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 female people in Education,
#51
Bel Kaufman
#7427
Overall Influence
1911 - 2014 (103 years)
Bella Kaufman was an American teacher and author, well known for writing the bestselling 1964 novel Up the Down Staircase. Early life Bella's father, Michael Kaufman and her mother, Lala Kaufman were both from Russia and married in 1909. Bella Kaufman was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1911, where her father was studying medicine. The family subsequently returned to Russia where her father completed his studies. Her father eventually became a physician, and her mother, the second-oldest daughter of famed Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, later established herself as a writer under the name Lala...
Go to Profile#52
Nirmala Erevelles
#54790
Overall Influence
Nirmala Erevelles is a Professor in the Social Foundations of Education and Instructional Department of Education Leadership, Policy, and Technology Studies at the University of Alabama. She publishes about various topics related to disability, in particular the ways social oppression is pervasive due to differences in race, socioeconomic status, and bodies.
Go to Profile#53
Saryu Doshi
#27759
Overall Influence
1932 - Present (92 years)
Saryu Vinod Doshi is an Indian art scholar, art historian, academic and curator, known for her erudition in Indian miniature paintings and Jain art. She is the founder director of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and a former pro-tem chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi. She is the author of several books including Masterpieces of Jain Painting, a monograph on selected Jain art pieces. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri, in 1999.
Go to Profile#54
Donna Alvermann
#17485
Overall Influence
Donna Alvermann is an American educator and researcher in the field of Language and Literacy Education whose work focuses on adolescent literacy in and out of school, inclusive of new media and digital literacies. Her most recent research interest involves developing historical-autobiographical methods for uncovering silences in scholarly writing that mask more than they disclose. She is the Omer Clyde and Elizabeth Parr Aderhold Professor in Education in the Mary Frances Early College of Education at the University of Georgia . She is also a UGA-appointed Distinguished Research Professor in t...
Go to Profile#55
Nurit Peled-Elhanan
#19135
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli philologist, professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, translator, and activist. She is a 2001 co-laureate of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought awarded by the European Parliament. She is known for her research on the portrayal of Palestinians in Israeli textbooks, which she has criticized as being anti-Palestinian. Elhanan supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and has made highly controversial statements, including equivocating between Zionism and ISIS, as well as criticizing Israeli laureate and peace activist AB Yehoshua for being an obstacle to peace.
Go to Profile#56
Kathleen P. King
#72690
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Kathleen P. King is an American author and educator. As of 2006, she was a professor and director of Fordham University's Regional Educational Technology Center , Center for Professional Development and Program Director of the graduate program in Adult Education and Human Resource Development at the Graduate School of Education.
Go to Profile#57
Edna Ahgeak MacLean
#43431
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Edna Ahgeak MacLean or Paniattaaq is an Iñupiaq academic administrator, linguist, anthropologist and educator from Alaska, who has specialized in the preservation and revitalization of the Iñupiaq language.
Go to Profile#58
Carol S. Pearson
#28124
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Carol S. Pearson is an American author and educator. She develops new theories and models with an applied practical bent, building on the work of psychiatrist C. G. Jung, psychoanalyst James Hillman, mythologist Joseph Campbell, and other depth psychologists.
Go to Profile#59
Nurhan Atasoy
#20927
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
Nurhan Atasoy is a Turkish art historian. She specializes in history of Ottoman and Islamic art. She served as a chair in the Department of Fine Arts, Archeology and Art History at Istanbul University until 1999 when she retired. She is a resident scholar of the Turkish Cultural Foundation.
Go to Profile#60
Marie Clay
#43151
Overall Influence
1926 - 2007 (81 years)
Dame Marie Mildred Clay was a researcher from New Zealand known for her work in educational literacy. She was committed to the idea that children who struggle to learn to read and write can be helped with early intervention. A clinical psychologist, she developed the Reading Recovery intervention, a whole language programme in New Zealand, and expanded it worldwide.
