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,

#2601

Harry Levine

#190535
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Harry Gene Levine is an American sociologist known for his research on alcohol and illicit drugs in American society. He is a professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. His work has included studies on marijuana arrests in New York City, which have found that such arrests are more common there than in any other city in the world, and that they were much more common from 1998 to 2007 than from 1988 to 1997. He has also found that over the 15 years leading up to 2011, far more of those arrested in New York City for marijuana possession were black than were Latino or white .
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#2602

Lilian Passmore Sanderson

#173940
Overall Influence
1925 - 1996 (71 years)
Lilian Margaret Passmore Sanderson was an English teacher and educationalist who became known for her research on female genital mutilation, particularly in Sudan. She was the author of Against the Mutilation of Women: The Struggle Against Unnecessary Suffering and Female Genital Mutilation, Excision and Infibulation: A Bibliography .
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#2603

Imam Prasodjo

#98583
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Imam Prasodjo is an Indonesian social scientist and academic. He is currently a professor at the Department of Social and Political Science at the University of Indonesia. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Indonesia, his master's degree from Kansas State University, and his doctorate from Brown University.
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#2604

Walter Sisulu

#36652
Overall Influence
1912 - 2003 (91 years)
Walter Max Ulyate Sisulu was a South African anti-apartheid activist and member of the African National Congress . Between terms as ANC Secretary-General and ANC Deputy President , he was Accused No.2 in the Rivonia Trial and was incarcerated on Robben Island where he served more than 25 years' imprisonment for his anti-Apartheid revolutionary activism. He had a close partnership with Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela, with whom he played a key role in organising the 1952 Defiance Campaign and the establishment of the ANC Youth League and Umkhonto we Sizwe. He was also on the Central Committee...
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#2605

J. Timmons Roberts

#186758
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
J. Timmons Roberts is an American sociologist, currently the Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies at Brown University and formerly the James Martin 21st Century Professor of Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University and Chancellor professor at College of William and Mary.
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#2606

James W. B. Douglas

James W. B. Douglas
#109218
Overall Influence
1914 - 1992 (78 years)
James William Bruce Douglas was a British social researcher. Douglas was responsible for the National Survey of Health & Development that in turn led to other national birth cohort studies, such as the National Child Development Study, the 1970 British Cohort Study and the Millennium Cohort Study.
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#2607

Don Krug

Don Krug
#91239
Overall Influence
1957 - 2017 (60 years)
Don Krug was an educator, activist, and author. Background Born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and taught in the public schools in Wisconsin for 10 years. From 1994 to 2001, he served as the senior editor of the Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, a publication of USSEA a national affiliate of International Society for Education through Art . He served on the editorial board of Studies in Art Education and Art Education, publications of the National Art Education Association. He publishes widely about connections of aesthetics, cultures, ecology, education, pedagogy, and human computer interactions.
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#2608

Manuel João Ramos

#134049
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Manuel João Mendes Silva Ramos is a Portuguese anthropologist, artist and civil rights advocate. As an author, he is widely held in libraries worldwide. Early life and education Ramos was born in Lisbon, Portugal, the eldest son of late actor , He took his BA in Anthropology in 1982, at New University of Lisbon, his MsC in Comparative Literary Studies in 1987, also at New University of Lisbon, and his PhD in Symbolic Anthropology at ISCTE-IUL.
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#2609

Johnnie Hamilton‐mason

#191790
Overall Influence
Johnnie Hamilton-Mason is a professor and Eva Whiting White Endowed Chair at Simmons University. She has served as Director of the Doctoral Program at SSW, co-founded the SSW’s Pharnal Longus Academy for Undoing Racism and served as a Harvard University W.E.B. DuBois Institute non-resident fellow in African American research. Her main focus is on African American Women and Families, the intersection of cross cultural theory and practice, and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. Alma Maters: Ph.D. and M.S.W. from Smith College, and a B.A. from Boston State College Academic Website Professional W...
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#2610

Lynn Rapaport

#191798
Overall Influence
Lynn Rapaport is an American sociologist and Holocaust scholar. She is the Henry Snyder Professor of Sociology at Pomona College in Claremont, California. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California and her doctorate from Columbia University.
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#2611

Ferenc Miszlivetz

#86940
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Ferenc Miszlivetz is a Hungarian academic. He is full professor at the University of Pannonia, and director of the Institute of Advanced Studies Kőszeg . His research interests include democracy, civil society, Central-European and European Studies, globalization and sustainability.
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#2612

Savannah Shange

#191830
Overall Influence
Savannah Shange is assistant professor of anthropology at University of California, Santa Cruz and serves as principal faculty in Critical Race & Ethnic Studies. Her research interests include gentrification, multiracial coalition, ethnographic ethics, Black femme gender, and abolition. She earned a PhD in Africana Studies and Education from the , a MAT from Tufts University, and a BFA from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Her first book, Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Anti-Blackness and Schooling in San Francisco (Duke 2019) is an ethnography of the afterlife of slavery as lived in the Bay Area.
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#2613

Lawrence Otis Graham

#9819
Overall Influence
1961 - 2021 (60 years)
Lawrence Otis Graham was an American attorney, political analyst, cultural influencer and celebrated New York Times best-selling author. Early life and education Born on December 25, 1961 to Richard and Betty Graham, the story of the life of Lawrence Otis Graham began rooted in the segregated Jim Crow era of the south, where his Memphis, Tennessee-born parents were raised and his grandparents owned and operated a trucking company.
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#2614

Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill

Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill
#40365
Overall Influence
1941 - 2010 (69 years)
Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill , who normally went only by his surname, Fogwill, was an Argentine short story writer, novelist, and businessman. He was a distant relative of the novelist Charles Langbridge Morgan. He was the author of Malvinas Requiem, one of the first narratives to deal with the Falklands War. Fogwill died on August 21, 2010, from a pulmonary dysfunction.
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#2615

Nelly Naumann

#74121
Overall Influence
1922 - 2000 (78 years)
Nelly Naumann was a German scholar of Japanese studies with a specialisation in Japanese mythology and folklore and Shinto. Life and career Naumann was born Thusnelda Joch in Lörrach, where she was educated at the Hebel Gymnasium, completing her Abitur in 1941. She studied Japanese and Chinese studies, ethnology and philosophy at the University of Vienna. World War II delayed the completion of her dissertation, "Das Pferd in Sage und Brauchtum Japans" until 1946, when she became the first woman to receive a doctorate in Japanese studies from that university.
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#2616

Zuzana Čaputová

#69492
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Zuzana Čaputová is a Slovak politician, lawyer and environmental activist. She is the fifth president of Slovakia, a position she has held since 15 June 2019. Čaputová is the first woman to hold the presidency, as well as the youngest president in the history of Slovakia, elected at the age of 45.
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#2617

Taima Moeke-Pickering

#187601
Overall Influence
Taima Moeke-Pickering is a Canadian-New Zealand academic, a Māori, of Ngāti Pūkeko and Tuhoe descent and as of 2019 is a full professor at the Laurentian University. Academic career After years of working as a professor and administrator at the University of Waikato and years at Waikato Institute of Technology, Moeke-Pickering moved to Canada in 2006 to take up a position as an assistant professor in the School of Indigenous Relations at Laurentian University. She completed her PhD in 2010 titled 'Decolonisation as a social change framework and its impact on the development of Indigenous-based curricula for Helping Professionals in mainstream Tertiary Education Organisations'.
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#2618

Suzanne M. Babich

#176199
Overall Influence
Suzanne Marie Babich , formerly Suzanne Havala Hobbs is an American public health scientist, food writer, registered dietitian and vegetarianism activist. She was the primary author for the American Dietetic Association's 1988 and 1993 vegetarian position papers.
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#2619

Frank Leon Roberts

Frank Leon Roberts
#133092
Overall Influence
1982 - Present (42 years)
Frank Leon Roberts is an American activist, writer, political commentator, and college professor at Amherst College, known for his involvement in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Roberts is a former faculty member at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where his course "Black Lives Matter: Race, Resistance, and Populist Protest" received national attention for being one of the first such courses offered on a university campus. He has been a frequent media commentator on issues related to the intersections of race and gender in American public life.
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#2620

