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.

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,

#4301

Jeffrey M. Lackner

#184265

Overall Influence

Jeffrey M. Lackner is an American clinical psychologist, educator, and researcher at the University at Buffalo . He currently serves as a professor in the Department of Medicine at UB's Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. As chief of its Division of Behavioral Medicine, Lackner oversees a division whose clinical, research, and educational activities focus on the interplay of medicine and behavior as they impact chronic disease. He is known for his work on low-intensity behavioral self-management approaches for high-impact pain disorders, and has worked to improve the methodolog...

#4302

Paul Hewitt

#184450

Overall Influence

Dr. Paul L. Hewitt is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology, an Associate Member of the Psychotherapy Program in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia, Canada. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association and of its Section on Clinical Psychology. He has won numerous awards. In 2017, Hewitt was named one of the top 10 Canadian clinical psychology professors for research productivity and, in 2019, he was awarded the Canadian Psychological Association’s Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science.

#4303

Carolyn M. West

#168818

Overall Influence

Carolyn Marie West is associate professor of psychology , at the University of Washington Tacoma, and was the first holder of the Bartley Dobb Professorship for the Study and Prevention of Violence .

#4304

Gisela Kaplan

#33765

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Gisela Kaplan is an Australian ethologist who primarily specialises in ornithology and primatology. She is a professor emeritus in animal behaviour at the University of New England, Australia, and also honorary professor of the Queensland Brain Institute.

#4305

Joanna Shapland

#86247

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (76 years)

Joanna Shapland was born in 1950. She earned her B.A. from St. Hilda’s College, which was promoted to an M.A. She went on to earn a diploma in criminology from Darwin College before earning a PhD from Wolfson College. She has spent her career studying victimology and victimisation, exploring the restorative justice approaches employed by police officers and crime reduction programs, and engaging in longitudinal research into the life choices of adult offenders in their early twenties. Her efforts have yielded critically important insights into effective practices for restorative justice. She h...

#4306

Dennis L. Murphy

#185060

Overall Influence

#4307

R Lorraine Collins

#185077

Overall Influence

#4308

Susan Krauss Whitbourne

#130449

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Susan Krauss Whitbourne is a developmental clinical psychologist known for her work on personality and identity over the lifespan. She holds the position of Professor Emerita of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

#4309

Ariel Knafo-Noam

#184743

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Ariel Knafo-Noam, also known as Ariel Knafo, is an Israeli developmental psychologist and behavior geneticist. He is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is also the head of the Social Development Laboratory. His research has focused on genetic and environmental contributions to prosocial behaviors such as altruism and empathy.

#4310

Geraldine Wright

#75077

Overall Influence

Geraldine Wright is an insect neuroethologist in the United Kingdom. In 2018 she became the Professor of Comparative Physiology/Organismal Biology at the University of Oxford and in 2021 she was appointed Hope Professor of Zoology.

#4311

Sara Wilford

#30138

Overall Influence

1932 - 2021 (89 years)

Sara Delano Wilford was a psychologist who taught at Sarah Lawrence College from 1982 to 2014. Early life Sara Delano Roosevelt was a daughter of Betsey Cushing Roosevelt Whitney, a philanthropist in medicine and art, and businessman James Roosevelt, the oldest son of U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Wilford's adoptive father was John Hay Whitney.

#4312

Betsy Thom

#185226

Overall Influence

Betsy Thom is a British sociologist and Professor of Health Policy in the Department of Mental Health & Social Work at Middlesex University. She is known for her works on substance abuse and substance use policy. She is the head of the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at Middlesex University

#4313

Lesley Hoyles

#180906

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Lesley Hoyles is a Welsh microbiologist who is Professor of Microbiome and Systems Biology at Nottingham Trent University. She combines in vivo and in vitro microbiology and bioinformatics research to better understand how the gut microbiota influences health and disease.

#4314

Monica Baskin

#73429

Overall Influence

Monica Baskin is an American psychologist who is a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research considers health disparities in the Deep South. She serves as Director of Community Outreach and Engagement at the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center.

#4315

Marina Butovskaya

#50925

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Marina Butovskaya is a Russian ethologist and cultural anthropologist. Life She was born in the Soviet Union in the city of Cherkassy , she earned a Master of Arts degree from Moscow State University in 1982. She was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree by the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1986, and a Doctor of Science degree by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1994.

#4316

Jerzy Adam Kowalski

#172252

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

Jerzy Adam Kowalski is a Polish researcher and popular science author in the field of human sexuality. Biography He is a graduate of the Warsaw University, where from 1977 to 1984 he studied political science, journalism and psychology. He was a journalist, publisher and editor. From 2008 he is a research worker in the Institute of Sex Research in Opole, Poland and the chairman of board of the foundation for the Institute. In 2019 he earned a PhD grade in the field of science of culture in the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw.

#4317

Paul Crawford

#95178

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Paul Crawford FRSA, FAcSS, FRSPH is an English academic and writer. Academic career Crawford received a first-class honours degree in English language and literature in 1994 before completing his PhD at The University of Birmingham in 1999. His thesis on the novelist William Golding was funded by the British Academy. Crawford joined The University of Nottingham in 2001 and led the development of a new research unit, the Health Language Research Group. A specialist in trans-disciplinary research related to healthcare, he went on to pioneer the new field of Health Humanities, becoming the first and only Professor of Health Humanities worldwide in 2008.

#4318

Suzanne Pitama

#133921

Overall Influence

Suzanne Georgina Pitama is a New Zealand academic, is Māori, of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Whare descent and as of 2020 is a full professor at the University of Otago in Christchurch, New Zealand. Early life Pitama was educated at Wairoa College, and qualified in psychology at University of Auckland. She then undertook postgraduate and doctoral studies at Massey University and the University of Otago.

#4319

Bryce Reeve

#169246

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Bryce Byrum Reeve III is an American psychometrician, outcomes research scientist, professor of Health Policy and Management at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health , and faculty expert at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is a prominent figure in quantitative research on improving the measurement of patient-reported health outcomes.

#4320

Sol Encel

#106024

Overall Influence

1925 - 2010 (85 years)

Solomon Encel was a noted Jewish-Australian academic, sociologist and political scientist. He received an M.A. and Ph.D. , both from the University of Melbourne. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of New South Wales , Senior Lecturer and Reader in Political Science at the Australian National University, Canberra , and Tutor and Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne .

#4321

Kerry Gibson

#182128

Overall Influence

Kerry Lynn Gibson is a South African-New Zealand clinical psychologist and academic, specialising in youth mental health. She is a professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland. Gibson was the president of the New Zealand Psychological Society, from 2014 until 2016.

#4322

Donald Lynam

#182951

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (59 years)

Donald Ray Lynam, Jr. is an American psychologist and distinguished professor of clinical psychology at Purdue University's College of Health and Human Sciences. He is also the director of Purdue's Developmental Psychopathology, Psychopathy and Personality Lab. He previously taught at the University of Kentucky, where he won the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology Award in 2002. He has been conducting research on psychopathy for over two decades.

#4323

Tracy Dennis-Tiwary

#170341

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (53 years)

Tracy Dennis-Tiwary is an American clinical psychologist, author, health technology entrepreneur, and professor of psychology and neuroscience at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Her research explores emotion regulation and its role in mental health and illness, with a particular focus on anxiety and anxiety-related attention biases, as well as child emotional development. She is known for her nuanced view of the impact of digital technology and social media on psychological well-being in youth and adults, including adjustment, relationship quality, a...

#4324

Sokoni Karanja

#63057

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (86 years)

Sokoni Tacuma Karanja is a child development expert, and President and CEO of the Center for New Horizons. He graduated from Topeka High School in 1958, from Washburn University with a B.A. in 1961, from the University of Denver with a master's degree in psychology, from Atlanta University with a master's degree in social work, from the University of Cincinnati with a master's degree in community planning, and from Brandeis University with a Ph.D. degree in urban policy, where he was assistant dean of students, in 1971.

#4325

David A. Booth

#99903

Overall Influence

1938 - 2018 (80 years)

David Booth works full-time in research and research teaching as an honorary professor at the School of Psychology in the College of Life and Environmental Sciences of the University of Birmingham . According to his Web page he investigates the ways in which an individual's life works. His research and teaching centre on the processes in the mind that fit acts and reactions of human beings and animals to the passing situation.

#4326

Igor Douven

#81305

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Igor Douven a philosopher, cognitive psychologist and formal epistemologist, known for coordinating the research group Formal Epistemology: Foundations and Applications at the KU Leuven. In 2010 he became Endowed Chair in philosophy at the University of Groningen. In 2013, he joined the "Probability, Assessment, Reasoning and Inferences Studies" research group at Paris 8 University.

#4327

Dieter Ebert

#185786

Overall Influence

#4328

Frank Joseph McGuigan

#133909

Overall Influence

1924 - 1998 (74 years)

Frank Joseph McGuigan was an American psychologist. His research spanned multiple areas, including cybernetics, electrophysiology, and psychophysiology.

#4329

Ronald L. Cohen

#68680

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Ronald L. Cohen was a social psychologist whose research was focused on justice. He was born in 1945 and died in 2020. He was a faculty member at Bennington College and the co-author or editor of several books and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, including:Equity and Justice in Social Behavior, 1982Justice: Views from the Social Sciences , 1986Political Attitudes over the Life Span: The Bennington Women After Fifty Years , 1992In addition to his work as a researcher and teacher, Cohen served as a dean at Bennington College, as a co-founder of the Bennington Community Justice Center, a...

#4330

Erika H. James

#150459

Overall Influence

Erika H. James is an American academic and businesswoman. She is the dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is both the first woman and the first Black person to lead the business school. James is known for her crisis leadership and workplace diversity research. James was named dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in February 2020. Her term began on July 1 of the same year.

#4331

Douglas West

#185980

Overall Influence

#4332

Stephen Porter

#185981

Overall Influence

#4333

Helmut Berger

#185991

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (68 years)

#4334

Larry Cochran

#117202

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (82 years)

Larry Cochran is a Canadian psychologist and Professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of British Columbia. In his writings he argues that life cycles can be observed. Bibliography Career Counseling: A Narrative Approach The sense of vocation: About the choice of vocation; life choices Becoming an agent: patterns and dynamics for shaping your life 1994 Portrait and Story: Dramaturgical Approaches to the Study of Persons Position and the Nature of Personhood:An Approach to the Understanding of Persons The Meaning of Grief: A Dramaturgical Approach to Understanding Emotion

#4335

Caryl Rusbult

#186157

Overall Influence

2010 - 2010 (0 years)

Caryl E. Rusbult was a professor and chair of the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Netherlands. She died from uterine cancer on January 27, 2010. Rusbult received her B.A. in Sociology from UCLA and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . During her time as a professor at Chapel Hill she made seminal contributions to theoretical social psychology including the investment model of commitment processes, a theoretical model of accommodation processes, and the Michelangelo effect.

#4336

Charlie Reeve

#109876

Overall Influence

Charlie Lucian Reeve is a professor of psychology in the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Ph.D. program in health psychology, where he is also an affiliate of the Cognitive Science Academy.

#4337

Zoe R. Donaldson

#171110

Overall Influence

Zoe R. Donaldson is an American neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Donaldson explores the neurobiological and genetic mechanisms of social bonding and social behavior in rodents. Her work will help to elucidate how variations in genetics and circuit activity across the population predispose certain individuals to mental illness. Donaldson is a pioneer in the use of the monogamous prairie voles to study social behaviors and has been developing novel genetic tools, since her graduate work at Emory University, to study voles in the lab to better understa...

#4338

Marié Wissing

#184551

Overall Influence

Marié Philliphina Wissing is a South African clinical psychologist, who is a professor at the Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research at the North-West University in South Africa. She became a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa in 2018.

#4339

Paul S. Goodman

#148703

Overall Influence

1937 - 2012 (75 years)

Paul S. Goodman was an organizational psychologist, author, and filmmaker. He was the Richard M. Cyert Professor of Organizational Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business.

#4340

Paul Green

#186194

Overall Influence

#4341

Alex Scott-Samuel

#124524

Overall Influence

Alex Scott-Samuel is a British retired lecturer in public health at the University of Liverpool, where he was the director of the International Health Impact Assessment Consortium. He is the chair of Wavertree Constituency Labour Party and has a seat on the Labour Party regional board for the northwest. He was the chair of the Socialist Health Association between 2017 and 2020 and is involved in the Keep Our NHS Public movement.

#4342

Chanita Hughes-Halbert

#170628

Overall Influence

Chanita Ann Hughes-Halbert is an American psychologist and medical researcher. She is professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina and the AT&T Distinguished Endowed Chair for Cancer Equity at the Hollings Cancer Center. She is the first woman and first African American from South Carolina elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

#4343

Chen Jenn-yeu

#184135

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (71 years)

Chen Jenn-yeu is the dean of the College of International Studies and Social Sciences and the director of the Graduate Institute and the Department of Chinese as a Second Language at National Taiwan Normal University.

#4344

Marilyn Fain Apseloff

#124401

Overall Influence

1934 - 2018 (84 years)

Marilyn Fain Apseloff was an American author and a professor at Kent State University, known for her study of children's literature. Early life and education Apseloff was born Marilyn Fain in 1934 in Attleboro, Massachusetts to Arthur and Eve Fain. Apseloff received her bachelor's degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1956, and her master's degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1957. She also completed a fellowship at the University of Cincinnati in 1957. Her formal introduction to children's literature began when her husband urged her to take a class at Kent State University, wh...

#4345

Roxane Maranger

#181084

Overall Influence

Roxane Maranger is a professor at Université de Montréal and Canada Research Chair Tier I in Aquatic Ecosystem Science and Sustainability known for her research on the impact of humans on water quality in lakes. From July 2020 - July 2022, she served as the president of the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography .

#4346

James W. Cleary

#119635

Overall Influence

1927 - 2007 (80 years)

James William Cleary was an American university administrator and editor. He was the co-editor of multiple editions of Robert's Rules of Order and served as the second president of California State University, Northridge from 1969 to 1992.

#4347

Wim H. J. Meeus

#186317

Overall Influence

#4348

Silvia Sara Canetto

#161258

Overall Influence

Silvia Sara Canetto is a psychologist known for her research in diversity issues related to suicidal behaviors, aging, and end of life. She is a professor of applied social health psychology, and counseling psychology at Colorado State University .

#4349

Zella Luria

#178263

Overall Influence

1924 - 2018 (94 years)

Zella Luria was an American psychologist and feminist known for her work on the development of gender identity and sexuality across the life course. Her work helped to shift the field towards a cognitive approach that emphasized the social construction of gender and the active role of children in such construction.

#4350

Fiona Kumari Campbell

Fiona Kumari Campbell

#49442

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (63 years)

Fiona Kumari Campbell is a disability studies researcher and theorist, focusing on disability in relation to law, technology, advocacy, and desire. She is currently Professor of Disability and Ableism Studies in the School of Education and Social Work at the University of Dundee, Scotland and adjunct professor in Disability Studies with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. She is the author of Contours of Ableism.

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