Two CSE faculty named most cited researchers in the world

Recognition honors researchers whose citations place them in top 1 percent of citation counts for their field

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (11/20/2025) — Two College of Science and Engineering faculty were recently named among the most "Highly Cited Researchers" in the world: R. Lawrence Edwards and Dan Knights along with 25 other faculty at the University of Minnesota.

The international list, released by Clarivate Analytics this month, recognizes influential researchers whose citation records place them in the top 1 percent of citation counts for their field in multiple highly cited papers over the last decade. High citation counts demonstrate that a researcher’s work has had a significant and broad influence in their field. 

R. Lawrence Edwards, a Regents and Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, was listed among the most cited researchers in the field of geosciences. Clarivate Analytics released the first list in 2014 and this is the 12th consecutive year that Edwards has been listed. His expertise lies in climate history, climate change, and geochronology. Edwards is an isotope geochemist renowned for his role in developing modern uranium-thorium (or Th-230) dating methods and his application of these methods to the study of climate history and ocean chemistry.

Dan Knights, a computational biologist with joint appointments in the College of Science and Engineering and the College of Biological Sciences, was named the microbiology most-cited list. Knights has been listed as a highly cited researcher for nine consecutive years in the fields of microbiology, biology and biochemistry, or chemistry. His research uses data mining and machine learning to aggregate and mine multiple sources of microbial and human genomic data for patterns linking to environmental conditions and human disease. 

“The Highly Cited Researchers list identifies and celebrates exceptional individual researchers at The University of Minnesota who demonstrate significant and broad influence in their fields,” said David Pendlebury, Head of Research Analysis at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. “They exemplify excellence in their research as well as integrity in their publication and citation practices. These researchers continue to shape the future of science, technology and academia globally and deliver innovation that drives societal progress.”

To prepare this year’s list, Clarivate Analytics used a combination of science performance metrics and trend data based on scholarly paper publication counts and citation data. View the full 2025 list of highly cited researchers.