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

Dan Simmons

#8445

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Dan Simmons is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes within a single novel. Simmons's genre-intermingling Song of Kali won the World Fantasy Award. He also writes mysteries and thrillers, some of which feature the continuing character Joe Kurtz.

#2

Stephen Goldsmith

#10307

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Stephen "Steve" Goldsmith is an American politician and writer who was the 46th mayor of Indianapolis. He also served as the deputy mayor of New York City for operations from 2010 to 2011. A member of the Republican Party, he ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor of Indiana in 1988 and governor of Indiana in 1996. He is currently the Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy and Director of Data-Smart City Solutions at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 2006, Goldsmith was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

#3

John Paul Scott

John Paul Scott

#12484

Overall Influence

1909 - 2000 (91 years)

John Paul Scott was an American behavior geneticist and comparative psychologist known for his research into the development of social behavior , which he pursued through studies in animal models including the dog. Scott & his collaborator John L. Fuller are memorialised in the Fuller-Scott prize, offered annually by the Behavior Genetics Association.

#4

David J. Schneider

#17159

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

David J. Schneider is an American psychologist. He is a professor of psychology and the director of the cognitive sciences program at Rice University. Career and work Schneider's most important published work deals chiefly with cognitive psychology and organizational psychology, especially bias, prejudice, and discrimination.

#5

David E. Kendall

#17571

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

David Evan Kendall is an American attorney, a graduate of Wabash College, Yale Law School, and Worcester College, Oxford, who clerked with Supreme Court Justice Byron White, worked as associate counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and has been a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP of Washington, DC since 1981, where he has provided legal counsel to individuals and corporations on high-profile business and political matters.

#6

Robert G. Roeder

#22889

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Robert G. Roeder is an American biochemist. He is known as a pioneer scientist in eukaryotic transcription. He discovered three distinct nuclear RNA polymerases in 1969 and characterized many proteins involved in the regulation of transcription, including basic transcription factors and the first mammalian gene-specific activator over five decades of research. He is the recipient of the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 2000, the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2003, and the Kyoto Prize in 2021. He currently serves as Arnold and Mabel Beckman Professor and Head of ...

#7

Stephen H. Webb

#27419

Overall Influence

1961 - 2016 (55 years)

Stephen H. Webb was a theologian and philosopher of religion. Webb graduated from Wabash College in 1983, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, and taught at Wabash College as Professor of Religion and Philosophy from 1988 to 2012. Born in 1961 and reared in Indianapolis, Indiana, he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church in the Restoration Movement. He recounts his experiences there in Taking Religion to School and in an essay, "Recalling: A Theologian Remembers His Church," in Falling Toward Grace: Images of Religion and Culture from the Heartland, ed. Kent Calder and Susan Neville .

#8

Ronald J. Rychlak

#30652

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Ronald J. Rychlak is an American lawyer, jurist, author and political commentator. He is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law and is holder of the Jamie L. Whitten Chair in Law and Government. He is known for his published works, career as an attorney, and writings on the role of Pope Pius XII in World War II.

#9

Charles Taliaferro

#32091

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago.

#10

Robert Wedgeworth

Robert Wedgeworth

#38203

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Robert Wedgeworth is an American librarian who was the founding President of ProLiteracy Worldwide, an adult literacy organization. He is also a former executive director of the American Library Association, served as president of IFLA, served as Dean of the School of Library Service at Columbia University, and was university librarian at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has also authored and edited several major reference works, and has won many awards over the course of his career. In 2021 the American Library Association awarded him Honorary Membership, its highest award.

#11

Steven S. Wildman

Steven S. Wildman

#43797

Overall Influence

Steven S. Wildman is a U.S. scholar, academician and researcher who teaches and researches at one of the top-rated American communicationss programs at the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. Wildman also serves as co-director of the university's Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law.

#12

Jim Edgar

#49573

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

James Edgar is an American politician who was the 38th governor of Illinois from 1991 to 1999. A moderate Republican, he also served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1976 to 1979 and as Illinois Secretary of State from 1981 to 1991.

#13

Thaddeus Seymour

#52675

Overall Influence

1928 - 2019 (91 years)

Thaddeus Seymour was an American academician. Seymour was born in New York City. His father, Whitney North Seymour was president of the American Bar Association. Seymour went to Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley, and studied English literature at the University of North Carolina, where he received his master's degree and doctoral degrees. He was an English professor at Dartmouth College and later dean at Dartmouth. From 1969 to 1978 he was president of Wabash College, and from 1978 to 1990 he was president of Rollins College.

#14

Robert Dirks

#66112

Overall Influence

1978 - 2015 (37 years)

Robert Dirks was an American chemist known for his theoretical and experimental work in DNA nanotechnology. Born in Thailand to a Thai Chinese mother and American father, he moved to Spokane, Washington at a young age. Dirks was the first graduate student in Niles Pierce's research group at the California Institute of Technology, where his dissertation work was on algorithms and computational tools to analyze nucleic acid thermodynamics and predict their structure. He also performed experimental work developing a biochemical chain reaction to self-assemble nucleic acid devices. Dirks later worked at D.

#15

William Placher

William Placher

#66136

Overall Influence

1948 - 2008 (60 years)

William Carl Placher was an American postliberal theologian. He was Follette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Wabash College until his death in 2008. He was a leader at Wabash Avenue Presbyterian Church.

#16

Dean Jagger

#76784

Overall Influence

1903 - 1991 (88 years)

Dean Jagger was an American film, stage, and television actor who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Henry King's Twelve O'Clock High . Early life Dean Jeffries Jagger was born in Columbus Grove or Lima, Ohio. Growing up on a farm, he wanted to act, and practiced oratory on cows while working. He later won several oratory competitions. At age 14, he worked as an orderly at a sanatorium.

#17

Frederick Neuhouser

#77581

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Frederick Neuhouser is the Viola Manderfeld Professor of German and a professor of Philosophy at Barnard College, Columbia University. He is a specialist in European philosophy of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel.

#18

Greg Hess

#78056

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Gregory D. Hess is an American economist, business executive, and former academic administrator. Hess served as Professor of Economics, Dean of the Faculty, and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Claremont McKenna College, prior to his appointment as the 16th President of Wabash College. Hess now serves as President and CEO of IES Abroad.

#19

Pete Metzelaars

#79824

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Peter Henry Metzelaars is an American former professional football player who was a tight end for 16 seasons in the National Football League for the Seattle Seahawks, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, and Detroit Lions. Following his playing career, Metzelaars became a coach.

#20

Damon R. Leichty

#86604

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Damon Ray Leichty is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. Education and career Leichty earned his Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from Wabash College, a Master of Letters from the University of Aberdeen, and his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

#21

Deon Miles

#86872

Overall Influence

Deon Terrell Miles is an American chemist who is professor of chemistry at the Sewanee: The University of the South. His research considers the development of functionalised nanoparticles and chemistry education.

#22

Garry R. Buettner

#90824

Overall Influence

#23

Thomas S. Burns

#107018

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Thomas Samuel Burns is an American historian who is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor Emeritus of Late Ancient and Medieval History at Emory University. He specializes on relations between "barbarians" and Romans in classical antiquity.

#24

Gary Glish

#130742

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Gary Glish is an American analytical chemist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a leading researcher in the fields of mass spectrometry, ion chemistry, and biomolecule analysis.

#25

Alan N. Epstein

#132871

Overall Influence

#26

Dennis F. Whigham

#138372

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

#27

David S. Wiley

#147985

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

David S. Wiley is professor of sociology at Michigan State University . Wiley worked on race relations in Zimbabwe 1961-63 and then conducted research on sociology of urban and rural environments in Zambia, Kenya, and South Africa 1968-2010. From 1968 to 1976 he was a sociology faculty member and director of the African Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and from 1977 to 2008 served as director of the MSU African Studies Center and Professor of Sociology - and Acting Chair of the MSU Department of Sociology .

#28

Scott Ferson

#159984

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Scott David Ferson is Chair of Uncertainty in Engineering at University of Liverpool, Professor in its School of Engineering, and director of the Institute for Risk and Uncertainty there. Before joining the University of Liverpool, Ferson taught as an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University and did research at Applied Biomathematics, a small think tank on Long Island, New York. He is a Fellow of the Society for Risk Analysis and a recipient of its Distinguished Educator Award in 2017. From Shelbyville, Indiana, Ferson received a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University and an A.B. from Wabash ...

#29

Herbert Hice Whetzel

Herbert Hice Whetzel

1877 - 1944 (67 years)

Herbert Hice Whetzel was an American plant pathologist and mycologist. As a professor of plant pathology, he led the first department of plant pathology at an American university and founded the Cornell Plant Pathology Herbarium .

#30

Wilbur Cortez Abbott

1869 - 1947 (78 years)

Wilbur Cortez Abbott was an American historian and educator, born at Kokomo, Indiana. He graduated from Wabash College in 1892. Afterward, he studied at Cornell University and at Oxford in 1897 where he received the degree of B.Litt.

#31

Lawrence H. Gipson

1880 - 1971 (91 years)

Lawrence Henry Gipson was an American historian, who won the 1950 Bancroft Prize and the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for History for volumes of his magnum opus, the fifteen-volume history of "The British Empire Before the American Revolution", published 1936–70. He was a leader of the "Imperial school" of historians who studied the British Empire from the perspective of London, and generally praised the administrative efficiency and political fairness of the Empire.

#32

Samuel J. Record

1881 - 1945 (64 years)

Samuel James Record was an American botanist who played a prominent role in the study of wood. Born at Crawfordsville, Indiana, Record graduated from Wabash College in 1903 and received a Master of Forestry degree from Yale University in 1905. After working for the US Forest Service he joined the faculty of the Yale School of Forestry in 1910. In 1917 he became Professor of forest products, and in 1939 was made Dean of the school.

#33

Joseph Nelson Rose

Joseph Nelson Rose

1862 - 1928 (66 years)

Joseph Nelson Rose was an American botanist. He was born in Union County, Indiana. His father died serving during the Civil War when Joseph Rose was a young boy. He later graduated from high school in Liberty, Indiana.

