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 female people in Religious Studies,
#101
Helen Bond
#42839
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Helen Katharine Bond is a British Professor of Christian Origins and New Testament. She has written many books related to Pontius Pilate, Jesus and Judaism. Biography Bond was born in 1968 and raised in the North East of England. She attended Durham High School. She read biblical studies at the Durham University, University of Tübingen, and the University of St Andrews. At Durham, she completed her PhD on Pontius Pilate under the supervision of James Dunn.
Go to Profile#102
Tikva Frymer-Kensky
#27021
Overall Influence
1943 - 2006 (63 years)
Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky was a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She received her MA and PhD from Yale University. She had previously served on the faculties of Wayne State University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Yale University, Ben Gurion University, and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, where she served as director of Biblical studies.
Go to Profile#103
Adele Reinhartz
#47649
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Adele Reinhartz is a Canadian academic and a specialist in the history and literature of Christianity and Judaism in the Greco-Roman period, the Gospel of John, early Jewish–Christian relations, literary criticism including feminist literary criticism, feminist exegesis, and the impact of the Bible on popular cinema and television.
Go to Profile#104
Anne Carr
#63676
Overall Influence
1934 - 2008 (74 years)
Sister Anne Carr was a Catholic nun, a Sister of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an activist, and feminist theologian at the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she was the first female permanent member of the faculty. She was well known for her beliefs regarding feminism and seen as an advocate for women's rights. Carr specialized in feminism theology regarding Catholic thought and during her lifetime she wrote ground breaking books which examined feminism and Christianity.
Go to Profile#105
Katherine K. Young
#33261
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Katherine K. Young is a Canadian religious studies professor at McGill University. Originally a scholar of Hinduism, in later life her interests have turned to the topic of misandry. Life She was awarded her M.A. from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. from McGill University, for research on the history of religions, specializing in Hinduism. After completing her doctorate Young remained at McGill as a faculty member where she continues to teach.
Go to Profile#106
Nancy R. Howell
#39359
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Nancy R. Howell is an American professor of Theology and Philosophy of Religion at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Missouri. Biography Howell earned a B.S. at The College of William and Mary, and a Th.M. and M.Div. at the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Howell earned a M.A. and Ph.D. at Claremont Graduate School. During her doctoral studies she studied with, and was the teaching assistant for, John B. Cobb. She initially worked as the academic dean of Saint Paul School of Theology.
Go to Profile#107
Lytta Bassett
#49134
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Lytta Bassett is a Swiss philosopher and Protestant theologian. She is the author of several works that have reached a wide audience, especially her 2002 book Sainte Colère, released in 2007 in English translation as Holy Anger.
Go to Profile#108
Daniela Müller
#61888
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Daniela Müller is a German theologian and church historian. She is a full professor in the History of Christianity and Canon Law at Radboud University, and has published extensively on the subjects of heresy and dissidents. Her work focuses on "the concepts of orthodoxy and heterodoxy and on the history of dissident communities."
Go to Profile#109
M. Shawn Copeland
#59690
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Mary Shawn Copeland , known professionally as M. Shawn Copeland, is a retired American womanist and Black Catholic theologian, and a former religious sister. She is professor emerita of systematic theology at Boston College and is known for her work in theological anthropology, political theology, and African American Catholicism.
Go to Profile#110
Margaret Farley
#40058
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Margaret A. Farley is an American religious sister and a member of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy. She was Gilbert L. Stark Professor Emerita of Christian Ethics at Yale University Divinity School, where she taught Christian ethics from 1971 to 2007. Farley is the first woman appointed to serve full-time on the Yale School board, along with Henri Nouwen as its first Catholic faculty members. She is a past president of Catholic Theological Society of America.
