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

Douglas Comer

#2325

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Douglas Earl Comer is a professor of computer science at Purdue University, where he teaches courses on operating systems and computer networks. He has written numerous research papers and textbooks, and currently heads several networking research projects. He has been involved in TCP/IP and internetworking since the late 1970s, and is an internationally recognized authority. He designed and implemented X25NET and Cypress networks, and the Xinu operating system. He is director of the Internetworking Research Group at Purdue, editor of Software - Practice and Experience, and a former member of the Internet Architecture Board.

#2

Ravi Zacharias

#4129

Overall Influence

1946 - 2020 (74 years)

Frederick Antony Ravi Kumar Zacharias was an Indian-born Canadian-American Christian evangelical minister and apologist who founded Ravi Zacharias International Ministries . He was involved in Christian apologetics for a period spanning more than forty years, authoring more than thirty books. He also hosted the radio programs Let My People Think and Just Thinking. Zacharias belonged to the Christian and Missionary Alliance , the Keswickian Christian denomination in which he was ordained as a minister.

#3

Bruce Waltke

#9248

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Bruce K. Waltke is an American Reformed evangelical professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. He has held professorships in the Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, and Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

#4

Richard Mouw

#14919

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Richard John Mouw is an American theologian and philosopher. He held the position of President at Fuller Theological Seminary for 20 years , and continues to hold the post of Professor of Faith and Public Life.

#5

Ronald Enroth

#19106

Overall Influence

1938 - 2023 (85 years)

Ronald M. Enroth was an American professor of sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and an evangelical Christian author of books concerning what he defined as "cults" and "new religious movements" and important figure in the Christian countercult movement.

#6

Robert Beckford

Robert Beckford

#26761

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Robert Beckford is a British academic theologian and currently Professor of Climate and Social Justice at the University of Winchester, and has associate roles as a Professor of Black Theology at The Queen's Foundation, and a Professor of Theology at Vu University, Amsterdam. His documentaries for both the BBC and Channel 4 have caused debate among the religious community, instigated policy change and won national and international awards.

#7

Deborah Birx

#30642

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Deborah Leah Birx is an American physician and diplomat who served as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under President Donald Trump from 2020 to 2021. Birx specializes in HIV/AIDS immunology, vaccine research, and global health. Starting in 2014, she oversaw the implementation of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program to support HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs in 65 countries. From 2014-2020, Birx was the United States global AIDS coordinator for presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump and served as the United States special representative for global health diplomacy between 2015 and 2021.

#8

Anthony C. Yu

#30779

Overall Influence

1938 - 2015 (77 years)

Anthony Christopher Yu was an American literary theorist, sinologist, and theologian. He was a scholar of literature and religion, both East Asian and Western; and was the Carl Darling Buck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and Professor Emeritus of Religion and Literature in the Chicago Divinity School; as well as a member of the Departments of Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and English Language and Literature, and the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Yu has published widely in the fields of religion and compa...

#9

Neil MacBride

#45329

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Neil Harvey MacBride is an American attorney who is the General Counsel of the Department of the Treasury in the Biden administration. He previously served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed MacBride's nomination as U.S. Attorney on September 15, 2009, and he took office three days later. He left office on September 13, 2013.

#10

Clifford Williams

#46082

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Clifford Williams is an American professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois. He is also Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Trinity International University, Deerfield, Illinois. Williams graduated from Wheaton College in 1964 and from Indiana University with a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1972. He taught at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York from 1968 to 1982 with the exception of one semester at Houghton College. He then taught at Trinity International University from 1982 to 2012, becoming the chair of the philosophy department, with the exception of 1998–1999, where he taught at Wheaton College.

#11

Victor P. Hamilton

#57072

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Victor P. Hamilton is a Canadian / American Old Testament scholar. He was Professor of Old Testament and Theology at Asbury University from 1971 until 2007. His retains the role of professor emeritus of Old Testament at Asbury University.

#12

Graham Walker

#63075

Overall Influence

Graham Hewitt Walker is an American academic, professor, and Senior Research Scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. Walker received his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Notre Dame in 1988. He is a former administration in Christian higher education, serving as the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Oklahoma Wesleyan University as well as the second President of Patrick Henry College. Walker has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, The Catholic University of America and Patrick Henry College.

#13

Joseph Hupp

#71113

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Joseph Thomas Hupp is an American chemist. He is the Morrison Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. Early life and education Hupp was born on March 23, 1957, in Cuba, New York. He attended Cuba Central School and played on their football team. As a senior, he placed 14th among 114 high school students who took the Nevins Mathematics Contest at Alfred University and was awarded automatic admission. Despite this, he attended Houghton College for his Bachelor of Science degree and Michigan State University for his PhD.

#14

Alan Heatherington

#85716

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Alan Heatherington is one of the leading orchestra conductors in Illinois. He has conducted and/or played with virtually all of the major orchestras in the Chicago area. He was the Music Director of Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, the Lake Forest Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Master Singers, and is Music Director Emeritus of all three ensembles.

#15

Ralph F. Young

#105253

Overall Influence

1942 - 1999 (57 years)

Ralph F. Young is an American historian. He is the author of the popular textbook Dissent in America: Voices that Shaped a Nation and teaches history at Temple University. Biography Young grew up outside New York City and attended Houghton College. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at Michigan State University. Young's dissertation was about Puritans in the 1600s and their impact on England. He protested the Vietnam War.

#16

Eric Nelson

#131451

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Eric Nelson is an American choral conductor, clinician and composer. Education Nelson received his training in voice and choral conducting at Houghton College, Westminster Choir College and Indiana University.

#17

Kim Pegula

#172509

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Kim S. Pegula is an American businesswoman and, with her husband Terry Pegula, one of the principal owners of the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League . She was also the president of Pegula Sports and Entertainment, the holding company that managed the Bills as well as the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League, in addition to several other minor league sports teams and entertainment assets, under one entity, prior to PSE's dissolution in 2023. By extension she was the president of several teams under Pegula Sports and Entertainment, including the Bills and Sabres. Pegula, Shah...

#18

Ira Sprague Bowen

1898 - 1973 (75 years)

Ira Sprague Bowen was an American physicist and astronomer. In 1927 he discovered that nebulium was not really a chemical element but instead doubly ionized oxygen. Life and work Bowen was born in Seneca Falls, New York in 1898 to Philinda Sprague and James Bowen. Due to frequent moves of his family he was home schooled until his father died in 1908. From that point on he attended Houghton College where his mother worked as teacher. After graduation from high school in 1915 Bowen stayed at the junior college of Houghton College, and later joined Oberlin College from which he graduated in 1919.

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