The Most Influential People Across History
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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List of the most influential female people in Psychology,
#851
Gail E. Wyatt
#150945
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Gail Elizabeth Wyatt is a clinical psychologist and board-certified sex therapist known for her research on consensual and abusive sexual relationships and their influence on psychological well-being. She is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Wyatt was the first African American woman in the state of California to receive a license to practice psychology and first African American woman to be named a Full Professor of the UCLA School of Medicine.
Go to Profile#852
Linda Gallo
#156626
Overall Influence
Linda C. Gallo is a scientist known for behavioral medicine. Gallo is a professor at San Diego State University and serves as a part of the San Diego State / University of California, San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. She serves as a co-director at the South Bay Latino Research Center.
Go to Profile#853
Simona Ghetti
#134682
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Simona Ghetti is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, where she is affiliated with the University of California Davis Center for Mind and Brain. She is known for her research on the development of episodic memory, reconstructive memory, and metamemory in youth, with a specific focus on individuals who have had traumatic experiences.
Go to Profile#854
Nim Tottenham
#79972
Overall Influence
Nim Tottenham is a professor of psychology at Columbia University, where she leads the Developmental Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Her research highlighted fundamental changes in amygdala-prefrontal cortex circuitry across childhood and adolescence and the influential role of early experiences on the developmental trajectories of these circuits.
Go to Profile#855
Elizabeth L. Paul
#122642
Overall Influence
Elizabeth L. Paul is an American academic administrator and psychologist. She is the president-elect of Nazareth College. Paul was the 16th president of Capital University. She previously served as executive vice president of Stetson University where she was a tenured professor of psychology. Paul was a longtime faculty member at The College of New Jersey.
Go to Profile#856
Carolyn Halpern
#88662
Overall Influence
Carolyn Tucker Halpern is an American developmental psychologist and Professor in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she is Chair of the Department of Maternal and Child Health. She is also the deputy director of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
Go to Profile#857
Cornelia Betsch
#157684
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
#858
Jeanne Tsai
#110303
Overall Influence
Dr. Jeanne Tsai is a Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Culture and Emotion Lab. Her research examines how culture shapes affective processes and the implications that cultural and individual differences in these processes have for what decisions people make, how they think about health and illness, how they express themselves, and how they perceive and respond to others in an increasingly multicultural world.
Go to Profile#859
Wendy Slutske
#88785
Overall Influence
Wendy Sue Slutske is an American psychologist and behavior geneticist known for her research on alcohol use disorder, gambling disorder, and other addictive disorderss. She is a professor and director of the Center of Excellence in Gambling Research at the University of Missouri, where she has taught since 1997. In 2011, she received the National Center for Responsible Gaming's Scientific Achievement Award in recognition of her gambling research.
Go to Profile#860
Suzanne Higgs
#138057
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Suzanne Higgs is an English psychologist. She is a Professor in the Psychobiology of Appetite at the University of Birmingham and was editor-in-chief of the journal Appetite from 2012-2022. Early life and education Higgs earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master's degree from the Somerville College, Oxford in 1989 before receiving her PhD in psychology from Durham University. She completed her post-doctoral research at Oxford before earning an academic position at the University of Birmingham in 1999.
Go to Profile#861
Yulia Kovas
#115423
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Yulia Kovas is a geneticist and psychologist - currently a professor of genetics and psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London , and a visiting professor at UCL, King's College, Sussex and New York universities - in the United Kingdom. Kovas received the British Academy Wiley Prize in Psychology in 2012. Kovas is the director of the International Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Investigations into Individual Differences in Learning at Goldsmiths, and leads the genetically-informative research into individual differences in mathematical ability and achievement as part of the Twins Early ...
Go to Profile#862
Kelly Klump
#158600
Overall Influence
Kelly Lynn Klump is an American clinical psychologist and MSU Foundation Endowed Professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, known for her research on the genetics of eating disorders. She is also the co-director of the Michigan State University Twin Registry.
Go to Profile#863
Margot Bengtsson
#138802
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Margot Bengtsson is a Swedish psychologist and Reader in Psychology at Lund University. She is known for her research in developmental, social, feminist and critical psychology, especially her research on gender, power, identity and social class.
Go to Profile#864
Georgene Hoffman Seward
#125795
Overall Influence
1902 - 1992 (90 years)
Georgene Hoffman Seward , an early feminist psychologist, was best known for her research on sex roles and sex behavior. Having experienced much sex discrimination in academia herself, she dedicated her life to researching sex differences and minority experiences, and encouraging women to pursue leadership in science.
Go to Profile#865
Tracy Packiam Alloway
#85959
Overall Influence
Tracy Packiam Alloway is a psychologist known for her research on working memory. She is a professor of psychology at the University of North Florida, where she was also the director of the graduate program in psychology. She is the developer of the world's first working memory test designed for use by educators. She authored children's books highlighting the superpowers of children with learning disabilities. Previously, she was the director of the Center for Memory and Learning in the Lifespan at the University of Stirling in the United Kingdom.
Go to Profile#866
Mary Howell
#64109
Overall Influence
1932 - 1998 (66 years)
Mary Catherine Raugust Howell was a physician, psychologist, lawyer, mentor, musician and mother. She was the first woman dean at Harvard Medical School and led the fight to end quotas and open medical schools to women.
Go to Profile#867
Antonia Abbey
#159586
Overall Influence
#868
Nancy Boyd-Franklin
#114978
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Nancy Boyd-Franklin is an American psychologist and writer. She is the author of five books and numerous articles on ethnicity and family therapy, and was invited by President Bill Clinton to speak at the first White House Conference on AIDS.
Go to Profile#869
Helen Skouteris
#160476
Overall Influence
#870
Lina A. Ricciardelli
#160551
Overall Influence
#871
Carol Tomlinson-Keasey
#86903
Overall Influence
1940 - 2009 (69 years)
Carol Tomlinson-Keasey was the former chancellor of the University of California, Merced. She held a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a professor at the university's School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts. Her research interests included developmental psychology and development of cognitive potential. She announced her resignation in March 2006, and continued her duties until August 31, 2006.
Go to Profile#872
Regina Sullivan
#135494
Overall Influence
Regina Sullivan is an American developmental behavioral neuroscientist, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine and senior research scientist in the Emotional Brain Institute at The Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.
Go to Profile#873
Sabine Landau
#116655
Overall Influence
Sabine Landau is Professor of Biostatistics at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. Landau was acting and then head of the Biostatistics Department in 2005–2009 and during 2008–2009 was the head of the Mental Health and Neurosciences Clinical Trials Unit.
Go to Profile#874
Anita Barbee
#114904
Overall Influence
Anita P. Barbee is an American psychologist and social worker. She is a Professor & Distinguished University Scholar at the University of Louisville's Kent School of Social Work. Education Barbee received her B.A. in English and psychology from Agnes Scott College in 1982. She then enrolled at the University of Georgia, where she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in 1985 and 1988, respectively. Her Ph.D. thesis, entitled The Effects of Positive and Negative Moods on the Cheering Up Process in Close Relationships, received the Dissertation Award from the International Association for Relationship Research .
Go to Profile#875
Gunhild Moltesen Agger
#44555
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Gunhild Moltesen Agger is a professor in Danish media history at Aalborg University. She conducts research in media science, focusing on Danish television drama and film, crime fiction and national identity in a globalized world.
Go to Profile#876
Annamaria Di Fabio
#161740
Overall Influence
#877
Leonore Tiefer
#105077
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Leonore Tiefer is an American educator, researcher, therapist, and activist specializing in sexuality, and is a public critic of disease mongering as it applies to sexual life and problems. Education and career Beginning with an Experimental Psychology Ph.D. on hormones and hamsters at the University of California, Berkeley in 1969, Tiefer went on to hold an academic position in physiological psychology at Colorado State University from 1969 to 1977. Responding to the challenge of the feminist movement, she left Colorado and returned to her home state of New York, where her career in New York...
Go to Profile#878
Ann Syrdal
#65240
Overall Influence
1947 - 2020 (73 years)
Ann Kristen Syrdal was an American psychologist and computer science researcher who worked with speech synthesis technology. She developed the first female-sounding voice synthesizer. Early life Syrdal was born on December 13, 1945, in Minneapolis. Her father, Richard, was a physicist and engineer; her mother, Marjorie was a sales clerk. She was raised by her mother after her father died when she was two years old.
Go to Profile#879
Melissa Ferguson
#146114
Overall Influence
Melissa J. Ferguson is an American professor of psychology and was a Senior Associate Dean of Social Sciences at Cornell University before becoming a professor at Yale University in 2020. She is known for her work on how people form and evolve their interpretations of social events, and how people recognize and evaluate information like fake news. Ferguson's research shows that information consumers can avoid misinformation by focusing on the quality of its source.
Go to Profile#880
Marilyn Shatz
#59520
Overall Influence
Marilyn Shatz is an American scholar known for her work in language development and discourse. She holds the title of Professor Emerita of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of Michigan, where she worked from 1977 until retiring in 2009.
Go to Profile#881
Viviane Robinson
#148394
Overall Influence
Viviane Marcelle Joan Robinson is an emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in organisational and educational psychology. Academic career After a PhD titled The behavior of caregivers: the example of clinical teams at Harvard University, completed in 1976, Robinson moved to the University of Auckland. She was appointed a Distinguished Professor in 2012.
Go to Profile#882
Mary Ann Glynn
#142483
Overall Influence
Mary Ann Glynn is an American academic. She is the Joseph F. Cotter Professor of Management and Organization at Boston College's Carroll School of Management, and the president of the Academy of Management.
Go to Profile#883
Abeba Birhane
#103510
Overall Influence
Abeba Birhane is an Ethiopian-born cognitive scientist who works at the intersection of complex adaptive systems, machine learning, algorithmic bias, and critical race studies. Birhane's work with Vinay Prabhu uncovered that large-scale image datasets commonly used to develop AI systems, including ImageNet and 80 Million Tiny Images, carried racist and misogynistic labels and offensive images. She has been recognized by VentureBeat as a top innovator in computer vision and named as one of the 100 most influential persons in AI 2023 by TIME magazine.
Go to Profile#884
Catherine G. Wolf
#54462
Overall Influence
1947 - 2018 (71 years)
Catherine Gody Wolf was an American psychologist and expert in human-computer interaction. She was the author of more than 100 research articles and held six patents in the areas of human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, and collaboration. Wolf was known for her work at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, where she was a 19-year staff researcher.
Go to Profile#885
Louise Chawla
#103960
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Louise Chawla is a Professor emerita in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado, where she is a member of the Executive Committee of the Children Youth and Environments Center for Research and Design and co-editor of the Children Youth and Environments Journal.
Go to Profile#886
Betsy Hoza
#147538
Overall Influence
Betsy Hoza is an American clinical psychologist. She is the Bishop Joyce Chair of Human Development Professor of Psychology at the University of Vermont. Early life and education Growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Hoza was a top-seeded competitive tennis player who won the 1974 Middle States Girl 16-and-under Hardcourt Tennis Tournament. Standing at over 6 feet, Hoza played on Princeton University's Women's volleyball team under coach Susanna Occhi and on their rowing team. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton in 1981 before enrolling at the University of Maine for her Ph...
Go to Profile#887
Anja Mehnert
#164387
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
#888
Pauline M. Maki
#164513
Overall Influence
#889
Rachel Sarah Herz
#126034
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Rachel Sarah Herz is a Canadian and American psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, recognized for her research on the psychology of smell. Background Rachel Herz completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and biology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and an MA and PhD in the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto. After completing her PhD in 1992, she won a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Post-Doctoral Award and took her research to the University of British Columbia. In 1994, she received the Ajinomoto USA Inaugural Award for Promising Young...
Go to Profile#890
Catrin Finkenauer
#164902
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
#891
Brigitte Röder
#165130
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
#892
Ina Weiner
#165398
Overall Influence
#893
Alexandra M. Freund
#165670
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
#894
Catherine Steiner-Adair
#94818
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Catherine Steiner-Adair is a clinical psychologist, school consultant, author, and teacher whose professional life is devoted to working with children, parents, and schools. Education Catherine Steiner-Adair graduated from Scarsdale High School, then went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College in 1976. She was also an exchange student at Williams College from 1974 to 1975. After Bowdoin, she went on to earn her doctorate in Clinical and Consulting Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1984. During her time at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she stu...
Go to Profile#895
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.
Go to Profile#896
Elizabeth Broadbent
#160351
Overall Influence
Elizabeth Anne Broadbent is a full professor of health psychology at the University of Auckland. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi in 2021. Academic career Broadbent initially trained as an electronic engineer at the University of Canterbury, completing a Bachelor of Engineering degree with Honours . She worked at companies Transpower, Électricité de Tahiti, and Robotechnology before continuing her education with a graduate Diploma of Arts from Massey University, and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees at the University of Auckland. Her 2002 master's thesis was on the effects of stress, social support and beliefs on wound healing following surgery.
Go to Profile#897
Sabine Wilhelm
#166272
Overall Influence
#898
Joan Garfield
#68630
Overall Influence
Joan B. Garfield is an American educational psychologist specializing in statistics education. She is retired from the University of Minnesota as a professor emeritus of educational psychology. Education Garfield entered the University of Wisconsin intending to study anthropology, but graduated in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in education and a minor in mathematics. She became a middle school mathematics teacher but, realizing she needed more preparation as a teacher, returned to graduate school. She chose the University of Minnesota hoping to work with Donovan Johnson, whose works she had read, but he had retired and she instead worked with his student Robert Jackson.
Go to Profile#899
Leslie Leve
#138818
Overall Influence
Leslie D. Leve is an American academic and researcher. She is a professor in the Counseling Psychology and Human Services Department as well as the associate director of Prevention Science Institute at the University of Oregon. She also holds the positions of Associate Director for the Prevention Science graduate programs, was President of the Society for Prevention Research from 2017 to 2019, and is Associate Vice President for Research in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation and serves on National Institutes of Health study section panels and on the editorial board fo...
Go to Profile#900
Heather E. Bullock
#93259
Overall Influence
Heather E. Bullock is an American social psychologist. She is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Blum Center on Poverty, Social Enterprise, and Participatory Governance at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Bullock is known for her research on people's beliefs about economic disparities and the consequences of stereotypical beliefs about the poor on public policy. This includes work examining attributions about poverty made by news media, and how such attributions influence public support of welfare policies.
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