Go to Profile#111
Catharina Halkes
#36017
Overall Influence
1920 - 2011 (91 years)
Catharina Joanna Maria Halkes was a Dutch theologian and feminist, notable for having been the first Dutch professor of feminism and Christianity, at the Radboud University Nijmegen from 1983 to 1986. A Roman Catholic who was originally schooled in Dutch language and literature, she became active in the women's movement within the church, and gained a measure of notoriety when she was forbidden to address Pope John Paul II during his visit to the Netherlands in 1985. She is considered the founding mother of feminist theology in the Netherlands. She passed at the age of 90.
Go to Profile#112
Ida Raming
#71431
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Ida Raming is a German author, teacher and theologian. Life After school Raming studied Catholic theology, German and pedagogy at the University of Münster and the University of Freiburg. She finished university in 1973 and worked as a teacher at Gymnasium Martinum Emsdetten in Germany. She wrote several books concerning women's rights in the Roman Catholic Church.
Go to Profile#113
Monika Hellwig
#51826
Overall Influence
1929 - 2005 (76 years)
Monika Konrad Hildegard Hellwig was a German-born British academic, author, educator and theologian, who spent much of her life in the United States. A former Religious Sister, she left her community to pursue her academic career, becoming a professor at Georgetown University and later being named as President/Executive Director of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities .
Go to Profile#114
Tamara Sonn
#47040
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Tamara Sonn is an American academic who specializes in Islamic and religious studies. She is currently the Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor Emerita in the History of Islam at Georgetown University. She was previously Kenan Professor of Religion and Humanities at the College of William & Mary. Tamara also taught International Studies at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, N.Y.
Go to Profile#115
Daphne Hampson
#37394
Overall Influence
1944 - 2021 (77 years)
Margaret Daphne Hampson is an English theologian. Educated at Oxford and at Harvard, she held a personal Chair in "Post-Christian Thought" at the University of St Andrews. Hampson's distinctive theological position has both gained her notoriety and been widely influential. Holding that Christianity is neither true nor moral , she believes the overcoming of patriarchal religion to be fundamental to human emancipation. As a theologian Hampson has always held to a "realist" position, in which the understanding of "that which is God" is based in human religious experience.
Go to Profile#116
Phyllis Zagano
#64781
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Phyllis Zagano is an American author and academic. She has written and spoken on the role of women in the Roman Catholic Church and is an advocate for the ordination of women as deacons. Her writings have been variously translated into Indonesian, Czech, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Go to Profile#117
Janet Soskice
#31951
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Janet Martin Soskice is a Canadian-born English Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher. Soskice was educated at Somerville College, Oxford. She is professor of philosophical theology and a fellow of Jesus College at the University of Cambridge. Her theological and philosophical work has dealt with the role of women in Christianity, religious language, and the relationship between science and religion.
Go to Profile#118
Catherine Bell
#33197
Overall Influence
1952 - 2008 (56 years)
Catherine Bell was an American religious studies scholar who specialised in the study of Chinese religions and ritual studies. From 1985 until her death she worked at Santa Clara University's religious studies department, of which she was chair from 2000 to 2005.
Go to Profile#119
Margaret Hebblethwaite
#70950
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Margaret Isabella Mary Hebblethwaite is a British writer, journalist, activist and religious worker. The daughter of wood engraver Mary Olive and historian George Speaight, Hebblethwaite is the sister of Antony Speaight, QC. She read theology and philosophy at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University, and at the Gregorian University in Rome. In 1974, she met and married Peter Hebblethwaite, a Jesuit who left the priesthood after a decade in the ministry. After laicization, he worked as an editor, journalist and Vaticanologist. The couple married and had three children.
Go to Profile#120
Tina Beattie
#38953
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Tina Beattie is a British Christian theologian, writer and broadcaster. Until August 2020, she was the Professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Roehampton in London and Director of the Digby Stuart Research Centre for Religion, Society and Human Flourishing at the same university. In retirement, she is remaining Director of Catherine of Siena College at the University of Roehampton and is writing fiction.
Go to Profile#121
Karen Kilby
#69549
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Karen Kilby is an American lay Catholic theologian. She is currently the Bede Professor of Catholic Theology in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University. Early life and education Born in England and raised in Connecticut, Kilby graduated with a BA Summa Cum Laude in Mathematics and Religious Studies from Yale University in 1986. She also earned a MASt. in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge before completing her PhD in Theology at Yale University , studying under George Lindbeck and Kathryn Tanner . Her thesis focused on the theology of the Catholic theologian ...
Go to Profile#122
Ann Louise Gilligan
#44001
Overall Influence
1945 - 2017 (72 years)
Ann Louise Gilligan was an Irish theologian who taught at Saint Patrick's College, Drumcondra . A former nun, she was the wife of Katherine Zappone. In Zappone and Gilligan v. Revenue Commissioners , they unsuccessfully sought recognition of their Canadian marriage. Despite failing in the courts, Gilligan was a leading campaigner in Ireland's 2015 same-sex marriage referendum, and ultimately succeeded in having her marriage recognised in Irish law before her death in 2017.
Go to Profile#123
Alice Bach
#79708
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Alice Bach is an American feminist biblical scholar. She is Archbishop Hallinan Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Biography Alice Bach was born 6 April 1942, in New York City. She studied at Barnard College.
Go to Profile#124
Eveline Goodman-Thau
#85540
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Eveline Goodman-Thau was the first female rabbi in Austria, a job she began in 2001. She was born in Vienna. Eveline survived the Holocaust by hiding with her family in the Netherlands. She was privately ordained in Jerusalem in October 2000 by Orthodox rabbi Jonathan Chipman. She later led the liberal Jewish community in Vienna for one year, beginning in 2001.
Go to Profile#125
Margaret Idahosa
#64385
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Margaret Idahosa is a Nigerian preacher, author and the Archbishop of the Church of God Mission International. She is the first African female Archbishop. She is the wife of the late Archbishop Benson Idahosa. She is the Chancellor of Benson Idahosa University. She was conferred with the Officer of the Order of Niger by the federal government of Nigeria in 2008.
Go to Profile#126
Kari Vogt
#63724
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Kari Vogt is a Norwegian religious historian. She has written several books, and been a board member of the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression, and of the Norwegian chapter of PEN International.
Go to Profile#127
Mary C. Boys
#62084
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Mary C. Boys , a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, is an American scholar specializing in religious studies. Currently, Boys is the Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. At Union, Boys served as the Dean of Academic Affairs for many years. She was formerly Professor of Religious Education at Boston College, where she served for 17 years.
Go to Profile#128
Mary Jo Leddy
#68278
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Mary Jo Leddy, is a Canadian writer, speaker, theologian and social activist. Leddy is widely recognized for her work with refugees at Toronto's Romero House. In 1973, she was the founding editor of the Catholic New Times. She is the author of the books "Say to the Darkness We Beg to Differ" , Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model , At the Border Called Hope: Where Refugees are Neighbours
Go to Profile#129
Rebecca Ann Parker
#86275
Overall Influence
Rebecca Ann Parker is an American theologian, author, and former President of Starr King School for the Ministry, the first woman to serve as the permanent head of an accredited U.S. theological school.
Go to Profile#130
Annette Merz
#77814
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Annette Brigitte Merz is a German Protestant theologian and biblical scholar, on the faculty of the University of Utrecht. Merz has conducted vigorous research into the historicity of Jesus and is best known for her 1996 book with Gerd Theissen, The Historical Jesus, a widely used textbook translated into six languages. In the book, Merz and Theissen "assert that the Christian sources portray both positive and negative assessments of temple sacrifice and that Jesus, near the end of his life, deliberately created a rite to displace such sacrifices" and argue that "significant sayings of Jesus ...
Go to Profile#131
Anthea Butler
#38683
Overall Influence
Anthea Deidre Butler is an African-American professor of religion and chair of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Religious Studies, where she is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought.
Go to Profile#132
Catherine Keller
#65836
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Catherine Keller is a contemporary Christian theologian and Professor of Constructive Theology at Drew University's Graduate Division of Religion. As a constructive theologian, Keller's work is oriented around social and ecological justice, poststructuralist theory, and feminist readings of scripture and theology. Both her early and her late work brings relational thinking into theology, focusing on the relational nature of the concept of the divine, and the forms of ecological interdependence within the framework of relational theology. Her work in process theology draws on the relational on...
Go to Profile#133
Annette Kurschus
#73645
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Annette Kurschus is a German Protestant theologian and pastor. She was Praeses of the Protestant Church of Westphalia from 2012 until 2023, in November 2015 she became Vice-President of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany . She was President of the Council of the EKD from 2021 until 2023.
Go to Profile#134
Jodi Magness
#51852
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Jodi Magness is an archaeologist, orientalist and scholar of religion. She serves as the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously taught at Tufts University.
Go to Profile#135
Tine Lindhardt
#78895
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Tine Lindhardt , a Danish theologian, is the Lutheran bishop of the Diocese of Funen from 4 November 2012. Lindhardt studied theology at Aarhus University, graduating in 1984. She has worked as a parish priest and has also taught at as an external lecturer at Aarhus University. She was secretary general of the Danish Bible Society from 2003 to 2010 where she was responsible for coordinating a new translation of the Bible into Danish.
Go to Profile#136
Christine Downing
#54698
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Christine Downing is a scholar, educator, and author in the fields of mythology, religion, depth psychology, and feminist studies. Early life and education Christine Downing was born in 1931 in Leipzig, Germany. Her mother, Herta Fischer Rosenblatt, was a pharmacist, poet, and co-founder of the Haiku Society of America. Her father, Dr. E. F. Rosenblatt, was a professor of Chemistry at the University of Leipzig. Dr. Rosenblatt, considered Jewish by the Nazi party, lost his professorial appointment in 1933, which prompted the family to emigrate to the United States. In 1935, they settled in New Jersey.
Go to Profile#137
Gro Steinsland
#36529
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Gro Steinsland is a Norwegian scholar of medieval studies and history of religion and since August 2009 has been the Scientific Director of the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Go to Profile#138
Yairah Amit
#84301
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Yairah Amit is an Israeli biblical scholar. Amit studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before doing a PhD at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Meir Sternberg. She is currently Professor of Biblical Studies at Tel Aviv University. In 2012 a Festschrift was published in her honor. Words, Ideas, Worlds: Biblical Essays in Honour of Yairah Amit included contributions from Athalya Brenner, Cheryl Exum, and Yael Feldman.
Go to Profile#139
B. V. Subbamma
#41000
Overall Influence
1925 - 2009 (84 years)
B. V. Subbamma also known as Bathineni Venkata Subbamma was an Indian theologian and scholar. Noted for founding Christian ashrams, she was widely recognized for her analysis of Christianity from a cultural perspective. She was one of the first women in India to attain theological training and was one of the inaugural women pastors ordained by the Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1999 at AELC-St. Matthews West Parish, Guntur.
Go to Profile#140
Nechama Leibowitz
#30950
Overall Influence
1905 - 1997 (92 years)
Nechama Leibowitz was an Israeli Bible scholar and commentator who rekindled interest in Bible study. Biography Nechama Leibowitz was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Riga two years after her elder brother, the philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz. The family moved to Berlin in 1919. In 1930, Leibowitz received a doctorate from the University of Marburg for her thesis, Techniques in the Translations of German-Jewish Biblical Translations. That same year 1930, she immigrated to Mandate Palestine with her husband Yedidya Lipman Lebowitz. She taught at a religious Zionist teachers' seminar for the next twenty-five years.
Go to Profile#141
Jane Dempsey Douglass
#68305
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
E. Jane Dempsey Douglass is an American Presbyterian theologian and ecclesiastical historian. She was a professor at Claremont Graduate School before becoming the Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Historical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Douglass served as the President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches from 1990 to 1997, making her the first woman to head a worldwide communion of churches.
Go to Profile#142
Ursula King
#39892
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Ursula King is a German theologian and scholar of religion, who specialises in gender and religion, feminist theology, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Academic career King was Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Bristol from 1989 to 2002, and then President of Catherine of Siena College, University of Roehampton from 2008 to 2015. She had previously been a lecturer at the Coloma College of Education and at the University of Leeds. She has held multiple visiting appointments: visiting lecturer at the University of Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology, and the Ind...
Go to Profile#143
Alison Milbank
#48907
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Alison Grant Milbank is a British Anglican priest and literary scholar specialising in religion and culture. She is Canon Theologian at Southwell Minster and a professor at the University of Nottingham in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.
Go to Profile#144
Alexa Suelzer
#64795
Overall Influence
1918 - 2015 (97 years)
Alexa Suelzer was an American author, educator and theologian known for her Old Testament criticism. A Roman Catholic religious sister, she was a member of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana. One of her most cited works is her essay "Modern Old Testament Criticism" in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. In addition to her writing, she taught for twenty years at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College.
Go to Profile#145
Fatima Seedat
#40579
Overall Influence
Fatima Seedat is a South African feminist, Islamic scholar and women's rights activist. She is known for her scholarly work on gender and Islamic law, and Islam and feminism. Career Seedat researches gender and Islamic law, Islam and feminism, and Muslim masculinity. She completed her PhD at McGill University, and her dissertation focused on gender and legal theory.
Go to Profile#146
Ellen van Wolde
#80539
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Ellen José van Wolde is a Dutch biblical scholar. In her research she focuses mainly on the Hebrew Bible, applying achievements of semiotics and linguistics. She became known to the general public mainly through her oration on the first three sentences of the book of Genesis. Since the summer of 2021 she is Emeritus Professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
Go to Profile#147
Jill Raitt
#96465
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Jill Raitt was the first woman to receive tenure at Duke University's Divinity School faculty. She has been influential in the increasing acceptance of women in professional ministerial positions. Early life Jill Raitt was born on May 1, 1931, in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Neysa Atherton Raitt and Arthur Taylor Raitt. She grew up with one older brother, Richard Arthur Raitt. As a child, Raitt enjoyed adventure and time spent outside. While working on a cattle ranch during high school, she developed an attachment to horses and farms that would follow her into adulthood.
Go to Profile#148
Jouette Bassler
#86477
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Jouette M. Bassler is an American biblical scholar and expert in Pauline theology who is Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Her Ph.D. is from Yale University, and she taught at Georgetown University before moving to SMU. In 1979 Bassler was elected a member of the Catholic Biblical Association of America. She has written a number of books and served as general editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature from 1995 to 1999. She also served as New Testament editor for the HarperCollins Study Bible. Her 1994 article on the Pastoral Ep...
Go to Profile#149
Carol A. Newsom
#79256
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Carol Ann Newsom is an American biblical scholar, historian of ancient Judaism, and literary critic. She is the Charles Howard Candler Professor Emerita of Old Testament at the Candler School of Theology and a former senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. She is a leading expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom literature, and the Book of Daniel.
Go to Profile#150
Jane Williams
#73328
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Hilary Jane Williams, Lady Williams of Oystermouth , is an English Anglican theologian and writer. Williams was born on 4 March 1957 in Trivandrum, India, one of five sisters. Her father, Geoffrey Paul, former Bishop of Bradford, was then serving as a missionary priest at Palayamkottai and later Kerala. Her father was a member of the faculty and later became the principal of the Kerala United Theological Seminary at Kannammoola, where she spent part of her childhood. She studied theology at Clare College, Cambridge, and then worked in theological publishing and education. For three years she ...
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