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.

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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,

#4051

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga

#41642

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga is a Latvian politician who served as the sixth President of Latvia from 1999 to 2007. She is the first and to date only woman to hold the post. She was elected President of Latvia in 1999 and re-elected for the second term in 2003.

#4052

Robert Fox

#176094

Overall Influence

#4053

Adam Winsler

#103131

Overall Influence

Adam Winsler is a developmental psychologist known for his research on early child development, private speech, and benefits of arts education. Winsler is Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology at George Mason University.

#4054

Sharon Lamb

#136830

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Sharon Lamb , is an American professor in the Department of Counseling and School Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston's, College of Education and Human Development, and a fellow of the American Psychological Association . She also sits on the editorial board of the academic journals Feminism & Psychology, and Sexualization, Media, and Society.

#4055

Markus Kemmelmeier

#88600

Overall Influence

Markus Kemmelmeier is a German social psychologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he is a foundation professor and director of the Ph.D. program in interdisciplinary social psychology. Career He is known for his research on the psychological effects of exposure to flags, such as the American flag. He has also researched the relationship between political ideology and intelligence.

#4056

Belinda Probert

#52069

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (77 years)

Belinda Probert is an educator and social scientist who has advised non-government organisations and state and national governments in Australia. Her academic research and writing has been in the areas of employment policy, gender equity, and work and welfare reform, including households and the domestic division of labour. She has held senior leadership roles in several universities as well as with the Australian Research Council, where she was a member and Deputy Chair of the Research Training and Careers Committee , and member of the Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences Expert Adviso...

#4057

Ronald A. Cohen

#133255

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Ronald A. Cohen is an American neuropsychologist. Cohen earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Tulane University and a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. He began teaching at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1983. In 1993, Cohen joined the faculty of Brown University, teaching at the Alpert Medical School. He moved to the University of Florida in 2012, and was appointed Evelyn F. McKnight chair for clinical translational research in cognitive aging and memory in 2015.

#4058

Charlotte Patterson

#119789

Overall Influence

Charlotte J. Patterson is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Patterson is also a member of the United States Census Bureau's National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic and Other Populations, established in 2012, as well as a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and American Psychological Association . She is known for her research into the psychological effects of LGBT parenting, for which she was awarded the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research in Public Policy in 2009 by the APA.

#4059

Angelo Kinicki

#34944

Overall Influence

Angelo Kinicki is an Arizona State University, Professor Emeritus of management, the recipient of the Weatherup/Overby Chair in Leadership, an author and consultant. After joining the faculty in 1982, receiving his doctorate in business administration from Kent State University, he became one of the Dean's Council of 100 Distinguished Scholars at the W. P. Carey School of Business.

#4060

Kopano Ratele

#175694

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Kopano Ratele is a decolonial psychologist and men and masculinities studies scholar. He is known for his work on Africa-centring psychology, masculinity, fatherhood, culture, sexuality, and violence. He is former co-director of the South African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa 's Violence, Injury & Peace Research Unit. In 2009-2010 he was president of the Psychological Society of South Africa. He chaired the board of Sonke Gender Justice, a South African nongovernmental organisation working across Africa to strengthen government, civil society and citizen capacity to promo...

#4061

Sergiu P. Pașca

#105654

Overall Influence

1982 - Present (44 years)

Sergiu P. Pașca is a Romanian-American scientist and physician at Stanford University in California. He is known for creating and developing stem cell-based models of the human brain and applying organoids and assembloids to gain insights into neuropsychiatric disease.

#4062

Ivory Lee Toldson

#171890

Overall Influence

Ivory Lee Toldson was a psychologist and professor at Temple University and Southern University. Education Toldson was valedictorian of his class at McCall Senior High School, from which he graduated at the age of sixteen. He attended Coahoma Junior College before going on to attend Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, earning a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Industrial Arts Education in 1966. Toldson continued his education, earning a Master's of Science in Educational Psychology from Butler University , a Doctorate in Education in Counseling Psychology from Ball State University...

#4063

Sara Jaffee

#139165

Overall Influence

Sara Rachel Jaffee is an American developmental psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also director of graduate studies. She previously held a faculty position at the Institute of Psychiatry. She specializes in the field of developmental psychopathology, with a particular focus on antisocial behavior in children.

#4064

John Metz Baer

#89723

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

John Baer is a professor of Educational Psychology at Rider University in New Jersey. He earned his B.A. from Yale University and his Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from Rutgers University.

#4065

Gretchen Chapman

#169517

Overall Influence

Gretchen Chapman is a cognitive psychologist known for her work on judgment and decision making in health-related contexts, such as clinical decision making and patient preferences, preventive health behavior, and vaccination. She is Professor of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. Chapman served as an Editor of the journal Psychological Science and is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

#4066

Margaret Rioch

#116952

Overall Influence

1907 - 1996 (89 years)

Margaret Jeffrey Rioch was an American psychotherapist, internationally known for her critical work in the field of psychology. She is best known for her role in establishing a new method of training for mental health counselors. Rioch's publications and projects have directly led to the current systems of mental health care treatment. Notable methods that have stemmed from her work include crisis hotlines and the use of support groups. She died in 1996 at the age of 89.

#4067

Jeffrey T. Hancock

#147026

Overall Influence

Jeffrey T. Hancock is a communication and psychology researcher and professor at the College of Communication Stanford University. Hancock is best known for his research in fields of deception, trust in technology, and the psychology of social media. Hancock has been published in over 80 journal articles and cited in National Public Radio and CBS This Morning.

#4068

Frances Champagne

Frances Champagne

#77425

Overall Influence

Frances A. Champagne is a Canadian psychologist and University Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin known for her research in the fields of molecular neuroscience, maternal behavior, and epigenetics. Research in the Champagne lab explores the developmental plasticity that occurs in response to environmental experiences. She is known for her work on the epigenetic transmission of maternal behavior. Frances Champagne's research has revealed how natural variations in maternal behavior can shape the behavioral development of offspring through epigenetic changes in gene expression in a brain region specific manner.

#4069

Nora Ahlberg

#110998

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Nora Louise Ahlberg is a Norwegian psychologist. She was Professor of Psychology at the University of Oslo and Director of the Psychosocial Centre for Refugees and later Director of the Norwegian Centre for Migration and Minority Health, a government agency that is now part of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

#4070

Hillary Anger Elfenbein

#173524

Overall Influence

Hillary Anger Elfenbein is the John and Ellen Wallace Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior at Washington University in St. Louis, known for her research on emotion in the workplace and cross-cultural differences in emotion.

#4071

Faye Z. Belgrave

#160329

Overall Influence

Faye Z. Belgrave is a psychologist known for her research conducted for the benefit of the African American youth, specifically in the areas of substance abuse and HIV. She is currently a professor of Psychology and the founding director of the Center for Cultural Experiences in Prevention at Virginia Commonwealth University .

#4072

John Lott Brown

#113576

Overall Influence

1924 - 2011 (87 years)

John Lott Brown was a university administrator and professor. Background Brown enrolled at Worcester Polytechnic Institute through the V-12 Navy College Training Program, where he earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He joined navy, and served in navy reserves. He earned a master's in psychology at Temple University and worked for the Link Belt Co. Later, he earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.

#4073

Fiona A. White

#96025

Overall Influence

Fiona A. White is an Australian academic. She is a professor of social psychology at the University of Sydney, Australia, and director of the Sydney University Psychology of Intergroup Relations Lab., and degree coordinator of the Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Science . She has been a lead author on four editions of Developmental Psychology: From Infancy to Adulthood. White is known as the developer of the E-contact intervention, a synchronous online tool that has been found to reduce anxiety, prejudice, and stigma.

#4074

Éliane Amado Levy-Valensi

#70204

Overall Influence

1919 - 2006 (87 years)

Éliane Amado Levy-Valensi was a French-Israeli psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher. Biography Éliane Levy-Valensi was born in Marseille to a Jewish family. In 1930 she moved with her parents to Saint-Mandé near Paris.

#4075

Martha Banks

#148144

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (75 years)

Martha E. Banks is a clinical psychologist known her expertise on issues involving women, race, trauma, disability, religion, and their intersectionality. She is a research neuropsychologist and computer programmer at ABackans DCP Inc.

#4076

Marney A. White

#89167

Overall Influence

Marney Ann White is an American psychologist and epidemiologist. Early life and education White completed her Bachelor of Science degree in 1991 from the University of Virginia and her Master's degree at James Madison University. She obtained her doctoral degree at Louisiana State University and published Development and validation of the food-craving inventory. Following her clinical internship, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. She then completed a second master's degree at Yale School of Public Health in Chronic Disease E...

