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,
#151
Carol D. Lee
#77240
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Dr. Carol Diane Lee is an American professor, educational researcher, school director and author. Now retired, Lee was the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy, Professor of Learning Sciences, and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. Her scholarly interests focus on the influences of culture and literacy on education, particularly among students in the African-American community. She chairs the Board of Director of the Betty Shabbazz International Charter School, an institution she helped found.
Go to Profile#152
Barbara Uehling
#25699
Overall Influence
1932 - 2020 (88 years)
Barbara Uehling Charlton was an American educator and university administrator. She served as the 3rd chancellor and 17th chief executive officer of the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, Missouri. She was the first woman in the United States to lead a land-grant university. Before coming to Missouri, Uehling served as provost for the University of Oklahoma. After leaving the University of Missouri, she served as a senior visiting fellow on the American Council of Education in Washington D.C., and later served as chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Uehling and Rosemary S.
Go to Profile#153
Rosalind E. Krauss
#7306
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Rosalind Epstein Krauss is an American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Krauss is known for her scholarship in 20th-century painting, sculpture and photography. As a critic and theorist she has published steadily since 1965 in Artforum, Art International and Art in America. She was associate editor of Artforum from 1971 to 1974 and has been editor of October, a journal of contemporary arts criticism and theory that she co-founded in 1976.
Go to Profile#154
Carol Harter
#25586
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Carol Clancey Harter was an American academic administrator who was the 7th president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas . She is the longest-serving president in UNLV history, at 11 years. From New York, she held B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from Binghamton University as well as three honorary doctorates. She was succeeded as president of UNLV by David B. Ashley on July 1, 2006. Prior to her tenure at UNLV, Harter was the 11th president of SUNY Geneseo, where she was succeeded by Christopher Dahl. She served as a faculty member and in two vice presidential roles at Ohio University and is the author of numerous articles and co-author of two books.
Go to Profile#155
Barbara Doherty
#60842
Overall Influence
1931 - 2020 (89 years)
Barbara Doherty was an educator and theologian. A Roman Catholic religious sister, she was a member of the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. She was president of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College in Indiana from 1984 to 1998. Other posts have been as director of the Institute of Religious Formation at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, president of the Indiana Conference of Higher Education, and on national boards of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Women's College Coalition.
Go to Profile#156
Gwendolyn Cartledge
#101198
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Gwendolyn Cartledge is professor in the School of Physical Activity and Educational Services at the Ohio State University , specializing in methods for teaching social skills to children with and without disabilities
Go to Profile#157
Gunn Imsen
#112877
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Gunn Imsen is a Norwegian educationalist. She took her undergraduate education at the University of Oslo. She has been a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology since 1993. Notable publications include Elevenes verden. Innføring i pedagogisk psykologi and Lærerens verden. Innføring i generell didaktikk .
Go to Profile#158
Dottie Lamm
#43631
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Dorothy Louise Vennard Lamm is an American feminist, women's rights activist, educator, author, and speaker. She was First Lady of Colorado during her husband Richard Lamm's three terms as Governor of Colorado , and unsuccessfully ran for the United States Senate as the Colorado Democratic candidate in 1998. She wrote a weekly column for The Denver Post from 1979 to 1996 and later published three books. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1985.
Go to Profile#159
Bénédicte Savoy
#22969
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Bénédicte Savoy is a French art historian, specialising in the critical enquiry of the provenance of works of art, including looted art and other forms of illegally acquired cultural objects. Savoy is professor of modern art history at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. From 2016 to 2021, she was professor for cultural history of European Artistic Heritage from the 18th to 20th centuries at the Collège de France in Paris. Commissioned by the French president in 2018, she and economist and writer Felwine Sarr from Senegal are the authors of a report on the restitution of African cult...
Go to Profile#160
Mary M. Frasier
#62400
Overall Influence
1938 - 2005 (67 years)
Mary M. Frasier was a famous African American educator who specialized in the area of gifted education at the University of Georgia. Frasier was born May 17, 1938, in South Carolina. Frasier worked to elevate the educational standing of African Americans as well as other minority groups who pass through the educational system, and transformed how people viewed gifted children. She developed the Frasier Traits, Aptitudes, and Behaviors , which is an instrument used by many school systems to identify children for gifted educational services.
Go to Profile#161
Deborah Swallow
#47408
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Deborah Anne Swallow is a British educator, museum curator and academic. From 2004 to 2023, she was Märit Rausing Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art and its Gallery; she was its first female Director. She previously worked at the University of Cambridge and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Alongside education and curation, she is a proponent of the broadest possible appreciation of art and its histories, and a specialist in Indian art and anthropology.
Go to Profile#162
Suzanne Carrell
#76023
Overall Influence
1923 - 2019 (96 years)
Suzanne Carrell was an American educator and recipient of the awards of the Order of Academic Palms, the Legion of Honor, and the National Order of Merit in honor for her service to France. She was the co-founder of the Jacksonville, Florida chapter of the Alliance Française and was a key member of the Congress of French Culture in Florida, based in Orlando.
Go to Profile#163
Catherine McDermott
#38558
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Catherine McDermott is a Professor of Design at Kingston University in London, England. In 2001, McDermott set up a masters programme titled "Curating Contemporary Design" with Paul Thompson, then director of the Design Museum in London and now director of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York. Much of McDermott's personal research has focused on curating British design identity. She is the author of books and articles on design history.
Go to Profile#164
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
#30664
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
Elizabeth Cook-Lynn is an editor, essayist, poet, and novelist. She is considered to be outspoken in her views about Native American politics, particularly in regards to tribal sovereignty. She has criticized those who make tenuous claims to Native/Indigenous ancestry with the purpose of advancing their own careers, and described such claimants with no community connections as "tribeless". She believes they damage the development of economic and social life of Native nations.
Go to Profile#165
Katherine Schlick Noe
#99228
Overall Influence
Dr. Katherine L. Schlick Noe is Professor of Education and Director of Literacy in the College of Education at Seattle University. Education A former high school English and reading teacher, Schlick Noe received her Ph.D. in Reading/Language Arts from the University of Washington.
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Christine Rubie-Davies
#78223
Overall Influence
Christine Margaret Rubie-Davies is a New Zealand education academic, and as of 2014 is a full professor and head of school at the University of Auckland. Academic career After more than two decades working in primary education and a 2003 PhD titled 'Expecting the best : instructional practices, teacher beliefs and student outcomes' at the University of Auckland, Rubie-Davies joined the staff, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#167
Jemma Field
#35949
Overall Influence
Jemma Field is a historian and art historian from New Zealand. She studied for her PhD with Erin Griffey at the University of Auckland. She was subsequently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at Brunel University, London. She is currently Associate Director of Research at the Yale Center for British Art.
Go to Profile#168
Elizabeth Rata
#48009
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Elizabeth Mary Rata is a New Zealand academic who is a sociologist of education and a professor in the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland. Her views and research on Māori education and the place of indigenous knowledge in the New Zealand education system have received criticism from other academics, as per the academic process.
Go to Profile#169
Mary Lee Settle
#22669
Overall Influence
1918 - 2005 (87 years)
Mary Lee Settle was an American writer. She won the 1978 National Book Award for her novel Blood Tie. She was a founder of the annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. "Settle has gone so unnoticed by the academic community that the most recurrent subject among those few who have written about her is the fact that she has gone so unnoticed." Hurting Settle's reputation is that she does not fit clearly into any type of writer, and wrote on a wide variety of fields; this detracts from a writer's authority.
Go to Profile#170
Sandra Stotsky
#78945
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Sandra Stotsky is Professor emerita in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and held the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality. Her research ranges from teacher licensure tests, e.g., , coherence in the literature and reading curriculum, e.g., , and academic achievement in single-sex classrooms, e.g., to critiques of Common Core’s standards in English language arts, e.g., mathematics., and US History and civic education , and other aspects of the Common Core project, e.g., , and to reviews of books in education, e.g., She is an advocate of standards-based re...
Go to Profile#171
Barbara Maria Stafford
#42391
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Barbara Maria Stafford is an art historian whose research focuses on the developments in imaging arts, optical sciences, and performance technologies since the Enlightenment. Early life and education Stafford is of European parentage and was born in Vienna, Austria. Her family immigrated to the United States when she was seven, first living in Ft. Monroe, Virginia. However, her American stepfather's job as a military attaché caused the family to move every few years to postings in cities including Leghorn and Rome, Italy; Yokohama, Japan; Kilene, Texas; and Ft. Knox, Kentucky.
Go to Profile#172
Katherine Weare
#85415
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Katherine Weare is a Professor of Education at the University of Southampton, England. She was educated at the Grey Coat Hospital, Westminster, the University of Kent at Canterbury, Goldsmiths College, University of London and the Institute of Education, University of London. She began her career as a teacher of English and Drama in secondary schools, and moved into higher education at the age of 25. She has researched and written extensively on mental health, emotional wellbeing, emotional and social learning.
Go to Profile#173
Mary Garrard
#20690
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Mary DuBose Garrard is an American art historian and emerita professor at American University. She is recognized as "one of the founders of feminist art theory" and is particularly known for her work on the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi.
Go to Profile#174
Jill Biden
#44974
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden is an American educator who has been the first lady of the United States since 2021 as the wife of President Joe Biden. She was the second lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017 when her husband was vice president. Since 2009, Biden has been a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College, and is believed to be the first wife of a vice president or president to hold a salaried position during her husband's tenure.
Go to Profile#175
Norma Broude
#19251
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Norma Broude is an American art historian and scholar of feminism and 19th-century French and Italian painting. She is also a Professor Emerita of art history from American University. Broude, with Mary Garrard, is an early leader of the American feminist movement and both have redefined feminist art theory.
Go to Profile#176
Vanaja Iyengar
#62384
Overall Influence
1901 - 2001 (100 years)
Vanaja Iyengar was an Indian mathematician, educationist and the founder vice-chancellor of Sri Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalayam, Tirupati, in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. She was one of the founders of the Andhra Mahila Sabha School of Informatics. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1987.
Go to Profile#177
Vera King Farris
#45108
Overall Influence
1938 - 2009 (71 years)
Vera King Farris was the third president of the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey from May 25, 1983, to June 3, 2003. She was the first female African-American president of a New Jersey public college and one of the first in the nation.
Go to Profile#178
Margaret Carr
#107636
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Margaret Ann Carr is a New Zealand education academic. She is currently emeritus professor at the University of Waikato. Academic career After an undergraduate at the University of Waikato and Victoria University of Wellington, Carr completed a 1997 PhD titled Technological practice in early childhood as a dispositional milieu at Waikato.
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Carol Kuhlthau
#74789
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Carol Collier Kuhlthau is a retired American educator, researcher, and international speaker on learning in school libraries, information literacy, and information seeking behavior. Biography She was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S., Kuhlthau graduated from Kean University in 1959, completing a master's degree in Librarianship in 1974 at Rutgers University, and a doctorate in Education in 1983. She was on the faculty of the Rutgers University Department Library and Information Science for more than 20 years and Professor Emeritus since 2006.
Go to Profile#180
Miriam David
#72248
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Miriam E. David FRSA FAcSS is a British educator. She is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London and Associate Director of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme.
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Marilyn Fleer
#117377
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Marilyn Fleer is an Australian professor of early childhood education and development at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. She was awarded the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship by the Australian Research Council in 2018.
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Beryl Paston Brown
#87998
Overall Influence
1909 - 1997 (88 years)
Dame Beryl Paston Brown, was a British academic and educator. Career Beryl Paston Brown was born in London and educated at Streatham Hill High School and Newnham College, Cambridge. She did a teacher training course in London, however the Great Depression made it very difficult to secure a teaching post. As Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge University, from 1961–71, Dame Beryl was credited with having developed a contemporary, relatively liberal social and academic life for students, as well as a teaching course degree which was validated by London University. A proposal for the estab...
Go to Profile#183
Michael Ann Holly
#44338
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Michael Ann Holly is an American art historian who has worked on historiography and the theory of art history. Personal life Born in 1944 in Alton, Illinois, the daughter of Peggy and George Mueller, Holly worked at the Wesleyan University Press from 1963 to 1966 and the Center for Brain Research at the University of Rochester before beginning her academic career.
Go to Profile#184
Laurie Cutting
#81087
Overall Influence
Laurie Cutting is an American scholar of psychology and pediatrics. She is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Special Education, Psychology and Human Development, Radiology, and Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University. In addition, she is associate director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and a member of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, training faculty for Vanderbilt's Neuroscience Ph.D. program.
Go to Profile#185
Joan Garfield
#68630
Overall Influence
Joan B. Garfield is an American educational psychologist specializing in statistics education. She is retired from the University of Minnesota as a professor emeritus of educational psychology. Education Garfield entered the University of Wisconsin intending to study anthropology, but graduated in 1972 with a bachelor's degree in education and a minor in mathematics. She became a middle school mathematics teacher but, realizing she needed more preparation as a teacher, returned to graduate school. She chose the University of Minnesota hoping to work with Donovan Johnson, whose works she had read, but he had retired and she instead worked with his student Robert Jackson.
Go to Profile#186
Leonie Pihama
#101286
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Leonie Eileen Pihama is a New Zealand kaupapa Māori academic. Career Pihama was born in 1962. She wrote her 1993 master's thesis at the University of Auckland with the title Tungia te ururua, kia tupu whakaritorito te tupu o te harakeke: a critical analysis of parents as first teachers. She completed her PhD at the same institution in 2001 and her doctoral thesis had the title Tīhei mauri ora: honouring our voices: mana wahine as a kaupapa Māori: theoretical framework. She won a Fulbright-Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Scholar Award and is now a Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga principal investigator. She...
Go to Profile#187
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert
#84309
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Elfrieda "Freddy" Hiebert is an educational researcher whose work examines literacy, learning, early childhood development, teacher development, writing and children's literature. The main thrust of her work addresses literacy learning among at-risk youth in American classrooms. Currently, she is the CEO and president of TextProject, Inc., an agency that is dedicated to bringing beginning and struggling readers to high levels of literacy through a variety of strategies and tools, particularly through using science and social studies texts, used for reading instruction.
Go to Profile#188
Carol Armstrong
#20360
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Carol Armstrong is an American professor, art historian, art critic, and photographer. Armstrong teaches and writes about 19th-century French art, the history of photography, the history and practice of art criticism, feminist theory and women and gender representation in visual culture.
Go to Profile#189
Akhtar Imam
#56410
Overall Influence
1917 - 2009 (92 years)
Akhtar Imam was a Bangladeshi educationist, feminist and social activist. Early life Imam was born on 30 December 1917 in Narinda, Old Dhaka. She completed her matriculation and intermediate exams from Eden Girl's High School and Intermediate College, Dhaka in 1933 and 1935 respectively. In 1937, she completed her honors in philosophy from Bethune College of Calcutta University. She was awarded the Gangamani Devi Medal for being first in her batch. In 1946, she finished her master's degree in philosophy from the University of Dhaka. In 1952 she was awarded a scholarship from the Bengal Muslim Education Fund by the Pakistani Government in 1952 to pursue higher education outside the country.
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Paula Harper
#40242
Overall Influence
1930 - 2012 (82 years)
Paula Hays Harper was an American art historian, credited as "one of the first art historians to bring a feminist perspective to the study of painting and sculpture". She co-authored a biography on the French impressionist Camille Pissarro and was a well-known contemporary art critic.
Go to Profile#191
Alicia Ostriker
#15180
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Alicia Suskin Ostriker is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry. She was called "America's most fiercely honest poet" by Progressive. Additionally, she was one of the first women poets in America to write and publish poems discussing the topic of motherhood. In 2015, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2018, she was named the New York State Poet Laureate.
Go to Profile#192
Betty Kitchener
#39502
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Betty Ann Kitchener is an Australian mental health educator who co-founded Mental health first aid training. Career Betty Kitchener trained as a teacher, counsellor and nurse. She is also a mental health consumer advocate, having experienced recurrent major depression. She has held academic appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. Until the end of 2016, she was CEO of Mental Health First Aid Australia. She held an honorary Adjunct Professorship at Deakin University from 2013 to 2019.
Go to Profile#193
Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff
#36379
Overall Influence
1944 - 2013 (69 years)
Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff was a German art historian and professor with particular research interest in the fields of gender studies and postcolonial studies. Early life and education Viktoria Schmidt-Linsenhoff was born on 21 August 1944 in Cottbus.
Go to Profile#194
Susan C. Aldridge
#75443
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Susan C. Aldridge is an American academic administrator. She is interim president of Thomas Jefferson University. Aldridge previously served as president of Drexel University Online. She was the president of University of Maryland University College, vice chancellor of the global campus at Troy University, and a professor of management, organizational behavior, and policy analysis at National University of Singapore.
Go to Profile#195
Kellie Jones
#37633
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Kellie Jones is an American art historian and curator. She is a Professor in Art History and Archaeology in African American Studies at Columbia University. She won a MacArthur Fellowship in 2016. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.
Go to Profile#196
Antoinette Pirie
#73550
Overall Influence
1905 - 1991 (86 years)
Antoinette Pirie was a British biochemist, ophthalmologist, and educator. Biography Antoinette Patey was born in Bond Street, London. Her father was a botanist and pharmacist. She was educated at Wycombe Abbey School, and then achieved a first-class honours in natural sciences from Newnham College, Cambridge in 1932. She completed her PhD at the biochemical laboratory in Cambridge under the professorship of Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins. She married fellow biochemist Norman Pirie in 1931. They had a son and a daughter.
Go to Profile#197
Michele Perkins
#96160
Overall Influence
Michele D. Perkins is an American university administrator, who served as the 15th president of New England College. Education She completed a bachelor's degree in theatre and performance studies from Northwestern University. She then earned a master's degree in communication from Emerson College. Perkins completed a doctorate in education in higher education management from University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#198
Mary Anne Raywid
#117023
Overall Influence
1928 - 2010 (82 years)
Mary Anne Raywid was an education scholar, author, and activist. She is well known for her founding of the School Within a School movement and her advocacy for public education. Life and work Mary Anne Raywid married Raymond Lewis Scheele and raised their son Scott in Long Island, NY. She spent 30 years here as a tenured professor at Hofstra University, teaching Educational Administration and Policy Studies, beginning in 1959. During this time she began to publish her written work on education, releasing over 300 works in her lifetime. Notably, her book The Ax Grinder addressed the criticis...
Go to Profile#199
Marita Sturken
#32750
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Marita Sturken is an American scholar, author, professor, and critic. Life and work Marita Sturken is Professor and former Chair of the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, where she teaches courses on cultural studies, visual culture, popular culture, cultural memory, and consumerism. She focuses primarily on visual culture and the politics of cultural memory in American culture. Before coming to NYU she was an associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.
Go to Profile#200
Lyllye Reynolds-Parker
#61219
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Lyllye Reynolds-Parker is an American civil rights activist and educator. Born into one of the founding Black families of Eugene, Oregon, she is a leader in the city's movement for racial justice. She worked as a counselor at the University of Oregon’s Multicultural Center. The University honored her by opening the Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center in 2019.
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