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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Psychology,

#1751

Lisa M. Diamond

#56601

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Lisa M. Diamond is an American psychologist and feminist. She is a professor of developmental psychology, health psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on sexual orientation development, sexual identity, and bonding.

#1752

Paul L. Harris

#77876

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Paul L. Harris is a British psychologist and academic specialising in child development. He is a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Education Harris earned a B.A. in Psychology from Sussex University and a D. Phil. in Psychology and Experimental Psychology from St John's College, Oxford.

#1753

Corinne McLaughlin

#37554

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Corinne McLaughlin was an American author and educator. She was executive director of The Center for Visionary Leadership and a Fellow of The World Business Academy and the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland. McLaughlin and her partner Gordon Davidson founded Sirius, an ecological village in Massachusetts. She coordinated a national task force for President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development and has taught politics at American University. McLaughlin has lectured in the U.S., Europe and South America. She is co-author of The Practical Visionary: A New World Guide to Spiritual Growth and...

#1754

Samuel D. Gosling

#63189

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Samuel David Gosling is a personality and social psychologist with interests in social perception, cross-species, and trends in the history of psychology. His work in social perception examines how people form impressions on others through their behavior, appearance, and physical environment, while his work with cross-species examines how animals can lead to theories of personality and social psychology. For instance, he studied individual differences in personality and social behaviors, and how personality traits are portrayed and described in a number of different species including humans, hyenas, dogs, and cats.

#1755

Sam Glucksberg

#76811

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Sam Glucksberg was a Canadian professor in the Psychology Department at Princeton University in New Jersey, known for his works on figurative language: metaphors, irony, sarcasm, and idioms. He is particularly known for manipulating the Candle Problem experiment which had participants figure out the best way to erect a candle on a wall. Along with performing experiments, Glucksberg has also written Understanding Figurative Language: From Metaphors to Idioms, published by Oxford University Press in 2001.

#1756

Marika Tiggemann

#95668

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

#1757

Geoffrey Miller

#56842

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Geoffrey Franklin Miller is an American evolutionary psychologist, author, and associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico. He is known for his research on sexual selection in human evolution.

#1758

Megan Gunnar

#62592

Overall Influence

Megan R. Gunnar is an American child psychologist, currently Regents Professor and McKnight University Professor at University of Minnesota and an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. In 2021, she will receive the James McKeen Cattell Lifetime Achievement Award for Applied Research from the Association for Psychological Science . She is the main investigator for the International Adoption Project. She was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2022. She was awarded the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award in 2021.

#1759

Steve Penrod

#47256

Overall Influence

Steve Penrod is a distinguished professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. His education and career have led him to become an expert in the areas of psychology and law. He has contributed heavily to the field of psychology in the area of eyewitness memory, specifically the accuracy of eyewitness identification.

#1760

Erik Hollnagel

#95726

Overall Influence

#1761

Aaron Antonovsky

#95727

Overall Influence

#1762

Mark John Millan

#95759

Overall Influence

#1763

Jennifer Richeson

Jennifer Richeson

#24948

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Jennifer A. Richeson is an American social psychologist who studies racial identity and interracial interactions. She is currently the Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology at Yale University where she heads the Social Perception and Communication Lab. Prior to her appointment to the Yale faculty, Richeson was Professor of Psychology and African-American studies at Northwestern University. In 2015, she was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences. Richeson was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022. Since 2021, she has been a member of the President’s Counc...

#1764

W. Keith Campbell

#34667

Overall Influence

William Keith Campbell is an American social psychologist known for his research on narcissism. He is a professor in the Department of Psychology in the University of Georgia's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. He completed his BA at University of California, Berkeley, MA from University of California, San Diego, PhD at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and a number of books, including The Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Theoretical Approaches, Empirical Findings, and Treatments and The Narcissism Epi...

#1765

Bruce McNaughton

#63958

Overall Influence

Peter Bruce L. McNaughton is a Canadian neuroscientist and Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Irvine , as well as a Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Polaris Brain Dynamics research group at The Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience. He joined the faculty of UC Irvine in 2014, after having taught at the University of Lethbridge for six years. He had moved his lab from the University of Arizona to the University of Lethbridge in 2008 after winning the Polaris Award from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2016.

#1766

Michael Tanenhaus

Michael Tanenhaus

#74259

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Michael Tanenhaus is an American psycholinguist, author, and lecturer. He is the Beverly Petterson Bishop and Charles W. Bishop Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Linguistics at the University of Rochester. From 1996 to 2000 and 2003–2009 he served as Director of the Center for Language Sciences at the University of Rochester.

#1767

Kerry Chamberlain

#21623

Overall Influence

Kerry Chamberlain is a Professor of Social and Health Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand. He is a critical health psychologist who has been prominent internationally in promoting qualitative research within health psychology. His main research interests include health in everyday life and understanding of disadvantage.

#1768

Harold C. Lyon Jr.

