Three Tufts Professors Are Named Top Researchers in the World

Three Tufts faculty have been named to a ranking of the world's most highly cited researchers. The researchers in the Clarivate 2025 list have a significant impact on the research community as judged by the rate their work is cited by their peers, according to Clarivate, an information and analytics firm focused on research.

The highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by citations for a field or fields and publication year, and only about 1 in 1,000 researchers worldwide qualify.

The Tufts researchers are Chunmei Li, Renata Micha, and Dariush Mozaffarian.

For this year's analysis, the papers surveyed were the most recent available-those published and cited during 2014 to 2024.

"Research is at the heart of Tufts' mission, and this recognition highlights the global impact and influence of our faculty's work," said Bernard Arulanandam, vice provost for research at Tufts. "I extend my sincere congratulations to each of them for this outstanding achievement."

Chunmei Li is a research assistant professor of biomedical engineering. Her research explores the intersection of biomaterials, regenerative medicine, and sustainable materials science.

By integrating materials chemistry, biomechanics, and regenerative biology, her work spans silk-fibroin platforms for biomedical and structural innovation, drug delivery, bioelectroceutics, bone tissue engineering, complex tissue models, and limb regeneration. Her research has been published in leading journals such as Nature Materials, Nature Reviews Materials, Nature Communications, and Advanced Materials. Patented technologies from her research have been licensed to industry partners for clinical and industrial translation.

Renata Micha is an adjunct associate professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. She has expertise in nutritional and chronic disease epidemiology-focusing on diet assessment and modeling of impacts on cardiometabolic health-and in nutrition and health policy.

Micha has particular interest and experience in global dietary assessment among various population subgroups, identifying causal diet-disease relationships, quantifying and modeling the impact of dietary habits on cardiometabolic disease outcomes, and evaluating the comparative- and cost-effectiveness of nutrition-sensitive population interventions to address these disease burdens. She has more than 150 publications with more than 160,000 citations in high-impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Circulation, and PLoS Medicine.

Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist, public health scientist, and director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. A globally recognized expert in nutrition science and policy, Mozaffarian has helped position "Food is Medicine" as a transformative movement in U.S. health care. Under his leadership, the Institute has advanced research and policy initiatives demonstrating that key Food is Medicine programs such as medically tailored meals and produce prescriptions can improve health outcomes, reduce hospitalizations, and lower healthcare spending.

He has authored more than 600 scientific publications on nutritional priorities for cardiometabolic health and on evidence-based policy approaches and innovations to advance nutrition security, reduce diet-related diseases, improve health equity, and reduce health care costs in the U.S. and globally.