Dr. Israel E. Wachs, the G. Whitney Snyder Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, recently surpassed a landmark in citations.
According to data compiled by Webometrics using Google Scholar citation records, Wachs now has an h-index of over 100, based on his Google Scholar citations, placing him among the top 2800 researchers worldwide in all disciplines of all times (from approximately 1900 to the present). The h-index was originally suggested by a physicist, Jorge E. Hirsch, in 2005, as a measure of productivity and citation impact of the publications of a researcher. Wachs' h-index of 106 means that he has published 106 papers, each of which has been cited by other publications at least 106 times, and reflects a researcher's scholarly impact.
Researchers at the top of the h-index list include Sigmund Freud, with an h-index of about 280. The group of approximately 3200 researchers with h-index above 100 includes distinguished researchers ranging from Nobel Laureates to leading engineers and scientists in every discipline.
“The h-index is widely used as one of several metrics to gauge impact of the scholarly publications of a researcher,” says Dr. Mayuresh Kothare, chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. “In a way, it is the academic and scholarly version of counting your Twitter followers—the more followers you have, the more your tweets are being read by others. Reaching an h-index of 100 is an astonishing scholarly accomplishment that reflects the influence that Dr. Wachs’ research has had in the fields of heterogeneous catalysis and chemical engineering."
The full list of researchers worldwide with highest h-index values of 100 and above, can be found here (last updated October 2018.)
Wachs' research focuses on heterogeneous catalysis (sustainable energy, chemical, and environmental applications) and surface characterization under reaction conditions (in situ and operando spectroscopy). He was recently elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) and is currently on sabbatical at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, on a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship.