Jodi O'Brien

#191814
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Jodi O'Brien is a Professor of Sociology and Women and Gender Studies at Seattle University. Her teaching and research interests include gender. sexuality, religion, social psychology, and social inequality. She is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Gender and Society and co-editor of the “Contemporary Sociological Perspectives” book series. Her books include The Production of Reality, Social Prisms, and Everyday Inequalities. O'Brien is openly gay.
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#2621

Marilyn Kilgen

#58922
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Marilyn Gayle Barrios Kilgen is an American microbiologist and seafood safety scientist. She is the Alcee Fortier Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Nicholls State University. Personal life and education Growing up, Kilgen thought about becoming a doctor but changed her plans after her mother died of breast cancer. She chose to attend her father's alma mater for post-secondary education, Nicholls State University.
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#2622

Willy Martinussen

#179736
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Willy Martin Martinussen is a Norwegian sociologist. Martinussen was born in Vestvågøy and graduated from the University of Oslo with a mag.art. degree in 1965. He worked at the Institute for Social Research from 1963 to 1977, and was hired at the University of Trondheim in 1977. He has edited the journals from 1972 to 1976 and from 1993 to 1996. His books include , , , and .
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#2623

Ileana Rodríguez

#83666
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Ileana Rodríguez is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Latin American Literatures and Cultures at the Ohio State University, and she is also affiliated with the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica .
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#2624

K. Sivathamby

#95244
Overall Influence
1932 - 2011 (79 years)
Professor Karthigesu Sivathamby was a Sri Lankan Tamil literary historian, author and academic. Early life and family Sivathamby was born on 10 May 1932 in Karaveddy in northern Ceylon. He was the son of T. P. Karthigesu, a Tamil pundit, and Valliammai. He was educated at Vigneswara Vidyalayam and Zahira College, Colombo . After school Sivathamby joined the University of Ceylon, Peradeniya in 1953, studying under K. Kanapathypillai and graduating with B.A. degree in history, economics and Tamil. Sivathamby became a Marxist during his university days. He later received a M.A. degree in Tamil, under the guidance of S.
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#2625

John Mohawk

#41432
Overall Influence
1945 - 2006 (61 years)
John Mohawk was an American historian, writer, and social activist. Background He was a Seneca, born into the Turtle clan on the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation, located in western New York State. He graduated from Hartwick College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1967, and later earned a Ph.D. from the University of Buffalo.
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#2626

Hirini Melbourne

#170760
Overall Influence
1949 - 2003 (54 years)
Hirini Melbourne was a Māori composer, singer, university lecturer, poet and author who was notable for his contribution to the development of Māori music and the revival of Māori culture. He played traditional instruments and his waiata have preserved traditions and used Māori proverbs. He received the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of his services to Māori music. He was from Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Kahungunu Māori tribes.
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#2627

Parviz Piran

#100509
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Parviz Piran, a sociologist and community development specialist presently is a faculty member of Social Research Department, Allameh Tabatabai University Tehran, Iran. He is also an official scientific board member of the Swiss Academy for Development & a member of Global Network of Government Innovations Network, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
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#2628

Richard Adams

#178976
Overall Influence
1947 - 2012 (65 years)
Richard Frank Adams was a Filipino-American gay rights activist. After his 1975 same-sex marriage was declared invalid for the purposes of granting his husband permanent residency, Adams filed the federal lawsuit Adams v. Howerton. This was the first lawsuit in America to seek recognition of a same-sex marriage by the federal government.
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#2629

Milton A. Gordon

#192192
Overall Influence
Dr. Milton A. Gordon joined California State University, Fullerton in 1986 as the Vice President of the university. In 1990 he be became the president of CSU Fullerton. He retired in 2011. Gordon led CSUF into prominence as one of largest and most inclusive institutions of higher learning in the united states. Gordon, a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Illinois Institute of Technology, led CSU Fullerton for nearly two decades. Under his leadership, recruitment and retention rates rose, and the student body grew from ~25,000 students to over 36,000. Gordon’s impact extended beyond CSU Fullerton a...
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#2630

Ruth H. Alexander

#98071
Overall Influence
1938 - 2021 (83 years)
Ruth Hammack Alexander was an American activist for women in collegiate sports. She established the "Lady Gator Athletic" program at the University of Florida to allow women to participate in intercollegiate athletics for the first time.
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#2631

Prathia Hall

#19068
Overall Influence
1940 - 2002 (62 years)
Prathia Laura Ann Hall Wynn was an American leader and activist in the Civil Rights Movement, a womanist theologian, and ethicist. She was the key inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
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#2632

Allyn Walker

#187346
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (37 years)
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#2633

Gary Wilson

#60595
Overall Influence
1956 - 2021 (65 years)
Gary Bruce Wilson was an American anti-pornography campaigner. Biography Wilson was an author who lived in Ashland, Oregon. He was formerly an adjunct professor of biology at Southern Oregon University and also taught at vocational schools. Together with his wife, Marina Robinson, he was an instructor of karezza, and the couple shared an antipathy towards orgasms. He became widely known from his 2012 TEDx talk entitled "The Great Porn Experiment" in which he argued exposure to pornography changes brain chemistry. The talk has been viewed over 13 million times.
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#2634

Peter Adds

#131051
Overall Influence
Peter Adds is Wellington-based academic, treaty negotiator and former head of Victoria University of Wellington's Te Kawa a Māui/School of Māori Studies. He is of Te Ati Awa descent. With a background in anthropology and archaeology, he has interests in Treaty of Waitangi settlements, indigenous astronomy, Māori development, and international indigenous issues.
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#2635

Luis Moreno Fernández

Luis Moreno Fernández
#145132
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Luis Moreno was a journalist, sociologist, and political scientist. He was an Emeritus Research Professor at the Spanish National Research Council . Academic Bio Graduate of the Universidad Complutense , he was awarded his Ph.D. in Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. He has been visiting scholar at the universities of Colorado , Denver , Edinburgh and Rome and the Institute for Research on Population and Social Policies . He was Jean Monnet Senior Research Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence.
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#2636

Bjørg Aase Sørensen

#118222
Overall Influence
1944 - 2010 (66 years)
Bjørg Aase Sørensen was a Norwegian sociologist. She was senior researcher at the Work Research Institute, professor at Vestfold University College and adjunct professor at the University of Oslo. She was editor-in-chief of Acta Sociologica from 1974 to 1976.
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#2637

Mariza Corrêa

#99773
Overall Influence
1945 - 2016 (71 years)
Mariza Corrêa was a Brazilian anthropologist and sociologist. She was professor at the Department of Anthropology of the State University of Campinas . Trained in journalism in the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul , she started to study social sciences in the State University of Campinas where she graduated in 1975. She earned in 1982 her PhD in Political Sciences at the University of São Paulo with a thesis on Raimundo Nina Rodrigues.
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#2638

Tiziana Dearing

#192254
Overall Influence
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#2639

Marisa Morán Jahn

#126919
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Marisa Morán Jahn, also known as Marisa Jahn is an American multimedia artist, writer, and educator based in New York City. She is a co-founder and president of Studio REV-, a nonprofit arts organization that creates public art and creative media to impact the lives of low-wage workers, immigrants, youth, and women. She teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a lecturer, Teachers College of Columbia University, and The New School. Jahn has edited three books about art and politics.
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#2640

Gerben Moerman

Gerben Moerman
#141278
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Gerben Albert Moerman is a Dutch sociologist who teaches at the University of Amsterdam . His specialty is sociological methodology, and he is member of the UvA group for Dynamics of Citizenship and Culture. He is considered something of an expert on breaching, and has drawn attention for a hobby of his--the Paul is dead conspiracy theory. In 2012, he was chosen as UvA teacher of the year; he was praised for being able to interest his students in the unpopular subject of sociological methodology, and for linking theory to society and continually surprising his students.
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#2641

Celeste Kaplan

#86734
Overall Influence
Celeste Strack Kaplan , was an American social worker, educator, and activist. From 1973 to 1982, she was executive director for El Nido Family Services, and in 1983 helped found and served as the initial president of the Los Angeles Roundtable for Children until 1990. She was also a professor at the University of Southern California School for Social Work from 1983 to 1990, and helped create the LA County Department of Children and Family Services in 1984. In 2012 she was selected for the Social Work Hall of Distinction.
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#2642

Giaco Schiesser

#51423
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Giaco Schiesser is a Zurich-based theorist of cultural and media studies. He is a professor emeritus for cultural theory and media theory and for artistic research of Zurich University of the Arts, ZHdK .
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#2643

Charles Heckscher

#44219
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Charles Heckscher is a professor in the Department of Labor Studies and Employment at Rutgers University, and director of the Center for Workplace Transformation at Rutgers. Early life Heckscher was born October 2, 1949. He is the son of August Heckscher II, the former Parks Commissioner of New York City, and Claude Heckscher. He is also the grandson of Gustave Maurice Heckscher, a pioneer aviator with seaplanes and real estate developer, and the great-grandson of August Heckscher, a German-born American capitalist and philanthropist.
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#2644

Lydia X. Z. Brown

Lydia X. Z. Brown
#102066
Overall Influence
1993 - Present (31 years)
Lydia X. Z. Brown is an American autistic disability rights activist, writer, attorney, and public speaker who was honored by the White House in 2013. They are the chairperson of the American Bar Association Civil Rights & Social Justice Disability Rights Committee. They are also Policy Counsel for Privacy & Data at the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Director of Policy, Advocacy, & External Affairs at the Autistic Women & Nonbinary Network. In 2022, they unsuccessfully ran for the Maryland House of Delegates in District 7A, losing to state delegate Kathy Szeliga and delegate-elect Ry...
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#2645

Natascha McNamara

#89212
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Natascha Duschene McNamara is an Ngarrindjeri Australian academic, activist, and researcher. She co-founded the Aboriginal Training and Cultural Institute in Balmain, New South Wales and served as President of the Aboriginal Children's Advancement Society Ltd. Her affiliations include: Fellowship, Centre of Indigenous Development Education and Research, University of Wollongong ; member, Australian Press Council; and Member, Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Council.
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#2646

Juliette Sméralda

#40406
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Juliette Sméralda is a French Afro-descendant sociologist. Publications L'Indo-Antillais entre Noirs et Békés, Éditions L'Harmattan La société martiniquaise entre ethnicité et citoyenneté, Éditions L'Harmattan Du cheveu défrisé au cheveu crépu, Éditions Publibook, Paris, 2012.Peau noire cheveu crépu, l'histoire d'une aliénation, Éditions Jasor La racisation des relations intergroupes ou la problématique de la couleur. Le cas de la Martinique, Éditions L'Harmattan La question de l’immigration indienne dans son environnement socio-économique martiniquais : 1848-1900, Éditions L'Harmattan Guadeloupe Martinique, des sociétés en révolte.
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#2647

Soledad Bianchi

Soledad Bianchi
#191772
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Soledad Bianchi is a Chilean sociologist specialized in the sociology of literature. She went into exile in France during the military dictatorship era. Sources
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#2648

Dorothy McKnight

#142264
Overall Influence
Dorothy "Dottie" B. McKnight worked as the executive director of the United States Women's Lacrosse Association and the National Association for Girls and Women in Sports, a university professor, a varsity coach, and an advocate for sex equity in athletics.
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#2649

Ed Rosenthal

Ed Rosenthal
#76312
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Edward "Ed" Rosenthal is an American horticulturist, author, publisher, and Cannabis grower known for his advocacy for the legalization of marijuana use. He served as a columnist for High Times Magazine during the 1980s and 1990s. He was arrested in 2002 for cultivation of cannabis by federal authorities, who do not recognize the authority of states to regulate the use of medical marijuana. He was convicted in federal court, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. Rosenthal was subsequently convicted again, but was not re-sentenced, since his original sentence had been completed.
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#2650

Hans Freyer

Hans Freyer
1887 - 1969 (82 years)
Hans Freyer was a German conservative revolutionary sociologist and philosopher. Life Freyer began studying theology, national economics, history and philosophy at the University of Greifswald in 1907, with the aim of becoming a Lutheran theologian. A year later he moved to Leipzig, where he initially took the same courses, but then gave up the theological parts. He gained his doctorate in 1911. His early works on the philosophy of life had an influence on the German youth movement. In 1920 he qualified as a university lecturer, and in 1922 he became a professor at the university of Kiel.
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