van der Zande one of eight Illinois researchers ranked among world’s most influential

Eight faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have been named to the 2019 Highly Cited Researchers list, a global listing of scientists who produced the past decade’s most influential papers, compiled by the Web of Science group, a Clarivate Analytics company.

Arend van der Zande, assistant professor in MechSE, made the list again, for the second year in a row. He was highly cited for his cross-field impact. 

The list recognizes researchers “who produced multiple papers ranking in the top 1 percent by citations for their field and year of publication, demonstrating significant research influence among their peers,” according to Web of Science. It selected 6,216 researchers for their performance in 21 fields and for cross-field influence in scholarly publications from 2008 to 2018.

van der Zande earned a BS in physics and mathematics in 2003 from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and an MS and PhD (in 2008 and 2011) in physics from Cornell University. In his lab at Illinois, he engineers new electronic, photonic, and mechanical devices using 2D materials as molecular building blocks.

The other Illinois faculty include crop sciences and plant biology professor Elizabeth “Lisa” Ainsworth (highly cited for cross-field impact), materials science and engineering professor Axel Hoffmann (cross-field), electrical and computer engineering professor Thomas Huang (engineering), geography and geographic information professor Mei-Po Kwan (cross-field), crop sciences and plant biology professor Stephen P. Long (cross-field), bioengineering professor Shuming Nie (cross-field), and plant biology professor Donald Ort (plant and animal science).