Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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List of the most influential people

#38951

Wheeler Thackston

#38963

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Wheeler McIntosh Thackston is an American Orientalist. He has edited and translated numerous Chaghatai, Arabic, and Persian literary and historical works. Life Thackston is a graduate of Princeton's Oriental Studies department, where he was a member of Princeton's Colonial Club, and Harvard's Near Eastern Studies department , where he was Professor of the Practice of Persian and other Near Eastern Languages from 1972. He studied at Princeton under Martin Dickson and at Harvard with Annemarie Schimmel. Thackston retired from teaching at Harvard in 2007.

#38952

Michael Power

#38964

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Michael Kevin Power FBA is professor of accounting at the London School of Economics. He is a fellow of the British Academy an academic governor of the LSE, and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales .

#38953

Madhu Sudan Kanungo

#38965

Overall Influence

1927 - 2011 (84 years)

Madhu Sudan Kanungo was an Indian scientist in the field of gerontology and neuroscience as well as a teacher of molecular biology and biochemistry. He is known for his theories on how gene expression changes with age and the role of this phenomenon in ageing, which is a widely accepted as "Gene expression theory of Aging". In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri in 2005. He held the post of BHU Emeritus professor in zoology at the Banaras Hindu University and was also the Chancellor, Nagaland University till his death.

#38954

Miroslav Fiedler

#38966

Overall Influence

1926 - 2015 (89 years)

Miroslav Fiedler was a Czech mathematician known for his contributions to linear algebra, graph theory and algebraic graph theory. His article, "Algebraic Connectivity of Graphs", published in the Czechoslovak Math Journal in 1973, established the use of the eigenvalues of the Laplacian matrix of a graph to create tools for measuring algebraic connectivity in algebraic graph theory. Fiedler is honored by the Fiedler eigenvalue , with its associated Fiedler eigenvector, as the names for the quantities that characterize algebraic connectivity. Since Fiedler's original contribution, this structu...

#38955

Les Murray

#38967

Overall Influence

1945 - 2017 (72 years)

Les James Murray was a Hungarian-born Australian sports journalist, association football broadcaster and analyst. He was the host of The World Game on SBS television, retiring in July 2014, and has been inducted into the FFA's Football Hall of Fame.

#38956

An-My Lê

#38968

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

An-My Lê is a Vietnamese American photographer, and professor at Bard College. She is a 2012 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and has received the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship , the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Award , and the Tiffany Comfort Foundation Fellowship . Her work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial.

#38957

Eric Gordon

#38969

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (38 years)

Eric Ambrose Gordon Jr. is an American-Bahamian professional basketball player for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association . In high school, he was named Indiana Mr. Basketball during his senior year while playing at North Central High School. He is known, in part, as the subject of a recruiting competition between the University of Illinois and Indiana University in the spring and summer of 2006; because of Gordon's talent and high level of play that year, his recruitment was the subject of media coverage.

#38958

Sibnarayan Ray

#38970

Overall Influence

1921 - 2008 (87 years)

Sibnarayan Ray was an Indian thinker, educationist, philosopher and literary critic who wrote in the Bengali language. A radical humanist, he is widely reputed for his works on Marxist-revolutionary Manabendra Nath Roy, and famous polymath Bertrand Russell, commenting on Ray, once said that "... Sibnarayan Ray stands for a point of view which I consider important in every part of the world. ... His writings ably represents a more reasonable point of view than that of most writers of our time."

#38959

Lawrence G. Brown

#38971

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Lawrence G. Brown is an American mathematician who studies operator algebras. Brown studied at Harvard University, graduating in 1968 with George Mackey as his advisor and thesis entitled On the Structure of Locally Compact Groups. He was a professor at Purdue University until his retirement.

#38960

Erika J. Waters

#38972

Overall Influence

Erika J. Waters is an Americann editor, academic and critic. She was the founding editor of the literary journal The Caribbean Writer in 1986 and has published critical works on Caribbean literature and on women's literature, notably on writers including Caryl Phillips, Una Marson and Jean Rhys.

#38961

Aaron Eckhart

#38973

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Aaron Edward Eckhart is an American actor. Born in Cupertino, California, Eckhart moved to the United Kingdom at an early age. He began his acting career by performing in school plays, before moving to Australia for his high school senior year. He left high school without graduating, but earned a diploma through a professional education course, and then graduated from Brigham Young University in Utah, U.S., in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film.

#38962

Aisha Bowe

#38974

Overall Influence

Aisha Bowe is a Bahamian-American aerospace engineer, founder, STEM advocate, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of CEO of STEMBoard, a technology company, and LINGO, an educational tech company. Bowe is the recipient of NASA Equal Employment Opportunity Medal, US Women's Chamber of Commerce Emerging Star Award and Virginia Business magazine’s Black Business Leaders Award.

#38963

Wilfrid Dixon

#38975

Overall Influence

1915 - 2008 (93 years)

Wilfrid Joseph Dixon was an American mathematician and statistician. He made notable contributions to nonparametric statistics, statistical education and experimental design. A native of Portland, Oregon, Dixon received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Oregon State College in 1938. He continued his graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he earned a master's degree in 1939. Under supervision of Samuel S. Wilks, he then earned a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Princeton in 1944. During World War II, he was an operations analyst on Guam.

#38964

Rosemary Park

#38976

Overall Influence

1907 - 2004 (97 years)

Rosemary Park was an American scholar, academic leader, advocate for women's education and the first American woman to become president of two colleges and vice chancellor of a major university. During her career Park served as the 5th president of Connecticut College from 1947 to 1962, the 6th president of Barnard College from 1962 to 1967 and the first female vice chancellor in the University of California system at UCLA from 1967 to 1970.

#38965

Vickie Mays

#38977

Overall Influence

Vickie M. Mays is an American psychologist known for her research on racial disparities in health. She is a professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Letters and Sciences and a professor in the Department of Health Services, both at the University of California, Los Angeles . She is also the director of the BRITE Center for Science, Research and Policy at UCLA. In 2007, she received the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy from the American Psychological Association, and in 2020, she received the Carl Taube Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Field of Mental Health from the American Public Health Association's Mental Health Section.

#38966

Angelo Pellegrini

#38978

Overall Influence

1904 - 1991 (87 years)

Angelo Pellegrini was an American writer and professor of English Literature at the University of Washington. His books are about the pleasures of growing and making your own food and wine, and about the Italian immigrant experience.

#38967

Suzanne Scotchmer

#38979

Overall Influence

1950 - 2014 (64 years)

Suzanne Scotchmer was an American professor of law, economics and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and also a noted author on many economic subjects. She earned her B.A. from University of Washington magna cum laude in 1970, her M.A. in statistics from UC Berkeley in 1979, and her PhD in economics from UC Berkeley in 1980.

#38968

Nancy Andrews

#38980

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Nancy C. Andrews NAS is an American biologist and physician noted for her research on iron homeostasis. Andrews was formerly Dean of the Duke University School of Medicine. Biography Andrews grew up in Syracuse, New York. She earned a B.S. and M.S. from Yale University. She carried out her M.S. research with Joan Steitz at Yale University, studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and continued her graduate work with David Baltimore, earning an M.D.-Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School and M.I.T. . She completed her postdoctoral work with Stuart Orkin at Children's Hospital Boston.

#38969

John Ohala

#38981

Overall Influence

1941 - 2020 (79 years)

John Jerome Ohala was a linguist specializing in phonetics and phonology. He was a Professor Emeritus in linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Career He received his PhD in linguistics in 1969 from the University of California, Los Angeles ; his graduate advisor was Peter Ladefoged. He is best known for his insistence that many aspects of languages' phonologies derive from physical and physiological constraints which are independent of language and thus have no place in the "grammar" of a language, i.e. what speakers have to learn inductively from exposure to the speech com...

