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,

#2451

Holly A. Taylor

#113571

Overall Influence

Holly A. Taylor is an American psychologist. Biography She is a professor of psychology at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences. She joined the university in 1994. Her research focuses on the mental representation of information, She also researches spatial cognition and comprehension. She collaborates with Robin Kanarek on the nutritional impacts on cognitive behavior. She completed a B.A. in mathematics and a minor in psychology at Dartmouth College in 1987. Taylor earned a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Stanford University in 1992.

#2452

Santiago Genovés

#29457

Overall Influence

1923 - 2013 (90 years)

Santiago Genovés Tarazaga was a Spanish-born Mexican anthropologist who was affiliated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He designed the 1973 "Peace Project" experiment, in which he and ten other people aimed to sail on the Acali raft from the Canary Islands to Mexico. He hoped that this experiment would shed light on the causes of violence in humans and on how it could be prevented. The 101-day experiment, frequently dubbed the "Sex Raft" by the media, was the subject of the 2018 documentary film The Raft, by Marcus Lindeen. He was also one of the researchers who originated...

#2453

Edward S. Bordin

#120559

Overall Influence

#2454

Steven D. Hollon

#110714

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Steven D. Hollon is an American psychologist, academic and researcher. He is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University. Hollon's research focuses on the treatment and prevention of depression with a particular emphasis on cognitive therapy in comparison to antidepressant medications. His research has found that cognitive therapy is as efficacious and more enduring than antidepressant medications in the treatment of unipolar depression. That cognitive therapy has an enduring effect is perhaps his major contribution; studies dating to the early 1980s have...

#2455

Suzanne Bennett Johnson

#41977

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Suzanne Bennett Johnson is an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . Biography Johnson earned an undergraduate psychology degree from Cornell University in 1970. She received a Ph.D. from Stony Brook University in 1974. Johnson was a fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 2001 to 2002 along with Hillary Clinton.

#2456

Martin A. Conway

#85870

Overall Influence

1952 - 2022 (70 years)

Martin Anthony Conway was a British psychologist and psychoanalyst focusing on the study of autobiographical memory, as well as the interactions between human memory and the law. He served as head of the psychology department, City, University of London before his passing.

#2457

David A. Balota

#120625

Overall Influence

#2458

Tamara Sher

#39216

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Tamara Goldman Sher, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and professor at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. She is a leading researcher in the fields of Behavioral Medicine and Couples Therapy. Sher was awarded a $2.4 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health which combined both of these fields in a study measuring the benefits of couples' involvement in cardiac treatment. This grant is part of Sher's work with the National Institute of Health's Behavior Change Consortium. Sher's research has been mentioned in t...

#2459

John W. Thibaut

#120754

Overall Influence

#2460

Amanda Feilding

#19992

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Amanda Claire Marian Charteris, Countess of Wemyss and March , also known as Amanda Feilding, is an English drug policy reformer, lobbyist, and research coordinator. In 1998, she founded the Foundation to Further Consciousness, later renamed to the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust which initiates, directs, and supports neuroscientific and clinical research into the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain and cognition. She has also co-authored over 50 papers published in peer-reviewed journals, according to the Foundation. The central aim of her research is to investigate new ave...

#2461

Adam Alter

#13629

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Adam Alter is a marketing author who also teaches at New York University Stern School of Business. Education and work Alter earned his Bachelor of Science from University of New South Wales and M.A. and Ph.D at Princeton University.

#2462

Anne Marie Albano

#30030

Overall Influence

Anne Marie Albano is a clinical psychologist known for her clinical work and research on psychosocial treatments for anxiety and mood disorders, and the impact of these disorders on the developing youth. She is the CUCARD professor of medical psychology in psychiatry at Columbia University, the founding director of the Columbia University Clinic for Anxiety and Related Disorders , and the clinical site director at CUCARD of the New York Presbyterian Hospital's Youth Anxiety Center.

#2463

Zoe Kourtzi

#80959

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Zoe Kourtzi is Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge. She is the Scientific Director of Early Detection of Neurodegenerative diseases , a project involving an international team supported by Alzheimer's Research UK, researching mechanisms for learning and plasticity in dementia patients.

#2464

Anna Costanza Baldry

#32008

Overall Influence

1970 - 2019 (49 years)

Anna Costanza Baldry was an Italian social psychologist and criminologist. She was a professor at Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli. An expert on issues related to violence against women and children, Baldry consulted with such organizations as the United Nations and NATO. For her contributions to society, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.

#2465

Hervé Abdi

#121014

Overall Influence

#2466

David Andrich

#121015

Overall Influence

#2467

Ester Cerin

#121044

Overall Influence

#2468

Scott B. Mackenzie

#121078

Overall Influence

#2469

Robb Willer

#35001

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Robb Willer is an American sociologist and social psychologist known for his work on political persuasion, polarization, democracy, and morality. He is a professor of sociology, psychology, and organizational behavior at Stanford University where he is the Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and Faculty Co-Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

#2470

Richard Woodcock

#36109

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (96 years)

Richard Wesley Woodcock is an American psychometrician. He is known for his work on the Cattell–Horn–Carroll theory of human intelligence and for his work in the development of several cognitive tests, including the Woodcock–Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Dean–Woodcock Neuropsychological Assessment System. He is also credited with introducing the Rasch model into psychometric research. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of School Psychology, as well as a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. In 1993, he receive...

#2471

Stephanie Fryberg

Stephanie Fryberg

#89887

Overall Influence

Stephanie Fryberg is a Tulalip psychologist who received her Master's and Doctorate degrees from Stanford University, where in 2011 she was inducted into the Multicultural Hall of Fame. In the same year, she testified before Senate on Stolen Identities: The impact of racist stereotypes on Indigenous people. She previously taught psychology at the University of Arizona, at the Tulalip Community at Marysville School, and at the University of Washington. She currently teaches American Indian Studies and Psychology at the University of Michigan, and is a member of the Tulalip Tribe. Her research focuses on race, class, and culture in relation to ones psychological development and mental health.

#2472

Susan Pinker

#84573

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Susan Pinker is a psychologist, author and social science columnist for The Wall Street Journal. She is a former weekly columnist for The Globe and Mail, and has also written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Times of London. Her first book, The Sexual Paradox, was awarded the William James Book Award in 2010 and was published in 17 countries. Her recent book The Village Effect was a Canadian bestseller and an Apple 2014 nonfiction best pick. Her work has been featured in The Economist, The Financial Times, and Der Spiegel.

#2473

Joel Nigg

#70391

Overall Influence

Joel Thomas Nigg is an American clinical psychologist known for his research on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder . He is Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Behavioral Neuroscience at the Oregon Health & Science University , where he is also director of the Division of Psychology and of the ADHD program.

#2474

Charles L. Hulin

#121229

Overall Influence

#2475

Stewart D. Friedman

#43934

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Stewart D. Friedman is a professor at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the founding director of the Wharton Leadership Program and Wharton's Work/Life Integration Project. He has been on the Wharton faculty since 1984 and became the Management Department's first Practice Professor in recognition of his work within the fields of Leadership Development, Human Resources and Work–Life Integration on the application theory and research on the real challenges facing organizations. In 2001, Friedman completed a two-year assignment as the director of the Leadership ...

#2476

Peter Anthony Ubel

#121253

Overall Influence

#2477

David P. Goldberg

#121395

Overall Influence

#2478

Jean E. Fox Tree

#69989

Overall Influence

Jean E. Fox Tree is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Fox Tree studies collateral signals that people use in spontaneous speech, such as fillers , prosodic information , fillers , and speech disfluencies.

#2479

Cheryl a. Frye

#121695

Overall Influence

#2480

Harlene Hayne

#83550

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Vada Harlene Hayne is an American-born academic administrator who was the vice-chancellor and a professor of psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, before moving to Western Australia to take up the position of vice-chancellor at Curtin University in April 2021.

#2481

Eugene Borgida

#99782

Overall Influence

Eugene Borgida is an American social and political psychologist. Borgida graduated from Wesleyan University in 1971, and earned his doctorate at the University of Michigan in 1976. Upon completing his Ph.D., Borgida began teaching at the University of Minnesota, where he was appointed Morse-Alumni Distinguished Professor of Psychology in 1996, and served as Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs between 2002 and 2003. Borgida is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

#2482

Patricia J. Brooks

#54120

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Patricia J. Brooks is an American developmental psychologist. She is the director of the Language Learning Laboratory at the College of Staten Island of City University of New York and Doctoral Faculty at the CUNY Graduate Center where she serves as the Deputy Executive Officer of the PhD program in Psychology. Brooks is also the faculty advisor of the Graduate Student Teaching Association of Division 2 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for the Teaching of Psychology .

#2483

Dewey Stuit

#49955

Overall Influence

1909 - 2008 (99 years)

Dewey Stuit was an American educational psychologist and academic administrator. He was the dean of the College of Arts at the University of Iowa from 1948 to 1977. Early life Stuit was born on January 24, 1909. He graduated from the University of Illinois, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1931, a master's degree in 1932, and a PhD in educational psychology 1934.

