Making the world healthier, more sustainable and more secure through research

Five UC Santa Barbara researchers have been named among the most influential scientists in the world, according to the 2023 Highly Cited Researchers list released by Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters).

The annual list identifies researchers in the sciences and social sciences who demonstrated significant and broad influence in their respective field or fields through publication of multiple highly cited papers during the past decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science™ citation index.

For 2023, Clarivate awarded the distinction to 6,849 researchers from institutions in 67 countries and regions. Some individuals, including two from UC Santa Barbara, were recognized in multiple fields of research.

The highly cited researchers from UC Santa Barbara for 2023 are:

Leon Balents, physics

Benjamin Halpern, environment and ecology

Alan Heeger, cross-field

John Martinis, physics

Joshua Schimel, cross-field

“The Highly Cited Researchers list identifies and celebrates exceptional individual researchers at UC Santa Barbara whose significant and broad influence in their fields translates to impact in their research community and innovations that make the world healthier, more sustainable and more secure,” said David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information. “Their contributions resonate far beyond their individual achievements, strengthening the foundation of excellence and innovation in research.”

Clarivate’s complex evaluation and selection process involves rigorous evaluation and curation of data from highly cited papers in trusted science and social sciences journals indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index during the 11-year period 2012 to 2022. It also involves the review of 188,500 Highly Cited Papers across various fields. Each researcher selected has authored multiple Highly Cited Papers which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year over the past decade. Citation activity is not the sole selection indicator; a preliminary list based on citation activity is then refined using qualitative analysis and expert judgement. 

Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers are 1 in 1,000.