#38970

Yvette Cooper

#38982

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Yvette Cooper is a British politician serving as Shadow Home Secretary since 2021, and previously from 2011 to 2015. She served in Gordon Brown's Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2008 to 2009 and Work and Pensions Secretary from 2009 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford, previously Pontefract and Castleford, since 1997.

#38971

Mary Landrieu

#38983

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Mary Loretta Landrieu is an American entrepreneur and politician who served as a United States senator from Louisiana from 1997 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, Landrieu served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 1988 to 1996, and in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1980 to 1988.

#38972

Keith Usherwood Ingold

#38984

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (97 years)

Keith Usherwood Ingold was a British-Canadian chemist. Life and career Keith Usherwood Ingold was born to Sir Christopher Ingold and Dr. Hilda Usherwood, and studied for a BSc in Chemistry at the University of London, completing his degree in 1949. He continued his higher education with a PhD in chemistry at Oxford University, which he completed in 1951. Soon after graduation he moved to Canada to begin work with the National Research Council, followed by two years of post-doctoral research at the University of British Columbia. He returned to work for the NRC in 1955 as a research officer, followed by a promotion to head of the Free Radical Chemistry Section.

#38973

Steven G. Poskanzer

Steven G. Poskanzer

#38985

Overall Influence

Steven Poskanzer was the 11th president of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Previously he was chief of staff to the president at the University of Chicago for four years, then spent 12 years at the State University of New York at New Paltz where he served as president from 2001 until 2010, when he became Carleton's president.

#38974

Brian Burke

#38986

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Brian P. Burke is an American-Canadian ice hockey executive, currently the Executive Director of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Player's Association . He previously worked in the NHL league office, including as the director of hockey operations, and worked as general manager of the Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks—with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2007—and Toronto Maple Leafs, as well as president of hockey operations for the Leafs, Calgary Flames, and Pittsburgh Penguins. Burke was general manager for the silver-medalist United States national team for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

#38975

Janine Deakin

#38987

Overall Influence

Janine Deakin is a professor at the University of Canberra and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology. She is a geneticist with expertise in the areas of comparative genomics, epigenetics, genetic immunology and genome structure and regulation. A majority of her work has focused on the Australian marsupials and monotremes where her cytogenetic and molecular research on marsupial chromosomes and development of strategies to map genomes has provided important insight into the evolution of mammalian genomes.

#38976

Cary Elwes

#38988

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (64 years)

Ivan Simon Cary Elwes is an English actor. He is known for his leading film roles as Westley in The Princess Bride , Robin Hood in Robin Hood: Men in Tights , and Dr. Lawrence Gordon in the Saw film series.

#38977

David E. Cane

#38989

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

David E. Cane is an American biological chemist. He is Vernon K. Krieble Professor of Chemistry Emeritus and professor of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry emeritus at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He is recognized for his work on the biosynthesis of natural products, particularly terpenoids and polyketides. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2003 and as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013.

#38978

Annie Freud

#38990

Overall Influence

#38979

Gene Pitney

#38991

Overall Influence

1940 - 2006 (66 years)

Gene Francis Alan Pitney was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Pitney charted 16 top-40 hits in the United States, four in the top ten. In the United Kingdom, he had 22 top-40 hit singles, including 11 in the top ten. Among his most famous hits are "Town Without Pity", " Liberty Valance", "Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa", "I'm Gonna Be Strong", "It Hurts to Be in Love", and "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart". He also wrote the early-1960s hits "Rubber Ball" recorded by Bobby Vee, "Hello Mary Lou" by Ricky Nelson, and "He's a Rebel" by the Crystals. In 2002, he was inducted into the...

#38980

Elana Dykewomon

#38992

Overall Influence

1949 - 2022 (73 years)

Elana Dykewomon was an American lesbian activist, author, editor, and teacher. She was a recipient of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. Early life and education Dykewomon was born Elana Michelle Nachman in Manhattan to middle class Jewish parents; her mother was a researcher and librarian, and her father was a lawyer. She was raised in a Zionist household, and her father fought in Israel's War of Independence. She and her family moved from Long Island, New York to Puerto Rico when she was eight.

