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).
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List of the most influential people in Psychology,
#4251
Tracy Kendler
#96254
Overall Influence
1918 - 2001 (83 years)
Tracy Kendler, née Sylvia Seedman was an American research psychologist known for her research in discrimination learning. Early life and education Kendler was born Sylvia Seedman in Brooklyn, New York, and changed her name to Tracy at a young age. She was encouraged to find a husband instead of attending university, but matriculated at Brooklyn College, where she began to work with Abraham Maslow. She and her future husband, Howard H. Kendler, moved to the University of Iowa for their graduate studies, where she studied for a master's degree with Kenneth Spence and did research in neobehaviorism for her Ph.D., which she earned in 1943.
Go to Profile#4252
Anthony Onwuegbuzie
#167831
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (64 years)
Anthony John Onwuegbuzie is a British-American educational psychologist who is a senior research associate at the University of Cambridge's Research for Equitable Access and Learning Centre. He was formerly professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Counseling at Sam Houston State University. As of 2016, he was the president of the Mixed Methods International Research Association.
Go to Profile#4253
Judith S. Beck
#183336
Overall Influence
#4254
Shauna Cooper
#119122
Overall Influence
Shauna Michelle Cooper is an American psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research considers how race, culture and context influence the development of African-American young people.
Go to Profile#4255
Sarah Brosnan
#110378
Overall Influence
Sarah Brosnan is a researcher studying the development of cognitive processes that underlie cooperation and reciprocity. The focus of her work has been on how animals perceive "exchanged goods and services," as demonstrated by reciprocal interactions,. She has looked at both human and nonhuman primates as a way of understanding the evolution of cooperative and economic behaviors, specifically the topic of inequity aversion and the cooperative pulling paradigm. She works at Georgia State University in the Department of Psychology, and directs the university's Comparative Economics and Behavior...
Go to Profile#4256
Waikaremoana Waitoki
#175755
Overall Influence
Waikaremoana Waitoki is a New Zealand clinical psychologist, academic, and former president of the New Zealand Psychological Society from 2020 until 2022. She is an associate professor at the University of Waikato, and focuses her research on indigenous psychology, and cultural competency.
Go to Profile#4257
Eddie Harmon-Jones
#176079
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Eddie Harmon-Jones is professor of psychology at the University of New South Wales. He is recognized for his research on social neuroscience, cognitive dissonance, and the motivating aspects of emotions.
Go to Profile#4258
Michael Bar-Eli
#173923
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael "Miki" Bar-Eli is an Israeli psychologist, Emeritus Professor who held the Nat Holman Chair in Sports Research at the Faculty of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva.
Go to Profile#4259
Nancy Rodriguez
#116697
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (56 years)
For the American politician, see Nancy Rodriguez. Nancy Rodriguez is an American criminologist and professor in the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on substance abuse, juvenile court decision-making, and sentencing policies. She previously taught in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University from 1998 to 2015. She was the director of the National Institute of Justice from February 9, 2015, to January 13, 2017. She was originally nominated to direct the NIJ in 2014 by then-president of the United States Bar...
Go to Profile#4260
Corinna Löckenhoff
#90123
Overall Influence
Corinna Elisabeth Löckenhoff is a gerontologist. She is a professor of Human Development at Cornell University and of Gerontology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. Education Löckenhoff earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Marburg. She went on to receive her PhD in psychology from Stanford University in 2004. Her doctoral advisor was Laura L. Carstensen, and her thesis title was Age-Related Positivity Effects in Information Acquisition and Decision-Making: Testing Socioemotional Selectivity Theory in the Health Domain. After her PhD, she had a postdoctoral fellowship at ...
Go to Profile#4261
Brooke Rogers
#79369
Overall Influence
Marian Brooke Rogers is a British psychologist who is a Professor of Behavioural Science and Security at King's College London where she is Vice Dean in the Faculty of Social Science and Public Policy . She is a social psychologist who studies risk and threat. In 2014 she was asked to chair the Cabinet Office Behavioural Science Expert Group . In 2019 she was appointed Chair of the Home Office Science Advisory Council . Professor Rogers was appointed to the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology in 2020.
Go to Profile#4262
Anne Briar Smith
#165679
Overall Influence
1940 - 2016 (76 years)
Anne Briar Smith was a New Zealand professor at the University of Otago, and was a pioneering children's rights researcher. Early life and education Smith was born on 13 August 1940 in Porthcawl, Wales, to Dora and Geoff Riddall. Her father worked for the Iraq Petroleum Company, and when that necessitated the family move to Syria, Smith boarded at the Welsh Girls' School in England, aged nine. The family moved to New Zealand in 1954, and Smith attended Te Aroha College, where she was dux in both 1956 and 1957.
Go to Profile#4263
Henry Schlinger
#183750
Overall Influence
Henry David Schlinger Jr. is an American psychologist known for his work in applied behavior analysis. He is a professor of psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, where he was formerly the director of the M.S. Program in Applied Behavior Analysis. He also holds a part-time position as an associate professor in the Chicago School of Professional Psychology's Applied Behavior Analysis program. He is a former editor-in-chief of both the Analysis of Verbal Behavior and the Behavior Analyst. He is a member of the Association for Behavior Analysis International and the board of trus...
Go to Profile#4264
Ulrich Müller
#183757
Overall Influence
#4265
John Corrigan
#103218
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
John Corrigan is an American religion scholar and historian, known for being the author of a number of books on the history of religion and emotion, and the digital humanities. He is the Lucius Moody Bristol Distinguished Professor of Religion and Professor of History, and Distinguished Research Professor at Florida State University . He is a leader in the academic study of religion and emotion and in the field of the spatial humanities. His narrative histories of religion in America are widely adopted in university courses.
Go to Profile#4266
Dinesh Wadiwel
#71380
Overall Influence
Dinesh Joseph Wadiwel is an Australian social and political theorist who is presently an associate professor in Human Rights and Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Sydney. His work addresses critical animal studies, the rights of disabled people, and theoretical perspectives on violence.
Go to Profile#4267
John Rust
#183794
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
#4268
Wendy Maltz
#181250
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Wendy Maltz is an American sex therapist, psychotherapist, author, educator, and clinical social worker. She is an expert on the sexual repercussions of sexual abuse, understanding women's sexual fantasies, treating pornography-related problems, and promoting healthy sexuality. She has taught at the University of Oregon and, up until her retirement in 2016 from providing counseling services, was co-director with her husband, Larry Maltz, of Maltz Counseling Associates therapy practice in Eugene, Oregon.
Go to Profile#4269
Amy Mezulis
#180692
Overall Influence
Amy Mezulis is an American clinical psychologist and researcher, based at Seattle Pacific University since 2006. Early life and education Mezulis earned a BA from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She completed her pre-doctoral fellowship at the Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System – Seattle and her postdoctoral fellowship at Seattle Children's Hospital.
Go to Profile#4270
Johan Lundström
#167782
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Dr. Johan N. Lundström is a Swedish biologist and psychologist. He was awarded his Ph.D. in 2005 from Uppsala University and is most notable for his chemosensory work, and currently works at the Monell Chemical Senses Center. His experiments involve the use of neuroimaging and testing of human behaviour. Johan Lundström's Group of the department of clinical neuroscience currently conduct basic research into the understanding of the neural and behavioural function of the olfactory system and how it interacts with other senses to understand our environment in health and disease.
Go to Profile#4271
Peter Gallagher
#183905
Overall Influence
#4272
John Cowan
#183925
Overall Influence
#4273
Rachel Zajac
#74555
Overall Influence
Rachel Zajac is a New Zealand forensic psychologist and professor at the University of Otago in Dunedin. Academic career Zajac graduated from the University of Otago in 2002 with a PhD titled "The effect of cross-examination on the reliability and credibility of children's testimony". She joined the Department of Psychology as a lecturer the following year and was appointed associate professor in 2016. In December 2019 she was promoted to full professor with effect from 1 February 2020.
Go to Profile#4274
Glenn Curtiss
#183980
Overall Influence
#4275
Elizabeth L. Cless
#89628
Overall Influence
1916 - 1992 (76 years)
Elizabeth Lawrence Cless was an American educator. She pioneered the development of continuing education for women, which provides new paths and programs to help women resume higher education that they had interrupted or postponed. Starting at the University of Minnesota in 1960, and subsequently at The Claremont Colleges in California, Cless developed and expanded the scope of those programs; by 1970 educators had created 400 of them throughout the United States. In 1979 she developed and founded The Plato Society, a lifelong learning organization at the University of California, Los Angeles focused on the intellectual growth of men and women over 50.
Go to Profile#4276
Ahmet Cumhur Akin
#184034
Overall Influence
#4277
Irving M. Binik
#167878
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (77 years)
Yitzchak M. "Irv" Binik is an American-Canadian psychologist whose main research interest is human sexuality, specifically sexual pain . Career The only child of Abraham and Bella Binik, originally from Nowy Lupkow and Lodz respectively, he grew up in Rochester, N.Y. In 1970, Binik earned B.A. in History from New York University and a B.H.L. in Jewish Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary. He then studied experimental psychopathology and Clinical Psychology at University of Pennsylvania, earning a M.A. in 1972 and a Ph.D. in 1975, following a Clinical Internship at Warneford Hospital's Department of Psychiatry at University of Oxford in 1974-1975.
Go to Profile#4278
Jerome D. Schein
#183820
Overall Influence
1923 - 2010 (87 years)
Jerome D. Schein was professor emeritus of sensory rehabilitation at New York University, and adjunct professor of education at the University of Alberta, Canada, and a consultant in Coconut Creek, Florida.
Go to Profile#4279
Lori Mann Bruce
#184087
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (26 years)
Lori Mann Bruce currently serves as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs and holds the title of Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tennessee Technological University. As the Provost, she provides leadership to and oversight of eight colleges and schools, offering bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs. Prior to joining Tennessee Tech University, Bruce served as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at Mississippi State University. While at Mississippi State University, Bruce was awarded the university's highest academic honor, being named a William L.
Go to Profile#4280
Klaus Eyferth
#139802
Overall Influence
1928 - 2012 (84 years)
Klaus Eyferth was a German psychologist. He was educated at the University of Hamburg, from which he received his diploma in 1954, his doctorate in 1957, and his habilitation in 1964. While at the University of Hamburg, he conducted a study on the IQ scores of the German-raised children of black and white American soldiers stationed in Allied-occupied Germany. This study has since become known as the Eyferth study. In 1973, he joined the faculty of the Technical University of Berlin, where he went on to help establish the Institute for Psychology. A member of the German Psychological Society, he hosted its 1988 conference in Berlin.
Go to Profile#4281
Fiona Alpass
#32858
Overall Influence
Fiona Margaret Alpass is a New Zealand academic at Massey University. Academic career Alpass completed a master's degree at Massey University in 1992, looking at how anger management and social contact can modulate the effects of alcohol and tobacco use. After a 1994 PhD titled 'The effects of organisational change in the military: a comparison of work related perceptions and experiences in military and non-military environments' at Massey University, Alpass started working at Massey and rose to full professor in 2013.
Go to Profile#4282
Apryl A. Alexander
#171669
Overall Influence
1984 - Present (42 years)
Apryl A. Alexander is an American clinical and forensic psychologist who is an associate professor at the University of Denver. Alexander directs students at the Denver Forensic Institute for Research, Service and Training , and engages in clinical psychology practice. She is co-founder of the University of Denver's Prison Arts Initiative where incarcerated individuals engage in a therapeutic, educational arts curricula.
Go to Profile#4283
Vivian Gadsden
#180383
Overall Influence
Vivian Lynette Gadsden is an American psychologist who is an education researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research considers the social and cultural factors that affect learning and literacy. She is interested in intergenerational learning within African-American families.
Go to Profile#4284
Myra Hunter
#168597
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (76 years)
Myra Sally Hunter is Professor of Clinical Health Psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College, London, and a Clinical and Health Psychologist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.
Go to Profile#4285
Iroise Dumontheil
#168320
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (46 years)
Iroise Dumontheil is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at Birkbeck, University of London and Director of Masters courses in Educational Neuroscience. Dumontheil was awarded the Spearman Medal from the British Psychological Society in 2015, for her research in the social cognition and executive functions associated with the rostral prefrontal cortex, particularly in adulthood and their development during adolescence.
Go to Profile#4286
Nicola Starkey
#183729
Overall Influence
Nicola Jayne Starkey is a New Zealand psychology academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Waikato. Academic career After a 2000 PhD titled 'Ethological and pharmacological examination of social behaviour in gerbils ' at the University of Leeds, she moved to the University of Waikato, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#4287
Makeba Wilbourn
#170237
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (53 years)
Makeba Parramore Wilbourn is an American developmental psychologist and professor at Duke University in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. She studies how children acquire knowledge. She was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from President Barack Obama. This is the highest honor bestowed on early career scientists in the US.
Go to Profile#4288
Patricia Jennings
#158165
Overall Influence
Patricia A. Jennings is a Professor of Education at the University of Virginia. Education and early career Patricia A. Jennings received a BA from Antioch College in 1977, an M.Ed. from Saint Mary's College in 1980, and a Ph.D. from the University of California Davis in 2004. Before her degrees in education and human development, Jennings also studied Buddhism at the Buddhist Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and later founded a Montessori school that taught meditation during the late 1980s.
Go to Profile#4289
Dieter Hillert
#151863
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (70 years)
Dieter Gilberto Hillert is a German-American biolinguist and cognitive scientist. His research focuses on the human language faculty as a cognitive and neurological system. He is known for work on the neurobiology of language, real-time sentence processing, and language evolution. He advocates comparative evolutionary studies of cognition, argues against tabula rasa models, and favors computational theories of mind.
Go to Profile#4290
John Gagnon
#116478
Overall Influence
1931 - 2016 (85 years)
John H. Gagnon was a pioneering sociologist of human sexuality who wrote and edited 15 books and over 100 articles. He collaborated with William Simon to develop the piece he is perhaps best recognized for: "Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality" . He was Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he taught and from 1968 to 1998. In that same time frame, he also dedicated himself to advancing the field of sociology through his research.
Go to Profile#4291
Michael Telch
#184499
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (73 years)
Michael J. Telch is an American psychologist who has taught at the University of Texas at Austin since 1986. At UT-Austin, he is a professor of clinical psychology, the founding director of the Laboratory for the Study of Anxiety Disorders , and the former Director of Clinical Training. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology. He is known for his research on posttraumatic stress disorder among American soldiers, and the extent to which it can be predicted before the soldiers serve in combat.
Go to Profile#4292
Guusje ter Horst
#108138
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Guus "Guusje" ter Horst is a retired Dutch politician of the Labour Party and psychologist. She is a member of the supervisory board of Royal Dutch Shell since 1 January 2013 and chairwoman of the supervisory board of the Institute for Sound and Vision since 11 July 2011.
Go to Profile#4293
Norbert Kerr
#179614
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (78 years)
Norbert Lee Kerr is an American social psychologist and Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Michigan State University. As of 2014, he also held a part-time appointment as Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent in England. He has researched the Kohler effect and factors influencing decision-making by juries.
Go to Profile#4294
Felicia Hill-Briggs
#183565
Overall Influence
Felicia Hill-Briggs was an American behavioral and social scientist. Early life and education Hill-Briggs was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of nine. She received her bachelor's degree in psychology from American University and her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology and Health Psychology from Pennsylvania State University. Following this, she completed her internship in Medical Consultation and Liaison and Clinical Neuropsychology at New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Geropsychology and Geriatric Neuropsychology at...
Go to Profile#4295
Chris Bart
#65769
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (74 years)
Chris Bart is a Canadian former university professor, business consultant and author. Career Bart retired from McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business in 2013 after he and 5 other professors were suspended for harassing other faculty in an effort to deny their faculty's Dean a second term.
Go to Profile#4296
Annette Gough
#109512
Overall Influence
Annette Elizabeth Gough OAM is an Australian science and environmental education scholar and Professor Emerita in the School of Education at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. She is a pioneer of the environmental education movement in Australia. Gough is known for her critical analysis of the history of the field and for introducing a gender dimension in environmental education research. Although best known for this work, Gough has also made important contributions to science education, research methodology and gender studies.
Go to Profile#4297
Thomas Fagan
#115452
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (83 years)
Thomas Kevin Fagan is Professor and Director of the School MA/EdS Program in the Department of Psychology at the University of Memphis.
Go to Profile#4298
G. Terence Wilson
#184795
Overall Influence
#4299
Carmen L. Rivera-Medina
#165279
Overall Influence
Carmen L. Rivera-Medina is a Puerto Rican psychologist, statistician, and methodologist. She is an instructor at University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus where she works as a statistician and methodologist in the Institute for Psychological Research.
Go to Profile#4300
Mark Stemmler
#171629
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (66 years)
Mark Stemmler was born on August 7, 1960, in Norwood, Massachusetts, United States. He was Professor of Psychological Methodology and Quality Assurance at the Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science, Bielefeld University from 2007 to 2011. He was also a member of the Center for Statistics at Bielefeld University. Currently he is Professor of Psychological Assessment at the Department of Psychology and Sports Science at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Since 2010 he is also Adjunct Professor at the College of Health and Human Development at the Pennsylvania State University.
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