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

#1

Harrison Ford

#5892

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Harrison Ford is an American actor. He has been a leading man in films of several genres and is regarded as an American cultural icon. His films have grossed more than $5.4billion in North America and more than $9.3billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2000, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2010, and an Honorary Palme d'Or in 2023, in addition to an Academy Award nomination.

#2

Alton L. Becker

Alton L. Becker

#27361

Overall Influence

1932 - 2011 (79 years)

Alton L. Becker was an American linguist known for his studies of Burmese grammar and other Southeast Asian languages, including Malaysian, Javanese and Kawi. He was a professor of linguistics at the University of Michigan from 1968 to 1986. Becker published studies in philology, rhetoric, and the ethnography of communication. He was coauthor with Richard E. Young and Kenneth L. Pike of the widely influential college writing textbook, Rhetoric: Discovery and Change, which introduced a Rogerian framework for communication and rhetoric studies as an alternative to the Aristotelian approach. To...

#3

Alan Billings

#30314

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Alan Roy Billings is an Anglican priest and Labour politician who is currently the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner. Early life and education Billings was born into a working-class family in Leicester in 1942. His father, Paul Billings, worked at Imperial Typewriters and his mother, Dorothy , at Byfords Hosiery. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys, Leicester. He went on to study Theology and Philosophy at Emmanuel College, Cambridge , receiving a BA degree. He holds a Certificate in Education from Bristol University and further degrees from Leicester University a...

#4

McKey Sullivan

#33622

Overall Influence

1988 - Present (36 years)

Brittany "McKey" Alvey is an American fashion model most notable as the winner of the eleventh cycle of America's Next Top Model. Early life Sullivan was born to Michael and Gayle Sullivan and has three siblings, Bridgette, Jimmy, and Mikey. She is a graduate of Lake Forest High School and attended Ripon College where she majored in government and chemical biology and was a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She also trains in mixed martial arts with her husband, Sam Alvey. She was known for appearing at the Bristol Renaissance Faire, which inspired her medieval fashion sense. Sullivan got i...

#5

Michael Tinkham

#35331

Overall Influence

1928 - 2010 (82 years)

Michael Tinkham was an American physicist. He was Rumford Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University. He is best known for his work on superconductivity.

#6

Michael Gableman

#65462

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Michael J. Gableman is an American lawyer and former justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A Republican, he has been described as a hard-line conservative. From June 2021 until August 2022, Gableman was employed as a "special counsel" by Wisconsin Assembly speaker Robin Vos to investigate the results of the 2020 United States presidential election in Wisconsin. His fourteen month investigation resulted in various unsubstantiated accusations against municipal clerks and members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, but found nothing of substance. Gableman himself became a lightning rod fo...

#7

Ryan C. Amacher

#70815

Overall Influence

1945 - 2016 (71 years)

Ryan C. Amacher was an American economics professor, dean and university president. During his career he was associated in various capacities with University of Virginia, General Electric Company , the University of Oklahoma, U.S. Treasury, Arizona State University, Clemson University, and the University of Texas at Arlington.

#8

James Megellas

#73659

Overall Influence

1917 - 2020 (103 years)

James Megellas was a United States Army lieutenant colonel. During World War II, he was a rifle company platoon leader and is considered to be one of the most decorated combat officers in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism and three other decorations for valor.

#9

Christine Sleeter

#79740

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Christine E. Sleeter is an American professor and educational reformer. She is known as the Professor Emerita in the School of Professional Studies, California State University, Monterey Bay. She has also served as the Vice President of Division K of the American Educational Research Association, and as president of the National Association for Multicultural Education. Her work primarily focuses on multicultural education, preparation of teachers for culturally diverse schools, and anti-racism. She has been honored for her work as the recipient of the American Educational Research Associatio...

