KU Scientists Among Select Few "Highly Cited Researchers"

Thompson Reuters recently named three KU scientists as the only KU researchers ranked "Highly Cited Researchers" for 2015.

Biodiversity Institute scientists Jorge Soberon and A. Townsend Peterson, as well as incoming professor James Bever, were selected for the list, which represents some of world’s most influential scientific minds. About three thousand researchers earned the distinction by writing the greatest number of reports officially designated by Essential Science Indicators as “highly cited papers.” This ranked them among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication, earning them the mark of exceptional impact.

Soberon’s interests are in documenting and understanding large-scale spatial patterns in the biodiversity of terrestrial species, using tools such as Geographical Information Systems software, mathematical models and software specifically for niche modeling. He also studies the political and institutional aspects of biodiversity governance. 

Together with Robert Guralnick, Soberon and Peterson edit the online, open access journal Biodiversity Informatics. 

Peterson’s research is diverse, ranging from systematic ornithology and species-level distributional ecology to spatial epidemiology, and the ecology of zoonotic diseases in natural systems. The general focus is on the geography of biodiversity, in a context of international collaboration and education.

James Bever, professor of biology at Indiana University, will join the KU Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and the Kansas Biological Survey (KBS) in January 2016. He is considered a world leader in microbiology, especially plant-soil microbial interactions.