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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List of the most influential female people in Psychology,

#1201

Kari Adamsons

#181289

Overall Influence

Kari Adamsons is an associate professor of human development and family studies at University of Connecticut. She is a nationally recognized expert on fathers, including father-child relationships, co-parenting, shared parenting and couple relationships. Adamsons is a co-author of Family Theories: An Introduction, a widely used university textbook.

#1202

Nicola Kayes

#186578

Overall Influence

Nicola M. Kayes is a New Zealand health psychologist, director of the Centre for Person Centred Research and professor of rehabilitation at Auckland University of Technology . Academic career Kayes graduated from the University of Auckland with a BSc in 1997 and MSc in 1999 for her thesis titled "The Role that Illness Perceptions Play in the Adjustment to Multiple Sclerosis". She completed a PhD at AUT titled "Physical activity engagement in people with Multiple Sclerosis" in March 2011.

#1203

Tracey Reynolds

#84339

Overall Influence

Tracey Reynolds is a British sociologist and professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Greenwich. She began working in academia in 1998 at London South Bank University in their Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Science. She is Professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Centre for Applied Sociology Research at the University of Greenwich.

#1204

Tracy Berno

#73008

Overall Influence

Tracy Berno is a New Zealand academic, specialising in cross-cultural psychology and food. As of 2022 she is a full professor of the culinary arts in the School of Hospitality and Tourism at Auckland University of Technology.

#1205

Elizabeth Allgeier

#188252

Overall Influence

1941 - 2016 (75 years)

Elizabeth Rice Allgeier was an American psychologist and sexologist. She was the Editor of the Journal of Sex Research in the 1990s. She was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Bowling Green State University. She joined BGSU in 1980 and retired in 2004. She received her PhD from Purdue University. She was a Fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, serving as its president between 1985 and 1986. She was one of the experts to file an amicus brief in United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group.

#1206

Maria Tumarkin

#105148

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Maria Tumarkin is an Australian cultural historian, essayist and novelist., and is senior lecturer in the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne, teaching creative writing.

#1207

Sara Nasserzadeh

#176699

Overall Influence

Sara Nasserzadeh is an Iranian-American social psychologist, relationship counselor, psychosexual therapist, public speaker and author. She is known mostly for her educational programs on BBC World Service and Persian TV on human sexuality and relationships. She received the BBC’s Innovation of the Year Award in 2007 and was among the BBC Persian 100 Influential Women. Nasserzadeh received the People of Distinction Humanitarian Award in New York City in 2014. She is also a winner of AASECT Book Award and AASECT Professional Standard of Excellence Award.

#1208

Natalie Matosin

#58658

Overall Influence

Dr. Natalie Matosin is an Australian scientist known for research into the human brain in health and disease, and particularly how stress raises risk to mental illness. Matosin's research has been published in prestigious academic journals, as well as on The Conversation. Matosin spoke at TEDx Hamburg in June 2017 and is the 2021 Al & Val Rosenstrauss Fellow. She was previously a National Health and Medical Research Council CJ Martin Early Career Research Fellow, and Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. In 2017, Matosin was listed as a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Europe in the category of Science & Health...

#1209

Barbara Bonner

#185025

Overall Influence

Barbara L. Bonner is a clinical psychologist and expert on juvenile sex offenders. She is known for her research on the assessment and treatment of abused children, prevention of child fatalities due to neglect, and treatment of children and adolescents with problematic sexual behavior. Bonner is the CMRI/Jean Gumerson Endowed Chair and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

#1210

Meike Bartels

#180877

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Meike Bartels is a Dutch psychologist and behavior geneticist known for her research on the genetics of happiness and subjective well-being. She is professor in "Behavior and Quantitative Genetics" at the Department of Biological Psychology at VU University Amsterdam and affiliated with the Amsterdam Public Health Institute. She also holds a University Research Chair in Genetics and Wellbeing at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. In 2008, she received the Fuller & Scott Award from the Behavior Genetics Association. She is one of the principal investigators on the study finding genetic variants...

#1211

Talya Miron-Shatz

#185451

Overall Influence

Talya Miron-Shatz is an Israeli researcher who specializes in medical decision-making. She is a full professor at the Ono Academic College, a senior fellow at the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, New York, and a visiting researcher at the Wonton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, Cambridge University. She has worked as a consultant in the healthcare industry to companies from health advertising, digital health, wellness, and the pharmaceutical industry.

#1212

Floretta Boonzaier

#183789

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Floretta Avril Boonzaier is a South African psychologist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Cape Town. She is noted for her work in feminist, critical and postcolonial psychologies, subjectivity in relation to race, gender and sexuality, and gender-based violence, and qualitative psychologies, especially narrative, discursive and participatory methods. She heads the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa with Shose Kessi.

#1213

Sally Brinkman

#186641

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Dr. Sally Brinkman is a social epidemiologist with a focus on early childhood development and the impact of society on children's short and long term outcomes. Brinkman led the development and implementation of the Early Development Instrument for population level data across Australia, now known as the nationwide Australian Early Development Census measuring over 300,000 children in how they have developed by the time they start their first year of full-time school. Brinkman works for international organisations including World Bank, UNICEF and AusAID, and has over 100 publications covering child development and education.

#1214

Ama de-Graft Aikins

#188268

Overall Influence

Ama de-Graft Aikins is a British-Ghanaian Social Psychologist who is currently a British Academy Global Professor at University College London's Institute of Advanced Studies. Her research focuses primarily on the psychosocial and structural drivers of Africa's chronic non-communicable disease burden, but she also has interests in arts and health, and the history of psychology in Africa and its intersections with critical theory and African Studies. She has held teaching and research positions at the University of Cambridge, London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Ghana.

#1215

Anita Raj

#174027

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Anita Raj is an American developmental psychologist and global public health researcher focused on sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, and gender inequalities including gender-based violence, discrimination and bias. Until 2023, Raj was the Tata Chancellor Professor of Society and Health and was a professor in the Departments of Medicine and Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Raj was also the Founding Director of UCSD's Center on Gender Equity and Health. In 2023, Raj was named the Executive Director of the Newcomb Institute at Tulane Univers...

#1216

Susie Linfield

#67492

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Susie Linfield is a social and cultural theorist at New York University. Background and education Between the ages of 8 and 15 Linfield was a student at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York City. She danced as a student in productions of the ballets Don Quixote, A Midsummer Night's Dream and in the Royal Ballet's New York production of The Nutcracker under the directorship of Rudolf Nureyev. She decided to continue her education at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City. Then earned a bachelor's degree in American history at Oberlin College in Ohio.

#1217

Helen Bee

#31145

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Helen L. Bee is a psychologist and author of several books on the subject of human development, including both child development and adult development. Education Bee was one of the two daughters of Austin Bee, who influenced her deeply. She received her BA from Radcliffe College in 1960 and her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1964, under the tutelage of Robert Sears and Eleanor Maccoby.

#1218

Sabina Brennan

#184409

Overall Influence

Sabina Brennan is an Irish neuroscientist, psychologist, and former television actress. She is currently an adjunct assistant professor working at Trinity College Dublin. Early life and family Brennan is the youngest of five children. Her father worked for Irish Life and she followed him into this business after finishing school. She is married and has two sons.

#1219

Anne Speckhard

#188111

Overall Influence

Anne Speckhard is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington D.C. Her research focuses on developing counter-terrorism initiatives and understanding the motivations of terrorists. She is the Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism .

#1220

Jennie Ponsford

#186075

Overall Influence

Jennie Louise Ponsford is an Australian neuroscience researcher at Monash University, Victoria who has a special interest in Traumatic Brain Injury . Jennie is a clinical neuropsychologist, whose work is focused on developing a deeper understanding of the negative consequences of TBI, particularly those related to fatigue, sleep disturbance, attentional, memory and executive problems, psychiatric and behavioural disturbances and sexuality, and the development of rehabilitation interventions to improve long term recovery and quality of life in individuals with TBI.

#1221

Jacqueline Lerner

#118138

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Jacqueline V. Lerner is Professor of Applied Developmental & Educational Psychology in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College, where she has taught since 1996. She is a member of the Society for Research in Child Development, the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, and Psi Chi. With her husband and research collaborator Richard M. Lerner, she has been active in promoting the concept of positive youth development.

#1222

Shari Thurer

#82854

Overall Influence

Shari Thurer is a psychoanalytically trained psychologist practicing in Boston and an adjunct associate professor at Boston University. Select publications She is the author of The Myths of Motherhood: How Culture Reinvents the Good Mother and The End of Gender: A Psychological Autopsy

#1223

Qi Wang

#185519

Overall Influence

Qi Wang is a Chinese-born American psychologist and Professor of Human Development at Cornell University. She is best known for her study of memory and culture. Wang is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the Psychonomic Society. She is also a member of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Research in Child Development, the Cognitive Development Society, the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development, and the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition. She serves on many editorial boards and is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.

#1224

Sally Haydon

#127549

Overall Influence

1959 - 2014 (55 years)

Sally Haydon was an American professor of equine science and a trainer of American Saddlebred horses and riders. She was Chair of the Equine Studies department at Midway College in Midway, Kentucky, president and founder of the Intercollegiate Saddle Seat Riding Association , and the Owner/Director of Educational Programs at the Bluegrass Riding Academy. Haydon worked several years teaching saddle seat equitation with renowned trainer and author Helen Crabtree, and she was also a former board member of The Cleveland Home .

#1225

Elizabeth Boase

#115232

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Elizabeth Boase is an Australian biblical scholar and the inaugural Dean of the School of Graduate Research at the University of Divinity in Melbourne. Boase uses a range of hermeneutical approaches in her work but is particularly known for her use of trauma theory as an hermeneutical lens to interpret the Bible. She also publishes in the areas of Hebrew Bible, the Book of Lamentations, the Book of Jeremiah, Biblical Hermeneutics, Bakhtin and the Bible, and Ecological Hermeneutics.

#1226

Winifred Cavenagh

#85974

Overall Influence

1908 - 2004 (96 years)

Winifred Elizabeth Cavenagh was a British criminologist, social scientist, and academic. She joined the University of Birmingham as a lecturer in social studies in 1946 and was made Professor of Social Administration and Criminology in 1972: she retired from academia in 1976 and was appointed professor emeritus. Outside of her university career, she served as a local magistrate, on numerous boards, and, after study law and qualifying, worked as a barrister.

#1227

Lori Verstegen Ryan

#169305

Overall Influence

Lori Verstegen Ryan is professor of management at San Diego State University. She is the director of SDSU's Corporate Governance Institute. She is on the editorial boards of Business & Society and Business Ethics Quarterly and previously served on the editorial board of Academy of Management Review and as associate editor for corporate governance of Business & Society. Ryan is a Fellow of the International Association for Business and Society, having served as conference chair and president .

#1228

Adriana Galván

#176720

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Adriana Galván is an American psychologist and expert on adolescent brain development. She is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles where she directs the Developmental Neuroscience laboratory. She was appointed the Jeffrey Wenzel Term Chair in Behavioral Neuroscience and the Dean of Undergraduate Education at UCLA.

#1229

Nicola Brasch

#182469

Overall Influence

Nicola Elizabeth Brasch is a New Zealand chemistry academic. She is currently a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Academic career After a 1993 PhD titled '17O-Nuclear magnetic resonance studies of chromium oxyanions and some cobalt tren complexes' at the University of Otago, she moved to Kent State University before returning to Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor.

#1230

Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir

Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir

#63017

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Sigrún Aðalbjarnardóttir is a professor emeritus at the University of Iceland, School of Education . Most of her theoretical work is within educational science and developmental psychology with a focus on the welfare of young people. Her primary interest is the social development, risk behaviour, academic engagement, and well-being of children and young people, as well as their civic awareness and engagement. A related focus is on how parents and teachers can foster the development and welfare of children and adolescents.

#1231

Carola Suárez-Orozco

#189365

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Carola Suárez-Orozco is a cultural developmental psychologist, academic, and author. She is a Professor in Residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Director of the Immigration Initiative at Harvard. She is also the co-founder of Re-Imagining Migration, a nonprofit organization.

#1232

Janet S Gaffney

#181824

Overall Influence

Janet S Gaffney is an American-New Zealand special education academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After an undergraduate at Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri Gaffney did a 1984 PhD at Arizona State University titled LD children's prose recall as a function of prior knowledge, instruction, and context relatedness. After working in the US at the University of Mississippi and the University of Illinois she moved to the University of Auckland in 2012 as full professor, drawn in part by the legacy of Marie Clay, whose celebr...

#1233

Amy Bloom

#122095

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Amy Beth Bloom is an American writer and psychotherapist. She is professor of creative writing at Wesleyan University, and has been nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

#1234

Diane Waller

#148564

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Diane Waller , President of the British Association of Art Therapists, the emeritus professor of Art Psychotherapy at Goldsmiths, University of London, Vice-President of the International Society for Expression and Art Therapy, a council member of the World Psychiatric Association's Section on Art and Psychiatry, a council member of the Health Professions Council, Professor Diane Waller was appointed an OBE in the June 2007 Birthday Honours list for services to healthcare.

#1235

Roseanna Bourke

#190389

Overall Influence

Roseanna Bourke is a New Zealand academic and registered educational psychologist. As of 2019 she is a full professor at Massey University. Academic career Bourke has a BEd from Massey University and a MEd from the University of Otago. She received a PhD from Massey University for her thesis titled Students' conceptions of learning and self-assessment in context. Bourke joined Massey University in 2006 and moved to Victoria University of Wellington in 2009. She returned to Massey in 2016, where she was appointed full professor with effect from 1 January 2019.

#1236

Hande Eslen-Ziya

#115569

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Hande Eslen-Ziya is a Turkish-born, Norway-based sociologist and psychologist. She is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Populism, Anti-Gender and Democracy Research Group at the University of Stavanger in Norway. She has an established interest in gender and social inequalities, transnational organizations and social activism, and has a substantial portfolio of research in this field. Her research has been published in Gender, Work and Organisation, Emotion, Space and Society, Social Movement Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Culture, Health and Sexuality, Leadership, Men and Masculinities, and Social Politics, as well as in other internationally recognized journals.

#1237

Elisa New

#20883

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Elisa New is an American academic who is the Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University. Early life and education She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Maryland. New's father was an engineer and computer scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and her mother worked as a party planner. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brandeis University , as well as a Master of Arts and PhD from Columbia University .

#1238

Katherine D. Seelman

#78927

Overall Influence

Katherine Dolores Seelman is an American academic, focused on science, technology and public policy, especially telecommunications and accessibility. An Associate Dean and Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, she is co-scientific director of the Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research Center, supported by the National Science Foundation, and was formerly the director of the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Seelman has been part of a number of advisory and editorial committees, including helping the World He...

#1239

Annegret Hannawa

#82087

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Annegret Friederike Hannawa is a German communication scientist and founding director of the Center for the Advancement of Healthcare Quality and Safety at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano.

#1240

Elizabeth Dowdeswell

#19316

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Violet Elizabeth Dowdeswell is a Canadian public servant who served as the 29th lieutenant governor of Ontario from 2014 to 2023. As lieutenant governor, Dowdeswell was the viceregal representative of the Crown in Right of Ontario and the first in over seven decades to serve under two different Canadian sovereigns. A champion of democracy and civil society, she is also the longest-serving lieutenant governor in Ontario's history.

