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,
#1301
Maud A. Merrill
1888 - 1978 (90 years)
Maud Amanda Merrill was an American psychologist. Both an alumna and faculty member of Stanford University, Merrill worked with Lewis Terman to develop the second and third editions of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales.
Go to Profile#1302
Margaret Kuenne Harlow
1918 - 1971 (53 years)
Margaret Ruth Kuenne Harlow was an American developmental psychologist. She was married to Harry Harlow from 1946 until her death in 1971. Early life Margaret Ruth Kuenne was born in St. Louis on 29 August 1918 to Edward S. Kuenne and Margaret E. Kuenne; she was the oldest of three children .
Go to Profile#1303
Mary Collins
1895 - 1989 (94 years)
Mary Collins was an expert in colour vision, and psychology lecturer at Edinburgh University. Academic career Mary Collins gained her MA in 1917 from Edinburgh University, her BEd in 1919 and PhD in 1923. She was then appointed lecturer in psychology at the University. Her first book, Colour blindness was published in 1925 covering her initial work in studying aspects of color vision. Subsequently, she worked extensively with Sir James Drever, head of department, and subsequently with Boris Semeonoff . Collins became senior lecturer by 1950 and reader by 1956, retiring "before 1962".
Go to Profile#1304
Lillien Jane Martin
1851 - 1943 (92 years)
Lillien Jane Martin was an American psychologist. She published over twelve books. Martin experienced ageism and sexism as an early woman in psychology. Early life and education Lillien Jane Martin was born on July 7, 1851, at Olean, New York. At the age of four, she entered the nearby Olean Academy. At the age of sixteen, her talents were recognized such that she became a teacher at a girls' school in Wisconsin. By the age of 26, in 1876, she had earned enough money to return to her native New York where she enrolled at Vassar College at Poughkeepsie, New York.
Go to Profile#1305
Mary Louise Northway
1909 - 1987 (78 years)
Mary Louise Northway was a Canadian psychologist, recognized for her work in the area of sociometry . She was a faculty member at the University of Toronto. Biography Northway was born in Toronto on May 28, 1909; she was the only child of Lucy Northway and Arthur Garfield Northway. She was educated in Toronto at Branksome Hall, Rosedale Public School, and Bishop Strachan School.
Go to Profile#1306
June Downey
1875 - 1932 (57 years)
June Etta Downey was an American psychologist who studied personality and handwriting. Downey was born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming, where she received her degree in Greek and Latin from the University of Wyoming. Throughout her life Downey wrote seven books and over seventy articles. Included in this work, Downey developed the Individual Will-Temperament Test, which was one of the first tests to evaluate character traits separately from intellectual capacity and the first to use psychographic methods for interpretation.
Go to Profile#1307
Theodora Mead Abel
1899 - 1998 (99 years)
Theodora Mead Abel was an American clinical psychologist and educator, who used innovative ideas by combining sociology and psychology. She was a pioneer in cross-cultural psychology. Early life and education Theodora was born in Newport, Rhode Island, on September 9, 1899, and raised in New York City.
Go to Profile#1308
Thelma Alper
1908 - 1988 (80 years)
Thelma Gorfinkle Alper was an American clinical psychologist, known for creating a study measure for women's achievement motivation. She was also the first Jewish woman to receive a Ph.D from Harvard, having careers at multiple institutions as she conducted studies primarily on memory of tasks, with an interest in its relation to women.
Go to Profile#1309
Emma Sophia Baker
1856 - 1943 (87 years)
Emma Sophia Baker was a Canadian psychologist. In 1903, she became the first person to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto, it is important to know that psychology was considered a subdiscipline of philosophy at the time. Baker was also one of the first two women to earn a Ph.D. from that institution, the other was chemist Clara Benson.
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Mildred B. Mitchell
1903 - 1983 (80 years)
Mildred Bessie Mitchell was a psychologist who graduated from Yale University in 1931. She was the first clinical psychology examiner for the US Astronaut Program helping NASA select men for Project Mercury in 1959.
Go to Profile#1311
Therese Benedek
1892 - 1977 (85 years)
Therese Benedek was a Hungarian-American psychoanalyst, researcher, and educator. Active in Germany and the United States between the years 1921 and 1977, she was regarded for her work on psychosomatic medicine, women's psychosexual development, sexual dysfunction, and family relationships. She was a faculty and staff member of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis from 1936 to 1969.
Go to Profile#1312
Edna Frances Heidbreder
1890 - 1985 (95 years)
Edna Frances Heidbreder was an American philosopher and psychologist who explored the study of history, and made contributions toward the field of study in psychometrics, systematic psychology, and concept formation. She expressed interest in cognition and systematic psychology, and the experimentation on personality traits and its characteristics. She also did work testing the normal inferiority complex and studied systemic problems in her later work.
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Eugénie Ginsberg
1870 - 1944 (74 years)
Eugénie Ginsberg or Eugénie Ginsberg-Blaustein was a Polish philosopher and psychologist noted for her works on descriptive psychology and her analysis of existential dependence, independence, and related concepts as applied in the area of psychology.
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Margaret K. Knight
1903 - 1983 (80 years)
Margaret Kennedy Knight , , was a psychologist and humanist. Biography Born in Hertfordshire, England, Knight went to Girton College, Cambridge University, graduating in 1926. In 1948 she gained a master's degree.
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Kate Brousseau
1862 - 1938 (76 years)
Kate Brousseau was an American professor and researcher on mental hygiene, chair of the Psychology Department at Mills College. Early life Kate Brousseau was born on April 24, 1862, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, daughter of Judge Julius Brousseau , born in New York by French Canadian parents, and Caroline Yakeley , of English and German heritage. Brousseau was the older of four siblings.
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Grace Manson
1893 - 1967 (74 years)
Grace Eveyln Manson was an American psychologist known for her work as an occupational psychologist. Early life and education Manson was born on July 15, 1893, in Baltimore, Maryland. Educated at Goucher College, where she received her AB in 1915, and Columbia University, where she received her AM in 1919, she went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1923.
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Margaret Verrall
1857 - 1916 (59 years)
Margaret de Gaudrion Verrall was a classical scholar and lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge. Much of her life and research was concerned with the study of parapsychology, mainly in order to examine how psychic abilities might demonstrate the abilities, breadth and power of the human mind. She began to exhibit and develop psychic abilities herself around 1901, and became both a recipient and analyst of many cross-correspondences produced by psychics, most notably the Palm Sunday scripts.
Go to Profile#1318
Naomi Norsworthy
1877 - 1916 (39 years)
Naomi Norsworthy was an American psychologist who served as the first female faculty member at Columbia University Teacher's College. Her parents had emigrated from England two years before her birth. Norsworthy was the eldest of four children with two younger brothers and a third who died soon after birth. She was educated in public school in Rutherford, New Jersey then enrolled in New Jersey State Normal School at the age of 15, and was among the youngest students there; she graduated from the school in three years.
Go to Profile#1319
Kate Gordon Moore
1878 - 1963 (85 years)
Kate Gordon Moore was an American psychologist whose work focused on various aspects within cognitive psychology, and is noted for her work with color vision and perception, as well as aesthetics, memory, imagination, emotion, developmental tests for children, and attention span. Gordon's early work focused on color vision and how this interacted with memory. Her work shifted mid-career and then she started to research within the realm of education. Specifically, she published work that addressed women's education with regard to the notion that women must be educated differently from men. Her...
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Frieda Goldman-Eisler
1907 - 1982 (75 years)
Frieda Goldman-Eisler was a psychologist and pioneer in the field of psycholinguistics. She is known for her research on speech disfluencies; a volume dedicated in her honor calls her "the modern pioneer of the science of pausology".
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Caroline Beaumont Zachry
1894 - 1945 (51 years)
Caroline Beaumont Zachry was an educational psychologist born in New York City to James Greer Zachry and Elise Clarkson Thompson. Her maternal grandfather was Hugh Smith Thompson the Governor of South Carolina from 1882 to 1886.
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Harriet Babcock
1877 - 1952 (75 years)
Harriet Babcock was an American psychologist who specialized in abnormal psychology research in addition to developing measures and theories of intelligence. After her doctoral work at Columbia University, she worked primarily in the Department of Psychology at New York University, and acted as a consultant to the New York City Guidance Bureau. Babcock developed multiple intelligence tests evaluating mental deterioration and efficiency.
Go to Profile#1323
Pat Dudgeon
Patricia Lynette Dudgeon , usually known as Pat Dudgeon, is an Aboriginal Australian psychologist, Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society and a research professor at the University of Western Australia's School of Indigenous Studies. Her area of research includes Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing and suicide prevention. She is actively involved with the Aboriginal community, having an ongoing commitment to social justice for Indigenous people. Dudgeon has participated in numerous state and national committees, councils, task groups and community service activities in both a v...
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Grace Fernald
1879 - 1950 (71 years)
Grace Maxwell Fernald was an educational psychologist and influential figure in early twentieth century literacy education. Fernald established "the first clinic for remedial instruction in 1921 at the University of California, Los Angeles". Tracing tactile learning tendencies back to Quintilian, Séguin, and Montessori, Fernald's kinesthetic spelling and reading method prompted struggling students to trace words. Years of research culminated in 1943 with her classic work, Remedial Techniques in Basic School Subjects. The popular kinesthetic method anchors modern instruction in the areas of special education and remedial reading.
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Kate Hevner Mueller
1898 - 1984 (86 years)
Kate Hevner Mueller was an American psychologist and educator who served as dean of women at Indiana University during 1938–1949. Biography Born Kate Lucile Hevner in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, she was the second daughter and middle child to a minister father and a schoolteacher mother. She attended Williamsport High School then matriculated in 1916 to Wilson College, where she majored in English with a minor in French. She graduated in 1920 with a Bachelor of Arts with honors. During her junior year she took a course in psychology, where she developed an interest in the subject.
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Maria Ovsiankina
1898 - 1993 (95 years)
Maria Arsenjevna Rickers-Ovsiankina was a Russian-German-American psychologist. She studied what is now known as the Ovsiankina effect, a variation of the Zeigarnik effect. Ovsiankina worked in a variety of psychology jobs, including working with schizophrenia patients. She wrote books about psychological testing.
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Helen L. Koch
1895 - 1977 (82 years)
Helen Lois Koch was an American developmental psychologist and a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Chicago. Koch developed nursery school teacher training programs during World War II and she researched the differences between sets of fraternal twins, identical twins and non-twin siblings.
Go to Profile#1328
Lillian Moller Gilbreth
1878 - 1972 (94 years)
Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time-and-motion studies. She was described in the 1940s as "a genius in the art of living." Gilbreth, one of the first female engineers to earn a Ph.D., is considered to be the first industrial/organizational psychologist. She and her husband, Frank Bunker Gilbreth, were efficiency experts who contributed to the study of industrial engineering, especially in the areas of motion study and human factors. Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their ...
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Gertrude Rand
1886 - 1970 (84 years)
Marie Gertrude Rand Ferree was an American research scientist who is known for her extensive body of work about color perception. Her work included "mapping the retina for its perceptional abilities", "developing new instruments and lamps for ophthalmologists", and "detection and measurement of color blindness". Rand, with LeGrand H. Hardy and M. Catherine Rittler, developed the HRR pseudoisochromatic color test.
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Anny Rosenberg Katan
1898 - 1992 (94 years)
Anny Rosenberg Katan was a child psychologist born in Vienna, Austria, who pioneered the use of psychoanalysis to treat emotionally disturbed youth. She had close personal ties to the Sigmund Freud family and was one of the first child analysts in the city of Vienna.
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Louise L. Sloan
1898 - 1982 (84 years)
Louise Littig Sloan was an American ophthalmologist and vision scientist. She is credited for being a pioneer of the sub-division of clinical vision research, contributing more than 100 scientific articles in which she either authored or co-authored. Her most notable work was in the area of visual acuity testing where she developed and improved equipment. Sloan received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College in experimental psychology. She spent a short period of time in both Bryn Mawr's experimental psychology program as well as the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. The majori...
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Jeanne Block
1923 - 1981 (58 years)
Jeanne Lavonne Humphrey Block was an American psychologist and expert on child development. She conducted research into sex-role socialization and, with her husband Jack Block, created a person-centered personality framework. Block was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and conducted her research with the National Institute of Mental Health and the University of California, Berkeley. She was an active researcher when she was diagnosed with cancer in 1981.
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Katharine Banham
1897 - 1995 (98 years)
Katharine May Banham was an English psychologist who specialized in developmental psychology. She was the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal. Early life and education Katharine May Banham received a B.S. from the University of Manchester in 1919 and a M.S. from Cambridge University in 1921. In 1923, she earned a M.A. from the University of Toronto and graduated cum laude from the Université de Montréal in 1934, being the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. from that university.
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Louise Arseneault
Louise Arseneault is a Canadian psychologist and Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, where she has taught since 2001.
Go to Profile#1335
Ruth Wendell Washburn
1890 - 1975 (85 years)
Ruth Wendell Washburn was an American educational psychologist. She received a B.A. from Vassar in 1913, an M.A. from Radcliffe in 1922, and a Ph.D. degree from Yale University in 1929. The Ruth Washburn Cooperative Nursery School in Colorado Springs, Colorado is named in her honor.
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Åse Gruda Skard
1905 - 1985 (80 years)
Åse Gruda Skard was a Norwegian university professor, child psychologist and author. She was a noted pioneer in the field of childhood development and psychology. Biography She was born at Kristiania , Norway. She was the daughter of Halvdan Koht and Karen Elisabeth Grude . Her father was a noted historian and professor and the University of Oslo. Her mother was an educator, author and feminist pioneer. Her brother Paul Koht was a diplomat and ambassador.
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Nancy Bayley
1899 - 1994 (95 years)
Nancy Bayley was an American psychologist best known for her work on the Berkeley Growth Study and the subsequent Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Originally interested in teaching, she eventually gained interest in psychology, for which she went on to obtain her Ph.D. in from the University of Iowa in 1926. Within two years, Bayley had accepted a position at the Institute for Child Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. There she began the longitudinal Berkeley Growth Study, which worked to create a guide of physical and behavioral growth across development. Bayley also exam...
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Helga Eng
1875 - 1966 (91 years)
Helga Kristine Eng was a Norwegian psychologist and educationalist. She was the third woman to receive a doctor's degree in Norway, and the first to do so in psychology. Early life and education She was born in Rakkestad as a daughter of teacher and smallholder Hans Andersen Kirkeng and Johanne Marie Sæves . She had seven siblings. She graduated from Asker Seminary in 1895, and started a career as a primary school teacher. She started in Lier, continued in Moss from 1897 to 1900 when she was hired at Lakkegata School at Tøyen, Oslo.
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Elizabeth Blanchard
1834 - 1891 (57 years)
Elizabeth Blanchard was an American educator who was the seventh president of Mount Holyoke College . Blanchard graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1858, and taught there for twelve years before becoming the Associate Principal from 1872-1883. She served as Principal from 1883-1888. When Mount Holyoke Female Seminary received its collegiate charter and became Mount Holyoke College, she served as Acting President from 1888-1889.
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Barbara Rothbaum
1900 - Present (126 years)
Barbara Rothbaum is a psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a professor in the Psychiatry department and a pioneer in the treatment of anxiety-related disorders. Rothbaum is head of the Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program at Emory as well as the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program. In the mid-1990s she founded a virtual exposure therapy company called Virtually Better, Inc. This company treats patients with anxiety disorders, addictions, pain, and the like using virtual reality instead of the actual place or scenario. It also allows the therapist to control the environment.
