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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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Social Psychology,

#451

Terri Conley

#128672

Overall Influence

Terri Conley is an American social psychologist who studies gender differences in sexuality, consequences of departures from monogamy, and the consequences of masculinity threat. She is currently an associate professor of psychology and women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan, where she leads the Stigmatized Sexualities research lab.

#452

Daisy L. Hung

#4369

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Daisy Lan Hung is a Taiwanese psychologist. She is the founding director of the Institute of Neuroscience at the National Central University in Taiwan. Her research areas are involved with cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology and neurolinguistics. In addition to conducting research, Hung also translates scientific works, educates children on reading habits and lectures on her research topics.

#453

Daphne C. Watkins

#173739

Overall Influence

Daphne C. Watkins, is an author, researcher, executive coach, and professor who studies behavioral health interventions for historically marginalized groups, mixed methods approaches to research in context, and leadership development/organizational management.

#454

Eddie Harmon-Jones

#176079

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 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.

#455

Norbert Kerr

#179614

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 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.

#456

Ronald L. Cohen

#68680

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 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...

#457

Marguerita Lightfoot

#37834

Overall Influence

Marguerita Lightfoot is a counseling psychologist known for her research in the field of preventive medicine, especially in regard to HIV prevention and advocacy for homeless youth. She is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and the Chief of the Division of Prevention Science. She serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Development among Children and Youth.

#458

Brad Bushman

#16489

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Brad J. Bushman is the Margaret Hall and Robert Randal Rinehart Chair of Mass Communication Professor at Ohio State University. He also has an appointment in psychology. He has published extensively on the causes and consequences of human aggression. His work has questioned the utility of catharsis, and relates also to violent video game effects on aggression. Along with Roy Baumeister, his work suggests that it is narcissism, not low self-esteem, that causes people to act more aggressively after an insult. Bushman's research has been featured in Newsweek, on the CBS Evening News, on 20/20, and on National Public Radio.

#459

Dolores Albarracín

Dolores Albarracín

#96450

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Dolores Albarracín is a psychologist, author and professor of psychology and business based in Pennsylvania. She is Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She is known for her work in the fields of behavior, communication and persuasion. Her contributions have had implications for the scientific understanding of basic social psychological processes and communication policy, especially in the area of health.

#460

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 .

#461

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.

#462

David Weisstub

#72954

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

David Norman Weisstub is the Philippe Pinel professor of legal psychiatry and biomedical ethics at the Université de Montréal. He is the founder and honorary life president of the International Academy of Law and Mental Health.He is also the co-president of the International Academy of Medical Ethics and Public Health, which he co-founded in 2016. He is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, as well as co-editor of the Ethics, Medicine, and Public Health journal and of Springer's International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine. He also sits on the e...

#463

Sedrak A. Sedrakyan

Sedrak A. Sedrakyan

#135429

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Sedrak A. Sedrakyan is an Armenian psychologist, doctor of Psychological Sciences, and professor. Early life He was born on May 10, 1950, in Berkarat, Aragatsotn Province of Armenia. In 1967 he finished secondary school at Alaverdi Nalbandyan. From 1969 to 1974 he studied in the faculty of Philosophy, Sociology and Psychology of Yerevan State University . In 1979 he completed postgraduate studies at YSU. In 1981 he graduated from the Institute of Pedagogical Psychology of USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1987 he defended his thesis and was granted PhD in psychological sciences.

#464

David M. Greenberg

#188496

Overall Influence

David Michael Greenberg is a psychologist, neuroscientist, and musician. He is best known for his contributions to personality psychology, social psychology, social neuroscience, music psychology, and autism.

#465

Brian Lowery

#189488

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Brian S. Lowery is an American social psychologist. Lowery obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in 1996, and subsequently began graduate study at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he earned a master's degree in 1998 and a doctorate in 2002. He began teaching at Stanford University upon graduation, and was later named Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior.

#466

Martin S. Fiebert

Martin S. Fiebert

#110526

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Martin S. Fiebert , is an emeritus professor at California State University, Long Beach in the Department of Psychology. He has published more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Education Fiebert was born in the Bronx, New York in 1939. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1956, and received his B.S. degree from Queens College, City University of New York in 1960. He was awarded his Ph.D. in Clinical psychology from the University of Rochester in 1965 and completed his thesis, Cognitive Styles in the Deaf under the direction of Professor Emory L. Cowen.

#467

Tina Maria Harris

#189883

Overall Influence

Tina M. Harris, the LSU Manship School of Mass Communication’s Douglas L. Manship Sr.-Dori Maynard Race, Media, and Cultural Literacy Endowed Chair, is the winner of the Francine Merritt Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Lives of Women in Communication. She has publications on representations of African American women in television, racial identity negotiation and family communication within multiracial/multiethnic families, and mentoring and race in higher education. Alma Mater: PhD from University of Kentucky Academic Website Professional Website

#468

Nicola Brasch

#182469

Overall Influence

Nicola Elizabeth Brasch is a New Zealand chemistry academic. She is currently a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Academic career After a 1993 PhD titled '17O-Nuclear magnetic resonance studies of chromium oxyanions and some cobalt tren complexes' at the University of Otago, she moved to Kent State University before returning to Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor.

#469

Janet S Gaffney

#181824

Overall Influence

Janet S Gaffney is an American-New Zealand special education academic. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After an undergraduate at Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri Gaffney did a 1984 PhD at Arizona State University titled LD children's prose recall as a function of prior knowledge, instruction, and context relatedness. After working in the US at the University of Mississippi and the University of Illinois she moved to the University of Auckland in 2012 as full professor, drawn in part by the legacy of Marie Clay, whose celebr...

#470

David L. Wodrich

David L. Wodrich

#155895

Overall Influence

David L Wodrich is an American psychologist, professor, researcher, and author. He is currently professor emeritus in the Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona. He previously held the Mary Emily Warner Professorship of Psychology in Education at Arizona State University.

#471

Robert E. Ornstein

#15845

Overall Influence

1942 - 2018 (76 years)

Robert Evan Ornstein was an American psychologist, researcher and author. He taught at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute, based at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, and was professor at Stanford University and founder and chairman of the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge .

#472

Jan Broekman

#99081

Overall Influence

1931 - Present (93 years)

Jan Maurits Broekman is a Dutch-born philosopher, legal scientist, and social scientist. He worked three decades at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and continues to reside in Belgium. In 1971 he published a work on structuralism and in 1979 law and anthropology, asserting that the foundations of law are concealed in a specific image of a person.

#473

Hande Eslen-Ziya

#115569

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Hande Eslen-Ziya is a Turkish-born, Norway-based sociologist and psychologist. She is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Populism, Anti-Gender and Democracy Research Group at the University of Stavanger in Norway. She has an established interest in gender and social inequalities, transnational organizations and social activism, and has a substantial portfolio of research in this field. Her research has been published in Gender, Work and Organisation, Emotion, Space and Society, Social Movement Studies, European Journal of Women’s Studies, Culture, Health and Sexuality, Leadership, Men and Masculinities, and Social Politics, as well as in other internationally recognized journals.

#474

Annegret Hannawa

#82087

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Annegret Friederike Hannawa is a German communication scientist and founding director of the Center for the Advancement of Healthcare Quality and Safety at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano.

#475

Kevin Dutton

#27500

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Kevin Dutton is a British psychologist and writer, specialising in the study of psychopathy. Work He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, and a member of the Oxford Centre for Emotions and Affective Neuroscience research group, and says "I divide my time between lab-based research and popular writing." Before this post he was a research fellow at the Faraday Institute, St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, and Visiting Professor for the Public Engagement with Psychological Science at the University of Essex. He gained his Ph.D.

#476

Yanghee Lee

#16396

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Yanghee Lee is a South Korean developmental psychologist and professor at Sungkyunkwan University. She is most noted for her work in international human rights organisations. Lee is highly recognized nationally, regionally, and internationally for her expertise in human rights. She has published numerous articles and books on human rights and children’s rights.