Go to Profile#61
Stephanie Mitelman
#40591
Overall Influence
1976 - Present (48 years)
Stephanie Mitelman Bercovitch is a Canadian sex education and family life education professor, public speaker, entrepreneur, sex educator, and author specializing in special education, particularly for youth with autism spectrum disorders. She is the owner and creator of Senseez Pillows, a company making vibrating pillows for people with sensory needs, and Sex Ed Mart, a sex education publishing and distribution company specializing in sex education for youth with special needs. Bercovitch also runs a private sex education practice for youth on the autism spectrum, their parents, and couples...
Go to Profile#62
Bettina L. Love
#60168
Overall Influence
Bettina L. Love is an American author and academic. She is the William F. Russell Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she has been instrumental in establishing abolitionist teaching in schools. According to Love, abolitionist teaching refers to restoring humanity for children in schools. Love also advocates eliminating the billion-dollar industry of standardized testing.
Go to Profile#63
Betty Reardon
#32220
Overall Influence
1929 - Present (95 years)
Betty A. Reardon was an American teacher and the founder and director of the Peace Education Center and Peace Education Graduate Degree Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She was a leader in peace education and a scholar in human rights education at the primary and secondary levels. Along with Elise Boulding and Cynthia Enloe, she was also considered part of the "pioneering generation of women in peace studies" because of her efforts to highlight the dominance of "white haired wise men" in the field, and her desire to make women’s ideas and issues a central part of the debate on world peace.
Go to Profile#64
Janina Ramirez
#15442
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Janina Sara Maria Ramirez , sometimes credited as Nina Ramirez, is a British art historian, cultural historian, and TV presenter. She specialises in interpreting symbols and examining works of art within their historical context.
Go to Profile#65
Miriam Ben-Peretz
#47728
Overall Influence
1927 - 2020 (93 years)
Miriam Ben-Peretz is an Israeli academician specializing in education. Ben-Peretz is Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Haifa and is a 2006 winner of the Israel Prize in the field of education. She is former Dean of the School of Education at the University of Haifa, and past President of Tel-Hai Academic College. In 1997 Ben-Peretz was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Educational Research Association.
Go to Profile#66
Bettye Caldwell
#61128
Overall Influence
1924 - 2016 (92 years)
Bettye McDonald Caldwell was an American educator and academic who influenced the development of Head Start. She was the 1993 recipient of the Society for Research in Child Development's Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy for Children.
Go to Profile#67
Amelia Jones
#11100
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Amelia Jones , originally from Durham, North Carolina, is an American art historian, art theorist, art critic, author, professor and curator. Her research specialisms include feminist art, body art, performance art, video art, identity politics, and New York Dada. Jones's earliest work established her as a feminist scholar and curator, including through a pioneering exhibition and publication concerning the art of Judy Chicago; later, she broadened her focus on other social activist topics including race, class and identity politics. Jones has contributed significantly to the study of art and ...
Go to Profile#68
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
#32857
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is an American sociologist who examines the culture of schools, the patterns and structures of classroom life, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles. She is the Emily Hargroves Fisher professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a 1984 MacArthur Genius.
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Jane den Hollander
#31039
Overall Influence
Jane Elizabeth den Hollander is an Australian University Administrator and was the sixth Vice-Chancellor of Deakin University. Den Hollander is currently serving as the Interim Vice Chancellor of Murdoch University.
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Marybeth Gasman
#49218
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Marybeth Gasman is Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education and a Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. She was appointed as Associate Dean for Research in the Rutgers Graduate School of Education in the fall of 2021 and was elected Chair of the Rutgers University-New Brunswick Faculty Council in 2021. In addition to these roles, Gasman is the Executive Director of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity, & Justice as well as the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions.
Go to Profile#71
Jo Ann Rooney
#37215
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Jo Ann Rooney is an American educator with a background in higher education, law, business, health care, and public service. On May 23, 2016, she was named the 24th president of Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit, Catholic university in Chicago, Illinois. Rooney is the first lay, non-Jesuit president of the university in its history and began her term as president on August 1, 2016. On August 23, 2021, she announced in a statement that the current school year will be her last as President of the University. Dr. Rooney's tenure at Loyola ended on September 30, 2022.
