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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School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Psychology,

#2301

Suzanne Segerstrom

#77978

Overall Influence

Suzanne C. Segerstrom is a professor of Psychology and biostatistician at the University of Kentucky. She is known for her clinical research on optimism and pessimism in relation to health, stress, and general well-being.

#2302

Howard S. Hoffman

#71964

Overall Influence

1925 - 2006 (81 years)

Howard S. Hoffman was an American experimental psychologist. Hoffman's work on imprinting, the startle reflex, and memory were particularly influential and earned him an international reputation. He published hundreds of papers as well as a book about the experience of being a scientist, Amorous Turkeys and Addicted Ducklings: A Search for the Causes of Social Attachment.

#2303

Anne E. Kazak

#98822

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Anne E. Kazak is an American clinical psychologist, educator and editor. She has focused on pediatric psychology. Much of her research involves "interventions to enhance adaptive functioning and reduce child and family distress associated with serious pediatric illnesses."

#2304

Rolf Reber

#82068

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Rolf Reber is professor of psychology at the University of Oslo. Research Rolf Reber is known for his research on processing fluency, especially the processing fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure he developed together with Norbert Schwarz from the University of Michigan and Piotr Winkielman from the University of California at San Diego. The core assumption of the theory is that an audience draws aesthetic pleasure from the fact that an object can be processed easily, especially if a viewer remains unaware of the source of this processing ease.

#2305

Robert Williams

#57105

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Robert Lee Williams II was a professor emeritus of psychology and African and Afro-American studies at the Washington University in St. Louis and a prominent figure in the history of African-American Psychology. He founded the department of Black Studies at Washington University and served as its first director, developing a curriculum that would serve as a model throughout the country. Williams was well known as a stalwart critic of racial and cultural biases in IQ testing , coining the word "Ebonics" in 1973 and developing the Black Intelligence Test of Cultural Homogeneity. He published more than sixty professional articles and several books.

#2306

Abigail Marsh

#86475

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Abigail Marsh is a psychologist and neuroscientist who works as a professor at Georgetown University's Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program, where she is the director of the Laboratory on Social and Affective Neuroscience.

#2307

Stuart K. Card

#114997

Overall Influence

#2308

Brian R. Flay

#115048

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

#2309

Vimla L. Patel

#61853

Overall Influence

Vimla Lodhia Patel is a Fijian-born Canadian cognitive psychologist and biomedical informaticist. Patel has worked in the area of biomedical informatics, in particular studying the mediating roles of technology on performance. Her work includes studies of medical errors and error reduction in emergency care and other critical medical environments, . Her past work in health cognition includes studies of risk-taking behavior and sexual decision making as it pertains to HIV in youth and adolescents. Her current work focuses mostly on identifying underlying cognition in medical error and learning...

#2310

Gary W. Ladd

#115119

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Gary W. Ladd is the Cowden Distinguished Professor in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics and the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University. He is also the editor-in-chief of Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. He is known for his research on the prevalence and adverse effects of bullying on schoolchildren.

#2311

Nancy E. Betz

#115150

Overall Influence

#2312

Aletha C. Huston

#74635

Overall Influence

Aletha C. Huston is an American developmental psychologist and professor known for her research on the effects of poverty on children, on how child care and income support policies impact children's development, and for ground-breaking research on the impact of television and media usage on child development. Huston is the Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor Emeritus in Child Development at the University of Texas at Austin.

#2313

Jana Iverson

#100659

Overall Influence

Jana Marie Iverson is a developmental psychologist known for her research on the development of gestures and motor skills in relation to communicative development. She has worked with various populations including children at high risk of autism spectrum disorder , blind individuals, and preterm infants. She is currently a professor of psychology at Boston University.

#2314

Sabine Sonnentag

#115220

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

#2315

Catherine McBride

#95242

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Catherine Alexandra McBride, , was formerly the Choh-Ming Li Professor of Developmental Psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong specializing in the acquisition of early literacy skills. She is currently the Associate Dean for Research for the College of Health and Human Sciences at Purdue University and also a professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Science, and remains an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at CUHK. She received her BA in psychology from Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio. She received her MA in 1992 and PhD in 1994 from the University of Southern Cali...

