World’s Top 2 Percent of Scientists List Includes More than 150 UT Faculty

A study conducted by Stanford University researchers named 156 UT faculty members among the top 2 percent of scientists in the world for research citations. The database includes about 156,000 scientists worldwide whose work has been most cited by peers throughout their careers.

The list includes current and former scientists across more than 75 disciplines from UT Knoxville, the UT Institute of Agriculture, and the UT Space Institute.

“As scientists and researchers, we broaden our understanding of the world and of our disciplines by building on the work of our peers,” said UT Knoxville Vice Chancellor for Research Deborah Crawford. “To have your contributions cited by fellow scientists is incredibly rewarding, and it demonstrates the important discoveries we are making every day here at UT.”

The discipline with the most UT faculty members on the list is applied physics with 12, followed by seven each in electrical and electronics engineering, energy, and materials.

UT’s most cited scientist on the list is Gore Hunger Professor of Environmental Science Daniel Simberloff, who ranked number 706 in the world. Simberloff studies invasive species, coexistence of species, and how species can differ depending on other organisms in their environment. He has previously been named among the most cited researchers in the world by Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thompson Reuters.

Five UT faculty members and researchers were named to the 2020 Clarivate list. Each year, Clarivate recognizes influential researchers in their respective academic fields—those who have multiple highly cited publications over the past decade. The most recent list includes more than 6,000 researchers in 21 fields of science and social sciences.