LAS researchers rank among the world's most influential
Three researchers in the College of LAS have been named to the 2024 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes researchers and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence, as reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade.
The highly cited Illinois researchers this year are: climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain, crop sciences and plant biology professor Stephen Long, and psychology professor Brent Roberts.
Psychology professor emeritus Ed Diener, who is deceased, is also on this year’s list.
Two other U of I professors were also on the list: natural resources and environmental sciences professor Kaiyu Guan and materials science and engineering professor Axel Hoffmann,
Jain’s research expertise is in building and applying the climate modeling systems necessary to understand and quantitatively predict the bidirectional interactions of human activity with the global climate system. He contributes to major assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union, and recieved the Distinguished Alumni Award from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He is included on the Reuters list of top climate scientists. He also is affiliated with the Center for Global Studies and the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Long is the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology. He uses computational and bioengineering approaches to improve photosynthetic efficiency in crop plants and works to address the effects of climate change on crop physiology and yields. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2013 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019. He founded Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency, a multinational project to increase crop production. He also is the founding and chief editor of the journal Global Change Biology, a highly cited journal on how global change is altering the biosphere. He is an affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Insitute for Genomic Biology, NCSA and the Center for Advanced Study.
Roberts specializes in the field of personality psychology and studies continuity and change in personality throughout adulthood, with an emphasis on understanding the factors that influence change. His recent research focuses on assessing and building social, emotional and behavioral skills. Roberts is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Association of Psychological Science. At Illinois, he holds the Gutsgell Endowed Professorship, is a professor of biomedical and translational sciences in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, an affiliate of the Center for Social and Behavioral Science and IGB, and serves as a senior science advisor to the Office of the Provost.
Diener, who died in 2021, was a social psychologist and a leader in the field of positive psychology, which focuses on the factors promoting happiness and well-being. In the mid-1980s, he and colleagues developed the Satisfaction with Life Scale, and in 2009 the Flourishing Scale, both designed to gauge happiness — which he called “subjective well-being” — in a methodical, repeatable manner. He was a co-author of hundreds of articles on the subject of well-being. He won the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions in 2012. In an obituary of Diener, The New York Times called him “a playful social psychologist” who conducted “pioneering research into what defined contentment.”