Go to Profile#72
Stephanie Pace Marshall
#41927
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Stephanie Anne Pace Marshall , is an American educator and the founding president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. Education Stephanie Anne Pace was born to Dominick Martin and Anne Pace in the Bronx, New York on July 19, 1945, and grew up in the New York city area. She graduated from East Meadow High School in 1963. Pace attended Muhlenberg College from 1963 to 1965 before transferring to Queens College, City University of New York where she completed a B.A. in education and sociology in 1967. In 1971, she earned an M.A. in curriculum philosophy from the University of Chicago.
Go to Profile#73
Cláudia Costin
#35629
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Cláudia Maria Costin is a Brazilian academic and civil servant. The daughter of Maurício and Lídia Costin, she was born in São Paulo. She is of Romanian descent. Costin studied public administration at the Escola de Administração de Empresas de São Paulo and, in 1986, received a master's degree in economics from the same institution. While a student, she was active in the Partido Comunista do Brasil and was arrested twice. She was a co-founder of the .
Go to Profile#74
Becky Francis
#52019
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Rebecca Jane Francis, is a British educationalist and academic, who specialises in educational inequalities. Since January 2020, she has been Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation . Before joining the EEF, she was Director of the UCL Institute of Education at University College London. She has also taught and researched at the University of Greenwich, London Metropolitan University, Roehampton University, and King's College London. She has also been Director of Education at the Royal Society of Arts and an advisor to the Education Select Committee of the House of Commons sin...
Go to Profile#75
Tara Brabazon
#47058
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Tara Brabazon is Dean of Graduate Research and Professor of Cultural Studies at Charles Darwin University, in Darwin, Australia, moving from the same position at Flinders University in 2023. She has previously held academic positions in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, won six teaching awards, published 20 books, and written 250 refereed articles and contributed essays and opinion pieces on higher education and the arts.
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Nevra Necipoğlu
#13451
Overall Influence
Nevra Necipoğlu is a Turkish historian of the Byzantine Empire who is a professor of history at Boğaziçi University. Early life and education She was educated and graduated from Robert College. She then graduated from Wellesley College with a double major in History and Economics in 1982. She received her Ph.D. in Byzantine History from Harvard University in 1990. She is the sister of Gülru Necipoğlu, who is the Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Art and director of the Aga Khan Program of Islamic Architecture at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#77
Lynn Fuchs
#50369
Overall Influence
Lynn Fuchs is an educational psychologist known for research on instructional practice and assessment, reading disabilities, and mathematics disabilities. She is the Dunn Family Chair in Psychoeducational Assessment in the Department of Special Education at Vanderbilt University.
Go to Profile#78
Mary Ellen Mazey
#29253
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Mary Ellen Mazey is an American academic who is President Emeritus of Bowling Green State University. Career Mazey served as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Auburn University, as Dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University, and as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Wright State University. In 1996-1997, Mazey was the appointed Director of the Office of University Partnerships for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development . In that capacity, she had oversight of HUD's $25 million in grant programs to colleges and universities across the country.
Go to Profile#79
Dorothy Heathcote
#55627
Overall Influence
1926 - 2011 (85 years)
Dorothy Heathcote MBE was a British drama teacher and academic who used the method of "teacher in role" as an approach to teaching across the curriculum in schools and later in other settings. She was a highly accomplished teacher of theatre and drama for learning and amongst her many achievements she defined and developed "mantle of the expert" as an approach to teaching. The book she wrote with Gavin Bolton, that explains her Mantle of the expert approach to education, is Drama for Learning . The most significant previous book that explains her approach was written by Betty Jane Wagner a...
Go to Profile#80
Mary Bunting
#28391
Overall Influence
1910 - 1998 (88 years)
Mary Ingraham Bunting was a bacterial geneticist and an influential American college president; Time profiled her as the magazine's November 3, 1961, cover story. She became Radcliffe College's fifth president in 1960 and was responsible for fully integrating women into Harvard University.
