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.

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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 people in Nursing,

#51

Jacquelyn Campbell

#44722

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Jacquelyn C. Campbell, PhD, MSN, RN, is an American academic nurse known for her research on domestic violence and violence against women, especially cases of such violence that end in homicide. She is professor and the Anna D. Wolf Chair at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She is also the national program director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Nurse Faculty Scholars program.

#52

Alison Kitson

#48481

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Alison Kitson FRCN is inaugural Vice President and Executive Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University South Australia. She is also an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, United Kingdom.

#53

Salaria Kea

#69870

Overall Influence

1913 - 1991 (78 years)

Salaria Kea O'Reilly was an American nurse and desegregation activist who volunteered in both the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. During the Spanish Civil War she was the only African American nurse working in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion.

#54

Viola Davis Brown

Viola Davis Brown

#49524

Overall Influence

1936 - 2017 (81 years)

Viola Davis Brown born in Lexington, Kentucky, was a participant in the civil rights movement with contributions to public health and medical education in Kentucky. Personal life and education Viola Davis is the daughter of Donnie and Mable Davis. Davis married Percy H. Brown on June 29, 1957. Percy and Viola have five children together: Clarence, Michael, Bonnie, Donna, and Linda. In 1959, Mrs. Brown became the first to attend the Nazareth School of Nursing affiliated with St. Joseph Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Viola Brown graduated in 1959 and was soon appointed to the position of Supervisor of Nursing.

#55

Cheryl Tatano Beck

#94736

Overall Influence

Cheryl Tatano Beck is an American obstetric nurse. She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut where she focuses on postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. Early life and education Tatano Beck was raised in Stanford, Connecticut. While enrolled at Western Connecticut State University, she maintained a GPA of 3.5 in her freshman year and received the 1970 Jane C. Thompson Nursing award. After completing her Bachelor of Science degree, Tatano Beck earned her DNSc from Boston University and her MSN in maternal newborn nursing and CNM from Yale University.

#56

Betty Kershaw

#55552

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Dame Janet Elizabeth Murray Kershaw is an English nurse who served as professor of nursing and dean at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Sheffield from 1999 to 2006. She served as Head of the Manchester College of Midwifery and Nursing and the Director of Nursing Education at the Stockport, Tameside and Glossop College of Nursing.

#57

Jane Cummings

#82516

Overall Influence

Jane Frances Cummings is a former Chief Nursing Officer for England, formerly at the Department of Health and subsequently at NHS England. In November 2013 she was interviewed about the demand for safe staffing levels in NHS hospitals and told ITV Daybreak: "The most important thing to do is to use evidence to determine what the staffing levels should be. "It's actually quite dangerous to to suggest that there must be a particular minimum and what we really need to do is to look at the needs of the patients on a particular ward or service and that will vary."

#58

David Thompson

#93056

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

David Robert Thompson is a British academic nurse and psychologist. He is professor of nursing at Queen's University Belfast. He holds honorary and adjunct positions in the United Kingdom, China and Australia and is an editor of European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. He served as a panel member of the 2001 UK Research Assessment Exercise and as a sub panel member of the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise. He was the first nurse to be elected a member of the British Cardiac Society.

#59

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".

#60

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...

#61

Rozzano Locsin

#94428

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Rozzano Locsin is a Filipino American Professor of Nursing at Tokushima University , a Professor Emeritus of Florida Atlantic University , and a Visiting Professor at universities in Thailand, Uganda, and the Philippines.

#62

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.

#63

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.

#64

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...

#65

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.

#66

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.

#67

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.

#68

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.

#69

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.

#70

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.

#71

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.

#72

Martin C. Robson

#113684

Overall Influence

#73

Courtney Lyder

#52971

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Courtney Harvey Lyder is a Trinidadian-American nurse and educator who is recognized internationally for his work in the field of gerontology. Lyder served as dean of the UCLA School of Nursing from 2008 till 2015.

#74

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.

#75

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.

#76

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 .

#77

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.

#78

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.

#79

Hugh Patrick McKenna

Hugh Patrick McKenna

#109314

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Hugh Patrick McKenna CBE FRCN is a British academic. He is Dean of Medical School Development at Ulster University. McKenna served on the 2001 U.K. Research Assessment Exercise panel for nursing, chaired the panel for Nursing and Midwifery in the 2008 U.K. Research Assessment Exercise and chaired the sub-panel for Dentistry, Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Pharmacy sub-panel in the 2014 U.K. Research Excellence Framework. He chairs the sub-panel for Dentistry, Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Pharmacy sub-panel in the 2021 U.K. Research Excellence Framework and as a member of the 2021 U.K.

#80

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.

#81

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...

#82

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.

#83

John D. Thompson

#47346

Overall Influence

1917 - 1992 (75 years)

John Devereaux Thompson, R.N., M.S. was a nurse and professor at the Yale School of Public Health who co-invented the diagnosis-related groups that provided a basis for changing the system for hospital payment.

#84

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.

#85

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.

#86

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...

#87

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.

#88

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.

#89

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.

#90

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.

#91

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.

#92

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.

#93

Marilyn Jane Field

#133042

Overall Influence

#94

Joyce J. Fitzpatrick,

#134995

Overall Influence

#95

Catherine M. Tangen

#135026

Overall Influence

#96

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.

#97

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.

#98

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.

#99

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.

#100

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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