Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Nine Illinois scientists rank among world’s most influential

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Nine researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2022 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes research scientists and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence – reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade. This year’s list includes 6,938 individuals from around the world whose papers rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science.

The highly cited Illinois researchers this year are: crop sciences and plant biology professor Elizabeth Ainsworth, natural resources and environmental sciences professor Kaiyu Guan, materials science and engineering professor Axel Hoffmann, atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain, materials science and engineering professor emerita Jennifer A. Lewis, plant biology professor Donald Ort, psychology professor Brent Roberts, and mechanical science and engineering professor Arend van der Zande. Psychology professor emeritus Ed Diener, who is deceased, is also on this year’s list.

Elizabeth Ainsworth standing in a soybean field. She is holding a soybean plant.

Elizabeth Ainsworth

In addition to being a professor of crop sciences and of plant biology, Ainsworth is employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service Global Change and Photosynthesis Research Unit. She is an affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the U. of I. Her work focuses on plant metabolism, photosynthesis and molecular variation within species and how those factors contribute to plant responses to global change. A key goal is to maximize crop production in the future. Ainsworth was awarded the National Academy of Sciences Prize in Food and Agricultural Sciences in 2019 and was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.

Kaiyu Guan

Kaiyu Guan

Guan works to ensure sustainable food production and find solutions to environmental challenges in agriculture, with a focus on agroecosystem modeling, crop remote sensing, environmental forecasting and agricultural adaptation to climate change. He uses satellite data, computational models, field work, supercomputing and machine-learning approaches to address how climate and human practices affect crop productivity, water resource availability and ecosystem functioning. He is an Office of Research Fellow in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, and a professor in computer science and in the NCSA with affiliations in the U. of I. Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment, and in geography and geographic information science. He is a recipient of faculty early career awards from the National Science Foundation and NASA, and received the American Geophysical Union’s Early Career Award in Global Environmental Change.

Axel Hoffmann

Axel Hoffmann

Hoffmann is a Founder Professor in materials science and engineering and a member of the Materials Research Laboratory. His research focuses on topics related to magnetism, such as spin transport, magnetization dynamics and biomedical applications. His work on spin Hall effects has contributed to the development of spintronics, electronic devices that harness electron spin for faster and more efficient computing. Hoffmann is a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society, the American Physical Society and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Atul Jain

Atul Jain

Jain studies the interaction between climate, biophysical processes and human activities such as deforestation and agriculture intensification. His team has developed a global model-data integration framework that makes use of satellite and ground-based observations to study how those interactions modify the net fluxes of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, and surface fluxes of water and energy. He is a contributor to major assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He has won numerous awards and honors, including the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award and inclusion on the Reuters list of top climate scientists.

Jennifer A. Lewis

Jennifer A. Lewis

Lewis has made pioneering contributions to the directed assembly of soft functional materials, including those composed of colloidal, polymeric and molecular building blocks. She applies her expertise to the design of functional inks for planar and 3D printing. Her research group has produced highly conductive electrode inks for printed electronic and solar devices, scaffolds for tissue engineering and lightweight structural materials. She has written more than 100 published papers and holds eight patents. Among many other honors, she has been named a fellow of the Materials Research Society, the American Physical Society and the American Ceramic Society.

Donald Ort

Donald Ort

Ort is the Robert Emerson Professor of Plant Biology and Crop Sciences at Illinois. His research focuses on improving photosynthesis and addresses crop responses to global change including increases in atmospheric CO2 and temperature. He leads the Genomic Ecology of Global Change research theme at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and was elected to the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service Science Hall of Fame in 2015 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2017.

Brent Roberts

Brent Roberts

Roberts is a professor of psychology in the field of personality psychology. He studies continuity and change in personality throughout adulthood, with an emphasis on understanding the factors that influence change. He is particularly interested in conscientiousness and its relationships to other key personality traits and to health and well-being. Roberts was named a Fellow of the American Psychological Association in 2009, a Fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in 2009 and a Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science in 2013.

Arend van der Zande

Arend van der Zande

Van der Zande’s research focuses on the mechanics of nanostructures and leveraging the unique properties of nanomaterials for next-generation technologies like biosensors, quantum systems and wearable electronics. He is a group lead in the Illinois Material Research Science and Engineering Center, and recently won the 2022 Society of Engineering Science Young Investigator Medal. He is the youngest U. of I. faculty member to be named to this year’s Highly Cited Researchers list.

Ed Diener

Ed Diener

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.”

Read Next

Humanities Diptych image with book cover of "The New Internationals" and a headshot of English professor David Wright Faladé

English professor’s novel tells of love triangle in post-WWII Paris, based on his family history

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new novel by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign English professor David Wright Faladé tells the story of three people in a love triangle in post-World War II Paris. The characters in “The New Internationals” — a young French woman who has survived the Holocaust, a university student from West Africa and a […]

Life sciences Portrait of the research team posing together.

Minecraft players can now explore whole cells and their contents

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists have translated nanoscale experimental and computational data into precise 3D representations of bacteria, yeast and human epithelial, breast and breast cancer cells in Minecraft, a video game that allows players to explore, build and manipulate structures in three dimensions. The innovation will allow researchers and students of all ages to navigate […]

Arts Photo of seven dancers onstage wearing blue tops and orange or yellow flowing skirts. The backdrop is a Persian design.

February Dance includes works experimenting with live music, technology and a ‘sneaker ballet’

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The dance department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will present February Dance 2025: Fast Forward this week at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. February Dance will be one of the first performances in the newly renovated Colwell Playhouse Theatre since its reopening. The performances are Jan. 30-Feb. 1. Dance professor […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010