#1241

Carol Prescott

#134624

Overall Influence

Carol Arlene Prescott is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Southern California , where she also holds a joint appointment in the Davis School of Gerontology. Before joining the faculty of USC in 2005, she was an assistant, and later associate, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University. Her research focuses on the genetic and environmental contributions to variation in cognition, as well as on identifying causes of substance use disorders.

#1242

Danielle Ripich

#128479

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Danielle Newberry Ripich is a retired American academic who served as president of the University of New England, Maine, from 2006 to 2017. She has a background in speech pathology and communication studies.

#1243

Rafia Ghubash

#128146

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Rafia Obaid Ghubash is a Dubai psychiatrist and epidemiologist who serves as president of the Arab Network for Women in Science and Technology, and is a former president of the Arabian Gulf University. She is known as a role model of women's empowerment.

#1244

Yanghee Lee

#16396

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Yanghee Lee is a South Korean developmental psychologist and professor at Sungkyunkwan University. She is most noted for her work in international human rights organisations. Lee is highly recognized nationally, regionally, and internationally for her expertise in human rights. She has published numerous articles and books on human rights and children’s rights.

#1245

Denise Bradley

#115920

Overall Influence

1942 - 2020 (78 years)

Denise Irene Bradley was an Australian higher education administrator with specialist interests in educational equity and excellence and equity. She was known for the Bradley Review of Higher Education .

#1246

Li Tao

#186403

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Li Tao is a Chinese academic psychiatrist. She is the dean of the Mental Health Center affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine. She is a clinician, professor, and researcher, specialising in topics relating to molecular genetics and mental illness.

#1247

Ruth Fitzgerald

#180765

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Ruth P. Fitzgerald is a New Zealand anthropology academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 1999 PhD titled Who cares? : an ethnographic investigation of the meaning of care at the University of Otago, Fitzgerald joined the staff, rising to full professor in 2018. In 2015 Fitzgerald was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand's Te Rangi Hiroa Medal. Her work covers the social and political context of many health issues, such as the ethics of reversing heritable deafness or terminating pregnancy.

#1248

Margaret Horsburgh

Margaret Horsburgh

#178137

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Margaret Phyllis Elsie Horsburgh is a New Zealand academic who established the school of nursing at the University of Auckland and worked as a nurse educator for over 30 years. Biography Horsburgh was born in Auckland in 1943, and was educated at Diocesan School for Girls. She began training as a nurse in 1961. From a career as an intensive-care nurse, Horsburgh joined Auckland University of Technology in 1976. She completed a Doctor of Education degree through Charles Sturt University in 1998, with a thesis titled Quality monitoring in higher education: a case study of the impact on student learning.

#1249

Helen Muchnic

#122878

Overall Influence

Helen Muchnic was an American scholar and writer, specializing in Russian language and literature. She taught for many years at Smith College, where she was appointed Helen and Laura Shedd Professor of Russian Language and Literature. Her friends included the writers Edmund Wilson and Elizabeth Bishop. She wrote a number of scholarly works, including:An Introduction to Russian LiteratureFrom Gorky to Pasternak: six modern Russian writersDostoevsky's English reputation, 1881-1936The unhappy consciousness: Gogol, Poe, BaudelaireShe also contributed regularly to scholarly and popular journals suc...

#1250

Margret Schleidt

Margret Schleidt

#177853

Overall Influence

1928 - 2012 (84 years)

Margret Else Schleidt was a German human ethologist. She worked at the Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltensphysiologie, which has now become the Max-Planck Institute for Ornithology. Margret Else Schleidt studied Biology at the Universities of Bonn, Zurich and Freiburg. She did her dissertation research in animal ethology at Konrad Lorenz’s research station in Buldern Westfalen. She then completed her PhD in animal ethology in 1955 under the supervision of Professor Otto Koehler in Freiburg i Br., before working as part of Konrad Lorenz’ research group at the Max-Planck-Institut für Verhaltensphysiologie in Seewiesen.

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