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,
#2901
Priscilla Alderson
#135647
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
#2902
Thérèse Gouin Décarie
#60790
Overall Influence
1923 - Present (101 years)
Thérèse Gouin-Décarie is a Canadian developmental psychologist and educator living in Quebec. She is known for her work on intellectual and emotional development in young children. Biography Gouin-Décarie was born in Montreal, Quebec on September 30, 1923, to Yvette Ollivier, an artist and playwright, and Léon-Mercier Gouin, a lawyer, professor, and Canadian senator. She studied psychology at the Université de Montréal, earning a bachelor's degree in 1945 and a master's degree in 1947. She pursued clinical training at the Centre d'orientation in Montreal , at the Children's Center in Boston , and at the Centre médico-pédagogique at the Université de Paris .
Go to Profile#2903
Mary C. Zanarini
#135760
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
#2904
Lisa Goodman
#103055
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Lisa A. Goodman is an American counseling psychologist known for her research on domestic violence and violence against women. She is Professor of Counseling Psychology at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Goodman is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division of Counseling Psychology.
Go to Profile#2905
David J. Hargreaves
#135899
Overall Influence
#2906
Jum Clarence Nunnally
#135919
Overall Influence
#2907
Carolyn Goodman
#66413
Overall Influence
1915 - 2007 (92 years)
Carolyn Elizabeth Goodman was an American clinical psychologist who became a prominent civil rights advocate after her son, Andrew Goodman and two other civil rights workers, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Neshoba County, Mississippi, in 1964.
Go to Profile#2908
Miranda Wolpert
#76961
Overall Influence
Miranda Wolpert, Lady Sales is professor of evidence-based practice and mental health at University College London. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 New Year Honours for her work on young people's mental health. She is Director of Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust.
Go to Profile#2909
Jessica Payne
#117984
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Jessica D. Payne is a psychologist and associate professor at the University of Notre Dame. Payne's research focuses on the impact of sleep and stress on human memory and psychological well-being. Payne won the Early Career Award from the Psychonomic Society in 2015. Previously, she received the Laird Cermak Award for early contribution to memory research by the International Neuropsychological Society in 2010. Payne has contributed her expertise on sleep to media outlets including New York Times, CNN, and Huffington Post.
Go to Profile#2910
Maya Bar-Hillel
#38608
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Maya Bar-Hillel is a professor emeritus of psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Known for her work on inaccuracies in human reasoning about probability, she has also studied decision theory in connection with Newcomb's paradox, investigated how gender stereotyping can block human problem-solving, and worked with Dror Bar-Natan, Gil Kalai, and Brendan McKay to debunk the Bible code.
Go to Profile#2911
Brady Wagoner
#114497
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Brady Wagoner is an American-Danish professor of psychology at the University of Copenhagen and Aalborg University , where he is currently co-director of the Centre for Cultural Psychology. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge on a Gates Cambridge scholarship, where he also co-created the F. C. Bartlett internet archive. His research has mainly focused on cultural psychology, memory, social change and the history of psychology. One of his key contributions has been to study remembering as a cultural and constructive process, further developing the legacy of Frederic Bartlett. ...
Go to Profile#2912
Gilbert J. Botvin
#136131
Overall Influence
#2913
Alexander Gonzalez
#23528
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Alexander Gonzalez was the 11th president of California State University, Sacramento , serving from July , 2003 to June , 2015, after having held administrative positions at two other California State University campuses. His academic career began in 1983 as a professor of psychology at California State University, Fresno for four years, followed by three years chairing that department, one as assistant to the president, and culminating in six years as the university's provost . He was named Interim President of California State University, San Marcos on June , 1997 as the California State U...
Go to Profile#2914
Mark Francis O'reilly
#136156
Overall Influence
#2915
Brian Keith Payne
#136162
Overall Influence
#2916
Carmen Sandi
#91534
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Carmen Sandi is a Spanish and Swiss behavioral neuroscientist. She is a professor of neuroscience and director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Genetics at the Brain Mind Institute . Early life and education Born and raised in Torrelavega , Spain, Sandi moved to Salamanca to obtain her BS and MS from the University of Salamanca in 1984 and further to Madrid for her PhD at the Cajal Institute and the Autonomous University of Madrid in 1988. She continued her postdoctoral research at INSERM, Bordeaux, France and Open University, UK .
Go to Profile#2917
Stefania Maggi
#136380
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
#2918
Kristina Hooper Woolsey
#52580
Overall Influence
Dr. Kristina Hooper Woolsey is an American scholar and cognitive scientist known as the "mother of multimedia" for her pioneering work at the Apple Multimedia Lab and Atari Research Labs, which she directed. Woolsey was a founding member of the Apple Human Interface Group.
