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Thomson Reuters Predicts Nobel Laureates
Twenty-five “Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates” Recognized for their Contributions to the Advancement of Science
Thomson Reuters is the only organization to use quantitative data to make annual predictions of Nobel Prize winners.
Each year, data from ISI Web of Knowledge®, the world’s largest citation environment of the highest quality scholarly literature, is used to quantitatively determine the most influential researchers in the Nobel categories of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Economics. These high-impact researchers are named Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates and predicted to be Nobel Prize winners, either this year or in the near future, based on the citation impact of their published research.
Since 2002, 15 Citation Laureates have gone on to win Nobel Prizes.
“We choose our Citation Laureates by assessing citation counts and the number of high-impact papers they have produced while identifying discoveries or themes that may be considered worthy of recognition by the Nobel Committee," said David Pendlebury, Citation Analyst at Thomson Reuters. "A strong correlation exists between citations in scientific literature and peer esteem. Professional awards, like the Nobel Prize, are also a reflection of peer esteem."
The Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates typically rank among the top one-tenth of one percent (0.1%) of researchers in their fields, based on citations of their published papers over the last two or three decades.
The 2009 Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates by Nobel Prize category are as follows:
CHEMISTRY
Michael Grätzel
Professor and Director, Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces,
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
Laussane, Switzerland
- For his invention of dye-sensitized solar cells, now known as Grätzel cells.
Jacqueline K. Barton
Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering,
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, Calif., USA
-and-
Bernd Giese
Professor, Department of Chemistry,
University of Basel
Basel, Switzerland
-and-
Gary B. Schuster
Provost and Professor, School of Chemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Ga., USA
- For their pioneering research of electron charge transfer in DNA.
Benjamin List
Professor and Director, Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany, and Honorary Professor,
University of Cologne
Cologne, Germany
- For his development of organic asymmetric catalysis using enamines.
PHYSICS
Yakir Aharonov
Professor, Department of Physics, Computational Science and Engineering,
Chapman University
Orange, Calif., USA,
Emeritus Professor,
Tel Aviv University,
Tel Aviv, Israel
University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C., USA
-and-
Sir Michael V. Berry, F.R.S.
Melville Wills Professor of Physics Emeritus, Department of Physics,
University of Bristol
Bristol, United Kingdom
- For their discovery of the Aharonov-Bohm Effect and the related Berry Phase, respectively.
Juan Ignacio Cirac
Director of Theory Division,
Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics
Garching, Germany
-and-
Peter Zoller
Professor of Physics,
Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Innsbruck and Scientific Director, Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
Innsbruck, Austria
- For their pioneering research on quantum optics and quantum computing.
Sir John B. Pendry, F.R.S.
Professor of Theoretical Solid State Physics and Head of the Condensed Matter Theory Group, Imperial College of Science and Technology
London, United Kingdom
-and-
Sheldon Schultz
Research Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, University of California San Diego
San Diego, Calif., USA
-and-
David R. Smith
William Bevan Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the Center for Metamaterial and Integrated Plasmonics
Duke University
Chapel Hill, N.C., USA
- For their prediction and discovery of negative refraction.
PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE
Elizabeth H. Blackburn
Morris Herztein Professor of Biology and Physiology, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics,
University of California San Francisco
San Francisco, Calif., USA
-and-
Carol W. Greider
Daniel Nathans Professor and Director, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Baltimore, Md., USA
-and-
Jack W. Szostak
Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School and Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital; also, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Boston, Mass., USA
- For their roles in the discovery of and pioneering research on telomeres and telomerases.
James E. Rothman
Wallace Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Professor and Chairman of Cell Biology,
Professor of Chemistry,
Yale University
New Haven, Conn., USA
-and-
Randy Schekman
Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, University of California Berkeley; also, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
Berkeley, Ca., USA
- For their research on cellular membrane trafficking.
Seiji Ogawa
Director, Ogawa Laboratories for Brain Function Research, Hamano Life Science Research Foundation
Tokyo, Japan
- For his fundamental discoveries leading to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which has revolutionized basic research in brain science and diagnosis in clinical medicine.
ECONOMICS
Ernst Fehr
Professor and Director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics,
University of Zurich
Zurich, Switzerland
-and-
Matthew J. Rabin
Edward G. and Nancy S. Jordan Professor of Economics, Department of Economics,
University of Berkeley
Berkeley, Calif., USA
- For their contributions to behavioral economics, including issues of preferences, fairness, and cooperation.
William D. Nordhaus
Sterling Professor of Economics,
Yale University
New Haven, Conn., USA
-and-
Martin L. Weitzman
Professor of Economics,
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass., USA
- For their contributions to environmental economics, particularly with respect to climate change.
John B. Taylor
Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics, Stanford University, and Bowen H. and Mary Arthur McCoy Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Stanford, Calif., USA
-and-
Jordi Gali
Professor, Department of Economics and Director of the Center for Research in International Economics, Pompeu Fabra University
Barcelona, Spain
-and-
Mark L. Gertler
Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Economics, New York University
New York, N.Y., USA
- For their research on monetary policy.
For detailed information about each of the Citation Laureates, including information about their areas of study, and to read about previously named Citation Laureates who are still in the running, visit the Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates website at science.thomsonreuters.com/nobel
Thomson Reuters
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Notes to Editor:
If you are interested in scheduling an interview with David Pendlebury to discuss this year's picks and the methodology for choosing Citation Laureates, please contact Sue Besaw at +1-215-823-1840 or susan.besaw@thomsonreuters.com
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