6 NREL Researchers Named to Global Highly Cited List

6 NREL Researchers Named to Global Highly Cited List

Six researchers from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are included in this year's list of the most highly cited researchers. For one, this marks his seventh consecutive year to be included.

The Highly Cited Researchers list is compiled annually by London-based Clarivate's Web of Science Group, which calculates whose research papers are most often cited by other scientists. This year the list included 6,636 individuals, 2,507 of whom are in the United States.

The NREL researchers included this year are Matthew Beard, Gregg Beckham, Joe Berry, Joey Luther, Xiaopeng Zheng, and Kai Zhu. NREL had seven people on the 2023 list and eight on the prior year's list. The researchers are in the minority, with just one out of 1,000 scientists around the world making the cut. Their selections are based on the frequency their research papers have been cited by other scientists over the past decade.

"I want to congratulate our researchers. The continual presence of NREL researchers on this list illustrates NREL's impact on the Department of Energy and influence driving science," said Bill Tumas, associate laboratory director for the Materials, Chemical, and Computational Science (MCCS) directorate. Five of the six NREL researchers named are part of MCCS.

Clarivate described the people considered a highly cited researcher as someone "who has demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research."

Luther, a senior research fellow, has made the list seven consecutive times.

Beard, also a senior research fellow, and Zhu, a senior scientist, are making their sixth appearances as highly cited researchers. Beckham, another senior research fellow, has appeared three times. Berry, who is also a senior research fellow, is on the list for the fourth time. Zheng, a postdoctoral researcher at NREL who is now with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, appeared three times in connection with his work at the laboratory.

"It's great to be recognized for the impact of NREL research," Beard said. "It's a team effort, and these recognitions reflect on the dedicated contributions from the many NREL researchers and postdocs as well as outside collaborators which I have the honor to be a part of."