| Scientist | Papers | Citations | Citations per paper | |
| 1 | Kessler, Ronald C, Harvard University School of Medicine, US | 138 | 8,514 | 61.70 |
| 2 | Biederman, J., Harvard University School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital, US | 229 | 6,769 | 29.56 |
| 3 | Faraone, Stephen V., Upstate Medical Center, State University of New York, US | 213 | 6,392 | 30.01 |
| 4 | Kendler, Kenneth S, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, US | 176 | 5,978 | 33.97 |
| 5 | Rutter, Michael, King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, UK | 114 | 5,068 | 44.46 |
| 6 | Akiskal, Hagop S., Veterans Administration, Medical Center, San Diego, US | 144 | 4,869 | 33.81 |
| 7 | Keck, Paul E, University of Cincinnati, US | 135 | 4,838 | 35.84 |
| 8 | Murray, Robin M., King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, UK | 163 | 4,685 | 28.74 |
| 9 | McElroy, Susan L, University of Cincinnati, US | 116 | 4,659 | 40.16 |
| 10 | Caspi, Avshalom, King’s College London, Institute of Psychiatry, UK | 102 | 4,548 | 44.59 |
It can be noted that Biederman and Faraone were frequent co-authors on a number of highly cited papers dealing with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Keck and McElroy were also frequent co-authors of a number of highly cited papers concerning schizophrenia and bipolar mania. In addition to ADHD, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and autism were the other dominant subjects of papers by the authors listed in the table. For the current version, 2,190 authors are listed in the field of psychiatry and psychology, meaning that a total of about 219,000 author records were reviewed to obtain these results.
The data above were extracted from Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science Indicators database. This database, currently covering the period January 1997 to October 2007, surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review articles) indexed by Thomson Scientific. Articles are assigned to a category based on the journals in which they were published and Thomson Scientific’s journal-to-category field definition scheme. Both articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period indicated. Naturally, scientists publishing large numbers of papers have a greater likelihood of collecting more citations than scientists publishing fewer papers. This ranking is by total citations. For articles with multiple authors, each author receives full, not fractional, citation credit. Another ranking could be based on citations per paper, which reveals weighted impact. Essential Science Indicators lists authors ranked in the top 1% for a field over a given period, based on total citations. For more information on Thomson Scientific’s Essential Science Indicators, see http://scientific.thomson.com/products/esi.
Next week: hot topics in information science: the H index