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).
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List of the most influential people in Sociology,
#851
Bernward Joerges
#54903
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Bernward Joerges is a professor of sociology at Technical University of Berlin and director of the Metropolitan Research Group at Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. He holds a degree in Psychology , Dr. phil. and Dr. phil. habil. in Sociology. After early studies of development, environment, consumption and everyday life technology, his major areas of interest are social studies of science and technology, and urban and architectural studies.
Go to Profile#852
Harald Welzer
#29887
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Harald Welzer is a German social psychologist. He studied sociology, psychology and literature at the University of Hannover. He has been a professor of transformation design at the University of Flensburg since 2012. His research is focused on memory, violence and the social impacts of climate change. His books have been translated into 15 languages.
Go to Profile#853
Thomas Luckmann
#94306
Overall Influence
#854
Danielle Juteau
#82462
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Danielle Juteau is a Québécoise professor of sociology. Biography Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Montreal, Juteau holds a Bachelor of Arts from Marguerite-Bourgeoys College, a bachelor's degree in Sociology from the University of Montreal, and a master's degree and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto. Juteau is one of the pioneers of ethnic studies in Canada and around the world.
Go to Profile#855
Christopher Chase-Dunn
#17732
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Christopher K. Chase-Dunn is an American sociologist best known for his contributions to world-systems theory. Education and career Chase-Dunn earned his PhD in 1975 at Stanford University and has taught at The Johns Hopkins University and at the University of California, Riverside . He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served as President of Research Committee 02 of the International Sociological Association from 2002 to 2006. He was chair of the Section on International Political Economy of the International Studies Association from 1984 to 1986,...
Go to Profile#856
Gerald L. Eberlein
#65416
Overall Influence
1930 - 2010 (80 years)
Gerald L. Eberlein was a German sociology educator. Biography Eberlein was born in Berlin, Germany to Kurt Karl and Alice Caroline Eberlein. Gerald L. Eberlein became Ph.D at the Technical University Stuttgart, Germany, in 1962. He was assistant professor at the University of Münster and at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, 1963-1970. Between 1971 and 1972 he was visiting professor at the Technical University of Berlin. 1972-1975 he was associate professor of philosophy of the social sciences, economy and politics at the University of the Saarland, Germany. Eberlein was professor of sociology at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, 1975-1998.
Go to Profile#857
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein
#51721
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein is an American sociologist and emeritus distinguished professor of sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Fuchs Epstein served as president of the American Sociological Association in 2006.
Go to Profile#858
Eliot. Freidson
#94633
Overall Influence
#859
André Spicer
#35606
Overall Influence
André Spicer is a New Zealand academic, Dean, and Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Bayes Business School, City, University of London. He is an expert in the fields of Organisational Behaviour, Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility, and is the founding director of ETHOS: The Centre for Responsible Enterprise at Bayes.
Go to Profile#860
Margaret Cruikshank
#40470
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Margaret Louise Cruikshank is an American lesbian feminist writer and academic. She was one of the first American academics to be out during a time when gay rights were an unfamiliar concept. Cruikshank played a central role in establishing the importance of lesbian studies within both women's studies and the academy through the publication of her edited anthologies.
Go to Profile#861
Edwin N. Frankel
#94879
Overall Influence
#862
Dag Østerberg
#67941
Overall Influence
1938 - 2017 (79 years)
Dag Østerberg was a Norwegian sociologist, philosopher and musicologist. He was born in Trondheim to police officer Erling Østerberg and Jørgine Sofie Kleven. He was a central contributor to the so-called positivism debate in the 1960s and 1970s. From 1981 to 1991 he was appointed professor in sociology at the University of Oslo. Among his works are Metasosiologisk Essay from 1963, Makt og materiell from 1971, and a biography of Jean-Paul Sartre from 1993. His 1966 work Forståelsesformer. Et filosofisk bidrag was selected for the Norwegian Sociology Canon in 2009–2011.
Go to Profile#863
Ulrike Felt
#31411
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Ulrike Felt is an Austrian social scientist, active in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Currently, she holds the chair for Social Studies of Science and is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Vienna. She also acted as the president of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology . From 2002 to 2007, she has been editor-in-chief of the journal "Science, Technology, & Human Values".
Go to Profile#864
Liah Greenfeld
#24360
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Liah Greenfeld is an Israeli-American Russian-Jewish interdisciplinary scholar engaged in the scientific explanation of human social reality on various levels, beginning with the individual mind and ending with the level of civilization. She has been called "the most iconoclastic" of contemporary sociologists and her approach represents the major alternative to the mainstream approaches in social science. Throughout her analyses, she emphasizes the empirical foundation of claims that she makes about human thought and action, underlining the importance of logical consistency between different...
Go to Profile#865
Syed Farid al-Attas
#5787
Overall Influence
Syed Farid Alatas is a Malaysian author and educator, serving as a professor in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. Books Ibn Khaldun , Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013Applying Ibn Khaldun: The Recovery of a Lost Tradition in Sociology , 2014An Islamic Perspective on the Commitment to Inter-Religious Dialogue, Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies Malaysia, 2008Alternative Discourses in Asian Social Science: Responses to Eurocentrism, Delhi: Sage, 2006Democracy and Authoritarianism in Indonesia and Malaysia: The Rise of the Post-Colonial State,
Go to Profile#866
Matilda White Riley
#52772
Overall Influence
1911 - 2004 (93 years)
Matilda White Riley was an American gerontologist who began working at Rutgers University as a research specialist before becoming a professor from 1950 to 1973. Here she wrote a textbook and discovered her interest in aging. In 1973, Riley became the first woman full professor at Bowdoin College, where she worked until 1981. She spent much of her career as a sociologist specializing in aging at the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health. Additionally, Riley worked with the Russell Sage Foundation from 1974 to 1977 where she wrote works on the age-stratificatio...
Go to Profile#867
Michael Lynch
#36298
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Michael E. Lynch , is an emeritus professor at the department of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. His works are particularly concerned with ethnomethodological approaches in science studies. Much of his research has addressed the role of visual representation in scientific practice.
Go to Profile#868
Howard Waitzkin
#19039
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Howard Waitzkin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of New Mexico and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Illinois. Education and career Waitzkin grew up in a small town in northeastern Ohio. At an early age, tragedy in his low-income family spurred his interest in the relationships among oppression and inequality, public health, and medicine. Waitzkin received his MD and PhD in sociology from Harvard University in 1972. Over the course of his career, Waitzkin has practiced as a primary care physician in internal...
Go to Profile#869
Charis Thompson
#66861
Overall Influence
Charis Thompson was Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, and before that a Professor at Harvard and Berkeley. She was a professor of Gender and Women's Studies in the Department of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. She was also associate director, and the founding Director, of the Science, Technology, and Society Center at UC Berkeley.
Go to Profile#870
Clifton D. Bryant
#56742
Overall Influence
1932 - 2010 (78 years)
Clifton D. Bryant was an American sociologist and Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. He was particularly noted for detecting "carnal computer and erotic cyberspace as an emerging research frontier" and his 1999 paper on "propagandizing pederasty."
Go to Profile#871
José Casanova
#28477
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
José Casanova is a sociologist of religion whose research focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. He is a professor at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from the Seminario Metropolitano, a Master of Arts degree from the University of Innsbruck in theology, and Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in sociology from the New School for Social Research. During 2017 he was the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the US Library of Congress' John W.
Go to Profile#872
Johan Asplund
#69746
Overall Influence
1937 - 2018 (81 years)
Johan Asplund was a Swedish sociologist interested in social interaction and ethnomethodology. At present, his works are not widely translated from the original Swedish. Until his retirement, he held the chair of Sociology at Lund University.
Go to Profile#873
Gabriele Klein
#55918
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Gabriele Klein is a sociologist, dance theorist and professor at the University of Hamburg. Life From 1977 to 1987 Gabriele Klein studied Sociology, History, Sports Sciences, Contemporary Dance and Education at the Universities of Bielefeld, Bochum and Essen, as well as at the Amsterdam School of the Arts . She completed her Doctorate in Social Sciences at the University of Bochum in 1990. Her dissertation was published in 1992 under the title: Women Bodies Dance. A Civilization Theory of Dance . She was habilitated in 1998 with the study, published in 1999: Electronic Vibration. Pop Culture Theory .
Go to Profile#874
Edward H. Wagner
#95882
Overall Influence
#875
Éric Fassin
#47285
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Éric Fassin is a French sociologist. Career Fassin taught in the United States from 1989 to 1994, at Brandeis University and NYU. From 1994 to 2012, he was an agrégé professor of sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Fassin currently serves as a professor of sociology at the University of Paris 8 St-Denis. He is also a researcher at Institut de recherche interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux. He also served as a contributing editor of Public Culture, a scholarly journal published by Duke University Press.
Go to Profile#876
Alfred Blumstein
#5982
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
#877
David Weisburd
#35230
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
David L. Weisburd , is an Israeli/American criminologist who is well known for his research on crime and place, policing and white collar crime. Weisburd was the 2010 recipient of the prestigious Stockholm Prize in Criminology, and was recently awarded the Israel Prize in Social Work and Criminological Research, considered the state's highest honor. Weisburd holds joint tenured appointments as Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University. and Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice in the Institute of Criminology of the Hebrew University Fa...
Go to Profile#878
Maxine Leeds Craig
#54668
Overall Influence
Maxine Leeds Craig is a professor in the sociology department at the University of California, Davis . Craig was a doctoral student of Todd Gitlin at the University of California, Berkeley; her doctoral dissertation became the book, Ain't I a Beauty Queen? Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race . Her second book, Sorry I Don't Dance: Why Men Refuse to Move , was awarded the 2014 Best Publication Award of the American Sociological Association's section on Body and Embodiment.
Go to Profile#879
Friedrich Heckmann
#65870
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Friedrich Heckmann is the director of the research institute European Forum for Migration Studies and emeritus professor of sociology at the School of Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Bamberg. His main research, teaching and consulting interests focus on migration and social integration. Heckmann contributed significantly to the institutionalisation of migration and integration research in Germany through the launch of the research committee Migration and Ethnic Minorities within the German Sociological Society and the co-founding of the European Forum for Migration Studies in 1993 as one of the first research institutes on migration and integration in Germany.
Go to Profile#880
Noah Carl
#29295
Overall Influence
Noah Carl is a British sociologist and intelligence researcher. He was investigated and subsequently dismissed from his position as a Toby Jackman Newton Trust Research Fellow at St Edmund's College, Cambridge after over 500 academics signed a letter repudiating his research and public stance on race and intelligence, calling it "ethically suspect and methodologically flawed", and stating their concern that "racist pseudoscience is being legitimised through association with the University of Cambridge." An investigation by the college concluded that Carl's work was "poor scholarship" which violated standards of academic integrity, and that Carl had collaborated with right-wing extremists.
Go to Profile#881
Howard Newby
#14816
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Sir Howard Joseph Newby is a British sociologist. He was appointed vice-chancellor of the University of Liverpool in 2008 and retired in December 2014. He was vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton from 1994 to 2001. He was appointed as the vice-chancellor of the University of the West of England , from March 2006. After 15 months at UWE he moved to the University of Liverpool and was almost immediately put on "gardening leave" at UWE for the duration of his year-long notice period, with the then deputy vice-chancellor, Steve West, acting up to the VC role before his subsequent substantive appointment.
Go to Profile#882
Miloslav Petrusek
#25620
Overall Influence
1936 - 2012 (76 years)
Miloslav Petrusek was a prominent Czech sociologist who served as a dean of Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague between 1992–1997, as well as the prorector for academic affairs of the university in 1997–2000. For his consistent contribution to sociology and education, he received numerous awards, such as Ordre des Palmes Académiques or Golden Medal of Masaryk University. In 2012, Petrusek received The VIZE 97 Prize .
Go to Profile#883
Philip Selznick
#96451
Overall Influence
#884
Louis-Vincent Thomas
#37591
Overall Influence
1922 - 1994 (72 years)
Louis-Vincent Thomas was a French sociologist, anthropologist, ethnologist, and scholar whose specialty was Africa. He was the founder of thanatology. After having taught at Cheikh Anta Diop University, he became a sociology professor at Paris Descartes University.
Go to Profile#885
Christopher Winship
#35302
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Christopher Winship is Diker-Tishman Professor of sociology at Harvard University, and principal of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard. He is best known for his contributions to quantitative methods in sociology and, since 1995, has served as editor of Sociological Methods and Research. He received the 2006 Paul Lazarsfeld Award from the Methodology Section of the American Sociological Association, which recognizes outstanding contributions over a career to sociological methodology.
Go to Profile#886
Richard Münch
#54777
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Life and career Richard Münch is a German sociologist and, as of 2013, emeritus of excellence at the University of Bamberg. He graduated from the Hebel Gymnasium Pforzheim in 1965. He studied sociology, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Heidelberg from 1965 to 1970, earning the degrees of Magister Artium in 1969 and Dr. phil. in 1971. His habilitation in the field of sociology took place at the University of Augsburg in 1972 where he was employed as a research assistant at the Chair of Sociology and Communication Studies from 1970 to 1974. From 1974 to 1976 he taught as Professo...
Go to Profile#887
Asoka Bandarage
#59312
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Asoka Bandarage is a Sri Lankan academic specializing in international development, political economy, women and gender studies, multiculturalism, conflict analysis and resolution, peace and security, South Asia, Sri Lanka, population and ecology. She has headed the Women's Studies Program at Mount Holyoke College and also taught at institutions including Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute in Washington, DC. She is also a yoga instructor.
Go to Profile#888
Janet Lever
#78594
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Janet Lever is an American sociologist and professor emerita of sociology at California State University, Los Angeles. She is recognized for her research on sex, intimate relationships, gender, and sport.
Go to Profile#889
James Rosenbaum
#70369
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
James E. Rosenbaum , is a Professor of Sociology, Education, and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He is most well known for his study of the Gautreaux Project the Chicago housing desegregation program which led to the federal Moving to Opportunity program, and for his work on improving vocational education programs.
Go to Profile#890
Vicenç Navarro
#6140
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Vicente Navarro is a Spanish sociologist and political scientist. He has been a Professor of Health and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, US, for over 30 years. He is also emeritus professor in political and social science at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, and is the director of the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center in Barcelona, which is jointly sponsored by the two institutions. He is also the director of the Observatorio Social de España, where he coordinates a research project on the welfare state.
Go to Profile#891
Elisabeth S. Clemens
#62446
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Elisabeth Stephanie Clemens is an American sociologist, who is currently the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the college at the University of Chicago. Clemens's research is focused on social movements, organizations, and American political development. As of 2016, Clemens has served as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Sociology.
Go to Profile#892
David J. Hickson
#62869
Overall Influence
1931 - 2016 (85 years)
David John Hickson was a British organizational theorist and Emeritus Professor of International Management and Organization at the Bradford University School of Management, known for his work in the field of organisational development .
Go to Profile#893
Peter Kollock
#30811
Overall Influence
1959 - 2009 (50 years)
Peter Enrique Kollock was an American sociologist and an associate professor and vice chair in the department of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Background Kollock was born on November 1, 1959, in Zaragoza, Spain but came to the United States when he was a year old. He grew up in Seattle, Washington and attended Blanchet High School. Later, he received his B.A. in 1982, M.A in 1984, and Ph.D. in 1990 from the department of sociology at the University of Washington. He joined the department of sociology at UCLA in 1989 and stayed there throughout his entire career.
Go to Profile#894
Carole Joffe
#40305
Overall Influence
Carole E. Joffe is an American sociologist and reproductive rights advocate who has published several books on abortion. In 2013, she was awarded the Society of Family Planning Lifetime Achievement Award for her research on the sociology of abortion and family planning. She has also earned the UC Davis Public Service Award , the Irwin Kushner Lecture by the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals , and the David Gunn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Abortion Care Network .
Go to Profile#895
Christian Joppke
#72910
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Christian Joppke is a German political sociologist, professor and chair in general sociology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He is the author of more than one hundred publications, monographs and manuscripts and among the most widely cited authors in the field of citizenship and immigration. Essentially a critic of multiculturalism, Joppke is self-defined "a reactionary liberal."
Go to Profile#896
Patricia Yancey Martin
#46060
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Patricia Yancey Martin is an American sociologist. She is the Daisy Parker Flory Professor of Sociology Emerita at Florida State University. Education Martin was inducted into Alpha Lambda Delta her freshman year at University of Alabama in 1959. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature from University of Alabama in 1962 with Phi Beta Kappa honors. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in 1962. In 1964, she completed a Master of Arts in sociology from Florida State University and was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi and Alpha Kappa Delta. She later earned a doctorate in sociology from the same institution in 1969.
Go to Profile#897
Lynne Segal
#39113
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Lynne Segal is an Australian-born, British-based socialist feminist academic and activist, author of many books and articles, and participant in many campaigns, from local community to international. She has taught in higher education in London, England since 1970, at Middlesex Polytechnic from 1973. In 1999 she was appointed Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, where she now works in the School of Psychosocial Studies.
Go to Profile#898
Margunn Bjørnholt
#11658
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Margunn Bjørnholt is a Norwegian sociologist and economist. She is a research professor at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies and a professor of sociology at the University of Bergen. Her research has focused on financial institutions, management and working life and later on gender equality, migration and violence. She has also worked as a consultant, a civil servant, served as an expert to the European Commission and been president of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights.
Go to Profile#899
George Sumner Bridges
#22529
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
George Sumner Bridges is an American sociologist and academic administrator who served as the president of The Evergreen State College from October 2015 through June 2021. Early life and education A native of Seattle, Washington, Bridges earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Washington, followed by a Master of Arts in criminology and PhD in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#900
Pierre Birnbaum
#22258
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Pierre Birnbaum is a French historian and sociologist. Bibliography 1977: Les Sommets de l’État. Essai sur l'élite du pouvoir en France, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, .1979: .1982: La Logique de l’État, Fayard, 234 p. 1983: The Sociology of the State, University of Chicago Press1984: Dimensions du pouvoir, Presses Universitaires de France, 261 p. 1988: Un mythe politique : la « République juive ». De Léon Blum à Mendès France, Fayard.1992: Les Fous de la République. Histoire politique des Juifs d'État, de Gambetta à Vichy, Fayard, rééd. "Poche" Éditions du Seuil, 1994. 1994: L’Affaire Dreyfus : La République en péril, coll.
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