#4077

Katrina Roen

#130471

Overall Influence

Katrina Roen is a New Zealand psychology / sociology academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Waikato. She was formerly a visiting researcher at the University of Oslo. Academic career After a 1998 PhD titled 'Constructing transsexuality: Discursive manoeuvres through psycho-medical, transgender, and queer texts' at the University of Canterbury, Roen took up a series of academic posts in Wellington, Lancaster, and then Oslo where she became a visiting researcher.

#4078

Gabrielle Clerk

#165515

Overall Influence

1923 - 2012 (89 years)

Gabrielle "Gaby" Clerk was a Canadian psychologist and professor of psychology at the Université de Montréal. She was one of the first psychoanalysts in Canada. Biography In 1940, Gabrielle Brunet enrolled at the Université de Montréal's Institute of Psychology, which had just been founded by Father Noël Mailloux. She was part of the first class of six students along with André Lussier and Thérèse Gouin-Décarie.

#4079

Alette Coble-Temple

#175357

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Alette Coble-Temple is a professor of clinical psychology at John F. Kennedy University. She is a member of the disabled community as an advocate for equal rights for individuals with disabilities. She is also a leader among women in the field of psychology. She sits as both a member of the American Psychological Association Committee on Women in Psychology, and as a member of the APA's Leadership Institute for Women in Psychology.

#4080

Francine Deutsch

#138626

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Francine M. Deutsch is an American writer and professor emeritus at the Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts since 1981. She is a professor of Psychology and Education. She is specialized in the social psychology of gender in everyday life, gender inequality at home and in labour market, and the educational trajectories of pre-school teachers. She worked on the link between unequal earning, young children at home and domestic inequality in household duties.

#4081

Natasha J. Cabrera

#157944

Overall Influence

Natasha J. Cabrera is a Canadian developmental psychologist known for her research on children's cognitive and social development, focusing primarily on fathers' involvement and influence on child development, ethnic and cultural variations in parenting behaviors, and factors associated with developmental risk. She holds the position of Professor in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methods at the University of Maryland, College of Education, where she is Director of the Family Involvement Laboratory and affiliated with the Maryland Population Research Center. Cabrera also h...

#4082

Anke Grotlüschen

#106657

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (57 years)

Anke Grotlüschen is an educational researcher and professor at the University of Hamburg. Life Anke Grotlüschen studied at the Wirtschaftsakademie Hamburg from 1988 – 1991 and finished as Betriebswirtin . She continued studying educational sciences from 1991 – 1997 with the main topics being Adult Education as well as psychology, sociology and politics as minors at the University of Hamburg. She finished this study program with a thesis about political education in the perspective of critical psychology.

#4083

Crystal L. Hoyt

#176938

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (51 years)

Crystal L. Hoyt is an American social psychologist. Hoyt attended Claremont McKenna College, where she studied psychology and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1997. She pursued further study in the subject at University of California, Santa Barbara, completing her doctorate in 2003. Hoyt began teaching at the University of Richmond Jepson School of Leadership Studies in 2003 as an assistant professor. She became an associate professor in 2009, and later succeeded Donelson R. Forsyth as Colonel Leo K. & Gaylee Thorsness Endowed Chair in Ethical Leadership.

#4084

Ken Strongman

#168593

Overall Influence

1940 - 2019 (79 years)

Kenneth Thomas Strongman was a New Zealand psychologist and academic, and was a professor of psychology at the University of Canterbury, specialising in the field of emotion. He was also a short-story writer, book and television reviewer, and newspaper columnist.

#4085

Dawn Brooker

#170209

Overall Influence

Dawn June Ratcliffe Brooker is a British psychologist who is a professor at the University of Worcester and Director of the Association for Dementia Studies. In 2020 she was awarded an MBE for her services to dementia care.

#4086

Margaret Rosario

#169853

Overall Influence

Margaret Rosario is a health psychologist who studies the development of sexual identity and health disparities associated with sexual orientation. Rosario was President of the American Psychological Association Division 44, the Society for Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, from 2017-2018. Rosario received the APA Division 44 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Ethnic Minority Issues in 2008 and the Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 2012, as well as the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award in 2021.

#4087

Ellen Frank

#173904

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Ellen Frank is a psychologist and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is known in the field of Psychotherapy as one of the developers of Interpersonal and Social Rhythm Therapy, which aims to treat bipolar disorder by correcting disruptions in the circadian rhythm while promoting increased regularity of daily social routines. Frank is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of HealthRhythms, a company that uses mobile technology to monitor the health and mental health of clients, facilitate the detec...

#4088

Louis Gerstman

#46153

Overall Influence

1930 - 1992 (62 years)

Louis "Lou" Gerstman was an American neuropsychologist best known for his work in speech synthesis. He was a co-inventor, along with John Kelly, of the computer portrayed as HAL 9000 in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. He also worked with Irv Teibel on Teibel's psychoacoustic environments recording series at Bell Labs, where Gerstman was working at the time.

#4089

Angela Neal-Barnett

#99417

Overall Influence

Angela M. Neal-Barnett is an American professor and child psychologist working at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, US. Neal-Barnett's research and work focuses on supporting Black women and girls with anxiety.

#4090

Larissa Samuelson

#172575

Overall Influence

Larissa Samuelson is an American psychologist known for her exploration in the fields of word learning, cognitive development, and the use of dynamic systems as a framework for understanding the developmental process. She is Professor at the School of Psychology of the University of East Anglia.

#4091

Lawrence Hubert

#129042

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Lawrence J. Hubert is an American psychologist and statistician. Hubert earned a doctorate from Stanford University under Lee Cronbach and Patrick Suppes, and held professorships in psychology and statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Hubert was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007. The Psychometric Society gave him the Career Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2015.

#4092

John Seamon

#146216

Overall Influence

John Seamon is an American psychologist who is Professor of Psychology Emeritus and Professor of Neuroscience and Behavior Emeritus at Wesleyan University. His research focuses on memory. Seamon read for a BS at Columbia University and a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst . After postdoctoral work at New York University, he joined Wesleyan in 1972. He was awarded Emeritus status in 2013. His books include 1980's Memory & Cognition: An Introduction ; the 1980 reader Human Memory: Contemporary Readings ; 1992's Introduction to Psychology, co-written with D. T. Kendrick , the...

#4093

Marlene Dobkin de Rios

#83357

Overall Influence

1939 - 2012 (73 years)

Marlene Dobkin de Rios was an American cultural anthropologist, medical anthropologist, and psychotherapist. She conducted fieldwork in the Amazon for almost 30 years. Her research included the use of entheogenic plants by the indigenous peoples of Peru.

#4094

Jessica Schleider

#172522

Overall Influence

Jessica Schleider is an American psychologist, author, and an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Stony Brook University. She is a faculty affiliate at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and the lab director of the Lab for Scalable Mental Health.

#4095

Alan J. Hawkins

#113592

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Alan J. Hawkins is a professor in the Brigham Young University School of Family Life, a division of the university's College of Home Family and Social Sciences. He is the Camilla E. Kimball professor of family life at BYU.

#4096

Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy

#111786

Overall Influence

Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy is Dean and Distinguished Professor of Education in the School of Education at American University in Washington, DC. Previously, she was Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Johns Hopkins University , and a professor of Counseling and Human Development at the JHU School of Education. She was an affiliate faculty member in the Center for Africana Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Holcomb-McCoy is a graduate of Hampton High School.

#4097

Terje Sagvolden

Terje Sagvolden

#139271

Overall Influence

1945 - 2011 (66 years)

Terje Sagvolden was a Norwegian behavioral neuroscientist, a professor at the Universities of Oslo and Tromsø, and adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Research Sagvolden's research career started with his work for his PhD, which he obtained in 1979 from the University of Oslo based on a thesis entitled Behavioral Changes in Rats with Septal Lesions: Effects of Water-Deprivation Level and Intensity of Electrical Shocks. Sagvolden is best known for the discovery that the SHR rat strain is hyperactive. Over the next decades, he then went on to demonstrate that this strain is a valid animal model for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder .

#4098

Martin Richards

#130380

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Martin Paul Meredith Richards is a British psychologist, Professor of Family Research at the University of Cambridge 1997–2005, and since emeritus. Richards is the son of the botanist Paul Westmacott Richards.

#4099

Michael Peters

#177856

Overall Influence

#4100

Gail Dinter-Gottlieb

#50808

Overall Influence

Gail Dinter-Gottlieb is an American university administrator who served as the 14th president and vice-chancellor of Acadia University until February 2008. A native of Port Chester, New York, Dinter-Gottlieb was educated at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, Northeastern University, Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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