Three Social Scientists named to Highly Cited Researchers List

November 22, 2022 - Emily Jodway

The College of Social Science was well represented on the 2022 Highly Cited Researchers List, with three faculty members being named among the most highly cited researchers in the world. David Roy, Aaron McCright and Richard Lucas each received the distinction. 

The Highly Cited Researchers List compiled by Clarivate Analytics identifies individuals from across the globe who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields of research over the past decade. 

According to the report, this list is drawn from the highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in Clarivate’s Web of Science citation index. Of the world's population of scientists and social scientists, highly cited researchers are 1 in 1000, with 6938 highly cited researchers worldwide in 2022.

A total of 11 Michigan State University researchers made the list this year from a variety of departments and disciplines.  

Aaron McCright is a professor of sociology and chairperson of the Department of Sociology in the College of Social Science. His research investigates how interrelationships among scientific developments, political processes and social dynamics influence society’s capacity for recognizing and dealing with environmental degradation and technological risks.

David Roy is the interim director of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations in the College of Social Science and a professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences. His research interests include the development of remote-sensing and advanced computing methods to integrate satellite sensor data to map and characterize terrestrial global change, big satellite data processing, and the causes and consequences of land cover and land use change. This is the fourth consecutive year that Dr. Roy has received this distinction.

Richard Lucas is a professor in the Department of Psychology and the director of the MSU Personality and Well-Being Lab in the Social-Personality Program. His area of research includes happiness and subjective well-being, positive emotions, the effects of life events on life satisfaction, personality traits, extroversion and personality assessments.