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).

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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Sociology,

#2351

Henry Pontell

#154758

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

#2352

Pumla Dineo Gqola

#102302

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Pumla Dineo Gqola is a South African academic, writer, and gender activist, best known for her 2015 book Rape: A South African Nightmare, which won the 2016 Alan Paton Award. She is a professor of literature at Nelson Mandela University, where she holds the South African Research Chair in African Feminist Imaginations.

#2353

Joseph Blasi

#142937

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Joseph R. Blasi is an American economic sociologist, currently a Distinguished Professor and the J. Robert Beyster Professor at Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. He graduated with an Ed.D. from Harvard University.

#2354

Koray Caliskan

#174617

Overall Influence

Koray Caliskan is an economic sociologist, Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at Parsons School of Design, The New School and Associate Editor of the Journal of Cultural Economy. Education He received his B.A. in Political Science, Bogazici University, Istanbul and M.A. in Politics, NYU, New York in 1999. He received his Ph.D. with distinction from NYU’s Politics Department, with which he won the Malcolm Kerr Social Science Award from MESA.

#2355

Susan Lynn Hefle

#95869

Overall Influence

1959 - 2006 (47 years)

Susan Lynn Hefle was an American food scientist who specialized in food allergens, specifically their detection and safety. Hefle was also a cyclist and a cyclist judge. Early life Hefle was born in Milwaukee, WI. Hefle's father was Louis Hefle. Hefle's mother was Nancy Hefle.

#2356

Susan Cayleff

#122506

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Susan Cayleff is an American academic and emeritus professor at San Diego State University, having taught there from 1987 to 2020. She was one the inaugural members of the National Women's Studies Association Lesbian Caucus and served on the organization's Coordinating Council between 1977 and 1979. She founded the Women's History Seminar Series at the University of Texas Medical Branch, in Galveston, Texas; the Graduate Women's Scholars of Southern California in 1989; and was a co-founder of the SafeZones program at San Diego State University.

#2357

Beverly Wright

#107306

Overall Influence

Beverly Wright is an American environmental justice scholar and the founder of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University. Her research considers the environmental and health inequalities along the Mississippi River Chemical Corridor. Her awards and honours include the Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Justice Achievement Award.

#2358

Willem van Vliet

#176132

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Willem James van Vliet was educated at a Queen's University in the Netherlands, graduating in 1970 with an award from the French embassy for achievements in the field of language and literature. In 1976, he received a doctorandus degree ad summos honores in sociology and planning at the Free University of Amsterdam.

#2359

Karen F. Parker

#114718

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Karen Faye Parker is an American sociologist and criminologist known for her research on urban violence. She is a professor of sociology and criminology at the University of Delaware, where she has worked since 2007. She has also been a research associate at the University of Michigan's National Poverty Center since 2007, and was formerly a professor at the University of Florida before joining the faculty of the University of Delaware.

#2360

Herbert Vilakazi

#144827

Overall Influence

1943 - 2016 (73 years)

Herbert W. Vilakazi was a South African sociologist. He was known for his opposition to South Africa's apartheid system, which motivated him to try to dismantle it from the inside by becoming a professor at the University of Transkei, despite the protests of the African National Congress. He was also a prominent critic of Western medicine, and promoted ubhejane as a treatment for HIV/AIDS.

#2361

Terry Kershaw

#143568

Overall Influence

1952 - 2015 (63 years)

Terry Kershaw was an American sociologist and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Cincinnati. He served as a board member of the National Council of Black Studies. Career Kershaw was Chair of Sociology and Anthropology, and the Director of Black Studies at The College of Wooster.

#2362

Signithia Fordham

#59614

Overall Influence

Signithia Fordham is a prominent Anthropologist who studies how race influences Black students in the classroom. She began her career working with John Ogbu on their research "Acting White" and has done similar research since. Most of her research is done in the DC area, which she gives the pseudonym Capital High.

#2363

Laura Vaughan

#176138

Overall Influence

Laura Vaughan is professor of urban form and society at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London. In 2018 she appeared on BBC Radio 4's Thinking Aloud to discuss her book Mapping Society: The Spatial Dimensions of Social Cartography.

#2364

Myron Solberg

#90405

Overall Influence

1930 - 2001 (71 years)

Myron "Mike" Solberg was an American food scientist who was renowned for his collaboration with academia, government, and industry that better advanced food technology. Education A native of Massachusetts, Solberg earned his B.S. degree at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1952. He then went on to earn his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1960. After earning his Ph.D., Solberg went to work in the meat industry before joining Rutgers University in 1964.

#2365

Roland Tormey

#178809

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Roland Tormey is an Irish sociologist, teacher, researcher and curriculum developer. He is the head of Teaching Support Centre at EPFL's College of Humanities. Career Tormey studied sociology and social administration at the University College Dublin and earned his bachelor's degree in 1992. He then perused a PhD in sociology and joined James Wickham at the Trinity College Dublin. He graduated in 2000 with a thesis on "The Part-Time Soul: Case Studies in the Management of Culture and Flexibility in Irish Retail." At the London South Bank University he earned a postgraduate certificate in development and environmental education in 2000.

#2366

Kanan Makiya

#8053

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Kanan Makiya is an Iraqi-American academic and professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. He gained international attention with Republic of Fear , which became a best-selling book after Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and with Cruelty and Silence , a critique of the Arab intelligentsia. In 2003, Makiya lobbied the U.S. government to invade Iraq and oust Hussein.

#2367

Laura Briggs

#171766

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Laura Briggs is a feminist critic and historian of reproductive politics and US empire. She works on transnational and transracial adoption and the relationship between race, sex, gender, and US imperialism. Her 2012 book Somebody's Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption won the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians for best book on the history of US race relations and has been featured on numerous college syllabi in the US and Canada. Briggs serves as professor and chair of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at the Universit...

#2368

Michel Maffesoli

#186216

Overall Influence

#2369

Psyche Williams-Forson

#174102

Overall Influence

Psyche Williams-Forson is an American scholar and writer from Virginia. She is currently the associate professor and chair of American Studies at the University of Maryland. Education Williams-Forson, who is African-American, holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland , which are also the fields and institutions related to her Master's work in . Additionally, she completed a certificate in Women's Studies . In 1997, she received her bachelor's degree in English and African-American Studies.

#2370

Roger Parker

#186256

Overall Influence

#2371

George Barna

#13598

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

George Barna is the founder of The Barna Group, a market research firm specializing in studying the religious beliefs and behavior of Americans, and the intersection of faith and culture. From 2013 - 2018 he served as the executive director of the American Culture & Faith Institute, the research division of United in Purpose. In 2019 he became a professor at Arizona Christian University in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also started the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He is also the senior research fellow for Christian ethics and Biblical worldview at Family Research Cou...

#2372

Leith Mullings

#51709

Overall Influence

1945 - 2020 (75 years)

Leith Patricia Mullings was a Jamaican-born author, anthropologist and professor. She was president of the American Anthropological Association from 2011–2013, and was a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Mullings was involved in organizing for progressive social justice, racial equality and economic justice as one of the founding members of the Black Radical Congress and in her role as President of the AAA. Under her leadership, the American Anthropological Association took up the issue of academic labor rights.

#2373

Randall Amster

#64886

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Randall Jay Amster is an American author, activist, and educator in areas including peace, ecology, homelessness, and anarchism. He is the co-director of the Environmental Studies program at Georgetown University, and writes for outlets ranging from academic journals to online news media.

#2374

Calvin C. Hernton

#134008

Overall Influence

1932 - 2001 (69 years)

Calvin Coolidge Hernton was an American sociologist, poet and author, particularly renowned for his 1965 study Sex and Racism in America, which has been described as "a frank look at the role sexual tensions played in the American racial divide, and it helped set the tone for much African-American social criticism over the following decade."

#2375

Stuart Waiton

#141065

Overall Influence

Stuart Waiton is a senior sociology and criminology lecturer at Abertay University. He teaches on matters relating to anti-social behaviour, moral panics, hate crimes, and politics. Ewan Gurr of the Evening Telegraph describes Waiton's political background as "on the far left of the political spectrum and rooted firmly within the revolutionary communist tradition". Waiton described himself as involved in anti-racist campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s as a member of Workers Against Racism, an anti-racist group associated with the British Revolutionary Communist Party.

#2376

Lucius Burckhardt

#87396

Overall Influence

1925 - 2003 (78 years)

Lucius Burckhardt was a Swiss sociologist and economist. He was an important thinker in Architectural theory and Design theory and the founder of strollology. Publications Lucius Burckhardt Writings. Rethinking Man-made Environments , Springer , Wien/New York, 2012.

