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 people in Psychology,

#2001

Gloria Careaga Pérez

#34169

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Gloria Angélica Careaga Pérez is a Mexican social psychologist and feminist. She has taught at the Faculty of Psychology in the National Autonomous University of Mexico since 1979. She is co-founder of Mexican organization El Closet de Sor Juana and former co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

#2002

Josef Perner

#104706

Overall Influence

#2003

David J. Weiss

#104716

Overall Influence

#2004

Ezequiel Di Paolo

#60159

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Ezequiel A Di Paolo is a full-time Research Professor at Ikerbasque, the Basque Foundation for Science. He also has affiliations with the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex. His field of research covers enactivism and embodiment in cognitive science.

#2005

Reginald L. Jones

#74046

Overall Influence

1931 - 2005 (74 years)

Reginald Lanier Jones was a clinical psychologist, college professor, and a founding member and past president of the Association of Black Psychologists. He is best known for his work in special education and the psychology of African Americans.

#2006

Joseph M. Horn

#48571

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Joseph M. Horn is an American psychologist and geneticist known for his work on adoption studies. Biography Horn earned his Bachelor of Science degree at Oklahoma State University in 1963 and his Master of Arts at the University of Minnesota in 1967. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1969. Horn taught at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include intelligence and personality and their development, individual differences more generally, and vocational behavior. His research using behavior genetics is perhaps most influential.

#2007

Li Xintian

#57929

Overall Influence

1924 - 2019 (95 years)

Li Xintian was a Chinese psychologist. He was considered a founder of medical psychology and neuropsychology in China. He served as chair of medical psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and as an adjunct professor at Peking Union Medical College, China Medical University, and Peking University Health Science Center.

#2008

James Bettman

#57428

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

James R. Bettman is an American academic who is the Burlington Industries Professor of Business Administration at Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. He is known for his work on consumer behavior and decision making. He is a Fellow of the American Marketing Association, American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the Association for Consumer Research.

#2009

David Charles Burr

#104904

Overall Influence

#2010

Jellemer Jolles

#105046

Overall Influence

#2011

Amnon Rapoport

#91833

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Amnon Rapoport was an Israeli-born quantitative psychologist who was the Eller Professor Emeritus of Management and Organizations at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. His research focused on experimental studies of interactive decision-making behavior. He died on December 6, 2022 after more than six decades of academic teaching, research, and service.

#2012

Donald R. Lynam

#105162

Overall Influence

#2013

Keith James Topping

Keith James Topping

#85320

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Keith James Topping is a researcher in education. He designs intervention programs for teachers, parents and others to help children, then researches whether and how they work. The public impact of his research work has been reported over the last 35 years in national and international newspapers and on radio, television and in news media online.

#2014

Peter Hajek

#88517

Overall Influence

Peter Hajek is a British psychologist. He is professor of clinical psychology and director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine's Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at Queen Mary University of London. He is known for his research into smoking cessation, including the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes for this purpose.

#2015

Russell Church

#101941

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Russell M. Church was an American psychologist, who was the Edgar L. Marston professor of psychology at Brown University, having formerly served as the Charles Pitts Robinson and John Palmer Barstow Professor from 1993 to 1999.

#2016

Con Stough

#87721

Overall Influence

Con Stough is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, director of the Swinburne Centre for Neuropsychology and director of the newly formed National Institute of Complementary Medicine Collaborative Centre for the study of herbal and natural medicines for neurocognition.

#2017

Patrick Cavanagh

#105288

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

#2018

Núria Sebastián Gallés

#97511

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (123 years)

Núria Sebastián Gallés is a cognitive scientist known for her work on bilingual language development and the impact of bilingualism on cognition. She is Professor of Psychology at Pompeu Fabra University where she heads the Speech Acquisition and Perception Research Group. In 2012, Sebastián Gallés received the Narcis Monturiol Medal as recognition of her scientific contributions. She was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2016.

#2019

James Gooch

#79604

Overall Influence

1934 - 2020 (86 years)

James Gooch was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst influential in promoting the ideas of Melanie Klein, Wilfred Bion , and the British Object Relations theorists in Southern California in the 1980s and 1990s. He was chair of the Department of Psychoanalysis at the California Graduate Institute, an independent professional school for psychologists, and during 1984-1990 he was founding president of the Psychoanalytic Center of California , a Kleinian-oriented psychoanalytic institute in Los Angeles. He was also a founding member of The Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societi...

#2020

Noel James Entwistle

#105344

Overall Influence

#2021

Bennet Murdock

#94321

Overall Influence

1925 - 2022 (97 years)

Bennet Bronson Murdock Jr. was an American psychologist known for his research on human memory, especially his pioneering research into short-term memory. Education Murdock received his undergraduate degree and Ph.D. from Yale University, receiving the latter degree in 1951. While at Yale, he had contact with Clark L. Hull.

#2022

Richard M. Ryckman

Richard M. Ryckman

#94862

Overall Influence

1937 - 2017 (80 years)

Richard M. Ryckman was an American psychologist and textbook author. He taught and conducted research in the areas of personality psychology, social psychology, and health psychology at the University of Maine from 1967 until his retirement in 1999.

#2023

Paul Verhaeghen

#67446

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Paul Verhaeghen is a Belgian novelist, writing in his native Dutch. His novels include Lichtenberg and Omega Minor . Omega Minor has been translated into German , English French , and Hungarian . The Dutch version won the Ferdinand Bordewijk Prijs in 2005 and the Culture Award of the Flemish Government , as well as the Award for Prose of the Joint Flemish Provinces . The English translation, done by the author himself, won the 2008 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.

#2024

Lyle F. Schoenfeldt

#61889

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Lyle Francis Schoenfeldt is an American business management professor best known for a standard textbook on human resources. Life and career Schoenfeldt earned his B.A. from Case Western Reserve University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University. He held a position at University of Georgia and was Director of Early Identification of Management Talent at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before joining Texas A&M University in 1981, where he was the Marie B. Oth Professor of Business. He remained there until 1996.

#2025

Susan Schneider

Susan Schneider

#44848

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Susan Lynn Schneider is an American philosopher and artificial intelligence expert. She is the founding director of the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University where she also holds the William F. Dietrich Distinguished Professorship. Schneider has also held the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology, Exploration, and Scientific Innovation at NASA and the Distinguished Scholar Chair at the Library of Congress.

#2026

Richard Malott

#71867

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Richard W. Malott is a professor emeritus of psychology at Western Michigan University and a member of the board of directors at the Judge Rotenberg Center. He is a former president of Association for Behavior Analysis International.

#2027

Lloyd G. Humphreys

#105486

Overall Influence

#2028

Tania Lombrozo

#88905

Overall Influence

Tania Lombrozo is an American psychologist who is the Arthur W. Marks Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. She oversees the Concepts and Cognition Laboratory, which looks to understand the science that underpins cognition.

#2029

Geert Crombez

#105519

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

#2030

Gordon L Flett

#105562

Overall Influence

#2031

Regina Becker-Schmidt

#79169

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Regina Becker-Schmidt is an emeritus professor at the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology at the Leibniz University Hannover. Her research focuses on corporate and subject theory, critical theory, psychoanalytically oriented social psychology and gender studies. She is considered a seminal figure in feminist critical theory.

#2032

Gary McClelland

#102610

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Gary H. McClelland is an American psychologist and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. His research interests focus on decision making, statistical methodologies, and economic psychology.

#2033

Maarten Vansteenkiste

#105716

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

#2034

Elizabeth Gould

#60150

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Elizabeth Gould is an American neuroscientist and the Dorman T. Warren Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. She was an early investigator of adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus, a research area that continues to be controversial. In November 2002, Discover magazine listed her as one of the 50 most important women scientists.

#2035

Karalyn Patterson

Karalyn Patterson

#72925

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Karalyn Eve Patterson, is a British psychologist in Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge and MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. She is a specialist in cognitive neuropsychologyand an Emeritus Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge.

#2036

Alain Berthoz

#105761

Overall Influence

#2037

Rainer K. Silbereisen

#83944

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Rainer K. Silbereisen is a German psychologist who serves as research professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Jena, where he is also Director of the Center for Applied Developmental Science. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science, as well as a member of Academia Europaea. He has served as president of the German Psychological Society, the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, and the International Union of Psychological Science. He has also served as editor-in-chief of the Internationa...

#2038

David Levy

#61357

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

David Levy is an American psychologist, professor, author, stage director, and actor. He is a professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Education and Psychology of Pepperdine University, near Malibu, California. He has co-authored a textbook on cross-cultural psychology and critical thinking, and has appeared on radio and television.

#2039

Bruno H. Repp

#105804

Overall Influence

#2040

Wolfgang Klimesch

#105840

Overall Influence

#2041

Julie D. Henry

#105854

Overall Influence

#2042

Sally Casswell

#98328

Overall Influence

Sally Casswell is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the Massey University. She is a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence and Alcohol Problems and is chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and an Officer of the Order of New Zealand.

#2043

Yael Niv

#80020

Overall Influence

Yael Niv is a neuroscientist who studies human and animal reinforcement learning and decision making. She is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University. Niv is known for her research contributions and for her visible advocacy work fighting against gender bias in neuroscience. Niv is founder of biaswatchneuro.com, a website that tracks statistics in an effort to combat sexism in science.

#2044

Lois Bloom

#85258

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Lois Masket Bloom is an American developmental psychologist and Edward Lee Thorndike Professor Emerita of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her pioneering research elucidated the roles of cognition, emotion, and social behavior in language acquisition.

#2045

Batja Mesquita

#99138

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Batja Mesquita is a Dutch social psychologist, a cultural psychologist and an affective scientist. She is a professor of psychology at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where she studies the role of culture in emotions, and of emotions in culture and society. She is director of the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology in Leuven.

#2046

Stephen R Marder

#106076

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

#2047

Eugenia Mandal

#48880

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Eugenia Mandal is a Polish social psychologist, holder of a postdoctoral degree in Psychology . She is currently a professor in the Department of Psychology at University of Silesia, Poland. A supervisor of the Department of Social and Environmental Psychology.

#2048

Thomas R. Lynch

#84606

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Thomas R. Lynch is an American psychologist, author, and treatment developer of radically open dialectical behavior therapy , a type of psychotherapy that targets disorders characterized by excessive self-control . He is an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Southampton in Southampton, United Kingdom.

#2049

Carol Nagy Jacklin

#90546

Overall Influence

1939 - 2011 (72 years)

Carol Nagy Jacklin was a developmental psychologist and gender scholar. She was the first woman to be dean of the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Southern California. She was a Women's Rights activist.

#2050

Norman Adler

#73593

Overall Influence

1941 - 2016 (75 years)

Norman Tenner Adler through his research, teaching, writing, and academic administration, made major contributions to the modern study of biological psychology and in American higher education, having helped develop the fields that are now labeled behavioral neurobiology and evolutionary psychology. One of Adler's prominent experiments included an in depth analysis of mating performance of male rats and its relation to fertilization in the female, which led him to observe how behaviour could affect reproduction in species. With his students and colleagues, he has worked at the interface between biology and behavior.

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