#2316

Jonathan Flint

#108550

Overall Influence

Jonathan Flint is a British behavior geneticist and Professor in Residence in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is also a senior scientist in the Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

#2317

Bernard Cohen

#115249

Overall Influence

#2318

Nikos Ntoumanis

#115251

Overall Influence

#2319

Thema Bryant

#98699

Overall Influence

Thema S. Bryant, also known as Thema Bryant-Davis , is an American psychologist who is a professor of psychology at the Pepperdine University, where she directs the Culture and Trauma Research Laboratory. Her research considers interpersonal trauma and societal trauma of oppression. She was elected as the 2023 President of the American Psychological Association.

#2320

Thalia C. Eley

#59542

Overall Influence

Thalia Catherine Eley is a Professor of Developmental Behavioural Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry's MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King's College London. Her work focuses on the interplay between genetic and environmental factors on the development and treatment of anxiety and depression.

#2321

Moshe Bar

#34151

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Moshe Bar is an Israeli cognitive neuroscientist. He is a professor at Bar-Ilan University. He was previously head of the Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center at Bar-Ilan University and before that director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.

#2322

Jerrold Lee Shapiro

#101611

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Jerrold Lee Shapiro is an American clinical psychologist and professor in the Santa Clara University Counseling Psychology graduate program. He is a licensed clinical psychologist and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association.

#2323

Davida Teller

#89521

Overall Influence

1938 - 2011 (73 years)

Davida Young Teller was a professor in the Departments of Psychology and Physiology/Biophysics at the University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. She was a leader in the scientific study of infant visual development.

#2324

Martin Pinquart

#115346

Overall Influence

#2325

Gianni A. Sarcone

Gianni A. Sarcone

#80511

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Gianni A. Sarcone is a visual artist and author who collaborates with educational publications, writing articles and columns on topics related to art, science, and mathematics education. He has contributed to several science magazines, including Focus Junior , Query-CICAP , Rivista Magia , Alice & Bob / Bocconi University , Brain Games , and Tangente . Sarcone has over 30 years of experience as a designer and researcher in the areas of visual creativity, recreational mathematics and educational games.

#2326

Paul Dolan

#115462

Overall Influence

#2327

Jerome Sattler

#84413

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Jerome Murray Sattler is an American clinical psychologist who is Professor Emeritus and adjunct professor of psychology at San Diego State University. He is known for his work regarding intelligence testing in children, including his role in developing the fourth edition of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale in 1986, along with R. L. Thorndike and Elizabeth Hagan. He is also the author of the widely used school psychology textbook Assessment of Children. In 2022, he published Foundations of Behavioral, Social, and Clinical Assessment of Children, 7th edition.

#2328

Daniel G. Freedman

#81933

Overall Influence

1927 - 2008 (81 years)

Daniel G. Freedman was an American psychologist and Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago, who pioneered the use of biological and evolutionary viewpoints to understand differences of human behavior. His studies of behavioral differences in dogs and human infants were ground-breaking.

#2329

Toni Schmader

#60985

Overall Influence

Toni Schmader is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in social psychology at the University of British Columbia. Education Schmader earned a PhD in social psychology in 1999 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude Washington and Jefferson College.

#2330

Arnold J. Sameroff

#115678

Overall Influence

#2331

Jay S. Rosenblatt

Jay S. Rosenblatt

#107441

Overall Influence

1923 - 2014 (91 years)

Jay Seth Rosenblatt held the position of emeritus professor of psychology at Rutgers University-Newark. At the time of his retirement in 2005, he was the Daniel S. Lehrman Professor of Psychobiology. He was a scientist, psychotherapist and painter. His scientific research largely established the study of neonate learning and especially mother-offspring behavior throughout the maternal cycle. For the latter work, he was known in developmental psychobiology as the "father of mothering". He received several honors and awards during his career, including election to the American Association fo...