#2377

Martha Copp

#98593

Overall Influence

Martha Copp is an American sociologist. She is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University . She is known for her work on symbolic interactionism, emotion management theory, and on teaching fieldwork to students.

#2378

Martin Bútora

#60931

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Martin Bútora is a Slovak sociologist, writer, university professor and diplomat. Political career In November 1989 he was a founding member of the political movement Public Against Violence, the leading movement of the democratic revolution in Slovakia. He was the human rights advisor to the former president of Czechoslovakia Václav Havel from 1990 to 1992.

#2379

Pat Gozemba

#180084

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Patricia Andrea Gozemba is an American academic and activist. She grew up in Massachusetts and was involved in the political movements of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Liberation Movement and protests against the Vietnam War.

#2380

J. Douglas Willms

J. Douglas Willms

#124541

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

J. Douglas Willms is the Founder and President of The Learning Bar Inc. He is a member of the US National Academy of Education, Past-President of the International Academy of Education and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. From 1995 to 2018, Willms was Professor of Education at the University of New Brunswick, where for eight years he held the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Chair in Human Development and for fourteen years held the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Literacy and Human Development.

#2381

Adrian Vickers

#60724

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Adrian Vickers is an Australian author, historian and professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Sydney. He writes a blog on Indonesian subjects. He has studied and documented Gambuh dance traditions, Panji stories, and other Indonesian art and cultural subjects as well as historiography and colonialism. He has a BA and PhD from the University of Sydney, is the Professor of Southeast Asian Studies and Director of the Asian Studies Program. Vickers' most recent book, The Pearl Frontier, co-written with Julia Martínez, won the University of Southern Queensland History Book Award at the 2016 Queensland Literary Awards.

#2382

Adelaide M. Cromwell

#107605

Overall Influence

1919 - 2019 (100 years)

Adelaide McGuinn Cromwell was an American sociologist and professor emeritus at Boston University, where she co-founded the African Studies Center in 1959, and directed the graduate program in Afro-American studies from 1969 to 1985. She was the first African-American instructor at Hunter College and at Smith College. In 1974 she was appointed as the first African-American Library Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She has written several books on black history, including a groundbreaking study of Boston's black upper class and a biography of Adelaide Casely-Hayford. She died...

#2383

Gert Hekma

#125594

Overall Influence

1951 - 2022 (71 years)

Gerhardus "Gert" Hekma was a Dutch anthropologist and sociologist, known for his research and publications, and public statements about sexuality. He taught gay and lesbian studies at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences of the University of Amsterdam from 1984 to 2017.

#2384

Yunas Samad

#162940

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Yunas Samad is a British social scientist whose research is at the interface of sociology, politics and history. He is Professor of South Asian Studies and the Director of the Ethnicity and Social Policy Research Centre at the University of Bradford. He is an expert on the study of South Asia and its diaspora and has published several books on the topic of Pakistani nationalism, ethnicity, Islam and the War on Terror. He regularly comments on the Muslim diaspora, politics and security issues in Pakistan for the BBC, the Dawn and other media outlets.

#2385

Donna M. Hughes

Donna M. Hughes

#142813

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Donna M. Hughes is an American academic and feminist who chairs the women's studies department at the University of Rhode Island. Her research concerns prostitution and human trafficking; she was a prominent supporter of the campaign to end prostitution in Rhode Island, and has testified on these issues before several national legislative bodies. She sits on the editorial board of Sexualization, Media, and Society, a journal examining the impact of sexualized media.

#2386

Vijayan K. Pillai

#87802

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Vijayan K Pillai is Professor, School of Social Work and PhD Program Director / Graduate Adviser at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1983, with a thesis on "Determinants of the first birth interval." Prior to joining University of Texas at Arlington, Pillai taught at the University of North Texas, University of Iowa, and University of Zambia. He was the Zellerbach Visiting Professor, University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2004. He has Published nearly 100 papers and book chapters, including 35 peer-reviewed journal articles, and authored/ co authored and edited 13 books/ monographs.

#2387

Philip E. Nelson

#108785

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Philip E. Nelson is an American food scientist who is best known for his work in bulk aseptic processing and packaging of food and the use of chlorine dioxide gas and hydrogen peroxide liquid to commercially sterilize food products and food contact surfaces. He was the Scholle Chair and Professor in Food Processing at the Department of Food Science at Purdue University. Aseptic processing and packaging would be involved in the relief efforts following the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

#2388

Pepka Boyadjieva

#114301

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Pepka Boyadjieva is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Chair of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge and of Institute of Philosophy and Sociology . Vice-Chair of the General Assembly of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ; President of the Bulgarian Sociological Association . Expert for the European Commission and Permanent Senior Fellow at Center for Advanced Studies, Sofia . Member of the Editorial Board of the International Sociological Association’s edition Sage Studies in Internati...

#2389

Charles Wellford

#162645

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Charles Franklin Wellford is an American criminologist, emeritus professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland–College Park. He previously served as the department's chair. In 1996, the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice established the Charles Wellford Fellowship in his honor. He was chair of the University of Maryland's Athletic Council from 1995 to 2008. He was the president of the American Society of Criminology during 1995–96. In addition he was the research director for the National Issues Center at Westinghouse Corporation, d...

#2390

Debra Street

#181389

Overall Influence

Debra Anne Street is an American sociologist specialized in health and income security, long-term care, aging in families, and comparative public policies. She is a professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo.

#2391

Michele Sorice

#175154

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Michele Sorice is an Italian sociologist and political scientist known for his work in the fields of political communication, political science and critical media studies. He is the author of over 25 books and 50 articles.

#2392

Leonard Peltier

Leonard Peltier

#25291

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and a member of the American Indian Movement who, following a controversial trial, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in a June 26, 1975, shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment and has been imprisoned since 1977 . Peltier became eligible for parole in 1993. , Peltier is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida.

#2393

Kaila Story

#182721

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Kaila Adia Story-Jackson is an American academic and podcaster. Story's academic work focuses on the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race. Early life and education Story was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She came out as a lesbian at the age of 16.

#2394

Jennifer A. Johnson

#141511

Overall Influence

Jennifer Ann Johnson is assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, and one of the chief editors of the journal Sexualization, Media, and Society. Education Johnson received her BS in sociology from Radford University in 1985, her MS in sociology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1993, and her PhD in sociology from the University of Virginia in 2004. Her doctoral thesis was entitled The Geography of Gender: Ritual as Residence.

#2395

Susan Short

#176361

Overall Influence

Susan E. Short is the Robert E. Turner Distinguished Professor of Population Studies at Brown University who is known for her work on how gender, family, health and well-being are effected by social and political environments.

#2396

Mouhanad Khorchide

Mouhanad Khorchide

#34668

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Mouhanad Khorchide is an Austrian sociologist and Islamic theologian, teaching as a professor at the University of Münster in Germany. Personal life and studies The scientific advisory board of the Austrian Documentation Center for Political Islam is headed by Khorchide.

#2397

Nazimah Hamid

#184307

Overall Influence

Nazimah Hamid is a New Zealand food science academic, and as of 2017 is a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Academic career After a 1996 PhD titled 'Relationships between aroma quality in juices from two frozen Scottish raspberries and thermal and enzymic treatments in processing' at the University of Strathclyde, Hamid moved to the Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor.

#2398

Laura Tach

#76478

Overall Influence

Laura Tach is an American professor of policy analysis and management and sociology at Cornell University. She is the co-director with Rachel Dunifon of Cornell Project 2Gen, a research initiative supporting disadvantaged caregivers and children. In collaboration with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Tompkins County, Tach studies the relationship between opioid abuse and child maltreatment. The study was funded by a multi-year grant from the William T. Grant Foundation. Tach has studied the relationship between "microenvironments", or the neighborhood blocks where one resides, affect educa...

#2399

Kevin D. Breault

#177615

Overall Influence

Kevin D. Breault is an American sociologist and Professor of Sociology at Middle Tennessee State University, who researches in the areas of social epidemiology, suicide, homicide, religion in America, and Émile Durkheim. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Sociological Spectrum.

#2400

Christopher Stray

#96847

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Christopher Allan Stray is a British historian of classical scholarship and teaching. Early life and education Born at Norwich, son of Peter Stray and Margaret , Stray read Classics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, taking a BA in 1966 and MA in 1985. He worked as a classics teacher, including at Latymer Upper School, West London, and was a member of the JACT Ancient History Committee in the late 1960s, under the chairmanship of Sir Moses Finley.

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