The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Sociology,
#2501
Catharine Lumby
#69339
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Professor Catharine Lumby is an Australian academic, author and journalist, currently Chair of the Department of Media and Communication at University of Sydney. Career Prior to her move to academia, Lumby was a feature writer and columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald, a news writer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and a columnist and senior writer at The Bulletin. She holds a BA LLB from the University of Sydney and was awarded a PhD by Macquarie University for her thesis "Life in a tabloid world: an analysis of key shifts in Australian and US print and television media".
Go to Profile#2502
Guy Livingston
#92650
Overall Influence
1927 - 2000 (73 years)
Gideon E. "Guy" Livingston was an American food scientist who was responsible for founding Phi Tau Sigma at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He was also well known in food safety for foodservice establishments and for refrigerated foods shelf-life studies.
Go to Profile#2503
Sonya Douglass Horsford
#103057
Overall Influence
Sonya Douglass Horsford is an American academic who researches educational inequality in the United States, social justice, and education policy. Horsford is a professor of educational leadership at the Teachers College, Columbia University.
Go to Profile#2504
Brendan Hokowhitu
#179124
Overall Influence
Brendan J. Hokowhitu is a New Zealand academic who is of Māori, Ngāti Pūkenga descent and as of 2019 is a full professor at the University of Waikato. Academic career After a 2001 PhD titled 'Te mana Māori : Te tātari i ngā kōrero parau' at the University of Otago, Hokowhitu moved to the University of Alberta in Edmonton and then to the University of Waikato, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#2505
John Green
#110350
Overall Influence
John J. Green is an American professor of sociology. Since August 2021, he has served as the director of the Southern Rural Development Center, housed at Mississippi State University. Education Green is originally from Decatur, Illinois. Green attended Mississippi State University for both his bachelor's degree and master's degree. His bachelor's was in Political Science, and his master's was in Sociology. His thesis was on the conflict surrounding the siting of a hazardous waste facility in a rural Mississippi community. He attended University of Missouri-Columbia for his doctorate, which was in Rural Sociology.
Go to Profile#2506
Linda Waite
#58278
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Linda Joan Waite is a sociologist and social demographer. She is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. Waite is also a Senior Fellow at the NORC at the University of Chicago and Principal Investigator on the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project . In 2018, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Go to Profile#2507
Jerry Rubin
#105045
Overall Influence
1938 - 1994 (56 years)
Jerry Clyde Rubin was an American social activist, anti-war leader, and counterculture icon during the 1960s and early 1970s. Despite being known for holding radical views when he was a political activist, he ceased holding his more extreme views at some point in the 1970s and instead opted for a successful career as a businessman. In the 1960s, during his political activism heyday, he was known for being one of the co-founders of the Youth International Party whose members were referred to as Yippies, and standing trial in the Chicago Seven case.
Go to Profile#2508
Michael D. Maltz
#151335
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Michael D. Maltz is an American electrical engineer, criminologist and Emeritus Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago in criminal justice, and adjunct professor and researcher at Ohio State University.
Go to Profile#2509
Alexandra Shepard
#109012
Overall Influence
Alexandra Shepard is Professor of Gender History at the University of Glasgow. In 2018 Shepard was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in recognition for her work in gender history and the social history of early modern Britain. In 2019 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Go to Profile#2510
Jack Santino
#40382
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Jack Santino is an academic folklorist. His work He is a Professor of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University and is Director of the Bowling Green Center for Culture Studies. His work has primarily focused on ritual, celebrations, and holidays as well as occupational culture and popular music. He has been a featured expert on a television special produced by The History Channel, about Hallowe'en.
Go to Profile#2511
James Kluegel
#189653
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
James Robert "Jim" Kluegel is an American sociologist known for his research on the perception of social inequality in the United States. He is particularly noted for directing a pioneering 1980 survey of Americans' beliefs about social stratification. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he taught for 27 years before retiring in 2006. He was the head of the Department of Sociology there from 1984 to 1996, and again as acting head from 2003 to 2004.
Go to Profile#2512
Alison Park
#109537
Overall Influence
Alison Macdonald Park is a British social scientist who is a professor and previous executive chair of the Economic and Social Research Council . Her research has focused on longitudinal data collection and social attitudes. She was appointed a Commander of the British Empire in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to the Social Sciences.
Go to Profile#2513
Bill Martin
#174690
Overall Influence
1956 - 2016 (60 years)
William "Bill" Craig Martin was an Australian sociologist. He was Professor of Sociology at Flinders University and the University of Queensland and was an editor of the Journal of Sociology. His main research interests were in the sociology of work and employment.
Go to Profile#2514
Marlon Bailey
#173425
Overall Influence
Marlon M. Bailey is a professor of African American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and an affiliate professor of theater and drama at Washington University in St. Louis. He previously taught at Arizona State University and the University of California, San Francisco, in the Department of Medicine.
Go to Profile#2515
Celine-Marie Pascale
#189638
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Celine-Marie Pascale is an American sociologist and author. She is professor emerita of sociology at the American University College of Arts and Sciences. Education Pascale has a BA Communications from Glassboro State College, a MA in Social Science from San Jose State University, and a PhD in sociology, with a certificate in Women's Studies, from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Go to Profile#2516
Maureen Storey
#96058
Overall Influence
Maureen Lee Storey is the president and CEO of the Alliance for Potato Research and Education , founded in 2010. APRE is dedicated to expanding and translating research into science-based policy and education initiatives on the role of all forms of the potato in a well-balanced diet. Regarding potatoes, she has said, "This industry has recognized that we need the science in order to fight back on the goodness, the deliciousness, the nutritiousness of the potato regardless of the form that it is being prepared in."
Go to Profile#2517
Laura Berman
#80848
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Laura Berman is an American relationship therapist and television host. She is the host of In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman on the Oprah Winfrey Network . She is also a regular guest on The Dr. Oz Show, and hosts her own nationally syndicated radio program, Uncovered with Dr. Laura Berman. She previously starred in Showtime's reality television series Sexual Healing.
Go to Profile#2518
Nirmala Rao
#52919
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Nirmala Rao is a British academic and the current vice chancellor of Krea University. She also served as vice chancellor of the Asian University for Women, Chittagong, Bangladesh from 1 February 2017 to January 2022. and as Pro-Director of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London from 2008 to 2016.
Go to Profile#2519
Patrick Hillery
#32698
Overall Influence
1923 - 2008 (85 years)
Patrick John Hillery was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as the sixth President of Ireland from December 1976 to December 1990. He also served as Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Social Affairs from 1973 to 1976, Minister for External Affairs from 1969 to 1973, Minister for Labour from 1966 to 1969, Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1965 to 1969 and Minister for Education from 1959 to 1965. He served as a Teachta Dála for the Clare constituency from 1951 to 1973.
Go to Profile#2520
Amarnath Amarasingam
#79102
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Amarnath Amarasingam is a Canadian extremism researcher. Career Amarasingam studied religion and culture at Wilfrid Laurier University from 2007 to 2011. Since September 2011 he teaches as a lecturer at Wilfrid Laurier University, since January 2012 additionally at the University of Waterloo. 2013 he was awarded a PhD with a thesis on social movement activism, his doctoral advisor was Lorne L. Dawson. From May 2014 to May 2016, he conducted research with a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council as a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University. He is a senior research fe...
Go to Profile#2521
Sheldon Ekland-Olson
#165646
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Sheldon Ekland-Olson is an American sociologist and Rapoport Centennial Professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin . Education and career Ekland-Olson received his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1966 and his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1971. He went on to serve as a special assistant to the chancellor of the University of Texas system from 1988 to 1991. He was the associate dean of the University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts from 1991 to 1993, whereupon he became the College's dean. In 1998, he became the executive vice president and provost of UT-Austin, a position he held until 2006.
Go to Profile#2522
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
#12954
Overall Influence
1919 - 1995 (76 years)
Madalyn Murray O'Hair was an American activist supporting atheism and separation of church and state. In 1963, she founded American Atheists and served as its president until 1986, after which her son Jon Garth Murray succeeded her. She created the first issues of American Atheist Magazine and identified as a "militant feminist".
Go to Profile#2523
R. J. Johnson
#189956
Overall Influence
#2524
Norman Solomon
#10427
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Norman Solomon is an American journalist, media critic, activist, and former U.S. congressional candidate. Solomon is a longtime associate of the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting . In 1997 he founded the Institute for Public Accuracy, which works to provide alternative sources for journalists, and serves as its executive director.
Go to Profile#2525
Song Du-yul
#121932
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Song Du-yul is a German philosopher and sociologist of Korean descent. A professor at the University of Münster, Germany, he has been a political exile from his native South Korea for over 40 years. Educated in South Korea, he left that country for Germany in 1967 to pursue higher education. He visited North Korea a total of 18 times while living in Germany, but did not return to the South until 2003. During his visit to the South that year, he was arrested, charged, and convicted of spying for the North under the South's National Security Act in a controversial court case; in the end, he was...
Go to Profile#2526
Mercedes Bengoechea
#71167
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Mercedes Bengoechea Bartolomé is a Spanish feminist sociolinguist, professor of English philology and a proponent for the defense of the use of gender-neutral language from an academic foundation. She has had a long career as an advisor to various entities, including the Institute of Women and the Instituto RTVE . Since 1994, Bengoechea has been a member of the Comisión Asesora sobre Lenguaje del Instituto de la Mujer . She has been vocal at the Commission for the Modernization of Legal Language of the Ministry of Justice, as well as coordinator of the first Annual Report of the National Observatory on Gender Violence.
Go to Profile#2527
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
#65747
Overall Influence
1936 - 2018 (82 years)
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela , also known as Winnie Mandela, was a South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and the second wife of Nelson Mandela. She served as a Member of Parliament from 1994 to 2003, and from 2009 until her death, and was a deputy minister of arts and culture from 1994 to 1996. A member of the African National Congress political party, she served on the ANC's National Executive Committee and headed its Women's League. Madikizela-Mandela was known to her supporters as the "Mother of the Nation".
Go to Profile#2528
Manuel Vasquez
#130010
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Manuel A. Vasquez is a prominent Salvadoran scholar of religion and society. As Andrew W. Mellon post-doctoral fellow at Wesleyan University's Center for the Americas and former faculty at the University of Florida, he has focused on the interplay between religion and globalization in the Americas, particularly in Latin America and among U.S. Latinos.
Go to Profile#2529
Luis Núñez Ladevéze
#92055
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Luis Núñez Ladevéze is a Spanish social science researcher, writer and journalist. He has a doctorate in law and a PhD, a master's degree in journalism and full professor on leave of absence at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid. At present he is Emeritus Professor at the University of San Pablo-CEU. He was Managing Director of the Institute for Studies on Democracy and is founder and chairman of the editorial board of Doxa magazine and chairman of the advisory board of TRACOR Institute. Up to the year 2014, he was a practicing attorney-at-law of the Bar Association of Madrid.
Go to Profile#2530
Bill Lucas
#184262
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Bill Lucas is a social entrepreneur and author. He is a professor of Learning and Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester. He is the co-creator of Expansive Education Network and a founding partner of a Bill Lucas Partnership Ltd. He is also an international adviser to Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in Australia and to the OECD/CERI on creativity.
Go to Profile#2531
Herman Goldstein
#32364
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
#2532
Niara Sudarkasa
#89251
Overall Influence
1938 - 2019 (81 years)
Niara Sudarkasa was an American scholar, educator, Africanist and anthropologist who holds thirteen honorary degrees, and is the recipient of nearly 100 civic and professional awards. In 1989 Essence magazine named her "Educator for the '90s", and in 2001 she became the first African American to be installed as a Chief in the historic Ife Kingdom of the Yoruba of Nigeria.
Go to Profile#2533
Jessica Mitford
#4496
Overall Influence
1917 - 1996 (79 years)
Jessica Lucy "Decca" Treuhaft was an English author, one of the six aristocratic Mitford sisters noted for their sharply conflicting politics. Jessica married her second cousin Esmond Romilly, who was killed in World War II, and then American civil rights lawyer Robert Treuhaft, with whom she joined the Communist Party USA and worked closely in the Civil Rights Congress. Both refused to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. They resigned from the party in 1958.
Go to Profile#2534
Fatima Seedat
#40579
Overall Influence
Fatima Seedat is a South African feminist, Islamic scholar and women's rights activist. She is known for her scholarly work on gender and Islamic law, and Islam and feminism. Career Seedat researches gender and Islamic law, Islam and feminism, and Muslim masculinity. She completed her PhD at McGill University, and her dissertation focused on gender and legal theory.
Go to Profile#2535
Jennifer Mason
#186906
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Jennifer Mason is a British sociologist and Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Biography Mason studied for her undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of Southampton and a PhD at the University of Kent. She worked as a lecturer at Lancaster University before being appointed Reader in Sociology at the University of Leeds. In 2005 she moved to the University of Manchester and co-founded The Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives with Carol Smart. Mason has served as the Vice-Chair of the Economic and Social Research Council's research committee and acted as Chair of the ESRC Grants Delivery Group from 2012 to 2015.
Go to Profile#2536
Trinh T. Minh-ha
#171359
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Trinh T. Minh-ha is a Vietnamese filmmaker, writer, literary theorist, composer, and professor. She has been making films for over thirty years and may be best known for her films Reassemblage'', made in 1982, and Surname Viet Given Name Nam, made in 1985. She has received several awards and grants, including the American Film Institute's National Independent Filmmaker Maya Deren Award, and Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the California Arts Council. Her films have been the subject of twenty retrospectives.
