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Meet Australia’s highest-cited scholar
Professor Herb W. Marsh is in good company. The educational psychologist from ACU has joined Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky as one of the most-cited researchers in the world. According to a Spanish agency funded by the European Commission, this makes him Australia’s best in this regard.
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Highest Cited Researcher: Setting the Record Straight
When the Ranking Web of Universities was reported in the Australian media The Campus Morning Mail (13 April, 2017,http://campusmorningmail.com.au/australias-highest-cited-researchers-revealed/), listed Professor Herb Marsh as the highest ranked Australian researcher from an Australian University.
However, the rankings based on the Google Scholar H-Index and institutional affiliations are updated regularly. As of 30 October 2017, Roy Baumeister is now listed as being from the University of Queensland (on 13 April his listed affiliation was Florida State University). Thus, whilst Professor Marsh is still the highest Australian researcher from an Australian researcher (current H-Index = 150), Roy Baumesiter (current H-Index = 155) is the highest non-Australian researcher located full-time at an Australian University.
Nevertheless, following from an exchange with Marsh, the Campus Morning Mail (19 April, 2017) subsequently reported that Richard Ryan (current H-Index = 156) has a fractional .7 appointment in the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education (IPPE) at the Australian Catholic University (the same Institute as Marsh). Thus Ryan is apparently the highest ranked non-Australian who is predominantly located at an Australian university even though Google Scholar still lists him as being at the University of Rochester.
To complicate matters further, there may be Australian researchers at non-Australian universities who are ranked even higher, and all these rankings and even institutional affiliations change over time. Furthermore, the Google scholar H-Index that is the basis of these rankings is only one of many possible ways to rank researchers.
Marsh (IPPE, ACU), Baumeister (UQ), and Ryan (IPPE, ACU) are all psychologists and Marsh was recently named the winner of the Distinguished Contribution to Psychological Science Award by the Australian Psychological Society.