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 …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Political Science,

#701

Carolyn McAskie

Carolyn McAskie

#168369

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

Carolyn McAskie is a Canadian diplomat and former assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping at the United Nations. She was the head of the United Nations mission to Burundi in 2004, making her the first Canadian to lead a United Nations peacekeeping mission following the UN's switch to complex missions.

#702

Sheila Simon

#128865

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Sheila J. Simon is an American politician who served as the 46th Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, from 2011 to 2015. In 2014, she was the Democratic nominee for Illinois State Comptroller, losing to Republican incumbent Judy Baar Topinka. Simon is the daughter of former U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who had previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Illinois , and his first wife, former Illinois State Representative Jeanne Hurley Simon.

#703

Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt

#175283

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt is a Portuguese-German political scientist. From 2016 to 2021, she was the reform rector of the Bavarian School of Public Policy at the Technical University of Munich and the founding dean of the TUM School of Governance. She is known for her research on the delegation of power to international organizations, European integration, global economic governance, two-level games theory, international negotiation analysis, as well as power and accountability in global governance.

#704

Susan McWilliams Barndt

#168182

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Susan McWilliams Barndt is an American political theorist. She is the co-editor of the peer-reviewed academic journal American Political Thought and chairs the politics department at Pomona College.

#705

Brenda V. Smith

#99261

Overall Influence

Brenda V. Smith is a law professor at American University's Washington College of Law. She served on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission. Early life and education She graduated magna cum laude from Spelman College in 1980 and from Georgetown University Law Center in 1984.

#706

Krista E. Wiegand

#176001

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Krista Eileen Wiegand is an American political scientist. She is a full professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Security Program at the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee. She is also the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal International Studies Quarterly until the end of 2023.

#707

Josette Altmann Borbón

#131574

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Josette Altmann Borbón is a Costa Rican historian, public figure and politician. She previously served as the First Lady of Costa Rica from 1994 to 1998 during the tenure of her ex-husband, former President José María Figueres. In June 2016, Altmann was elected Secretary General of the Latin American Social Sciences Institute , an inter-governmental organization dedicated to researching and teaching of the social sciences in Latin America and the Caribbean. She is the first woman to become Secretary General of FLACSO.

#708

Anne Cheng

#36333

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Anne Cheng is a French Sinologist who teaches at the Collège de France and specializes in Chinese history and the history of Chinese philosophy. Pablo Ariel Blitstein, the author of "A new debate about alterity," describes her as an "important representative of French sinology".

#709

Lonna Atkeson

#176019

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (61 years)

Lonna Rae Atkeson is an American political scientist. She is the LeRoy Collins Eminent Scholar in Civic Education & Political Science and director of the LeRoy Collins Institute at Florida State University. She is also an Associate Editor of the political science journal Political Analysis. Her research focuses on campaigns, elections, election administration, public opinion, political behavior, survey methodology, gender, and race and ethnicity.

#710

Bonnie K. Campbell

#178655

Overall Influence

Bonnie Kathleen Campbell , is professor emeritus of political economy at the Department of Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal . She has written extensively on issues related to international development, development assistance, governance, and mining.

#711

Jane Freedman

#117066

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Jane Freedman is a British–French sociologist and international relations scholar. She is known for her research on issues relating to gender, violence, conflict and migration, including sexual and gender-based violence in armed conflicts and against migrants and refugees. Her research has focused e.g. on violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the refugees of the Syrian Civil War. She "examines women's experiences of forced migration, the insecurities they face and the obstacles that exist to providing full protection of women."

#712

Angela Wigger

#134539

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Angela Wigger is a political economist at the Political Science department at the Radboud University in the Netherlands. Her current research focuses on analyzing the global economic crisis, crisis responses and political challenges to these responses from a historical materialist perspective. Focal points are the geopolitics of industrial and antitrust policy, industrial reshoring attempts, the "competitiveness" fetish, internal devaluation and debt-led accumulation in the age of rentier capitalism.

#713

Jan Leighley

#178694

Overall Influence

Jan E. Leighley is an American political scientist. She is a professor of government at American University. She studies the causes of voter turnout in American politics, including election laws, and how those causes can vary among the population.

#714

Shelby F. Lewis

#131813

Overall Influence

Shelby Faye Lewis is an American political scientist and African studies scholar. She was a professor at a series of academic institutions and also worked as an international development consultant, ultimately becoming professor emerita at Clark Atlanta University, where she has also served multiple times as the Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed her to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

#715

Jenny Edkins

#148493

Overall Influence

Jenny Edkins is a British political scientist, Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester. Life Edkins gained degrees from University of Oxford, City, University of London and the Open University. She gained her PhD, on theories of ideology and international politics in relation to discourses of famine, from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 1997. She was a cofounder of the Aberystwyth PostInternational Group . She was appointed Professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University in 2004 and Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester in 2019.

#716

Nina Khrushcheva

Nina Khrushcheva

#173113

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Nina Khrushcheva is a professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York City, and a Contributing Editor to Project Syndicate: Association of Newspapers Around the World a funded project under the aegis of the Open Society Foundation.

#717

Orit Kedar

#178763

Overall Influence

Orit Kedar is an Israeli political scientist. She is a professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she is also affiliated with the Federmann Center for the Study of Rationality. She specializes in electoral politics, electoral systems and party systems, and comparative vote choice under different political systems.

#718

Jane Millar

#169479

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Jane Isobel Millar, OBE, FBA, FAcSS is Professor of Social Policy and was previously the Pro-Vice Chancellor Research, University of Bath. Her research focuses on policy, families, and social security. She is a member of the Council of the Academy of Social Sciences.

#719

Alyson Cole

#103880

Overall Influence

Alyson M. Cole is an American political scientist. She is a professor of Political Science, Women's and Gender Studies, and American Studies at Queens College, City University of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she has also served as the Executive Officer of the political science program. Cole studies political philosophy and American culture, and has published works on the politics of victimhood and vulnerability in America, the politics of gender equality, and the nature of capitalism as a way of life.

#720

Miriam A. Golden

#179626

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (72 years)

Miriam A. Golden is a political scientist and the Peter Mair Chair in Comparative Politics at the European University Institute. Her research focuses on the selection, responsiveness, and accountability of politicians in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

#721

Claudia Romo Edelman

Claudia Romo Edelman

#65806

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Claudia Romo Edelman is a Mexican-Swiss public servant, speaker and media contributor, and an activist for equity, diversity and inclusion. Claudia has more than 25 years of experience leading marketing and advocacy for global organizations including UNICEF, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. She has launched hundreds of successful campaigns and initiatives including the SDG Lions, Product , and the Sustainable Development Goals. She is the co-host of "Global GoalsCast", a po...

#722

Barbara Mittler

Barbara Mittler

#91479

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Barbara Mittler is a German sinologist. She is co-director of the Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context". Early life and education Barbara Mittler was born 15 February 1968, in Hagen, West Germany. She is the daughter of flautist Uta Mittler and librarian Elmar Mittler. Mittler received her B.A. and M.A. from Oxford and her Ph.D. from Heidelberg University. She also studied Chinese at the Mandarin Training Center in Taiwan.

#723

Tatiana Dorofeeva

Tatiana Dorofeeva

#146376

Overall Influence

1948 - 2012 (64 years)

Tatiana Valerianovna Dorofeeva Graduated from Institute of Oriental Languages in 1970. In 1972 she started to teach Malay at the Institute of Asian and African Studies. Tatiana Dorofeeva wrote a number of important works on Malay linguistics. She was a co-author of the textbook of the Malay language and the Great Malay-Russian Dictionary .

#724

Deborah Schildkraut

#177587

Overall Influence

Deborah J. Schildkraut is an American political scientist. She is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Tufts University, where she has also been department chair. She studies the relationship between American public opinion and the changing ethnic composition of the United States. She is an expert on American national identity, and how it interacts with immigration to the United States.

#725

Melanie Stansbury

#110669

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (47 years)

Melanie Ann Stansbury is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative from New Mexico's 1st congressional district since 2021. The district includes most of Albuquerque and most of its suburbs. A Democrat, Stansbury was formerly a member of the New Mexico House of Representatives from the 28th district.

#726

Elizabeth McLeay

#175808

Overall Influence

Elizabeth McLeay is a New Zealand political scientist. She is currently an Emeritus Professor at Victoria University of Wellington. Qualifications McLeay has a Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University of Wellington, a Postgraduate Diploma of Teaching from the Auckland Secondary Teachers’ College , and a PhD from the University of Auckland. Her doctoral thesis investigated parliamentary careers and cabinet selection in New Zealand.

#727

Miriam Lips

#181061

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Anna Maria Barbara "Miriam" Lips is a Dutch-born academic in New Zealand. She holds the chair in digital government at the Victoria University of Wellington. Academic career After a 1996 PhD titled 'Autonomie in kwaliteit: ambiguïteit in bestuurlijke communicatie over de ontwikkeling van kwaliteitszorg in het Hoger Onderwijs' at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, she worked at University of Oxford and Tilburg University before moving to the Victoria University of Wellington.

#728

Susan Banducci

#177474

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Susan Ann Banducci, is an American political scientist and academic. Since 2010, she has been Professor of Politics at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom. Her research focuses on inequalities in political participation, particularly gender. She previously taught at Oregon State University and Texas Tech University, and was a researcher at the University of Waikato, the University of Amsterdam and the University of Twente.

#729

Anna Suvorova

#141813

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Anna A. Suvorova is a Russian orientalist and art critic. She is bilingual in Russian and Urdu. Biography Suvorova is the Head of the Department of Asian Literature at the Institute of Oriental Studies , Professor of Indo-Islamic culture at the Institute of Oriental and classical cultures , member of the International faculty in National College of Arts , fellow of Academic Advisory Board, Centre for Study of Gender and Culture , fellow of Royal Asiatic Society .

#730

Eileen Baldry

#124670

Overall Influence

Eileen Baldry is an Australian criminologist and social justice advocate. She is Deputy Vice-Chancellor Equity Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Criminology at the University of New South Wales .

#731

Louise Dandurand

#176552

Overall Influence

1950 - 2016 (66 years)

Louise Dandurand was a Canadian political scientist and administrator of university research in Canada. Education and early career Dandurand earned an MA in the history of science from Université de Montréal in 1973, and a PhD in political science from University of Toronto in 1982. Early in her career, she taught for five years in the Department of Political Science at University of Ottawa. She then spent more than 35 years in the administration of university research.

#732

Vivian Thomson

#171994

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Vivian E. Thomson has been an American environmental policy academic, a public official, and a podcast producer. She was a professor at the University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences from 1997 to 2017. She has produced The Meaning of Green podcast since 2019.

#733

Katherine Rake

#169938

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Katherine Rake is director of Lucent, a consultancy supporting organisations with a social purpose to see clearly, make connections and inspire change. She was previously chief executive of HealthWatch England, the Family and Parenting Institute and the Fawcett Society. She is currently trustee of the charity United Response and has held a range of trustee and governing roles including as Governor of the London School of Economics, trustee of Centre for Ageing Better and Chair of RISE Mutual. Katherine was formerly a lecturer in social policy at LSE during which time she was seconded to the Cabinet Office.

#734

Erika Franklin Fowler

#175748

Overall Influence

Erika Franklin Fowler is an American political scientist. She is an Associate professor of Government at Wesleyan University, having previously served as a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

#735

Diana Coole

#88751

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Diana Hilary Coole is Professor of Political and Social Theory in the School of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck, University of London. Her main field of research covers, broadly, contemporary continental philosophy with special interests in poststructuralism , and feminism and gender in political thought. Coole also sits on the editorial boards of several journals including Contemporary Political Theory and the European Journal of Political Theory.

#736

Joan DeBardeleben

#179714

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Joan DeBardeleben is a scholar of Russian and European politics and professor of political science at Carleton University in Canada. She graduated from University of Wisconsin; she is a Chancellor Professor and a Jean Monet Scholar. Her work on Russia deals mostly with regional politics, patronage at the regional level and the impact of EU enlargement.

#737

Carolyn Curiel

#174589

Overall Influence

Carolyn Curiel is an American academic, journalist and former diplomat. Curiel was born in 1954. She was a clinical professor of communication at Purdue University Brian Lamb School of Communication, executive director of the defunct Purdue Institute for Civic Communication . The PICC was closed at the end of 2017 and Curiel left Purdue University.

#738

Marjorie Thorpe

#66213

Overall Influence

Marjorie Ruth Thorpe is a Trinidadian academic, lecturer, former diplomat and the first woman to have chaired the Public Service Commission in Trinidad and Tobago. She is also a development practitioner with a particular interest in gender issues.

#739

Pigga Keskitalo

#105231

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

Pigga Päivi Kristiina Keskitalo is a member of the Sámi Parliament of Finland and education researcher at the University of Helsinki, University of Lapland, and the Sámi University. Biography Keskitalo was born in Utsjoki in 1972. She earned her first degree in education in 1997 from the University of Lapland and worked as a teacher. She graduated with a MA in 2008, from the same university. She undertook doctoral research at the University of Lapland and graduated in 2010 with a PhD which explored Sámi cultural sensitivity through educational anthropology.

#740

Sarah Childs

#134198

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Professor Sarah Childs is a British Professor who has worked at Bristol University, Birkbeck, Royal Holloway and the University of Edinburgh where she holds their Personal Chair of Politics and Gender.

#741

Chris Beasley

#184261

Overall Influence

Chris Beasley is an Australian researcher whose interdisciplinary work crosses the fields of social and political theory, gender and sexuality studies and cultural studies. She is Emerita Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Adelaide. She is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. In 2018, Beasley was named the leading researcher in feminism and women's studies in Australia based on major journal publications in the field. Beasley was the founder and inaugural co-Director of the Fay Gale Centre from 2009 to 2013.

#742

Gloria Bromell Tinubu

#140295

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Gloria Bromell Tinubu is an applied economist, educator, and political figure. She served on the Atlanta City Council and as a member of the Georgia State Assembly, as well as running as a candidate for Mayor of Atlanta.

#743

Katy Hayward

#107542

Overall Influence

Katy Hayward is a Northern Irish academic and writer based at Queens University, Belfast. Academic career Hayward is a professor of Political Sociology in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at Queens in Belfast, with a specialism in the politics of Brexit, conflict resolution and borders. She completed her undergraduate degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at Magee College in 1999. She was awarded a PhD in 2002 by University College, Dublin on the impact of European integration on cross-border relations in Ireland.

#744

Carol Johnson

#183184

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Carol Johnson is an Emerita professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide, known for her work on Australian politics and her new book Social Democracy and the Crisis of Equality: Australian Social Democracy in a Changing World. She has also done research into sexuality, gender and feminism.

#745

Sharon Gaber

#69769

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Sharon Gaber is the chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Prior to that, she served as the first female president of the University of Toledo, selected to the post on March 12, 2015. Before serving as president of The University of Toledo, she was the provost and the Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs at the University of Arkansas from May 1, 2009, to 2015.

#746

Lyn Ossome

#179003

Overall Influence

Marilyn Ossome is an academic, specialising in feminist political theory and feminist political economics. She is currently Senior Research Associate of at the University of Johannesburg and a member of the advisory board for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa, amongst other accolades. She is an editorial board member of Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, and in 2021, she co-edited the volume Labour Questions in the Global South. She serves on the executive committee for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa . She is the author o...

#747

Phyllis E. Oakley

#108091

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (92 years)

Phyllis Elliott Oakley was an American diplomat who served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration and Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research . She was married to former Ambassador Robert B. Oakley and was a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Council on Foreign Relations. Oakley was a graduate of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, at Tufts University.

#748

Luise Drüke

#181964

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Luise Druke, DPhil, MPA is a German scholar and practitioner in the fields of International Relations, United Nations, and Refugee protection. Besides her academic work, Dr. Druke has headed offices and missions of the UNHCR in Europe, South East Asia and Central Asia, Latin America, and Africa for nearly 30 years.

#749

Alana Mann

#94631

Overall Influence

Professor Alana Mann is a food activist and interdisciplinary scholar researching the power relations between media, governments, institutions and citizens, in the field of food politics. She is co-founder of FoodLab Sydney, a business incubator to address issues around local food insecurity, based on the model pioneered by FoodLab Detroit. Mann is Professor and Head of Discipline at the University of Tasmania. She led the Department of Media and Communications at University of Sydney and was a key researcher in the Sydney Environment Institute; the Charles Perkins Centre and Sydney Democrac...

#750

Elizabeth Wilson

#69637

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (90 years)

Elizabeth Wilson is a British independent researcher and writer best known for her commentaries on feminism and popular culture. She was a professor at London Metropolitan University and the London College of Fashion and is the author of several non-fiction books and fiction books. In particular, she writes on feminist politics and policy; the history of fashionable dress and dress as cultural practice; the cultures of urban life; and high culture and popular culture, especially architecture and film. Her novels The Twilight Hour, War Damage and The Girl in Berlin are published by Serpent’s Tail.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions