The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Education,
#1351
Ida Rodríguez Prampolini
#106651
Overall Influence
1925 - 2017 (92 years)
Ida Rodríguez Prampolini was a Mexican academic, art historian and cultural preservationist, who was heavily involved in the creation of organizations and institutions to preserve the artistic traditions of Mexico. To that end, she founded two art schools, eleven museums, twelve municipal archives, and over fifty houses of culture. She published over 400 articles and critiques of Mexican art and was honored with numerous awards over the course of her career. She was a member of the Mexican Academy of Arts, Mexican Academy of History and the Belgian International Union of Academies as well as a recipient of the , which recognizes excellence in teaching and academic research, in 1991.
Go to Profile#1352
Jaynie Anderson
#146119
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Jaynie Louise Anderson OSI is an Australian art historian, writer and curator of exhibitions, known for her publications and exhibitions on Giorgione and Venetian painting. Anderson is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Melbourne. She was the Herald Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne from 1997 until 2014, and was President of International Committee of the History of Art from 2008 to 2012.
Go to Profile#1353
Kip Fulbeck
#102827
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Lawrence Keith "Kip" Fulbeck is an American artist, spoken word performer, filmmaker and author. Fulbeck's work explores identity politics. His mixed race ethnic background is English, Welsh, Irish and Cantonese. He is best known for his work addressing Hapa and multiracial identity and as the creator of The Hapa Project.
Go to Profile#1354
Michael C. FitzGerald
#77563
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Michael C. FitzGerald is a professor of fine arts and director of the program in art history at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, USA. After his A.B. in 1976 from Stanford University, FitzGerald obtained both his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University in 1986 and 1987 respectively. He has worked for Christie's New York City Art Auction House and for several museums including New York City's Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Go to Profile#1355
Elga Ruth Wasserman
#100952
Overall Influence
1924 - 2014 (90 years)
Elga Ruth Wasserman guided the transformation of Yale College from an all-male undergraduate college into a coeducational institution. She held the newly created position of special assistant to the president of Yale University on the education of women . She became a proponent of equal rights for women during Second-wave feminism and after. Later, Wasserman practiced law, specializing in family law, and advocated policies friendly to women and minorities in the workplace. She wrote The Door in the Dream , highlighting eminent female scientists through interviews and discussion.
Go to Profile#1356
Walter S. Gibson
#67051
Overall Influence
1932 - 2018 (86 years)
Walter Samuel Gibson was an American art historian and university professor whose studies focused primarily on the artists Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Hieronymus Bosch. Life Gibson was born in Columbus, Ohio. Following military service in the United States Army during the Korean War, Gibson graduated cum laude with his BFA from Ohio State University in 1957 and then studied at Harvard University. After Gibson obtained his master of arts in 1960, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for doctoral research. Gibson's Ph.D was completed in 1969. He worked as a professor at Case Western Reserve University from 1966 to 1998.
Go to Profile#1357
Albert Boime
#28137
Overall Influence
1933 - 2008 (75 years)
Albert Boime , was an American art historian and author of more than 20 art history books and numerous academic articles. He was a professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles for three decades, until his death.
Go to Profile#1358
Matthias Untermann
#93721
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Matthias Untermann is a German art historian and medieval archaeologist. Life Born in Tübingen, Untermann, son of the Indo-Germanist Jürgen Untermann, studied art history, classical archaeology and medieval history at the universities of Cologne and Zurich. In 1984, he was awarded a doctorate in medieval history under Günther Binding in Cologne with the dissertation "Kirchenbauten der Premonstratensian. Untersuchungen zum Problem einer Ordensbaukunst im 12. Jahrhundert".
Go to Profile#1359
Robert A. Reiser
#104985
Overall Influence
Robert Reiser is an American academic and professor of instructional systems at Florida State University. Education and academic career Reiser graduated from Queens College, City University of New York, where he read for a bachelor's in economics with minor in secondary education in June 1970. He received a master's degree in school library media in 1974 and a doctorate in educational technology in 1975, both from Arizona State University.
Go to Profile#1360
Thure von Uexküll
#12543
Overall Influence
1908 - 2004 (96 years)
Karl Kuno Thure Freiherr von Uexküll was a German scholar of psychosomatic medicine and biosemiotics. He developed the approach of his father, Jakob von Uexküll, in the study of living systems and applied it in medicine.
Go to Profile#1361
Michael W. Meister
#47880
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Michael W. Meister is an art historian, archaeologist and architectural historian at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the W. Norman Brown Professor in the Department of History of Art and South Asia Studies, and has served as chair of the Department of South Asia Studies and as the director of the University of Pennsylvania's South Asia Center. In addition, he is Consulting Curator, Asian Section, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Faculty Curator of the South Asia Art Archive within the Penn Library's South Asia Image Collection.
Go to Profile#1362
Stephen Bann
#47084
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Stephen Bann CBE, FBA is the Emeritus Professor of History of Art at the University of Bristol. He attended Winchester College and King's College, Cambridge, attaining his PhD in 1967. He was subsequently appointed Professor of Modern Cultural Studies at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and later appointed to the Chair in History of Art at Bristol in 2000. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1998, and named a CBE in 2004.
Go to Profile#1363
Ulrich Vogt
#113968
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Ulrich Vogt is a German educator and author. Vogt grew up in Soest, where he attended the Maria zur Wiese elementary school and the Archigymnasium Soest gymnasium. When he was 18, he and his family moved to Paderborn. There, he was a student at the Reismann Gymnasium, from which he received his diploma. He next attended teachers' colleges in Münster and Bielefeld, studying art education, German, mathematics and sports. Soon after passing his qualifying exam at Bielefeld in 1965, he became a teacher at the volksschule in Schwaney, a small village near Paderborn. In 1968 he passed his next leve...
Go to Profile#1364
Paul Sarvela
#136472
Overall Influence
1959 - 2014 (55 years)
Paul Douglas Sarvela was Professor of health education and Dean of the College of Applied Sciences and Arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale . The college is unique in being the only comprehensive, technically oriented college that is part of a major research university. Following the departure of Rita Cheng to become president of Northern Arizona University, Sarvela was named as interim chancellor July 8, 2014, and was confirmed July 24, 2014. Born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, he died on November 9, 2014, in Carbondale, Illinois, while undergoing treatment for cancer.
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James Stanfield
#153496
Overall Influence
1901 - Present (123 years)
James Stanfield is an American professor and film producer. He is an Academy Award for Technical Achievement winner in 1979 and trademarked the term Video Modeling in 1999. He is also the founder of James Stanfield Publishing.
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Carmen Robertson
#125733
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Carmen L. Robertson is a writer and scholar of art history and indigenous peoples. She was born in Balcarres, Saskatchewan, of Lakota and Scottish ancestry. She is Canada Research Chair in North American Art and Material Culture in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton University. Before joining Carleton, Robertson was an associate professor in the Faculty of Media, Art & Performance at the University of Regina . She also served as the Indian Fine Arts department head at the First Nations University of Canada where she taught from 2000-2006. A number of Robertson's writings focus on the Aboriginal Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau.
Go to Profile#1367
Estelle Ramey
#86117
Overall Influence
1917 - 2006 (89 years)
Estelle Rosemary Ramey was an American endocrinologist, physiologist and feminist who became internationally known for refuting surgeon and Democratic Party leader Edgar Berman, who stated that women were unfit to hold high public office because of "raging hormonal imbalances." Ramey's balanced approach to life was embodied in a later quote, "I have loved. And been loved. And all the rest is background music."
Go to Profile#1368
Paweł Leszkowicz
#87830
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Paweł Leszkowicz is a Polish art historian and art curator. He works as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of History of Art, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, and lectures at the University of Fine Arts in Poznań. He is a member of International Association of Art Critics.
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Jonathan David Katz
#115842
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Jonathan David Katz is an American activist, art historian, educator and writer. He is currently Associate Professor of Practice in Art History and Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#1370
Moon Kyungwon
#127447
Overall Influence
1969 - Present (55 years)
Moon Kyungwon is a Seoul-based artist who received her Masters of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts and Ph.D in Visual Communication from Yonsei University, South Korea. Moon held her solo exhibition at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in 2004. Her recent exhibitions include Poiesis of Collective Intelligence at Yamaguchi Center Arts and Media in 2013 and A Different Similarity at BOCUM Museum, Germany in 2010. In 2012, Moon and a fellow artist, Jeon Joonho, participated in Documenta in Kassel, Germany and collectively received the 2012 Noon Award Grand Prize and 2012 Korea Artist Prize at Gwangju Biennale.
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John Knoepfle
#95157
Overall Influence
1923 - 2019 (96 years)
John Ignatius Knoepfle was an American poet, translator, and educator, principally at Sangamon State University, who is credited with helping to revive Midwestern poetry in the 1960s. He also served in the United States Navy during World War II and participated in the civil rights and antiwar movements.
Go to Profile#1372
Lisa Tickner
#37639
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Lisa Tickner FBA is a British art historian. She has taught at Middlesex University , Northwestern University, and the Courtauld Institute of Art . In 2008 she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.
Go to Profile#1373
Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes
#108843
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes is a German-Irish art historian, who works as the Professor and Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Amsterdam. Lerm Hayes completed her PhD at the University of Cologne on Joseph Beuys in 2001. She was Zurich James Joyce Foundation Scholar and Post-Doctoral Research Fellow of the Irish Research Council at University College Dublin in 2001-03. She spent many years in Ireland and showed how artists have read and interpreted James Joyce in her book Joyce in art : visual art inspired by James Joyce.
Go to Profile#1374
Jem Spectar
#84327
Overall Influence
Jem Spectar is the president of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown . Previously, he had been provost/vice president for academic affairs and professor at Western Oregon University; associate provost and professor at the University of Scranton; director of studies and lecturer at Princeton University; and assistant dean and associate professor of law at the University of La Verne College of Law. Spectar earned his Bachelor of Arts in international studies at the University of La Verne, an MBA from Frostburg State University, a Master of Arts from The George Washington University, the Jur...
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Howard Burns
#101026
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Howard Burns is a British architectural historian who is professor emeritus of architectural history at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. He has also lectured at the Courtauld Institute of Art and was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge 1977-78. He is a specialist in the architecture of Andrea Palladio and is a member of the Accademia Olimpica and the Accademia di San Luca.
Go to Profile#1376
Sara Brownell
#175971
Overall Influence
Sara Elaine Brownell is an American biology education researcher who is a President's Professor at Arizona State University. Her research looks to make undergraduate science teaching more inclusive. She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022.
Go to Profile#1377
Donald Harden
#112603
Overall Influence
1901 - 1994 (93 years)
Donald Benjamin Harden, was an Anglo-Irish archaeologist and museum curator, who specialised in ancient glass. Having taught at the University of Aberdeen and the University of Michigan, he was assistant keeper and then keeper of the Department of Antiquities, Ashmolean Museum. He spent the Second World War as a temporary civil servant in the Ministry of Supply and the Ministry of Production. He was Director of the London Museum from 1956 to 1970, and then, following its merger with the Guildhall Museum, served as Acting Director of the Museum of London from 1965 to 1970.
Go to Profile#1378
Roger Cardinal
#70763
Overall Influence
1940 - 2019 (79 years)
Roger Cardinal was a professor at the University of Kent at Canterbury, England, and an art scholar who originated the term "outsider art". Career He studied at St Dunstan's College in south London and attended Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge as an undergraduate. His PhD, also at Cambridge, was on the surrealist conception of love. In 1965 he became an assistant professor in the French department of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. After a stint as a university lecturer at Warwick University, he moved to the University of Kent at Canterbury.
Go to Profile#1379
Molly Nesbit
#73070
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Molly Nesbit is a contributing editor at Artforum and a Professor of Art at Vassar College, where she writes and teaches on modern and contemporary art, film, and photography. She graduated from Vassar College in 1974 with a B.A. in Art History, and went on to receive her Ph.D. from Yale University. She taught at the University of California, Berkeley, Barnard College, and Columbia University before returning to Vassar in 1993.
Go to Profile#1380
Cornelius Schnauber
#68990
Overall Influence
1939 - 2014 (75 years)
Professor Cornelius Schnauber was a German-born scholar, historian, playwright, biographer, and educator. At the time of his death, he was Emeritus Associate Professor of German at the University of Southern California .
Go to Profile#1381
Christopher M. S. Johns
#174749
Overall Influence
1955 - 2022 (67 years)
Christopher M. S. Johns was an American art historian, and the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Professor of History of Art at Vanderbilt University, who specialized in eighteenth-century Italian art, decorative art, material culture, and architecture. He was a leading scholar of early modern Italian art and culture, especially the relationship between art, politics, and religion in eighteenth-century Rome.
Go to Profile#1382
Ashley C. Ford
#116839
Overall Influence
Ashley C. Ford is an American writer, podcaster and educator who discusses topics including race, sexuality, and body image. She is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Somebody's Daughter. She has been the host of five podcasts and has written or guest-edited for publications including The Guardian, Elle, BuzzFeed, and New York. In 2017, Forbes named her one of their "30 Under 30 in Media". In 2022, Ford won the Indiana Authors Award for a debut novel.
Go to Profile#1383
Joseph Koerner
#50195
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Joseph Leo Koerner is an American art historian and filmmaker. He is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of the History of Art and Architecture and Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University. Since 2008 he has also been Senior Fellow at the Harvard's Society of Fellows.
Go to Profile#1384
Jeanette Zwingenberger
#116057
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Jeanette Zwingenberger is a Paris-based independent art curator and art historical scholar. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and a UNESCO member of the Advisory Committee on Works of Art and teaches at the Pantheon-Sorbonne University. Originally a scholar of Renaissance Art, Dr. Zwingenberger generally specializes in contemporary art and is author of more than thirty books and exhibition catalogues, on it. She writes on art for Kunstmagazin, art press, L’œil and L'Observatoire de l'art contemporain. Zwingenberger has organized art exhibitions and interdiscipl...
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Grace E. Harris
#137012
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Grace E. Harris. , was an administrator from Virginia Commonwealth University. Harris was one of the first African American faculty members hired by Virginia Commonwealth University in 1967, which initially rejected her admission on the basis of race, when it was known as Richmond Professional Institute , when she was a graduate student in 1954. She would later rise through the ranks at the university to become Dean, Provost, and Acting President on two occasions, becoming the highest-ranking African American and highest-ranking woman in VCU's history.
Go to Profile#1386
William Arbuckle Reid
#118207
Overall Influence
1933 - 2015 (82 years)
William Arbuckle "Bill" Reid was a British curriculum theorist. Born in Gloucestershire, Reid obtained his BA degree in languages from Cambridge University, after which he taught in English high schools. He went on to conduct curriculum research at the University of Birmingham, where he obtained his PhD and subsequently taught MEd students. He took early retirement from the University of Birmingham in 1988 and was appointed as a visiting professor at the London Institute of Education, and subsequently the University of Texas, Austin. He also undertook collaborative projects with colleagues at the University of Oslo and taught summer schools at the University of Victoria, British Columbia.
Go to Profile#1387
Gerard J. Campbell
#125905
Overall Influence
1919 - 2012 (93 years)
Gerard John Campbell was an American Catholic priest, Jesuit, and historian who became the president of Georgetown University. Born in Pennsylvania, he entered the Society of Jesus at the age of 20 and studied at West Baden College and Fordham University, before earning his doctorate at Princeton University. A promising historian, he then taught at Loyola University Maryland, before becoming the executive vice president of Georgetown University in 1963, where he effectively worked as acting president.
Go to Profile#1388
Peeter Torop
#14195
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Peeter Torop is an Estonian semiotician. Following Roman Jakobson, he expanded the scope of the semiotic study of translation to include intratextual, intertextual, and extratextual translation and stressing the productivity of the notion of translation in general semiotics. He is a co-editor of the journal Sign Systems Studies, the oldest international semiotic periodical, the chairman of the Estonian Semiotics Association and professor of semiotics of culture at Tartu University.
Go to Profile#1389
Leland Jacobs
#153542
Overall Influence
1907 - 1992 (85 years)
Leland Blair Jacobs was an American professor emeritus of education who was known particularly for his work in the teaching of literature. Biography Jacobs was born in Tawas City, Michigan. He took his bachelor's degree from Michigan State Normal College ; his master's degree from the University of Michigan; and his PhD from the Ohio State University . He taught elementary, junior high and high school in rural Michigan, and was an elementary school principal. He also taught at OSU in Columbus, Ohio and trained numerous future teachers of literature in Leonia, New Jersey before he was hired ...
Go to Profile#1390
Manfred Schneckenburger
#64188
Overall Influence
1938 - 2019 (81 years)
Manfred Schneckenburger was a German art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art. He was the curator of the documenta art exhibition twice, documenta 6 in 1977 and documenta 8 in 1987. He was the only person outside of the exhibition’s founder, Arnold Bode to have led documenta twice.
Go to Profile#1391
Charles Glasser
#90175
Overall Influence
Charles J. Glasser Jr. is an American attorney, writer, educator and journalist. He was Global Media Counsel for Bloomberg News and later set up his own media law practice. He was also an adjunct professor of Media Law and Ethics at The New York University Arthur Carter Journalism Institute and at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York .
Go to Profile#1392
Levon Chookaszian
#59927
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Levon Chookaszian is an Armenian art historian and the UNESCO Chair of Armenian Art History. He is also currently the Head of Chair of History and Theory of Armenian Art at Yerevan State University. Professor Chookaszian has delivered numerous lectures, particularly on medieval Armenian art, at universities in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and the United States and taught courses on Armenian art at UCLA.
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William Klein
#51171
Overall Influence
1926 - 2022 (96 years)
William Klein was an American-born French photographer and filmmaker noted for his ironic approach to both media and his extensive use of unusual photographic techniques in the context of photojournalism and fashion photography. He was ranked 25th on Professional Photographers list of 100 most influential photographers.
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Nesta Devine
#174797
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Nesta Devine is a New Zealand education academic. She is currently a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Academic career Devine has a 2000 PhD titled 'An Investigation into 'Public Choice' Theory and its Implications for Education in New Zealand' from the University of Auckland. She has taught in schools, the University of Waikato and Auckland University of Technology, rising to full professor.
Go to Profile#1395
Desmond Shawe-Taylor
#83826
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Desmond Philip Shawe-Taylor was Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures from 2005 to 2020. He succeeded Christopher Lloyd on Lloyd's retirement. Early life Shawe-Taylor is the son of Brian Newton Shawe-Taylor and Jocelyn Cecilia Shawe-Taylor. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, University College, Oxford, and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.
Go to Profile#1396
John Onians
#66581
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
John B Onians, FSA is Professor Emeritus of World Art at the University of East Anglia, Norwich and specialised in architecture, especially the architectural theory of the Italian Renaissance; painting, sculpture and architecture in Ancient Greece and Rome; Byzantine art, material culture, metaphor and thought; perception and cognition, and the biological basis of art. His recent work has been instrumental in the establishment of Neuroarthistory as a distinct set of methodologies.
Go to Profile#1397
Joanna Frueh
#111208
Overall Influence
1948 - 2020 (72 years)
Joanna Frueh was an American artist, writer, and feminist scholar. Early life Frueh was born on January 18, 1948, in Chicago, Illinois to Erne Rene Frueh and Florence Frueh. Both parents were well educated; her father in visual arts and her mother in classical piano. Together they authored a book about stained glass in Chicago, which was published by Loyola University Press in 1983. Their two successive homes in Highland Park were designed by architects Crombie Taylor and Robert Bruce Tague.
Go to Profile#1398
Rita Schober
#96202
Overall Influence
1918 - 2012 (94 years)
Rita Schober was a German scholar of Romance studies and literature. Early life and education Rita Tomaschek was born and grew up in Rumburg , a small manufacturing town near the northern tip of Bohemia, in what was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The town was overwhelmingly ethnically and linguistically German. Her father was a clerical worker. Her mother worked in garment manufacturing. Between 1928 and 1936 Rita Tomaschek attended the secondary school in Rumburg, before moving on to study at the German University in Prague between 1938 and 1940, and then again during 1944/45.
Go to Profile#1399
Paul Binski
#113510
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Paul Binski FSA FBA is a British art historian and Emeritus Professor of the History of Medieval Art at the University of Cambridge. Early life and education Binski was born to Eugene and Pamela Binski in 1956. He was educated at Harrow School before going up to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge .
Go to Profile#1400
Elan Closs Stephens
#27919
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Dame Elan Closs Stephens is a non-executive director and member for Wales on the BBC Board since 2017, and became its Acting chairwoman from 27 June 2023. She specialises in cultural and broadcasting policy. She is also the Electoral Commissioner for Wales; Pro Chancellor of Aberystwyth University; and chair of the UNESCO’s International Prize for the Creative Economy jury.
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