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,
#4201
Nancy Darling
#104505
Overall Influence
Nancy Ellen Darling is an American psychologist. She is the William and Jeannette Smith Chair of psychology at Oberlin College, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Adolescence, and founder of 1step2life.
Go to Profile#4202
Michael J Hannafin
#124159
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Michael J. Hannafin was professor of instructional technology and director of Learning and Performance Support Laboratory at the University of Georgia. He obtained a Ph.D. in educational technology from the Arizona State University. Along with Kyle Peck, he developed the field of computer-aided instruction as distinguished from computer-based instruction. He received the AERA SIG- IT Best Paper Award in 2007.
Go to Profile#4203
Pauline Norris
#89949
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Pauline Toni Norris is a New Zealand academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 1993 PhD titled 'The negotiation and re-negotiation of occupational control : a study of retail pharmacy in New Zealand, 1930-1990' at Victoria University of Wellington, Norris moved to the University of Otago, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#4204
Lynette Riley
#51475
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Lynette Riley is an academic at the University of Sydney, currently employed within the Sydney School of Education & Social Work within the university as an associate professor. Riley is a Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi woman from Dubbo and Moree. She is known for her promotion of Aboriginal culture, in particular her kinship presentations and the associated online module.
Go to Profile#4205
Judith E. Deutsch
#98864
Overall Influence
Judith E. Deutsch, PT, PhD, FAPTA, is a professor of physical therapy in the Department of Rehabilitation & Movement Sciences at Rutgers University. She is also the director of the Research in Virtual Environments and Rehabilitation Sciences Lab.
Go to Profile#4206
Brendan Callaghan
#92554
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Brendan Callaghan SJ is a psychologist of religion who was Master of Campion Hall, Oxford 2008–2013. He holds an MA from Oxford, an MPhil from Glasgow University and an MTh from the University of London. Fr Callaghan is also a Chartered Clinical Psychologist.
Go to Profile#4207
Barry E. Stein
#146117
Overall Influence
Barry E. Stein the Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he is also Professor of Neurology. He is also director of the joint Cognitive Neuroscience PhD Program between Wake Forest University and the University of Bologna in Italy.
Go to Profile#4208
James Green
#100245
Overall Influence
1944 - 2016 (72 years)
James Robert Green was an American historian, author, and labor activist. He was Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Early life and education Green was born in 1944, to Gerald and Mary Green in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
Go to Profile#4210
Koraly Pérez-Edgar
#181902
Overall Influence
Koraly Elisa Pérez-Edgar is a developmental psychologist who studies the temperament of young children and connections between temperament, anxiety disorders, and other forms of psychopathology. She is known for her studies of shy children who may develop behavioral inhibition or social anxiety.
Go to Profile#4211
Barnaby B. Barratt
#178293
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Barnaby B. Barratt is a radical psychoanalyst, specialist in human sexuality, somatic psychologist, human rights activist and practitioner of meditation in the Dharmic traditions of tantra. He has lived in England, India, USA and Thailand and he currently lives and practices in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is Director of Studies at the Parkmore Institute.
Go to Profile#4212
Gene Brody
#128905
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Gene Howard Brody is an American developmental psychologist and prevention scientist and Regent's Professor at the University of Georgia and is the founder and co-director of the University of Georgia's Center for Family Research. He is known for his research on the physiological, biological, and mental health effects of poverty, community disadvantage, and racial discrimination and for the development of efficacious prevention programs for African American youth and their families.
Go to Profile#4213
Li Cai
#150821
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Li Cai is a statistician and quantitative psychologist. He is a professor of Advanced Quantitative Methodology at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies with a joint appointment in the quantitative area of the UCLA Department of Psychology. He is also Director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, Managing Partner at Vector Psychometric Group.
Go to Profile#4214
Terry Maple
#99649
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (80 years)
Terry Maple is an American behavioral research scientist, wildlife conservationist, Professor Emeritus , and zoo director emeritus. Maple has authored or co-authored 12 academic books, including Zoo Man, an autobiography detailing the early years of his career as a zoo director. His second autobiography, Professor in the Zoo, was published in August 2016. Most recently, he co-authored with Dan Marston, Comparative Psychology for Clinical Psychologists and Therapists .
Go to Profile#4215
Steven W. Cole
#182240
Overall Influence
#4216
Betty Bernardelli
#179575
Overall Influence
1919 - 1998 (79 years)
Betty Margaret Bernardelli was a physiological psychologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand. With an MA from Cambridge University, Bernardelli was the commanding officer at the WAAF training school for psychology instructors. After the war, Bernardelli worked in a team advising demobilised air force personnel on their future employment prospects, and set up a testing unit for the Royal Navy. Bernardelli was also part of a research team in Cambridge, focusing on about how best to assist men and women aged 35–40 forced to change their occupation.
Go to Profile#4217
Jean Piaget
#182268
Overall Influence
#4218
Catriona Ida Macleod
#162937
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (62 years)
Catriona Ida Macleod is a South African researcher. She is a distinguished professor of psychology, SARChI Chair of Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction, and previous Head of the Psychology Department at Rhodes University. Her research focuses on sexual and reproductive health and feminist theory in psychology. Her book "Adolescence", Pregnancy, and Abortion: Constructing a threat of degeneration received the Distinguished Publication Award by the Association for Women in Psychology. Since 2013, she has been editor-in-chief of the international journal Feminism & Psychology.
Go to Profile#4219
Jessica F. Cantlon
#132698
Overall Influence
Jessica Cantlon is the Ronald J. and Mary Ann Zdrojkowski Professor of Developmental Neuroscience at the Carnegie Mellon University. In 2017 she was selected as Time Person of the Year as one of the Silence Breakers.
Go to Profile#4220
Philippa Gander
#174544
Overall Influence
Philippa Helen Gander is a New Zealand sleep researcher. In 2021, she was conferred with the title of emeritus professor by Massey University, where she had been inaugural director of the Sleep/Wake Research Centre until stepping down from that role in 2019.
Go to Profile#4221
Leone Ridsdale
#125229
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Leone Ridsdale, is Professor of Neurology and General Practice at King's College London. Her research has focused on self-education and/or CBT therapy for people with headache, chronic fatigue and epilepsy. Her teaching focus was on developing education for medical students and graduates to improve neurology patient care in the community.
Go to Profile#4222
Joshua Correll
#173691
Overall Influence
Joshua "Josh" Correll is an American social psychologist and associate professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Education and career Correll received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2005 under the supervision of Bernadette Park. He became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago the same year. In August 2012, he joined the University of Colorado-Boulder as associate professor.
Go to Profile#4223
Terri Conley
#128672
Overall Influence
Terri Conley is an American social psychologist who studies gender differences in sexuality, consequences of departures from monogamy, and the consequences of masculinity threat. She is currently an associate professor of psychology and women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan, where she leads the Stigmatized Sexualities research lab.
Go to Profile#4224
Indre Viskontas
#127468
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Indre Viskontas is a Lithuanian-Canadian neuroscientist and operatic soprano. She holds a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience and a M.M. in opera. She is a Professor of Psychology at the University of San Francisco and serves on the faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She is also the Creative Director of Pasadena Opera.
Go to Profile#4225
Jonathon Rendina
#180298
Overall Influence
H. Jonathon Rendina is an American social and health psychologist. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hunter College and the Director of the Applied Intersectionality & Minority Stress Lab in the PRIDE Health Research Consortium. His research focuses on intersectionalities sexual minority stress, LGBT health disparities, and the stigma of living with HIV.
Go to Profile#4226
Rani Hoff
#106170
Overall Influence
Rani A. Hoff is a professor of psychiatry and a director of a national center for Post-traumatic stress disorder at Yale University. Life and work Rani Hoff, daughter of Robert and Victoria Hoff, grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and first became a concertmaster of the Erie Philharmonic Youth orchestra at the age of 10. She graduated with a BS in mathematics and biology from Mercyhurst University in 1985 at the age of 16, and within the next two months she joined the Army and was reporting to basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, hoping to become a medical specialist.
Go to Profile#4227
Caitlin Ryan
#117119
Overall Influence
Caitlin Ryan is a clinical social worker who is considered a pioneer in research related to LGBTQ health and mental health. Ryan is the director of the Family Acceptance Project® , “a research, intervention, education and policy initiative that works to prevent health and mental health risks for LGBTQ children and youth” based out of the Marian Wright Edelman Institute at San Francisco State University.
Go to Profile#4228
Timothy D. Johnston
#182086
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Timothy David Johnston is an English-born American developmental psychologist who specializes in the evolution and development of behavior. He is a professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro , where he is also Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts & Sciences. He served as Dean of the UNC Greensboro's College of Arts & Sciences from 2002 to 2016, as president of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences from 2014 to 2015, and as Head of the Department of Psychology at UNC Greensboro from 1997 to 2002.
Go to Profile#4229
Veronica Galvan
#110686
Overall Influence
Veronica Galvan is a Professor and the Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair of Aging Research in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Since December 2022, she has served as Director of the Oklahoma Nathan Shock Center on Aging. She also serves as co-director of the Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
Go to Profile#4230
Donald A. Andrews
#171927
Overall Influence
1941 - 2010 (69 years)
Donald Arthur Andrews was a Canadian correctional psychologist and criminologist who taught at Carleton University, where he was a founding member of the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is recognized for having criticized Robert Martinson's influential paper concluding that "nothing works" in correctional treatment. He also helped to advance the technique of risk assessment to better predict the chance of recidivism among offenders. He is credited with coining the terms "criminogenic needs" and "risk-need-responsivity", both of which have since been used and studied extensiv...
Go to Profile#4231
Jostein Rise
#181342
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Jostein Rise is a Norwegian social psychologist. He is the director of the Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research from 1 October 2005, having worked there since 2002. He has been a professor at the University of Bergen, and assisting professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the University of Oslo.
Go to Profile#4232
Malin Bergström
#67422
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (61 years)
Malin Bergström is a child psychologist and scientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She is a specialist in studies concerning the effect on children with different child custody arrangements after divorce or separation. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs, her research group has shown that children have better physical, mental and social outcomes if they live in a shared parenting arrangement compared to primarily living with only one parent.
Go to Profile#4233
Samuel Culbert
#169711
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (88 years)
Samuel A. Culbert is a professor at UCLA Anderson School of Management, in the fields of organizational theory and applied behavioral science. He is known for his "trans-organizational" research methodology commentaries on workplace dynamics, identification of mismanagement practices, and theories on the sources of workplace-induced alienation.
Go to Profile#4234
Kyle Elliott
#111722
Overall Influence
Kyle Elliott is a Canadian ornithologist and an assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University in Montréal, Canada. He is the current Canada Research Chair in Arctic Ecology.
Go to Profile#4235
Denise Hines
#178644
Overall Influence
Denise A. Hines is an American psychologist doing research on domestic violence and sexual abuse with focuses on prevention, intervention, and public policy. She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#4236
Gretty Mirdal
#174148
Overall Influence
Gretty Mizrahi Mirdal is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, and the former director of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, the PIAS . Presently she directs the "Brain, Culture and Society" programme at the PIAS, and she continues her research activities at the University of Copenhagen and the Royal Danish Academy for Sciences and Letters.
Go to Profile#4237
James Giles
#82098
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (68 years)
James Giles is a Canadian philosopher and psychologist. He has written about the philosophy of perception, personal identity and the self, mindfulness, Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, and has published theories of the evolution of human hairlessness, the nature of sexual desire, sexual attraction, and gender. His wide range of academic interests and often controversial views have earned him the title of an "interdisciplinary maverick."
Go to Profile#4238
Janet Leathem
#128443
Overall Influence
Janet Marion Leathem is a New Zealand psychology academic specializing in traumatic brain injury. She is currently a full professor at Massey University. Academic career After a 1975 MSc thesis titled 'The assessment of laterality' and a 1980 PhD titled 'Some Aspects of Cortical Functioning in Man,' both at Victoria University of Wellington, Leathem moved to Massey University, where she rose to full professor.
Go to Profile#4239
Charlotte Blease
#123071
Overall Influence
Charlotte Blease is a Northern Irish philosopher of medicine from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She is a healthcare researcher at General Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston USA. Formerly she was a Fulbright Scholar to the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School. She is a former Irish Research Council fellow and a Queen's University, Belfast lecturer.
Go to Profile#4240
Jon Freeman
#177030
Overall Influence
Jonathan B. Freeman is an American psychologist and associate professor of psychology at Columbia University. He is best known for his work on the neuroscience of person perception and social cognition, as well as mouse-tracking methodology in cognitive science. His research focuses on the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying split-second social judgments and their impact on behaviour.
Go to Profile#4241
Donn B. Parker
#10877
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (97 years)
Donn B. Parker was an information security researcher and consultant and a 2001 Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. Parker had over 50 years of experience in the computer field in computer programming, computer systems management, consulting, teaching, and research.
Go to Profile#4242
Rafael Núñez
#183073
Overall Influence
#4243
Bob Knight
#164409
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Bob G. Knight , is the former associate dean of the USC Davis School of Gerontology, the Merle H. Bensinger Professor of Gerontology and Psychology and the director of the Tingstad Older Adult Counseling Center. He is best known for research and theory development on cross-cultural issues in stress and coping during family caregiving for dementia and also for theory and scholarship on adapting psychotherapy for work with older adults.
Go to Profile#4244
Mirta Galesic
#97151
Overall Influence
Mirta Galesic is a Croatian American psychologist who is the Cowan Chair in Human Social Dynamics at the Santa Fe Institute. She serves as a member of the faculty at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna.
Go to Profile#4245
Jane Halonen
#177720
Overall Influence
Jane Simmons Halonen is an American educational psychologist whose career has focused on advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning in psychology. She holds the position of Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida where she also served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 2003 to 2012.Halonen is a contributing writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Go to Profile#4246
Mouza al-Malki
#180553
Overall Influence
Mouza al-Malki is a Qatari writer and psychologist. Early life and education Al Malki holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland. She is the first Qatari psychotherapist practitioner, having received her degrees in the United States.
Go to Profile#4247
Clarisa Hardy
#149178
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (81 years)
Clarisa Rut Hardy Raskovan is an Argentinian-born psychologist, anthropologist, writer and politician from Chile, Minister for Social Development and Planning during the first term of Michelle Bachelet.
Go to Profile#4248
Ronald L. Cohen
#183262
Overall Influence
#4249
Jane Stallings
#178668
Overall Influence
1929 - 2016 (87 years)
Jane Ainel Smith Stallings was an American educational researcher and academic. She was the 1994–95 president of the American Educational Research Association and the first female to become a dean at Texas A&M University.
Go to Profile#4250
Charles Lewis
#183291
Overall Influence