#38981

Albert Rees

#38993

Overall Influence

1921 - 1992 (71 years)

Albert E. Rees was an American economist and noted author. An influential labor economist, Rees taught at Princeton University from 1966 to 1979, while also being an advisor to President Gerald Ford. He was also a former Provost of Princeton and former president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. He was also the first head of the Council on Wage and Price Stability, a short-lived federal agency.

#38982

Virginia Douglas

#38994

Overall Influence

1927 - 2017 (90 years)

Virginia I. Douglas was a Canadian psychologist. She was a professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, noted for her contributions to the study of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder . Biography Douglas was born in London, Ontario to a Scottish family. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at Queen's University in 1948. Douglas then attended the University of Michigan, where she completed two master's degrees: one in social work and the other in psychology . She earned her PhD in psychology from the University of Michigan in 1958.

#38983

Peter Lindgren

#38995

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Peter Lindgren is a Danish organizational theorist, and Professor at Aarhus University's Department of Business and Technology, known for his research involving firms' business models, including about interdependence of partner firms' business models and about innovation..

#38984

Pauline Oliveros

#38996

Overall Influence

1932 - 2016 (84 years)

Pauline Oliveros was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s, and served as its director. She taught music at Mills College, the University of California, San Diego , Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Oliveros authored books, formulated new music theories, and investigated new ways to focus attention on music including her concepts of "deep listening" and "sonic awareness", drawing on metaphors from cybernetics.

#38985

Donald Crothers

Donald Crothers

#38997

Overall Influence

1937 - 2014 (77 years)

Donald Crothers was a professor of chemistry at Yale University in the United States. He was best known for his work on nucleic acid structure and function. Early life and education Donald Crothers was the son of the late Morris King Crothers and Florence Kittredge Crothers. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1958 with a B.S. in Chemistry and earned a B.A. from the University of Cambridge in 1960. His study of Chemistry at Clare College, Cambridge was supported by a Mellon Fellowship. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego, in 1963, ...

#38986

Aaron Gross

#38998

Overall Influence

Aaron S. Gross is an American historian of religions who focuses on modern Jewish ethics, the study of animals and religion, and food and religion. He serves as a professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego. He has served as cochair of the American Academy of Religion's Animals and Religion group and as president of the Society of Jewish Ethics.

#38987

Ryan Newman

#38999

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Ryan Joseph Newman , nicknamed "Rocket Man", is an American professional stock car racing driver. He currently competes full time in the SRX Camping World Series driving the No. 39, part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the Nos. 15/51 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing, and part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 66 Ford Mustang for MBM Motorsports. He is the 2023 SRX Series champion.

#38988

Robert Litwak

#39000

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Robert Sutherland Litwak is senior vice president and director of International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. He is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

#38989

Charles Sadron

#39001

Overall Influence

1902 - 1993 (91 years)

Charles Sadron , was a French physicist who specialized in the study of biological macromolecules. Biography Charles Sadron was professor at the university of Strasbourg. He founded in 1945 the Centre d'Étude de Physique Macromoléculaire , renamed in 1954, Centre de Recherche sur les Macromolécules, where he was appointed director until 1967. In 1967, he moved to Orléans where he became head of the Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire . He was the first laureate of the Holweck Prize, given by the British Institute of Physics in 1946.

#38990

Harlan M. Sands

#39002

Overall Influence

Harlan M. Sands is an American academic administrator and attorney who served as the 7th President of Cleveland State University from June 2018 to April 2022. Early life and education Sands is a native of Wantagh, New York. He earned a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Master of Business Administration with a focus in finance from George Washington University, and Juris Doctor from the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. Sands served as an active duty member of the United States Navy for eight years, including as an in...

