Engineering faculty among top two percent of scientists in world


World's Top 2% of Scientists

Twenty-five faculty members and three emeriti faculty of Brown Engineering have been recognized among the world’s top two percent of scientists in 2024, according to Stanford/Elsevier’s Top 2% Scientist Rankings. The annual ranking highlights the most widely cited researchers across a broad range of scientific fields, and is intended to provide a standardized way to recognize scientists who have made a significant impact on their respective fields. 

Inclusion in “Top 2%” draws from a variety of citation metrics, such as the h-index, co-authorship, and adjusted citation counts, to ensure fair and balanced representation of researchers. The list is updated annually, with career-long data and single-year impacts for transparency and current relevance. Scientists are classified into 22 broad fields and 176 sub-fields. More than six million researchers globally are evaluated.

Brown Engineering professors listed in the top two percent for 2024 include Yuri Bazilevs, Miguel Bessa, Eric Chason, Rod Clifton, Tejal Desai, Frank Doyle, Pedro Felzenszwalb, Franklin Goldsmith, Pradeep Guduru, Leigh Hochberg, Robert Hurt, George Karniadakis, Angus Kingon, Daniel Mittleman, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Nitin Padture, Andrew Peterson, Yue Qi, Sherief Reda, Jacob Rosenstein, Brian Sheldon, Subra Suresh, Gabriel Taubin, Axel van de Walle, and Roberto Zenit. Emeriti faculty members Huajian Gao, Ted Morse, and Harold Kushner were also listed. 

Among sub-fields, Karniadakis was the world’s top researcher in Applied Mathematics, while Bazilevs was 54th in the same category. Gao, now at Tsinghua University in Beijing, was 14th in the subfield of Mechanical Engineering and Transports. Peterson was ranked 24th in the subfield of Physical Chemistry. Padture was 27th in the subfield of Materials, while Suresh was 30th. Mittleman was 30th in his subfield of Optics. 

“We’re extremely proud of the impactful work of our School of Engineering researchers,” said Sorensen Family Dean of Engineering Tejal Desai, who was ranked among the top 400 biomedical researchers in the world. “To be recognized as part of the most influential researchers globally is a tangible reminder of the exceptional and innovative work that we collectively do here at Brown, and how Brown engineers are contributing to addressing the world’s most pressing challenges.”