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.

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School

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Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Sociology,

#601

Fatou Sow

#100632

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Fatou Sow is a Senegalese feminist sociologist specialising in sociology of gender. Life and career After Senegal gained independence in 1960, Sow was one of the first women to attend a university in the country. After she defended a thesis about the Senegalese elite, she kept researching in sociology.

#602

Jacquelyn Zita

#113030

Overall Influence

Jacquelyn Zita is an American born philosopher, active in environmental justice issues and how they impact gender and racial justice considerations. A former professor at the University of Minnesota, Zita is known for her involvement in the Women's Environmental Institute, which she helped found in 2003, and her role as WEI's farm manager and director of education and operations.

#603

Sonalde Desai

#162715

Overall Influence

Sonalde Desai is a sociologist and demographer. She is a Distinguished University Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park and a professor at the National Council of Applied Economic Research, where she serves as the first direction of the National Data Innovation Centre. She is the principal investigator for the India Human Development Survey, a nationwide panel data survey or more than 40,000 households in more than 2,000 villages and urban neighborhoods. In 2022, she served as president of the Population Association of America. In 2023 she was named a fellow of the...

#604

Maria N. Antonopoulou

#134376

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Maria N. Antonopoulou is an emeritus professor at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences Athens, Department of Sociology. She holds a PhD in sociology, Birmingham University, UK. She has published four books and several articles.

#605

Tracey McIntosh

Tracey McIntosh

#91812

Overall Influence

Tracey Kathleen Dorothy McIntosh is a New Zealand sociology and criminology academic. She is of Māori descent and is currently a Professor of Indigenous Studies and Co-Head of Te Wānanga o Waipapa at the University of Auckland.

#606

Pınar Selek

#98803

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Pınar Selek is a Turkish sociologist, feminist, and author. She is known for her work on the rights of vulnerable communities in Turkey, including women, the poor, street children, sexual minorities, and Kurdish communities. She is the author of several books published in Turkish, German, and French, and is one of the founding editors of Amargi, a Turkish feminist journal. She currently resides in France where she obtained academic exile from the universities in Strasbourg then Nice under the French PAUSE program, and later a permanent assistant professor position in sociology at Université Côte d'Azur.

#607

Kerry Carrington

#69564

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Kerry Lyn Carrington is an Australian criminologist, and an adjunct professor at the School of Law and Society at the University of the Sunshine Coast . She formerly served as head of the QUT School of Justice for 11 years from 2009 to 2021. She was editor-in-chief of the International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. She is known for her work on gender and violence, feminist criminology, southern criminology, youth justice and girls' violence, and global justice and human rights.

#608

Erica Kuligowski

Erica Kuligowski

#112809

Overall Influence

Erica Kuligowski is a social research scientist who studies human behavior during emergencies and the performance of evacuation models in disasters. She currently works at the Engineering Lab of the National Institute of Standards and Technology conducting research on fire disasters and leading the NIST Hurricane Maria Project.

#609

Sheila Riddell

#120220

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Sheila Riddell , is an academic at the University of Edinburgh and Director of the Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity . She has also been Director of the Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research, University of Glasgow. Her research interests include equality and social inclusion in education and adult education, with particular reference to gender, social class and disability

#610

Cat Pausé

#84845

Overall Influence

1979 - 2022 (43 years)

Caitlin Clare "Cat" Pausé was an American academic specialising in fat studies and a fat activist. From 2008 until her death in 2022 she was a senior lecturer at Massey University in New Zealand. Education Pausé completed a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at Southwest Texas State University in 1999. She attained her Master of Arts at Texas Tech University in 2002, and completed her Doctorate of Philosophy in Human Development at Texas Tech University in 2007. Pausé's doctoral work was done under Gwendolyn T. Sorell and included work on the Adult Identity Development Project. Her dissertation e...

#611

Helen A. Moore

#126419

Overall Influence

Helen Anne Moore is a feminist sociologist who studies educational inequality, especially in connection with Native American issues. She is Aaron Douglass Professor Emerita of Sociology and Professor Emeritus of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

#612

C. J. Pascoe

#133294

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (50 years)

Cheri Jo Pascoe is an American sociologist and author. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Oregon. Her research focuses on gender, youth, homophobia, sexuality and news media. She is currently one of the editors of the journal Socius.

#613

Andrea L. Press

#125211

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Andrea Lee Press is an American sociologist and media studies scholar. She is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Media Studies and Sociology, and Chair of the Media Studies Department, at the University of Virginia.

#614

Leith Dunn

#41560

Overall Influence

Leith Lorraine Dunn is a Jamaican sociologist, writer and academic. She taught at the University of the West Indies where she focused on gender and human rights, as well as acting for a consultant to the United Nations and the Caribbean Community. In 2020, she was presented the Award for Excellence by Jamaica's National Family Planning Board.

#615

Nancy Mathiowetz

#96232

Overall Influence

Nancy A. Mathiowetz is an American sociologist and statistician, known for her pioneering combination of cognitive psychology with survey methodology and for her research on poverty and disability. She is a professor emerita of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, the former president of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and the former editor-in-chief of Public Opinion Quarterly

#616

Barrie Karp

#78803

Overall Influence

1945 - 2019 (74 years)

Barrie Karp was an artist, independent scholar and academic. Karp grew up first in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre and then, in the later part of her childhood, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania and the surrounding Lycoming County area. She was an educator in philosophy, cultural studies, humanities and arts from a feminist and anti-racist perspective in New York City colleges and universities since 1970. Karp was part of the founding generation of academic feminist educators, producing cutting edge-pedagogy in academic fields that, by the 1990s became categorized, disciplined, and designated as cultural and media studies.

#617

Janet Jakobsen

#171512

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Janet R. Jakobsen is a scholar of gender and sexuality. She is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College and Director of Barnard's Center for Research on Women. She has also been Barnard's Dean for Faculty Diversity and Development.

#618

Heidi Stöckl

#173284

Overall Influence

Heidi Stöckl is a German researcher and sociologist at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her research investigates gender-based violence and human trafficking. She has previously worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and with the World Health Organization on the design and implementation of strategies to end violence against women.

#619

Valeria Pulignano

Valeria Pulignano

#173946

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Valeria Pulignano is an Italian-born sociologist, full Professor of Sociology at the University of Leuven , Belgium, and author of numerous publications on comparative industrial relations, labour markets and employment in Europe. She was formerly scientific director of the Center for Social Sociological Research at KU Leuven. She is Specialty Chief Editor of the "Work, Employment and Organization" section of Frontiers in Sociology, co-coordinator of the RN17 Work, Employment and Industrial Relations at the European Sociological Association and principal investigator of the ERC Advanced Gr...

#620

Margaret C. McCulloch

#159979

Overall Influence

1901 - 1996 (95 years)

Margaret Callender McCulloch was a writer, teacher, and activist during the civil rights movement. McCulloch authored several books and articles on race relations and the segregation of African Americans, as well as two biographies. Her most influential books included Segregation, a Challenge to Democracy and Integration: Promise, Process, Problems. The Amistad Research Center at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana houses McCulloch's articles, speeches, and correspondences.

#621

Jyoti Puri

#75952

Overall Influence

Jyoti Puri is Hazel Dick Leonard Chair and Professor of Sociology at Simmons University. She is a leading feminist sociologist who advocates for transnational and postcolonial approaches to the study of gender, sexuality, state, nationalism, and death and migration. She has published three books, and her most recent book, Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle Against the Antisodomy Law in India’s Present received the Distinguished Book Award from the Sociology of Sexualities Section of the American Sociological Association. She has delivered keynote lectures and given talks across a wide ...

#622

Kristen Olson

#168717

Overall Influence

Kristen Marie Olson is an American sociologist and statistician specializing in survey methodology. She is the Leland J. and Dorothy H. Olson Professor of Sociology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and also directs its Bureau of Sociological Research.

#623

Emma Sulkowicz

#42316

Overall Influence

1992 - Present (32 years)

Emma Sulkowicz is best known as a political activist and performance artist. While still a college student, Sulkowicz developed a national reputation with the performance artwork Mattress Performance . In 2019, she said she had stopped making art and began a master's program in traditional Chinese medicine.

#624

Janet Ford

#134707

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Professor Janet Ford is a British sociologist and university administrator. Until October 2007 she served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of York; her remit included estates and strategic projects, including the expansion of the University approved on 25 May 2007.

#625

Sarah Cunningham-Burley

#173426

Overall Influence

Sarah Jane Cunningham-Burley FRSE FAcSS is a Professor of Medical and Family Sociology in the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Research and career Cunningham-Burley's research spans medical and family sociology. She is the Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, and the Dean of Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.

#626

Sylvia Barack Fishman

#59382

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Sylvia Barack Fishman is an American feminist sociologist and author. She is the Joseph and Esther Foster Professor of Judaic Studies at Brandeis University, Co-Director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, and a board member of JOFA, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance. She writes about Jewish life in America.

#627

Dorothy Griffiths

#43423

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Dorothy Seymour "Dot" Griffiths, is a British academic and sociologist. She championed gender equality at Imperial College London, where she was a lecturer in sociology from 1969. She was Professor of Human Resource Management from 2002 to 2017.

#628

Bridget Hutter

#104865

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Bridget M. Hutter was a British sociologist. Hutter attended the University of London, where she studied sociology, and later earned a doctorate in the subject from the University of Oxford. She began teaching at Oxford and later moved to the London School of Economics, serving as director of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation from 2000 to 2010. Hutter is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society of Arts.

#629

Nancy Feldman

#88663

Overall Influence

1922 - 2014 (92 years)

Nancy G. Feldman was a civil rights activist and longtime educator from the U.S. state of Illinois. Feldman taught at the University of Tulsa for thirty-seven years and lectured across the United States and internationally. Feldman was inducted to the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1995. Her advocating for the expansion of art education in Tulsa public schools remains one of her biggest legacies. Feldman and her husband traveled to some of the most remote locations in the world during their retirement and worked to connect Tulsa with the world through the Tulsa Global Alliance.

#630

Joanne M. Cohoon

#146725

Overall Influence

1954 - 2016 (62 years)

Joanne Louise McGrath Cohoon was an American sociologist noted for her research on gender imbalance in computing. Biography Cohoon received a B.A. in philosophy from Ramapo College in 1976. She received a M.A. in student personnel administration in higher education from Columbia University Teachers College in 1979 and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Virginia in 2000.

#631

Sally Hines

#111046

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Sally Hines is a British sociologist and gender studies scholar. She is Professor of Sociology and Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield. She is the daughter of Barry Hines, the novelist and screenwriter whose most famous book, A Kestrel for a Knave, was turned into the 1969 film Kes.

#632

Sofia Gruskin

#170925

Overall Influence

Sofia Gruskin is a scholar and advocate in the field of health and human rights whose contributions range from global policy to the grassroots level. For more than 25 years her work has been instrumental in developing the conceptual, methodological, and empirical links between health and human rights, with a focus on sexual and reproductive health, HIV and AIDS, child and adolescent health, gender-based violence, non-communicable disease, and health systems. Currently, Gruskin is a professor at the Keck School of Medicine and Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California. Gruski...

#633

Mary Earle

#64345

Overall Influence

1929 - 2021 (92 years)

Mary Davidson Earle was a Scottish-born New Zealand food technologist. She was the first female faculty member of a university engineering department in New Zealand when she joined Massey University's food technology department in 1965.

#634

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...

#635

Boel Berner

#128900

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Boel Berner is a Swedish sociologist, historian, and editor. Early life and education Karin Boel Christina Berner was born 3 August 1945 in Helsingborg. She graduated with a bachelor's degree from Lund University in 1967, and a PhD in sociology from Lund University in 1981.

#636

Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha

#69106

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha is a Scottish sociologist and cultural scientist, working in Germany. Biography and career After the unexpected death of her father Robertson-von Trotha left Oban High School at the age of 15 without School Leaving Qualifications. In 1967 she completed her basic training in hotel management and was awarded with the gold medal of the Oban Hotel Association. After having worked in the hotel industry/sector for two years, Robertson-von Trotha began a journey as a backpacker through Europe and Turkey, which took her finally to Germany. Here she prepared herself autodidactically for the Scottish Higher Level Examinations.

#637

Elsa Leo-Rhynie

#39957

Overall Influence

Elsa Ann Leo-Rhynie OJ is a retired Jamaican academic and university administrator who is a professor emerita of the University of West Indies . She is a former principal and pro-vice-chancellor of its Mona, Jamaica, campus.

#638

Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon

#73750

Overall Influence

Rachael Zoe Stolzenberg-Solomon is an American epidemiologist and dietitian. She is a senior investigator and head of the metabolic epidemiology branch at the National Cancer Institute. Life Stolzenberg-Solomon received a B.S. in nutrition and dietetics at the University of California, Davis, followed by a dietetic internship and M.Ed. in health science education at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Peabody College, respectively. After this training, she worked as a registered dietitian for ten years.

#639

Leslie Irvine

#57676

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Leslie Jane Irvine is an American sociologist specializing in conceptions of the self and human-animal relationships. She is currently a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she has worked since 1998. Her methodological specializations include qualitative research and narrative analysis. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, she attended Palm Beach Junior College , Florida Atlantic University and State University of New York at Stony Brook .

#640

Kim Weeden

#171698

Overall Influence

Kim A. Weeden is an American sociologist. She is a professor of sociology at Cornell University, where she is also a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow and the Jan Rock Zubrow '77 Professor of the Social Sciences. Weeden studies income inequality, the gender wage gap, and what determines the professions that different people enter and the academic majors that students select. She primarily uses large-scale surveys to study these topics.

#641

May-Len Skilbrei

#170641

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

May-Len Skilbrei is a Norwegian sociologist, criminologist and gender studies scholar. She is Professor of Criminology at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. She has previously been Managing Director of the Fafo Institute for Applied International Studies. She is editor-in-chief of the journal Sosiologi i dag . She has also been President of the Association for Gender Research in Norway, board member of the European Society of Criminology and board member of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law. She also headed the Research network on prostitution in the Nordic countries.

#642

C. Nadine Wathen

#177586

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

C. Nadine Wathen is a Canadian researcher. She is a Full Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Mobilizing Knowledge on Gender-Based Violence at the University of Western Ontario and the Academic Director of the Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion.

#643

Jennifer Christine Nash

#122537

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Jennifer Christine Nash is the Jean Fox O'Barr Professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University within its Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Her research interests include Black feminist theory, feminist legal theory, Black sexual politics, black motherhood, black maternal health, race and law, and intersectionality.

#644

Janet Lauritsen

#88736

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Janet Lynn Lauritsen is an American criminologist and the Curators’ Distinguished Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. Education and career Dr. Lauritsen received her B.A. , M.A. , and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. After serving as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois , she joined the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis as an Assistant Professor in 1990. She was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 1996 as well as to full Professor in 2002.

#645

Carol Ruth Silver

#30772

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Carol Ruth Silver is an American lawyer and civil rights activist. She was a Freedom Rider, arrested and incarcerated for 40 days in Mississippi. She was among those on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors allegedly targeted by Dan White in the Moscone–Milk assassinations, but escaped assassination because she was not in her office at the time of the murders.

#646

Indrawati Oey

#151791

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Indrawati Oey is a New Zealand food scientist, full professor at the University of Otago. Early life and education Oey was born in Malang, East Java, Indonesia in 1970. Academic career After a PhD at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Oey moved to the University of Otago and rose to full professor and head of the Department of Food Sciences. She is a principal investigator of the Riddet Institute, a national food research centre in New Zealand.

#647

Agnes Bolsø

#171584

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Agnes Bolsø is a Norwegian sociologist and expert on gender studies, particularly studies of sexuality. She is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and was director of its Centre for Gender Studies from 2005 to 2007. She was editor of Tidsskrift for kjønnsforskning from 2009 to 2011.

#648

Pushkala Prasad

#132136

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Pushkala Prasad is an Indian American academic, researcher and writer. She is the Zankel Chair Professor of Management and Liberal Arts at Skidmore College. She is best known for her book Crafting Qualitative Research: Working in the Post-Positivist Traditions and her research on workplace diversity. A great deal of her work is done in collaboration with her husband, Anshuman Prasad.

#649

Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

#118611

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is a Canadian social scientist who specializes in international human rights. Biography Howard-Hassmann was born Rhoda Howard in Scotland. Her mother was Scottish, her father was a refugee from Nazi Germany. She was brought to Canada at a young age and attended public schools in Quebec and southern Ontario. She is married and the mother of one son, born in 1981. In 1999 she changed her legal name from Rhoda E. Howard to Rhoda E. Hassmann, but she publishes her academic work as Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann. She has lived in Hamilton, Ontario since 1976.

#650

Blaženka Despot

#94455

Overall Influence

1930 - 2001 (71 years)

Blaženka Despot was a Croatian philosopher, socialist feminist, and sociologist. After finishing high school in Zagreb in 1948 and graduating in philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, she received her PhD in Ljubljana in 1970 with a thesis on humanity of the technological society. During the period 1956-64 she worked as a high school professor, and later as an assistant at the Department of Socialism at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. In 1974 she was appointed as an associate professor of sociology and political economy, receiving full professorship in 1980 as a Professor of Marxism, socialism and socialist self-management at the Veterinary Faculty in Zagreb.

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