#2484

Patricia S. Cowings

Patricia S. Cowings

#27719

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Patricia S. Cowings is an aerospace psychophysiologist. She was the first American woman to be trained as a scientist astronaut by NASA; though she was an alternate for a space flight in 1979, she did not travel to space. She is most known for her studies in the physiology of astronauts in outer space, as well as helping find cures for astronaut's motion sickness.

#2485

Howard H. Kendler

#77074

Overall Influence

1919 - 2011 (92 years)

Howard Harvard Kendler was an American psychologist who conducted research on latent and discrimination learning. He also published influential analyses of the theoretical and methodological foundations of modern psychology.

#2486

Michael E. Mccullough

#122009

Overall Influence

#2487

Glenn Waller

#122024

Overall Influence

#2488

Adrian Raine

#66423

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

#2489

Harold Bekkering

Harold Bekkering

#99181

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Harold Bekkering is a Dutch professor of cognitive psychology at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour of the Radboud University Nijmegen. His research has covered many different ways of learning, ranging from basic sensorimotor learning to complex forms of social learning. Lately, he aims to implement knowledge about human learning in educational settings.

#2490

Roz Shafran

#122151

Overall Influence

#2491

Lee Sechrest

#120064

Overall Influence

1929 - 2015 (86 years)

Lee Burton Sechrest was an American psychologist and research methodologist. Early life and education Sechrest was born on January 1, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1937, his family moved to Augusta, Kansas, and they moved again to Osawatomie in 1943. He graduated from Osawatomie High School in 1946. He began taking classes at Pittsburg State University in 1948, and transferred from there to Ohio State University in 1949. He earned his B.A. from Ohio State in 1952 and his Ph.D. from there in 1956, both in psychology.

#2492

Stephanie M. Carlson

#96687

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Stephanie M. Carlson is an American developmental psychologist whose research has contributed to scientific understanding of the development of children's executive function skills, including psychometrics and the key roles of imagination and distancing. Carlson is Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota, and co-founder of Reflection Sciences, Inc.

#2493

Brian Sutton-Smith

#40417

Overall Influence

1924 - 2015 (91 years)

Brian Sutton Smith , better known as Brian Sutton-Smith, was a play theorist who spent his lifetime attempting to discover the cultural significance of play in human life, arguing that any useful definition of play must apply to both adults and children. He demonstrated that children are not innocent in their play and that adults are indeed guilty in theirs. In both cases play pretends to assist them in surmounting their Darwinian struggles for survival. His book Play As Emotional Survival is a response to his own deconstruction of play theories in his work, The Ambiguity of Play .

#2494

Stanley A. Mulaik

#65771

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Stanley Allen Mulaik is Professor Emeritus at the School of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as the head of the Societate American pro Interlingua. Although born in Edinburg, Mulaik lived in Salt Lake City, Utah from 1939 to 1966. For the last 42 years, he has lived in or around the Atlanta, Georgia area. He has two sons who live with their families in the Atlanta area.

#2495

Joseph H. Pleck

#122285

Overall Influence

#2496

Barbara Hayes-Roth

#74327

Overall Influence

Barbara Hayes-Roth is an American computer scientist and psychologist whose research in artificial intelligence includes work on knowledge acquisition, automated planning and scheduling, spatial cognition, the blackboard system, adaptation, and intelligent behavior in interactive storytelling. She is a senior research scientist and lecturer in computer science at Stanford University.

#2497

William M. Baum

#122298

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

#2498

Gerard de Zeeuw

#60147

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Gerard de Zeeuw is a Dutch scientist and Emeritus professor Mathematical modelling of complex social systems at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is known for his work on the theory and practice of action research, particularly on the "Problems of increasing competence", "Second order organisational research" and "Three phases of science: A methodological exploration".

#2499

Dianne Chambless

#116955

Overall Influence

1948 - 2023 (75 years)

Dianne Lynn Chambless was an American clinical psychologist. Early life and education Dianne Lynn Chambless was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 26, 1948. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Tulane University and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Temple University. While earning her PhD, she joined the Feminist Therapy Collective, Inc. in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania part-time until 1976.

#2500

Lotte Bailyn

#44127

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Lotte Franziska Bailyn is an American social psychologist. She is the T Wilson Professor of Management, Emerita at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She was the first woman faculty member at MIT Sloan.

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