November 2016 Four NUI Galway experts feature among the world’s top scientific minds

Four NUI Galway experts have featured on the list of the world’s most Highly Cited Researchers. The list is a citation analysis identifying scientists – as determined by their fellow researchers – whose research has had significant global impact within their respective fields of study.

NUI Galway’s Professor Henry Curran, Professor Colin O’Dowd, Professor Donal O’Regan, and Dr Ronan Sulpice, have featured on the list. They rank among the world’s top 3,000 scientific minds by Clarivate Analytics, formerly the Intellectual Property & Science business of Thomson Reuters.

• Professor Henry Curran is Director of the Combustion Chemistry Centre at NUI Galway’s School of Chemistry and of the Energy Research Centre in the Ryan Institute. His research interest lies in the study of the chemistry of how fuels burn in combustors in order to increase efficiency and reduce emissions for a cleaner world.
• Professor Colin O’Dowd is Director of the Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies at the Ryan Institute, NUI Galway, and a Professor in the School of Physics, NUI Galway. Through his pioneering work in the field of atmospheric physics, Colin has become internationally renowned as one of the leading scientists in the field of climate change.
• Professor Donal O’Regan is a Personal Professor of Mathematics at NUI Galway’s School of Mathematics, Statistics and Applied Mathematics and an internationally recognised expert in the field of Nonlinear Analysis, Differential Equations, and Fixed Point Theory. He has written over 1,000 peer-reviewed mathematical articles, making him one of the most prolific authors in the history of mathematics in the world.
• Dr Ronan Sulpice is Lecturer in the School of Natural Sciences and Visiting Professor at the University of Vicosa in Brazil. His research explores the relationship between plant metabolism and growth, and how they vary in response to environment changes.

More than 3,000 researchers, in 21 fields of the sciences and social sciences, were selected based on the number of highly cited papers they produced over an 11-year period from January 2004 to December 2014.

“We are proud that our colleagues have earned global respect among the academic and scientific community for their excellent and transformative research. NUI Galway’s strong international reputation for research and innovation is reinforced with the inclusion of four of our faculty among the world’s most Highly Cited Researchers,” said Dr Jim Browne, President of NUI Galway.

The Highly Cited Researchers data from Clarivate Analytics form a key component of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, one of the longest established and most influential annual surveys of top universities globally (http://www.shanghairanking.com/index.html).

NUI Galway’s teaching and research has already been significantly recognised this year through its consistent rise in international rankings. The University is placed in the Top 250 of both the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2016/2017 and the QS World University Rankings 2016/17.

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