I think there is some differential. Judging by number of citations, looked by google scholar: George F R Ellis: 30744 Andrei Linde: 56716 Veronika Hubeny: 48

I think there is some differential. Judging by number of citations, looked by google scholar: George F R Ellis: 30744 Andrei Linde: 56716 Veronika Hubeny: 4874 Barry Loewer: 3431 Alan Guth: >17,317(summed 2 pages in scholar, as he doesn't have a profile there) David Albert: >5062(summed 3 pages in scholar, counting only papers related to quantum mechanics) So there are 3 researchers there whose voice can potentially trump others by a margin, if citations are a good measure.