Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …

See additional learning tools, study tips, features on campus life and much more at our Student Resources Headquarters.

Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Sociology,

#901

Todd R. Klaenhammer

#81924

Overall Influence

1951 - 2021 (70 years)

Todd Robert Klaenhammer was an American food scientist and microbiologist who spent his 40-year career at North Carolina State University researching lactic acid bacteria. He was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001, the first food scientist to achieve that honor.

#902

Thomas F. Gieryn

#29370

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Thomas F. Gieryn is Rudy Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. He is also the Vice Provost of Faculty and Academic Affairs. In his research, he focuses on philosophy and sociology of science from a cultural, social, historical, and humanistic perspective. He is known for developing the concept of "boundary-work," that is, instances in which boundaries, demarcations, or other divisions between fields of knowledge are created, advocated, attacked, or reinforced. He has served on many councils and boards, including the Advisory Board of the exhibition on "Science in American Life" by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

#903

J. Scott Long

#54068

Overall Influence

J. Scott Long is a distinguished professor of statistics and sociology at Indiana University Bloomington. Long completed his undergraduate degree at Juniata College in 1973. This was followed by graduate education at Cornell University, where Long finished both his masters in 1973 and Ph.D. in 1977. During his career, he has held appointments at Cornell University and Washington State University before coming to Indiana University in 1989. His career began by studying the dynamics of how doctoral graduates progress through scientific fields using data collected from biochemists. Following this...

#904

Judith Blau

#64993

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Judith Blau is an American sociologist and professor emerita of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Most of her academic career has been devoted to teaching and writing about human rights, and she retired to Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where she continues to teach.

#905

Norbert Elias

#97737

Overall Influence

#906

S. Jay Olshansky

#27725

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Stuart Jay Olshansky is a professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago concentrating on biodemography and gerontology and is co-founder and Chief Scientist at Lapetus Solutions, Inc.

#907

David Gillborn

#39714

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

David Gillborn is a British educational researcher known for his work in critical race theory as it relates to education. He is Professor of Critical Race Studies at the University of Birmingham, where he is also director of research in the School of Education and the director of the Centre for Research in Race and Education. He serves as the editor-in-chief of Race Ethnicity and Education.

#908

Fiona Williams

#24521

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Jonquil Fiona Williams, is a British retired academic of social policy whose research covers gender, race, ethnicity, and the welfare state. From 1996 to 2012, she was Professor of Social Policy at the University of Leeds. She was previously a lecturer at the Polytechnic of North London, Plymouth Polytechnic, and the Open University, before becoming Professor of Applied Social Studies at the University of Bradford.

#909

Georg Elwert

#71649

Overall Influence

1947 - 2005 (58 years)

Georg Elwert was a German ethnologist and sociologist who was one of the leading exponents of German development sociology. Career and focus of work Elwert studied ethnology and sociology at the University of Mainz and the Heidelberg University, where he received his doctorate in 1973. From the beginning he linked sociology with ethnology in the tradition of :de:Lorenz Löffler, Richard Thurnwald and Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann. In 1980 he habilitated at Bielefeld University, taught there as assistant professor and then at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and at Yale University in New Haven.

#910

María Ángeles Durán

María Ángeles Durán

#21814

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

María Ángeles Durán Heras is a Spanish sociologist best known for being a pioneer in research on unpaid work, the social situation of women and their social and work environment, health economics, and inequality in the use of time. She was the first woman to attain a chair of sociology in Spain, in 1982. She was one of the first researchers in her field who carried out works with a feminist perspective in the Spanish academic world. In 1979, she was the founder and director of the of the Autonomous University of Madrid, the first university institute for women's studies created in Spain. In 2002 she received the in Economic and Legal Sciences.

#911

Yoshio Sugimoto

#61882

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Yoshio Sugimoto is a sociologist based at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia, where he is currently Emeritus Professor. Early life He grew up in Kyoto and graduated from Kyoto University in 1964 with a BA in law and politics. He worked for three years as a staff writer for The Mainichi Shimbun, a Japanese national daily newspaper, but changed career direction enrolling in postgraduate studies in the United States where he obtained a PhD in sociology at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973.

#912

Taha Yasseri

#8540

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Taha Yasseri is a physicist and sociologist known for his research on Wikipedia and computational social science. He is a professor at the School of Sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland. He was formerly a senior research fellow in computational social science at the Oxford Internet Institute , University of Oxford, a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute for data science, and a research fellow in humanities and social sciences at Wolfson College, Oxford. Yasseri is one of the leading scholars in computational social science and his research has been widely covered in mainstream media.

#913

David Hirsh

#21578

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

David Hirsh is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London, and co-founder of Engage, a campaign against the academic boycott of Israel. Early life and education Hirsh was raised in a Jewish family in Highgate, London and attended Highgate School until he was 15, when he persuaded his parents to allow him to transfer to Woodhouse Grammar School. For several years, he was a member of the Trotskyist Alliance for Workers' Liberty and, during the 1980s, a leading activist in the National Organisation of Labour Students. He briefly studied Physics at Sheffield University, then worked as a driver for several years.

#914

Fuat Deniz

#70412

Overall Influence

1967 - 2007 (40 years)

Fuat Deniz was a Swedish sociologist and writer of Assyrian descent. Until his murder in 2007, he worked as a lecturer in sociology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Örebro University.

#915

Eszter Hargittai

Eszter Hargittai

#72725

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Eszter Hargittai is a communication studies scholar and Professor at the University of Zurich. Biography She holds a BA in Sociology from Smith College and a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University where she was a Wilson Scholar.

#916

Sarah Mustillo

#74257

Overall Influence

Sarah Anne Mustillo is an American sociologist. She is the Dean of the Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters. Mustillo's research interests include health, statistics, children and youth, social psychology, gender and family. Her work includes contributions on longitudinal data, discrete outcomes, model specification, and missing data.

#917

Judith Treas

#25866

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Judith K. Treas is an American sociologist. She is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Demographic and Social Analysis at the University of California, Irvine. Treas is recognized for her research on gender, family, inequality, and the life course.

#918

Bess Bukodi

#65778

Overall Influence

Erzsebet "Bess" Bukodi is an Associate Professor in Quantitative Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford and a professorial fellow in sociology at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. She is a specialist in the role of education in social mobility.

#919

James R. Taylor

#9152

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (96 years)

James Renwick Taylor , sometimes known as Jim Taylor, was a Canadian academic and Professor Emeritus at the Department of Communication of the Université de Montréal, which he founded with Annie Méar and André H. Caron Ed.D in the early 1970s.

#920

Tony Campolo

#10048

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Anthony Campolo is an American sociologist, Baptist pastor, author, public speaker and former spiritual advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton. Campolo is known as one of the most influential leaders in the evangelical left and has been a major proponent of progressive thought and reform within the evangelical community. He has also become a leader of the Red-Letter Christian movement, which aims to put emphasis on the teachings of Jesus. Campolo is a popular commentator on religious, political, and social issues, and has been a guest on programs such as The Colbert Report, The Charlie Rose S...

#921

Jeja-Pekka Roos

#66992

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

J. P. Roos is a Finnish sociologist and former President of the European Sociological Association. Before his retirement, he was a professor in social policy at the University of Helsinki. Roos studied in the University of Chicago, and taught at UCLA, University of Geneva, EHESS in Paris, University of Minnesota.

#922

Saïd Amir Arjomand

#38687

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Saïd Amir Arjomand is an Iranian-American scholar and Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University, Long Island, and Director of the Stony Brook Institute for Global Studies. He received his Ph.D. in 1980 from the University of Chicago.

#923

Gary Gereffi

#98900

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

#924

Michael Mayerfeld Bell

#79684

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Michael Bell is an American sociologist, author, and musician. He is currently Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is Chair of the Department of Community and Environmental Sociology. In addition, Bell served as Director of UW-Madison's Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems from 2011 to 2019. Created in 1989, CIAS is a research center for sustainable agriculture programs that respond to the needs of farmers and citizens.

#925

Michael Callon

#99125

Overall Influence

#926

Melvin L. Kohn

#27696

Overall Influence

1928 - 2021 (93 years)

Melvin Lester Kohn was an American sociologist and past president of the American Sociological Association. He was a professor at Johns Hopkins University and conducted research on social structure and personality.

#927

Gordon Hirabayashi

Gordon Hirabayashi

#9908

Overall Influence

1918 - 2012 (94 years)

Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi was an American sociologist, best known for his principled resistance to the Japanese American internment during World War II, and the court case which bears his name, Hirabayashi v. United States.

#928

Henriette Dahan Kalev

Henriette Dahan Kalev

#42749

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Henriette Dahan Kalev is an Israeli Senior Lecturer of political science and the founder of the Gender Studies Program at Ben Gurion University. She is one of the founders of the Mizrahi feminist movement, and one of the leading theorists of Mizrahi feminism.

#929

Frank Furstenberg

Frank Furstenberg

#94373

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Frank Folke Furstenberg Jr. is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the family in the context of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods and adolescent sexual behavior. Furstenberg has written extensively on social change, transition to adulthood, divorce, remarriage and intergenerational relations. Furstenberg is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Academy of Political and Social Science.

#930

Geoffrey Ingham

#61617

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Geoffrey Ingham is a British sociologist, political economist, and author of books on capitalism and money. Career Ingham was born in 1942, and read sociology at the University of Leicester, graduating in 1964. He attended Cambridge University as a postgraduate student, where he was awarded a Ph.D degree in 1968. After teaching at Sussex and Leicester Universities, he became a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1972. He was Reader in Sociology and Political Economy at Cambridge, and remains Emeritus Reader and a Fellow of Christ's.

#931

Steven Messner

#48997

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Steven Fredrick Messner is an American sociologist and Distinguished Teaching Professor in the sociology department at University at Albany, SUNY. Education Messner received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and his master's and doctoral degrees from Princeton University.

#932

Marta Tienda

#77269

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Marta Tienda is an American sociologist. From 1997 to 2001, she served as the director of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. She is the co-author and co-editor of many books, including The Hispanic Population of The United States .

#933

Barry D. Adam

#39799

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Barry Douglas Adam is Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Windsor and from 2008 to 2019, Senior Scientist at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network in Toronto. Educated at Simon Fraser University and the University of Toronto , he is the author of: The Survival of Domination, The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement , and with Alan Sears, Experiencing HIV. He later co-edited The Global Emergence of Gay and Lesbian Politics . He has an extensive research record on the dynamics of domination and empowerment, LGBT studies, HIV prevention, and issues of living...

#934

Fredrik Engelstad

#41939

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Fredrik Engelstad is a Norwegian sociologist. He has written several books. He is the son of writer Carl Fredrik Engelstad and physician Vibeke Engelstad, and a nephew of archivist Sigurd Engelstad. He is married to professor Irene Johnson.

#935

William W. Eaton

#99786

Overall Influence

#936

Pamela Abbott

#29045

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Pamela Abbott, FAcSS is an English academic in sociology, gender and development studies. She is Director of the Centre for Global Development and Professor in the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen, and Director of the Centre for Global Development.

#937

Viviana Zelizer

Viviana Zelizer

#73665

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

#938

Cedric Robinson

#15105

Overall Influence

1940 - 2016 (76 years)

Cedric James Robinson was an American professor in the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara . He headed the Department of Black Studies and the Department of Political Science. He served as the Director of the Center for Black Studies Research. Robinson's areas of interest included classical and modern political philosophy, radical social theory in the African diaspora, comparative politics, racial capitalism, and the relationships between and among media and politics.

#939

Hans van der Zouwen

#62504

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Johannes "Hans" van der Zouwen is a Dutch sociologist, and Emeritus Professor of Social Research Methodology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, known for his pioneering work with Felix Geyer in the field of sociocybernetics.

#940

Ana María Díaz Stevens

#55794

Overall Influence

Ana María Díaz Stevens is a Puerto Rican-American sociologist with a focus on Latinos and Latinas in religion, especially Roman Catholicism. She was inaugurated as a full faculty member at Union Theological Seminary in 1999, making her the first Latin American to hold that position at the university. She later became the Chairperson of the Church and Society at the seminary.

#941

Linda K. George

#90815

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Linda Kaufman George is an American sociologist and gerontologist who is the Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Duke University. Her research focuses on the sociology of mental health, physical health, and aging, among other topics. She was president of the Gerontological Society of America from November 1993 to October 1994, and she received the Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health from the American Sociological Association in 2013.

#942

Ishwar Modi

#80314

Overall Influence

1940 - 2017 (77 years)

Ishwar Modi was an Indian sociologist and a pioneer of leisure studies in India. His work in this field has been widely reviewed in both India and abroad. He completed his master's degree in sociology and PhD from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur. He also worked for his PhD under the title Leisure, Mass Media and Social Structure at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, with a distinguished scholar Professor Yogendra Singh before joining the Department of Sociology at the University of Rajasthan as assistant professor of sociology .

#943

Sean Reardon

#48297

Overall Influence

Sean F. Reardon is an American sociologist who currently serves as the Endowed Professor of Poverty and Inequality in Education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where he also is a member of the Steering Committee of the Center for Education Policy Analysis . Reardon is an Elected Fellow to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

#944

Nicholas Abercrombie

#69872

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Nicholas Abercrombie is a British sociologist and retired academic. He was Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University from 1990 to 2004. Education and career Born in Birmingham in 1944, Abercrombie's father Michael and mother Jane were academics. He was educated at The Queen's College, Oxford, graduating with a BA in 1966. He then completed an MSc at the London School of Economics in 1968.

#945

Alberto Martinelli

#63797

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Alberto Martinelli is a scholar of social sciences, President of the International Social Science Council, former 14th president of the International Sociological Association and professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Milan.

#946

Felix Geyer

#42646

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Rudolf Felix Geyer is a Dutch sociologist and cybernetician, former head of the methodology section of SISWO at the University of Amsterdam, known for his work in the fields of Social alienation, and on sociocybernetics.

#947

Herbert P. Bix

#21307

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Herbert P. Bix is an American historian. He wrote Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, an account of the Japanese Emperor and the events which shaped modern Japanese imperialism, which won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2001.

#948

Miguel A. Centeno

#56295

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Miguel Angel Centeno is an American sociologist. Centeno was educated at Yale University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1980, followed by a master of business administration in 1987, and a doctorate in sociology in 1990. He is the Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, and teaches sociology and international affairs at the university's Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

#949

Frank Moulaert

#13318

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Frank Moulaert is Professor of Spatial Planning at the Department of Architecture, Urban Design and Regional Planning at Catholic University of Leuven. He is Director of the Urban and Regional Planning Research Group and chairs the Leuven Space and Society Research Centre at the University. He is also a Visiting Professor at the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University.

#950

John Paul Lederach

#30911

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

John Paul Lederach is an American Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado. In 1994 he became the founding director for the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University where he was a professor. He currently works for the foundation Humanity United.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions