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,
#801
Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
#62385
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Helena Ann Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws, KC, FRSA, HonFRSE , is a Scottish barrister, broadcaster, and Labour member of the House of Lords. She was Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford, from 2011 to 2018.
Go to Profile#802
Eva Sorensen
#118115
Overall Influence
Eva Sorensen is a British chemical engineer. She was appointed in 2020 as the 11th Ramsay Memorial Professor of Chemical Engineering at UCL, where she was the first woman to head the Department of Chemical Engineering. She was an interim appointment while Marc-Olivier Coppens was on a year sabbatical.
Go to Profile#803
Dóra S. Bjarnason
#176902
Overall Influence
1947 - 2020 (73 years)
Dóra Sigríður Bjarnason was Professor Emerita in Sociology and Disability Studies/Inclusive Education in the School of Education at the University of Iceland. Professional career Dóra completed a BA degree in sociology from the University of Manchester, MA degree from Keele University and Dr. Phil. in Disability Studies-Special Education from the University of Oslo in 2003. In the fall of 1971, she began work at the Iceland University of Education as a part-time lecturer and she was tenured in 1981. She became professor at the Iceland University of Education in 2004, which in fall of 2008 bec...
Go to Profile#804
Kathleen McPhillips
#185688
Overall Influence
Kathleen McPhillips is an Australian sociologist of religion and gender in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia and the current vice-president of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion.
Go to Profile#805
Pearl Dykstra
#180661
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Pearl A. Dykstra is a Dutch social scientist with a background in sociology, psychology, gerontology and demography. She is a specialist on intergenerational solidarity, aging societies, family change, aging and the life course, and loneliness.
Go to Profile#806
Cynthia Harrison
#117203
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Cynthia Ellen Harrison is a historian who taught at George Washington University. Harrison participated in activism that led to the Equal Credit Act of 1974 and is an advocate for gender equality. Early life Cynthia Ellen Harrison was born in October 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. She grew up and attended public schools in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents names were Herbert Harrison and Jean Hacken Harrison. Harrison was married 1970 and divorced in 1984. After, she had a long-term relationship with another man. Harrison has no children. She became an activist feminist in 1970, when she moved to Canada.
Go to Profile#807
Ruby Blondell
#162424
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Ruby Blondell is Professor Emerita of Classics and Adjunct Professor Emerita of Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington; prior to retirement, they were the Byron W. and Alice L. Lockwood Professor of Humanities also at the University of Washington. Their research centres on Greek intellectual history, gender studies, and the reception of ancient myth in contemporary culture.
Go to Profile#808
Rupa Huq
#98069
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Rupa Asha Huq is a British Labour MP, columnist and academic. Elected as the Labour Member of Parliament for Ealing Central and Acton at the 2015 general election, she was formerly a senior lecturer in sociology at Kingston University.
Go to Profile#809
Catharine Lumby
#69339
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Professor Catharine Lumby is an Australian academic, author and journalist, currently Chair of the Department of Media and Communication at University of Sydney. Career Prior to her move to academia, Lumby was a feature writer and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald, a news writer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and a columnist and senior writer at The Bulletin. She holds a BA LLB from the University of Sydney and was awarded a PhD by Macquarie University for her thesis "Life in a tabloid world: an analysis of key shifts in Australian and US print and television media".
Go to Profile#810
Sonya Douglass Horsford
#103057
Overall Influence
Sonya Douglass Horsford is an American academic who researches educational inequality in the United States, social justice, and education policy. Horsford is a professor of educational leadership at the Teachers College, Columbia University.
Go to Profile#811
Linda Waite
#58278
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Linda Joan Waite is a sociologist and social demographer. She is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Waite is also a Senior Fellow at the NORC at the University of Chicago and Principal Investigator on the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project . In 2018, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Go to Profile#812
Alexandra Shepard
#109012
Overall Influence
Alexandra Shepard is Professor of Gender History at the University of Glasgow. In 2018 Shepard was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in recognition for her work in gender history and the social history of early modern Britain. In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#813
Alison Park
#109537
Overall Influence
Alison Macdonald Park is a British social scientist who is a professor and previous executive chair of the Economic and Social Research Council . Her research has focused on longitudinal data collection and social attitudes. She was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to the Social Sciences.
Go to Profile#814
Celine-Marie Pascale
#189638
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Celine-Marie Pascale is an American sociologist and author. She is professor emerita of sociology at the American University College of Arts and Sciences. Education Pascale has a BA Communications from Glassboro State College, a MA in Social Science from San Jose State University, and a PhD in sociology, with a certificate in Women's Studies, from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Go to Profile#815
Maureen Storey
#96058
Overall Influence
Maureen Lee Storey is the president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research and Education , founded in 2010. APRE is dedicated to expanding and translating research into science-based policy and education initiatives on the role of all forms of the potato in a well-balanced diet. Regarding potatoes, she has said, "This industry has recognized that we need the science in order to fight back on the goodness, the deliciousness, the nutritiousness of the potato regardless of the form that it is being prepared in."
Go to Profile#816
Laura Berman
#80848
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Laura Berman is an American relationship therapist and television host. She is the host of In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman on the Oprah Winfrey Network . She is also a regular guest on The Dr. Oz Show, and hosts her own nationally syndicated radio program, Uncovered with Dr. Laura Berman. She previously starred in Showtime's reality television series Sexual Healing.
Go to Profile#817
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.
Go to Profile#818
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
#12954
Overall Influence
1919 - 1995 (76 years)
Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an American activist supporting atheism and separation of church and state. In 1963, she founded American Atheists and served as its president until 1986, after which her son Jon Garth Murray succeeded her. She created the first issues of American Atheist Magazine and identified as a "militant feminist".
Go to Profile#819
Mercedes Bengoechea
#71167
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Mercedes Bengoechea Bartolomé is a Spanish feminist sociolinguist, professor of English philology and a proponent for the defense of the use of gender-neutral language from an academic foundation. She has had a long career as an advisor to various entities, including the Institute of Women and the Instituto RTVE . Since 1994, Bengoechea has been a member of the Comisión Asesora sobre Lenguaje del Instituto de la Mujer . She has been vocal at the Commission for the Modernization of Legal Language of the Ministry of Justice, as well as coordinator of the first Annual Report of the National Observatory on Gender Violence.
Go to Profile#820
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
#65747
Overall Influence
1936 - 2018 (82 years)
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela , also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Go to Profile#821
Niara Sudarkasa
#89251
Overall Influence
1938 - 2019 (81 years)
Niara Sudarkasa was an American scholar, educator, Africanist and anthropologist who holds thirteen honorary degrees, and is the recipient of nearly 100 civic and professional awards. In 1989 Essence magazine named her "Educator for the '90s", and in 2001 she became the first African American to be installed as a Chief in the historic Ife Kingdom of the Yoruba of Nigeria.
Go to Profile#822
Jessica Mitford
#4496
Overall Influence
1917 - 1996 (79 years)
Jessica Lucy "Decca" Treuhaft was an English author, one of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters noted for their sharply conflicting politics. Jessica married her second cousin Esmond Romilly, who was killed in World War II, and then American civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft, with whom she joined the Communist Party USA and worked closely in the Civil Rights Congress. Both refused to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They resigned from the party in 1958.
Go to Profile#823
Fatima Seedat
#40579
Overall Influence
Fatima Seedat is a South African feminist, Islamic scholar and women's rights activist. She is known for her scholarly work on gender and Islamic law, and Islam and feminism. Career Seedat researches gender and Islamic law, Islam and feminism, and Muslim masculinity. She completed her PhD at McGill University, and her dissertation focused on gender and legal theory.
Go to Profile#824
Jennifer Mason
#186906
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Jennifer Mason is a British sociologist and Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Biography Mason studied for her undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of Southampton and a PhD at the University of Kent. She worked as a lecturer at Lancaster University before being appointed Reader in Sociology at the University of Leeds. In 2005 she moved to the University of Manchester and co-founded The Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives with Carol Smart. Mason has served as the Vice-Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council's research committee and acted as Chair of the ESRC Grants Delivery Group from 2012 to 2015.
Go to Profile#825
Trinh T. Minh-ha
#171359
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Trinh T. Minh-ha is a Vietnamese filmmaker, writer, literary theorist, composer, and professor. She has been making films for over thirty years and may be best known for her films Reassemblage'', made in 1982, and Surname Viet Given Name Nam, made in 1985. She has received several awards and grants, including the American Film Institute's National Independent Filmmaker Maya Deren Award, and Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. Her films have been the subject of twenty retrospectives.
Go to Profile#826
María Guðjónsdóttir
#184546
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
María Guðjónsdóttir is a professor of food science at the University of Iceland. María graduated from the menntaskóli Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 2000, obtained a BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Iceland in the spring of 2004, a master's degree in chemical engineering with engineering physics from the Chalmers University of Technology in 2006, and a PhD in biotechnology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2011.
Go to Profile#827
Becky Wai-Ling Packard
#87221
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Becky Wai-Ling Packard is Professor of Psychology and Education, and former Director of the Weissman Center for Leadership, Associate Dean of Faculty, and Founding Director of Teaching and Learning at Mount Holyoke College.
Go to Profile#828
Margaret Allen
#183008
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Margaret Allen is an Australian historian and women's studies researcher. She is professor emerita at the University of Adelaide. Early life and education Margaret Ellen Allen was born in 1947 in Adelaide, the fourth child of George William Allen and Marjorie Ada Allen . Her mother died suddenly in August 1948 and her father later married Helen Ladbury Allen .
Go to Profile#829
Evangelia Tastsoglou
#186829
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Evangelia Tastsoglou , also known as Evie Tastsoglou, is a Greek-Canadian sociologist and lawyer. She is Professor of Sociology and International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University in Canada. She is known for her research relating to issues of gender and international migration, migration and globalization, immigrant and minority women and citizenship, and sexual and gender-based violence during forced migration.
Go to Profile#830
Katherine Rake
#169938
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Katherine Rake is director of Lucent, a consultancy supporting organisations with a social purpose to see clearly, make connections and inspire change. She was previously chief executive of HealthWatch England, the Family and Parenting Institute and the Fawcett Society. She is currently trustee of the charity United Response and has held a range of trustee and governing roles including as Governor of the London School of Economics, trustee of Centre for Ageing Better and Chair of RISE Mutual. Katherine was formerly a lecturer in social policy at LSE during which time she was seconded to the Cabinet Office.
Go to Profile#831
Fariba Adelkhah
#35841
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Fariba Adelkhah is a French-Iranian anthropologist and academic at Sciences Po who was detained in Iran from 2019 until 2023. Early life and career Born in Tehran, Adelkhah studied in France, first at Université Strasbourg II and then at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. In 1990, she obtained a "very honourable" mention for her Ph.D. thesis on women in Iran, "an anthropological approach of post-revolutionary Iran: the case of Islamic women" , with Jean-Pierre Digard as her advisor. Since 2004, she has been a Research Director at the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques.
Go to Profile#832
Brittany Friedman
#168806
Overall Influence
1989 - Present (35 years)
Brittany Michelle Friedman is an American sociologist focusing on criminology, racial inequality, and incarceration. She is currently Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California and faculty affiliate of the Sol Price Center for Social Innovation and the Equity Research Institute. Her research intersects at the sociology of law, sociology of race, economic sociology, and criminal justice. Friedman is most known for her research on the Black Guerilla Family and the black power movement behind bars, and the financialization of the criminal legal system. She is an outspoken proponent of criminal justice reform and a frequent commentator on public media outlets.
Go to Profile#833
Debra Haffner
#110300
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Debra W. Haffner is co-founder and president emerita of the Religious Institute, Inc. A sexologist and ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, she was the endorsed community minister with the Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut. Haffner retired from the Religious Institute on April 30, 2016. She has been the settled minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Reston, Virginia since August 2016.
Go to Profile#834
Naika Foroutan
#47440
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Naika Foroutan is a German social scientist. She has been head of the research group "Young Islam-related topics in Germany" at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin since 2011; in June 2015, she was appointed professor of "integration research and social policy" by Humboldt-Universität. In addition, she is secretary of the five-member board of the German Council for Migration; since 2017 she has also been head of the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research .
Go to Profile#835
Yasemin Besen–Cassino
#185415
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Yasemin Besen–Cassino is an American sociologist. She is a professor of sociology at Montclair State University and editor for Contemporary Sociology. Besen–Cassino is married to political scientist Dan Cassino and the two often collaborate on research projects.
Go to Profile#836
Anthea Hucklesby
#136667
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Anthea Hucklesby FAcSS FRSA is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Birmingham where she holds a joint appointment in Birmingham Law School and the School of Social Policy. She was Head of the School of Social Policy at the University of Birmingham 2020–2022. She was a member of the Law School at the University of Leeds between 2003 and 2020 where she was latterly Pro-Dean for research and innovation in the Faculty of Social Sciences. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce .
Go to Profile#837
Emma Katz
#184468
Overall Influence
Emma Katz is a UK-based domestic violence researcher. Katz has contributed to policy and popular cultural discussion on coercive control, in particular in the UK, the United States, and Australia. Policy Katz was a member of the expert advisory panel for Research England's Domestic Abuse Policy Guidance for UK Universities 2021.
Go to Profile#838
Dorien DeTombe
#110380
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Dorothea Jacqueline DeTombe is a Dutch sociologist and former academic at the Utrecht University and the Delft University of Technology, known for her contributions in the field of methodology for societal complexity.
Go to Profile#839
Priti Ramamurthy
#189906
Overall Influence
Priti Ramamurthy is an American political economist. She is currently a professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington. Her work focuses upon social reproduction and makes a feminist analysis of commodity chains.
Go to Profile#840
Rita El Khayat
#76042
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Rita El Khayat also known as "Ghita". Ghita El Khayat, , is Moroccan psychiatrist, anthro-psychoanalyst, writer, and anthropologist. She studied at modern schools of Rabat and completed her graduation in the field of Psychiatry, Psychoanalyst and Medical Aerospace from Paris whereas graduation in Ergonomics and Occupational Medicine were completed from Bordeaux. She did her PhD in Anthropology of Arab World from .
Go to Profile#841
Jane Duncan
#175373
Overall Influence
Jane Duncan is an academic, public intellectual and activist at the Journalism Department at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. She works on media freedom issues and is the former director of the Freedom of Expression Institute in Johannesburg.
Go to Profile#842
Divina Frau-Meigs
#60612
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Divina Frau-Meigs is a Moroccan-born sociologist of media and professor at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris III in France where her areas of research include, cultural diversity, dynamic identities, human/children's rights, internet governance, media education, media matrices, media in English-speaking countries, and risky content. Her research has also included media content and risk behaviors, the reception and use of Information and communications technology, and American studies. She is the chair of "Savoir-devenir in sustainable digital development" for UNESCO and coordinator of "...
Go to Profile#843
Claire Kahane
#54268
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Claire Kahane is an American writer, scholar and feminist literary critic. She is Professor Emerita of English at the University at Buffalo, where she taught from 1974 to 2000. Kahane is the author of Passions of the Voice, a study of narrative and "the strategies of hysteric discourse." Scholar Christine Wiesenthal, writing in the journal Victorian Review, wrote that "the confluence of feminist, narrative, and psychoanalytic theory" in Passions of the Voice was "an innovative and provocative mix." Kahane is also the co-editor, with Charles Bernheimer, of In Dora's Case, a collection of essay...
Go to Profile#844
Dorit Geva
#190072
Overall Influence
Dorit Geva is a political sociologist specialising in political sociology, social and political theory, politics of gender and sexuality, and comparative and historical sociology. Currently, she is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology and was Founding Dean of undergraduate studies at Central European University between 2019 and 2022. Before her appointment as Dean, she was part of a team that created the BA in Culture, Politics and Society at CEU. She is known for her research on right-wing politics in Europe, and for her research on establishment of the US draft system and its history of racial and gender discrimination.
Go to Profile#845
Lynn McDonald
#148407
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Lynn McDonald is a professor in the Faculty of Social Work and Director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging at the University of Toronto and Scientific Director of the National Initiative for the Care of the Elderly.
Go to Profile#846
Julia Lawton
#191376
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Julia Lawton is a British medical sociologist. She is the current Professor of Health and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh Medical School's Usher Institute and a member of the Chief Scientist Office's Health Improvement Committee.
Go to Profile#847
Bianca Christel Williams
#174873
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Bianca Williams is an American cultural anthropologist, feminist, author and academic, whose work centers on Black Americans. Dr. Williams is an associate professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the . She earned her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D from Duke University. She went on to earn a graduate certificate in African and African American Studies as well. She has researched extensively the emotional labor undertaken by black women, feminist pedagogies, black feminist leadership, and emotional labor in higher education workplaces. She began teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder, w...
Go to Profile#848
Lucía Dammert
#82966
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Lucía Dammert is a Peruvian and Chilean political scientist and politician. From March 2022 to September 2022 she was chief of advisors in the government of Gabriel Boric. During the second government of Michelle Bachelet she worked as chief of advisors for minister Mahmud Aleuy.
Go to Profile#849
Laura Quilter
#69886
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Laura Quilter is a writer, lawyer, librarian, professor, and science fiction fan known for both her work on intellectual property and new media, and her long-standing archive of information on feminist science fiction.
Go to Profile#850
Lilian Passmore Sanderson
#173940
Overall Influence
1925 - 1996 (71 years)
Lilian Margaret Passmore Sanderson was an English teacher and educationalist who became known for her research on female genital mutilation, particularly in Sudan. She was the author of Against the Mutilation of Women: The Struggle Against Unnecessary Suffering and Female Genital Mutilation, Excision and Infibulation: A Bibliography .
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