#2332

Yves Rosseel

#115737

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

#2333

Henk van der Flier

#85647

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Hendrik van der Flier is a Dutch psychologist, and Professor of Work and Organizational Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and at its Kurt Lewin Institute , known for his work on comparability of psychological test performances.

#2334

Robert Paul, Liberman

#115903

Overall Influence

#2335

Martin Reimann

#64957

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Martin Reimann is a psychologist and marketing researcher. He is an associate professor of marketing at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona. Research Reimann's research focuses on consumer psychology, especially the role of positive and negative affect in consumption, and is aimed at identifying an overarching framework for how consumers utilize emotional information to arrive at decisions. Specifically, he is interested in reward and reinforcement, food consumption, and relationship management. Reimann's research also deals with accuracy of survey responses and the tr...

#2336

Reed W. Larson

#115917

Overall Influence

#2337

Albert T. Corbett

#69091

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Albert T. Corbett is an associate research professor emeritus of human–computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. He is widely known for his role in the development of the Cognitive Tutor software, leading to one article with over 1,000 citations. Along with John Robert Anderson, he developed the Bayesian Knowledge Tracing algorithm, which is used in Cognitive Tutor software. This work has been particularly influential in the educational data mining community—over half of the EDM conference papers published in 2011 and 2012 cited Bayesian Knowledge-Tracing. Corbett studied psychology at Brown University, and obtained a doctorate in psychology from the University of Oregon.

#2338

Gordon Robert Foxall

#116143

Overall Influence

#2339

James H. Bray

#98061

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

James H. Bray is a clinical and family psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . Bray is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Psychology at University of Texas San Antonio . Previously he was an associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine . He is also Chairman of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Houston College of Medicine .

#2340

Marion Underwood

#47436

Overall Influence

Marion K. Underwood is an American psychologist and dean of Purdue University's College of Health and Human Sciences, a position she assumed on August 1, 2018. She is a researcher in social aggression and is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

#2341

Terry Cline

#25697

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Terry L. Cline is an American psychologist and public health policy specialist from Oklahoma. Cline resigned on October 30, 2017 from the Oklahoma State Department of Health. He has served in various positions under Governors of Oklahoma Frank Keating , Brad Henry , and Mary Fallin . Cline resigned his position after financial mismanagement was discovered within the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

#2342

Colleen Ward

#72600

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Professor Colleen Ward is an American-New Zealand cross-cultural psychologist. She is a professor of psychology and Founder of the Centre for Applied Cross-cultural Research at Victoria University of Wellington. She is a native of New Orleans.

#2343

Allen D. Seftel

#116437

Overall Influence

#2344

Reginald George Smart

#116511

Overall Influence

#2345

Steven Forness

#85027

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Steven Forness is a psychologist doing research in the field of emotional disorders in children. His main interest is the "early detection and eligibility of children with psychiatric disorders for special education services in public schools". He has earned many awards and is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles.

#2346

Anthony David

#36848

Overall Influence

Anthony David FMedSci is a British neuropsychiatrist based at University College London. Previously tenured as professor of cognitive neuropsychiatry and Vice Dean at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, since 2018 he has been Director, University College London, Institute of Mental Health. He is the father of Rebecca David, a Senior Campaign Manager at Influencer LTD and Michael David a junior doctor.

#2347

Sherry Stewart

#115819

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Sherry Heather Stewart is a Canadian clinical psychologist. She is also a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Dalhousie University and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Addiction and Mental Health.

#2348

Heejung Kim

#30731

Overall Influence

Heejung Kim is a South Korean psychologist and a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on how culture influences humans' thought process. She is co-editor of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review.

#2349

David F. Dinges

#65304

Overall Influence

David F. Dinges is an American sleep researcher and teacher. He is professor of psychology in psychiatry, chief of the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology in the Department of Psychiatry, and associate director of the Center for Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology in the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dinges earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in experimental physiological psychology from Saint Louis University.

#2350

Anthony D. Milner

#116883

Overall Influence

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