Three Wits scientists named amongst the world’s most highly cited
- Wits University
Professors Andrew Forbes, Shabir Madhi, and Derick Raal are three of just 10 South Africans on the annual list of Highly Cited Researchers™.
Of the world’s population of scientists and social scientists, Highly Cited Researchers are 1 in 1,000.
Professor Derick Raal is no stranger to the list, making his fifth appearance in 2024, while Professors Andrew Forbes and Shabir Madhi made their debut on the prestigious Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers™ list, revealed on 19 November 2024.
A Highly Cited Researcher is an individual who has demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field(s) of research.
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™ over the past decade.
A total of 6,636 individual researchers from institutions in 59 countries and regions were named Highly Cited Researchers in 2024.
Of these 6,636 individuals, only 10 are from South Africa – three from Wits University, five from the University of Cape Town, and one each from Stellenbosch University and the University of Pretoria respectively.
World-class scholarship from Wits
Andrew Forbes is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Physics, Faculty of Science, at Wits University where he established the Structured Light Laboratory in 2015. Forbes actively promotes photonics in Africa. He is a founding member of the Photonics Initiative of South Africa and initiator of South Africa’s Quantum Roadmap.
Amongst multiple accolades, Forbes was joint winner in the Physics category of the 2024 The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Awards, which recognised his seminal contributions in creating new forms of classical and quantum states of structured light, thereby advancing photonic-based applications and fundamental sciences. In 2022, the South African Institute of Physics awarded him its Gold Medal – the highest award for physics in South Africa.
According to the Clarivate Web of Science, Forbes has 357 publications, cited 11,918 times, and an H-index of 57.
The h-index is a number that measures a researcher's productivity and impact. It's calculated by counting the number of publications that have been cited at least that many times.
Shabir Madhi, CBE, is Professor of Vaccinology, NRF/DSI SARChI Chair in Vaccine Preventable Diseases, and the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits University. He is the Director of the Wits Vaccines and Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit (Wits-VIDA), which led South Africa and the continent’s first 沙巴体育官网_2024欧洲杯博彩app@ vaccine trials, and he is co-founder and co-Director of the African Leadership Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE).
As a trained paediatrician, his research has focused on the epidemiology and clinical development of vaccines against pneumonia and diarrhoeal disease. These studies have informed World Health Organization recommendations on the use of the lifesaving pneumococcal conjugate vaccine and rotavirus vaccine in children; and influenza vaccination of pregnant women.
According to the Clarivate Web of Science Madhi has 746 publications, cited 40,050 times, and an H-index of 86.
Five-times Most Highly Cited, Derick Raal is a Distinguished Professor, Head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, and Director of the Carbohydrate and Lipid Metabolism Research Unit in the School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences at Wits University.
Raal is a leading expert on familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), one of the most common inherited disorders in the world yet it remains a difficult condition to treat. As a result of markedly elevated cholesterol levels from birth, untreated patients with FH suffer from early heart attack and often premature death. Raal has played a pivotal role in advancing the treatment for FH both locally and internationally over the past three decades. His research unit is internationally recognised for its work on FH and has one of the largest cohorts of homozygous FH patients in the world.
According to the Clarivate Web of Science, Raal has 382 publications, cited 24,034 times, and an H-Index of 60.
Other Wits researchers who were previously Most Highly Cited™ include:
- The late Professor Bob Scholes, 2020, in the cross-disciplinary category
- Professor Steven Churchill, in 2019, in the category of Social Sciences
- Professor Chris Mathew, from 2014 to 2016, in the category of Molecular Biology
- Professor Lynn Morris (currently Wits’ Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Innovation), from 2015 to 2019, in the category of Microbiology
- Professor Lee Berger, from 2017 to 2019, in the category of Social Sciences.