#57614

Overall Influence

1935 - 2019 (84 years)

Harold C. Lyon Jr. was an American Guest Professor of Medical Education at the University of Munich, Germany where he did research and taught physicians to be more effective teachers. He is known for his work as an educator and psychologist with focus on person-centered teaching and therapy. He was an author, educator, psychologist, and outdoor writer. He was the author of 7 books and 150 articles on subjects including military strategy, leadership, education, multimedia, psychology, research, hunting, and fishing. He was a featured speaker about his outdoor books and articles at sport, fishing and hunting shows in New England and in Germany.

#1769

Chin‐chung Tsai

#95965

Overall Influence

#1770

David Thissen

#73341

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

David Michael Thissen is an emeritus professor of quantitative psychology at the University of North Carolina and former President of the Psychometric Society. He is a fellow at the American Statistical Association and the American Psychological Society. He is known for his contributions to item response theory.

#1771

Gene D. Block

#27282

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Gene David Block is an American biologist who has served as the current and 6th chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles since August 2007. Block has served as provost and professor of biology at the University of Virginia. While at the University of Virginia, Block interacted with Randy Pausch and is mentioned in his memoir, The Last Lecture.

#1772

Karen Adolph

#84441

Overall Influence

Karen E. Adolph is a psychologist and professor known for her research in the field of infant motor development. She is the 2017 recipient of the Kurt-Koffka medal from the University of Giessen. Previous honors include the 1999 APA Boyd McCandless Award and 2002 American Psychological Foundation Robert L. Fantz Memorial Award. She has served as the President of the International Congress on Infant Studies. Adolph and her colleagues developed computerized video coding software, called Datavyu, and state-of-the-art recording technology to observe and code behavior. A related project, Databrary...

#1773

Deborah Stipek

#74262

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Deborah Stipek is the Judy Koch Professor of Education at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education and a professor by courtesy of psychology. She also serves as the Peter E. Haas Faculty Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford. From 2001 to 2012 and then again from 2014 to 2015 she served as the I James Quillen Dean of the GSE at Stanford. Prior to Stanford she was a faculty member at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Education, where she served for 10 of her 23 years as the director of the Corinne Seeds University Elementary School and the Urban Education Studies Center.

#1774

Ludy T. Benjamin

#78966

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Ludy T. Benjamin Jr. is an American psychologist and historian of psychology. He retired from Texas A&M University in 2012. He is a charter member of the Association for Psychological Science and a former director of the Office of Educational Affairs at the American Psychological Association . He was president of two APA divisions, wrote more than 20 books and authored more than 150 journal articles and book chapters.

#1775

Linda Carter Sobell

#96341

Overall Influence

#1776

Kerry Jang

#52682

Overall Influence

Kerry Jang is a Canadian politician. He previously served as councillor on Vancouver, British Columbia's City Council between 2008 and 2018. From 2013, he also represented the city of Vancouver on the Greater Vancouver Regional District Board as a director.

#1777

Benjamin A. Schneider

#96418

Overall Influence

#1778

Keith Stenning

#25943

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Keith Stenning is a cognitive scientist and Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, UK. He attended High Wycombe Royal Grammar School from 1959 to 1965, where he won an Open Scholarship in Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Oxford.

#1779

Golan Shahar

#87879

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Golan Shahar is an Israeli clinical health psychologist and an interdisciplinary stress/psychopathology researcher. Biography and career Shahar was born and raised in Rishon Le-Zion, Israel. He received all his academic degrees at Ben-Gurion University : a B.A. in behavioral sciences, an M.A. in clinical psychology, and a Ph.D. in psychological research. He has received advanced statistical training at the University of Essex, UK, and at the Universities of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Yale, US. He was clinically trained at the Shalvata Mental Health Center in Hod-Hasharon, Israel and the Y...

#1780

Hymie Anisman,

#96645

Overall Influence

#1781

Johnmarshall Reeve

#94117

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Johnmarshall Reeve is an American psychologist whose research focuses on educational psychology and human motivation. He is a professor in the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education at Australian Catholic University and a former editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Motivation and Emotion.

#1782

Jeffrey Halperin

#88539

Overall Influence

Jeffery Halperin is a psychology professor at Queens College, City University of New York and a neuropsychology doctoral faculty member at the CUNY Graduate Center since 1989. History Halperin graduated with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of New York in 1979. In 1980, Halperin completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychopharmacology at the Schering-Plough pharmaceutical corporation. Following graduation he worked as a research associate at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. In 1984, he pursued a job at the department of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. There he served as director of child psychology from 1984 to 1989.

#1783

Timothy Bates

#86900

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Timothy C. Bates is a professor of differential psychology at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include the genetics of reading and spelling, intelligence, and personality. Biography He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Intelligence. His PhD was completed in 1994 at the University of Auckland and integrated the Eysenckian dimensional model of psychosis with the categorical model of schizotypy proposed by Paul E. Meehl, using measures of personality, creativity, evoked potentials, and smooth pursuit eye movement dysfunction. The title of his doctoral thesis w...

#1784

Jerry S. Wiggins

#88928

Overall Influence

1931 - 2006 (75 years)

Jerry S. Wiggins was an American personality and clinical psychologist known for developing scales to assess the traits in the circumplex model, writing and editing texts on personality theory and psychometrics and for developing measures of interpersonal behavior.

