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).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Religious Studies,

#151

Ada Rapoport-Albert

Ada Rapoport-Albert

#58601

Overall Influence

1945 - 2020 (75 years)

Ada Rapoport-Albert was an Israeli-British scholar whose scholarship focused on Jewish mysticism, Sabbateanism, and gender in Hasidic Judaism. Rapoport-Albert also served as the president of the Jewish Historical Society of England.

#152

Barbara Doherty

Barbara Doherty

#60842

Overall Influence

1931 - 2020 (89 years)

Barbara Doherty was an educator and theologian. A Roman Catholic religious sister, she was a member of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. She was president of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana from 1984 to 1998. Other posts have been as director of the Institute of Religious Formation at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, president of the Indiana Conference of Higher Education, and on national boards of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Women's College Coalition.

#153

Janet Afary

#33364

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Janet Afary is an author, feminist activist and researcher of history, religious studies and women studies. She is a professor and the Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity at the University of California, Santa Barbara .

#154

Claire Clivaz

#87235

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Claire Clivaz is a Swiss pastor and theology scholar. Head of Digital Enhanced Learning at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics , she leads research at the crossroad of New Testament and Digital Humanities.

#155

Luise Schottroff

#95812

Overall Influence

1934 - 2015 (81 years)

Luise Schottroff was a German New Testament and feminist scholar. She was born in Berlin, Germany, and her father was a pastor in the Confessing Church. Schottroff studied theology at the University of Mainz, and then pursued a doctorate at the University of Göttingen, completing her degree in 1960. Her dissertation was entitled, "Die Bereitung zum Sterben: Studien zu den frühen reformatorischen Sterbebüchern." She then became an assistant professor in the faculty of Evangelical theology at the University of Mainz, in 1961. She completed her habilitation at the University of Mainz in 1969. Schottroff taught at the University of Mainz until 1986, reaching full professor by 1973.

#156

Elizabeth Stuart

#57625

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Revd Professor Elizabeth Stuart is a British theologian specialising in Queer Theology. Academic positions Stuart is Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Winchester and was founding chair of the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality. She is the founding editor of the academic journal Theology and Sexuality. In August 2008 she took up the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor, Academic. In 2011, she became the Senior Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Winchester. In 2013 she was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor. On 1 April 2021, Stuart became Acting Vice-Chancellor...

#157

Jamie T. Phelps

Jamie T. Phelps

#70215

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Jamie Theresa Phelps, O.P. is an American Catholic theologian. Phelps, who is African American, is known for her contributions to womanist theology. Biography Phelps was born in Alabama, the youngest of six children of a Catholic household. She became an Adrian Dominican Sister in 1959.

#158

Mary Healy

#112736

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Mary Healy is a Catholic theologian and an international speaker. She teaches sacred scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. Her main interests include faith healing, evangelization, and Catholic spirituality. Healy was one of the first women appointed by Pope Francis in 2014 to the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

#159

Wai-Ching Angela Wong

#102954

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Wai-Ching Angela Wong is a Hong Kong scholar of Asian feminist theology. She is the Vice President for Programs at the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia since 2016. Biography Growing up in Hong Kong, Wong received a BA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1985, a BD from South East Asia Graduate School of Theology in 1989, and an MA and PhD in Religious Studies from University of Chicago Divinity School. Her PhD thesis was later published as "The Poor Woman": A Critical Analysis of Asian Theology and Contemporary Chinese Fiction by Women . In 2000, she began teachin...

#160

Susan Gillingham

#96310

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Susan E. Gillingham is a British theologian, academic, and Anglican deacon. She specialises in the Hebrew Bible, the Psalms, and Jewish history from the Israelites to the Second Temple. She has been Fellow and Tutor in theology at Worcester College, Oxford since 1995, and was Professor of the Hebrew Bible at the University of Oxford from 2014 to 2019. She is the first British woman to have been awarded a Doctor of Divinity degree by the University of Oxford.

#161

Naomi Seidman

#73126

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Naomi Seidman is Chancellor Jackman Professor in the Arts at the University of Toronto, and was previously Koret Professor of Jewish Culture and the Director of the Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. In 2016, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

#162

Mary Clemente Davlin

#39334

Overall Influence

1929 - 2017 (88 years)

Mary Clemente Davlin was a Sinsinawa Dominican Sister, an advocate for diversity in higher education, and a noted scholar of medieval studies, particularly the allegorical poem Piers Plowman. Early life and education Marguerite "Marge" Davlin was born on Chicago's South Side to Mary Margaret Ryan Davlin and John Joseph Davlin. She was known as Marge all her life. In Chicago she attended St. Philip Neri elementary school and Aquinas Dominican high school. She earned a bachelor's degree at Rosary College and a master's degree at the University of Wisconsin Madison, after which she studied Italian and violin at the Pius XII Institute in Florence, Italy.