#34

Alexander Smith

Alexander Smith

1865 - 1922 (57 years)

Prof Alexander Smith FRSE LLD was a Scottish chemist, who spent his working life teaching in the universities of America. Biography He was born at 4 Nelson Street in Edinburgh's New Town, the son of Isabella and Alexander W. Smith, a music teacher. His paternal grandfather was the sculptor Alexander Smith. The family moved to 4 West Castle Road in the Merchiston district while he was young.

#35

Edward Canby

1817 - 1873 (56 years)

Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. He served as a military governor after the war. In 1861–1862, Canby commanded the Department of New Mexico, defeating the Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, forcing him to retreat to Texas. At the war's end, he took the surrender of Generals Richard Taylor and Edmund Kirby Smith. Canby was regarded as an administrator, more than a leader. General Ulysses S. Grant believed that he lacked aggression, but declared him irreplaceable for his know...

#36

Ezra Pound

1885 - 1972 (87 years)

Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a collaborator in Fascist Italy and the Salò Republic during World War II. His works include Ripostes , Hugh Selwyn Mauberley , and his 800-page epic poem, The Cantos .

#37

Will H. Hays

1879 - 1954 (75 years)

William Harrison Hays Sr. was an American politician, and member of the Republican Party. As chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1918 to 1921, Hays managed the successful 1920 presidential campaign of Warren G. Harding. Harding then appointed Hays to his cabinet as his first Postmaster General. He resigned from the cabinet in 1922 to become the first chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. As chairman, Hays oversaw the promulgation of the Motion Picture Production Code , which spelled out a set of moral guidelines for the self-censorship of content...

#38

Charles D. Herron

Charles D. Herron

1877 - 1977 (100 years)

Charles Douglas Herron was a decorated Lieutenant General in the United States Army. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, he participated in the Spanish–American War and both World Wars.

#39

Walter Rice Sharp

1896 - 1977 (81 years)

Walter Rice Sharp was an American political scientist. He was born on January 25, 1896. Sharp attended Wabash College. Upon graduation, he served in the United States military as an infantry captain. After the end of World War I, Sharp enrolled at Yale University. Further graduate study at the University of Bordeaux in France was funded by the American Field Service Fellowship awarded in 1920. Sharp received a doctorate in law in 1922, and returned to the United States. He taught at Washington and Lee University from 1923 to 1924, then joined the University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty for fifteen years.

#40

Edmund Otis Hovey

Edmund Otis Hovey

1801 - 1877 (76 years)

Edmund Otis Hovey , D.D. was an American Presbyterian minister and Wabash College founder. He was born in East Hanover, N.H., July 15, 1801. At twenty-one years of age he began his preparation for preaching the gospel, at Thetford Academy; in 1828 graduated from Dartmouth College, and in 1831 from Andover Theological Seminary. He was ordained by the Presbytery of Newburyport the same year, and sent as a missionary to Wabash, Indiana. His great work was in founding and building up Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, of which, in 1834, he was appointed financial agent and professor of rhetoric.

#41

Joseph Ward Swain

1891 - 1971 (80 years)

#42

John S. Hougham

1821 - 1894 (73 years)

John Scherer Hougham , was Purdue University’s first appointed professor, first acting President after Purdue's first President Richard Dale Owen resigned on March 1, 1874, and later an official acting President between the administrations of Abraham C. Shortridge and Emerson E. White.

#43

Thomas R. Marshall

1854 - 1925 (71 years)

Thomas Riley Marshall was an American politician who served as the 28th vice president of the United States from 1913 to 1921 under President Woodrow Wilson. A prominent lawyer in Indiana, he became an active and well known member of the Democratic Party by stumping across the state for other candidates and organizing party rallies that later helped him win election as the 27th governor of Indiana. In office, he attempted to implement changes from his progressive agenda to the Constitution of Indiana, but his efforts proved controversial and were blocked by the Indiana Supreme Court.

#44

Joseph Swain

1857 - 1927 (70 years)

Joseph Swain served as the ninth president of Indiana University and also as the sixth president of Swarthmore College. Summary Education Indiana University Wabash College Career Professor of mathematics and biology at Indiana University Professor of mathematics at Stanford University President of Indiana University President of Swarthmore College

#45

John Merle Coulter

John Merle Coulter

1851 - 1928 (77 years)

John Merle Coulter, Ph. D. was an American botanist and educator. In his career in education administration, Coulter is notable for serving as the president of Indiana University and Lake Forest College and the head of the Department of Botany at the University of Chicago.

#46

John L. Wilson

1850 - 1912 (62 years)

John Lockwood Wilson was an American lawyer and politician from the U.S. states of Indiana and Washington. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate Biography Wilson was born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, the son of James Wilson, a U.S. Representative, and his wife, Emma Wilson, and was the elder brother of Henry Lane Wilson. He attended the common schools and was a messenger during the American Civil War. Wilson received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Wabash College in 1874. Wilson's degree was subsequently upgraded to Master of Arts, and in 1907 Wabash College awarded Wilson the honorary degree of LL.D.

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