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 Literature,
#801
Ana Cecilia Blum
#95501
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Ana Cecilia Blum is an Ecuadorian writer and journalist. She studied Political and Social Sciences at the Vicente Rocafuerte Lay University of Guayaquil. She worked for several media and investigating about literature at the Catholic University of Guayaquil, Andean University of Quito and the FACSO University of Guayaquil. She currently lives between Ecuador and the United States.
Go to Profile#802
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#803
Svetlana Alpers
#17139
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Svetlana Leontief Alpers is an American art historian, also a professor, writer and critic. Her specialty is Dutch Golden Age painting, a field she revolutionized with her 1984 book The Art of Describing. She has also written on Tiepolo, Rubens, Bruegel, and Velázquez, among others.
Go to Profile#804
Luisa Josefina Hernández
#73318
Overall Influence
1928 - 2023 (95 years)
Luisa Josefina Hernández was a Mexican writer and playwright. Hernández died on 16 January 2023, at the age of 94. Works Plays Aguardiente de caña, 1951.Botica modelo, 1954.Los frutos caídos, 1955.Los huéspedes reales, 1956.La paz ficticia, 1960.El orden de los factores, 1983.El amigo secreto, 1986.Carta de Navegaciones Submarina, 1987.Habrá poesía, 1990.Las bodas, 1993.Zona templada, 1993.Los grandes muertos, 1999-2001.Una noche para bruno, 2007.La fiesta del mulato, 1966. Translated by William I. Oliver as 'The Mulatto's Orgy', Voices of Change in the Spanish American Theater, Austin: Univ...
Go to Profile#805
Noy Holland
#77095
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Noy Holland is an American writer. Biography Holland received her Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Florida in 1994. Holland is a Professor in the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has also taught at Phillips Academy and the University of Florida. She directs the Writers in the Schools Project in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Go to Profile#806
Fay Zwicky
#67298
Overall Influence
1933 - 2017 (84 years)
Fay Zwicky was an Australian poet, short story writer, critic and academic primarily known for her autobiographical poem Kaddish, which deals with her identity as a Jewish writer. Life Born Julia Fay Rosefield, Zwicky grew up in suburban Melbourne. Her family was fourth generation Australian—her father, a doctor; her mother, a musician. Zwicky was an accomplished pianist by the age of six, and performed with her violinist and cellist sisters while still at school. After completing her schooling at Anglican institutions, she entered the University of Melbourne in 1950, receiving her Bachelor of Arts in 1954.
Go to Profile#807
Antonya Nelson
#45056
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Antonya Nelson is an American author and teacher of creative writing who writes primarily short stories. Life and education Antonya Nelson was born January 6, 1961, in Wichita, Kansas. She received a BA degree from the University of Kansas in 1983 and an MFA degree from the University of Arizona in 1986. She lives in Telluride, Colorado; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and Houston, Texas.
Go to Profile#808
Oksana Ivanenko
#25488
Overall Influence
1906 - 1997 (91 years)
Oksana Dmytrivna Ivanenko was a Ukrainian children's writer and translator. In 1974, she was the winner of the Lesia Ukrainka Literary Prize for the novels Рідні діти , Тарасові шляхи , and Лісові казки . She was also the winner of the Shevchenko National Prize in 1986, for the book Завжди в житті . She was awarded the Order of Friendship of Peoples, three Orders of the Badge of Honor, and medals.
Go to Profile#809
Danielle Allen
#16619
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Danielle Susan Allen is an American political scientist. She is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also the former Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.
Go to Profile#810
Diana Ferrus
#41469
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Diana Ferrus is a South African writer and storyteller of mixed Khoisan and slave ancestry. Her work is published in Afrikaans and English. Ferrus leads writing workshops in Cape Town while working as an administrator at the University of the Western Cape.
Go to Profile#811
Lourdes Oñederra
#71365
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Miren Lourdes Oñederra Olaizola is a Basque writer and professor. Life Oñederra was born in San Sebastián in 1958. She studied for her first degree in Spain at the University of Deusto. After graduating in 1980 she took her masters at the University of Iowa. She returned to the Basque country to take her doctorate in philology supervised by Koldo Mitxelena. She was appointed a professor in her home town in 1982.
Go to Profile#812
Isidora Aguirre
#58492
Overall Influence
1919 - 2011 (92 years)
Isidora Aguirre Tupper was a Chilean writer, an author mainly of dramatic works on social issues that have been performed in many countries in the Americas and Europe. Her best known work is , which, constituted "one of the milestones in the history of Chilean theater in the second half of the 20th century."
Go to Profile#813
Wanda Sykes
#45468
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Wanda Yvette Sykes is an American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer. She was first recognized for her work as a writer on The Chris Rock Show, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999. In 2004, Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is also known for her recurring roles on CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine , and HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm . She received Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series nominations for her roles in ABC's Black-ish , and Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel . She currently stars in...
Go to Profile#814
Nandini Pandey
#66952
Overall Influence
Nandini Pandey is Associate Professor of Classics at the Johns Hopkins University, after teaching from 2014-2021 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is an expert on the literature, culture, history, and reception of early imperial Rome.
Go to Profile#815
Kathryn Hume
#76395
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Kathryn Hume is an academic writer on medieval literature , on fantasy, and on contemporary fiction. Hume is Edwin Erle Sparks Emerita Professor of English, Penn State University. She won the IAFA Distinguished Scholarship Award in 1988.
Go to Profile#816
Marie Ponsot
#55526
Overall Influence
1921 - 2019 (98 years)
Marie Ponsot was an American poet, literary critic, essayist, teacher, and translator. Her awards and honors included the National Book Critics Circle Award, Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize, the Robert Frost Poetry Award, the Shaughnessy Medal of the Modern Language Association, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry.
Go to Profile#817
Meera Syal
#54579
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Meera Syal FRSL is an English comedian, writer, playwright, singer, journalist and actress. She rose to prominence as one of the team that created Goodness Gracious Me and by portraying Sanjeev's grandmother, Ummi, in The Kumars at No. 42. She became one of the UK's best-known Asian personalities.
Go to Profile#818
Dolores Castro
#84474
Overall Influence
1923 - 2022 (99 years)
Dolores Castro Varela was a Mexican poet, narrator, essayist and literary critic. Biography Castro was a professor of literature at institutions such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Universidad Iberoamericana and Escuela de Periodismo Carlos Septién García. She was the founder of Radio UNAM and producer of radio programs. She also hosted the program Poetas de México on Canal 11 with Alejandro Avilés. She collaborated in the direction of Cultural Diffusion of the University. She served as editor-in-chief and contributor to Barcos de Papel. She was a member of the editorial board of Summa Bibliographical.
Go to Profile#819
Rosie Scott
#65594
Overall Influence
1948 - 2017 (69 years)
Rosie Scott was a novelist, poet, playwright, short-story writer, non-fiction writer, editor and lecturer, with dual Australian and New Zealand citizenship. Early life and career Rosie Scott was born in Wellington, New Zealand. Her father, Dick Scott, is a notable historian and journalist. She completed a BA and Graduate Diploma of Drama at Auckland University, and an MA in English at Victoria University of Wellington. Scott worked in a variety of careers, including as a social worker and in publishing, before becoming a full-time writer.
Go to Profile#820
Jennine Capó Crucet
#32397
Overall Influence
Jennine Capó Crucet is an American novelist, and short story writer. Life Capó Crucet attended Cornell University where she received a B.A. in English and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She also graduated from the University of Minnesota with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing. She is currently an Associate Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska.
Go to Profile#821
Arielle Greenberg
#71387
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Arielle Greenberg is a feminist poet and the poetry editor of Black Clock. She named and described the concept of the Gurlesque in the anthology Gurlesque: the new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics, which she co-edited with Lara Glenum.
Go to Profile#822
Geeta Tripathee
#48991
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Geeta Tripathee is a Nepali poet, lyricist, essayist, literary critic and scholar. An eminent writer in Nepali, Geeta Tripathee has two volumes of poetry collection, one of lyrical poems and seven books in other literary genre to her credit. She also writes for newspapers on issues concerning women, environment and societal injustice.
Go to Profile#823
Nina Gorlanova
#67710
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Nina Viktorovna Gorlanova is a modern short-story writer and novelist who has been living in a provincial Russian city Perm. Biography Gorlanova was born in 1947, grew up in a village in Perm region, and studied philology at Perm University. She now lives with her husband Vyacheslav Bukur, her co-author and life companion in Perm city, where most of her stories and novels are set. In her works she creates a somewhat fantastic world populated with curious characters and possessing its own mythology. The life in her invented Perm is squalid but merry, risky but indestructible. Her main themes ...
Go to Profile#824
Virginia Spencer Carr
#49616
Overall Influence
1929 - 2012 (83 years)
Virginia Spencer Carr was a biographer of Carson McCullers, John Dos Passos and Paul Bowles. Carr was also a college professor for more than 25 years at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, and Georgia State University in Atlanta.
Go to Profile#825
Concha Zardoya
#89767
Overall Influence
1914 - 2004 (90 years)
María Concepción Zardoya González, also known as Concha Zardoya, was a Chilean poet and literary critic. During her career, she published nearly 40 poetry collections and won multiple literary awards.
Go to Profile#826
Homeira Qaderi
#51857
Overall Influence
1979 - Present (45 years)
Homeira Qaderi born in 1980 is an Afghan writer, advocate for women's rights, and professor of Persian literature, currently serving as a Robert G. James Scholar Fellow at Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Research, Harvard University.
Go to Profile#827
Julia Kasdorf
#62499
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Julia Mae Spicher Kasdorf is an American poet. Early years and education Born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, Julia Spicher grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh near Irwin, Westmoreland County. Her parents were Mennonites born in Big Valley, Pennsylvania, who chose to leave their rural community in central Pennsylvania to work in an urban setting. Spicher attended Goshen College, in Goshen, Indiana, but completed her B.A. and Ph.D. at New York University. As a student at Goshen College, Spicher visited China in the autumn of 1982 for the Study-Service Trimester at Sichuan Teachers College. She pu...
Go to Profile#828
Rita Williams-Garcia
#79376
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Rita Williams-Garcia is an American writer of novels for children and young adultss . In 2010, her young adult novel Jumped was a National Book Award finalist for Young People's Literature. She won the 2011 Newbery Honor Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction for her book One Crazy Summer. She won the PEN/Norma Klein Award. Her 2013 book, P.S. Be Eleven, was a Junior Literary Guild selection, a New York Times Editors Choice Book, and won the Coretta Scott King Award in 2014. In 2016 her book Gone Crazy in Alabama won the Coretta Scott King Award. In 201...
Go to Profile#829
Carolyn Ferrell
#50282
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Carolyn Ferrell is an American short story writer and novelist. Life Ferrell graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, and City College of New York with an MA. She has lived, worked, and studied in West Berlin, Manhattan, and the South Bronx. She is married to and has children with psychology professor Linwood Lewis.
Go to Profile#830
Suzanne Gardinier
#51381
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Suzanne Gardinier is an American poet. She is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. Life Gardinier grew up in Scituate, Massachusetts. She completed her B.A. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1981, and her MFA at Columbia University, in 1986. She is the author of a long poem called The New World. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, is a member of PEN, and lives in Manhattan.
Go to Profile#831
Tiphanie Yanique
#80703
Overall Influence
1978 - Present (46 years)
Tiphanie Yanique from Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, is a Caribbean American fiction writer, poet and essayist who lives in New York. In 2010 the National Book Foundation named her a "5 Under 35" honoree. She also teaches creative writing, currently based at Emory University.
Go to Profile#832
Leslie Kurke
#49789
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Leslie V. Kurke is a Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor, Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at University of California, Berkeley. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a B.A. in 1981, and from Princeton University with a Ph.D. in 1988.
Go to Profile#833
Marti Noxon
#62419
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Martha Mills Noxon is an American television and film writer, director, and producer. She is best known for her work as a screenwriter and executive producer on the supernatural drama series Buffy the Vampire Slayer . She was also executive producer, writer, and creator of the Bravo comedy-drama series Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce and the Lifetime drama series UnREAL , and an executive producer of the CBS medical drama series Code Black .
Go to Profile#834
Gina Barreca
#44563
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Regina Barreca is an American academic and humorist. She is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English literature and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut and winner of UConn's highest award for excellence in teaching. She is the author of ten books, including the best selling They Used to Call Me Snow White But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor and editor of 13 others. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Independent of London, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Cosmopolitan, and The Harvard Business Review; for 20 years she wrote columns for various Tribune newspapers as well as a series of cover stories for the Chicago Tribune.
Go to Profile#835
Elvia Ardalani
#66557
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Elvia Ardalani or Elvia García Ardalani , is a Mexican writer, poet, and storyteller. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Modern languages and Literatures at the University of Texas–Pan American, where she teaches creative writing and Spanish literature.
Go to Profile#836
Carolyn D. Wright
#28275
Overall Influence
1949 - 2016 (67 years)
Carolyn D. Wright was an American poet. She was a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island. Background C. D. Wright was born in Mountain Home, Arkansas, to a chancery judge and a court reporter. She earned a BA in French from Memphis State University in 1971 and briefly attended law school before leaving to pursue an MFA from the University of Arkansas, which she received in 1976. Her poetry thesis was titled Alla Breve Loving.
Go to Profile#837
Gauri Viswanathan
#53641
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Gauri Viswanathan is an Indian American academic. She is the Class of 1933 Professor in the Humanities and Director of the South Asia Institute at Columbia University. Biography Viswanathan was born on November 5, 1950, in Kolkata, the daughter of UN officials. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Delhi and her doctorate from Columbia University. Her research has focused on nineteenth-century British and colonial cultural studies.
Go to Profile#838
Deena Metzger
#50360
Overall Influence
1936 - Present (88 years)
Deena Metzger is an American writer, healer, and teacher whose work spans multiple genres including the novel, poetry, non-fiction, and plays. Metzger is a creative writing teacher and feminist scholar. In the 1960s and 1970s Metzger was a member of the Critical Studies faculty at the California Institute of the Arts, taught English at Los Angeles Valley College, and was on the faculty of the Feminist Studio Worship. Metzger also founded the writing program at Woman's Building in Los Angeles. Metzger was a contributing editor to Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women's Culture that ran from 1977 to 1...
Go to Profile#839
Ali Cobby Eckermann
#82063
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Ali Cobby Eckermann is an Australian poet of Aboriginal Australian ancestry. She is a Yankunytjatjara woman born on Kaurna land in South Australia. Eckermann has written poetry collections, verse novels and a memoir, and has been shortlisted for or won several literary awards. In 2017, she won the international Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Poetry. She has travelled extensively, performing her poetry.
Go to Profile#840
Julie Shigekuni
#36457
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Julie Shigekuni is an American writer and professor. Her novels include A Bridge Between Us, Invisible Gardens, Unending Nora, and In Plain View, and she has won a PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of New Mexico.
Go to Profile#841
Jennifer Grotz
#47582
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Jennifer Grotz is an American poet and translator who teaches English, creative writing, and literary translation at the University of Rochester, where she is Professor of English. In 2017 she was named the seventh director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.
Go to Profile#842
Karen Harper
#60507
Overall Influence
1945 - 2020 (75 years)
Karen Harper was a historical fiction and contemporary fiction author. She was a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Personal life Harper was born in Toledo, Ohio, and graduated from DeVilbiss High School. She obtained her bachelor's degree from Ohio University in Athens, and her graduate degree from Ohio State University in Columbus. She met her husband Don in Columbus, and lived there for thirty-five years, though they spent some time in Naples, Florida .
Go to Profile#843
Sharon Lee
#56431
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Sharon Lee is an American science fiction, fantasy and mystery author who lived in Winslow, Maine from 1988-2018 before moving to nearby Waterville. She is the co-author of the Liaden universe novels and stories, as well as other works, and individually the author of several mystery and fantasy novels.
Go to Profile#844
Daniela Gioseffi
#30353
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Daniela Gioseffi is a poet, novelist and performer who won the American Book Award in 1990 for Women on War; International Writings from Antiquity to the Present . She has published 16 books of poetry and prose and won a PEN American Center's Short Fiction prize , and The John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry .
Go to Profile#845
Valzhyna Mort
#63947
Overall Influence
1981 - Present (43 years)
Valzhyna Mort is a Belarusian poet who now lives in the United States. Life Her first book of poetry, I'm as Thin as Your Eyelashes, came out in Belarus in 2005. In 2004, she received a Crystal Vilencia Award for best poetry performance in Slovenia. In 2005, she was the recipient of a Gaude Polonia scholarship in Poland, and in 2006, the recipient of a writing fellowship from Literarisches Colloquium Berlin, Germany.
Go to Profile#846
Dana Olmert
#33969
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Dana Olmert , is an Israeli left wing activist, literary theorist and editor. She is a daughter of Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert graduated with a PhD in literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on "The Growth of Hebrew Poetry by Women During the Twenties: Psychoanalytical and Feminist Perspectives." She teaches literature at Tel Aviv University and lately teaches creative writing workshops. She is the editor of a poetry series and was invited to several juries of literary prizes.
Go to Profile#847
Sonnet L'Abbé
#63331
Overall Influence
Sonnet L'Abbé, is a Canadian poet, editor, professor and critic. As a poet, L'Abbé writes about national identity, race, gender and language. Career L'Abbé has a PhD in English literature from the University of British Columbia, a master's degree in English literature from the University of Guelph and a BFA in film and video from York University. They have been a script reader and taught English at universities in South Korea, as well as teaching creative writing at the University of Toronto. From 2012 to 2014, they taught creative writing at UBC's Okanagan campus, and they currently teach at Vancouver Island University.
Go to Profile#848
Barbara Browning
#46571
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Barbara Browning is an American academic, novelist, dancer, and cultural critic. Education and career Browning received her B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University in 1983, spent a year in Brazil on a Fulbright fellowship, where she studied dance, and then returned to Yale to complete her Ph.D. in 1989. She taught for six years in the English Department of Princeton University, where she was awarded the President's Distinguished Teaching Award, and since then has taught in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, serving for a tim...
Go to Profile#849
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz
#39668
Overall Influence
1926 - 2013 (87 years)
Mary Jane Phillips-Matz was an American biographer and writer on opera. She is mainly known for her biography of Giuseppe Verdi, a result of 30 years' research and published in 1992 by Oxford University Press. Born in Lebanon, Ohio and educated at Smith College and Columbia University, she lived for many years in Italy, and even after her return to the United States in the early 1970s spent her summers in Verdi's hometown of Busseto where she continued her exhaustive research into his life. She died in New York City at the age of 86, survived by three of her five children.
Go to Profile#850
Mun Jeonghui
#94702
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Mun Jeonghui is a South Korean poet. Life Mun Jeonghui was born in Boseong, Jeollanam-do, Korea on May 25, 1947. She attended Jinmyeong Girls' High School, majored in Korean Literature at Dongguk University, and completed her graduate studies from the same university, where she has also taught. While still in high school, she published her first collection of poems, Kkotsum . In 1969 Mun Jeonghui made her debut in literature when her poems "Bulmyeon" and "Haneul" were accepted in Wolgan Munhaks feature on new poets. In 2014, she served as the chairman of the Society of Korean Poets.
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