Popkin, Heiss, Li among most-cited researchers

July 3, 2014

Three Gillings School of Global Public Health faculty members are among the most-cited researchers in the sciences and social sciences, according to data collected by Thomson Reuters.

Dr. Heiss

Dr. Li

Dr. Popkin

They are Gerardo Heiss, MD, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of epidemiology; Yun Li, PhD, assistant professor of biostatistics and of genetics (UNC School of Medicine); and Barry Popkin, PhD, W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of nutrition.

About 3,200 researchers earned the distinction by writing the greatest number of reports officially designated as highly-cited papers, thereby being ranked within the top 1 percent most cited for their subject field and year of publication.

“Citations offer a direct testament to work that scientists themselves judge to be the most important to ongoing research,” said Gordon Macomber, managing director of Thomson Reuters Scientific and Scholarly Research. “By analyzing these citation connections, one can identify the most impactful people, publications, programs and more. The listings in Highly Cited Researchers  truly reflect positive assessment by peers and constitute a searchable database containing an elite selection of the world’s most influential scientific researchers.”

“It is awesome that three Gillings faculty members are on this list,” said Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, dean of the Gillings School, “and we are so proud of them. Their inclusion there speaks to their productivity, influence and impact. That they are from three departments speaks to the collective breadth and depth of our faculty members.”

The complete list of top-cited researchers and information about Thomson Reuters’ methodology for selecting researchers can be seen on the HighlyCited website.