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Marie Battiste
#59714
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Marie Ann Battiste is an author and educator working as a professor in Canada at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Educational Foundations. From the Potlotek First Nation in Nova Scotia, Battiste is the daughter of Mi'kmaq parents John and Annie Battiste and is one of four children. Battiste was raised in Houlton, Maine, where she attended high school graduating in 1967. From there she went on to the University of Maine graduating from the Farmington campus in 1971 with her teaching certificate and a bachelor of science in both elementary and junior high education. She went...
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Eve Ewing
#31926
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (38 years)
Eve Louise Ewing is an American sociologist, author, poet, and visual artist from Chicago, Illinois. Ewing is a tenured professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. Her academic research in the sociology of education includes her 2018 book, Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago's South Side, a study of school closures in Chicago. She is the former editor at Seven Scribes and the author of the poetry collection Electric Arches which was released in September 2017. In 2019, she published 1919, a poetry collection centered around the Chicago race riot of 1919.
Go to Profile#83
Marian Small
#45413
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Marian Small is a Canadian educational researcher, academic, author, and public speaker. She has co-authored mathematics textbooks used in Canada, Austria, and the United States, and is a proponent of a constructivist approach to mathematical instruction within K–12 classrooms.
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Butet Manurung
#51886
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Butet Manurung or Saur Marlina Manurung is a pioneer for alternative education for indigenous people in isolated and remote areas in Indonesia. Like other young Batak girls, she was called "Butet". Therefore, she is well known as Butet Manurung.
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Cecilia Nembou
#38467
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Cecilia Nembou is an educator and women's rights advocate from Papua New Guinea. Background Nembou trained as a mathematician, receiving a BSc in Mathematics from the University of Papua New Guinea , MSc in Operations Research from the University of Sussex , and PGDip in Statistics from Canberra College of Advanced Education . In 1992 she received her PhD in Operations Research from the University of New South Wales.
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Kristine Stiles
#12489
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Kristine Stiles is the France Family Distinguished Professor of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University. She is an art historian, curator, and artist specializing in global contemporary art and trauma. Her most recent book is Concerning Consequences: Studies in Art, Destruction, and Trauma, University of Chicago Press, 2016. She is best known for her scholarship on artists’ writings, performance art, feminism, destruction and violence in art, and trauma in art. Stiles joined the faculty of Duke in 1988, and she has taught at the University of Bucharest and Venice International University.
Go to Profile#87
Angela Little
#69381
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Angela W. Little is Professor Emerita at the Institute of Education, University of London. She is known for her work in primary education policy and practice in developing countries as well as education planning, program evaluation and assessment. In particular she has focussed in seven main areas:Education for All and the Millennium Development GoalsMultigrade educationGlobalisation and educationQualifications, motivation and aspirationsEducation in Sri LankaEducation in ChinaEducation and developmentShe has been adviser to various governmental, multilateral and non-profit organisations on ed...
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Mieke Bal
#8444
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Maria Gertrudis "Mieke" Bal is a Dutch cultural theorist, video artist, and Professor Emerita in Literary Theory at the University of Amsterdam. Previously she also was Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and co-founder of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam.
Go to Profile#89
Ingrid Moses
#31991
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Ingrid Moses , an Australian academic and former university administrator, is an emeritus professor at the University of Canberra. After a long academic career in Australia, Moses served as the Chancellor of the University of Canberra between 2006 and 2011.
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Astrid S. Tuminez
#37960
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Mary Astrid Segovia Tuminez is the seventh president of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, and its first female president. Early life and education Astrid Tuminez was born in a small island village in Iloilo province, the Philippines. Though raised in extreme poverty as the sixth of seven children, she received a scholarship at the age of five to attend a private school run by Catholic nuns, along with her older siblings. She credits much of her success and accomplishments to this pivotal moment in her life, and is passionate in her belief that education enables individuals to fulfill the...
Go to Profile#91
Anita Brookner
#13567
Overall Influence
1928 - 2016 (88 years)
Anita Brookner was an English novelist and art historian. She was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge from 1967 to 1968 and was the first woman to hold this visiting professorship. She was awarded the 1984 Booker–McConnell Prize for her novel Hotel du Lac.
