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

Willie E. Gary

#22629

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Willie E. Gary is an American trial lawyer, philanthropist, and motivational speaker. Gary recognized the importance of education as a young child and became the first in his family to graduate from high school and go to college. Gary and his wife Gloria established Martin County's first Black law firm at the age of 27, presently known as, Gary, Williams, Parenti, Watson, Gary & Gillespie, P.L.L.C. Gary is portrayed by actor Jamie Foxx in the 2023 film The Burial.

#2

Helen Asemota

#27621

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Helen Nosakhare Asemota is a biochemist and agricultural biotechnologist based in Jamaica. She is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of the Biotechnology Centre at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. Her research develops biotechnology strategies for production and improvement of tropical tuber crops. She is notable for leading large international biotechnology collaborations, as well as for acting as an international biotechnology consultant for the United Nations .

#3

Benjamin Arthur Quarles

#28694

Overall Influence

1904 - 1996 (92 years)

Benjamin Arthur Quarles was an American historian, administrator, educator, and writer, whose scholarship centered on black American social and political history. Major books by Quarles include The Negro in the Civil War , The Negro in the American Revolution , Lincoln and the Negro , and Black Abolitionists . He demonstrated that blacks were active participants in major conflicts and issues of American history. His books were narrative accounts of critical wartime periods that focused on how blacks interacted with their white allies and emphasized blacks' acting as vital agents of change rat...

#4

Dorothy Cotton

#30843

Overall Influence

1930 - 2018 (88 years)

Dorothy Cotton was an American civil rights activist, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States and a member of the inner circle of one of its main organizations, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . As the SCLC's Educational Director, she was arguably the highest ranked female member of the organization.

#5

Angie Brooks

#33740

Overall Influence

1928 - 2007 (79 years)

Angie Elizabeth Brooks was a Liberian diplomat and jurist. She was the only African female President of the United Nations General Assembly. She was also the second woman from any nation to head the U.N. body.

#6

Lucius Walker

#36618

Overall Influence

1930 - 2010 (80 years)

Lucius Walker was an American Baptist minister who served as executive director of the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization in the 1960s and was a persistent advocate for ending the United States embargo against Cuba. He made multiple trips to Cuba with supplies provided in violation of the embargo.

#7

James E. Cheek

#40439

Overall Influence

1932 - 2010 (78 years)

James Edward Cheek was president emeritus of Howard University. He was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina. Howard University President In 1989, Cheek appointed Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater as a member of the Howard University Board of Trustees. Students rose up in protest against Atwater's appointment, disrupting Howard's 122nd anniversary celebrations, and eventually occupied the university's administration building. Within days, both Atwater and Cheek resigned.

#8

Shirley Caesar

#47614

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Shirley Ann Caesar-Williams , known professionally as Shirley Caesar, is an American gospel singer. Her career began in 1951, when she signed to Federal Records at the age of 12. Throughout her seven decade career, Caesar has often been referred to as the "First Lady of Gospel Music", and "The Queen of Gospel Music". Additionally, she has won eleven Grammy Awards, fifteen Dove Awards, and fourteen Stellar Awards.

#9

Tashni-Ann Dubroy

#67294

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (39 years)

Tashni-Ann Dubroy is a Jamaican academic and university administrator in the United States. She has been executive vice-president and chief operations officer of Howard University since 2017, having previously served as president of Shaw University from 2015 to 2017.

#10

Shelia P. Moses

Shelia P. Moses

#68751

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Shelia P. Moses is an American writer whose subjects include comedian Dick Gregory and The Legend of Buddy Bush. In 2004, she was nominated for the National Book Award and named the Coretta Scott King Honoree for "The Legend of Buddy Bush" In 2009, her novel "Joseph" was nominated for the NAACP Image Award.

#11

James Smith

#74761

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

James "Bonecrusher" Smith is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1981 to 1999 and held the WBA heavyweight title from 1986 to 1987. Early life Smith was born in Magnolia, North Carolina. After graduating from high school, he attended James Sprunt Community College in Kenansville, North Carolina. He earned an associate's degree in Business Administration in 1973. Two years later, he got a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Shaw University in Raleigh.

#12

Rita Walters

#75458

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Rita Dolores Walters was an American politician. Political career Walters served on the Board of Library Commissioners for the Los Angeles Public Library. Prior to this position, she served on the Los Angeles City Council representing the 9th district from 1991 to 2001. During that time, she chaired the Arts, Health & Humanities Committee where she reviewed matters related to the Library Department. She was the first African-American woman elected to the City Council. Prior to this job, she was on the Los Angeles Unified School District's Board of Education . Walters was also a teacher in the...

#13

Paulette Dillard

#102998

Overall Influence

Paulette R. Dillard is an American academic administrator and medical technologist. She is the 18th president of Shaw University. Early life Dillard is from Mount Airy, North Carolina. She graduated from Barber–Scotia College and completed a M.B.A. at Belmont University. Dillard earned a M.S. in biology at Tennessee State University. She completed a Ph.D. in cell biology at Clark Atlanta University.

#14

Nellie Ashford

#119056

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Nellie Ashford is a self-taught folk artist from Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Her mixed-media folk art depicts the experiences of Charlotte’s African-American community during the era of Jim Crow in the U.S. South.

#15

Philip D. Sloane

#147788

Overall Influence

#16

Sheryl Itkin Zimmerman

#151223

Overall Influence

#17

Trena Trice-Hill

#171902

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Trena Trice-Hill is an American former professional basketball player for the New York Liberty and current assistant coach at Columbia University. College Trice played basketball at NC State from 1983 to 1987, where she averaged 15.1 ppg and 8.4 rbg. She helped lead the Wolfpack to Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament titles in 1985 and 1987 and an ACC regular season title in 1985. She retired sixth all-time in scoring , fourth all-time in rebounding , and second in blocks . She holds the record for the highest field goal percentage for a career .

#18

Harish Chander

#177101

Overall Influence

#19

Max Yergan

1892 - 1975 (83 years)

Max Yergan was an African-American activist notable for being a Baptist missionary for the YMCA, then a Communist working with Paul Robeson, and finally a staunch anti-Communist who complimented the government of apartheid-era South Africa for that part of their program. He was a mentor of Govan Mbeki, who later achieved distinction in the African National Congress. He served as the second president of the National Negro Congress, a coalition of hundreds of African-American organizations created in 1935 by religious, labor, civic and fraternal leaders to fight racial discrimination, establish...

#20

Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

1908 - 1972 (64 years)

Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was an American Baptist pastor and politician who represented the Harlem neighborhood of New York City in the United States House of Representatives from 1945 until 1971. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, as well as the first from any state in the Northeast. Re-elected for nearly three decades, Powell became a powerful national politician of the Democratic Party, and served as a national spokesman on civil rights and social issues. He also urged United States presidents to support emerging nations in Africa and Asia as they gain...

#21

John O. Crosby

1850 - Present (174 years)

John Oliver Crosby was an American educator and the first President of what is now North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, North Carolina. Early life and education John O. Crosby was born a slave in Crosbyville, Fairfield County, South Carolina on December 22, 1850 to Sylvian and her master, Thomas Crosby. His mother was from Richmond, Virginia. He was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade. In 1860, Thomas Crosby died and his estate was sold. Mary Q. Crosby purchased Crosby for $1,260. In 1864, Mary Crosby married William Stanton, and Crosby's apprenticeship ended and he moved to Shelton's Depot.

#22

James E. Shepard

James E. Shepard

1875 - 1947 (72 years)

James Edward Shepard was an American pharmacist, civil servant and educator, the founder of what became the North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina. He first established it as a private school for religious training in 1910 but adapted it as a school for teachers. He had a network of private supporters, including northern white philanthropists such as Olivia Slocum Sage of New York.

#23

Mollie Huston Lee

1907 - 1982 (75 years)

Mollie Huston Lee was the first African American librarian in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the founder of Raleigh's Richard B. Harrison Public Library, the first library in Raleigh to serve African Americans. Her greatest achievement was developing, maintaining, and increasing public library service to the African American people of Raleigh and Wake County, North Carolina, while striving to achieve equal library service for the entire community.

#24

Ella Baker

1903 - 1986 (83 years)

Ella Josephine Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and the South, she worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee .

#25

Elbert Frank Cox

Elbert Frank Cox

1895 - 1969 (74 years)

Elbert Frank Cox was an American mathematician. He was the first Black person in history to receive a PhD in mathematics, which he earned at Cornell University in 1925. Early life Cox was born in Evansville, Indiana to Johnson D. Cox, a Kentucky-born teacher active in the church, and Eugenia Talbot Cox. He grew up with his parents, maternal grandmother and two brothers in a racially mixed neighborhood; in 1900, in his block, there were three Black and five white families.

#26

William R. Pettiford

William R. Pettiford

1847 - 1914 (67 years)

William R. Pettiford was a minister and banker in Birmingham, Alabama. Early in his career he worked as a minister and teacher in various towns in Alabama, moving to the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1883 and serving there for about ten years. In 1890 he founded the Alabama Penny Savings Bank. It played an important role in black economic development in Alabama and in the South during the 25 years it existed. Pettiford has been called the most significant institutional builder and leader in the African American community in Birmingham during the period in which he lived. In 1897 he was said to be next to Booker T.

#27

Aaron McDuffie Moore

Aaron McDuffie Moore

1863 - 1923 (60 years)

Aaron McDuffie Moore, M.D. was a medical doctor, medical director, and officer at a bank, hospital, pharmacy, university and insurer serving African Americans in North Carolina. He was born in Whiteville, North Carolina. He lived in Durham, North Carolina. He was the first African-American medical doctor of Durham, North Carolina, USA, and a prominent leader in the African-American community based in the part of the city known as Hayti. He founded Lincoln Hospital, a medical facility that served Negro patients during a time of racial segregation. Moore was also instrumental to the incorporati...

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