#163

Carol Rittner

#57341

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Carol Rittner is an American nun and Holocaust historian. She is a Distinguished Emerita Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor of Holocaust Studies at Stockton University.

#164

Raija Sollamo

#104296

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Raija Tellervo Sollamo is a Finnish theologian and professor emerita of Biblical Languages in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. She was the first female professor in the field of theology in Finland. Between 1998 and 2003, Sollamo was vice-rector of the University of Helsinki, thereby becoming the first female vice-rector in Finland. From 2007 to 2010, she was president of The International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament .

#165

Ruth Padilla DeBorst

#105351

Overall Influence

Ruth Padilla DeBorst is a Latin American evangelical theologian affiliated with the Latin American Theological Fellowship and based in Costa Rica. Biography Padilla DeBorst was born in Colombia as the eldest daughter of an American mother, Catharine Feser Padilla, and an Ecuadorian father, the theologian René Padilla. She attended high school and university in Argentina, receiving her B.Ed. at the Instituto Nacional Superior en Lenguas Vivas in 1984, an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College in 1987, and a PhD in theology from Boston University in 2016, under the supervision of Dana L.

#166

Musa Dube

#96819

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Musa W. Dube , also known as Musa Wenkosi Dube Shomanah, is a Botswanan feminist theologian and Professor of New Testament at the Candler School of Theology, known for her work in postcolonial biblical scholarship.

#167

Rosemary Haughton

#65740

Overall Influence

1927 - Present (97 years)

Rosemary Elena Konradin Haughton is a British-born Catholic lay theologian, who also resided in the United States over a period of 30 years. The daughter of Peter Luling and Sylvia Thompson Luling, she had two sisters, Dr. Virginia Luling , and Elizabeth Dooley . She attended the Farnham Girls' Grammar School, Queen's College, London, and the Slade School of Art. She married Algernon Haughton in 1948; the couple had 12 children including 2 foster children.[2] Algy Haughton died in Edinburgh in 2008.

#168

Kune Biezeveld

#77047

Overall Influence

1948 - 2008 (60 years)

Kunegonda Elizabeth Biezeveld was a Dutch theologian. She was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church . Biezeveld studied theology at Leiden University. Afterwards she was a minister in Zandvoort, Voorthuizen and in a hospital in Blaricum.

#169

Laurel C. Schneider

#65233

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Laurel C. Schneider is an American theologian and a professor of Religion and Culture as well as a professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. Schneider is known for her theological analysis of images of God in relation to questions of social justice and liberation. Her work has contributed to the development of a theological framework, using concepts like multiplicity and polydoxy, as an alternative to orthodoxy and more traditional approaches to religious belief and theological reflection. Schneider's work focuses on collaborative models of thinking and publishing. She has wor...

#170

Rosemary Goldie

#68620

Overall Influence

1916 - 2010 (94 years)

Rosemary Goldie AO was an Australian Catholic theologian. Goldie was the first woman to serve in an executive role in the Roman Curia; she was undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 1967 until 1976. She also served as an auditor during the Second Vatican Council.

#171

Helga Weippert

#74277

Overall Influence

1943 - 2019 (76 years)

Helga Weippert was a German scholar of the Old Testament. Life Helga Klumpp was born and raised in Stuttgart, Germany and attended local schools before pursuing the study of protestant theology and learning Hebrew in Basel, Switzerland. She earned her master's degree in Göttingen and then received her doctorate in 1971 from the University of Basel under the direction of Hans Joachim Stoebe on The Prose Speeches of the Book of Jeremiah.

#172

Mary Tanner

#103561

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Dame Mary Elizabeth Tanner, DBE is a British academic specialising in the Old Testament. She was European President of the World Council of Churches from 2006 to 2013 and has been a member of the WCC Faith and Order Commission since 1974, serving as its moderator from 1991 to 1998.

#173

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld

#77290

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld is an American Old Testament scholar. She is Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis Emerita at Princeton Theological Seminary, having previously been William Albright Eisenberger Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis.

#174

Aysha Hidayatullah

#71613

Overall Influence

Aysha Hidayatullah is an Associate Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco. She is most known for her work critiquing feminist interpretations of the Qur'an, Feminist Edges of the Qur'an.

#175

Jayne Svenungsson

#85123

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Jayne Christine Svenungsson is a Swedish theologian and philosopher who holds the chair in Systematic Theology at Lund University. Her field of research lies within political theology, aesthetics and the philosophy of history.

#176

Diana L. Hayes

#82541

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Diana L. Hayes is an African-American Catholic theologian specializing in womanism and Black theology. The first African-American woman to earn a pontifical doctorate in theology, she is professor emerita of systematic theology at Georgetown University.

#177

Karen Jobes

#104501

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Karen H. Jobes is an American biblical scholar who is Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor Emerita of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Wheaton College. She has written a number of books and biblical commentaries. In 2015, she received the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association's Christian Book of the Year Award for "Bible Reference" books. Jobes currently serves as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

#178

Doris Reisinger

#121162

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (41 years)

Doris Reisinger is a German philosopher, theologian and author, and former nun. Early life and abuse Reisinger was born Doris Wagner in Ansbach in 1983 and joined the Catholic religious community at an age of 19. In 2008, aged 24, Reisinger alleges she was sexually assaulted by Austrian priest Hermann Geissler, a member of both "The Work" – FSO and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith . Geissler resigned from the CDF in January 2019 but denied the accusations against him.

#179

Mary Grey

#41478

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Mary Cecilia Grey is a Roman Catholic ecofeminist liberation theologian in the United Kingdom. She edited the journal Ecotheology for 10 years. She has previously been a professor teaching pastoral theology at the University of Wales, Lampeter; contemporary theology at the University of Southampton, La Sainte Union, and St Mary's University, Twickenham; and feminism and Christianity at the Catholic University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

#180

Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter

#93270

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter is a German theologian. After serving as director over programs for women and children with the World Council of Churches, teaching theology in Jamaica, and serving a pastorate in Stuttgart, Wartenberg-Potter became the president of the . In 2001 she began a seven-year term as the third woman serving as a Bishop of a Lutheran Church in Germany.

#181

Kristin De Troyer

#101749

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Kristin Mimi Lieve Leen De Troyer is an Old Testament scholar, theologian, writer and an professor who has taught at different universities such as the University of Salzburg, the University of St Andrews, and Claremont School of Theology. She is the author of many scholarly books and articles, an editor of several academic series, and a professor and researcher of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Since the beginning of 2021, she serves as the Secretary of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

#182

Drorah Setel

#98088

Overall Influence

Drorah Setel is an American biblical scholar and feminist theologian from Buffalo, New York, who was formerly a rabbi at Temple Beth El in Niagara Falls, NY. She presently serves as rabbi to the Temple Emanu-El congregation at the Jewish Community Center in Brighton, a suburb of Rochester, New York.

#183

Meehyun Chung

#70096

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Meehyun Chung is a professor of the United Graduate School of Theology in Yonsei University and serving as the first female chaplain of Yonsei University. She was the editor of Korean Journal of Systematic Theology .

#184

Arenda Haasnoot

Arenda Haasnoot

#103507

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Arenda Haasnoot is a Dutch theologian and preacher in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands . From 2007 to 2010 she was the Vice Chairman of the General Synod, the supreme governing body of the PKN. She is currently preacher at the Reformed Church, Rijnsburg.

#185

Elżbieta Adamiak

#91664

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Elżbieta Adamiak is a Polish Roman Catholic theologian. Since 2016, she has been Professor of Fundamental Theology and Dogmatics at the Institute for Catholic Theology at the University of Koblenz-Landau.

#186

Celia Deane-Drummond

#82185

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Celia Deane-Drummond is director of the Laudato Si’ Research Institute and senior research fellow in theology at Campion Hall, University of Oxford. She is also honorary visiting professor in theology and science at the University of Durham, UK and was professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame from 2011 to 2019. She teaches systematic theology in relation to biological science - especially evolution, ecology, genetics; bioethics - especially sustainability, ecotheology, and public theology.

#187

Pamela Cooper-White

Pamela Cooper-White

#75716

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Pamela Cooper-White is the Christiane Brooks Johnson Professor Emerita and Dean Emerita of Psychology and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York. She was previously the Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care and Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA and Co-Director of the Atlanta Theological Association's Th.D. program in Pastoral Counseling. She is an ordained Priest in the Episcopal Church 1992–present . She was the Fulbright-Freud Visiting Scholar of Psychoanalysis in Vienna, Austria 2013–14.

#188

Charlotte Methuen

#85333

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Charlotte Mary Methuen, is a British Anglican priest, historian, and academic. Since 2017, she has been Professor of Church History at the University of Glasgow. As an academic she specialises in the Reformation in Germany, 20th-century ecumenism, and women's ministry. She was previously a lecturer at Ruhr University Bochum , the University of Hamburg, the University of Oxford and Ripon College Cuddesdon. She has served as a priest in the Church of England, Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Old Catholic Church in Germany.

#189

Ruth Langer

#57880

Overall Influence

Ruth Langer is a Professor of Theology at Boston College, and an expert on Jewish Liturgy and on Christian Jewish Relations. She is married to Jonathan Sarna. Education Langer was educated at Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion, where she received her Ph.D. , MAHL , and Rabbinic Ordination , as well as at Bryn Mawr College .

#190

Sidnie White Crawford

#91568

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Sidnie White Crawford is professor emerita of Classics and Religious Studies at the University Of Nebraska-Lincoln. She specializes in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. She also taught at St. Olaf College and Albright College. She has also been a visiting professor at Boston College.

#191

Leanne Van Dyk

#90485

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Leanne Van Dyk is an American reformed theologian and theological educator. She has focused much of her work on atonement theology and the development of theological education. She is the tenth president of Columbia Theological Seminary.

#192

Catherine L. Albanese

#88385

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Catherine L. Albanese is an American religious studies scholar, professor, lecturer, and author. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Chestnut Hill College in 1962. She received her Master’s Degree in History from Duquesne University in 1968, and completed her Doctorate for History of Christianity at the University of Chicago in 1972.

#193

Carol Harrison

#74865

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Carol Harrison is a British theologian and ecclesiastical historian, specialising in Augustine of Hippo. Since January 2015, she has been Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford; she is the first woman and first lay person to hold this appointment. She is a fellow of Christ Church, Oxford and an honorary fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. On 27 April 2015, she was installed as a Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. She was previously Professor of the History and Theology of the Latin West at Durham University.

#194

Monica Coleman

#92687

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Monica A. Coleman is a contemporary theologian associated with process theology and womanist theology. She is currently Professor of Africana Studies and the John and Patricia Cochran Scholar for Inclusive Excellence at the University of Delaware, as well as the Faculty Co-Director Emerita for the Center for Process Studies. Her research interests include Whiteheadian metaphysics, constructive theology, philosophical theology, metaphorical theology, black and womanist theologies, African American religions, African traditional religions, theology and sexual and domestic violence, and mental health and theology.

#195

Clair Linzey

#82171

Overall Influence

Clair Linzey is a British theologian, ethicist and writer. She is the Frances Power Cobbe Professor of Animal Theology at the Graduate Theological Foundation, Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and the director of their annual summer school. Linzey is also co-editor of the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series and the Journal of Animal Ethics. She specialises in animal theology, animal ethics, environmental ethics, systematic theology, feminist theology and Christian moral thought.

#196

Carole R. Fontaine

#85338

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Carole R. Fontaine is an internationally recognized American biblical scholar. She is the John Taylor professor of biblical theology and history at the Andover Newton Theological School and feminist author of six books and over 100 articles, in addition to serving on several editorial boards . She has written extensively on feminist theological topics, including disability, and is an expert in wisdom traditions and women in the ancient Near East.

#197

Kathy Rudy

#65611

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

M. Kathy Rudy is an American women's studies scholar, and theologian. A retired professor at Duke University, Rudy's work is often interdisciplinary as she merges philosophy, theology, politics, feminism, and medical ethics. She is open about her homosexuality and is a radical social constructionist.

#198

Tova Hartman

#30703

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Tova Hartman is the Dean of Humanities at the Ono Academic College. Biography Tova Hartman is the daughter of Rabbi Prof. David Hartman. She was married to Moshe Halbertal, and they have three daughters. She is a founder of Kehillat Shira Hadasha, a congregation organized to increase women's participation and leadership within traditional Jewish prayer and halakha.

#199

Christina Baxter

#100308

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Christina Ann Baxter is a British theologian and an active member of the Church of England . From 1997 to 2012, she was Principal of St John's College, Nottingham, an Anglican theological college. Since 1979, she has been a Reader, a type of lay minister, in the C of E. She served as Chairwoman of the House of Laity of the General Synod of the C of E from 1995 to 2010 and was a member of the Archbishops' Council from 1999 to 2010. In October 2000, she was made an honorary canon of Southwell Minster.

#200

Ariel Stone

#116910

Overall Influence

Ariel Stone, also called C. Ariel Stone, is the first American rabbi to lead a congregation in the former Soviet Union, and the first progressive rabbi to serve the Jewish community in Ukraine. After serving as Assistant Rabbi of Temple Israel of Greater Miami 1991 to 1993 with Rabbi Rex Perlmeter, she represented the World Union for Progressive Judaism in Ukraine from 1993 until 1994. While in Ukraine she was a rabbi at Congregation HaTikvah in Kiev, and helped in creating progressive congregations in Ukraine. In 1993-1994 she taught Holocaust studies at the University of Central Florida.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions