Dozens of APS Leaders, Fellows Make 2019 List of Top-Cited Researchers

More than 50 APS Fellows are among the most highly cited researchers of the last decade, according to a new report. Included in that list are APS President Lisa Feldman Barrett, Past President John T. Cacioppo, several recipients of APS lifetime achievement awards, and a Nobel laureate.

The psychological scientists are listed in the Web of Science Group’s Highly Cited Researchers 2019, an annual list of influential researchers around the world. The list contains approximately 6,200 scientists whose work ranks in the top 1% of citations in their fields for papers published during the period of 2008-2018.

The list covers 21 fields ranging from materials science to neuroscience and behavior. Barrett and Cacioppo are among 14 APS Fellows listed in a new cross-field category that recognizes researchers with substantial influence across several disciplines. Barrett, who is also a recipient of the APS Mentor Award, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the science of emotion and directs the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory at Northeastern University. Cacioppo, an APS William James Fellow who died in 2018, was a University of Chicago researcher and co-founded the field of social neuroscience with APS Fellow Gary Berntson of The Ohio State University.  

Also included in the cross-field list are:

• APS Past Board Member Deanna Barch, Washington University in St. Louis, who researches behavioral and cognitive deficits in mental illnesses;
• APS William James Fellows Joseph LeDoux, New York University, who studies the brain circuitry’s impact on fear and anxiety; and Daniel L. Schacter, a Harvard University scientist who explores the psychological and biological aspects of memory and amnesia; and
• James McKeen Cattell Fellow Ian Deary, whose work at the University of Edinburgh centers on intelligence, cognitive aging, and cognitive epidemiology.   

Included in the neuroscience & behavior category are APS William James Fellow Bruce McEwen, Rockefeller University, and APS Fellow Edvard Moser, a psychological neuroscientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). McEwen has spent nearly 50 years studying how hormones regulate the brain and nervous system. Moser shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 2014 with APS Fellows May Britt-Moser, an NTNU psychological scientist, and John O’Keefe, University of College London, for their work identifying the place cells that comprise the brain’s positioning system.

The categories also include psychiatry/psychology and social sciences. Among the psychological scientists included under psychiatry/psychology are APS William James Fellow John Jonides, a cognitive neuroscientist and psychological scientist at the University of Michigan, and APS James McKeen Cattell Fellows Richard A. Bryant, a PTSD researcher and director of the University of New South Wales Traumatic Stress Clinic in Australia; Geraldine Dawson, whose work at Duke University Medical Center has focused on early detection, brain development, and treatment of autism spectrum disorder; Tom Joiner, director of the Laboratory for the Study and Prevention of Suicide-Related Conditions and Behaviors at Florida State University; Elaine F. Walker, whose research interests at Emory University include the precursors and neurodevelopment aspects of schizophrenia and other mental disorders; and Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a Yale University professor who studied rumination in depression. Nolen-Hoeksema passed away in 2013.

James McKeen Cattell Fellow Nancy Adler, director of the Center for Health and Community at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, is listed under the social sciences category, as is APS Fellow Mark Hatzenbuehler (Columbia University), who studies the health consequences of stigma and is a 2016 recipient of the APS Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions.

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