiating the fields of circuit quantum electrodynamics and quantronics.

#38586

Marianne Bronner

#38598

Overall Influence

Marianne Bronner is a developmental biologist who currently serves as Edward B. Lewis Professor of Biology and an executive officer for Neurobiology at the California Institute of Technology. Her most notable work includes her research on the neural crest. Bronner's research focuses on studying the cellular events behind the migration, differentiation, and formation of neural crest cells. She currently directs her own laboratory at the California Institute of Technology called the Bronner Laboratory, and she has authored over 400 articles in her field.

#38587

Jonathon Pines

#38599

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Jonathon Noë Joseph Pines is Head of the Cancer Biology Division at the Institute of Cancer Research in London. He was formerly a senior group leader at the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge.

#38588

George Starbuck

#38600

Overall Influence

1931 - 1996 (65 years)

George Edwin Starbuck was an American poet of the neo-formalist school. Life Starbuck studied at Chadwick School, the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, the American Academy in Rome, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University. He also studied under Robert Lowell in the Boston University workshop with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. He taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Boston University, and the State University of New York, Buffalo. He was fired by SUNY-Buffalo for not taking a loyalty oath, but was vindicated by the Supreme Court. His student...

#38589

Craig Kilborn

#38601

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Craig Lawrence Kilborn is an American television host, actor, comedian, and sports commentator. Kilborn began a career in sports broadcasting in the late 1980s, leading to an anchoring position at ESPN's SportsCenter from 1993 to 1996. He was later the first host of The Daily Show, which he hosted from 1996 to 1998, and succeeded Tom Snyder on CBS' The Late Late Show from 1999 to 2004. In comedy, Kilborn is known for his deadpan delivery.

#38590

Brittney Cooper

Brittney Cooper

#38602

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (46 years)

Brittney Cooper is a tenured professor of Women and Gender Studies, author, professor, activist, and cultural critic. Her areas of research and work include black women organizations, black women intellectuals, and hip-hop feminism. In 2013 and 2014, she was named to the Root.com's Root 100, an annual list of top Black influencers.

#38591

Stefan Kieniewicz

Stefan Kieniewicz

#38603

Overall Influence

1907 - 1992 (85 years)

Stefan Kieniewicz was a Polish historian and university professor, notable for his works on the 19th-century history of Poland. During his work at various universities he became the tutor of several generations of Polish historians and his views on the last two centuries of Poland's history remain influential in modern scholarly works.

#38592

Susan Henrichs

#38604

Overall Influence

Susan Henrichs became provost of the University of Alaska Fairbanks in July 2007, after serving as dean of the Graduate School and vice provost of UAF from 2003 to 2007. Career Henrichs was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska. She earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry and chemical oceanography from the University of Washington in 1975, and a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution joint program in 1980. From 1981 to 1982 she worked as a postdoctoral research chemist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She joine...

#38593

David Brown

#38605

Overall Influence

David D. Brown is an American lawyer, radio personality, editor, journalist, author, and co-creator and host of public radio's first statewide daily news-magazine for Texas, the Texas Standard. He has also produced and hosted Business Wars, NPR's Peabody award-winning Marketplace radio program, and KUT's Texas Music Matters, among others. He is also the author of the book The Art of Business Wars.

#38594

Cathy Park Hong

Cathy Park Hong

#38606

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (50 years)

Cathy Park Hong is an American poet, writer, and professor who has published three volumes of poetry. Much of her work includes mixed language and serialized narrative. She was named on the 2021 Time 100 list for her writings and advocacy for Asian American women.

#38595

Dyan Cannon

#38607

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Dyan Cannon is an American actress, filmmaker and editor. Her accolades include a Saturn Award, a Golden Globe Award, three Academy Award nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She was named Female Star of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners in 1973 and the Hollywood Women's Press Club in 1979.

#38596

Maya Bar-Hillel

#38608

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Maya Bar-Hillel is a professor emeritus of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Known for her work on inaccuracies in human reasoning about probability, she has also studied decision theory in connection with Newcomb's paradox, investigated how gender stereotyping can block human problem-solving, and worked with Dror Bar-Natan, Gil Kalai, and Brendan McKay to debunk the Bible code.

#38597

Kan Kimura

#38609

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Kan Kimura is a Japanese scholar of political studies and area studies. He is now a professor at Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies, Kobe University, Japan. Career Kimura was born in 1966 in Higashiosaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. He studied at Kyoto University and received his L.L.D. in 2001 for his first book, Chosen/Kankoku Nashonarizumu to 'Shokoku-Ishiki .

#38598

Jørgen Haugan

#38610

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Jørgen Haugan is a Norwegian author and lecturer. He was written a number of books, principally biographies of noted Scandinavian writers. Haugan earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1977 from the University of Copenhagen with a thesis on Henrik Ibsen.

#38599

Rajko Tomović

#38611

Overall Influence

1919 - 2001 (82 years)

Rajko Tomović was a Serbian and Yugoslav scientist, who developed research programs in robotics, medical information technology, biomedical engineering, rehabilitation engineering, artificial organs, and other disciplines. He is officially credited for creation of the first artificial hand with five fingers in 1963 in Belgrade. He was a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts .

#38600

Robert Reischauer

Robert Reischauer

#38612

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Robert Danton Reischauer is an economist and was one of the two public trustees of the Medicare and Social Security Trust Fund. He is a nationally known expert on the federal budget, health reform, Medicare, and Social Security. Most recently he served as president of the Urban Institute, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. He is the son of Japan scholar Edwin O. Reischauer.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions