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.

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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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Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Psychology,

#1101

Esther Fischer-Homberger

Esther Fischer-Homberger

#46050

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Esther Fischer-Homberger was a Swiss psychiatrist and medical historian. Her research focused on the history of psychiatry, psychosomatics and forensic medicine as well as the medical history of women.

#1102

Darby Saxbe

#171440

Overall Influence

Darby Saxbe is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Southern California, who researches stress within the context of relationships. Research interests She researches stress within a close relationship context, with a focus on the transition to parenthood as a nexus of neural, hormonal, behavioral and psychological change. She has also studied hormonal linkage within couples and families, finding that partners with more strongly correlated cortisol levels report more relationship distress and that expectant couples may show linked levels of testosterone which in turn predict paternal relationship investment.

#1103

Jacqueline Gottlieb

#181137

Overall Influence

Jacqueline Gottlieb is an American neuroscientist who is a professor of neuroscience and the Principal Investigator at the Columbia University Zuckerman Institute. Her research considers the mechanisms that underlie cognitive function.

#1104

Rebecca Pillai Riddell

#127358

Overall Influence

Rebecca Rita Elizabeth Riddell is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a basic-behavioural scientist. She is a full professor at York University and Tier 2 York Research Chair in Pain and Mental Health.

#1105

Sapna Cheryan

#177080

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Sapna Cheryan is an American social psychologist. She is a Full professor of social psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. Early life and education Cheryan was born to financial aid administrator mother Leela Cheryan and research professor father Munir Cheryan in Chicago, Illinois. Growing up, she became interested in topics revolving around race, gender, and equality. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and American Studies before enrolling at Stanford University for her PhD. As a graduate student, she began to notice that the atmosphere of working or learning environments could directly influence ones choice to join the field.

#1106

Sharon Beder

#37826

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Sharon Beder is an environmentalist and former professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia. Her research has focused on how power relationships are maintained and challenged, particularly by corporations and professions. She has written 11 books, and many articles, book chapters and conference papers, as well as designing teaching resources and educational websites.

#1107

Nancy Darling

#104505

Overall Influence

Nancy Ellen Darling is an American psychologist. She is the William and Jeannette Smith Chair of psychology at Oberlin College, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Adolescence, and founder of 1step2life.

#1108

Pauline Norris

#89949

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Pauline Toni Norris is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 1993 PhD titled 'The negotiation and re-negotiation of occupational control : a study of retail pharmacy in New Zealand, 1930-1990' at Victoria University of Wellington, Norris moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor.

#1109

Lynette Riley

#51475

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Lynette Riley is an academic at the University of Sydney, currently employed within the Sydney School of Education & Social Work within the university as an associate professor. Riley is a Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi woman from Dubbo and Moree. She is known for her promotion of Aboriginal culture, in particular her kinship presentations and the associated online module.

#1110

Judith E. Deutsch

#98864

Overall Influence

Judith E. Deutsch, PT, PhD, FAPTA, is a professor of physical therapy in the Department of Rehabilitation & Movement Sciences at Rutgers University. She is also the director of the Research in Virtual Environments and Rehabilitation Sciences Lab.

#1111

Rachel Navarro

#176391

Overall Influence

Rachel L. Navarro is a licensed counseling psychologist known for her work in the field of multicultural vocational psychology, focusing on the experience and career goals of Latinas in STEM fields . She is Professor of Counseling Psychology, Education, and Health and Behavior and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of North Dakota.

#1112

Koraly Pérez-Edgar

#181902

Overall Influence

Koraly Elisa Pérez-Edgar is a developmental psychologist who studies the temperament of young children and connections between temperament, anxiety disorders, and other forms of psychopathology. She is known for her studies of shy children who may develop behavioral inhibition or social anxiety.

#1113

Betty Bernardelli

#179575

Overall Influence

1919 - 1998 (79 years)

Betty Margaret Bernardelli was a physiological psychologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. With an MA from Cambridge University, Bernardelli was the commanding officer at the WAAF training school for psychology instructors. After the war, Bernardelli worked in a team advising demobilised air force personnel on their future employment prospects, and set up a testing unit for the Royal Navy. Bernardelli was also part of a research team in Cambridge, focusing on about how best to assist men and women aged 35–40 forced to change their occupation.

#1114

Catriona Ida Macleod

#162937

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Catriona Ida Macleod is a South African researcher. She is a distinguished professor of psychology, SARChI Chair of Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction, and previous Head of the Psychology Department at Rhodes University. Her research focuses on sexual and reproductive health and feminist theory in psychology. Her book "Adolescence", Pregnancy, and Abortion: Constructing a threat of degeneration received the Distinguished Publication Award by the Association for Women in Psychology. Since 2013, she has been editor-in-chief of the international journal Feminism & Psychology.

#1115

Jessica F. Cantlon

#132698

Overall Influence

Jessica Cantlon is the Ronald J. and Mary Ann Zdrojkowski Professor of Developmental Neuroscience at the Carnegie Mellon University. In 2017 she was selected as Time Person of the Year as one of the Silence Breakers.

#1116

Philippa Gander

#174544

Overall Influence

Philippa Helen Gander is a New Zealand sleep researcher. In 2021, she was conferred with the title of emeritus professor by Massey University, where she had been inaugural director of the Sleep/Wake Research Centre until stepping down from that role in 2019.

#1117

Leone Ridsdale

#125229

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Leone Ridsdale, is Professor of Neurology and General Practice at King's College London. Her research has focused on self-education and/or CBT therapy for people with headache, chronic fatigue and epilepsy. Her teaching focus was on developing education for medical students and graduates to improve neurology patient care in the community.

#1118

Terri Conley

#128672

Overall Influence

Terri Conley is an American social psychologist who studies gender differences in sexuality, consequences of departures from monogamy, and the consequences of masculinity threat. She is currently an associate professor of psychology and women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan, where she leads the Stigmatized Sexualities research lab.

#1119

Indre Viskontas

Indre Viskontas

#127468

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Indre Viskontas is a Lithuanian-Canadian neuroscientist and operatic soprano. She holds a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and a M.M. in opera. She is a Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco and serves on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is also the Creative Director of Pasadena Opera.

#1120

Rani Hoff

#106170

Overall Influence

Rani A. Hoff is a professor of psychiatry and a director of a national center for Post-traumatic stress disorder at Yale University. Life and work Rani Hoff, daughter of Robert and Victoria Hoff, grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and first became a concertmaster of the Erie Philharmonic Youth orchestra at the age of 10. She graduated with a BS in mathematics and biology from Mercyhurst University in 1985 at the age of 16, and within the next two months she joined the Army and was reporting to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, hoping to become a medical specialist.

#1121

Caitlin Ryan

#117119

Overall Influence

Caitlin Ryan is a clinical social worker who is considered a pioneer in research related to LGBTQ health and mental health. Ryan is the director of the Family Acceptance Project® , “a research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to prevent health and mental health risks for LGBTQ children and youth” based out of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute at San Francisco State University.

#1122

Veronica Galvan

#110686

Overall Influence

Veronica Galvan is a Professor and the Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair of Aging Research in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Since December 2022, she has served as Director of the Oklahoma Nathan Shock Center on Aging. She also serves as co-director of the Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

#1123

Malin Bergström

#67422

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Malin Bergström is a child psychologist and scientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She is a specialist in studies concerning the effect on children with different child custody arrangements after divorce or separation. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs, her research group has shown that children have better physical, mental and social outcomes if they live in a shared parenting arrangement compared to primarily living with only one parent.

#1124

Denise Hines

#178644

Overall Influence

Denise A. Hines is an American psychologist doing research on domestic violence and sexual abuse with focuses on prevention, intervention, and public policy. She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

#1125

Gretty Mirdal

#174148

Overall Influence

Gretty Mizrahi Mirdal is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, and the former director of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, the PIAS . Presently she directs the "Brain, Culture and Society" programme at the PIAS, and she continues her research activities at the University of Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Academy for Sciences and Letters.

#1126

Janet Leathem

#128443

Overall Influence

Janet Marion Leathem is a New Zealand psychology academic specializing in traumatic brain injury. She is currently a full professor at Massey University. Academic career After a 1975 MSc thesis titled 'The assessment of laterality' and a 1980 PhD titled 'Some Aspects of Cortical Functioning in Man,' both at Victoria University of Wellington, Leathem moved to Massey University, where she rose to full professor.

#1127

Charlotte Blease

#123071

Overall Influence

Charlotte Blease is a Northern Irish philosopher of medicine from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is a healthcare researcher at General Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston USA. Formerly she was a Fulbright Scholar to the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School. She is a former Irish Research Council fellow and a Queen's University, Belfast lecturer.

#1128

Mirta Galesic

#97151

Overall Influence

Mirta Galesic is a Croatian American psychologist who is the Cowan Chair in Human Social Dynamics at the Santa Fe Institute. She serves as a member of the faculty at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna.

#1129

Jane Halonen

#177720

Overall Influence

Jane Simmons Halonen is an American educational psychologist whose career has focused on advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology. She holds the position of Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida where she also served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2012.Halonen is a contributing writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

#1130

Mouza al-Malki

#180553

Overall Influence

Mouza al-Malki is a Qatari writer and psychologist. Early life and education Al Malki holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland. She is the first Qatari psychotherapist practitioner, having received her degrees in the United States.

#1131

Clarisa Hardy

#149178

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Clarisa Rut Hardy Raskovan is an Argentinian-born psychologist, anthropologist, writer and politician from Chile, Minister for Social Development and Planning during the first term of Michelle Bachelet.

#1132

Jane Stallings

#178668

Overall Influence

1929 - 2016 (87 years)

Jane Ainel Smith Stallings was an American educational researcher and academic. She was the 1994–95 president of the American Educational Research Association and the first female to become a dean at Texas A&M University.

#1133

Tracy Kendler

#96254

Overall Influence

1918 - 2001 (83 years)

Tracy Kendler, née Sylvia Seedman was an American research psychologist known for her research in discrimination learning. Early life and education Kendler was born Sylvia Seedman in Brooklyn, New York, and changed her name to Tracy at a young age. She was encouraged to find a husband instead of attending university, but matriculated at Brooklyn College, where she began to work with Abraham Maslow. She and her future husband, Howard H. Kendler, moved to the University of Iowa for their graduate studies, where she studied for a master's degree with Kenneth Spence and did research in neobehaviorism for her Ph.D., which she earned in 1943.

#1134

Shauna Cooper

#119122

Overall Influence

Shauna Michelle Cooper is an American psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research considers how race, culture and context influence the development of African-American young people.

#1135

Sarah Brosnan

#110378

Overall Influence

Sarah Brosnan is a researcher studying the development of cognitive processes that underlie cooperation and reciprocity. The focus of her work has been on how animals perceive "exchanged goods and services," as demonstrated by reciprocal interactions,. She has looked at both human and nonhuman primates as a way of understanding the evolution of cooperative and economic behaviors, specifically the topic of inequity aversion and the cooperative pulling paradigm. She works at Georgia State University in the Department of Psychology, and directs the university's Comparative Economics and Behavior...

#1136

Waikaremoana Waitoki

#175755

Overall Influence

Waikaremoana Waitoki is a New Zealand clinical psychologist, academic, and former president of the New Zealand Psychological Society from 2020 until 2022. She is an associate professor at the University of Waikato, and focuses her research on indigenous psychology, and cultural competency.

#1137

Nancy Rodriguez

#116697

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

For the American politician, see Nancy Rodriguez. Nancy Rodriguez is an American criminologist and professor in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on substance abuse, juvenile court decision-making, and sentencing policies. She previously taught in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University from 1998 to 2015. She was the director of the National Institute of Justice from February 9, 2015, to January 13, 2017. She was originally nominated to direct the NIJ in 2014 by then-president of the United States Bar...

#1138

Corinna Löckenhoff

#90123

Overall Influence

Corinna Elisabeth Löckenhoff is a gerontologist. She is a professor of Human Development at Cornell University and of Gerontology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Education Löckenhoff earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Marburg. She went on to receive her PhD in psychology from Stanford University in 2004. Her doctoral advisor was Laura L. Carstensen, and her thesis title was Age-Related Positivity Effects in Information Acquisition and Decision-Making: Testing Socioemotional Selectivity Theory in the Health Domain. After her PhD, she had a postdoctoral fellowship at ...

#1139

Brooke Rogers

#79369

Overall Influence

Marian Brooke Rogers is a British psychologist who is a Professor of Behavioural Science and Security at King's College London where she is Vice Dean in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy . She is a social psychologist who studies risk and threat. In 2014 she was asked to chair the Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Expert Group . In 2019 she was appointed Chair of the Home Office Science Advisory Council . Professor Rogers was appointed to the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology in 2020.

#1140

Anne Briar Smith

#165679

Overall Influence

1940 - 2016 (76 years)

Anne Briar Smith was a New Zealand professor at the University of Otago, and was a pioneering children's rights researcher. Early life and education Smith was born on 13 August 1940 in Porthcawl, Wales, to Dora and Geoff Riddall. Her father worked for the Iraq Petroleum Company, and when that necessitated the family move to Syria, Smith boarded at the Welsh Girls' School in England, aged nine. The family moved to New Zealand in 1954, and Smith attended Te Aroha College, where she was dux in both 1956 and 1957.

#1141

Wendy Maltz

#181250

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Wendy Maltz is an American sex therapist, psychotherapist, author, educator, and clinical social worker. She is an expert on the sexual repercussions of sexual abuse, understanding women's sexual fantasies, treating pornography-related problems, and promoting healthy sexuality. She has taught at the University of Oregon and, up until her retirement in 2016 from providing counseling services, was co-director with her husband, Larry Maltz, of Maltz Counseling Associates therapy practice in Eugene, Oregon.

#1142

Amy Mezulis

#180692

Overall Influence

Amy Mezulis is an American clinical psychologist and researcher, based at Seattle Pacific University since 2006. Early life and education Mezulis earned a BA from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She completed her pre-doctoral fellowship at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System – Seattle and her postdoctoral fellowship at Seattle Children's Hospital.

#1143

Rachel Zajac

#74555

Overall Influence

Rachel Zajac is a New Zealand forensic psychologist and professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin. Academic career Zajac graduated from the University of Otago in 2002 with a PhD titled "The effect of cross-examination on the reliability and credibility of children's testimony". She joined the Department of Psychology as a lecturer the following year and was appointed associate professor in 2016. In December 2019 she was promoted to full professor with effect from 1 February 2020.

#1144

Elizabeth L. Cless

#89628

Overall Influence

1916 - 1992 (76 years)

Elizabeth Lawrence Cless was an American educator. She pioneered the development of continuing education for women, which provides new paths and programs to help women resume higher education that they had interrupted or postponed. Starting at the University of Minnesota in 1960, and subsequently at The Claremont Colleges in California, Cless developed and expanded the scope of those programs; by 1970 educators had created 400 of them throughout the United States. In 1979 she developed and founded The Plato Society, a lifelong learning organization at the University of California, Los Angeles focused on the intellectual growth of men and women over 50.

#1145

Lori Mann Bruce

#184087

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Lori Mann Bruce currently serves as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and holds the title of Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tennessee Technological University. As the Provost, she provides leadership to and oversight of eight colleges and schools, offering bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs. Prior to joining Tennessee Tech University, Bruce served as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at Mississippi State University. While at Mississippi State University, Bruce was awarded the university's highest academic honor, being named a William L.

#1146

Fiona Alpass

#32858

Overall Influence

Fiona Margaret Alpass is a New Zealand academic at Massey University. Academic career Alpass completed a master's degree at Massey University in 1992, looking at how anger management and social contact can modulate the effects of alcohol and tobacco use. After a 1994 PhD titled 'The effects of organisational change in the military: a comparison of work related perceptions and experiences in military and non-military environments' at Massey University, Alpass started working at Massey and rose to full professor in 2013.

#1147

Apryl A. Alexander

#171669

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (40 years)

Apryl A. Alexander is an American clinical and forensic psychologist who is an associate professor at the University of Denver. Alexander directs students at the Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service and Training , and engages in clinical psychology practice. She is co-founder of the University of Denver's Prison Arts Initiative where incarcerated individuals engage in a therapeutic, educational arts curricula.

#1148

Vivian Gadsden

#180383

Overall Influence

Vivian Lynette Gadsden is an American psychologist who is an education researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers the social and cultural factors that affect learning and literacy. She is interested in intergenerational learning within African-American families.

#1149

Myra Hunter

#168597

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Myra Sally Hunter is Professor of Clinical Health Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College, London, and a Clinical and Health Psychologist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

#1150

Iroise Dumontheil

#168320

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Iroise Dumontheil is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London and Director of Masters courses in Educational Neuroscience. Dumontheil was awarded the Spearman Medal from the British Psychological Society in 2015, for her research in the social cognition and executive functions associated with the rostral prefrontal cortex, particularly in adulthood and their development during adolescence.

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