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).

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List of the most influential female people in Nursing,

#51

Sarah H. Kagan

#24303
Overall Influence
Sarah Hope Kagan, PhD, RN, FAAN, is an American gerontological nurse, and Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. Life Professor Kagan teaches students across the baccalaureate, masters and doctoral programs in the School of Nursing as well as offering lectures and clinical preceptorships in the School of Medicine. She is the Director of the Nursing Undergraduate Honors Program and the Penn-UK and Penn Australia Study Abroad Programs in the School of Nursing. Dr. Kagan regularly teaches two undergraduate honors courses "Sweet Little Old Ladies and Sandwiched Daughters" and "Ageing, Beauty, and Sexuality".
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#52

Eloise Lewis

#79657
Overall Influence
1920 - 1999 (79 years)
Eloise Patricia Rallings Lewis was the first dean of the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Education Eloise Patricia Rallings Lewis was born in Pageland, South Carolina, in 1920. She was the fourth daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J. Monroe Rallings, a country medical practitioner and a college speech teacher, respectively. Lewis graduated from Pageland High School in 1936 and continued her education at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina. After two years, she transferred to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated from the hospital prog...
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#53

Margaret F. Alexander

#83052
Overall Influence
Margaret Forbes Alexander is a Scottish nurse, educator, researcher and writer. She is emeritus professor at the School of Nursing and Community Health at Glasgow Caledonian University . She began her nursing career as a student nurse at The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. In 1980, she received a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh for her thesis on “Nurse education". She went on to head GCU's Department of Nursing and Community Health until 1996. She was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in 1992.
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#54

Jessica Corner

#82548
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Professor Dame Jessica Lois Corner DBE FMedSci is a British nurse, academic, educator and author. She is currently the Executive Chair of Research England. She was previously Professor of Cancer and Supportive Care, and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Nottingham.
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#55

June Clark

#33721
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Dame Margaret June Clark, FAAN FLSW is Professor Emeritus of Community Nursing, at Swansea University in Wales. Career Before her retirement in 2003, Clark was responsible for the development of a program of research in community health nursing and primary health care at Swansea University. Her special interest is the development and use of standardized nomenclaturess to describe nursing practice, in particular in primary health care. In 1990, she left the NHS and went into higher education as Professor of Nursing to start a new School of Nursing at Middlesex University. In 1997 she "went ho...
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#56

Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk

#102253
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Bernadette J. Mazurek Melnyk is an American nurse. She is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Ohio State University College of Medicine and dean of the College of Nursing. Melnyk is also the editor in chief of the journal Worldviews on Evidence Based Nursing.
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#57

Jeanne Quint Benoliel

Jeanne Quint Benoliel
#81331
Overall Influence
1919 - 2012 (93 years)
Jeanne Quint Benoliel was an American nurse who studied the role of nursing in end-of-life settings. She founded the Ph.D. program at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She was designated a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing.
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#58

Kathy Malloch

#83128
Overall Influence
Kathy Malloch is an American nurse who is past president and current boardmember of the Arizona Board of Nursing. She is a nursing scholar, writer, software developer and teacher. Education A graduate of Wayne State University, College of Nursing, she received an MBA from Oakland University and a PhD in nursing from the University of Colorado.
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#59

Harriet Werley

#66814
Overall Influence
1914 - 2002 (88 years)
Harriet Helen Werley was an American nurse who made early contributions to clinical research and nursing informatics. Werley became the first nurse researcher at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the Army Nurse Corps converted to a baccalaureate-prepared group under her leadership. She was a founding editor of Research in Nursing and Health. She co-created the Nursing Minimum Data Set in 1991.
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#60

Cindy-Lee Dennis

#107556
Overall Influence
Cindy-Lee E. Dennis is a Canadian professor in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She holds the Women's Health Research Chair at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital. Previously she held the Canada Research Chair in Perinatal Community Health at the University of Toronto.
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#61

Miyong Kim

#86612
Overall Influence
Miyong Kim is a Korean-American nurse researcher and academic. She is the La Quinta Centennial Endowed Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Texas at Austin. Biography Kim was born in South Korea and came to the United States with her two sons when her husband, "Kim" Byung-tae Kim, began a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Arizona. After earning a Ph.D. at the University of Arizona, Miyong Kim was on the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She was named a fellow of both the American Heart Association and the American Academy of Nursing.
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#62

Barbara Riegel

#112072
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Barbara Riegel is an American clinical researcher, clinical nurse specialist, academic, and author. She is a Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, a Professor Emerita at San Diego State University, and Co-Director of the International Center for Self-Care Research.
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#63

Elizabeth Fradd

#101384
Overall Influence
Dame Elizabeth Harriet Fradd, DBE, FRCN, is a British nursing administrator. Between 1973–1983, she held a variety of registered nurse, midwife and health visitor posts, while training as a children’s nurse who also managed children's units in Nottingham and worked as a nursing officer at the Department of Health.
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#64

Fannie Gaston-Johansson

#62912
Overall Influence
1938 - 2023 (85 years)
Fannie Jean Gaston-Johansson was an American professor of nursing and university distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins University. Gaston-Johansson researched health disparities, pain management, and coping strategies in women breast cancer patients. Gaston-Johansson was the first African-American woman tenured full professor at Johns Hopkins University. She previously served as a dean and full professor at University of Gothenburg and an associate professor at University of Nebraska Medical Center. Gaston-Johansson was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 1995.
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#65

Grayce Sills

#84611
Overall Influence
1926 - 2016 (90 years)
Grayce Sills was an American psychiatric nurse, educator, author, and nurse administrator. Sills was the co-founder of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, She was co-founding Editor of the Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association .
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#66

Margaret Newman

#107208
Overall Influence
1933 - 2018 (85 years)
Margaret A. Newman was an American nurse, university professor and nursing theorist. She authored the theory of health as expanding consciousness, which was influenced by earlier theoretical work by Martha E. Rogers, one of her mentors from graduate school. Newman was designated a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing.
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#67

Ada Sue Hinshaw

#62444
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Ada Sue Hinshaw is an American nurse best known for her research on quality of care, patient outcomes, and positive nurse working environments. Hinshaw was designated as a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing in 2011.
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#68

Paule Valery Joseph

#86671
Overall Influence
Paule Valery Joseph is an American nurse and researcher at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She is the 2022 National Academy of Medicine American Academy of Nursing Fellow. Early life and education Joseph is from Venezuela. She spent her childhood watching her mother acting as the community nurse. Her father was a teacher. She earned her Associate of Applied Science in nursing at Hostos Community College. She moved to the College of New Rochelle for her Bachelor of Science in Nursing . She moved to Pace University for her graduate studies, where she earned a master's degree in nursing.
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#69

Shirley Smoyak

#106171
Overall Influence
1935 - 2022 (87 years)
Shirley A. Smoyak is a nurse and academic who has had a significant impact on the field of psychiatric nursing. Biography After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in nursing and a doctorate in sociology, Smoyak became a faculty member at Rutgers University. She has taught courses both in nursing and in the social sciences. She has been the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing and Mental Health Services since 1981. Smoyak was appointed to oversee reform efforts at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey. Some of her most recent research examines the effects of e...
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#70

Merryn Gott

#116924
Overall Influence
Caryl Merryn Gott is a New Zealand social science academic specialising in palliative care. She is currently a full professor at the University of Auckland. Academic career After a 2000 PhD titled 'Sexual activity, sexually transmitted diseases and risk behaviour among older adults' at the University of Sheffield, She was appointed a full professor at the University of Auckland.
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#71

Ann K. Cashion

#83253
Overall Influence
Ann King Cashion is an American nurse scientist specialized in genetic markers that predict clinical outcomes. She is a professor emerita in the department of health promotion/disease prevention at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Cashion was the acting director of the National Institute of Nursing Research from 2018 to 2019.
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#72

Nilda Peragallo

#59637
Overall Influence
Nilda Peragallo Montano is the Dean and Professor of the University of North Carolina School of Nursing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She specializes in Women’s and Public Health a special focus on HIV/AIDS prevention in Latino Women.
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#73

Irena Papadopoulos

#79962
Overall Influence
Professor Irena Papadopoulos is a prominent Greek Cypriot transcultural nursing researcher and now resides in the United Kingdom. Papadopoulos currently heads the research centre for transcultural studies in health at Middlesex University but has been working within the NHS and the University sector for over 30 years. During this period she has led a number of projects aimed at changing nursing practice, developing new curricula, developing new assessment tools, establishing quality systems, and integrating nursing education within the higher education sector. She has conducted various resear...
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#74

Shannon N. Zenk

#100750
Overall Influence
Shannon Nicole Zenk is an American nurse scientist specialized in researching social inequities and health disparities. She is director of the National Institute of Nursing Research. Education Zenk earned her bachelor’s in nursing, magna cum laude, from Illinois Wesleyan University; her master’s degrees in public health nursing and community health sciences from University of Illinois Chicago ; and her doctorate in health behavior and health education from the University of Michigan. Her predoctoral training was in psychosocial factors in mental health and illness, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.
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#75

Nicky Cullum

#95703
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Dame Nicola Anne Cullum is a Professor of Nursing at the University of Manchester. Education Cullum was educated at the University of Liverpool where she was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacology in 1984 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Pharmacology in 1990. She became a Registered General Nurse in 1985.
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#76

Mary Chiarella

#81125
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Elizabeth Mary Chiarella AM is an Australian academic who specialises in issues relating to nursing, midwifery and the law. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Sydney, Australia and has been at the forefront of many regulatory changes to nursing practice and the nursing workforce and midwifery. These include the introduction of nurse practitioners into Australia, the move from a state based to a national regulatory system and, for midwifery, the introduction of the world's first Doctor of Midwifery and the establishment of the framework for state funded home birth midwifery in New South Wales , Australia.
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#77

Lisa Kitko

#66139
Overall Influence
Lisa A. Kitko is an American nurse scientist and academic administrator serving as dean of the University of Rochester School of Nursing and vice president of the University of Rochester Medical Center.
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#78

Marie Cowan

#84917
Overall Influence
1938 - 2008 (70 years)
Marie Jeanette Johnson Cowan was an American nurse and academic who conducted cardiovascular research. A faculty member at Seattle University and the University of Washington, Cowan was hired as the nursing school dean at UCLA in 1997. She was a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing.
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#79

Phyllis Stern

#113569
Overall Influence
1925 - 2014 (89 years)
Phyllis Noerager Stern was an American registered nurse, college professor and nursing theorist. Stern was known for her contributions to international women's health and for developing Glaserian grounded theory approaches used in nursing research. She held faculty appointments at several schools, including Dalhousie University and Indiana University. She was designated a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing in 2008.
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#80

Pamela R. Jeffries

#121332
Overall Influence
Pamela R. Jeffries is an American professor of nursing and serves as dean of Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. She is nationally recognized as an expert in nursing, with a focus on simulation and education.
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#81

Grace Ebun Delano

#104766
Overall Influence
1935 - Present (89 years)
Grace Ebun Delano is a nurse and midwife who has played a key role in pioneering family planning and reproductive health services in Nigeria. She co-founded the Association for Reproductive and Family Health of which she was director for many years, has acted as consultant for many different organisations across Africa, and has written and co-authored numerous books and articles on women's health and related topics. In 1993, she was given the World Health Organization Sasakawa Award for her work in health development.
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#82

Laurie N. Gottlieb

#107014
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Laurie N. Gottlieb is a Professor, School of Nursing, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where she holds the Flora Madeline Shaw Chair of Nursing. She is Editor-in-Chief of CJNR and was recently named Nurse-Scholar-in-Residence at the Jewish General Hospital, a McGill University teaching hospital.
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#83

Eleanor C. Lambertsen

#68748
Overall Influence
1916 - 1998 (82 years)
Eleanor C. Lambertsen was an American nurse. She was noted for a dissertation called Nursing Team Organization and Functioning which was later published as a book. Lambertsen's concept revolutionized nursing's and health care's organization and delivery. She received several awards for her achievements, and was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 2012.
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#84

May Wykle

#115574
Overall Influence
1934 - Present (90 years)
May Louise Hinton-Wykle, is an American nurse, gerontologist, educator, researcher, and the first African-American Marvin E. and Ruth Durr Denekas Endowed Chair at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing of Case Western Reserve University. Wykle also serves as a professor at Georgia Southwestern State University and teaches Geriatric Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Nursing Administration, and Minority Student Recruitment and Retention.
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#85

Rosemarie Rizzo Parse

#144210
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
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#86

Elfrida O. Adebo

#112800
Overall Influence
1928 - Present (96 years)
Elfrida O. Adebo is a Nigerian nurse and academic. In 1984, she became the first professor of nursing in Nigeria. Life Adebo was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on 3 March 1928. She started her nursing career in London, training as a staff nurse and midwife at St Mary's Hospital, London in 1957-58. In 1959 she returned to Nigeria to work as a Public Health Nurse in Ibadan. She gained a D.P.H. in Nursing in 1961, and a Bachelor of Nursing in 1962. After briefly working as an instructor at the School of Hygiene in Ibadan, she became a lecturer at the University of Ibadan. Joining the Department of Nursing in October 1967, she became acting Head of Department by 1970.
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#87

Jacqueline Fawcett

#152310
Overall Influence
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#88

Laura Serrant

#112283
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Laura Serrant, is a British nurse and academic. She is currently Regional Head of Nursing for North East and Yorkshire at Health Education England and Professor of at Manchester Metropolitan University where she was previously Head of Department.
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#89

Diane M. Becker

#121841
Overall Influence
1943 - 2021 (78 years)
Diane M. Becker was an American nurse and public health scientist who researched cardiovascular disease prevention. She was a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Career and education Becker graduated from Monroe-Woodbury High School in 1961. Becker graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1964 with a R.N. Diploma in Nursing.
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#90

Heimar de Fátima Marin

#78954
Overall Influence
Heimar de Fátima Marin is a nurse and a full professor at the Federal University of São Paulo . Career In 2004 she was elected international member at the American College of Medical Informatics. Heimar Marin was also the president of Brazilian Society of Health Informatics ; vice-chair and elected chair of the International Medical Informatics Association Nursing Informatics Special Interest Group .
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#91

Fiona Ross

#34130
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Fiona Mary Ross, is a British nurse and academic. She is Emerita Professor in Health and Social Care at Kingston University and an independent governor on the Westminster University Court. Formerly she was Dean at Kingston University and St George's, University of London, and also the director of research at the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
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#92

Joanne Disch

#126431
Overall Influence
Joanne Disch is an American professor ad honorem of nursing at University of Minnesota School of Nursing. She is best known for her contributions improving patient safety, health administration, and nurse-physician relationships.
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#93

Susan Orsega

#116219
Overall Influence
Susan M. Orsega is an American nurse and rear admiral who currently serves as the senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Surgeon General of the United States. She previously served as the acting surgeon general from January 20 to March 4, 2021. Orsega is one of the first nurses to serve in the position. She also previously served as the director of Commissioned Corps Headquarters, tasked with the administration of the members of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps , from March 2019 to October 2021. Prior to becoming acting surgeon general, Orsega was the chi...
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#94

Ann Minnick

#159604
Overall Influence
Ann Minnick is an American nursing scholar focusing in safety and quality in hospitals and workforce and academic quality. Minnick is currently the Julia Eleanor Chenault Professor at Vanderbilt University.
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#95

Margaret Callahan

#61469
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Margaret Faut-Callahan is the Health Sciences provost at Loyola University Chicago. Biography Callahan earned her undergraduate degree at Loyola University Chicago and both her master's and Ph.D. degrees at Rush University in Chicago, where she served as an administrator at the university or at Rush University Medical Center for more than 25 years prior to coming to Marquette.
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#96

Pam Smith

#114260
Overall Influence
Pam Smith is a Professor of Nursing in the School of Health in Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. Her research relates to emotions and care within the nursing profession. Early life and education Smith graduated from the Bachelor of Nursing programme at the University of Manchester. She gained a postgraduate certificate in adult education from Garnett College in 1973 and a MSc in Medical Sociology from Bedford College in 1982. Smith was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from King's College London in 1988 for a thesis entitled "The Quality of Nursing and the Ward as a Learning Enviro...
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#97

Patsy Yates

#92020
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Patsy Yates is an Australian registered nurse, university professor, and institutional leader who works at the Queensland University of Technology , where she is a Distinguished Professor and Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health, Research Director of the Centre for Palliative Care Research and Education, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthcare Transformation. She is a specialist in the field of palliative, cancer and aged care.
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#98

Tonda L. Hughes

#143805
Overall Influence
Tonda Hughes is an American professor of nursing and associate dean for global health research at the School of Nursing at Columbia University. She is best known for her research of factors influencing the health of sexual minority women , particularly in the area of substance use. Hughes is the principal investigator of the Chicago Health and Life Experiences of Women Study, the longest-running longitudinal study of sexual minority women's health, with a focus on alcohol use and mental health.
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#99

Christine Moffatt

#38876
Overall Influence
Christine Joy Moffatt, CBE, FRCN is a British nurse and educator. Biography Following training at Charing Cross Hospital, Moffatt trained as a district nurse. Following a diploma in leg ulcer care she became involved in research, became a lecturer at Imperial College London. She ran the Centre for Research and Implementation of Clinical Practice independently before entering into an association with Thames Valley University.
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#100

Roberta Woodgate

#90930
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Roberta Lynn Woodgate is a Canadian nurse. She is a Distinguished Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Child and Family Engagement in Health Research and Healthcare at the University of Manitoba.
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