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,
#2851
Glenn E. Good
#94662
Overall Influence
Glenn E. Good is the 13th dean of the College of Education at the University of Florida. Good is the current dean of the College of Education at University of Florida, which has an annual budget of $60 million, serves 3,000 students, and has 800 employees. Good was named the dean of the college effective October, 2011.
Go to Profile#2852
Michael James Prince
#133825
Overall Influence
#2853
William Bevan
#104696
Overall Influence
1922 - 2007 (85 years)
William Bevan was an American psychologist and a past president of the American Psychological Association . He founded the Talent Identification Program at Duke University. Biography After graduating from Franklin and Marshall College, Bevan served in the navy. He completed graduate work at Duke University. Bevan was a Fulbright Scholar in Norway, served as provost and vice president at Johns Hopkins University, and was the executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He came back to Duke as the psychology department chair, served as provost and founded the Talent Identification Program.
Go to Profile#2854
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart
#37699
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart is a Native American social worker, associate professor and mental health expert. She is best known for developing a model of historical trauma for the Lakota people, which would eventually be expanded to encompass indigenous populations the world over. She is Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota.
Go to Profile#2855
Mandy Morgan
#119319
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Catherine Amanda Morgan is a New Zealand feminist psychology academic, as of 2019 is a full professor at the Massey University. Academic career After a 1992 PhD titled 'Strange attractions : discourse, narrative and subjectivity in social psychology' at Murdoch University, Morgan moved to the Massey University, rising to full professor in 2013.
Go to Profile#2856
Ernest Mahone
#123588
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Ernest "Mark" Mahone is an American pediatric neuropsychologist. Biography Mahone was born September 19, 1961 to Leonard Ray Mahone Jr. and Jacqueline Joan Healthcote. Mahone married Sue Ellen Gould, on March 27, 1986; together they have two children, Andrew Mark Mahone and Evan Lori Mahone.
Go to Profile#2857
André Louis Delbecq
#134103
Overall Influence
#2858
Carolyn M. Mazure
#105522
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Carolyn M. Mazure is an American psychologist and the Norma Weinberg Spungen and Joan Lebson Bildner Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale School of Medicine. She created and directs Women’s Health Research at Yale — Yale’s interdisciplinary research center on health and gender.
Go to Profile#2859
Hirokazu Yoshikawa
#134370
Overall Influence
#2860
Walter Leonard Heindel
#134463
Overall Influence
#2861
Don Clark
#75547
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Donald H. Clark is an American writer, teacher, consultant and clinical psychologist who has specialized in group and individual work with gay people since 1968. His writing includes fiction, textbooks, and articles for both professional journals and popular magazines. He is the author of the best-selling book, Loving Someone Gay, now in its fifth edition, as well as its Spanish-language edition Amar a Alguien Gay, Someone Gay: Memoirs, Living Gay and As We Are.
Go to Profile#2862
Edwin Herbert Land
#134493
Overall Influence
#2863
Rovshan Abdullaoglu
#57342
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Rovshan Abdulla oglu Abdullaev is an Azerbaijani writer, philosopher, psychologist, and a member of PEN America. He is the founder of the publishing house Gadim Gala, and director of its scientific department.
Go to Profile#2864
Julian Rappaport
#134575
Overall Influence
#2865
Samuel B. Bacharach
#105053
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Samuel B. Bacharach is the McKelvey-Grant Professor in the Department of organizational behavior at Cornell University’s New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He is the head of Cornell University’s New York City-based Institute for Workplace Studies. He is the co-founder of the Bacharach Leadership Group, an organization that focuses on helping organizations develop leaders, and the co-founder of Pragmatic Leadership, a mobile simulation platform that trains leaders in a modular approach.
Go to Profile#2866
David A. Hamburg
#134631
Overall Influence
#2867
Steven Paul Reise
#134638
Overall Influence
#2868
Robert Charles Maccallum
#134653
Overall Influence
#2869
Lisa Bowleg
#86006
Overall Influence
Lisa Bowleg is an applied social psychologist known for conducting research on intersectionality in social and behavioral science and the relationship between social-contextual factors and stress, resilience, and HIV risk in Black communities.
Go to Profile#2870
Juliet Popper Shaffer
#63775
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Juliet Popper Shaffer is an American psychologist, statistician and statistics educator known for her research on multiple hypothesis testing. She is a teaching professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
Go to Profile#2871
Nicholas Troop
#55375
Overall Influence
Nicholas Troop is a health psychologist and a principal lecturer in health psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. His range of works include the role of life events, coping and crisis support in the aetiology of eating disorders, stress- and trauma-responses, and mobility into the social rank and attachment. Prior to joining the Department of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, Troop was a lecturer at London Metropolitan University and University of Essex. He supervised the founder of Psychreg, Dennis Relojo-Howell for his research project on expressive writing at the Univer...
Go to Profile#2872
Paul Shattuck
#40398
Overall Influence
Paul T. Shattuck is an autism researcher at the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University, where he leads the Research Program Area on Life Course Outcomes. He was previously a faculty member at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.
Go to Profile#2873
William James Doyle
#134699
Overall Influence
#2874
David A. Pizarro
#68205
Overall Influence
David A. Pizarro is an American psychologist and podcaster. He is a Professor of Psychology at Cornell University. He is also the Chief Science Officer of BEworks, a behavioral economics consulting firm, and is the co-host of the Very Bad Wizards Podcast. His research focuses on the psychological underpinnings of human morality, as well as on the influence of emotions on decision-making, particularly on the emotion of disgust. Pizarro has made appearances on several radio and television documentaries to discuss his work.
Go to Profile#2875
Leo M. Chalupa
#85221
Overall Influence
Leo M. Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American Neuropsychologist who was Vice President for Research and is Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at George Washington University. He was previously a Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurobiology at the University of California, Davis and Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior where he also served as the Director of the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience and Interim Dean of the College of Biological Sciences.
Go to Profile#2876
Annette Beautrais
#117976
Overall Influence
Annette Louise Beautrais is a New Zealand suicidologist. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, where she formerly directed the Canterbury Suicide Project prior to leaving in 2009 because some of her grant applications for a research project and a suicide coordinator at Canterbury were rejected. Beautrais has a PhD from the University of Otago, completed in 1996. She is also affiliated with the University of Canterbury School of Health Sciences and is a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland's South Auckland Clinical School. She is also the W...
Go to Profile#2877
Philip Teitelbaum
#134829
Overall Influence
#2878
Michael A. Grandner
#134890
Overall Influence
#2879
Emmanuel Dupoux
#134917
Overall Influence
#2880
Garrison Weeks Cottrell
#134999
Overall Influence
#2881
Alan Rozanski
#135007
Overall Influence
#2882
Linda Waimarie Nikora
#117359
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Linda Waimarie Nikora is a New Zealand psychology academic. She is Māori, of Te Aitanga a Hauiti and Ngāi Tūhoe descent. She is currently professor of Indigenous Studies and co-director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga at the University of Auckland, having moved in 2017 from the University of Waikato where she had been a professor of psychology and the founding Director of the Maori & Psychology Research Unit in the School of Psychology.
Go to Profile#2883
Mark Blumberg
#111116
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Mark S. Blumberg is an American professor, neuroscientist, researcher, and author who specializes in the fields of developmental psychobiology and behavioral neuroscience. He is currently an F. Wendell Miller Professor and department chair in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa. In addition to writing academic research articles, Blumberg has served as the editor-in-chief of Behavioral Neuroscience and authored several books, including Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution. His research also appeared on a 2020 episode o...
Go to Profile#2884
Joseph G Ponterotto
#135027
Overall Influence
#2885
James W. Stigler
#70640
Overall Influence
James W. Stigler is an American psychologist, researcher, entrepreneur and author. He is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at University of California, Los Angeles and a Fellow of the Precision Institute at National University, San Diego.
Go to Profile#2886
Carolyn E. Cutrona
#135110
Overall Influence
#2887
Wallace B. Mendelson
#135122
Overall Influence
#2888
Hortensia Amaro
#79889
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Hortensia Amaro is a Cuban-American educator, and formerly Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University and Associate Vice Provost of Community Research and Dean's Professor of Social Work and Preventative Medicine at the University of Southern California. Amaro was born in Cuba and moved to Los Angeles, California as a child. From a young age, she recognized that there was a demand for public health services in her area, particularly by immigrants and minorities. Amaro assisted in the development and implementation of numerous treatment and prevention models as well as the creation and ...
Go to Profile#2889
Donald G. Dutton,
#135335
Overall Influence
#2890
Falko F. Sniehotta
#135338
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#2891
Dewey Cornell
#128988
Overall Influence
Dewey G. Cornell is an American forensic and clinical psychologist known for his research on youth violence and school security. He is Professor of Education in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia, where he also holds the Bunker Chair in Education. He is the director of the University of Virginia's Virginia Youth Violence Project, as well as a faculty associate at the university's Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy. He is the principal author of the Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines, which are widely used for threat assessment in schools in the United States and Canada.
Go to Profile#2892
Elizabeth Kensinger
#115280
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Elizabeth Kensinger is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Boston College. She is known for her research on emotion and memory over the human lifespan. She is co-author of the book Why We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory, published in 2023 by Oxford University Press, which provides an overview of the psychology and neuroscience of memory. She also is the author of the book Emotional Memory Across the Adult Lifespan, which describes the selectivity of memory, i.e., how events infused with personal significance and emotion are much more memorable than nonemotional events.
Go to Profile#2893
Stephan Zipfel
#135373
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
#2894
Filip Lievens
#135419
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#2895
Barry E. Levin
#135420
Overall Influence
#2896
Timothy J. Schallert
#135433
Overall Influence
#2897
Alexander Renkl
#135491
Overall Influence
#2898
Celeste Kidd
#101073
Overall Influence
Celeste Kidd is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. She was amongst the "Silence Breakers" who were named Time Person of the Year in 2017. Early life and education Kidd studied print journalism and linguistics at the University of Southern California, where she earned a dual honors degree in 2007. Kidd moved to the University of Rochester for her graduate studies, where she worked in brain and cognitive studies and earned her PhD in 2013. She worked with Richard N. Aslin, an expert on infant learning. Kidd held visiting positions at Stanford University and the ...
Go to Profile#2899
Robert William Doty
#135597
Overall Influence
#2900
Paul Edward Mullen
#135613
Overall Influence
