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 Physics,

#1101

Julia M. Riley

#177946
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Julia M. Riley is a British astrophysicist who developed the Fanaroff–Riley classification. Personal and professional background She is the daughter of Philippa and British marine geophysicist Maurice Hill and granddaughter of Nobel Prize–winning physiologist Archibald Vivian Hill. Riley is a Fellow of Girton College associated with the Cavendish Astrophysics Group at University of Cambridge. Her primary field of research is in the area of radio astronomy. Riley lectures and supervises physics within the Natural Sciences Tripos at the University of Cambridge.
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#1102

Monika Aidelsburger

#173538
Overall Influence
1987 - Present (37 years)
Monika Aidelsburger is a German quantum physicist, Professor and Group Leader at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Her research considers quantum simulation and ultra cold atomic gases trapped in optical lattices. In 2021, she was awarded both the Alfried-Krupp-Förderpreis and Klung Wilhelmy Science Award.
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#1103

Emanuela Del Gado

#168140
Overall Influence
Emanuela Del Gado is an Italian theoretical physicist and the Provost's Distinguished Professor at Georgetown University. She combines statistical mechanics and computational modelling to understand complex materials.
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#1104

Donna Sheng

#114431
Overall Influence
Don-Ning "Donna" Sheng is a condensed matter physicist whose research involves two-dimensional systems including the fractional quantum Hall effect and quantum spin Hall effect, as well as the natural emergence of supersymmetry in topological superconductors. She is a professor of physics at California State University, Northridge, and is also affiliated with the Princeton Center for Complex Materials at Princeton University.
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#1105

Lucilla de Arcangelis

#108162
Overall Influence
Lucilla de Arcangelis is an Italian statistical physicist known for her work on percolation theory, self-organized criticality, power laws in fracture, and applications including earthquake prediction and neuroscience. She is a professor of physics at the Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli .
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#1106

Christy Holland

#137218
Overall Influence
Christy K. Holland is an American scientist and professor of internal medicine and biomedical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. After a B.A. with majors in physics and music at Wellesley College, she obtained her Ph.D.in engineering and applied science from Yale University. Holland is editor-in-chief of Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology. Holland's articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals have been cited over 6300 times, giving her an h-index of 46.
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#1107

Michele Bannister

#174266
Overall Influence
1986 - Present (38 years)
Michele Bannister is a New Zealand planetary astronomer and science communicator at the University of Canterbury, who has participated in surveying the outermost Solar System for trans-Neptunian objects.
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#1108

Marija Drndic

#142172
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Marija Drndic is the Fay R. and Eugene L. Langberg Professor of Physics at the University of Pennsylvania. She works on two-dimensional materials and novel spectroscopic techniques. Early life and education Drndic studied physics and mathematics at Harvard University and spent a year at the University of Cambridge in the Semiconductor Physics Group. At Cambridge Drndic worked on quantum transport of coupled gases with Michael Pepper. At Harvard University she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude. Drndic was awarded a Clare Booth Luce Fellowship, the Harold T. White Prize for Excellence in Teaching and the Robbins Prize from Harvard University.
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#1109

Susan Blessing

#174782
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Susan K. Blessing is an American physicist who is currently a professor at Florida State University and an elected fellow of the American Physical Society. Early life and education Blessing was born on April 10, 1961. She earned her B.S. at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1982 and her Ph.D at Indiana University in 1989. After earning her Ph.D., she was a research associate at Northwestern University from 1989-1993.
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#1110

Mercedes López-Morales

#176931
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Mercedes López-Morales is a Spanish-American astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who works on detection and characterization of exoplanet atmospheres.
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#1111

Graziella Branduardi-Raymont

#176964
Overall Influence
Graziella Branduardi-Raymont was an Italian physicist. She was a professor at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory . Biography Branduardi-Raymont obtained a degree in Physics from the University of Milan in 1973, and in 1974 began studying for a PhD at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory . She finished her PhD in X-ray Astronomy in 1977 and subsequently moved to the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian.
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#1112

Nan Dieter-Conklin

Nan Dieter-Conklin
#98994
Overall Influence
1926 - 2014 (88 years)
Nan Dieter-Conklin , also known as Nannielou Reier Hepburn Dieter Conklin, was an American radio astronomer. Early life Nannielou Reier was born in Springfield, Illinois, the daughter of Paul G. Reier. She attended Goucher College to study mathematics, but an astronomy course taught by Helen Dodson sparked her interest in that subject. Dieter spent summer internships at the Maria Mitchell Observatory, working under Margaret Harwood. She completed doctoral studies at Radcliffe College in 1958, using her own radio astronomy data in her dissertation on Galaxy M33. Her research involved the radio telescope at Harvard, and she took a Harvard course on variable stars from Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
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#1113

Giulia Rodighiero

#172657
Overall Influence
Giulia Rodighiero is an Italian astronomer whose research concerns galaxy formation and evolution, and the effect of galactic collisions on star formation. Originally from Vicenza, she is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Padua, where she completed her PhD in 2003.
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#1114

Ursel Bangert

#150483
Overall Influence
Ursel Bangert is the Bernal Chair in Microscopy and Imaging at the University of Limerick. She develops advanced characterisation techniques such as transmission electron microscopy for the atomic scale imaging of novel materials.
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#1115

Paola Borri

#177972
Overall Influence
Paola Borri is an Italian physicist whose research in biophotonics has included the use of Raman scattering in 3d microscopy of cancer-derived organoids. Other topics in her research have included nonlinear optics and the study of quantum dots. She is a professor of biosciences and of physics and astronomy at Cardiff University, coordinator of the European Marie Curie ETN consortium MUSIQ, and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.
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#1116

Vivien Zapf

#173193
Overall Influence
Vivien Zapf is an American research scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory pulsed field facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Biography Zapf received her bachelor's degree in physics with computer science from Harvey Mudd College in 1997 and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, San Diego in 2003. Zapf studies Multiferrics and Quantum Magnetism. She served as a Millikan post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology from 2004-2005 and as a Director's fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 2005-2006.
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#1117

Lynne Karen Deutsch

#165067
Overall Influence
1956 - 2004 (48 years)
Lynne Karen Deutsch was an American astrophysicist who helped develop the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory/University of Arizona Mid-Infrared Array Camera . Deutsch was born in Chicago and earned her MS from MIT in 1983 and Ph. D. from Harvard in 1990. Her dissertation was on grain processing and the evolution of planetary nebulae with a mid-infrared array camera. Between 1990 and 1992 Deutsch served as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center where she worked on MIRAC.
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#1118

Z. Jane Wang

#170167
Overall Influence
Zheng Jane Wang is a Chinese and American physicist known for her research on insect flight. She is a professor of physics and of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University. Education and career Wang studied physics at Fudan University, graduating in 1989, and completed a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago in 1997.
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#1119

Sandra Chapman

#177776
Overall Influence
Sandra C. Chapman CPhysis FInstP FRAS a British astrophysicist who is Professor of Astrophysics and Director of the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics at the University of Warwick. Her research considers nonlinear physics and planetary magnetospheres. She was awarded the 2022 Royal Astronomical Society Chapman Medal.
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#1120

Ilaria Pascucci

#126379
Overall Influence
Ilaria Pascucci is an Italian-American astrophysicist and planetary scientist known for her research on exoplanets, protoplanets, the formation of planets, and protoplanetary disks, using a combination of theory, simulation, and observation. Pascucci is a professor and associate department head in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona.
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#1121

Isabella M. Gioia

Isabella M. Gioia
#162728
Overall Influence
Isabella M. Gioia is an Italian astrophysicist. She is currently a Research Associate at INAF in Bologna, Italy. Career While a visiting astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy, she was a member of the Chandra Science Center. As of 2012, she had been a member of the American Astronomical Society for 25 years. She was included in the 1996-1997 edition of Who's Who in Science and Engineering. She was listed in ISI's 1120 World's Most Cited Physicists with 65 articles, 2397 citations, and an average of 36.88 citations per article as of the time of publication.
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#1122

Montserrat Calleja Gómez

#151914
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Montserrat Calleja Gómez is a Spanish physicist who specializes in Bionanomechanics. She is currently a research professor at the Institute of Micro and Nanotechnology in Madrid, Spain. Early life and career Montserrat was born in the Spanish Province of Ourense, Galicia, Spain. She obtained her degree in Physics from University of Santiago de Compostela in 1998. She finished her Master's Degree in 2000 with the thesis "Optimizing the AFM dynamic mode for nanolithograph". She obtained her doctoral degree from the same University in 2002, after working under the supervision of Ricardo García at the Micro and Nanoelectronics Institute of Madrid specializing in nanotechnology and biosensors.
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#1123

Barbara Cooper

#178942
Overall Influence
1953 - 1999 (46 years)
Barbara Hope Cooper was an American physicist. She was the first female professor on the physics faculty at Cornell University. Early life and education Cooper was born in Lancaster in 1953. She was raised in Newark. She attended Newark High School and graduated in 1971. Her father, Charles Burleigh Cooper, was an emeritus professor of physics at the University of Delaware. She completed her undergraduate degree in 1976 at Cornell University. When she started at Cornell, she intended to apply to medical school. When she injured her back in her second year, she took a break from her studies to...
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#1124

Christine Erbe

#174201
Overall Influence
Christine Erbe is a German-Australian physicist specializing in underwater acoustics. She is a professor in the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and director of the Centre for Marine Science and Technology —both at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia, Australia. Erbe is known for her research on acoustic masking in marine mammals, investigating how man-made underwater noise interferes with animal acoustic communication.
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#1125

Kimberlee J. Kearfott

#155195
Overall Influence
Kimberlee Jane Kearfott is a professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The American Nuclear Society recognised her notable contributions to the field of radiation protection in 2017.
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#1126

Sylvie Roke

#166606
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Sylvie Roke is a Dutch chemist and physicist specialized in photonics and aqueous systems. As a full professor she holds Julia Jacobi Chair of Photomedicine at EPFL and is the director of the Laboratory for fundamental BioPhotonics.
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#1127

Pascuala García Martínez

Pascuala García Martínez
#160454
Overall Influence
1970 - Present (54 years)
Pascuala García Martínez is a Spanish physicist and Professor of Optics at the University of Valencia, where her research specialises in developing new optical and digital techniques for pattern recognition and imaging applications. She is a Fellow of the International Society for Optics and Photonics .
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#1128

Carolina Ödman-Govender

#168643
Overall Influence
1974 - 2022 (48 years)
Carolina Ödman-Govender was a Swiss physicist and academic who was Professor of Astrophysics at South Africa's University of the Western Cape. She was awarded the 2018 International Astronomical Union Special Executive Committee Award for Astronomy Outreach, Development and Education.
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#1129

Judy Karpen

#178187
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Judith Tobi Karpen is an American astrophysicist who works for NASA as chief of the Space Weather Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She is known for her research on solar prominences and the solar wind, including the use of the Solar Dynamics Observatory to observe the fine structure of plumes in the solar corona.
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#1130

Sophie Brasselet

#135196
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Sophie Brasselet is a French optical physicist whose research interests include nonlinear optics, the optical and fluorescent properties of biomolecules, the optical manipulation of molecules, and the development of instrumentation for biological imaging, over scales ranging from single molecules to multi-cellular tissues. She is a director of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research , and the director of the Institut Fresnel in Marseilles, also affiliated with the Mosaic advanced photonics group within the institute.
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#1131

Laurie McNeil

#148628
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Laurie Elizabeth McNeil is an American condensed matter physicist and materials scientist whose research topics have included optical spectroscopy, the properties of crystals and semiconductors, and the synthesis of carbon nanotubes. She is Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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#1132

Paola Picotti

#129660
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Paola Picotti is an Italian biologist who is Professor for Molecular Systems Biology at ETH Zürich. She is Deputy Head of the Institute for Molecular Systems Biology. Her research investigates how the conformational changes of proteins impact cellular networks. She was awarded the 2020 ETH Zürich Rössler Prize and the 2019 EMBO Gold Medal.
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#1133

Barbara M. Middlehurst

#170661
Overall Influence
1915 - 1995 (80 years)
Barbara Mary Middlehurst was a Welsh astronomer. Early life Barbara Mary Middlehurst was born in Penarth, Glamorgan, Wales. She attended Penarth County School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge, where she studied mathematics. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1936 and a master's degree in 1947. She built her astronomy credentials over several years of independent reading and practice.
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#1134

Ana Buenaventura Mocoroa

#168512
Overall Influence
1901 - 2001 (100 years)
Ana Buenaventura Mocoroa , also known as Titina Mocoroa, was an Argentine physicist. She is known for her contributions in experimental physics and her dedication to improving the teaching of her discipline.
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#1135

Adriana Cristina Serquis

#125866
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Adriana Cristina Serquis is an Argentine physicist, the president of the National Atomic Energy Commission , and principal researcher of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council . In 2014, she received the L'Oréal-UNESCO National Award For Women in Science for her contribution to the rational use of electrical energy.
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#1136

Muriel Thomasset

#120235
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Muriel Thomasset , is a French physicist who specializes in optics. In 2003, she received an Irène Joliot-Curie Prize. Life and work Thomasset earned her Master's degree in Optics and Photonics and in 1998 she defended her doctoral thesis in physics with her thesis titled High spatial resolution imaging in the X-UV domain using Fresnel zone lenses" under the supervision of Pierre Dhez at the Pierre and Marie Curie University.
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#1137

Liv Hornekær

#170104
Overall Influence
1972 - Present (52 years)
Liv Hornekær is a Danish experimental physicist who works in nanotechnology and astrochemical research. She is a professor at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University and head of the surface dynamics group at the department. Her research mainly covers the interaction between hydrogen atoms and carbon-based surfaces
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#1138

Linda Walsh

#151988
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Linda Walsh is a British scientist who specializes in radiation epidemiology. She is an honorary visiting research fellow in the Medical Physics Department of the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
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#1139

Anke Lindner

#176650
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Anke Lindner is a German physicist known for her work on Non-Newtonian fluids and viscous fingering, especially in complex suspensions. She is a professor at Paris Diderot University. Education and career Lindner began her studies at the University of Bayreuth. She came to Pierre and Marie Curie University through the Erasmus Programme, and discovering her interest in complex fluids there, completed a doctorate through the École normale supérieure . After a year working as a consultant in Zurich, she took a postdoctoral research position at ESPCI Paris, following which she became a lecturer at Pierre and Marie Curie University and a researcher for ESPCI.
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#1140

Heidy Mader

#152047
Overall Influence
Heidy M. Mader was a British physicist and Professor at the University of Bristol who specialised in the study of the flow of complex multiphase fluids, including magma in volcanic systems and ice. She was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research from 2016-2021.
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#1141

Beate Schmittmann

#161202
Overall Influence
Beate Schmittmann is a German-American condensed matter physicist and academic administrator who is dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. Her research includes work on driven diffusive systems, biomolecular transport, and epidemiology.
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#1142

Svetlana Kotochigova

#179320
Overall Influence
Svetlana Alexandrovna Kotochigova is a Soviet and American physicist whose research involves the theory and simulation of ultracold atoms and ultracold molecules. She is a research professor of physics at Temple University and a researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
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#1143

Kai-Mei Fu

#147777
Overall Influence
Kai-Mei Fu is an American electrical engineer and physicist. They are an Associate Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington where they are the director of the Optical Spintronics and Sensing Lab.
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#1144

Anna Ceresole

#148083
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Anna Ceresole is an Italian high energy physicist and Director of Research in Theoretical Physics at the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare . She is interested in quantum field theory, supergravity and string theory.
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#1145

Sara Majetich

#174745
Overall Influence
Sara A. Majetich is an American physicist and Professor of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University. Her work considers magnetic nanoparticles and nanostructures for application in spintronic devices. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
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#1146

Ramona Vogt

#111667
Overall Influence
Ramona Lynn Vogt is a high-energy physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Education Vogt received her Ph.D. in 1989 from the State University of New York at Stony Brook with the thesis topic "Charmonium Interactions with Hadronic Matter".
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#1147

Miriam B. Goodman

#107494
Overall Influence
Miriam B. Goodman is an American neuroscientist and biologist. She is currently the Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor of Cell Biology at Stanford University. At Stanford she is also Chair of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. Goodman's lab is currently working to develop a mechanistic model of sensation in C. elegans.
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#1148

Marion Ross

#84815
Overall Influence
1903 - 1994 (91 years)
Marion Amelia Spence Ross FRSE was a Scottish physicist noted for her work in x-ray crystallography and fluid dynamics. Life Ross was born in Edinburgh, one of the five daughters of William Baird Ross, organist, composer and founder of The Edinburgh Society of Organists . The family lived at 22 Royal Crescent in Edinburgh's New Town.
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#1149

Kate Isaak

#173205
Overall Influence
Katherine Gudrun Isaak is a British astrophysicist and the Project Scientist for the European Space Agency Characterising Exoplanet Satellite mission . She is based at European Space Research and Technology Centre.
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#1150

Nancy C. Maryboy

#103461
Overall Influence
Nancy Cottrell Maryboy is a Cherokee and Navajo Indigenous science expert and educator. Maryboy is the president of the Indigenous Education Institute, an organization she founded in 1995 to apply traditional Indigenous knowledge to contemporary settings. Much of her work has focused on Indigenous astronomy and she has written several books on Navajo astronomy.
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