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

#41051

Bruce Cork

#41064

Overall Influence

1916 - 1994 (78 years)

Bruce Cork was a physicist who discovered the antineutron in 1956 while working at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He retired from Lawrence in 1986. He died October 7, 1994, at the age of 78 after a long illness.

#41052

Anjan Chakravartty

#41065

Overall Influence

Anjan Chakravartty is an analytic philosopher and the Appignani Foundation Professor at the University of Miami. Previously, he was a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Toronto. His work focuses on topics in the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and epistemology.

#41053

Isabella Abbott

Isabella Abbott

#41066

Overall Influence

1919 - 2010 (91 years)

Isabella Aiona Abbott was an educator, phycologist, and ethnobotanist from Hawaii. The first native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in science, she became a leading expert on Pacific marine algae. Early life Abbott was born Isabella Kauakea Yau Yung Aiona in Hana, Maui, Territory of Hawaii, on June 20, 1919. Her Hawaiian name means "white rain of Hana" and she was known as "Izzy". Her father was ethnically Chinese while her mother was a Native Hawaiian. Her mother taught her about edible Hawaiian seaweeds and the value and diversity of Hawaii's native plants. Abbott was the only girl and seco...

#41054

Calvin Mackie

#41067

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Calvin Mackie is an American motivational speaker and entrepreneur. He is the older brother of actor Anthony Mackie. Education Mackie was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and graduated in 1985 from McDonogh 35 High School, the first high school for African Americans in New Orleans. In 1990, Mackie earned a B.S. in mathematics from Morehouse College and a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech through a dual-degree program. He also completed a M.S. in 1992 and a Ph.D. in 1996, both in mechanical engineering.

#41055

Robert Feenstra

#41068

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Robert Christopher Feenstra is an American economist, academic and author. He is the C. Bryan Cameron Distinguished Chair in International Economics at University of California, Davis. He served as the director of the International Trade and Investment Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1992 to 2016. He also served as Associate Dean in the Social Sciences at the University of California, Davis from 2014 to 2019.

#41056

Henri Darmon

#41069

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Henri Rene Darmon is a French-Canadian mathematician. He is a number theorist who works on Hilbert's 12th problem and its relation with the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. He is currently a James McGill Professor of Mathematics at McGill University.

#41057

Boris Levin

#41070

Overall Influence

1906 - 1993 (87 years)

Boris Yakovlevich Levin was a Soviet mathematician who made significant contributions to function theory. Biography Boris Yakovlevich Levin was born 22 December 1906 in Odessa. In 1932 he graduated from the University of North Caucasus . From 1935 to 1949 he is Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics of the Odessa Institute of Marine Engineers.

#41058

David Sheppard

#41071

Overall Influence

1929 - 2005 (76 years)

David Stuart Sheppard, Baron Sheppard of Liverpool was a Church of England bishop who played cricket for Sussex and England in his youth, before serving as Bishop of Liverpool from 1975 to 1997. Sheppard remains the only ordained minister to have played Test cricket, though others such as Tom Killick were ordained after playing Tests.

#41059

Farkhonda Hassan

#41072

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Farkhonda Hassan was a professor of Geology at the American University in Cairo and was chair of the Commission on Human Development and Local Administration of the Shura Council. Education Hassan had a BSc in Chemistry and Geology from Cairo University, an MSc in Solid State Science from the American University in Cairo, and a PhD in Geology from the University of Pittsburgh . She also held a Diploma in Psychology and Education from Ain Shams University in Egypt.

#41060

Henrietta Harrison

#41073

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Henrietta Katherine Harrison, is a British historian, sinologist, and academic. Since 2012, she has been Professor of Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford. She was previously a junior research fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford , a lecturer in Chinese at the University of Leeds , and a professor at Harvard University .

#41061

David Gordon Wilson

David Gordon Wilson

#41074

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

David Gordon Wilson was a British-born engineer who served as a professor of engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. Born in Warwickshire, England, Wilson went to the US on a post-doctoral fellowship in 1955. He returned to Britain in 1957 to work in the gas-turbine industry. He taught engineering in Nigeria from 1958 to 1960. He started a branch of a US company in London and in 1961 was moved to the US. In 1966 he joined the MIT faculty and taught engineering design, wrote two textbooks on his specialty gas-turbine design with co-authors and also pursued a long-standing interest into human-powered transport, coauthoring Bicycling Science.

#41062

Warrick L. Carter

#41075

Overall Influence

1942 - 2017 (75 years)

Warrick L. Carter, PhD was an American music educator, executive, and president of Columbia College Chicago. Early life Warrick Livingston Carter was born May 6, 1942, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Carter and his brothers participated in a choir that his father started and his mother taught piano lessons at home.

#41063

Donald Russell

#41076

Overall Influence

1920 - 2020 (100 years)

Donald Andrew Frank Moore Russell, was a British classicist and academic. He was Professor of Classical Literature at the University of Oxford between 1985 and 1988, and a fellow and tutor of classics at St John's College, Oxford, from 1948 to 1988: he was an emeritus professor and emeritus fellow. Russell died in February 2020 at the age of 99.

#41064

Park Chan-wook

#41077

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Park Chan-wook is a South Korean film director, screenwriter, producer, and former film critic. He is considered one of the most prominent filmmakers of South Korean cinema as well as 21st-century world cinema. His films have gained notoriety for their cinematography and framing, black humor and often brutal subject matter.

#41065

Manoj Pant

#41078

Overall Influence

Manoj Pant is an Indian expert in International Trade. He is the Director of Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, since August 2017. Previously, he was a full-time professor at the Centre for International Trade and Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he taught international trade theory. Before that he taught economics at Delhi University.

#41066

Rene Steinke

#41079

Overall Influence

Rene Steinke is an American novelist. She is the author of three novels: The Fires , Holy Skirts , and Friendswood . Holy Skirts, a novel based on the life of the Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, O: the Oprah Magazine, Bookforum, and elsewhere.

#41067

Roger N. Beachy

Roger N. Beachy

#41080

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Roger N. Beachy is an American biologist and member of the National Academy of Sciences who studies plant virology. He was the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the first director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

#41068

Ewald Weibel

#41081

Overall Influence

1929 - 2019 (90 years)

Ewald Rudolf Weibel HonFRMS was a Swiss anatomist and physiologist and former director of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Bern. He was one of the first scientists to describe the endothelial organelles Weibel–Palade bodies, which are named after him and his Romanian-American colleague George Emil Palade. He was known for his work on the anatomy of gas exchange in lungs on multiple spatial scales using stereology.

#41069

James Dean Bradfield

#41082

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

James Dean Bradfield is a Welsh singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. He is known for being the lead vocalist and guitarist for the Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers. Biography

#41070

Mark V. Pauly

#41083

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Mark V. Pauly is an American economist whose work focuses on healthcare management and business economics. He is currently the Bendheim Professor in the Department of Health Care Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Pauly is a former commissioner on the Physician Payment Review Commission, and has been a consultant to the Congressional Budget Office, the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the American Enterprise Institute, and served on the Medicare Technical Advisory Panel. He is also the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Spring...

#41071

Chitikila Musili

#41084

Overall Influence

Chitikila Musili was an Indian mathematician at the University of Hyderabad who developed standard monomial theory in collaboration with his PhD supervisor C. S. Seshadri. Publications

#41072

Claude Autant-Lara

#41085

Overall Influence

1901 - 2000 (99 years)

Claude Autant-Lara was a French film director, screenwriter, set designer and costume designer who worked in films for over 50 years. His career was frequently marked by controversy, and in his late 80s he was elected to the European Parliament as a member for the far-right French National Front.

#41073

Mark Tatge

#41086

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Mark W. Tatge is an American journalist, author, and college professor. He was a senior editor at Forbes magazine's Midwest Bureau, a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal, an investigative reporter in the Statehouse Bureau of Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, and is the 2014 recipient of the Baldwin Fellowship at University of South Carolina.

#41074

Sol Garfunkel

#41087

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (83 years)

Solomon "Sol" Garfunkel born 1943, in Brooklyn, New York, is an American mathematician who has dedicated his career to mathematics education. Since 1980, he has served as the executive director of the award-winning non-profit organization "Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications", working with teachers, students, and business people to create learning environments where mathematics is used to investigate and model real issues in our world.

#41075

Jerome J. Workman Jr.

#41088

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Jerome J. Workman Jr. is an American analytical spectroscopist, author, editor, and inventor born on August 6, 1952, in Northfield, Minnesota. Jerry Workman, Jerry Workman, Jr., and J.J. Workman are also names he uses for publishing.

#41076

Pedro Pedrosa Mendes

Pedro Pedrosa Mendes

#41089

Overall Influence

Pedro Pedrosa Mendes is a professor of computational systems biology in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology , the Machine Learning and Optimization group. He is also a professor at the University of Connecticut Health Center.

#41077

Geoffrey Eglinton

#41090

Overall Influence

1927 - 2016 (89 years)

Geoffrey Eglinton, FRS was a British chemist and emeritus professor and senior research fellow in earth sciences at the University of Bristol. Education Eglinton was educated at Sale Grammar School and the University of Manchester where he was awarded Bachelor of Science, Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Science degrees.

