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,

#351

Kenneth Westhues

#7601

Overall Influence

Kenneth Westhues is a Canadian sociologist. He is a professor emeritus of Sociology at the University of Waterloo, where he was the chair of the department from 1975 to 1978. He is the author or editor of several books about workplace bullying in academia.

#352

Wolf Lepenies

#16786

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Wolf Lepenies is a German sociologist, political scientist, and author. Biography Lepenies was born near Allenstein, East Prussia , in 1945 his family fled from the Soviet Army's assault on East Prussia to Schleswig-Holstein and from there to North Rhine-Westfalia. He eventually grew up in Koblenz. He studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia and graduated with a promotion in 1967. In 1970 he habilitated at the Free University of Berlin. He traveled abroad, first to the Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris, then to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

#353

Rüdiger Lautmann

Rüdiger Lautmann

#19126

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Rüdiger Lautmann is a German professor of sociology and one of the most prominent LGBT scholars in Germany. Biography Born in Koblenz, Lautmann lived during his childhood in Düsseldorf, where he went to school. He first studied German law. After he finished his law studies, he started a second study in sociology. Lautmann worked after university studies first in Münster and then in Bielefeld . In 1971 he became then professor in sociology at University of Bremen. In 2001 Lautmann retired as professor.

#354

Tamotsu Shibutani

#25105

Overall Influence

1920 - 2004 (84 years)

Tamotsu Shibutani was a Japanese American sociologist working on the tradition of symbolic interactionism. Biography Born in 1920, Shibutani majored in sociology and philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. He was sent with his family to the Tule Lake internment camp in 1942 during World War II, following the signing of Executive Order 9066.

#355

Nathan Glazer

#5841

Overall Influence

1923 - 2019 (96 years)

Nathan Glazer was an American sociologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and for several decades at Harvard University. He was a co-editor of the now-defunct policy journal The Public Interest.

#356

Andreas Reckwitz

#19193

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (54 years)

Andreas Reckwitz is a German sociologist and cultural theorist. He is professor at the institute of social sciences at Humboldt University Berlin. Life Reckwitz studied sociology, Political science and philosophy in Bonn, Hamburg and Cambridge. He graduated 1994 in Cambridge, overseen by Anthony Giddens. He achieved his Dr. phil. in 1999 at Hamburg University. From 2001 to 2005 he worked there as assistant professor at the sociological faculty. In 2005 he became professor for sociology and sociology of culture at Konstanz University, 2010 professor for sociology of culture at the Viadrina European University in Frankfurt .

#357

Claudia von Werlhof

#37562

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Claudia von Werlhof is a German sociologist and political scientist. She held the first professorship for women's studies in Austria, based at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Innsbruck.

#358

Vern Bullough

#9802

Overall Influence

1928 - 2006 (78 years)

Vern Leroy Bullough was an American historian and sexologist. He was a distinguished professor emeritus at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Faculty President at California State University, Northridge, a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, past Dean of natural and social sciences at the Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York, one of the founders of the American Association for the History of Nursing, and a member of the editorial board of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia.

#359

Tariq Modood

#16689

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Tariq Modood, is a British Pakistani Professor of Sociology, Politics, and Public Policy at the University of Bristol . Modood is the founding director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship and one of the leading authorities on ethnic minorities in Britain.

#360

Aldon Morris

#24200

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Aldon Douglas Morris is a professor of sociology and an award-winning scholar, with interests including social movements, civil rights, and social inequality. He is the 2021 president of the American Sociological Association.

#361

Meera Kosambi

#36610

Overall Influence

1939 - 2015 (76 years)

Meera Kosambi was an Indian sociologist. Biography She was the younger daughter of the illustrious intellectual, historian, linguist, statistician and mathematician, D.D. Kosambi, and granddaughter of Acharya Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, a Buddhist scholar and a Pāli language expert. Her mother's name was Nalini Kosambi . She received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Stockholm. She is the author of several books and articles on urban sociology and women's studies in India.

#362

Gert Spaargaren

#29757

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Gert Spaargaren is a Dutch professor at the Wageningen University, author, and editor. Spaargaren is from Aalsmeer, Netherlands, and is currently teaching Environmental Policy for sustainability and patterns of consumption in the Department of Social Sciences. His fields of expertise are Consumer Studies and Environmental policy.

#363

Flora Botton

#33118

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Flora Botton Beja is a Mexican sinologist and gender studies scholar. She was born in Greece, but acquired Spanish nationality through her parents and naturalized as Mexican after her arrival in Mexico in 1949. She was a co-founder of the gender studies and a pioneer of Oriental studies programs at El Colegio de México. She was one of the first academics to focus on China in Mexico and Latin America. Her works have widely been influential in the region and she was one of the founders of the Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios de Asia y África .

#364

Sheldon Stryker

#23086

Overall Influence

1924 - 2016 (92 years)

Sheldon Stryker was an American sociologist. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on May 26, 1924, Stryker was raised by his grandfather and his aunts after his mother died. He sought to enlist in the United States Army in 1942, but was rejected due to bad vision. Stryker was drafted and became a combat medic the next year. After World War II ended, he enrolled at the University of Minnesota to study social work. Stryker changed his major to sociology later completed a doctorate in the subject at UM in 1955. He taught at Indiana University, Bloomington from 1950 to 2002. Stryker served as editor in c...

#365

Elijah Anderson

#11414

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Elijah Anderson is an American sociologist. He is the Sterling Professor of Sociology and of African American Studies at Yale University, where he teaches and directs the Urban Ethnography Project. Anderson is one of the nation’s leading urban ethnographers and cultural theorists. Anderson is known most notably for his book, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City .

#366

Larry Diamond

#6052

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Larry Jay Diamond is an American political sociologist and leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University's main center for research on international issues. At the Institute Diamond served as the director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law from 2009-2016. He was succeeded in that role by Francis Fukuyama and then Kathryn Stoner.

#367

Paul James

#3653

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Paul James is Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity at Western Sydney University, and Director of the Institute for Culture and Society where he has been since 2014. He is a writer on global politics, globalization, sustainability, and social theory.

#368

Marvin Wolfgang

#20340

Overall Influence

1924 - 1998 (74 years)

Marvin Eugene Wolfgang was an American sociologist and criminologist. Biography Wolfgang was a soldier in World War II and participated in the Battle of Monte Cassino. After the war he studied at Dickinson College, graduating in 1948, and the University of Pennsylvania, where his principal teacher was Thorsten Sellin. At Penn, Wolfgang took his MA and PhD in sociology/criminology. Until his death in 1998 he was a professor of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania.

#369

Akihiro Kitada

#43903

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Akihiro Kitada is a Japanese sociologist and an associate professor at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2004. Before he took his current position in 2003, he was teaching at the University of Tsukuba. He was a visiting professor at Leipzig University in 2011.

#370

Joe Feagin

#8567

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

#371

Antonina Kłoskowska

#29255

Overall Influence

1919 - 2001 (82 years)

Antonina Kłoskowska , was a Polish sociologist. In her work, she focused on the sociology of culture. Kłoskowska taught at the universities Łódź and Warsaw . She was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1973 and worked in its Institute for Political Studies since 1990. Since 1983, she edited the journal Kultura i Społeczeństwo. From 1989 until 1993, she was the president of the Polish Sociological Association. With Władysław Markiewicz and others, Kłoskowska co-edited a multi-volume Polish complete edition of Bronisław Malinowski's works which appeared 1984-1990.

#372

Carol Smart

#13243

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Carol Christine Smart is a feminist sociologist and academic at the University of Manchester. She has also conducted research about divorce and children of divorced couples. Smart is an important figure within the feminist criminology world. Her book titled Women, Crime and Criminology, written in 1976, remains a key feminist critique of criminology. Smart was also the co-director of the Morgan Centre for the Study of Relationships and Personal Life at Manchester.

#373

Amina Mama

#18171

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Amina Mama is a Nigerian-British writer, feminist and academic. Her main areas of focus have been post-colonial, militarist and gender issues. She has lived in Africa, Europe, and North America, and worked to build relationships between feminist intellectuals across the globe.

#374

Jason Hughes

#43577

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Jason Hughes is a British professor of Sociology at University of Leicester, elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Science, appointed Member of the Academy of Europe, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Previously, he worked as a Senior Lecturer at Brunel University in West London.

#375

Enrico Quarantelli

#39600

Overall Influence

1924 - 2017 (93 years)

Enrico L. Quarantelli was an American sociologist, pioneering the sociology of disaster. Education Quarantelli received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1959. From 1963 to 1984 he worked as professor of sociology at the Ohio State University, where he founded the Disaster Research Center . In 1985 he took the DRC to the University of Delaware, where he worked until 1998.

#376

Brittney Cooper

Brittney Cooper

#38602

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Brittney Cooper is a tenured professor of Women and Gender Studies, author, professor, activist, and cultural critic. Her areas of research and work include black women organizations, black women intellectuals, and hip-hop feminism. In 2013 and 2014, she was named to the Root.com's Root 100, an annual list of top Black influencers.

#377

Barrington Moore Jr.

Barrington Moore Jr.

#9747

Overall Influence

1913 - 2005 (92 years)

Barrington Moore Jr. was an American political sociologist, and the son of forester Barrington Moore. He is well-known for his Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy , a comparative study of modernization in Britain, France, the United States, China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and India. The book puts forth a neo-Marxist argument that class structures and class alliances at particular points in time can account for the kinds of social revolutions that occurred and did not occur in those countries, putting some countries on a path to democracy, whereas others were put on a path to authoritarianism or communism.

#378

Francesco Alberoni

Francesco Alberoni

#12238

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Francesco Alberoni was an Italian journalist and a professor of sociology. He was a board member and senior board member of RAI, the Italian state television network, from 2002 to 2005. Alberoni was among the few regular front page writers of Corriere della Sera, Italy's most popular newspaper, which published his articles from 1973 to 2011. He wrote a four-column editorial titled "Public & Private" for the Monday edition. He was the widower of Rosa Giannetta.

#379

Ann Mische

#42655

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

#380

Linton Freeman

#23702

Overall Influence

1927 - 2018 (91 years)

Linton Clarke Freeman was an American structuralist sociologist known for his pioneering work in social networks. He was an emeritus professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Freeman developed the first measure of betweenness centrality. He was the founding editor of the journal Social Networks which began publishing in 1979.

#381

Lars Clausen

#27200

Overall Influence

1935 - 2010 (75 years)

Lars Michael Clausen was a German sociologist and professor at the University of Kiel. Life and work During World War II, the family lived on the Darß . 1944 his father Jürgen Clausen, a movie producer, was killed in action; his mother Rosemarie Clausen, a famous photographer, fled with her three children 1945 to Hamburg, where Lars Clausen attended the Christianeum. 1955, he took up Business, Economics, Sociology, and History at the universities of Berlin , Cologne, and Hamburg. 1960, he took his first degree in business in Hamburg . He got both his doctorate and post-doctoral degree at the University of Münster in sociology, having done field work in Zambian industries, 1964—65.

#382

Peter Flora

#24562

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Peter Flora is an Austrian citizen and taught until his retirement in spring 2009 as a professor of sociology at the University of Mannheim. Peter Flora is a son of the Austrian drawer, caricaturist, graphic artist and illustrator Paul Flora.

#383

Claude Dubar

#22566

Overall Influence

1945 - 2015 (70 years)

Claude Dubar was a French sociologist. Biography After his teaching experience at Beirut, Lebanon in 1974, he joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research and became Docent at the Lille University of Science and Technology in 1977. His thesis, under the direction of Raymond Boudon, focuses on vocational training in France

#384

Bobby Seale

#455

Overall Influence

1936 - Present (88 years)

Robert George Seale is an American political activist and author. Seale is widely known for co-founding the Black Panther Party with fellow activist Huey P. Newton. Founded as the "Black Panther Party for Self-Defense", the Party's main practice was monitoring police activities and challenging police brutality in Black communities, first in Oakland, California, and later in cities throughout the United States.

#385

Murray Arnold Straus

#59670

Overall Influence

#386

Erik Allardt

#32530

Overall Influence

1925 - 2020 (95 years)

Erik Anders Allardt was a Finnish sociologist. Allardt served as professor of sociology at the University of Helsinki between 1955 and 1991, and as chancellor of Åbo Akademi University between 1992 and 1994. He is one of the most well-known and internationally distinguished Nordic social scientists. In 1995, Allardt was awarded the honorary title of akateemikko. He was born in Helsinki, and died there on 25 August, 2020. He was a fellow of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1982. Allardt was the grandson of philologist Ivar Heikel.

#387

Alvin Ward Gouldner

#59870

Overall Influence

#388

David Finkelhor

#34230

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

David Finkelhor is an American sociologist known for his research into child sexual abuse and related topics. He is the director of the Crimes against Children Research Center, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory and professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire.

#389

Octavio Ianni

#21451

Overall Influence

1926 - 2004 (78 years)

Octavio Ianni , Brazilian sociologist graduated, mastered and doctored at the University of São Paulo and was one of the founders of Cebrap. Ianni was a pupil of Florestan Fernandes from whom he got great influence. These two sociologists and the former president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, are considered to be of great importance in Brazilian sociology. Octavio Ianni had his political rights suspended in 1969 by the Brazilian military government of the time, what made him unable to continue lecturing in Brazil, right which would be recovered only in 1977, in Pontifíca Universidade Católica de São Paulo .

#390

François de Singly

François de Singly

#35476

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

François de Singly was born in Dreux, is a French sociologist and professor of sociology at Paris Descartes University. He has worked a lot about family.

#391

John Thompson

#10286

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

John Brookshire Thompson is a British sociologist. He is a sociology professor at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College. Education Thompson gained his first degree in philosophy, sociology and social anthropology at Keele University in 1975. His PhD was from the University of Cambridge, obtained in 1979.

#392

Myra Marx Ferree

#28615

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Myra Marx Ferree is a former professor of sociology and director of the Center for German and European Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she was also a member of the Women's Studies Program. In 2005 she was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and in 2004 the Maria-Jahoda Visiting professor at the Ruhr University Bochum. Ferree retired in 2018.

#393

James Petras

#12476

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

James Petras is a retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who has published on political issues with particular focus on Latin America and the Middle East, imperialism, globalization, and leftist social movements.

#394

Riccardo Campa

#23844

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Riccardo Campa is Professor of Sociology at the University of Cracow. He possesses two Master of Arts degrees, in Political Science and Philosophy, from the University of Bologna and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. Prior to becoming an academic, Campa was a police lieutenant with Guardia di Finanza and a journalist for La Voce di Mantova and the newsmagazine Il Mondo . Since 2010 he is vice president of the Filomati Association in Italy.

#395

Tia DeNora

#36252

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Tia DeNora is Professor of Sociology of Music and Director of Research, in the Department of Sociology/Philosophy at the University of Exeter. Biography DeNora's undergraduate studies were in musicology and sociology. She completed her PhD in Sociology in 1989 at the University of California, San Diego. From then until 1992, she worked at University of Wales, Cardiff, where DeNora was a University of Wales Fellow from 1989-1991. DeNora moved to Exeter in 1992. DeNora was Chair of the European Sociological Association Network on Sociology of the Arts from 1999–2001 and is a Vice President of the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Sociology of the Arts.

#396

Erhard Blankenburg

Erhard Blankenburg

#21666

Overall Influence

1938 - 2018 (80 years)

Erhard Blankenburg was a German sociologist, specializing in the sociology of law. Education and career Blankenburg studied philosophy, sociology and German literature at the University of Freiburg and the Free University Berlin. He received an MA from the University of Oregon and a PhD from the University of Basel . After working as an assistant to the sociologist Heinrich Popitz at the University of Freiburg , he received there his habilitation . From 1975 to 1980, Blankenburg worked at the renowned Wissenschaftszentrums Berlin. In 1980 he became professor of sociology of law at the Free...

#397

Steven Yearley

#19117

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Steve Yearley is a British sociologist. He is Professor of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge at the University of Edinburgh, a post he has held since 2005. He has been designated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is currently Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities.

#398

David Held

#3501

Overall Influence

1951 - 2019 (68 years)

David Jonathan Andrew Held was a British political scientist who specialised in political theory and international relations. He held a joint appointment as Professor of Politics and International Relations, and was Master of University College, at Durham University until his death. He was also a visiting Professor of Political Science at Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli. Previously he was the Graham Wallas chair of Political Science and the co-director of the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics.

#399

Andrew Pickering

Andrew Pickering

#7787

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Andrew Pickering is a British sociologist, philosopher and historian of science at the University of Exeter. He was a professor of sociology and a director of science and technology studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign until 2007. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of London, and a doctorate in Science Studies from the University of Edinburgh. His book Constructing Quarks: A Sociological History of Particle Physics is a classic in the field of the sociology of science.

#400

Harold Wilensky

#24144

Overall Influence

1923 - 2011 (88 years)

Harold L. Wilensky was an American organizational sociologist, noted among other things for his pioneering work on organizational intelligence. He was Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the author of 13 books and 70 articles.

« Previous Next »

Image Attributions