Highly Cited Researchers have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research.
William Anderegg, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences and director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy has again been selected as one of Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers for 2024. Each researcher selected has authored multiple Highly Cited Papers™ which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year in the Web of Science™ over the past decade.
Citation activity, however, is not the sole selection indicator. This list, based on citation activity is then refined using qualitative analysis and expert judgment as the global analytics company observes for evidence of community-wide recognition from an international and wide-ranging network of citing authors.
Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers are 1 in 1,000.
“As the need for high-quality data from rigorously selected sources is becoming ever more important," says David Pendlebury, Head of Research Analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate, "we have adapted and responded to technological advances and shifts in the publishing landscape. Just as we have applied stringent standards and transparent selection criteria to identify trusted journals in the Web of Science™, we continue to refine our evaluation and selection policies for our annual Highly Cited Researchers™ program to address the challenges of an increasingly complex and polluted scholarly record.”
According to the Clarivate's website, "The Highly Cited Researchers 2024 list identifies and celebrates individuals who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their fields of research. Through rigorous selection criteria and comprehensive analysis, we recognize researchers whose exceptional and community-wide contributions shape the future of science, technology and academia globally."
"This program also emphasizes our commitment to research integrity. Our evaluation and selection process continues to evolve with filters to address hyper-authorship, excessive self-citation, anomalous citation patterns and more, ensuring that recognized researchers meet the benchmarks we require for this program."
Exploring the "global landscape of top-tier research talent," they continue, "provides us with insights on global research and innovation trends."
This year Clarivate™ awarded 6,886 Highly Cited Researcher designations to 6,636 individuals. Some researchers have been recognized in more than one Essential Science Indicators™ (ESI) field, resulting in more designations than individual awardees. This analysis, which includes the distribution of designations across nations and institutions, reflects the impact of these 6,886 appearances, distributed across fields, in accordance with the size of each.
While the sole researcher from the College of Science this year to be honored with the designation, Anderegg, one of three at the University of Utah, was the only one at the U to appear in two categories, Plant & Animal Science and Environment & Ecology.
This table summarizes the number of researcher designations by field of research and the cross-field category.
One-U Responsible AI
William-Anderegg
Anderegg is also the executive committee member who leads the One-U Responsible AI’s environmental working group. The group’s members bring their diverse expertise to establish ethical policy, explore AI’s impact on society and the environment, and develop responsible methods for using AI to improve climate research.
“Our goal of this working group is to put together a vision and a mission about responsibly developing and using AI to address human environmental challenges across scales to promote resilience and foster sustainable development,” said Anderegg at the group's inaugural symposium this past September. “AI could have an enormous negative impact on the environment itself. There are direct impacts for the cost of running AI—the power and water needed to run the massive data centers, and the greenhouse gas emissions that result. Then there are indirect challenges—misinformation, polarization, and increasing demands on the power grid. At the same time, there are another set of opportunities in using AI to tackle the marginal problems in forecasting and grid rewarding systems.”
The working group’s vision is to utilize AI to bolster our resilience to climate change with collaboration, training, technology, and ethical governance.
“The University of Utah is set to engage in these two focal areas of developing sustainable AI—how we use AI in a manner that minimizes environmental impact and maximizes long-term sustainability? Then, how do we harness AI for environmental resilience challenges?” Anderegg noted.
This is the second year in a row that Anderegg has made the Highly Cited Researcher list. With his mentor, biology professor emeritus John Sperry, the two were honored in the 2023 cohort. The two of them worked closely together, publishing multiple papers over the course of about six years in the areas of plant hydrology and forest stress. Their research is an auspicious example of how, in the tradition of peer-reviewed research, scientists routinely stand on the shoulders of others to move forward human understanding.
You can link to selected publications by Bill Anderegg here.
