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,
#3301
Patricia Feltz Cohen
#150274
Overall Influence
#3302
Ping Li
#109295
Overall Influence
Ping Li is a Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, and Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University. He specializes in language acquisition, focusing on bilingual language processing in East Asian languages and connectionist modeling. Li received a B.A. in Chinese linguistics from Peking University in 1983, an M.A. in theoretical linguistics from Peking University, a Ph.D. in psycholinguistics from Leiden University and the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in 1990, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the Center for Research in Language at the Univers...
Go to Profile#3303
Kazuo Okanoya
#150419
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
#3304
Peter Bevington Smith
#150434
Overall Influence
#3305
Yosef Blau
#42456
Overall Influence
Yosef Blau is an American Orthodox rabbi. He currently serves as the mashgiach ruchani at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary since 1977. He is also the former president of the Religious Zionists of America.
Go to Profile#3306
Mara Mather
#69854
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (54 years)
Mara Mather is a professor of gerontology and psychology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Her research deals with aging and affective neuroscience, focusing on how emotion and stress affect memory and decisions. She is the daughter of mathematician John N. Mather.
Go to Profile#3307
J. E. Stevenson
#150548
Overall Influence
#3308
Ara Norenzayan
#150601
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
#3309
Sándor Ferenczi
#150616
Overall Influence
#3310
Vert. L. Mooney
#150655
Overall Influence
#3311
John Richard Eiser
#150689
Overall Influence
#3312
Margreet Kloppenburg
#150714
Overall Influence
#3313
Gustavo Carlo
#150718
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
#3314
Dirk Geeraerts
#150725
Overall Influence
#3315
Bas Verplanken
#150815
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
#3316
Michael Burton
#128805
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (67 years)
Michael Burton FBA is an English psychologist and professor at the Department of Psychology at University of York. Early life and education He earned his bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Psychology in 1980 and his Doctorate in Psychology at University of Nottingham in 1983.
Go to Profile#3317
Marian Fischman
#110794
Overall Influence
1939 - 2001 (62 years)
Marian Rita Weinbaum Fischman was an American psychologist. She researched narcotics and addiction. Life Born Marian Rita Weinbaum in Queens, New York, Fischman lived her early years in an apartment above her father's drugstore. She attended Barnard College before completing a master's in psychology at Columbia University and a doctorate from University of Chicago. Her thesis addressed the effects of methamphetamine on Rhesus monkeys and "found persisting effects on decreased dopamine and serotonin in the Rhesus monkey brain, suggesting long-term damage."
Go to Profile#3318
Anthony Robert Beech
#150857
Overall Influence
#3319
John Drury
#143539
Overall Influence
John Drury is a Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Sussex. His core research is in the area of crowd psychology. Career Drury completed his undergraduate degree in social psychology at the University of Sussex . He went on to complete his MSc and PhD in Psychology at the University of Exeter, under the supervision of Professor Steve Reicher. On completing his PhD, Drury worked as a Research Psychologist at the Trust for the Study of Adolescence from 1996 to 1998, providing research-based evidence about communication between young people and adults. He joined the faculty a...
Go to Profile#3320
Luciano L’abate
#150914
Overall Influence
#3321
H. Carl Haywood
#104471
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (95 years)
H. Carl Haywood was an American psychologist who researched motivational influences on learning and development, intellectual and cognitive development, cognitive education, learning, neuropsychology , and dynamic/interactive assessment of learning potential.
Go to Profile#3322
Neil R. Anderson
#150927
Overall Influence
#3323
Théodore Landis
#150972
Overall Influence
#3324
K. Richard Ridderinkhof
#150979
Overall Influence
#3325
Paul Pauli
#150982
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
#3326
Laurence W. Way
#151015
Overall Influence
#3327
Julio Bobes
#151018
Overall Influence
#3328
Dennis Michael 麥翰林 Mcinerney
#151039
Overall Influence
#3329
Helen Cassaday
#117497
Overall Influence
Helen Cassaday is Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience, School of Psychology, Faculty of Science, University of Nottingham. Education Cassaday did her BA, MA in Experimental Psychology, at University College, University of Oxford ; her PhD was in Psychopharmacology, at Institute of Psychiatry, University of London
Go to Profile#3330
Olusola Adesope
#66037
Overall Influence
Olusola O. Adesope is the Boeing Distinguished Professor of STEM Education and Professor of Educational Psychology at Washington State University. Early life and education Adesope was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. He first left Nigeria for the United States and worked as an IT Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He then immigrated to Canada in 2003 with his wife Tolu and enrolled at Simon Fraser University . At SFU, he earned his Master's degree in educational technology and his doctorate degree in educational psychology. In 2011, he received the G.M. Dunlop Award for bes...
Go to Profile#3331
Sandra Lee Robinson
#151108
Overall Influence
#3332
Stian Lydersen
#151157
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (69 years)
#3333
Douglas Wahlsten
#129805
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Douglas Leon Wahlsten is a Canadian neuroscientist, psychologist, and behavior geneticist. He is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Alberta. As of 2011, he was also a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in North Carolina, United States. He is known for his laboratory research on the behavior of mice, and for his theoretical writings on a wide range of other topics. His laboratory research has included studies of the effects of different laboratory environments and experimenter characteristics on the results of mouse studies. He and his col...
Go to Profile#3334
Susan Hallam
#151185
Overall Influence
#3335
Roger Bennett
#151214
Overall Influence
#3336
Steven L. Bressler
#151256
Overall Influence
#3337
Donna Rose Addis
#119552
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (49 years)
Donna Rose Addis is a New Zealand psychology academic. Of Samoan descent, she is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland, but is set to move to the University of Toronto. Academic career Addis went to Aorere College in Auckland, and her bursary marks made her New Zealand's top all-round scholar of Pacific Island descent.
Go to Profile#3338
Salvatore R. Maddi
#151366
Overall Influence
#3339
Valerie Walkerdine
#151390
Overall Influence
#3340
Jane E. Ferrie
#151404
Overall Influence
#3341
Robert H. Weisberg
#151446
Overall Influence
#3342
Benjamin B. Wolman
#151473
Overall Influence
#3343
Bertram F. Malle
#151474
Overall Influence
#3344
Roland G. Tharp
#151480
Overall Influence
#3345
Marc Rubin. Linzer
#151498
Overall Influence
#3346
Fernanda Ferreira
#151568
Overall Influence
#3347
Laurel Mellin
#63754
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Laurel Mellin is an American author of nine books focusing on brain-based health, stress overload, and stress eating, including The New York Times Best Seller, The Pathway. She developed emotional brain training, a method of emotional regulation that rapidly reduces stress and promotes rewiring stress-induced problems.
Go to Profile#3348
Walter Ritter
#151583
Overall Influence
#3349
Joseph Fagan
#81504
Overall Influence
1941 - 2013 (72 years)
Joseph F. Fagan III was an American psychologist and the Lucy Adams Leffingwell Professor of psychology at Case Western Reserve University from 1990 until his death in 2013. Education Fagan received his B.A. from the University of Hartford in 1963 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in 1965 and 1967, respectively.
Go to Profile#3350
Stephen A. Hancocks
#151671
Overall Influence