#41078

Marina Diamandis

Marina Diamandis

#41091

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (41 years)

Marina Lambrini Diamandis , known mononymously as Marina and previously as Marina and the Diamonds, is a Welsh-Greek singer, songwriter, and musician. Born in Brynmawr to a Welsh mother and Greek father, Diamandis was raised in Abergavenny and moved to London as a teenager to become a professional singer, despite having little formal musical experience. In 2009, she came to prominence upon placing second in the BBC's Sound of 2010. Her debut studio album, The Family Jewels , incorporated indie pop and new wave musical styles. It entered the UK Albums Chart at number five and was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry.

#41079

Roy Blunt

#41092

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Roy Dean Blunt is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Missouri from 2011 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 33rd Missouri Secretary of State and U.S. Representative for Missouri's 7th congressional district .

#41080

Lester Breslow

#41093

Overall Influence

1915 - 2012 (97 years)

Lester Breslow was an American physician who promoted public health. Breslow's career had a significant impact. He is credited with pioneering chronic disease prevention and health behavior intervention. His work with the Human Population Laboratory in the Alameda County Study established the connection between mortality and lifestyle issues like exercise, diet, sleep, smoking, and alcohol. He has been called "Mr. Public Health".

#41081

Chang Ming-che

#41094

Overall Influence

1914 - 1998 (84 years)

Chang Ming-che was a Taiwanese academic.

#41082

David Boon

#41095

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

David Clarence Boon is an Australian cricket match referee, former cricket commentator and international cricketer whose international playing career spanned the years 1984–1996. A right-handed batsman and a very occasional off-spin bowler, he played first-class cricket for both his home state Tasmania and English county side Durham. Boon was a part of the Australian team that won their first world title during the 1987 Cricket World Cup.

#41083

Ewa Wipszycka

#41096

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (93 years)

Ewa Maria Wipszycka-Bravo is a Polish historian and papyrologist specializing in ancient history; a humanities professor and professor emerita at the University of Warsaw. Life and career During her studies at the University of Warsaw she was a member of the Union of Polish Youth . She graduated in 1955, obtained her doctoral degree in 1962, and habilitation in 1972. She became a humanities professor in 1990. Between 1972-1990, she worked at the branch of UW in Białystok where she held the post of deputy dean and dean of the Department of the Humanities.

#41084

Brian Urlacher

#41097

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (48 years)

Brian Urlacher is an American former professional football player who was a linebacker for 13 seasons in the National Football League , spending his entire career with the Chicago Bears. He played college football for the New Mexico Lobos, where he became one of the school's most decorated athletes and was recognized as a consensus All-American in 1999. Following his collegiate success, he was selected ninth overall by the Bears in the 2000 NFL Draft.

#41085

Russell Foster

#41098

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Russell Grant Foster, CBE, FRS FMedSci is a British professor of circadian neuroscience, the Director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and the Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute . He is also a Nicholas Kurti Senior Fellow at Brasenose College at the University of Oxford. Foster and his group are credited with key contributions to the discovery of the non-rod, non-cone, photosensitive retinal ganglion cells in the mammalian retina which provide input to the circadian rhythm system. He has written and co-authored over a hundred scientific publications.

#41086

Michael John Wise

Michael John Wise

#41099

Overall Influence

1918 - 2015 (97 years)

Michael John Wise CBE, MC was a British academic who served as a professor of geography at the University of London. Early life Michael Wise was born in Stafford in 1918. He was the son of Harry Cuthbert Wise and Sarah Evelyn Wise.

#41087

Khaled El Emam

#41100

Overall Influence

Khaled El Emam is a co-founder and Director at Replica Analytics. El Emam is also a senior scientist at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and director of the multi-disciplinary Electronic Health Information Laboratory, conducting academic research on de-identification and re-identification risk. As of 2022, El-Emam has served as Editor-in-Chief of JMIR AI, a journal focused on research and applications for the health AI community.

#41088

Rick Sutcliffe

#41101

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Richard Lee Sutcliffe , nicknamed "the Red Baron", is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Indians, Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles, and St. Louis Cardinals between 1976 and 1994. Sutcliffe is currently a broadcaster for ESPN and Marquee Sports Network.

#41089

Carlos Sastre

#41102

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Carlos Sastre Candil is a former Spanish professional road bicycle racer and winner of the 2008 Tour de France. He consistently achieved outstanding results in the Vuelta a España and in the Tour de France. Sastre established himself as a strong and stable climbing specialist, and after working to improve his individual time trial skills, he became a contender for the top GC spots in the Grand Tours. In total, Sastre finished in the top ten of fifteen Grand Tours during his career, and finished on the podium of each of them. Sastre never tested positive for drugs, nor was he implicated in any...

