9 Gillings School faculty members named to Clarivate's annual Highly Cited Researchers list

November 16, 2021

Nine academics from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health were recently named to the 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list from Clarivate.

The highly anticipated annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top one percent by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation index.

From the Gillings School, those faculty include:

Dr. Ralph Baric

Ralph S. Baric, PhD, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of epidemiology. Baric has spent the past three decades as a world leader in the study of coronaviruses and is responsible for UNC-Chapel Hill’s world leadership in coronavirus research.

Dr. Noel Brewer

Noel T. Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health and professor of health behavior. Brewer’s research explores why people engage in vaccination, vaping and other health behaviors that prevent cancer.

Dr. Stephen Cole

Stephen R. Cole, PhD, professor of epidemiology. Cole studies causal inference and the methods of epidemiology, including the design and analysis of randomized experiments and observational studies.

Dr. Kelly Evenson

Kelly R. Evenson, PhD, professor of epidemiology. Evenson’s research focuses on physical activity and sedentary behavior, with specific interests in measurement, surveillance, intervention and associations with outcomes.

Dr. Hans Paerl

Hans W. Paerl, PhD, professor of marine and environmental sciences and engineering and William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences. Paerl’s research specializes in water quality, eutrophication, harmful algal bloom and food web dynamics of freshwater and marine ecosystems — locally, nationally and internationally.

Dr. Barry Popkin

Barry M. Popkin, PhD, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of nutrition. Popkin’s research focuses globally on understanding the stages of nutrition transition, which is the study of the dynamic shifts in dietary intake and physical activity patterns and trends around obesity and other nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases.

Dr. Bryce Reeve

Bryce Reeve, PhD, professor of population health sciences and Pediatrics within the Duke University School of Medicine, where he directs the Center for Health Measurement. He is also an adjunct professor of health policy and management at the Gillings School. Reeve’s areas of expertise are in developing patient-reported questionnaires using qualitative and quantitative methodologies and the integration of patient-reported data in research and healthcare delivery to inform decision-making.

Dr. Timothy Sheahan

Timothy Sheahan, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology. Sheahan is a virologist whose research focuses on understanding emerging viral diseases and developing new means to stop them.

Dr. David Weber

David J. Weber, MD, professor of medicine, pediatrics and epidemiology, associate chief medical officer of UNC Health Care, and director of regulatory services for the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NC TraCS). Weber’s research career has focused on healthcare-associated infections, antibiotic stewardship, new and emerging diseases, and vaccine implementation.

The methodology that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information™ at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these citation elite are based.

See the full 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive summary and learn more about the methodology.

Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.