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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Psychology,
#2151
Brian D'Onofrio
#78661
Overall Influence
Brian M. D'Onofrio is an American psychologist who researches the causes of psychopathology in children and adolescents. Much of his work is influenced by the field of behavior genetics. He is a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, where he is also Director of Clinical Training in the Clinical Science Program and Principal Investigator of the Developmental Psychopathology Lab. His research on the relationship between paternal age and children's risk of mental illness has been widely covered in the media. In 2013, he received the Spence Award for Transformational Early Career Contribution from the Association for Psychological Science .
Go to Profile#2152
Robert Allen Karasek
#109374
Overall Influence
#2153
Leonard Carmichael
#109416
Overall Influence
#2154
Arthur J. Jr. Prange
#109446
Overall Influence
#2155
Allison G. Harvey
#109453
Overall Influence
#2156
Nancy K. Mello
#109457
Overall Influence
#2157
Lynn R. Kahle
#77606
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Lynn R Kahle is an American consumer psychologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon's Lundquist College of Business. From 2018 to 2020 he taught at the Lubin School of Business, Pace University in New York as a visiting scholar and professor.
Go to Profile#2158
Mare Teichmann
#70532
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Mare Teichmann is an Estonian psychologist and academic. Biography Mare Teichmann was born 1 March 1954, in Tallinn. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the Behterev Institute Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg. Mare Teichmann is Professor of Psychology, and founder of Chair of Psychology ; founder and director of Institute of Industrial Psychology at Tallinn University of Technology . She is a member of many boards and councils, especially in the academic self-administration of her specialty in Work and Organizational Psychology; her current positions include but are not limited to: membership...
Go to Profile#2159
Ram Frost
#96428
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Ram Frost is a professor of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with affiliations to Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, US, and The Basque Center for Cognition Brain and Language in San Sebastian, Spain. He is a world leading expert on cross-linguistic differences in reading. His research on reading in Hebrew has changed the prevalent anglocentric theoretical perspectives of reading research, and has changed the educational system of Israel and its methods of teaching reading.
Go to Profile#2160
Ray Bull
#93724
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Ray Bull is a British psychologist and emeritus professor of forensic psychology at the University of Leicester. He is also a visiting professor at the University of Portsmouth and a part-time professor of criminal investigation at the University of Derby. Since 2014, he has been the president of the European Association of Psychology and Law.
Go to Profile#2161
Toni Falbo
#74307
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Toni Falbo is a social psychologist known for her research on power dynamics in relationships, sibling status, and development of only children. She is a professor of Educational Psychology and Faculty Research Affiliate of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.
Go to Profile#2162
Barbara A. Cornblatt
#69231
Overall Influence
Barbara A. Cornblatt is Professor of Psychiatry and Molecular Medicine at Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine. She is known for her research on serious mental disorders, with a specific focus on psychosis and schizophrenia. Her efforts to find treatments to help youth with mental illness led to the development of the Recognition and Prevention Program, which she founded in 1998.
Go to Profile#2163
Roberto Colom
#74775
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Roberto Colom is a Spanish differential psychologist and intelligence researcher. Colom is Professor of Differential Psychology in the Department of Biological and Health Psychology at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1989.
Go to Profile#2164
Lewis R. Jr. Aiken
#109644
Overall Influence
#2165
Klaus Kubinger
#91295
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Klaus D. Kubinger , is a psychologist as well as a statistician, professor for psychological assessment at the University of Vienna, Faculty of Psychology. His main research work focuses on fundamental research of assessment processes and on application and advancement of Item response theory models . He is also known as a textbook author of psychological assessment on the one hand and on statistics on the other hand.
Go to Profile#2166
Thomas Donald Borkovec
#109758
Overall Influence
#2167
Patricia Carpenter
#92900
Overall Influence
Patricia A. Carpenter is a psychologist who, as of 1997, held the Lee and Marge Gregg Professorship of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Carpenter has studied individual variability in working memory, comprehension rates in speed reading, and how brain function during complex cognitive tasks appears in functional magnetic resonance imaging. With Marcel Just, she coauthored The Psychology of Reading and Language Comprehension .