Go to Profile#2919
Lowell L. Getz
#136484
Overall Influence
#2920
Harry Oldmeadow
#11148
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Kenneth "Harry" Oldmeadow is an Australian academic, author, editor and educator whose works focus on religion, tradition, traditionalist writers and philosophy. Life and career Oldmeadow was born in Melbourne in 1947. His parents were Christian missionaries in India and he spent the first nine years of his childhood there and developed an early interest in the civilisations of the East.
Go to Profile#2921
John E. Helzer
#136505
Overall Influence
#2922
Michael Terman
#59341
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Michael Terman is an American psychologist best known for his work in applying the biological principles of the circadian timing system to psychiatric treatments for depression and sleep disorders. This subspecialty is known as Chronotherapeutics.
Go to Profile#2923
Ulrike Ehlert
#136604
Overall Influence
#2924
Peter F. Lovibond
#136648
Overall Influence
#2925
Alexander Fornito
#136662
Overall Influence
#2926
Jerry Hirsch
#40979
Overall Influence
1922 - 2008 (86 years)
Jerome Edwin Hirsch was an American psychologist known for his pioneering work in behavior genetics, and for his advocacy for social justice. He has been described as "the pioneer who brought quantitative genetic analysis to the study of behavior."
Go to Profile#2927
Adam Joinson
#69639
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Adam N. Joinson is a British author, academic and public speaker within the area of cyberpsychology. He is Professor of Information Systems at University of Bath, following posts at the University of West of England and the Open University. and has conducted ground breaking research into the psychology of Internet usage.
Go to Profile#2928
Ronnie Janoff‑bulman
#136725
Overall Influence
#2929
Albert V. Carron
#136766
Overall Influence
#2930
Daniell B. Carr
#136846
Overall Influence
#2931
Harvey Allan Skinner
#136885
Overall Influence
#2932
Kevin Eva
#133777
Overall Influence
Kevin Eva is a professor of medical education. He is currently a faculty member at the University of British Columbia, and Editor-in-chief for the journal Medical Education. Life and education Eva graduated from the Psychology Department at McMaster University with a Doctor of Philosophy in 2001.
Go to Profile#2933
Bruno Falissard
#131965
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Bruno Falissard is a French mathematician, psychiatrist, and academic. He is a professor of Biostatistics at Paris-Saclay Medical University, the Director of the CESP , and the former President of the IACAPAP .
Go to Profile#2934
Fabio Sani
#121007
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Fabio Sani is a professor of social and health psychology at the University of Dundee, in Scotland. Education Sani completed his undergraduate degree in Pedagogy at the University of Florence in 1986. Subsequently, he obtained a Master of Science degree in social psychology at the London School of Economics in 1991, and his PhD in psychology at the University of Exeter in 1995, with a research project on schisms within social groups supervised by Steve Reicher.
Go to Profile#2935
Michael W. Ross
#137115
Overall Influence
#2936
Bärbel Inhelder
#137117
Overall Influence
#2937
Toshio Yamagishi
#137187
Overall Influence
#2938
E. Allan Lind
#137208
Overall Influence
#2939
Lorraine Sherr
#137368
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
#2940
Fumiko Samejima
#137515
Overall Influence
#2941
Susan Brady
#115526
Overall Influence
Susan Brady is an American psychologist and literacy expert who is a professor of school psychology at the University of Rhode Island. For many years, she led the Haskins Literacy Initiative at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut which promotes the "science of teaching reading." She has been a leading researcher in the area of reading acquisition for over thirty years and has been involved with efforts to improve state and national policy on the teaching of reading including speaking before a U.S. Senate committee.
Go to Profile#2942
Christopher L. Coe
#137568
Overall Influence
#2943
Roger Azevedo
#137576
Overall Influence
#2944
Eamonn Ferguson
#137630
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
#2945
Aron K. Barbey
#59030
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Aron Keith Barbey is an American cognitive neuroscientist, who investigates the neural architecture of human intelligence and brain plasticity. Barbey is the Emanuel Donchin Professorial Scholar of Psychology and a Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Bioengineering at the University of Illinois. He is director of the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, and founding director of the Center for Brain Plasticity at the Beckman Institute, where he leads the Intelligence, Learning, and Plasticity Initiative.
Go to Profile#2946
Karl‐martin Pirke
#137698
Overall Influence
#2947
Aleksandr Kogan
#16147
Overall Influence
1985 - Present (39 years)
Aleksandr Kogan is a Moldovan-born American scientist, who is known for his research on the link between oxytocin and kindness, and for having developed the app that allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect personal details of 30 million Facebook users. He worked as a University Lecturer at the University of Cambridge from 2012-2018 and is currently a technology entrepreneur.
Go to Profile#2948
J. Raymond Klein
#137869
Overall Influence
#2949
Ferruccio Fazio
#137915
Overall Influence
#2950
Kent Anthony Kiehl
#138052
Overall Influence
