An assistant professor of Thoothukudi has featured on the list of top 2 per cent scientists prepared by Stanford University and leading publisher Elsevier BV. The Netherland-based publisher updated the science-wide author databases of standardised citation indicators 2021 on October 19. Dr S Selvam, Assistant Professor in Geology, VO Chidambaram College, who featured for the first time on the list, has achieved a rank of 218 under Earth & Environmental Sciences (Geology) and 338 under Environmental Engineering out of 15720 ranks, with 260 number of citations in the year 2020.
Selvam was given a world ranking of 1,78,847 out of 76,58,440 in all subjects. The number of citations of his articles in 2020 was 260 (excluding self-citation) with an h-index of nine (excluding self-citation) in 2020. Even though the professor of Geology had published over 80 peer-reviewed journals in various fields, the publisher had considered 37 out of them for the rankings. Selvam had begun publishing research in 2013.
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Selvam shared with TNIE that it is the number of citations and the h-index that had earned him the world ranking. He is involved in research related to hydrogeology, environmental science, remote sensing and geographical information systems (RS&GIS) and microplastics. He had earned 1,486 citations in a short period of seven years, he said.
As far as leading varsities of Tamil Nadu are concerned, six researchers from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, 13 from Anna University, 11 from Annamalai University, three from Bharathidasan University, 15 from Bharathiar University, five from Periyar University and three from University of Madras featured in the rankings.
Over 11 from Pondicherry University also made it to the list. Six researchers from MS University featured in the list including Senthil Nathan Shengottai (rank 34273), G Annadurai (rank 65999), Citarasu Thavasimuthu (rank 82083), Selvam Ammaiyappan (rank 127728), Immanuel Grasian (rank 179291) and Abdulkader (rank 197733). According to the Elsevier BV, the selection is based on the top 1,00,000 by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of two per cent or above. Scientists are classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields.
The publisher has provided field and subfield-specific percentiles for all scientists who have published at least five papers. Elsevier BV has a database of over 1,00,000 top scientists providing standardised information on citations, h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions and a composite indicator, the publisher says.