Go to Profile#2168
William H. Warren
#58907
Overall Influence
William H. Warren Jr. is an American psychologist who is currently the Chancellor's Professor at Brown University, focusing on perception and action, visual control of locomotion, and spatial navigation.
Go to Profile#2169
Jacques Lacan Lacan
#109891
Overall Influence
#2170
Heinz Kohut
#109894
Overall Influence
#2171
Bruno Rossion
#109902
Overall Influence
#2172
David LaBerge
#63263
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
David LaBerge is a neuropsychologist specializing in the attention process and the role of apical dendrites in cognition and consciousness. Early life and education David LaBerge was born in St. Louis, Missouri and received his undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster, his MA degree from Claremont University and his PhD degree Stanford University.
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Serena Chen
#100047
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Serena Chen is an American social psychologist known for her work on the self and interpersonal relationships. She is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and currently serves as Chair of the Psychology Department. Her research utilizes a social-cognition framework and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other news outlets.
Go to Profile#2174
Ryuta Kawashima
#20483
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Ryuta Kawashima is a Japanese neuroscientist known for his appearances in the Brain Age series of video games for the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo Switch. Biography Kawashima was born May 23, 1959, in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. In the 1970s, he enrolled in Tohoku University. After graduating with an M.D. at the school of medicine, he emigrated to Sweden to become a guest researcher at the Karolinska Institute. He moved back to Tohoku and is now a resident Professor with tenure. He is famous in Japan and is a former member of Japan's National Council, concerning Language and...
Go to Profile#2175
Pauleen Bennett
#48466
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Pauleen Charmayne Bennett is an Australian scientist researching anthrozoology at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia. Bennett's research in the field of human-animal interactions has informed government policy and covered areas of: human attitudes, health and behaviour; ethics of animals in society; animal behaviour, physiology and welfare. Her research interest lies in understanding the diverse psychological connections between humans and animals, particularly companion animals, positive psychology, and in the use of animals in human health therapies.
Go to Profile#2176
Marc Brysbaert
#110107
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
#2177
Bloeme Evers-Emden
#35398
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Bloeme Evers-Emden was a Dutch lecturer and child psychologist who extensively researched the phenomenon of "hidden children" during World War II and wrote four books on the subject in the 1990s. Her interest in the topic grew out of her own experiences during World War II, when she was forced to go into hiding from the Nazis and was subsequently arrested and deported to Auschwitz on the last transport leaving the Westerbork transit camp on 3 September 1944. Together with her on the train were Anne Frank and her family, whom she had known in Amsterdam. She was liberated on 8 May 1945.
Go to Profile#2178
Ezio Giacobini
#110138
Overall Influence
#2179
Lars Vedel Kessing
#110189
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#2180
Donald C. Hood
#104935
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Donald Charles Hood is the James F. Bender Professor in Psychology and Professor of Ophthalmic Science in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University. He is a former editor-in-chief of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.
Go to Profile#2181
Clara E. Hill
#110353
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Clara E. Hill is an American professor of psychology specializing in counseling psychology, dreamwork, and psychotherapy research. She has served as a faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park since 1974. Hill was the 1995 president of the Society for Psychotherapy Research and editor of the Journal of Counseling Psychology from 1994 to 1999.
Go to Profile#2182
Marianne Schmid Mast
#82461
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Marianne Schmid Mast is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Biography Marianne Schmid Mast was born in Olten and did her primary school in Däniken, Solothurn. When she was 10, her family moved to Oberkulm and she went to Bezirksschule Unterkulm and then to Handelsschule in Aarau. After receiving her business diploma, she completed her Matura in economics at the École Supérieure de Commerce in Neuchâtel. She worked for a computer company for a year, and later on she spent half a year traveling in Brazil.
Go to Profile#2183
Marcel Just
#26000
Overall Influence
Marcel Just is D. O. Hebb Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. His research uses brain imaging in high-level cognitive tasks to study the neuroarchitecture of cognition. Just's areas of expertise include psycholinguistics, object recognition, and autism, with particular attention to cognitive and neural substrates. Just directs the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging and is a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at CMU.
Go to Profile#2184
Damian Milton
#33340
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Damian Elgin Maclean Milton is a British sociologist and social psychologist who specialises in autism research and an autism rights advocate. He is a lecturer at the University of Kent as well as a consultant for the United Kingdom's National Autistic Society and has academic qualifications in sociology, psychology, philosophy, and education.
Go to Profile#2185
Dirk Helmut Hellhammer
#110495
Overall Influence
#2186
Judith Kleinfeld
#46096
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Judith Smilg Kleinfeld is a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and co-chairs the Northern Studies department. A controversial academician, her most well known works are the ones criticizing studies on alleged discrimination in educational settings. Her The Myth That Schools Shortchange Girls analyzed the American Association of University Women's report How Schools Shortchange Girls. Kleinfeld's analysis was first publicized at the Women's Freedom Network, received national attention and was covered by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Go to Profile#2187
Frank M. Gresham
#110562
Overall Influence
#2188
Neal Schmitt
#109769
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Neal William Schmitt is an American psychologist specializing in personnel psychology and industrial and organizational psychology. He is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University, where he previously served as interim dean of the College of Social Science. He is a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Applied Psychology.
Go to Profile#2189
Michela Gallagher
#105003
Overall Influence
Michela Gallagher is an American cognitive psychologist and neuroscientist. She is the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University. Her scientific work has changed the model of neurocognitive aging, and developed new indices for its study. Previously, work had focused on neurodegeneration as a primary cause of memory loss.
Go to Profile#2190
Elizabeth A. Phelps
#62843
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Elizabeth Anya Phelps is the Pershing Square Professor of Human Neuroscience at Harvard University in the Department of Psychology. She is a cognitive neuroscientist known for her research at the intersection of memory, learning, and emotion. She was the recipient of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society Distinguished Scholar Award and the 21st Century Scientist Award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation, as well as other honors and awards in her field. Phelps was honored with the 2018 Thomas William Salmon Lecture and Medal in Psychiatry at the New York Academy of Medicine. She r...
Go to Profile#2191
Lynn Okagaki
#62860
Overall Influence
Lynn Okagaki is deputy provost for academic affairs at the University of Delaware. She was appointed to this position in January 2016, after serving as interim since July 2015. As chief advisor to the Provost and a member of the senior leadership team for the University of Delaware, Okagaki oversees a number of academic and administrative units. Her major responsibilities include academic program planning and review, working with the Faculty Senate and deans to establish and review academic programs, working with the colleges in the design and delivery of general education, and overseeing the ...
Go to Profile#2192
Charles G. Gross
#110685
Overall Influence
#2193
Gene H Brody
#110692
Overall Influence
#2194
Lawrence E. Marks
#110728
Overall Influence
#2195
Priscilla K. Coleman
#53914
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Priscilla Kari Coleman is a retired Professor of Human Development and Family Studies in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences at Bowling Green State University, Ohio. She is the author of a number of disputed academic papers, which claim to have found a statistical correlation or causal relationship between abortion and mental health problems.
Go to Profile#2196
Sotaro Kita
#102418
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
is a professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Warwick. Kita's work focuses on the psycholinguistic properties of gestures accompanying speech, relations between spatial language and cognition, language development, and sound symbolism.
Go to Profile#2197
Diana Reiss
#59204
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Diana Reiss is a professor of psychology at Hunter College and in the graduate program of Animal Behavior and Comparative Psychology at the City University of New York. Reiss's research has focused on understanding cognition and communication in dolphins and other cetaceans. Her important contributions include demonstrating mirror self-awareness in dolphins via the Mirror test.
Go to Profile#2198
William Winchell Damon
#111023
Overall Influence
#2199
James Mintz
#111130
Overall Influence
#2200
Glayde Whitney
#31139
Overall Influence
1939 - 2002 (63 years)
Glayde D. Whitney was an American behavioral geneticist and psychologist. He was professor at Florida State University. Beyond his work into the genetics of sensory system function in mice, in his later life he supported David Duke as well as research into race and intelligence and eugenics.
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