Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential female people in Literature,

#2351

Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen

#110966

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen is a Danish philologist and gender studies scholar. She was Professor of Gender Studies at the University of Oslo, and was Director of its Centre for Gender Research from 1993 to 2000 and from 2005 to 2009. Nielsen retired in 2017/2018. Her fields of expertise are gender and identity, subjectivity, gender socialization, and children and youth.

#2352

Jill Hoffman

#152303

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Jill Hoffman is an American poet, and editor. She graduated from Bennington College with a B.A., from Columbia University with an M. A., and from Cornell University with a Ph.D. She taught at Bard College, Brooklyn College, Columbia University, and The New School.

#2353

Elaine Macmann Willoughby

Elaine Macmann Willoughby

#114598

Overall Influence

1926 - 2012 (86 years)

Elaine Macmann "Mac" Willoughby was an American educator and writer of children's books. Life Elaine Maybelle Macmann, known as "Mac", was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, and was the only child of Walter and Mabel Macmann. She received a B.S. of Education from Wheelock College, graduating in 1949 as vice-president of her class. In the summer of 1951 she also attended the University of Rhode Island, and in the summer of 1953 attended the Breadloaf School of English at Middlebury College. She received her MA and PhD in Education from the Teachers College, Columbia University, from 1954 to 195...

#2354

Julia Haig Gaisser

#188404

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Julia Haig Gaisser is an American classical scholar. She is Eugenia Chase Guild Professor Emeritus of the Humanities and Professor of Latin at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania. She specializes in Latin poetry and its reception by Renaissance humanists.

#2355

Karen Lynn Davidson

#81048

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Karen Lynn Davidson was a Latter-day Saint hymn writer, author, and literary critic. Davidson wrote widely on the hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of the Community of Christ.

#2356

Elizabeth Craik

#178732

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Elizabeth Mary Craik is a Scottish classical scholar, who is Honorary Professor of Classics at the University of St Andrews. Education Elizabeth Craik studied for an MA at the University of St Andrews , an MLitt at Girton College, University of Cambridge and was awarded an honorary DLitt from the University of St Andrews in 2000.

#2357

Catherine Steel

#163473

Overall Influence

1973 - Present (51 years)

Catherine Elizabeth Wannan Steel, is a British classical scholar. She is Professor of Classics at the University of Glasgow. Steel is an expert on the Roman Republic, the writings of Cicero, and Roman oratory.

#2358

Maggy Corrêa

#189207

Overall Influence

Maggy Corrêa is a Rwandan Swiss autobiographical writer. In her memoir Tutsie, etc. she recounts how she rescued her mother from the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi in July 1994. Life Corrêa was born in Rwanda, to a Portuguese father and a Rwandan Tutsi mother. Swiss by adoption, she was educated in Rwanda, Belgian Congo and Burundi.

#2359

Rebecca Wanzo

#181127

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Rebecca Ann Wanzo is an American academic specializing in African-American literature and culture, critical race theory, fan studies, and feminist theory. She is a professor and chair of the women, gender, and sexuality studies department at Washington University in St. Louis. Wanzo's 2020 book, The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging, won the Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work.

#2360

Sarah Harder

#100135

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Sarah Jane Harder is an American feminist and associate professor emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She started the women's studies program at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and served as president of the American Association of University Women.

#2361

Rebecca Langlands

#179921

Overall Influence

Rebecca Langlands is Professor of Classics at the University of Exeter. She is known in particular for her work on the history of sexuality and ethics in the Roman world. Career Langlands studied at the University of Cambridge and wrote her PhD dissertation on Valerius Maximus at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge funded by the British Academy and examined by Susanna Morton Braund.

#2362

Sanaa Shaalan

#186267

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Sanaa Shalan is a Jordanian contemporary writer, from the Arab novelty generation. She writes novels, short stories, theater, scenario and children's literature. She holds a doctorate degree in modern literature. Shalan works as an instructor at the University of Jordan.

#2363

Neferti Tadiar

#181026

Overall Influence

Neferti X. M. Tadiar is a Filipino scholar and critical theorist. She is a professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Barnard College, chair of the Barnard department of women's, gender, and sexuality studies, and director of the Columbia University Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.

#2364

Arietta Papaconstantinou

#175578

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Arietta Papaconstantinou is Reader in Classics at the University of Reading and Associate Faculty Member in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. She is an expert in the religious, social and economic history of Egypt and the Near East during the transition from the Roman Empire to the Caliphate.

#2365

Nathalie Anderson

#182008

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Nathalie F. Anderson is an American poet and librettist. She is a 1993 Pew Fellow, and author of several books of poetry: Following Fred Astaire, Crawlers, Quiver, Held and Firmly Bound , and Stain. In collaboration with composer Thomas Whitman, she authored four libretti: The Black Swan, Sukey in the Dark, Babylon and A Scandal in Bohemia.

#2366

Carol Bachofner

#189645

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Carol Willette Bachofner is an American poet of Abenaki descent. She currently resides in Rockland, Maine. She is the co-founder and editor of the online literary journal, Pulse, established in 1997. She has also published several collections of her own poetry, including Native Moons, Native Days, as well as Drink from Your Own Wells: a guide to richer writing.

#2367

Andrea Polli

#119950

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Andrea Polli is an environmental artist and writer. Polli blends art and science to create widely varied media and technology artworks related to environmental issues. Her works are presented in various forms, she uses interactive websites, digital broadcasting, mobile applications, and performances, which allows her to reach a wider audience.

#2368

Jinx

#189693

Overall Influence

1994 - Present (30 years)

Gabriel McClure , known professionally as Gigi McQueen and Jinx, is an American actress and author. She is known for writing the Get Spooky series, Mr. Macabre Presents, and Vicious Vile Venom, which was a 2016 Watty award recipient in the new voices category.

#2369

Anne Fraïsse

#180306

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Anne Fraïsse is a French Latinist and academic. She is a professor of Latin patristics at the Paul Valéry University Montpellier . She served two terms as president of the UPVM, from 2008 to 2016, and was re-elected in 2020. She was also vice-president of the France Universités from December 2010 to December 2012.

#2370

Carmen Giménez

#183869

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Carmen Giménez is an American poet, writer, and editor. Life Giménez earned a Bachelor of Arts from San José State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. She was recently a professor in English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and, prior to that, New Mexico State University. She teaches in Bennington College's Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. Giménez is the founder and publisher of Noemi Press, and she is a founding fellow and co-director of CantoMundo. In the fall of 2017, Giménez became editor of The Nation's Poetry Section, alongside Stephanie Burt.

#2371

Aki Kondo

#115915

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Aki Kondo is a Japanese illustrator and character designer, and former staff of San-X. Biography After graduating from the Junior College of Art and Design at Joshibi University of Art and Design, Kondo was hired to work in the Design studio of San-X in 1997.

#2372

Mimi Thebo

#133124

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Mimi Thebo is an American author who lives and works in the United Kingdom. Her most recent and most successful books have been for children. Dreaming the Bear has been nominated for the 2017 Carnegie Medal named as a 'future classic' by Booktrust and long listed for the 2017 UKLA award. Dreaming the Bear was published by Oxford University Press in the UK in 2016 and would be later published by Wendy Lamb in the USA in 2017.

#2373

Jennifer Ziegler

#43966

Overall Influence

Jennifer Ziegler is an American writer and faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Biography Ziegler was raised in Texas and is of Mexican-American heritage. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Journalism in magazine journalism from the University of Texas. She presently serves as the faculty co-chair of Vermont College of Fine Arts's Master of Fine Arts program in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

#2374

Alison Yarrington

#118889

Overall Influence

Alison Willow Yarrington FSA is professor of the history of art at the University of Loughborough and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. She was formerly Richmond Professor of Fine Art at the University of Glasgow. She is chairperson of the editorial board of the Sculpture Journal.

#2375

Dalia Judovitz

#182231

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Dalia Judovitz is National Endowment for the Humanities Professor in the Department of French and Italian at Emory University. She is known for her work in the fields of 17th-century French literature and philosophy and modern/postmodern aesthetics.

#2376

Patricia Baker

#142133

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Patricia "Patty" Anne Baker is an American archaeologist and academic. She is Head of the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent and Senior Lecturer in Classical & Archaeological Studies.

#2377

Intan Paramaditha

Intan Paramaditha

#183230

Overall Influence

1979 - Present (45 years)

Intan Paramaditha is an Indonesian author and noted feminist academic. Her work has been described as focusing on "the intersection between gender and sexuality, culture and politics". Literary works Paramaditha's works have been described as "gothic feminist". In 2005, Intan Paramaditha's short-story collection Sihir Perempuan was shortlisted for the Khatulistiwa Literary Award. In 2010 Intan co-authored horror anthology Kumpulan Budak Setan with Eka Kurniawan and Ugoran Prasad, and in 2013 her short story Klub Solidaritas Suami Hilang won the Kompas Best Short Story Award.

#2378

Gretchen Reydams-Schils

#166370

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Gretchen Reydams-Schils is Professor in the Program of Liberal Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and holds concurrent appointments in Classics, Philosophy, and Theology. She is a specialist in Plato and the traditions of Platonism and Stoicism.

#2379

Martha Andresen Wilder

#171593

Overall Influence

1944 - 2018 (74 years)

Martha Elizabeth Andresen Wilder was an American scholar of Renaissance literature. She taught at Pomona College, where she was the Phebe Estelle Spalding Professor of English.

#2380

Esther Jansma

#188391

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Esther Jansma is a Dutch writer and academic. She was born in Amsterdam and works as an archaeologist. Jansma published her first collection of poetry Stem onder mijn bed in 1988. In 1990, she published Bloem, steen , which reflected her feelings after her first child died at birth.

#2381

Nina Sorokina

#170996

Overall Influence

1942 - 2011 (69 years)

Nina Sorokina was a Russian principal dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet and a 1987 People's Artist of the USSR recipient. Biography Sorokina was born on 13 May 1942 in Elektrostal, Russia. She studied in Bolshoi Ballet school under a guidance of Sofia Golovkina and became a soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre by 1961. Five years later she received her first gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna and was named a People’s Artist of the U.S.S.R. by 1987. During her career she played in such plays as Icarus and Asel and even participated in a balled called Cheeky Rhymes. She also part...

#2382

Carol Jacobs

#189300

Overall Influence

Carol Jacobs is a literary scholar and Birgit Baldwin Professor Emeritus of German and Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature at Yale University. Her research interests include modern German, English, and French literature, literary theory from the 18th to 20th centuries, and film.

#2383

Anya Krugovoy Silver

#100948

Overall Influence

1968 - 2018 (50 years)

Anya Krugovoy Silver was an American poet. She won a Guggenheim fellowship, and a Georgia Author of the Year Award. Biography Silver was born in 1968 in Media, Pennsylvania, but raised in Swarthmore, and graduated from Haverford College, and Emory University. She then became a professor at Mercer University. Her work has appeared in The Christian Century, among other publications.

#2384

Ayanna Thompson

Ayanna Thompson

#104820

Overall Influence

Ayanna Thompson is Regents Professor of English at Arizona State University and Director of the Arizona Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies . She was the 2018–19 president of the Shakespeare Association of America. She specializes in Renaissance drama and issues of race in performance.

#2385

Libby Hart

#187034

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Libby Hart is a poet from Victoria, Australia. She was awarded the 2003 D. J. O'Hearn Memorial Fellowship and its artist-in-residence appointment from the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne.

#2386

Brooke Holmes

#189100

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Brooke Holmes is an American classicist. She is the Susan Dod Brown Professor of Classics at Princeton University. She is the author of two books, and a co-editor of a third book about Heinrich von Staden. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018.

#2387

Lisa Bird-Wilson

#189063

Overall Influence

Lisa Bird-Wilson is a Métis and nêhiyaw writer from Saskatchewan. Biography A survivor of the Sixties Scoop, as a child Bird-Wilson was adopted, disconnecting her from her Cree and Métis heritage. This experience informs much of her writing.

#2388

Nathalia Crane

#116642

Overall Influence

1913 - 1998 (85 years)

Nathalia Clara Ruth Crane was an American poet and novelist who became famous as a child prodigy after the publication of her first book of poetry, The Janitor's Boy, written at age 10 and published two years later. Her poetry was first published in The New York Sun when she was only 9 years old, the paper unaware that she was a child. She was elected into the British Society of Authors, Playwrights, and Composers in 1925, written up in The American Mercury and later became a professor of English at San Diego State University.

#2389

Jen McClanaghan

#181372

Overall Influence

Jen McClanaghan is an American poet. She won the 2009 Review Prize. McClanaghan grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut and earned her bachelor's degree from Antioch College. She earned her MFA from Columbia University in 2004 and her PhD from Florida State University in 2009. Since 2005 she has published over thirty poems, some of which have been published in the Review, the New England Review, and the Review, among others. Her manuscript, The Cairo Letters, was a finalist for The National Poetry Series, Saturnalia Books, Autumn House Press, and The Dorset Prize.

#2390

Sarah Cole

#189715

Overall Influence

Sarah Cole is a U.S. writer and academic administrator specializing in British literature from the 19th and 20th centuries. She is the incoming interim dean of the Columbia University School of the Arts. Cole is a Parr Professor of English and Comparative Literature and Dean of Humanities in the Columbia University faculty of arts and sciences.

#2391

Caroline Maun

#181077

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Caroline C. Maun is a professor, author, poet, lyricist, and musician. She teaches creative writing in the English Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Other areas of research include modernism, American Literature, African-American literature, and Internet Writing.

#2392

Zethu Matebeni

#186258

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Zethu Matebeni is a sociologist, activist, writer, documentary film maker, Professor and South Africa Research Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies at the University of Fort Hare. She has held positions at the University of the Western Cape and has been senior researcher at the Institute for Humanities in Africa at UCT. She has been a visiting Professor Yale University and has received a number of research fellowships including those from African Humanities Program, Ford Foundation, the Fogarty International Centre and the National Research Foundation.

#2393

Renate Simson

#187538

Overall Influence

1934 - 2017 (83 years)

Renate "Rennie" Marie Simson was an American author and professor of African-American literature and writing. Her work has been influential in African American literature and identity studies. She wrote an essay on Black women's sexuality and identity, The Afro-American Female: The Historical Context of the Construction of Sexual Identity.

#2394

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs

#176189

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs is a full professor of Modern Languages and Cultures, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Seattle University. She is the current Theiline Pigott-McCone Chair at Seattle University. She was a commissioner for the Washington State Arts Commission from 2014 to 2017.

#2395

Leslie Jacobson

#185125

Overall Influence

Leslie Bravman Jacobson is a George Washington University professor emeritus of theatre, playwright, director, and the founding artistic director of the longest-running women's theatre in the United States, Horizons: Theatre from a Woman's Perspective in Washington, D.C. She was also a founder and vice president of the 501 not-for-profit Bokamoso Youth Foundation, president of the League of Washington Theatres, and recipient of a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship.

#2396

Milena Jelinek

#167579

Overall Influence

1935 - 2020 (85 years)

Milena Jelinek was a Czech American screenwriter, playwright and teacher. She wrote the screenplay for the film Forgotten Light, which was awarded three Czech Lions in 1997. Her name is associated with the golden generation of Czech filmmakers, known as Czech New Wave. She was married to the late researcher Frederick Jelinek.

#2397

Carme Solé Vendrell

Carme Solé Vendrell

#133517

Overall Influence

1945 - Present (79 years)

Carme Solé Vendrell is a Spanish illustrator and writer, mainly of children's books. Since 1968, she has illustrated more than a hundred books. She has also worked on television series such as Víctor y María. She was a Premi Nacional de Cultura laureate in 1979 and 2012.

#2398

Alicia Alonso

#147963

Overall Influence

1920 - 2019 (99 years)

Alicia Alonso was a Cuban prima ballerina assoluta and choreographer whose company became the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in 1955. She is best known for her portrayals of Giselle and the ballet version of Carmen.

#2399

Jane Ward

#39989

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Jane Ward is an American scholar, feminist, and author. Life Ward is Professor and Chair of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Ward received her PhD in sociology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2003.

#2400

Barbara Craig

#134133

Overall Influence

1915 - 2005 (90 years)

Barbara Denise Craig was a British archaeologist, classicist, and academic, specialising in classical pottery. From 1967 to 1980, she was Principal of Somerville College, Oxford. Early life She was born on 22 October 1915 in Calcutta, British Raj. Her father was librarian of the Imperial Library of Calcutta . In 1920, she moved to London, England, with her mother and siblings; her father remained in India. She was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's School for Girls, a private school in Acton, London.

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