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

Vernon L. Smith

Vernon L. Smith

#244

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (97 years)

Vernon Lomax Smith is an American economist and professor of business economics and law at Chapman University. He was formerly a professor of economics at the University of Arizona, professor of economics and law at George Mason University, and a board member of the Mercatus Center. Along with Daniel Kahneman, Smith shared the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to behavioral economics and his work in the field of experimental economics. He worked to establish 'laboratory experiments as a tool in empirical economic analysis, especially in the study of alternat...

#2

James F. Crow

#4120

Overall Influence

1916 - 2012 (96 years)

James Franklin Crow was Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a prominent population geneticist whose career spanned from the modern synthesis to the genomic era.

#3

Dale Allison

#9071

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Dale C. Allison is an American New Testament scholar and historian of Early Christianity. Allison is currently the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Studies at Princeton Theological Seminary. Previously , he served as Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church .

#4

Rolf Potts

#32834

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Rolf Potts is an American travel writer, essayist, podcaster, and author. He has written five books, including Vagabonding , Marco Polo Didn't Go There , Souvenir , and The Vagabond's Way . The lifestyle philosophies he outlined in Vagabonding are considered to have been a key influence on the digital nomad movement.

#5

Richard Foster

#45279

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Richard James Foster is a Christian theologian and author in the Quaker tradition. His writings speak to a broad Christian audience. Born in 1942 in New Mexico, Foster has been a professor at Friends University and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches. Foster resides in Denver, Colorado. He earned his undergraduate degree at George Fox University in Oregon and his Doctor of Pastoral Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, and received an honorary doctorate from Houghton College.

#6

Antwan Wilson

#64201

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Antwan Wilson is an American teacher and school administrator. He was appointed the Superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, California, in 2014, and resigned effective February 2017. On December 20, 2016, he was confirmed as Chancellor of the District of Columbia Public Schools in Washington, D.C. He began his new position on February 1, 2017.

#7

Rich Mullins

#77693

Overall Influence

1955 - 1997 (42 years)

Richard Wayne Mullins was an American contemporary Christian music singer and songwriter best known for his worship songs "Awesome God" and "Sometimes by Step". Some of his albums were listed by CCM Magazine in their ranking of the 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music, including A Liturgy, a Legacy, & a Ragamuffin Band at No. 3, The World As Best As I Remember It, Volume One at No. 7, and Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth at No. 31. His songs have been performed by numerous artists, including Caedmon's Call, Five Iron Frenzy, Amy Grant, Carolyn Arends, Jars of Clay, Michael W. Smith, John Tesh, Chris Rice, Rebecca St.

#8

R. C. Buford

#78517

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Robert Canterbury Buford is an American basketball executive, currently CEO of the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association . He was named general manager in 2002 after five seasons serving as team president. Buford is also the president of sports franchises for Spurs Sports & Entertainment. Buford has won the NBA Executive of the Year award twice, for the 2013–14 and 2015–16 seasons, before his promotion to CEO before the start of the 2019–20 season.

#9

Mitch McVicker

#96485

Overall Influence

Mitch McVicker is a GMA Dove Award-winning contemporary Christian Music singer-songwriter. Biography McVicker attended Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, in the early-1990s where he met and befriended the late CCM recording artist, Rich Mullins. After graduating in May 1995, McVicker and Mullins moved to Tse Bonito, New Mexico, while also touring and writing songs together.

#10

Bruce P. Blake

#105120

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Bruce P. Blake is a retired American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1988. Family Blake is from Wichita, Kansas, having graduated in 1955 from the Wichita East High School. In 1957 he married Karen Eileen Miers of Furley, Kansas, who has worked as personal secretary for doctors David and Vera Mace. The Blakes have three sons: Steven Keith, Scott Douglas, and Darin Paul; and four grandchildren.

#11

Darrel Ray

#124854

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Darrel Wayne Ray is an American organizational psychologist and author who focuses on topics such as workplace organizational culture, secular sexuality, and the treatment of religion-induced trauma. He is a public speaker, podcaster, and atheist activist, and founded the non-profit organization Recovering from Religion as well as the Secular Therapy Project.

#12

André J. Thomas

#176930

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

André Jerome Thomas is an American composer and conductor. He served as a professor of music at the College of Music at Florida State University and the artistic director for the Tallahassee Community Chorus. In addition to his conducting and composition credits, Thomas is a published author, having written Way Over in Beulah Lan': Understanding and Performing the Negro Spiritual, and numerous journal articles.

#13

Matt Lundy

#180974

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Matt Lundy is a former Democratic Party member of the Ohio House of Representatives, who represented the 55th District from 2007 to 2014. Since 2015, he has served as a member of the Lorain County Board of County Commissioners.

#14

Aaron Jack

#181624

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Aaron Jack, full name Daniel Aaron Jack, is an American businessman and former politician. Education Jack received his bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas, his master's degree in business administration from Friends University, and finally his J.D. degree from the Washburn University School of Law. Aaron has been in the financial services industry since 1998. Aaron's education relating to his brokerage qualifications include the Series 6, 63, and 65 licenses.

#15

Michael O'Donnell

#183321

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (40 years)

Michael O'Donnell II also known as Michael O'Donnell, Jr. is a former Republican member of the Sedgwick County Commission in Kansas, representing District 2 from 2017 to 2020. He previously represented the 25h district in the Kansas Senate, and was a member of the Wichita City Council.

#16

Beverly Hoch

#187477

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Beverly Hoch is an American coloratura soprano and music educator who has had an active performance career in operas, concerts, and on recordings since the late 1970s. She has been teaching at Texas Woman's University since 2007.

#17

Jeff Fraser

#191271

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Jeff Fraser is an American entrepreneur and the co-founder of NIC Inc. In 1992, he formed the Kansas Information Consortium, which focused on providing information services to the Kansas government. Over time they became focused on assisting the federal and state government. In 1999, Kansas Information Consortium became NIC Inc. Fraser retired from his position in 2008, becoming an honorary chairman at the company. He faced an SEC complaint involving undisclosed perks provided to him while serving as CEO of NIC Inc resulting in Fraser being banned from serving as an officer or director of a p...

#18

George Kelly

1905 - 1967 (62 years)

George Alexander Kelly was an American psychologist, therapist, educator and personality theorist. He is considered the father of cognitive clinical psychology and is best known for his theory of personality, personal construct psychology.

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