#41090

John Surtees

#41103

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

John Norman Surtees, was a British Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Formula One driver. On his way to become a seven-time Grand Prix motorcycle World Champion, he won his first title in 1956, and followed with three consecutive doubles between 1958 and 1960, winning six World Championships in both the 500 and 350cc classes. Surtees then made the move to the pinnacle of Motorsport, the Formula 1 World Championship, and in 1964 made motor racing history by becoming the F1 World Champion. To this day Surtees remains the only person to have won World Championships on both two and four wheels.

#41091

Graham Upton

#41104

Overall Influence

1944 - 2007 (63 years)

Graham Upton DL was Chair of the Board of Experience Oxfordshire from 2013 to 2017 having previously been Chair of the Board of Oxford Playhouse for 8 years. Born in Birmingham, he moved to, and was educated in, Australia, where he taught in secondary and special schools before moving back to the UK in 1972. He worked in the University of Wales and Leeds Polytechnic before moving to the University of Birmingham where he was Pro-vice-chancellor and Professor of Special Educational Needs and Educational Psychology.

#41092

Patricia Edgar

#41105

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Patricia May Edgar AM is an Australian author, television producer, educator and media scholar best known as the founding director of the Australian Children's Television Foundation. Biography Early life Edgar was born in Mildura, Victoria, and moved to California in the 1960s with her husband, author and social researcher Dr. Don Edgar

#41093

Offset

#41106

Overall Influence

1991 - Present (35 years)

Kiari Kendrell Cephus , known professionally as Offset, is an American rapper. He rose to prominence as part of the hip hop group Migos, alongside Quavo and the late Takeoff. In 2017, Offset released the collaborative album with record producer Metro Boomin and English rapper 21 Savage: Without Warning; it reached the top ten on the Billboard 200 and spawned the single "Ric Flair Drip", which reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Later that year, he would co-perform with Canadian rapper Drake on Metro Boomin's single "No Complaints". In 2018, he featured on the hit single "Taste" by Tyg...

#41094

Trina

#41107

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Katrina Laverne Taylor , known professionally as Trina, is an American rapper. She rose to prominence in the late 1990s for her collaborations with Trick Daddy on the singles "Nann Nigga", "Shut Up", and "Take It to da House". In 2000, she released her debut album Da Baddest Bitch. Afterwards, she made an appearance on the remix of "One Minute Man" by Missy Elliott and Ludacris. In 2002, she released the Kanye West-produced single "B R Right" featuring Ludacris, from her sophomore album Diamond Princess .

#41095

Robert Titzer

#41108

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Robert C. Titzer is an American professor and infant researcher who claimed to create an approach to teach babies written language, which resulted in the Your Baby Can products. He has been a professor, teacher, and public speaker on human learning for around 31 years, and says that he taught his own children to read using the multi-sensory approach that he developed. He is the founder of the Infant Learning Company, a company that produces learning products for infants.

#41096

Raimond Castaing

Raimond Castaing

#41109

Overall Influence

1921 - 1998 (77 years)

Raimond Bernard René Castaing , also spelt as Raymond Castaing, was a French solid state physicist and inventor of various materials characterization methods. He was the founder of the French school of microanalysis and is referred to as the father of microanalysis.

#41097

John T. Harvey

#41110

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

John T. Harvey is an English-American professor of economics at Texas Christian University. Harvey, a post-Keynesian economist, which is considered a type of heterodox economics, publishes accessible editorials and content to the field's study.

#41098

Antonio Ambrosetti

Antonio Ambrosetti

#41111

Overall Influence

1944 - 2020 (76 years)

Antonio Ambrosetti was an Italian mathematician who worked in the fields of partial differential equations and calculus of variations. Scientific activity Ambrosetti studied at the University of Padua and was professor of mathematics at the International School for Advanced Studies. He is known for his basic work on topological methods in the calculus of variations. These provide tools aimed at establishing the existence of solutions to variational problems when classical direct methods of the calculus of variations cannot be applied. In particular, the so-called mountain pass theorem he esta...

#41099

Marvin Creamer

#41112

Overall Influence

1916 - 2020 (104 years)

Marvin Charles Creamer was an American college professor and sailor, notable for being the first recorded person to have sailed around the globe without the aid of navigational instruments. Between December, 21, 1982, and May 17, 1984, Creamer and the crew of his 36-foot boat, Globe Star, circumnavigated the globe without a compass, sextant, watch, or other instrument. The ship spent 511 days at sea. As general guides, Creamer observed the sun and stars, currents, and occasionally the regional biological setting. In honor of his voyage, Rowan University created the Marvin Creamer Scholarship ...

#41100

Kirin Narayan

#41113

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Kirin Narayan is an Indian-born American anthropologist, folklorist and writer. Early life, education, and career Narayan is the daughter of Narayan Ramji Contractor, a civil engineer from Nashik, and Didi Kinzinger, a German-American "artist, decorator, and builder of sustainable housing". Narayan was born in Bombay, attended school in India and came to the United States in 1976.

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