The University of Guelph and four of its researchers in biological, veterinary and agricultural sciences have been named among top 10 leaders in 2022 national and international rankings released by Research.com.
U of G placed among the top five Canadian universities in four ranked categories: ecology and evolution; plant science and agronomy; animal science and veterinary; and microbiology.
Four faculty members placed among the top 10 Canadian researchers in their respective fields, including Dr. Paul Hebert, Department of Integrative Biology within the College of Biological Science (CBS), who ranked second nationally and 49th globally in ecology and evolution – a new category in this year’s rankings.
In the category of animal science and veterinary, Dr. Ken Leslie, emeritus professor in the Department of Population Medicine within the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC), ranked fifth nationally and 15th worldwide. Population medicine professor Dr. Todd Duffield placed eighth in Canada and 36th globally in the same field.
Dr. Clarence Swanton, emeritus professor in the Department of Plant Agriculture within the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), ranked seventh in Canada and 244th worldwide in the category of plant science and agronomy.
Within all four categories, dozens of other U of G faculty members were included among the world’s top scientists, according to the organization’s ranking system.
“These top rankings for the University of Guelph and its researchers reflect the remarkable depth and breadth of research expertise across the institution,” said Dr. Malcolm Campbell, vice-president (research).
“Based on our faculty members’ research productivity and citations, these impressive results also point to the national and global impacts of U of G research and scholarship in varied fields that improve lives in Canada and around the world.”
Top researchers from CBS, OVC and OAC within the Research.com rankings are as follows:
Dr. Paul Hebert
Hebert is founding director of the University’s Centre for Biodiversity Geonomics, the world’s leading facility for developing DNA-based technologies and infrastructure for large-scale biodiversity discovery and analysis.
As scientific director of the International Barcode of Life consortium, he oversees the $180-million BIOSCAN project that brings together more than 1,000 researchers worldwide in cataloguing species of living things.
Dr. Ken Leslie
An OVC grad, Leslie spent almost 35 years in the Department of Population Medicine in teaching, research and extension education of dairy health management programs.
Internationally recognized for his work in mastitis control, calf health management and dairy cattle well-being, he originated the dairy health management certificate program that has trained more than 100 practitioners.
Dr. Todd Duffield
Also an OVC alumnus, Duffield has studied various aspects of dairy health management including transition cow metabolic disease, use of antibiotics in dairy cattle, production-limiting diseases and strategies for minimizing pain in cattle.
Recognized for his research contributions to the advancement of herd health management in Canada, he has participated in OVC’s Ruminant Field Service and teaches across all years of the undergraduate veterinary program.
Dr. Clarence Swanton
A leading weed scientist, Swanton has helped improve agricultural productivity and profitability while reducing the environmental impact of crop production. His team’s research was key in developing integrated weed management strategies used for Ontario field crops.
Swanton was the first chair of U of G’s Department of Plant Agriculture and served as president of the Canadian Weed Society.
U of G ranks among top in four Research.com categories
Among universities and research institutions worldwide, U of G ranked first in Canada and second internationally in the category of animal science and veterinary.
In plant science and agronomy, U of G placed second in Canada and 50th internationally. The University placed fifth nationally for Research.com’s new category of ecology and evolution (64th worldwide), and fifth nationally for microbiology (94th globally).
Introduced in 2020, the Research.com rankings include top scientists in 21 categories spanning biological and physical sciences, agricultural and veterinary sciences, social sciences, medicine, and business and economics.
For its rankings, Research.com considered top researchers from among more than 165,000 scientists worldwide included on Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Graph. The organization’s rankings include scientists with an h-index of at least 30. The index measures the cumulative impact of researchers’ scholarly output and performance based on publications and citations.
According to Research.com, its rankings help scholars, entrepreneurs and decision-makers to explore leading experts in varied research fields and to gain inspiration from their work.