Lab scientists among most cited researchers worldwide

Fifty-seven researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) were among the top 2 percent of the most cited researchers worldwide throughout their careers, according to research on metascience by Stanford University.

Metascience is the "study of studies" using scientific methods.

Stanford University professor John Loannidis worked alongside U.S.-based Kevin Boyack and the Netherlands-based Jeroen Baas to release the exhaustive list of the top 100,000 scientists of various disciplines.

The database, which analyses the career-long impacts by researchers, was published publicly in mid-October in the journal PLoS Biology.

Among the LLNL scientists are (cited in the order they are listed): Charlie Westbrook, Karl Taylor, Ian Thompson, John Lindl, Dmitri Ryutov, Stephen Klein, Scott Wilks, Stephen Payne, Amitesh Maiti, Rick Ryerson, Alex Noy, Peter Beiersdorfer, Alex Chernov, Carlos Iglesias, Per Söderlind, Ben Santer, Allan Langdon, John Moriarty, Ye Zhou, Bruce Remington, Steve Haan, Peter Lindstrom, Vasily Bulatov, Malvin Kalos, David Young, Erich Ormand, James Felton, Eberhard Spiller, Robert Rudd, Ray Beach, Stefan Hau-Riege, Harry Radousky, Sergei Kucheyev, Otto L,anden, Bill Pitz, Panayot Vassilevski, Lorin Benedict, Joe Nilsen, Ramona Vogt, Bruce Hendrickson, Otis Walton, Harry Robey, Alex Hamza, Zurong Dai, Susan Carroll, Salvador Aceves, Y. Morris Wang, Christopher Stolz, Luke Hsiung, Chandrika Kamath, John Elmer, Marcos Chaos, Ted Baumann, Jim Belak, Rich London, B. Stuart, David Fittinghoff and Abdul Awwal. The late Edward Teller and Berni Alder also were listed, as well as many former LLNL employees.

The first comprehensive data of its kind was first published in August last year and was released this year with updates.

The authors noted that just looking at the number of citations does not truly measure the impact of the researcher, since some fields are more vibrant with research than others.

Their database, they argue, "allows the inclusion of more comprehensive samples of top-cited scientists for fields that have low citation densities and therefore would be less likely to be found in the top 100,000 when all scientific fields are examined together."

They assigned scientists ranks based on their impacts within the sub-fields of their disciplines. See the full study.