Twelve scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2025 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list. The list recognizes researchers and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence, as reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade.
The highly cited Illinois researchers this year are chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Huimin Zhao; natural resources and environmental sciences professor Kaiyu Guan; materials science and engineering professor Axel Hoffmann; climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain; plant biology professor Tracy Lawson; plant biology and crop sciences professor emeritus Donald Ort; psychology professor Brent Roberts; Siebel School of Computing and Data Science professor Jimeng Sun; cell and developmental biology professor Boxuan Zhao; and civil and environmental engineering professor Lei Zhao.
This year’s list also includes psychology professor emeritus Ed Diener and plant biology and crop sciences professor Stephen P. Long, both of whom are deceased.
“Highly Cited Researchers demonstrate significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research,” Clarivate Analytics reports. “Each researcher selected has authored multiple highly cited papers, which rank in the top 1% by citations for their field(s) and publication year in the Web of Science Core Collection over the past eleven years.” Other metrics and qualitative analyses are also used to compile the list. This year, 7,131 researchers are on the list.
Huimin Zhao develops and applies synthetic biology, artificial intelligence and laboratory automation tools to address challenges in human health, sustainability and energy. His main research focuses on the development of an AI-powered self-driving biofoundry for protein engineering and cellular engineering. He is the director of three concurrent National Science Foundation research centers at the U. of I, including the Molecule Maker Lab Institute, the iBioFoundry and the Global Center for Biofoundry Applications. He also is an affiliate of the chemistry, biochemistry and bioengineering departments; the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology; and the IGB.
Learn more about the other Illinois researchers on the list here.