#38991

Robert Rush Miller

#39003

Overall Influence

1916 - 2003 (87 years)

Robert Rush Miller "was an important figure in American ichthyology and conservation from 1940 to the 1990s." He was born in Colorado Springs, earned his bachelor's degree at University of California, Berkeley in 1938, a master's degree at the University of Michigan in 1943, and a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in 1944. He received tenure at the University of Michigan in 1954.

#38992

Dave Meyers

#39004

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (26 years)

David Charles Meyers is an American music video, commercial and film director. Early life Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Dave Meyers developed his love for film while working for a local Landmark cinema at age 17. After graduating from Berkeley High School he attended Loyola Marymount University where he studied Film Production and Philosophy.

#38993

Milly Koss

#39005

Overall Influence

1928 - 2012 (84 years)

Adele Mildred Koss, known as Milly Koss, was an American pioneering computer programmer. The Association for Women in Computing awarded her an Ada Lovelace Award in 2000. She attended Philadelphia High School for Girls and graduated in Mathematics from University of Pennsylvania in 1950. Following her first job interview with an insurance company, Koss, who was engaged at the time, was rejected for the reason that married women would have children and leave.

#38994

Candace Parker

#39006

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (40 years)

Candace Nicole Parker nicknamed "Ace", is an American professional basketball player for the Las Vegas Aces of the Women's National Basketball Association . Widely regarded as one of the greatest WNBA players of all time, she was selected as the first overall pick in the 2008 WNBA draft by the Los Angeles Sparks. She spent 13 seasons on the Sparks and two seasons with the Chicago Sky, winning a championship with each team.

#38995

Diederik Aerts

#39007

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Diederik Aerts is a Belgian theoretical physicist, professor at Brussels Free University and founding director of the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies . He is best known for his work in quantum foundations and quantum cognition.

#38996

Robert Horne

#39008

Overall Influence

1923 - 2010 (87 years)

Robert W. Horne was a British virologist and expert in electron microscopy. Life and academic career Horne was raised in Montreal and served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He began his scientific career at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, where he began working with transmission electron microscopes with Vernon Ellis Cosslett. He received his master's and doctorate from the University of Cambridge. In 1961, Horne moved to what was then the Institute of Animal Physiology , and in 1968 he moved again to what became the John Innes Centre, directed by Roy Markham.

#38997

John Ofori-Tenkorang

#39009

Overall Influence

John Ofori-Tenkorang is a Ghanaian public servant, an investment banker, an engineer and an academic. He is currently the Director General of Social Security and National Insurance Trust . Early life and education Ofori-Tenkorang had his secondary education at St. Peter's Boys Senior High School, Nkwatia Kwahu. He proceeded to Pearson College UWC in Victoria, British Columbia Canada. There, he obtained his International Baccalaureate Diploma. He enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he earned his bachelors, masters and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering and compu...

#38998

Juan Andrés Ramírez

#39010

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

Juan Andrés Ramírez is a Uruguayan lawyer, and a Senator of the National Party. Background Juan Andrés Ramírez was born in Montevideo, Uruguay on 11 October 1947. He studied law at University of the Republic, becoming a well-known civil lawyer, and soon after became a member of the National Party. In the 1989 general elections, he was elected as a Senator of the Herrerismo faction of the National Party.

#38999

Cheech Marin

#39011

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

The surname Marin is of Spanish language origin. In Spanish, it is spelled Marín, with an acute accent on the í. Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin is an American comedian, actor, musician, and activist. He gained recognition as part of the comedy act Cheech & Chong during the 1970s and early 1980s with Tommy Chong and as Don Johnson's partner, Insp. Joe Dominguez, on Nash Bridges. He has also voiced characters in several Disney films, including Oliver & Company, The Lion King, the Cars series, Coco and Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

#39000

Lois Curfman McInnes

#39012

Overall Influence

Lois Virginia Curfman McInnes is an American applied mathematician who works as a senior computational scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, where she works on the numerical solution of nonlinear partial differential equations for scientific applications.

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