Go to Profile#2537
María Guðjónsdóttir
#184546
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
María Guðjónsdóttir is a professor of food science at the University of Iceland. María graduated from the menntaskóli Menntaskólinn í Reykjavík in 2000, obtained a BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Iceland in the spring of 2004, a master's degree in chemical engineering with engineering physics from the Chalmers University of Technology in 2006, and a PhD in biotechnology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2011.
Go to Profile#2538
S. D. Clark
#167917
Overall Influence
1910 - 2003 (93 years)
Samuel Delbert Clark , known as S. D. Clark or Del Clark, was a Canadian sociologist. Born on 24 February 1910 in Lloydminster, Alberta, Clark grew up near Streamstown, Alberta. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and history in 1930 and a Master of Arts degree in 1931 from the University of Saskatchewan. His master's thesis was titled Settlement in Saskatchewan with Special Reference to Dry Farming. From 1932 to 1933, he studied at the London School of Economics. In 1935, he received a Master of Arts degree from McGill University and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1938 from the University of Toronto.
Go to Profile#2539
Becky Wai-Ling Packard
#87221
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Becky Wai-Ling Packard is Professor of Psychology and Education, and former Director of the Weissman Center for Leadership, Associate Dean of Faculty, and Founding Director of Teaching and Learning at Mount Holyoke College.
Go to Profile#2540
Anthony Giddens
#190276
Overall Influence
#2541
David B. Wilkins
#39475
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is a senior research fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Harvard Law School's vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession, and a faculty associate of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
Go to Profile#2542
Margaret Allen
#183008
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Margaret Allen is an Australian historian and women's studies researcher. She is professor emerita at the University of Adelaide. Early life and education Margaret Ellen Allen was born in 1947 in Adelaide, the fourth child of George William Allen and Marjorie Ada Allen . Her mother died suddenly in August 1948 and her father later married Helen Ladbury Allen .
Go to Profile#2543
Robert Sanborn
#84191
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Robert Sanborn is a nationally known activist for education and children and is the President/CEO of Children At Risk in Houston, Texas. He has been president since 2005. Sanborn was born in Caribou, Maine and raised in Puerto Rico.
Go to Profile#2544
Michael Vavrus
#115544
Overall Influence
Michael Vavrus is a faculty member at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in the areas of teacher education and political economy. He is the past president of the Washington Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education. He is also the past director of the Masters in Teaching Program at The Evergreen State College, and the founding past president of CommonAction.
Go to Profile#2545
George Simmel
#190510
Overall Influence
#2546
Evangelia Tastsoglou
#186829
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Evangelia Tastsoglou , also known as Evie Tastsoglou, is a Greek-Canadian sociologist and lawyer. She is Professor of Sociology and International Development Studies at Saint Mary's University in Canada. She is known for her research relating to issues of gender and international migration, migration and globalization, immigrant and minority women and citizenship, and sexual and gender-based violence during forced migration.
Go to Profile#2547
Katherine Rake
#169938
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Katherine Rake is director of Lucent, a consultancy supporting organisations with a social purpose to see clearly, make connections and inspire change. She was previously chief executive of HealthWatch England, the Family and Parenting Institute and the Fawcett Society. She is currently trustee of the charity United Response and has held a range of trustee and governing roles including as Governor of the London School of Economics, trustee of Centre for Ageing Better and Chair of RISE Mutual. Katherine was formerly a lecturer in social policy at LSE during which time she was seconded to the Cabinet Office.
Go to Profile#2548
Otto Larsen
#119069
Overall Influence
1922 - 2007 (85 years)
Otto Nyholm Larsen was an American sociologist at the University of Washington specializing in social psychology. He served as Chair of the Department of Sociology and as Director of the Institute for Sociological Research.
Go to Profile#2549
Asesela Ravuvu
#82074
Overall Influence
1931 - 2008 (77 years)
Asesela Ravuvu was a Fijian academic and political leader. The Director of Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific, Professor Ravuvu was appointed to the Fijian Senate by the Great Council of Chiefs in 2001, to one of the 14 Senate seats allocated to the Great Council. As of September 2005, he held the position of Leader of the House in the Senate, but retired from this body in 2006.
Go to Profile#2550
Fariba Adelkhah
#35841
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Fariba Adelkhah is a French-Iranian anthropologist and academic at Sciences Po who was detained in Iran from 2019 until 2023. Early life and career Born in Tehran, Adelkhah studied in France, first at Université Strasbourg II and then at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. In 1990, she obtained a "very honourable" mention for her Ph.D. thesis on women in Iran, "an anthropological approach of post-revolutionary Iran: the case of Islamic women" , with Jean-Pierre Digard as her advisor. Since 2004, she has been a Research Director at the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques.
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