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).

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#3051

G. Bingham Powell

#166826

Overall Influence

#3052

Benjamin Fordham

#153617

Overall Influence

Benjamin O. Fordham is a political scientist at Binghamton University. Education Benjamin Fordham graduated from Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University in 1988 with a B.S. in foreign service. He received Masters in Government in University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1990 and subsequently Ph.D. in 1994.

#3053

Melissa Lane

#52608

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Melissa Lane is a full professor of politics at Princeton University, a position she has held since 2009. Prior to this, she was a Senior Research Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and Associate Director of their Centre for History and Economics. She was a lecturer at Cambridge from 1994 to 2009. Her expertise is in political theory.

#3054

Daniel C. Tsang

#112549

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Daniel Chun-Tuen Tsang is an American activist and scholar whose writings have been of great importance in the Asian American and LGBT political movements. Education Tsang graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Government from the University of Redlands in 1971. He later received a Master of Arts in Political Science in 1973 and a Master of Library Sciences in 1977, both from the University of Michigan.

#3055

Dan Fenno Henderson

#64868

Overall Influence

1921 - 2001 (80 years)

Dan Fenno Henderson was a university professor who established the Asian law program at the University of Washington. Biography Henderson was born in 1921 in Chelan, Washington. He attended Whitman College in Walla Walla. He graduated in 1944 as Phi Beta Kappa. He was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was given a choice on whether to learn Chinese or Japanese; he chose to learn Japanese. He attended the U.S. Army Japanese Language School, located at the University of Michigan. At the university he received a bachelor of arts degree in Oriental Studies in 1945. By the time he arrived in Japan, World War II had ended.

#3056

Philip Plotch

#81896

Overall Influence

Philip Mark Plotch is the principal researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation and a fellow at NYU. He has been an author, professor, and transportation planner. He is best known for leading efforts to rebuild the World Trade Center and his research on the politics and planning behind transportation megaprojects.

#3057

Eliot A. Cohen

#167751

Overall Influence

#3058

François-Bernard Huyghe

#91676

Overall Influence

1951 - 2022 (71 years)

François-Bernard Huyghe was a French essayist and political scientist. He served as director of research at the and was president of the . Life and career The son of writer René Huyghe, François-Bernard earned a doctorate in political science from Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University in 1983 and a Habilitation in communication studies from Stendhal University in 1996. According to and , he joined the Ordre Nouveau and the Groupe Union Défense. He collaborated with Défense de l'Occident during the 1970s, and became director of Jeune nation solidariste in 1977. In 1999, he vocally opposed the K...

#3059

Mykola Kulinich

Mykola Kulinich

#114667

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Mykola Andriyovych Kulinich is a Ukrainian diplomat. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine. Education Mykola Kulinich graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1976, master's Degree in International Relations; Post-Graduate Course in History of International Relations, Kyiv State University . Doctoral Degree in History of International Relations .

#3060

Susan Poser

#56054

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Susan Poser is the current and first female president of Hofstra University, having succeeded retiring president Stuart Rabinowitz on August 1, 2021. Before being named to the Hofstra post, she was chief operating officer, provost, and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

#3061

Adam Brown

#93468

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (39 years)

Adam Brown is a Republican member of the Illinois House of Representatives, representing the 101st district. Brown is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign . He worked for the United States Department of Agriculture and served on the Decatur, Illinois city council before his election to the Illinois House in 2010.

#3062

Michael Lavarch

#106224

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Michael Hugh Lavarch AO is an Australian lawyer, educator and former politician. He was the Attorney-General for Australia between 1993 and 1996, and from 2004 to 2012 was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Law at Queensland University of Technology , his alma mater, where he has been since then emeritus professor. he is co-chair, with Jackie Huggins, of the Eminent Panel for the Indigenous treaty process in Queensland.

#3063

Cécile Laborde

#125668

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Cécile Laborde is a professor of political theory at the University of Oxford. Since 2017, she has held the Nuffield Chair of Political Theory and in 2013 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Her research focusses on republicanism, liberalism and religion, theories of law and the state, and global justice. Her most recent book, Liberalism's Religion, was published by Harvard University Press in 2017.

#3064

Woo Hee-jong

#112900

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Woo Hee-jong is a South Korean educator and politician. He has been a professor of veterinary science at Seoul National University since 1992. He was one of the co-Presidents of the Platform Party, along with Choi Bae-geun.

#3065

Alex Moens

#124138

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Alexander Moens is a professor of political science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute in the Centre for Canadian-American Relations. He teaches American foreign policy and the political and security relations between Europe and North America. He is the author of The Foreign Policy of George W. Bush: Values, Strategy, Loyalty as well as Foreign Policy Under Carter .

#3066

John Perkins

#95567

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

#3067

Leslie Bethell

#168150

Overall Influence

#3068

Peter Hayes

#101554

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Peter Richard Hayes is a British diplomat. He was formerly the Commissioner of the British Indian Ocean Territory and the British Antarctic Territory. Early life He was educated at the University of Surrey and King's College London .

#3069

Arild Underdal

#109231

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Arild Underdal is a Norwegian political scientist. Career Underdal was born in Bodø. He was professor at BI Norwegian Business School from 1984 to 1986, and was appointed professor of international politics at the University of Oslo from 1987. He served as rector of the University of Oslo from 2002 to 2006.

#3070

Mary Patterson McPherson

#42755

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Mary Patterson McPherson has served as the president of Bryn Mawr College , the vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation , and the executive officer of the American Philosophical Society . She is considered to be "a significant figure in American higher education and a leader in the education of women".

#3071

Andrea Ruggeri

#167544

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (42 years)

Andrea Ruggeri is an Italian international relations scholar. He has been Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Oxford since 2019, and a fellow in politics at Brasenose College, Oxford, since 2014.

#3072

Michael Nelson

#85284

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Michael Nelson is an American political scientist, noted for his work on the Presidency and elections. He is a Fulmer Professor of Political Science at Rhodes College and a Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

#3073

Włodzimierz Marciniak

#106647

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Włodzimierz Aleksander Marciniak is a Polish university teacher, political scientist and historian of Russia, an ambasador to Russia . Life Marciniak, in 1976, graduated from political science at the University of Warsaw. From 1977 to 1980 he was doing his doctoral studies. In 1989, he defended his thesis on Marxist social philosophy, supervised by Marek Siemek. In 2001, he gained post-doctoral degree , presenting a book on dissolution of the Soviet Union.

#3074

Dorothy Pickles

#88275

Overall Influence

1903 - 1994 (91 years)

Dorothy Maud Pickles was a British university teacher, historian, and broadcaster. Early life and education Dorothy Maud Salmon was born in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire on 8 August 1903; the eldest child of a hatmaker and physical education teacher. A scholarship enabled her to enter University of Leeds from where she received a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree in French . After obtaining another scholarship, Salmon went to the Sorbonne to pursue her Master's degree .

#3075

Jean-Paul Gagnon

#141294

Overall Influence

Jean-Paul Gagnon is a social and political philosopher, director of the Foundation for the Philosophy of Democracy and a senior lecturer of politics at the University of Canberra. He specialises in democratic theory and the philosophy of democracy. Gagnon, along with Mark Chou, is co-founder and co-editor in chief, along with Emily Beausoleil, of the Journal Democratic Theory and co-editor of Palgrave's Theories, Concepts and Practices or Democracy series. He has authored four books, most recently ‘Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combating Civic Deficit?’ and has been pu...

#3076

Urs Luterbacher

#130935

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Urs Luterbacher is a Swiss political scientist who applies models and game theory to international conflict and cooperation and international environmental problems. He is a co-editor of the 2001 volume International Relations and Global Climate Change.

#3077

Elaheh Koulaei

#100713

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Elaheh Koulaei is an Iranian political scientist, reformist intellectual. Dr Koulaei is a professor of political science at Tehran University, and a member of the Islamic Iran Participation Front. She was one of the 513 women candidates for election to the Iranian parliament, and was a member of the sixth parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

#3078

Renee Cramer

#108026

Overall Influence

Renee Ann Cramer is an American law and society scholar. She is a professor and chair of the Law, Politics, and Society program at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. In an email to alumni on April 13, 2023, Cramer was announced as the new Provost of Dickinson College, starting July 1, 2023.

#3079

Michael Goldfield

#90387

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Michael Goldfield is an American political scientist, author, labor activist, and former student activist. He is an emeritus professor of industrial relations and human resources in the department of political science at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and a faculty associate at the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the University of Washington.

#3080

Inderjeet Parmar

#105263

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics, and head of the Department of International Politics at City, University of London and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He is past president of British International Studies Association and Vice Chairman of the British International Studies Association, where he formerly served as Treasurer. He has been described as "an obligatory reference point on the history of social science, international relations and US foreign policy."

#3081

Rachel M. Werner

#133109

Overall Influence

Rachel Michele Werner is an American physician-economist. She is the first woman and first physician-economist executive director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. In 2018, Werner was elected a Member of the National Academy of Medicine for her investigation into the unintended consequences of quality improvement incentives.

#3082

Andreas Pinkwart

#81180

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Andreas Pinkwart is a German politician and academic who served as State Minister for Economic Affairs, Digitization, Innovation and Energy in the governments of Ministers-President Armin Laschet and Hendrik Wüst of North Rhine-Westphalia from 2017 to 2022. He previously was the Dean of HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management and holder of the Stiftungsfonds Deutsche Bank Chair of Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship.

#3083

Miloš Pojar

#135856

Overall Influence

1940 - 2012 (72 years)

Miloš Pojar was a Czech historian, writer and diplomat. Pojar oversaw the establishment of diplomatic relations between the former Czechoslovakia and Israel following the Velvet Revolution. He became the first Czech ambassador to Israel following the revolution. Pojar served as ambassador from 1990 until 1994. His son, Tomáš Pojar, currently serves as the Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Israel, as of February 2012.

#3084

Robyn Rodriguez

Robyn Rodriguez

#41612

Overall Influence

Robyn Magalit Rodriguez is an Filipina American professor, author, and activist. She is currently a professor and chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis. In 2018, Rodriguez founded the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies; which is noted to be the first Filipino Studies center in the United States. She is a former associate professor at Rutgers.

#3085

Lewis Call

#84344

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Lewis Call is an American academic and central post-anarchist thinker. He is best known for his 2002 book Postmodern Anarchism, which develops an account of postmodern anarchism through philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and cyberpunk writers such as William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Call has written extensively on the intersection of post-anarchism and science fiction, covering philosophers and authors such as Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany and Ursula K. Le Guin.

#3086

Ozlem Ayduk

#54117

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Ozlem Nefise Ayduk is an American social psychologist at U.C. Berkeley researching close relationships, emotion regulation, and the development of self-regulation in children. She is a fellow at the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. She has contributed content to several psychology handbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias.

#3087

Paul Sracic

#110742

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Paul Albert Sracic is an American political scientist, writer, and political analyst known for his analysis of US politics, working class voters, and trade issues. He chairs the Department of Politics and International Relations at Youngstown State University in Ohio.

#3088

Thiago Amparo

#151656

Overall Influence

Thiago de Souza Amparo is a Brazilian lawyer, law and human rights scholar and professor, as well as journalist. He is a leading figure in public debate on diversity and inclusion in Brazil. He holds a master's degree and a PhD from Central European University. He is a weekly columnist for newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Amparo is a member of the Brazilian Alliance of Jurists for Racial Equity.

#3089

Filipe Teles

#39185

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Filipe Teles is a political scientist and associate professor in the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, where he teaches courses in the fields of public policy and political science. He is acting as Prorector for Regional Development and Urban Policies at the University.

#3090

Hasna Begum

#77877

Overall Influence

1935 - 2020 (85 years)

Hasna Begum was a Bangladeshi philosopher and feminist, and a professor of philosophy at the University of Dhaka until her retirement in December 2000. Education and career She earned her BA and MA from the University of Dhaka and her PhD in moral philosophy from Monash University, where she was the first doctoral advisee of Australian philosopher Peter Singer. The title of her doctoral dissertation was Moore’s Ethics: Theory and Practice. Begum was a prolific author, and translated a number of philosophical classics into Bengali.

#3091

Elizabeth Glidden

#118587

Overall Influence

Elizabeth Glidden is a lawyer, public policy professional, adjunct faculty at Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Minnesota, and former member of the Minneapolis City Council. She is the Director of Public Policy and Strategic Initiatives for the Minnesota Housing Partnership, "working on housing policy at the federal, state, and local levels."

#3092

Jacek Baluch

#88580

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Jacek Baluch was a Polish scholar, writer, poet, translator and politician. Life Jacek Baluch studied Slavic philology at the Jagellonian University in Cracow and at Charles University in Prague. He was a Slavist, and in the first place a Bohemist. He took an M.A. in 1962, earned his doctor's degree in 1968 and obtained habilitation in 1982. Much later, in 2008, he was nominated a professor. He had a wife and three children.

#3093

Robert Chapman

#102115

Overall Influence

1922 - 2004 (82 years)

Robert McDonald Chapman was a New Zealand political scientist and historian. Early life Born in Takapuna, Auckland, on 30 October 1922, Chapman was educated at Auckland Grammar School. He later studied at Auckland Teachers' Training College and Auckland University College, where he received scholarships, and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1947, and Master of Arts with first-class honours in 1949. For his Master's research project in history, he analysed the 1928 New Zealand general election.

#3094

David Cohen

#84950

Overall Influence

1914 - 2005 (91 years)

David Cohen was an American lawyer, Democratic civil servant and politician. For the last 26 years of his life, he was a Philadelphia city councilman representing the northwest district. Having served a four-year term not consecutive to the other terms, he represented northwest Philadelphia for a total of 29 years. He died in office aged 90.

#3095

Hannah Cotton

#47487

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Hannah M. Cotton-Paltiel is the Shalom Horowitz Professor of Classics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was head of its classics department until 2005. She is a classical texts researcher, and former editor of Scripta Classica Israelica. She teaches Latin language and Roman history. She is married to Ari Paltiel.

#3096

Edward P. Brynn

#92829

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Edward Paul Brynn, was a career diplomat, historian and educator. He was the American ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Burkina Faso from 1990 to 1993 and to Ghana from 1995 until 1998.

#3097

John Allen Williams

#98271

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

John Allen Williams , also known as Jay Williams, is a professor emeritus of political science at Loyola University Chicago and is the former chair and president of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society . He serves on the editorial board of the National Strategy Forum in Chicago, is editor of the National Strategy Forum Review, and is on the board of directors for the Pritzker Military Museum & Library.

#3098

Serhiy Kvit

#89005

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Serhiy Myronovych Kvit , is a Ukrainian literary critic, journalist, educator and social activist. Former champion of Ukraine in fencing . Serhiy Kvit served as Rector of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy from 2007 until 2014. He occupied the position of Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine in 2014-2016 when the progressive Laws on Higher Education and On Science and Research were adopted. In 2015 Serhiy Kvit signed an agreement that allowed Ukrainian scientists and businesses to fully participate in Horizon 2020 , the European Union’s flagship research program.

#3099

Stephen H. West

#44101

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Stephen H. West, Ph.D. is a sinologist, philologist, and translator. West received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He formerly taught at University of California, Berkeley, where he held the position of Professor of Chinese, in the Department of East Asian Languages, and also served as executive director of the Inter-University Board of Chinese Language Studies. West then became professor of Chinese and head of the Chinese program at Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, where he taught classes on classical Chinese and Chinese culture.

#3100

Irfan Shahîd

#52963

Overall Influence

1926 - 2016 (90 years)

Irfan Arif Shahîd , born as Erfan Arif Qa'war , was a scholar in the field of Oriental studies. He was from 1982 until his death professor emeritus at Georgetown University, where he had been the Oman Professor of Arabic and Islamic Literature. Shahîd was also a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America since 2012.

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