The Intellectual Property (IP) and Science business of Thomson Reuters, announces the release of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds,” a citation analysis identifying the scientists—as determined by their fellow researchers—who have made the most significant global impact within their respective field of study.
The two-part study includes an 11 year assessment of research paper citations to determine the leaders within 21 broad fields of science and a ranking of 2015’s top scientists or “hottest researchers,” revealing significant growth in cancer genomics and improvements in converting solar cells into renewable energy.
The report draws on data and analysis performed by Thomson Reuters IP & and Science bibliometric experts via InCitesTM Essential Science IndicatorsSM, the world’s leading web-based research analytics platform and a unique compilation of science performance metrics and trend data based on scholarly paper publication counts and citation data from the Web of ScienceTM, the premier web-based environment for scientific and scholarly research.
The longer-range study, widely known as the Highly Cited Researchers, recognizes nearly 3,000 scientists who published the greatest number of articles ranking among the top one percent by citations received in their respective fields in each paper’s year of publication. Analysts assessed more than 120,000 papers indexed between 2003 and 2013 throughout each area of study.
The 2015 hottest researchers ranking spotlights the scientific community’s emerging trends and 19 innovators, who recently published at least 14 papers with notably high levels of citations. The list was identified by tabulating citations within the Web of Science recorded during calendar year 2014 for papers published between 2012 and 2014.
Stacey B. Gabriel of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard tops the list for the second consecutive year for her contributions to the Cancer Genome Atlas project, providing molecular portraits of tumors afflicting the breast, lung and other areas of the body. Her most recent papers examine the genetic underpinnings of schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s. She is followed by newcomer, Oxford University’s Henry J. Snaith, a physics and material scientist for his work on perovskite solar cells to advance solar energy technology.
Hottest Researchers of 2015:
| Name | Institution | Field | Number of Hot Papers |
| Stacey B. Gabriel | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard | Genomics | 25 |
| Henry J. Snaith | Oxford University | Physics/Materials | 24 |
| Christopher J. Murray | University of Washington | Global Health | 22 |
| Eric S. Lander | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard | Genomics | 21 |
| Gad Getz | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard | Genomics | 20 |
| Matthew Meyerson | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard | Genomics | 19 |
| Michael Grätzel | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Materials | 19 |
| David (Xiong Wen) Lou | Nanyang Technological University | Chemistry/Materials | 19 |
| Alan D. Lopez | University of Melbourne | Health Metrics | 16 |
| Theo Vos | University of Washington | Global Health | 16 |
| Mohammed K. Nazeeruddin | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Materials | 16 |
| Hua Zhang | Nanyang Technological University | Materials | 16 |
| Mohsen Naghavi | University of Washington | Global Health | 15 |
| Yang Yang | Univ. of California, Los Angeles | Materials | 15 |
| Yi Cui | Stanford University | Materials | 15 |
| Michael S. Lawrence | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard | Genomics | 14 |
| Scott L. Carter | Dana-Farber Cancer Institute | Genomics | 14 |
| Kristian Cibulskis | Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard | Genomics | 14 |
| Feng Zhang | MIT | Biomedical Engineering | 14 |
“We are pleased to recognize the world’s most influential scientific minds; the innovators forging a path toward a brighter tomorrow,” said Vin Caraher, president Thomson Reuters IP & Science. “Citations serve as strong and reliable indicators of the work scientists judge to be most critical to ongoing global research, thus making the highly-cited researchers and hottest researchers a true reflection of the individuals, institutions and nations that are driving the pace of scientific discovery.”
Learn more about the findings and methodology.