#1785

David P. Barash

#41818

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

David P. Barash is professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. He has written, edited or co-authored 40 books, including ones on human aggression, peace studies, and the sexual behavior of animals and people. He received his bachelor's degree in biology from Harpur College, Binghamton University, and a Ph.D. in zoology from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1970. He taught at the State University of New York at Oneonta and then accepted a permanent position at the University of Washington.

#1786

Boaz Keysar

#65631

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Boaz Keysar is the Chair of the Cognition Program at the University of Chicago, and broadly researches communication, negotiation, and decision making. Biography Keysar was born in Israel, and received a bachelor's degree in Psychology and Philosophy from the Hebrew University in 1984. Keysar later earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from Princeton University in 1989 after moving to the United States, working under Sam Glucksberg. In 1991, after working as a post-doctoral scholar at Stanford University, Keysar joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as an Assistant Professor of Psychology, and was later granted tenure in 1995 and promoted to full professor in 2002.

#1787

Edward B. Blanchard

#97038

Overall Influence

#1788

Kristopher J. Preacher

#97049

Overall Influence

#1789

Clancy Blair

#42354

Overall Influence

Clarence Bissell Blair Jr. is an American developmental psychologist and Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. He previously taught at Pennsylvania State University for ten years. He is known for his research on the development of emotional self-regulation in children.

#1790

Bernard Claverie

Bernard Claverie

#43951

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Bernard Claverie is a French cognitive scientist. He is full professor at the Polytechnical Institute of Bordeaux. In 2003 he founded the Institut de Cognitique and directed it for six years. In 2009 he founded the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Cognitique ENSC, a French national engineering school and research center in applied cognitive sciences and cognitive technology.

#1791

Douglas (tim) Hall

#97075

Overall Influence

#1792

Sharon K. Parker

#75092

Overall Influence

Sharon Kaye Parker is an Australian academic and John Curtin Distinguished Professor in organisational behaviour at Curtin University. Parker is best known for her research in the field of work design, as well as other topics such as proactivity, mental health and job performance. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology, and in 2016 received the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship. Parker's research has been cited over 28,000 times internationally and she has been recognised as one...

#1793

Stephen Mitchell

#35026

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Stephen Mitchell is a poet, translator, scholar, and anthologist. He is best known for his translations and adaptions of works including the Tao Te Ching, the Epic of Gilgamesh, works of Rainer Maria Rilke, and Christian texts.

#1794

Gerd Bohner

#72784

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Gerd W. Bohner is a professor of social psychology, experimental psychology and gender studies at Bielefeld University. Academia After graduating from the Goethe Gymnasium Karlsruhe in 1978 and doing his civilian service in a day-care centre for disabled children from 1978 to 1980, Bohner studied psychology at the University of Heidelberg from 1980 to 1986, when he obtained his diploma, and was awarded his PhD in 1990. In 1997 he habilitated at the University of Mannheim, holding a temporary professorship in group sociology and social psychology afterwards. The following year, Bohner held a temporary chair in general and social psychology at the University of Würzburg.

#1795

Thomas Zentall

#82150

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Thomas R. Zentall is a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky. His research focusses on learning and memory in non-human animals. A former president of both the Midwestern Psychological Association and the Eastern Psychological Association, Zentall has over 300 publications in peer reviewed journals. In 2014 Zentall was honoured by the Comparative Cognition Society for his contributions to the study of animal cognition.

#1796

Lauren B Alloy

#97254

Overall Influence

#1797

Mark S. Gold

#63790

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Mark S. Gold is an American physician, professor, author, and researcher on the effects of opioids, cocaine, tobacco, and other drugs as well as food on the brain and behavior. He is married to Janice Finn Gold.

#1798

Antonio Puente

#78135

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Antonio E. Puente is an American neuropsychologist and academic. He was the president of the American Psychological Association in 2017. He has a private practice, is the founding director of a bilingual mental health clinic, and is on the psychology faculty at the University of North Carolina Wilmington . He founded the journal Neuropsychology Review.

#1799

Bruce Charlton

#16590

Overall Influence

Bruce Graham Charlton is a retired British medical doctor who was Visiting Professor of Theoretical Medicine at the University of Buckingham. Until April 2019, he was Reader in Evolutionary Psychiatry at Newcastle University. Charlton was editor of the controversial and not-conventionally-peer reviewed journal Medical Hypotheses from 2003 to 2010.

#1800

Wilse B. Webb

#70098

Overall Influence

1920 - 2018 (98 years)

Wilse B. Webb familiarly known as Bernie Webb, was an American psychologist and sleep researcher, long associated with the University of Florida. Early life and education Wilse B. Webb was born in October, 1920 in Yazoo City, Mississippi. He graduated from Louisiana State University. When WWII broke out, he was in graduate school at the University of Iowa, where he studied under Kurt Lewin and Carl Seashore. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, he left school to become a psychologist in the Army Air Force. While studying combat pilot efficiency, he flew in strike missions against Japan and China. He r...

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions