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,

#1851

William R. Catton Jr.

#77873

Overall Influence

1926 - 2015 (89 years)

William Robert Catton, Jr. was an American sociologist known for his scholarly work in environmental sociology and human ecology. More broadly, Catton is known for his 1980 book, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, which is credited by younger generations of environmental scholars and activists as foundational for their own works.

#1852

Dorothy Wedderburn

#22750

Overall Influence

1925 - 2012 (87 years)

Dorothy Enid Wedderburn was Principal of Bedford College, part of the University of London, and after the merger with Royal Holloway College, another college of the university, was the first principal of the combined institution.

#1853

Toby E. Stuart

#164179

Overall Influence

#1854

Irwin Garfinkel

#164244

Overall Influence

#1855

John M. Bynner

#164524

Overall Influence

#1856

David B. S. Min

#164786

Overall Influence

#1857

Andrew Young

#12377

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Andrew Jackson Young Jr. is an American politician, diplomat, and activist. Beginning his career as a pastor, Young was an early leader in the civil rights movement, serving as executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and a close confidant to Martin Luther King Jr. Young later became active in politics, serving as a U.S. Congressman from Georgia, United States Ambassador to the United Nations in the Carter Administration, and 55th Mayor of Atlanta. He was the first African American elected to Congress from Georgia since Reconstruction, as well as one of the first tw...

#1858

Jan E. Stets

#164904

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

#1859

Lisbeth Larsson

#81455

Overall Influence

1949 - 2021 (72 years)

Lisbeth Helena Larsson was a Swedish literary historian and researcher who from 2000 was professor of literary studies at the University of Gothenburg where she focused on gender studies. Drawing on the archive of women's history at the Arts Faculty Library, she published a book on women from Gothenburg, Hundrade och en Göteborgskvinnor . It paved the way for a grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation which in March 2018 led to the establishment of Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon, a searchable biographical dictionary of Swedish women. Larsson is also remembered as a theatre and...

#1860

Guobin Yang

#164949

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Guobin Yang is the Grace Lee Boggs Professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, Director of the Center on Digital Culture and Society, and deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. Yang received his first PhD from Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1993 and his second PhD in sociology from New York University in 2000. His other former positions include being an assistant pr...

#1861

Erich Weede

#164961

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

#1862

Elvira de Mejia

#100936

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Elvira de Mejia is a biochemist and food scientist, currently working as a professor of Food Sciences and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She is an expert in the areas of food science, food toxicology, and chemoprevention.

#1863

David Miller

#52297

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

David Miller is a British sociologist whose research and publications focus on Islamophobia and propaganda. Miller was Professor of Sociology at the University of Strathclyde and the University of Bath and was Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bristol . He is the co-founder and co-director of the non-profit company Public Interest Investigations , which runs two projects, Spinwatch and Powerbase.

#1864

Rosemary Deem

#165379

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

#1865

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai

#778

Overall Influence

1997 - Present (27 years)

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani female education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the age of 17. She is the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, the second Pakistani and the first Pashtun to receive a Nobel Prize. Yousafzai is a human rights advocate for the education of women and children in her native homeland, Swat, where the Pakistani Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. Her advocacy has grown into an international movement, and according to former Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, she has become Pakistan's "most prominent citizen."

#1866

William A. Corsaro

#165498

Overall Influence

#1867

Richard M. Burton

#47431

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Richard Max Burton is an American organizational theorist and Emeritus Professor of Management and Organization at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, known for his work in the field on business strategy and organizational design.

#1868

A. M. Shah

#89049

Overall Influence

Professor Arvind M. Shah retired from his professorship in the Department of Sociology at the University of Delhi in 1996. He had been a student of M. N. Srinivas in 1952 and became a teacher in sociology at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, in 1958. He moved to the University of Delhi in 1961.

#1869

Jacqueline Anne Rouse

#110488

Overall Influence

Jacqueline Anne Rouse was an American scholar of African American women’s history. She is most widely known for her work on Southern black women and their activism from the turn of the twentieth century to the Civil Rights Movement.

#1870

Jeylan T. Mortimer

#165926

Overall Influence

#1871

Roland Guillon

#104912

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Roland Guillon is a French sociologist, known both for his work on the problems of employment and capital, and particularly, for his innovative approach to jazz. He is a research engineer at the centre of economics and ethics of environment and development of the Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University. Employment and training specialist, he undertook several missions in West Africa.

#1872

Christine Williams

#137913

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Christine L. Williams is an American sociologist. She is a professor of Sociology and the Elsie and Stanley E. Adams Sr. Centennial Professor in Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin. Her areas of specialization include gender, sexuality, and workplace inequality. Her research primarily involves gender discrimination at work.

#1873

Gilbert Rozman

#93901

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Gilbert Friedell Rozman is an American sociologist specializing in Asian studies. Rozman completed an undergraduate degree in Chinese and Russian studies at Carleton College, and earned a doctorate in sociology at Princeton University. He was a Princeton faculty member between 1970 and 2013, where he taught as Musgrave Professor of Sociology.

#1874

Xue-ming Xu

#166203

Overall Influence

#1875

Frances Fox Piven

#166265

Overall Influence

#1876

Yves Martin

#95858

Overall Influence

1929 - 2021 (92 years)

Yves Martin was a Canadian sociologist. He was the laity rector at the Université de Sherbrooke and was one of the founders of the Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail.

#1877

Jessica Valenti

Jessica Valenti

#67966

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Jessica Valenti is an American feminist writer. She was the co-founder of the blog Feministing, which she wrote for from 2004 to 2011. Valenti is the author of five books: Full Frontal Feminism , He's a Stud, She's a Slut , The Purity Myth , Why Have Kids? , and Sex Object: A Memoir . She also co-edited the books Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape , and Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World . Between 2014 and 2018, Valenti was a columnist for The Guardian. She currently runs the Abortion, Every Day newsletter on Substack. The Washington Post d...

#1878

Vladimir Borisovic Tolstoguzov

#166362

Overall Influence

#1879

Katherine Beckett

#118599

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Katherine Beckett is an American sociologist known for researching the United States criminal justice system. She is a professor in the University of Washington's Law, Societies & Justice Program, as well as in the Department of Sociology there. She previously taught at Indiana University.

#1880

Jay D. Teachman

#166468

Overall Influence

#1881

Willem Saris

#131394

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Willem Egbert Saris is a Dutch sociologist and Emeritus Professor of Statistics and Methodology, especially known for his work on "Causal modelling in non-experimental research" and measurement errors .

#1882

Raymond Boudon

#166647

Overall Influence

#1883

Ken Pease

#118166

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Kenneth George Pease is a British forensic psychologist and criminologist. He is a visiting professor at the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at University College London, a visiting professor at the University of Loughborough and an honorary visiting fellow at the Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research at the University of Manchester. Previous positions he has held include Head of School of Sociology and Social Policy at the Ulster Polytechnic from 1981 to 1983, professor of criminology at the University of Huddersfield , the University of Manchester , the head of the Home ...

#1884

David Bloor

#167284

Overall Influence

#1885

Valerie Jenness

Valerie Jenness

#55522

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Valerie Jenness is an author, researcher, public policy advisor, and professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine . Jenness is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and prior to that, was a senior visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. Jenness served as dean of the School of Social Ecology from 2009 to 2015 and chair of the Department of Criminology, Law and Society from 2001-2006.

#1886

Sigrid Metz-Göckel

#113297

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Sigrid Metz-Göckel is a German sociologist, political scientist and social psychologist who specializes in women's and gender studies as well as in educational research and didactics. She is a professor emerita at the Technical University of Dortmund. In the late 1970s, Metz-Göckel pioneered women's studies in Germany which became an established university course in Dortmund in 1971.

#1887

Martin Bulmer

#167380

Overall Influence

#1888

Helen Matthews Lewis

#77905

Overall Influence

1924 - 2022 (98 years)

Helen Matthews Lewis was an American sociologist, historian, and activist who specialized in Appalachia and women's rights. She was noted for developing an interpretation of Appalachia as an internal United States colony, as well as designing the first academic programs for Appalachian studies. She also specialized in Appalachian oral history, collecting and preserving the experiences of Appalachian working-class women in their own words. She is known as the "grandmother of Appalachian Studies" as her work has influenced a generation of scholars who focus on Appalachia.

#1889

Yngvar Løchen

#158028

Overall Influence

1931 - 1998 (67 years)

Yngvar Løchen was a Norwegian sociologist. He took his dr.philos. in 1965 and was hired as associate professor of community medicine at the University of Oslo the same year. In 1971 he was appointed professor in the sociology of medicine at the University of Tromsø. He served as chancellor from 1977 to 1981.

#1890

Elaine Unterhalter

#136346

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Elaine Unterhalter is a South African educational researcher. She is Professor of Education and International Development at University College London. Unterhalter was elected as Fellow of the British Academy in 2020. She is a Fellow of the Human Development and Capability Association.

#1891

Hilda Herzer

#110094

Overall Influence

1942 - 2013 (71 years)

Hilda María Herzer was an Argentine sociologist, environmentalist and professor. She was a researcher with FLACSO, and visiting professor at Universidad Nacional del Litoral. She earned her bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires in 1960, and her PhD in social sciences at New York University. Herzer was a pioneer in the field of urban studies in Argentina. Her fieldwork, conducted with her research group, focused on the city of Pergamino. She is remembered for her teaching and research at the Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani and for serving ...

#1892

Cyrus Grace Dunham

#69082

Overall Influence

1992 - Present (32 years)

Cyrus Dunham is an American writer, actor, and activist. Dunham is a published author, whose debut book, A Year Without A Name: A Memoir, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. Early life Dunham was born and raised in New York City. Their parents are artist and photographer Laurie Simmons and painter Carroll Dunham. Dunham's older sister, Lena, is a writer, actress, and producer.

#1893

Ruth Frankenberg

#73924

Overall Influence

1957 - 2007 (50 years)

Ruth Alice Emma Frankenberg was a British–American social scientist and feminist, known for her pioneering work in the field of whiteness studies. Biography Ruth Frankenberg was born in Cardiff, Wales, 17 September 1957. She was the daughter of Ronald Frankenberg , an anthropologist best known for his work Village on the Border, which demonstrated how anthropological methods could be appropriately applied to British society. Her partner Lata Mani is a feminist and historian, currently residing in California. Mani is the author of Contentious Traditions, an analysis of widow burning in colonial India.

#1894

Allan Horwitz

#150886

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Allan Victor Horwitz is an American sociologist who is Board of Governors Professor in the Department of Sociology and Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University. His previous positions at Rutgers include Chair of the Department of Sociology and Dean for Behavioral and Social Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences. He has also chaired the Mental Health and Medical Sociology Sections of the American Sociological Association, as well as the Psychiatric Sociology Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His research has focused on the sociology of mental health and illness.

#1895

David Montejano

David Montejano

#62762

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

David Montejano is an American sociologist and historian. Life He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, and from Yale University with a M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology. He taught at the University of Texas at Austin, University of California, Santa Cruz, and the University of New Mexico. He was the former Chair of the Center for Latino Policy Research at University of California, Berkeley.

#1896

Arne Mastekaasa

#140372

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Arne Mastekaasa is a Norwegian sociologist. He graduated from the University of Oslo with a mag.art. degree in 1981, and took the dr.philos. degree in 1993. For a period he was a researcher at the Institute for Social Research, but he was hired at the University of Oslo in 1990 and is now a professor.

#1897

Ali El Kenz

#122447

Overall Influence

1946 - 2020 (74 years)

Ali El Kenz was an Algerian writer and sociologist. He was born in 1964 in Skikda. He began his academic career in the early seventies, he studied in the philosophy department at the University of Algiers. Then in the mid-seventies he chose to study sociology. One of his most prominent writings is a book called “Writing in the Exile” .

#1898

Montserrat Sagot

#39254

Overall Influence

Montserrat Sagot Rodríguez is a Costa Rican sociologist especially known for her work on violence against women and girls. She was a pioneer in research on femicide in Central America. In 2010, she published the first research on femicide in Costa Rica.

#1899

Cora Baldock

#60129

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Cora Vellekoop Baldock is an Australian-Dutch Sociologist. She was president of the Australian Sociological Association 1979-1980 and served as a member of the Australian Federal Government's Multicultural Advisory Committee. She was the first female professor at Murdoch University, Perth, and its first professor of sociology.

#1900

Anja Joergensen

#55674

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Anja Jørgensen is a Danish professor of urban sociology at Aalborg University. Education In 1997 Jørgensen completed her MA in Sociology at Aalborg University. In 2003 she received her PhD in Sociology.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions