The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential female people in Sociology,
#751
Adelaide M. Cromwell
#107605
Overall Influence
1919 - 2019 (100 years)
Adelaide McGuinn Cromwell was an American sociologist and professor emeritus at Boston University, where she co-founded the African Studies Center in 1959, and directed the graduate program in Afro-American studies from 1969 to 1985. She was the first African-American instructor at Hunter College and at Smith College. In 1974 she was appointed as the first African-American Library Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She has written several books on black history, including a groundbreaking study of Boston's black upper class and a biography of Adelaide Casely-Hayford. She died...
Go to Profile#752
Donna M. Hughes
#142813
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Donna M. Hughes is an American academic and feminist who chairs the women's studies department at the University of Rhode Island. Her research concerns prostitution and human trafficking; she was a prominent supporter of the campaign to end prostitution in Rhode Island, and has testified on these issues before several national legislative bodies. She sits on the editorial board of Sexualization, Media, and Society, a journal examining the impact of sexualized media.
Go to Profile#753
Pepka Boyadjieva
#114301
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Pepka Boyadjieva is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Chair of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge and of Institute of Philosophy and Sociology . Vice-Chair of the General Assembly of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ; President of the Bulgarian Sociological Association . Expert for the European Commission and Permanent Senior Fellow at Center for Advanced Studies, Sofia . Member of the Editorial Board of the International Sociological Association’s edition Sage Studies in Internati...
Go to Profile#754
Debra Street
#181389
Overall Influence
Debra Anne Street is an American sociologist specialized in health and income security, long-term care, aging in families, and comparative public policies. She is a professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo.
Go to Profile#755
Kaila Story
#182721
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Kaila Adia Story-Jackson is an American academic and podcaster. Story's academic work focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race. Early life and education Story was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She came out as a lesbian at the age of 16.
Go to Profile#756
Jennifer A. Johnson
#141511
Overall Influence
Jennifer Ann Johnson is assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and one of the chief editors of the journal Sexualization, Media, and Society. Education Johnson received her BS in sociology from Radford University in 1985, her MS in sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1993, and her PhD in sociology from the University of Virginia in 2004. Her doctoral thesis was entitled The Geography of Gender: Ritual as Residence.
Go to Profile#757
Susan Short
#176361
Overall Influence
Susan E. Short is the Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor of Population Studies at Brown University who is known for her work on how gender, family, health and well-being are effected by social and political environments.
Go to Profile#758
Nazimah Hamid
#184307
Overall Influence
Nazimah Hamid is a New Zealand food science academic, and as of 2017 is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Academic career After a 1996 PhD titled 'Relationships between aroma quality in juices from two frozen Scottish raspberries and thermal and enzymic treatments in processing' at the University of Strathclyde, Hamid moved to the Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#759
Laura Tach
#76478
Overall Influence
Laura Tach is an American professor of policy analysis and management and sociology at Cornell University. She is the co-director with Rachel Dunifon of Cornell Project 2Gen, a research initiative supporting disadvantaged caregivers and children. In collaboration with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Tach studies the relationship between opioid abuse and child maltreatment. The study was funded by a multi-year grant from the William T. Grant Foundation. Tach has studied the relationship between "microenvironments", or the neighborhood blocks where one resides, affect educa...
Go to Profile#760
Zine Magubane
#184342
Overall Influence
Zine Magubane is a scholar whose work focuses broadly on the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and post-colonial studies in the United States and Southern Africa. She has held professorial positions at various academic institutions in the United States and South Africa and has published several articles and books.
Go to Profile#761
Claire Maxwell
#144701
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Claire Maxwell is a sociologist. She currently holds a chair in sociology at the University of Copenhagen. Early life Maxwell was born and spent her childhood in Luxembourg. She holds German and Australian citizenship, and is fluent in English, German, French, and Danish. She attended the European School in Luxembourg, graduating from its EB programme in 1993.
Go to Profile#762
Alicja Iwańska
#83375
Overall Influence
1918 - 1996 (78 years)
Alicja Iwańska was a Polish sociologist, academic and writer. Born into the landed gentry of Poland, her family were members of the intelligentsia and encouraged Iwańska to pursue her literary dreams. She began publishing poetry in 1935 in various literary journals. After her high school studies, she enrolled in philosophy courses at the University of Warsaw and went on to study for a master's degree. When World War II broke out, she joined the resistance movement and served as a courier. Involved in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, at the end of the war she became part of the secret anti-communist opposition.
Go to Profile#763
Rebecca Jordan-Young
#84472
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Rebecca M. Jordan-Young , is an American feminist scientist and gender studies scholar. Her research focuses on social medical science, sex, gender, sexuality, and epidemiology. She is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College.
Go to Profile#764
Sandra Lynn Barnes
#178524
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Sandra Lynn Barnes is an American educator, author, ordained Baptist minister, and documentary filmmaker. She is the C.V. Starr Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Sociology at Brown University. From 2008-2021, she was a joint-appointed Professor of Sociology in the Department of Human and Organizational Development in Peabody College of Education and Human Development and the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University.
Go to Profile#765
Nicole Westmarland
#169510
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
#766
Jurema Werneck
#116592
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Jurema Werneck is the Brazilian director for Amnesty International in Brazil. She is a black feminist, physician, author, and doctor in Communication and Culture from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She is also a board member of the Global Fund for Women. Her works include, "Estelizacao de mulheres um desafio para a bioetica?", "Saúde da população negra", "O Livro Da Saude Das Mulheres Negras", and "Black Women's Health: Our Steps Come Away".
Go to Profile#767
Kamala Kempadoo
#178612
Overall Influence
Kamala Kempadoo is a British-Guyanese author and sexology professor who lives in Barbados and Canada. She has written multiple books about sex work and sex trafficking and won awards from the Caribbean Studies Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality for her distinguished and lifetime achievement in the sexology field.
Go to Profile#768
Rosalba Casas
#119403
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Rosalba Casas Guerrero is a professor of History and Socio-politics at the Montreal University in Canada. Education Casas studied sociology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico , and has a PhD in Science and Technology Policy from the University of Sussex in England.
Go to Profile#769
Lídia Puigvert
#183314
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Lídia Puigvert is a Colombian lecturer of sociology at the University of Barcelona. She is a feminist author known for her theoretical contributions to dialog feminism and the overcoming of gender violence. She has been published many times and co-authored Women and Social Transformation with Judith Butler and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. Due to her relevant contributions in gender studies, she was appointed as a consultant for European research projects such as IMPACT-EV, INCLUD-ED, and WORKALÓ. She was a principal investigator in several projects and coordinated Life paths that move away or move closer to human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Go to Profile#770
Lisa Houghton
#182507
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Lisa Anne Houghton is a New Zealand-based scientist, professor and head of the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Otago. Academic career Houghton graduated from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada with a MSc for her thesis titled "The Influence of Dietary Fiber on the Folate Status of a Group of Adolescent Females". Following graduation, she worked at Acadia University as assistant professor, at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto before moving to the United States to work at Abbott Laboratories in the Premature Infant Nutrition division.
Go to Profile#771
Erin York Cornwell
#185711
Overall Influence
Erin York Cornwell is an American sociologist. She is associate professor of sociology at Cornell University. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2008, where she worked with Linda Waite, Edward Laumann, and Kathleen Cagney. She specializes in survey research methods, and has made numerous contributions to sociology of law, urban sociology, and the sociology of health.
Go to Profile#772
Carolyn C. Perrucci
#182371
Overall Influence
Carolyn Cummings Perrucci is an American sociologist specializing in gender roles, family, and education, who is currently a professor of sociology at Purdue University. She joined the Purdue University College of Liberal Arts department of sociology in 1966. Perrucci headed the women's studies program from 1980 to 1981 and has published several books on the career patterns of women in STEM fields.
Go to Profile#773
Yasmine Motarjemi
#93792
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Yasmine Motarjemi is a food safety specialist and whistleblower. Biography Motarjemi studied chemistry and biology at the Claude-Bernard University in Lyon and food industry techniques at the University of Montpellier, before doing PhD studies in food technology at the University of Lund. She then worked as a research assistant at the same university.
Go to Profile#774
Patricia Ingraham
#105841
Overall Influence
Patricia Wallace Ingraham is founding dean of the College of Community and Public Affairs at Binghamton University and a former Distinguished Professor of Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
Go to Profile#775
Jessica Calarco
#186628
Overall Influence
Jessica McCrory Calarco is an American sociologist who is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research considers inequalities in education and family life. She has published three books, Negotiating Opportunities, A Field Guide to Grad School and Qualitative Literacy.
Go to Profile#776
Anne Harper Anderson
#172286
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Anne Harper Anderson OBE FRSE former University of Glasgow Vice Principal and Head of the College of Social Sciences, and Gender Champion, specialising in communications including machine-human interaction. She served on the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council which allocated £800million per annum for research. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire for services to social science and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .
Go to Profile#777
Elizabeth R. Baer
#148052
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Elizabeth R. Baer is an American academic whose work specializes in women's and Holocaust studies. She was a member of the Coordinating Council of the National Women's Studies Association from its founding in 1977 through 1979. She was appointed as the Raymond and Florence Sponberg Chair of Ethics at Gustavus Adolphus College in 2000. In 2004 and again between 2016 and 2017, she was the Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Holocaust studies for Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey. She has written numerous books and articles evaluating the impact of war and conflict on women's lives.
Go to Profile#778
Daria Roithmayr
#128089
Overall Influence
Daria Roithmayr is the George T. and Harriet E. Pfleger Professor of Law at the University of Southern California. She is a leading scholar on the subject of racial inequality. Education Roithmayr graduated from University of California, Los Angeles, and from the Georgetown University Law Center, magna cum laude. She clerked for Judge Marvin J. Garbis, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Go to Profile#779
Beverley Bryan
#80550
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Beverley Bryan is a Jamaican educationist and retired academic who was a professor of language education at the University of the West Indies in Mona. Settling in Britain with her parents in the late 1950s, she went on to become a founding member of the Brixton Black Women's Group and co-authored the 1985 book The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain.
Go to Profile#780
Mary Ruggie
#58998
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Mary C. Ruggie is an American sociologist and professor at Harvard Kennedy School. Ruggie completed a B.A. in sociology , M.A. in education and Ph.D. in sociology at University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoral advisor was Philip Selznick.
Go to Profile#781
Gloria Laycock
#97434
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Gloria Laycock was the founding Director of the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London , and ran UCL's Centre for Security & Crime Science. She is an internationally renowned expert in crime prevention, and especially situational approaches which seek to design out situations which provoke crime.
Go to Profile#782
Suzanne Stiver Lie
#75931
Overall Influence
1934 - 2018 (84 years)
Suzanne Stiver Lie was an American-born Norwegian women's rights activist and professor who worked to develop Women's Studies programs in Norway, Lithuania and Estonia. Her major research emphasis was on inequality in higher education and on migrant women.
Go to Profile#783
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett
#130766
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Elizabeth Currid-Halkett is an American academic and author. She is the James Irvine Chair of Urban and Regional Planning and Professor of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Education Currid-Halkett received her PhD in urban planning from Columbia University. She received a Bachelor's of Arts in Creative Writing and Professional Writing and a Master's of Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.
Go to Profile#784
Patricia Snyder
#60393
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Patricia A. Snyder is an American sociologist. She is a distinguished professor and David Lawrence Jr. Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Studies at the University of Florida. Education Snyder earned her Bachelor of Science at the State University of New York at Geneseo in 1977, followed by her Master of Education at Millersville University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#785
Anna Halafoff
#180157
Overall Influence
Anna Halafoff is an Australian sociologist who is Associate Professor in Sociology at Deakin University and the current president of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion. Education Halafoff completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Melbourne, a Master of Letters at the University of New England in 2001, a Graduate Diploma of Education at the University of New England in 2006, and a Doctor of Philosophy at Monash University in Melbourne, Victoria in 2010.
Go to Profile#786
Kerstin Jacobsson
#178866
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Kerstin Jacobsson is a Swedish political sociologist conducting research on democracy issues, the European Union, active labour market policies and social movements. She is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Work Science at the University of Gothenburg.
Go to Profile#787
Alice Cook
#106807
Overall Influence
1903 - 1998 (95 years)
Alice Hanson Cook was an activist and professor of labor history at Cornell University in the United States. At Cornell, the Alice Cook House residential college was named in her honor. Her varied life experiences included social worker, YWCA secretary, labor educator, post World War II advisor in Germany on reconstituting German labor unions, professor, university ombudsman, world acclaimed researcher, and to the very end, an activist. Cook was appointed Cornell University's first ombudsman and worked to establish the credibility and acceptance of that office.
Go to Profile#788
Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley
#165829
Overall Influence
Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley is Professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Previously she was an Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is trained in literary critique, and does work in Caribbean Studies, Black Diaspora Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Pop Culture Studies. She is the author of Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism between Women in Caribbean Literature , and Ezili′s Mirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders . She received the F.O. Matthiessen Visiting Professorship of Gender and Sexuality at Harvard for the 2018–2019 school year.
Go to Profile#789
Faye Wattleton
#17505
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Faye Wattleton is an American reproductive rights activist who was the first African American and the youngest president ever elected of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the first woman since Margaret Sanger to hold the position. She is currently Co-founder & Director at EeroQ, a quantum computing company. She is best known for her contributions to family planning and reproductive health, and the reproductive rights movement.
Go to Profile#790
Nalla Tan
#124433
Overall Influence
1923 - 2012 (89 years)
Nallammah "Nalla" Ruth Tan was a Singaporean physician, women's rights advocate and writer. She is known for her early advocacy of sex education and public health education in Singapore. She was also known for her poetry and short story writing.
Go to Profile#791
Jennifer Lee
#177012
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Jennifer Lee is an American sociologist and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor of Social Sciences at Columbia University. She was president of the Eastern Sociological Society from 2020–21. Lee was previously on the faculty of the University of California, Irvine. Lee is the author, co-author, or co-editor of four books: Civility in the City: Blacks, Jews, and Koreans in Urban America; Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity ; The Diversity Paradox: Immigration and the Color Line in 21st Century America ; and The Asian American Achievement Paradox .
Go to Profile#792
Angela Coco
#171194
Overall Influence
Angela Coco is an Australian sociologist and academic whose primary research interests have been in the area of the sociology of religion, new religious movements, Catholicism, and Paganism. Education Coco completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours in 1991 at the University of Queensland, in Brisbane, Australia. Her honours thesis, Women and the Australian Church: Project or Proclamation? provides the only record of the early history of the Christian feminist group, Women and the Australian Church .
Go to Profile#793
Elsa Murano
#53991
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Elsa Alina Murano has been the Director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture & Development at Texas A&M University's Agriculture & Life Sciences program since 2012. She was the 23rd president of Texas A&M University from January 3, 2008, until her effective resignation on June 15, 2009.
Go to Profile#794
Sue Wise
#82575
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Sue Wise is a feminist author, Professor of Social Justice and Director of Study for BA Social Work at Lancaster University, UK. After having received a social science degree at Manchester Polytechnic, Sue Wise worked as a political activist for several years. In the 1970s and 1980s she was deeply involved in the Women's Movement and the Lesbian and Gay Movement, mainly in Manchester. She is also a social worker having experience in the voluntary and statutory sectors in both residential and field work, mainly working with children and families.
Go to Profile#795
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons
#79891
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, formerly Gwendolyn Robinson, is senior lecturer emerita following her retirement from the University of Florida in 2019. Her research has explored Islamic feminism and the impact of Sharia law on Muslim women. She is a civil rights activist, serving as a member of both the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Nation of Islam . Simmons has received a number of prestigious fellowships, including a Fulbright Fellowship, USAID Fellowships, and an American Center of Oriental Research Fellowship.
Go to Profile#796
Transnational Reproduction
#141440
Overall Influence
Transnational Reproduction: Race, Kinship, and Commercial Surrogacy in India is a 2016 book by anthropologist Daisy Deomampo. The book analyzes transnational commercial surrogacy, focusing on the practices of doctors, surrogates, parents, and agents in India. The book proposes that the practice of transnational surrogacy reinforces social status distinctions through a shared "racial reproductive imaginary". Transnational Reproduction was reviewed in Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Social Anthropology, Anthropological Quarterly, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, and Signs.
Go to Profile#797
Jennifer Reich
#111654
Overall Influence
Jennifer Anne Reich is an American sociologist, researcher and author at the University of Colorado Denver. Her research interests include healthcare, adolescence, welfare, and policy. Her work on vaccine hesitancy gained widespread attention during the 2019 measles outbreaks. She is the author of three books and numerous journal articles.
Go to Profile#798
Ann London Scott
#65528
Overall Influence
1929 - 2009 (80 years)
Ann London Scott was an American feminist. She founded the Buffalo chapter of the National Organization for Women . As legislative vice president of the national organization in the early 1970s, she led the effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. She was also a poet, translator, and English professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo .
Go to Profile#799
Alana Mann
#94631
Overall Influence
Professor Alana Mann is a food activist and interdisciplinary scholar researching the power relations between media, governments, institutions and citizens, in the field of food politics. She is co-founder of FoodLab Sydney, a business incubator to address issues around local food insecurity, based on the model pioneered by FoodLab Detroit. Mann is Professor and Head of Discipline at the University of Tasmania. She led the Department of Media and Communications at University of Sydney and was a key researcher in the Sydney Environment Institute; the Charles Perkins Centre and Sydney Democrac...
Go to Profile#800
Anna Middleton
#152266
Overall Influence
Anna Middleton is a social scientist and genetic counsellor. She is Head of the Society and Ethics Research group, part of Wellcome Connecting Science, based on the Wellcome Genome Campus. She is also a Professor/Affiliate Lecturer at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.
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