Geography Professor David Roy among the world's most highly cited researchers

December 8, 2020

Dr. David P. Roy, Professor of Geography and member of the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, has been named one of the most highly cited researchers in the world. Dr. Roy is one of 9 Michigan State University researchers to be recognized in the 2020 Highly Cited Researchers List compiled by Clarivate Analytics and one of two from the College of Social Science.

Each year, the Web of Science Group identifies the world's most influential researchers. The list includes those who have been most cited by peers over the past decade.

According to the report, the researchers each had "multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science. Of the world's scientists and social scientists, Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers truly are one in 1,000."

Dr. Roy came to MSU as part of the University's Global Impact Initiative. His research interests include the development of remote sensing and advanced computing methods to integrate/fuse satellite sensor data to map and characterize terrestrial global change, big satellite data processing, the causes and consequences of land cover and land use change, fire remote sensing.

He is the co-lead of the USGS NASA Landsat Science team, member of the NASA Land-Cover/Land-Use Change Science Team, associate member of the NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) Land Science Team, and NASA MODIS Land Science Team,  and co-chair of the GOFC-GOLD Fire Implementation team. Roy is a former member of the US Land Processes (LP) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) User Working Group (UWG) and the NASA Earth Exchange (NEX) UWG.   

The other eight faculty members are:

Christoph Benning, professor in the College of Natural Science and College Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Gregg A. Howe, professor in the College of Natural Science.

Rufus Isaacs, professor in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Russell E. Johnson, professor in the Eli Broad College of Business.

Morteza Mahmoudi, assistant professor in the Department of Radiology and Precision Health Program at the College of Human Medicine.

Aaron M. McCright, professor and chairperson in the Department of Sociology at the College of Social Science.

Philip Robertson, professor in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

James M. Tiedje, professor in the College of Natural Science and College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.