#477

Gottfried Fischer

#23798

Overall Influence

1944 - 2013 (69 years)

Gottfried Fischer was a German psychologist, psychotherapist and psychoanalyst. He is considered to be the founder of psychotraumatology in Germany and has been director of the Institute for Clinical Psychology and Psychological Diagnostics at the University of Cologne from 1995 to 2009.

#478

Edith de Leeuw

#105512

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Edith Desiree de Leeuw is a Dutch psychologist, statistician, research methodologist, and professor in survey methodology and survey quality, at the University of Utrecht. She is known for her work in the field of survey research.

#479

Jules P. Harrell

#103627

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Camara Jules P. Harrell , also known as Jules P. Harrell, is a professor of psychology at Howard University and a researcher in the field of the effects of stress and racism on the health of African Americans.

#480

Ruth Fitzgerald

#180765

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Ruth P. Fitzgerald is a New Zealand anthropology academic, and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Otago. Academic career After a 1999 PhD titled Who cares? : an ethnographic investigation of the meaning of care at the University of Otago, Fitzgerald joined the staff, rising to full professor in 2018. In 2015 Fitzgerald was awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand's Te Rangi Hiroa Medal. Her work covers the social and political context of many health issues, such as the ethics of reversing heritable deafness or terminating pregnancy.

#481

Arthur Lucas

#93455

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Arthur Maurice Lucas is an Australian academic who served as the 18th Principal of King's College London. He was educated at the University of Melbourne where he took BSc and BEd degrees, and subsequently earned his PhD from Ohio State University. He began his academic career at Flinders University where he was a senior demonstrator in biology, prior to a posting as a research associate at Ohio State University. Lucas then returned to Flinders University where he became a senior lecturer, before moving to King's College London where he became professor of science curriculum studies. At King'...

#482

Sang-Min Whang

#160391

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Sang Min Leo Whang is a South Korean psychologist, author, and popular political commentator. He has empirically investigated "the Korean Peoples' identity & their mass-psychology" by connecting it to a variety of issues such as self, online world identity, consumption behavior, love & relationships, power desire and political decision making. He has mainly researched the different psychological types of people and how the human mind works in on and offline settings. His most well-known projects are WPI , research on the identities of online game players, and research on politicians' public images.

#483

Karin Lasthuizen

#40791

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Karin Marjolein Lasthuizen is a Dutch-New Zealand academic. As of 2022, she holds the Brian Picot Chair in Ethical Leadership at the Victoria University of Wellington. Academic career After an undergraduate at Radboud University Nijmegen, Lasthuizen did a 2008 PhD at VU University Amsterdam titled 'Leading to integrity : empirical research into the effects of leadership on ethics and integrity.' She then lectured at VU University Amsterdam and was a city councilor for the Labour Party before moving to Wellington, New Zealand in 2016 to take up the Brian Picot Chair in Ethical Leadership a...

#484

Susanne Kappeler

#72083

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Susanne Kappeler was a lecturer in English at the University of East Anglia and an associate professor at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Al Akhawayn University, and now works as a freelance writer and teacher in England and Germany. Kappeler also taught 'The literary representation of women' in the Faculty of English at Cambridge while a research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge and was a part-time tutor for the Open University Course, 'The Changing Experience of Women', and is part of a collective setting up the Cambridge Women's Resources Centre.

#485

Chantell Evans

#180077

Overall Influence

Chantell Skye Evans is an American cell biologist who is a professor at Duke University. Her research looks to understand the dynamical processes of mitochondria and their role in neurodegenerative disease. In 2022, Popular Science named her as one of their "Brilliant 10" U.S. scientists and engineers.

#486

Takao Umemoto

#77741

Overall Influence

1921 - 2002 (81 years)

Takao Umemoto was a Japanese psychologist whose specific interest was music psychology; he was also an academic, and pianist. Early life Umemoto was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan . Umemoto's father was a professor in psychology and a practicing Buddhist monk at Higashi-Honganji temple. He valued music and pressed Umemoto to dedicate his youth to music and playing piano. This would later influence his career, inspiring the topics of his research and lectures. He would continue to play piano till his death .

#487

Konrad Talmont-Kamiński

#173187

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Konrad Talmont-Kamiński is an analytic philosopher and cognitive scientist, dealing with epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind and the theory of rationality. His work is also influenced by psychology, biology, history, anthropology and other disciplines.

#488

Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop

#93188

Overall Influence

Margaret Ellen Fairbairn-Dunlop is a Samoan-New Zealand academic. She is the first person in New Zealand to hold a chair in Pacific studies. Education Fairbairn-Dunlop studied at Victoria University of Wellington, graduating with a Master of Arts degree. She completed <big>a PhD at Macquarie University in Australia.</big>

#489

Dinesh Sharma

#25486

Overall Influence

Dinesh J. Sharma is an American social scientist, psychologist, academic and entrepreneur in the fields of human development and rights, leadership and globalization; his recent publications include, “The Global Obama: Crossroads of Leadership in the 21st Century” and most recently “The Global Hillary: Women's Political Leadership in Cultural Context."

#490

Mona Weissmark

#103571

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Mona Sue Weissmark is an American clinical psychologist and social psychologist, whose work on the inter-generational impact of injustice has received international recognition. She is best known for her groundbreaking social experiment of bringing children of Holocaust survivors face-to-face with children of Nazis, and later, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of African American slaves with slave owners. She is also a professor of psychology at Northwestern University and author of numerous journal articles and three books: Doing Psychotherapy Effectively and Justice Matters: Legacies of...

#491

Mari Fitzduff

#191878

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Mari Christine Fitzduff is an Irish policy maker, writer and academic. She began her work in peacebuilding and mediation working with universities during the Northern Ireland conflict before setting up a mediation organisation in 1989. In 1990 she was a founding director of the Community Relations Council, set up to help develop and fund peace initiatives in Northern Ireland.

#492

Arnold Farr

#191918

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

#493

Christophe Moulherat

#98784

Overall Influence

Christophe Moulherat is a French scholar, anthropologist, scientific analyst. He is a textile expert. Academics Christophe Moulherat holds a Doctoral degree in archaeology, prehistory, and anthropology from the Sorbonne University Paris.

#494

Daniel K Judd

#147795

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

#495

Nirmala Rao

#52919

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Nirmala Rao is a British academic and the current vice chancellor of Krea University. She also served as vice chancellor of the Asian University for Women, Chittagong, Bangladesh from 1 February 2017 to January 2022. and as Pro-Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London from 2008 to 2016.

#496

Aleksandr Kogan

#16147

Overall Influence

1985 - Present (39 years)

Aleksandr Kogan is a Moldovan-born American scientist, who is known for his research on the link between oxytocin and kindness, and for having developed the app that allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect personal details of 30 million Facebook users. He worked as a University Lecturer at the University of Cambridge from 2012-2018 and is currently a technology entrepreneur.

#497

Debora Meijers

#173373

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Debora Meijers is an art historian and professor of museum studies at the University of Amsterdam, an educational elective program that she developed herself. Meijers was born in Amsterdam. In 1990 she obtained her doctorate under Rob Scheller. She teaches and writes about the history of art collecting and curation as a science and as a facet of cultural heritage.

#498

Steven Beach

#178820

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Steven R. H. Beach is Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia, where he also serves as co-director of the Center for Family Research. He is known for his research on marriage and depression.

#499

Susan MacLaury

#113933

Overall Influence

1901 - Present (123 years)

Susan MacLaury is the co-founder and executive director of the non-profit media company Shine Global, a licensed social worker, and a retired educator. She is also an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated producer.

#500

Malcolm MacLachlan

#98584

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Malcolm "Mac" MacLachlan is Professor of Psychology and Social Inclusion at Maynooth University, Ireland. He has published over twenty books and three hundred academic papers and chapters and delivered over 30 Keynote presentations at international conferences and high-level meetings. His interests are in Social Inclusion, Disability, Assistive Technology, and Policy, Systems & Organisation Design. He also works in the areas of International Development, Humanitarian Work Psychology and Maritime Psychology.

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