Dozens of engineering professors among world’s top 2% of working scientists

Nearly 40 School of Engineering faculty members have been named among the top 2 percent of 7 million working scientists in the world.

More than 60 percent of the school’s full professors are in this elite group, based on a recent study by a Stanford University professor and his colleagues.

The study combines several different metrics to systematically rank the most influential scientists by scientific field as measured by citations. It updates an earlier study, also led by Professor John Ioannidis of Stanford. Ioannidis and colleagues created a public database of 100,000 top scientists classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields. Like the first study, the 2020 update includes separate data for impact over a career and a single year.

“Citation metrics are widely used and misused,” Ioannidis said in releasing the study. “The database provides standardized information on citations, h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions and a composite indicator.”

H-index and hm-index are two widely used author-level metrics that aim to measure productivity as well as citation impact.

Current, research-active faculty ranked in the top 2 percent are grouped below by primary department. They are:

Biomedical Engineering

  • Adam Anderson, professor of biomedical engineering
  • Mark Does, professor of biomedical engineering
  • E. Duco Jansen, professor of biomedical engineering
  • Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Engineering Anita Mahadevan Jansen, professor of biomedical engineering
  • University Professor John Gore, professor of biomedical engineering
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering Cynthia Reinhart-King, professor of biomedical engineering
  • J. Lawrence Wilson Professor of Engineering Michael King, professor of biomedical engineering
  • Harvie Branscomb Professor Michael Miga, professor of biomedical engineering
  • Gordon A. Cain University Professor John Wikswo, professor of biomedical engineering

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

  • John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering Peter Cummings, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering
  • Scott Guelcher, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering
  • Paul Laibinis, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering
  • H. Eugene McBrayer Professor of Chemical Engineering Peter Pintauro, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering
  • Jamey Young, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering

Civil and Environmental Engineering

  • Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Daniel F. Flowers Professor Douglas Adams
  • University Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth and Environmental Sciences George Hornberger
  • Shihong Lin, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering
  • John R. Murray Sr. Professor of Engineering Sankaran Mahadevan, professor of civil and environmental engineering
  • Florence Sanchez, professor of civil and environmental engineering

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

  • Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering Benoit Dawant, professor of electrical engineering
  • Bruce and Bridgitt Evans Dean of Engineering Philippe Fauchet, professor of electrical engineering
  • Doug Fisher, associate professor of computer science and computer engineering
  • Olin H. Landreth Professor of Engineering Daniel Fleetwood, professor of electrical engineering
  • Gabor Karsai, professor of electrical engineering, computer science and computer engineering
  • Xenofon Koutsoukos, professor of computer science, computer engineering and electrical engineering
  • Akos Ledeczi, professor of computer engineering
  • Lloyd Massengill, professor of electrical engineering and computer engineering
  • Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering Douglas Schmidt, professor of computer science and computer engineering
  • Orrin H. Ingram Professor of Engineering Ronald Schrimpf, professor of electrical engineering
  • Jeremy Spinrad, associate professor of computer science
  • E. Bronson Ingram Distinguished Professor of Engineering Janos Sztipanovits, professor of computer science, electrical engineering and computer engineering

Mechanical Engineering

  • H. Fort Flowers Professor of Mechanical Engineering Michael Goldfarb
  • Deyu Li, professor of mechanical engineering
  • Robert Pitz, professor of mechanical engineering
  • David K. Wilson Professor of Engineering Nilanjan Sarkar, professor of mechanical engineering
  • Nabil Simaan, professor of mechanical engineering
  • Jason Valentine, associate professor of mechanical engineering
  • Richard A. Schroeder Professor of Mechanical Engineering Robert Webster

The initial study is available here; the 2020 updated study is available here; and future updates are available here. Several open-access journals, including PLoS Biology, have articles reviewing the data, methodology and metrics.