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Laura Bush
#22646
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Laura Lane Bush is the wife of George W. Bush and served as the first lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009. Bush previously served as the first lady of Texas from 1995 to 2000. She is also the daughter-in-law of former president George H. W. Bush.
Go to Profile#93
Diana Hess
#62386
Overall Influence
Diana Hess is the dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Education. Career Hess earned her bachelor's degree from Western Illinois University, master's from the University of Illinois, and In 1998, a doctorate from the University of Washington College of Education. She taught high school social studies before becoming an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education in 1999. Her doctoral dissertation focused on teachers who excelled at facilitating classroom discussions of controversial issues She researches school civic education programs and their effect on civic engagement, particularly when discussing controversial political issues.
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Hanan Al Hroub
#73375
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Hanan Al Hroub is a Palestinian teacher who in 2016 was the second winner of the Global Teacher Prize, which specialises in supporting children traumatised by violence. Career She grew up in the Dheisheh Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem, where she experienced and saw violent acts, and her own children were traumatized by a shooting incident in which her husband was shot in his car on an Israeli army checkpoint. She was studying English at university and wanted to become a translator. She decided to work in education after her 9-year-old twins, and her 6-year-old son were shot at by Israeli soldiers in October at the outset of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Go to Profile#95
Ellen Moir
#93708
Overall Influence
Ellen Moir is the founder and CEO of The New Teacher Center. Established in 1998, the Center is devoted to the development, induction, and mentoring of beginning teachers. Professional career Moir began her career as a bilingual teacher in Santa Paula, California in 1972. In 1978, she became supervisor of teacher education at UCSC, and a lecturer in the education department. From 1985 to 2000, Moir was Director of Teacher Education at UCSC.
Go to Profile#96
Gail Dinter-Gottlieb
#50808
Overall Influence
Gail Dinter-Gottlieb is an American university administrator who served as the 14th president and vice-chancellor of Acadia University until February 2008. A native of Port Chester, New York, Dinter-Gottlieb was educated at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, Northeastern University, Weizmann Institute of Science, and the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Go to Profile#97
Muzoon Almellehan
#58799
Overall Influence
1999 - Present (25 years)
Muzoon Almellehan is a Syrian activist and refugee resettled in the United Kingdom. She is known for her work to keep Syrian girls in school, and has been referred to as the "Malala of Syria". In June 2017, she became the youngest GoodWill Ambassador of UNICEF.
Go to Profile#98
Mrunalini Devi Puar
#38092
Overall Influence
1931 - 2015 (84 years)
Mrunalini Devi Puar was an Indian educator and Chancellor of a recognized Indian university with more than 35,000 students. Biography Puar was an educator and Maharani of Dhar State. She was a member of the Gaekwad dynasty, the former ruling clan of Baroda State and also a member of the Puar dynasty of Dhar, both former Maratha princely states. She was married to Maharaja Anand Rao IV Puar, the Maharaja of Dhar State. She was chancellor of the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. She succeeded her brother Fatehsinghrao Gaekwad, Maharaja of Baroda, as chancellor when he died in 1988.
Go to Profile#99
Shirley R. Steinberg
#61510
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Shirley R. Steinberg is an educator, author, activist, filmmaker, and public speaker whose work focuses on critical pedagogy, transformative leadership, social justice, and cultural studies. She has written and edited numerous books and articles about equitable pedagogies and leadership, urban and youth culture, community studies, cultural studies, Islamophobia, and issues of inclusion, race, class, gender, and sexuality. Steinberg was the Research Chair of Critical Youth Studies at the University of Calgary for two terms, executive director of the Freire Project freireproject.org, and a visiting researcher at University of Barcelona and Murdoch University.
Go to Profile#100
Alison Fuller
#54394
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Alison Fuller is a British educational researcher and Professor of Vocational Education and Work at the Institute of Education of the University College London and, where she also serves as Pro-Director for Research and Development. She is a leading educational researcher in the UK, with her research centering on work transitions, apprenticeships, vocational education and training, and workplace learning.
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