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

#1

Lee Alvin DuBridge

Lee Alvin DuBridge

#8475

Overall Influence

1901 - 1994 (93 years)

Lee Alvin DuBridge was an American educator and physicist, best known as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1946–1969. Background Lee Alvin DuBridge was born on , in Terre Haute, Indiana. His father was Fred DuBridge, a football coach at Indiana State Normal School. He graduated from Cornell College in 1922, and then began a teaching assignment at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, from which he received an M.A. degree in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1926. DuBridge continued his academic work at the California Institute of Technology, as assistant, then associate professor at Washington University in St.

#2

Leo Beranek

#9522

Overall Influence

1914 - 2016 (102 years)

Leo Leroy Beranek was an American acoustics expert, former MIT professor, and a founder and former president of Bolt, Beranek and Newman . He authored Acoustics, considered a classic textbook in this field, and its updated and extended version published in 2012 under the title Acoustics: Sound Fields and Transducers. He was also an expert in the design and evaluation of concert halls and opera houses, and authored the classic textbook Music, Acoustics, and Architecture, revised and extended in 2004 under the title Concert Halls and Opera Houses: Music, Acoustics, and Architecture.

#3

David C. Hilmers

David C. Hilmers

#19186

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

David Carl Hilmers is a former NASA astronaut who flew four Space Shuttle missions. He was born in Clinton, Iowa, but considers DeWitt, Iowa, to be his hometown. He has two grown sons. His recreational interests include playing the piano, gardening, electronics, spending time with his family, and all types of sports. His parents are deceased. With five academic degrees, he is the second most formally educated U.S. astronaut, behind Story Musgrave with six.

#4

Mary Blue

#22891

Overall Influence

Mary Elizabeth Blue is an American neurobiologist and computational neurologist. She is an associate professor of neurology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a research scientist in the neuroscience laboratory at Kennedy Krieger Institute.

#5

Michael J. Graham

#24013

Overall Influence

Michael J. Graham is an American Jesuit priest and educator who was the president of Xavier University between 2001 and 2021. Early life and education Michael Graham was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Graham graduated from Cornell College with a Bachelor of Science. Additionally, Graham earned a Master of Arts degrees in American Studies and psychology, and a doctorate in American Studies from the University of Michigan. Graham was ordained a priest in 1988.

#6

Don E. Fehrenbacher

Don E. Fehrenbacher

#29434

Overall Influence

1920 - 1997 (77 years)

Don Edward Fehrenbacher was an American historian. He wrote on politics, slavery, and Abraham Lincoln. He won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for History for The Dred Scott Case: Its Significance in American Law and Politics, his book about the Dred Scott Decision. In 1977 David M. Potter's The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861, which he edited and completed, won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1997 he won the Lincoln Prize.

#7

Bruce Frohnen

#35754

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Bruce P. Frohnen is a Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University College of Law, where he teaches courses in Public and Constitutional Law, Jurisprudence, and Legal Profession. Early life He holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law, where he worked under the late Harold J. Berman, a noted legal historian involved in renewing understanding of the role of religion in the development of the western legal tradition. He also holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and taught political philosophy for several years before entering law school.

#8

Michael W. Allen

Michael W. Allen

#35760

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Michael W. Allen is an American software developer, educator, and author. He is known for his work on e-learning, and led the development of the Authorware software. Biography Allen received a BA in psychology from Cornell College, and MA and Ph.D. from the Ohio State University in educational psychology. From 1971 to 1984 Allen worked for Control Data Corporation on its PLATO computer-based education system . He rose to be director of advanced educational systems R&D. Allen founded Authorware in 1984, incorporating it in 1985. Authorware merged with MacroMind-Paracomp in 1992 to form Macrom...

#9

Thomas Caywood

#46343

Overall Influence

1919 - 2008 (89 years)

Thomas E. Caywood was an American computer scientist and cofounder of the Operations Research Society of America. Early life Thomas E. Caywood was born on May 9, 1919, in Lake Park, Iowa, to Alice and Harry E. Caywood, dentist, mayor and township clerk of Lake Park. He graduated from Lake Park High School in 1935. Caywood received a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and physics from Cornell College in 1939. He then received a Master of Arts in mathematics from Northwestern University in 1940. He went on to join the Harvard Systems Research Laboratory. Having gained a PhD from Harvard University in 1947.

#10

Franklin Littell

#46762

Overall Influence

1917 - 2009 (92 years)

Franklin Hamlin Littell was an American Protestant scholar. He is known for his writings rejecting supersessionism and, in light of the Holocaust, advocated educational programs to improve relations between Christians and Jews.

#11

Aleta Arthur Trauger

#52157

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Aleta Arthur Trauger is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Education and career Born in Denver, Colorado, Trauger received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Cornell College in 1968, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Vanderbilt University in 1972, and a Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University Law School in 1976. She was a clerk and associate in private practice in Tennessee from 1974 to 1977. She was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee from 1977 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1982, serving in the Northern District of Illinois from 1979 to 1980.

#12

Frank Hole

#52659

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Frank Hole is an American Near Eastern archaeologist known for his work on the prehistory of Iran, the origins of food production, and the archaeology of pastoral nomadism. He is C. J. MacCurdy Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University.

#13

Jack Norris

#60526

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Jack Norris is an American dietitian and animal rights activist who specializes in plant-based nutrition. He is Executive Director of Vegan Outreach, which he co-founded in 1993. He designed Vegan Outreach's Adopt A College program which began in 2003 and ran until March of 2020. He now oversees Vegan Outreach's 10 Weeks to Vegan and Vegan Chef Challenge programs.

#14

Robert Dana

#67133

Overall Influence

1929 - 2010 (81 years)

Robert Dana was an American poet, who taught writing and English literature at Cornell College and many other schools, revived The North American Review and served as its editor during the years 1964–1968, and was the poet laureate for the State of Iowa from 2004 to 2008.

#15

John F. White

#71311

Overall Influence

1917 - 2005 (88 years)

John F. White was an academic administrator, president of National Educational Television, and president of the Cooper Union. Early life and career White was born on October 11, 1917, in Waukegan, Illinois, to the Reverend Edward Sydney and Lilah McCormick White. He was educated at the Harvard School for Boys and Hyde Park High School and went on to receive his B.A. from Lawrence College in Appleton, Wisconsin in 1941. He married Joan Glasow in May 1943 with whom he had three children: Susan, Michael, and Christopher. In 1944, he received his master's degree at the University of Chicago.

#16

Charles R. Adrian

#72167

Overall Influence

1922 - 2004 (82 years)

Charles Raymond Adrian was an American professor of political science who specialized in municipal politics. Early life and education In December 1924, Adrian's mother sued his father for divorce and custody of Adrian and his sister, Marian. After his parents' divorce Adrian relocated with his mother and sister to his mother's hometown of Davenport, Iowa. Having been dissuaded against pursuing music while still a high school student, Adrian pursued political science at Cornell College. With the US entrance into World War II, Adrian enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1943 where he served in the Weather Wing.

#17

Margaret Keyes

#75600

Overall Influence

1918 - 2015 (97 years)

Margaret Naumann Keyes was an American academic and heritage preserver. She was a professor of Home Economics at the University of Iowa and is a nationally recognized leader in the field of heritage conservation, best known for her work to preserve the Iowa Old Capitol Building.

#18

John Arthur

#79449

Overall Influence

1946 - 2007 (61 years)

John Arthur was an American professor of philosophy and an expert in legal theory, constitutional theory, social ethics, and political philosophy. He taught at Binghamton University for 18 years. Early life and education John Arthur, son of L. James Arthur and Elizabeth Gleason Arthur, grew up in Denver, Colorado. Arthur earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and history at Cornell College and his master's degree in political sociology and PhD in philosophy at Vanderbilt University.

#19

Larry Shinn

#80989

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Larry Dwight Shinn was president of Berea College, Kentucky, from 1994 to 2012. Prior to this appointment he taught for fourteen years in the Department of Religion, Oberlin College, and was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at Bucknell University.

#20

William R. Allen

#91450

Overall Influence

1924 - 2021 (97 years)

William Richard Allen was an American economist, professor and author. He was known for his authorship of economic literature alongside frequent co-author Armen Alchian. Career Allen obtained his A.B. from Cornell College and his Ph.D. from Duke University . He instructed at Washington University prior to joining the UCLA faculty in 1952. He was a visiting professor at Northwestern University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Michigan, Southern Illinois University, and Texas A&M University, and he had been on the faculty of the Colorado School of Banking.

#21

Ralph O. Allen

#93266

Overall Influence

Ralph O. Allen is a professor of chemistry and environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. He received his BA from Cornell College in 1965 and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1970. He is a fellow of the Royal Norwegian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and has been a Marshall Foundation Visiting Scholar in Norway.

#22

Matthew Brouillette

Matthew Brouillette

#96075

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Matthew J. Brouillette is an American businessman and entrepreneur who is the founder and president of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, a 501 membership organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He is the former president and CEO of the Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, a free-market think tank in Pennsylvania. He served in that position from February 2002 through June 2016.

#23

Chris Carney

#111170

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Christopher Paul Carney is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2007 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Carney is also an associate professor of political science at Penn State Worthington Scranton, where he has taught since 1992. In 2011, he was appointed as director of homeland security and policy strategy for BAE Systems.

#24

Harold J. Cook

#120093

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Harold John Cook is John F. Nickoll Professor of History at Brown University and was director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College, London from 2000 to 2009, and was the Queen Wilhelmina Visiting Professor of History at Columbia University in New York during the 2007–2008 academic year.

#25

Richard Cross

#153037

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Richard Cross is an American bass-baritone who had an active international opera career from the late 1950s through the 1990s. Possessing a rich and warm voice, Cross sang a broad repertoire that encompassed works from a wide variety of musical periods and styles. He currently teaches on the voice faculties of the Yale School of Music, the Juilliard School, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

#26

Edward Weismiller

#158907

Overall Influence

1915 - 2010 (95 years)

Edward Ronald Weismiller was an American poet, scholar and professor of English, George Washington University. . Life He was raised in Wisconsin and Vermont. In 1936, the twenty-year-old Edward Weismiller became the youngest poet to win the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets prize.

#27

Ingrid Wendt

#168087

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Ingrid Wendt , is an American writer and poet. Personal life Married to Ralph Salisbury, she lives in Eugene, Oregon. Education Wendt graduated from Cornell College in Iowa in 1966, and that year she moved to Oregon.

#28

Julia A. Thompson

#168142

Overall Influence

1901 - 2004 (103 years)

Julia A. Thompson, an experimental particle physicist at the University of Pittsburgh, was awarded the status of Fellow in the American Physical Society, after being nominated by the Division of Particles and Fields in 1995, for her contributions to our understanding of a broad range of particle physics phenomena through experimentation and instrumentation development, and for her continued efforts to encourage participation in physics by high school students and under represented groups.

#29

Harper Reed

#176960

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Harper Reed is an American entrepreneur and former Head of Commerce at Braintree, a subsidiary of PayPal. In 2011, he served as Chief Technology Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. According to The Guardian, Reed's "background in crowd-sourcing and cloud-computing ... gives a significant clue to what the Obama team hoped to achieve in 2012".

#30

Mildred Leigh

#189208

Overall Influence

1902 - 1997 (95 years)

Mildred Leigh was a teacher and administrator from Illinois who gained most of her renown at Montana State College in Bozeman, Montana, as the director of Hamilton Hall and the Student Union. She was active in the Bozeman community. She received an honorary doctorate from MSU, and the Leigh Lounge in the Student Union Building was dedicated to her.

#31

Erwin Kempton Mapes

1884 - 1961 (77 years)

Erwin Kempton Mapes was an American scholar of Spanish-American literature and Hispanist, renowned for his work on the Hispanic Modernists. Born in Gilman, Illinois, Mapes received his bachelors from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1909. He then went to Harvard University and studied Hispanic Studies under Jeremiah D. M. Ford, receiving his master's in 1915. He received his doctorate from the University of Paris with a study on Rubén Darío, published in 1925 as L'influence française dans l'oeuvre de Rubén Darío.

#32

Duane Garrison Hunt

1884 - 1960 (76 years)

Duane Garrison Hunt was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Salt Lake City in Utalh from 1937 until his death in 1960. Biography Early life and education Raised in a Methodist family, Duane Hunt was born on September 19, 1884, in Reynolds, Nebraska, to Andrew Dixon and Lodema Esther Hunt. He attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1907. He then taught at public high schools in Iowa until 1911, when he enrolled at the University of Iowa Law School. However, his poor eyesight forced him to...

#33

Charles De Garmo

Charles De Garmo

1849 - 1934 (85 years)

Charles De Garmo was an American educator, education theorist and college president. Biography DeGarmo was born in Mukwonago, Wisconsin on January 7, 1849. His parents moved to Sterling, Illinois in 1852 and later to Lebanon, Illinois. In 1865, at the age of sixteen, DeGarmo enlisted in the Union Army. Upon his return from service, DeGarmo enrolled at Illinois State Normal University in 1870, where he would graduate in 1873. Following his graduation in 1873, DeGarmo moved to Naples, Illinois, where he was principal of an Illinois graded school. In 1876, DeGarmo returned to Normal, Illinois, ...

#34

Hubert Stanley Wall

1902 - 1971 (69 years)

Hubert Stanley Wall was an American mathematician who worked primarily in the field of continued fractions. He is also known as one of the leading proponents of the Moore method of teaching. Early life and education Wall was born in Rockwell City, Iowa on December 2, 1902. He received the Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa in 1924. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1927.

#35

Edward Thomas Devine

Edward Thomas Devine

1867 - 1948 (81 years)

Edward Thomas Devine was a professor at Columbia University and American University who advocated for social welfare. Background Edward Thomas Devine was born on May 6, 1867, on a farm near Union, Iowa to John Devine of Ireland and Laura Hall of New York state. He attended Cornell College, where he received a B.A. in 1887 and a M.A. in 1889. In 1889, the University of Pennsylvania awarded him a Ph.D. in economics.

#36

Frank Jeremiah Armstrong

1877 - 1946 (69 years)

Frank Jeremiah Armstrong was an American physician who was the first African-American graduate of Cornell College. He was the assistant of Booker T. Washington and later became a physician. He was murdered in his office in 1946, possibly by a burglar after a hospital's narcotics.

#37

John Onesimus Foster

1833 - 1920 (87 years)

John Onesimus Foster was an American Methodist minister. He was a member of the Rock River Conference, a chaplain for the Sons of the American Revolution, and a faculty member at the University of Puget Sound.

#38

Joanna Baker

1862 - 1935 (73 years)

Joanna Baker was an American linguist and child prodigy, holding her first college teaching job at the age of 16 and publishing her first book of translations from the Greek at the age of 18. For more than a quarter of a century, she was professor of ancient languages at Simpson College in Iowa, and she also taught at Lake Erie College in Ohio.

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