Six researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2024 Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list, with three from the IGB. The list recognizes researchers and social scientists who have demonstrated exceptional influence, as reflected through their publication of multiple papers frequently cited by their peers during the last decade. 

The highly cited Illinois researchers from the IGB this year are: natural resources and environmental sciences professor Kaiyu Guan (CABBI), crop sciences and plant biology professor Stephen Long (CABBI/BSD/GEGC), and psychology professor Brent Roberts (GNDP). The remaining researchers are materials science and engineering professor Axel Hoffmann, climate, meteorology and atmospheric sciences professor Atul Jain, and Psychology professor emeritus Ed Diener, who is deceased.

Guan works to ensure sustainable food production and develop solutions to environmental challenges in agriculture, focusing on agroecosystem modeling, remote sensing, environmental forecasting and agricultural adaptation to climate change. He uses satellite data, computational models, fieldwork, supercomputing and machine-learning approaches to address how climate and human practices affect crop productivity, water resource availability and ecosystem functioning. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and is the chief scientist of the NASA Acres Consortium. At the U. of I., Guan is the founding director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center, a professor of computing and data science and a Blue Waters professor at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. 

Long is the Stanley O. Ikenberry Chair of Crop Sciences and Plant Biology. He uses computational and bioengineering approaches to improve photosynthetic efficiency in crop plants and works to address the effects of climate change on crop physiology and yields. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2013 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019. He founded Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency, a multinational project to increase crop production. He also is the founding and chief editor of the journal Global Change Biology, a highly cited journal on how global change is altering the biosphere. He is an affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Insitute for Genomic Biology, NCSA and the Center for Advanced Study at the U. of I. 

Roberts specializes in the field of personality psychology and studies continuity and change in personality throughout adulthood, with an emphasis on understanding the factors that influence change. His recent research focuses on assessing and building social, emotional and behavioral skills. Roberts is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and the Association of Psychological Science. At Illinois, he holds the Gutsgell Endowed Professorship, is a professor of biomedical and translational sciences in the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, an affiliate of the Center for Social and Behavioral Science and IGB, and serves as a senior science advisor to the Office of the Provost.