#10

Richard Threlkeld

#95449

Overall Influence

1937 - 2012 (75 years)

Richard Threlkeld was an American television news correspondent who spent 25 years with CBS News. Early life Threlkeld was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and grew up in Barrington, Illinois. He earned a degree in history and political science from Ripon College. He then earned a master's degree from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

#11

Frances Lee McCain

#113665

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Frances Lee McCain is an American actress. Early life and education McCain was born in York, Pennsylvania and grew up in New York, Illinois and Colorado in addition to California. She graduated from Ripon College with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. She completed a master's degree in psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2000.

#12

Dave Smith

#150321

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Dave Smith is a former American collegiate and professional football player. A fullback, he attended Greendale High School in Greendale, Wisconsin before playing collegiately for Ripon College and professionally from 1960 through 1964 for the American Football League 's Houston Oilers, where he was a member of the AFL's first two championship teams, in 1960 and 1961. He was selected by Sporting News as the first All-AFL fullback in 1960. The league did not play an All-Star game that first year, but Smith's 154 carries for 643 yards and 5 touchdowns earned him a berth on the All-League Team.

#13

Martin Conway

#155841

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Martin Conway is British historian with a focus on the history of Europe in the 20th century. He is a Professor of Contemporary European History at the University of Oxford. His research has also focused on the political history of Belgium. He is the MacLellan-Warburg Fellow and a Tutor at Balliol College, Oxford, and a Fellow of Aberystwyth University. Conway is also a researcher on the history of democracy.

#14

Laura Ramsey

#168109

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (42 years)

Laura Ramsey is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her roles in films such as 2006's She's the Man and The Covenant, 2008's The Ruins, 2009's Middle Men, 2011's Kill the Irishman, and 2013's Are You Here.

#15

Barbara Bechler Flynn

#168671

Overall Influence

#16

Gary G. Yerkey

#176704

Overall Influence

Gary G. Yerkey, born in Chicago, is an American author and journalist currently based in Washington, D.C., contributing to The Christian Science Monitor and other publications. Career A graduate of Ripon College with B.A. in philosophy, he later undertook post-graduate work at the American University of Beirut and spent more than a decade in Europe and the Middle East, reporting for Time Life, ABC News, The Christian Science Monitor, the International Herald Tribune and other U.S. news organizations. He was also a staff reporter for Bloomberg BNA covering Congress and the Executive Branch. He ...

#17

Clarissa Tracy

1818 - 1905 (87 years)

Clarissa Tucker Tracy was an American botanist and educator. Early life and education Tracy was born in Jackson, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, daughter of pioneers Stephen Tucker and Lucy Tucker .

#18

Otto Julius Zobel

1887 - 1970 (83 years)

Otto Julius Zobel was an electrical engineer who worked for the American Telephone & Telegraph Company in the early part of the 20th century. Zobel's work on filter design was revolutionary and led, in conjunction with the work of John R. Carson, to significant commercial advances for AT&T in the field of frequency-division multiplex telephone transmissions.

#19

Elda Emma Anderson

Elda Emma Anderson

1899 - 1961 (62 years)

Elda Emma Anderson was an American physicist and health researcher. During World War II, she worked on the Manhattan Project at Princeton University and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she prepared the first sample of pure uranium-235 at the laboratory. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, she became professor of physics at Milwaukee-Downer College in 1929. After the war, she became interested in health physics. She worked in the Health Physics Division of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and established the professional certification agency known as the American Board of H...

#20

Theodore Brameld

1904 - 1987 (83 years)

Theodore Brameld was a philosopher and educator who supported the educational philosophy of social reconstructionism. His philosophy originated in 1928 when he enrolled as a doctoral student at the University of Chicago in the field of philosophy where he trained under the progressive philosopher and politician, T.V. Smith. After becoming intrigued by John Dewey’s philosophy of education, Brameld developed his own theory of schools being the ultimate source to bring about political and social change.

#21

Spencer Tracy

1900 - 1967 (67 years)

Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations. During his career, he appeared in 75 films and developed a reputation among his peers as one of the screen's greatest actors. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Tracy as the 9th greatest male star of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

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