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 Social Work,

#1

Brené Brown

#6476

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Casandra Brené Brown is an American professor, author, and podcast host. Brown is known for her work on shame, vulnerability, and leadership, and for her widely viewed TEDx talk in 2010. She has written six number-one New York Times bestselling books and hosted two podcasts on Spotify.

#2

Janet B. W. Williams

Janet B. W. Williams

#20535

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Janet B. W. Williams is an American social worker who focuses on the diagnosis and assessment of mental disorders. She is Professor Emerita of Clinical Psychiatric Social Work at Columbia University. She was a major force in writing the PHQ-9, a 9-question instrument given to patients in a primary care setting to screen for the presence and severity of depression.

#3

Caleb Finch

#15055

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Caleb Ellicott Finch is an American academic who is a professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Finch's research focuses on aging in humans, with a specialization in cell biology and Alzheimer's disease.

#4

James Birren

#21053

Overall Influence

1918 - 2016 (98 years)

James E. Birren was one of the founders of the organized field of gerontology. He was a past president of The Gerontological Society of America, and author of over 250 publications. Personal life Birren was born on April 4, 1918, in Chicago. With the original intent to study engineering, Birren enrolled in Wright Junior College to study technical subjects. Birren changed his mind due to the Great Depression in America and decided to transfer to Chicago Teachers College to pursue what he thought to be a more practical career. It was there he took his first course in psychology, and he was enco...

#5

Joyce Lishman

#25281

Overall Influence

1947 - 2021 (74 years)

Joyce Lishman the first woman Professor at Robert Gordon University, was a leader in social work education and research. Education and career Lishman was the first pupil from her girls' high school in Normanton to be admitted to the University of Oxford. She studied philosophy, politics and economics, graduating in 1968. She then went on to study social studies and social work at the University of Edinburgh graduating in 1970. She practiced as a social worker in child and family psychology. This experience she built on later in her career by developing a new social work service for children s...

#6

Jean-Marie Robine

#20790

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Jean-Marie Robine is a French social scientist, who works in the field of demography and gerontology, and is an author and journalist, who is best known as being the co-validator of the longevity of Jeanne Calment, the oldest verified supercentenarian of all time, with whom he collaborated.

#7

Alexis Jay

#19531

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Alexandrina Henderson Farmer Jay, OBE is a British academic. She is visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde and the independent chair of the Centre for Excellence for Children's Care and Protection .

#8

L. Stephen Coles

#18668

Overall Influence

1941 - 2014 (73 years)

Leslie Stephen Coles was an American biogerontologist who was the co-founder and executive director of the Gerontology Research Group where he conducted research on supercentenarians and aging. He was also a visiting scholar in the computer science department at the University of California, Los Angeles and an assistant researcher in the Department of Surgery, at the David Geffen School of Medicine.

#9

M. Powell Lawton

#60916

Overall Influence

#10

Robert Woodson

#21094

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Robert Leon Woodson Sr. is an American civil rights activist, community development leader, author, and founder and president of the Woodson Center, a non-profit research and demonstration organization that supports neighborhood-based initiatives to revitalize low-income communities.

#11

Dennis Saleebey

#48857

Overall Influence

1936 - 2014 (78 years)

Michael Dennis Saleebey was an American academic credited with codifying and promoting the social work practice of Strength Based Practice during his time at the University of Kansas. He was Emeritus Professor of Social Welfare there at the School of Social Welfare.

#12

Anne B. Newman

#51146

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Anne B. Newman is an American scientist who researches epidemiology and gerontology. She received her Bachelor's, Master's and M.D. degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. Newman's primary focus of study is on atherosclerosis, longevity and what specific factors allow for people to thrive while aging. She focuses on geriatrics, gerontology and epidemiology. She was the first scholar to be awarded the Katherine M. Detre Endowed Chair of Population Health Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She has been listed on the annual ISI Web of Knowledge most highly cited scientists for 2015, as published by Thomson Reuters.

#13

Lawrence Shulman

#49860

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Lawrence Shulman is the former Dean of the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. His scholarship covers these subfields of social work: group work, supervision, child welfare, and teaching. Among his books are:The Skills of Helping: Individuals, Families, Groups and Communities,Interactional Supervision; and Mutual Aid Groups Vulnerable and Resilient Populations, andThe Life Cycle.

#14

Charles Figley

#19842

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Charles Figley is an American university professor in the fields of psychology, family therapy, psychoneuroimmunology family studies, social work, traumatology, and mental health. He is the Paul Henry Kurzweg, MD Distinguished Chair in Disaster Mental Health and Graduate School of Social Work Professor at Tulane University . He was a full professor and Traumatology Institute Director at the Florida State University College of Social Work. Figley became a Purdue University Full Professor in 1983 with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Psychological Sciences.

#15

Belleruth Naparstek

Belleruth Naparstek

#69374

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Belleruth Naparstek is an American social worker, author, teacher and the producer of a guided imagery library of self-administered audio programs. She did her undergraduate and graduate work at University of Chicago in social work, and then worked in hospitals and clinics, then taught at Case Western Reserve University. She eventually developed guided imagery tapes, which have been used in some hospitals and clinics that have adopted alternative medicine practices as adjuvant therapies.

#16

Susan B. Anthony II

#67186

Overall Influence

1916 - 1991 (75 years)

Susan Brownell Anthony II was an American journalist and writer, activist and substance abuse counselor. She grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania, and attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1938. During her schooling, she became an activist in progressive causes, but she also struggled with alcoholism. She supported pacifism, the anti-fascist movement, housing desegregation, and women's rights, including advocacy to remove the poll tax as an obstacle to women's suffrage, as well as childcare centers for working mothers. She worked as a reporter for The Washington Star and completed a ...

#17

Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart

#37699

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart is a Native American social worker, associate professor and mental health expert. She is best known for developing a model of historical trauma for the Lakota people, which would eventually be expanded to encompass indigenous populations the world over. She is Hunkpapa/Oglala Lakota.

#18

Michael Ungar

#40861

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Michael Ungar is a researcher in the field of social and psychological resilience and is Principal Investigator for the Resilience Research Centre at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Canada, where he is a professor at the School of Social Work, a post that he has held since 2001. He completed his MSW at McGill University in 1988 and his Ph.D. in Social Work at Wilfrid Laurier University in 1995.

#19

Ada Deer

#13001

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Ada Elizabeth Deer was an American scholar and civil servant who was a member of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and a Native American advocate. As an activist she opposed the federal termination of tribes from the 1950s. During the Clinton administration, Deer served as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs.

#20

Pinchas Cohen

#54358

Overall Influence

Pinchas Cohen is the dean of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, holds the William and Sylvia Kugel Dean's Chair in Gerontology and serves as the executive director of the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center.

#21

Barry Checkoway

#49775

Overall Influence

Barry N. Checkoway is Arthur Dunham Collegiate Professor Emeritus of Social Work and Professor Emeritus of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Checkoway is internationally renowned for his contributions to the field of youth studies, particularly focusing on community youth development. He is a past recipient of the University of Michigan's Regents' Award for Distinguished Public Service.

#22

Alfred Kadushin

#70947

Overall Influence

1916 - 2014 (98 years)

Alfred Kadushin was a social worker and Julia C. Lathrop Distinguished Professor of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Biography Born to Celia and Philip Kadushin, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, he grew up in the Bronx. He went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from New York University.

#23

Eileen M. Crimmins

#80893

Overall Influence

Eileen M. Crimmins is the AARP Chair in Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology of the University of Southern California. Her work focuses on the connections between socioeconomic factors and life expectancy and other health outcomes.

#24

Kelvin Davies

#39842

Overall Influence

Kelvin J. A. Davies is the James E. Birren Chair of Gerontology at the USC Davis School of Gerontology with a joint appointment in Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences in biology. He is involved in researching free radical biology, oxidative stress, and aging; and was an early member of the study of protein oxidation, proteolysis, and altered gene expression during stress-adaptation; he also found the role of free radicals in mitochondrial adaptation to exercise, and demonstrated the role of diminished oxidative stress-adaptive gene expression in aging.

#25

Robert C. Atchley

#96296

Overall Influence

1939 - 2018 (79 years)

Robert C. Atchley was an American gerontologist and sociologist. Atchley graduated from Miami University in 1961, and taught at his alma mater from 1966 to 1998, when he joined the Naropa University faculty. Atchley led the American Society on Aging from 1988 to 1990 as president, and founded the journal Contemporary Gerontology.

#26

Michael White

#15516

Overall Influence

1948 - 2008 (60 years)

Michael White was an Australian social worker and family therapist. He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches.

#27

Madhu Sudan Kanungo

#38965

Overall Influence

1927 - 2011 (84 years)

Madhu Sudan Kanungo was an Indian scientist in the field of gerontology and neuroscience as well as a teacher of molecular biology and biochemistry. He is known for his theories on how gene expression changes with age and the role of this phenomenon in ageing, which is a widely accepted as "Gene expression theory of Aging". In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri in 2005. He held the post of BHU Emeritus professor in zoology at the Banaras Hindu University and was also the Chancellor, Nagaland University till his death.

#28

Darcy Sterling

#48042

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Darcy Sterling is an American clinical social worker, relationship expert and television personality. She co-owns the New York City-based group practice Alternatives Counseling. Sterling is the host and relationship expert on the E! network series Famously Single, and the former Global Ambassador for the dating app,Tinder. One of the most widely quoted relationship therapists in the country, Sterling frequently contributes expert advise to national outlets including Forbes, Cosmopolitan, Condé Nast, HuffPost, and many more publications.

#29

Jeanette Takamura

#60230

Overall Influence

Jeanette C. Takamura was the second Assistant Secretary for Aging at the Administration on Aging within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She was appointed by President Clinton in 1997 and served in the position until 2001. Before that, she served as the Deputy Director for Administration of the Hawaii State Department of Health and the Director of the Executive Office on Aging within the State of Hawaii's Office of the Governor. Takamura is the Dean and Professor of the Columbia University School of Social Work. She previously held the position of Edward R. Roybal Professor in...

#30

Kaarin Anstey

#103297

Overall Influence

Kaarin Anstey is an Australian Laureate Fellow and one of Australia's top dementia scientists. She is Co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research at the University of New South Wales, Australia, where she is Scientia Professor of Psychology. Kaarin Anstey is an Honorary Professor at the Australian National University and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She is a Director of the NHMRC Dementia Centre for Research Collaboration, Senior Principal Research Scientist at NeuRA and leads the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Cogn...

#31

Ronald G. Lewis

#64024

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Ronald Gene Lewis was the first American Indian to receive a PhD in the field of social work in 1974, was declared a NASW Social Work Pioneer, and has become known as the “Father of American Indian Social Work.”

#32

Jiska Cohen-Mansfield

#107508

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Jiska Cohen-Mansfield is the Igor Orenstein Chair for the Study of Geriatrics at Tel Aviv University Medical School and a professor at the Department of Health Promotion at the School of Public Health in the Sackler Medical Faculty at Tel Aviv University. She is the director of the Minerva Center for Interdisciplinary Study of End of Life at Tel-Aviv University.

#33

Olive Stevenson

#82917

Overall Influence

1930 - 2013 (83 years)

Olive Stevenson, was a British social worker and academic. She became known to the wider public through her role in the inquiry into the Murder of Maria Colwell. As an academic, she researched and taught at the University of Oxford, the University of Keele, and the University of Nottingham among other institutions.

#34

Gerald A. Larue

#27134

Overall Influence

1916 - 2014 (98 years)

Gerald Alexander Larue was an American scholar of religion and professor emeritus of gerontology, a former ordained minister who became an agnostic, archaeologist, debunker of biblical stories and accounts of miracles, and humanist.

#35

Jill Manthorpe

#111258

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

#36

Michael Shernoff

#55484

Overall Influence

1951 - 2008 (57 years)

Michael Shernoff was an American openly gay psychotherapist who specialized in serving the mental health needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people and was author of several influential publications on the topics of HIV/AIDS prevention and the mental health concerns of gay men.

#37

Ruth B. Weg

#72086

Overall Influence

1920 - 2002 (82 years)

Ruth Leah Weg was an American academic who worked as a professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology. Early life and education A child of European immigrants, Weg grew up in the Manhattan borough of New York City. She graduated from Hunter College with a degree in biology. Instead of continuing on to medical school, she married her high school sweetheart and had two children, Robert and Andrea Bass.

#38

George Brager

#99818

Overall Influence

1923 - 2003 (80 years)

George A. Brager was professor of social work and dean of the school of social work at Columbia University. He has been a chief program planner of delinquency prevention and anti-poverty programs. Brager earned his bachelor's degree in social work from the College of the City of New York in 1941 and a master's from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work in 1948. He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1968 from New York University, where he studied at the center for Human Relations and Community Studies.

#39

Diane E. Meier

#24889

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Diane E. Meier , an American geriatrician and palliative care specialist. In 1999, Dr. Meier founded the Center to Advance Palliative Care, a national organization devoted to increasing access to quality health care in the United States for people living with serious illness. She continues to serve as CAPC's Director Emerita and Strategic Medical Advisor. Meier is also Vice-Chair for Public Policy, Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. Meier was founder and Dire...