Go to Profile#1341
Dana R. Carney
Dana R. Carney is an American psychologist. She is associate professor of business at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellow, an affiliate of the Department of Psychology and the director of the Institute of Personality and Social Research at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Florence Goodenough
1886 - 1959 (73 years)
Florence Laura Goodenough was an American psychologist and professor at the University of Minnesota who studied child intelligence and various problems in the field of child development. She was president of the Society for Research in Child Development from 1946-1947. She is best known for published book The Measurement of Intelligence, where she introduced the Goodenough Draw-A-Man test to assess intelligence in young children through nonverbal measurement. She is noted for developing the Minnesota Preschool Scale. In 1931 she published two notable books titled Experimental Child Study and Anger in Young Children which analyzed the methods used in evaluating children.
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Margaret Kennard
1899 - 1975 (76 years)
Margaret Alice Kennard was a neurologist who principally studied the effects of neurological damage on primates. Her work led to the creation of the Kennard Principle, which posits a negative linear relationship between age of a brain lesion and the outcome expectancy: in other words, that the earlier in life a brain lesion occurs, the more likely it is for some compensation mechanism to reverse at least some of the lesion's bad effects.
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Suzi Gage
Suzanne H. Gage is a British psychologist and epidemiologist who is interested in the nature of associations between lifestyle behaviours and mental health. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Liverpool and has a popular science podcast and accompanying book, Say Why to Drugs, which explores substance use.
Go to Profile#1345
Mary Cover Jones
1897 - 1987 (90 years)
Mary Cover Jones was an American developmental psychologist and a pioneer of behavior therapy, despite the field being heavily dominated by males throughout much of the 20th century. Joseph Wolpe dubbed her "the mother of behavior therapy" due to her famous study of Peter and development of desensitization.
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Alice Hamlin Hinman
1869 - 1934 (65 years)
Alice Hamlin Hinman was a psychologist who changed the public school education system from backwards to progressive from 1907 to 1919 through her influence and membership on the Lincoln Board of Education.
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Constance Davey
1882 - 1963 (81 years)
Constance Muriel Davey was an Australian psychologist who worked in the South Australian Department of Education, where she introduced the state's first special education classes. Biography Davey was born in 1882 in Nuriootpa, South Australia, to Emily Mary and Stephen Henry Davey. She began teaching at a Port Adelaide private school in 1908 and at St Peter's Collegiate Girls' School in 1909. She attended the University of Adelaide as a part-time student, completing a B.A. in philosophy in 1915 and an M.A. in 1918. In 1921 she won a Catherine Helen Spence Memorial Scholarship which allowed ...
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Josephine Tilden
1869 - 1957 (88 years)
Josephine Elizabeth Tilden was an American expert on pacific algae. She was the first woman scientist employed by the University of Minnesota. Tilden established a research station in British Columbia which lasted only until 1906. When Tilden became an assistant Professor in 1903, she was the first female scientist employed by the University of Minnesota. In 1910, despite not having a doctorate, Tilden was promoted to full professor.
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Mary Dorothy Lyndon
1877 - 1924 (47 years)
Mary Dorothy Lyndon was the first female graduate from the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. Early life and education Lyndon was born in 1877 in Newnan, Georgia. She graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia in 1896 as its first Dramatic Arts degree holder. She continued her education in Dramatic Arts and History at Columbia University in New York City before beginning her studies at the University of Georgia during Summer school sessions.
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Grete L. Bibring
1899 - 1977 (78 years)
Grete Lehner Bibring was an Austrian-American psychoanalyst who became the first female full professor at Harvard Medical School in 1961. Life Life in Vienna Grete Bibring was born as Margarethe Lehner on January 11, 1899, in Vienna, Austria. She was the youngest child of factory owner Moriz Lehner and his wife Victoria Josefine Lehner, née Stengel. Her siblings were two older brothers, Ernst and Fritz, and a sister, Rosi. Her upbringing was amongst a wealthy Jewish family that often hosted dinner parties and imparted to her an appreciation for music, science, and art. She attended Akademisches Gymnasium until 1918, when she graduated.
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