#40

Kathleen Wilber

#75769

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Kathleen H. Wilber is a professor of gerontology and policy planning and development at the University of Southern California. At the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, she holds the title of Mary Pickford Foundation Professor of Gerontology. Wilber also holds an appointment in Health Services Administration in the School of Planning, Policy, and Development. She has dedicated her career to improving the quality of life of people with chronic physical and mental health conditions, by improving the formal health and long term care delivery system. The collaborative relationships among he...

#41

Elaine Brody

#71250

Overall Influence

1922 - 2014 (92 years)

Elaine Marjorie Brody was an American gerontologist and sociologist, who studied cases on elderly Americans tended to by caregivers. In a career lasting six decades, she was one of the first social workers to research her clients, particularly of "women in the middle", a term she used to refer to women who raised their children and cared for their elderly parents simultaneously. Brody contributed to the foundation of gerontology, and her works established a precedent in this field.

#42

Setsuko Thurlow

Setsuko Thurlow

#22303

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Setsuko Thurlow, born Setsuko Nakamura, is a Japanese–Canadian nuclear disarmament campaigner and Hibakusha who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. She is mostly known throughout the world for being a leading figure of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons and to have given the acceptance speech for its reception of the 2017 Nobel peace prize.

#43

Susan Kemp

#31109

Overall Influence

Susan Patricia Kemp is a New Zealand social work academic. Academic career Kemp completed a bachelor's degree in sociology and psychology at Massey University, a master's degree in sociology at the University of Auckland, and a second master's degree at Columbia University. She completed her Ph.D. at Columbia in 1994 with a dissertation titled Social Work and Systems of Knowledge: the Concept of Environment in Social Casework Theory. Later the same year she joined the teaching staff at the University of Washington, where she remained until her retirement in June 2020.

#44

Tom Calma

#14192

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Thomas Edwin Calma, , is an Aboriginal Australian human rights and social justice campaigner, and 2023 senior Australian of the Year. He is the sixth chancellor of the University of Canberra, a post held since January 2014, after two years as deputy chancellor. Calma is the second Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person to hold the position of chancellor of any Australian university.

#45

Peter Beresford

#62466

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Peter Beresford OBE, FAcSS, FRSA is a British academic, writer, researcher and activist best known for his work in the field of citizen participation and user involvement, areas of study he helped to create and develop. He is currently visiting professor and senior research fellow in the School of Health & Social Sciences at the University of East Anglia, emeritus professor of citizen participation at the University of Essex and emeritus professor of social policy at Brunel University London. Much of his work has centred on including the viewpoints, lived experience and knowledge of disabled ...

#46

Raven Sinclair

#97656

Overall Influence

Raven Sinclair is Cree/Assinniboine/Saulteaux and a member of Gordon First Nation of the Treaty#4 area of southern Saskatchewan and member of the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Saskatchewan. She is a survivor and expert on the Sixties Scoop, the practice of taking Indigenous children from their families and placing them in foster care or adopting them out to white families. She is a critic of the current child welfare system in Canada, especially as it relates to Indigenous peoples. She is a professor, film maker, author and facilitator. Sinclair is also a founding editorial memb...

#47

Marcia G. Ory

#106620

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Marcia G. Ory is an American gerontologist with a background in Social Sciences, Public Health and Aging. She is a Regents and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Texas A&M School of Public Health. Ory also serves as the director of the Texas A&M Board of Regents Center for Population Health and Aging.

#48

John Walsh

#60494

Overall Influence

John P. Walsh is an American academic who is an associate professor at the USC Davis School of Gerontology as well as a member of USC's Neuroscience Program. His main research interest is the physiology of basal ganglia-related brain disease.

#49

Amasa B. Ford

#129134

Overall Influence

#50

Tom Perls

#66508

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Thomas Perls is the founding director of the New England Centenarian Study, the longest-running largest study of centenarians and their family members in the world. The Study is worldwide in scope but most of the participants come from the United States and Canada and is funded by three National Institute on Aging grants: The Integrative Longevity Omics Study, Centenarian Project of the Longevity Consortium and the Long Life Family Study. The study is also funded, with great appreciation, by the William M. Wood Foundation and the Paulette and Marty Samowitz Foundation. Born in Palo Alto, California, Perls later moved to Colorado and now lives in Boston.

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