top-cited scientists
2026 list
202620252024
AuthorsCountriesInstitutionsFieldsCareer stagesNobel laureates
top-cited scientiststopcitedscientists.com
Top-cited scientists›United States›Princeton University›Happer, William
top-cited scientiststopcitedscientists.com
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249,310 authors in the 2026 list · ranked by c-score excluding self-citations
1
Wang, Zhong Lin
Chinese Academy of Sciences
🇨🇳 CHN
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
#1 · top <0.01%
5.27240,6537341.211.0%3,0261986–2026
2
Kresse, Georg
Universität Wien
🇦🇹 AUT
Applied Physics
#1 · top <0.01%
5.24738,3373215.90.7%4111992–2026
3
Mirjalili, Seyedali
Torrens University Australia
🇦🇺 AUS
Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing
#1 · top <0.01%
5.23526,7036230.93.7%6792010–2026
4
Bandura, Albert
Stanford University
🇺🇸 USA
Social Psychology
#1 · top <0.01%
5.22212,6684132.90.2%2101953–2024
5
Grimme, Stefan
Universität Bonn
🇩🇪 DEU
Chemical Physics
#1 · top <0.01%
5.17124,5553823.72.2%7491992–2026
6
Bengio, Yoshua
Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms
🇨🇦 CAN
Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing
#2 · top <0.01%
5.09956,6416726.40.5%6651988–2026
7
Ajzen, Icek
University of Massachusetts Amherst
🇺🇸 USA
Social Psychology
#2 · top <0.01%
5.06713,8623021.90.2%1041969–2026
8
Girshick, Ross B.
Vercept
🇺🇸 USA
Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing
#3 · top <0.01%
5.05561,3794013.80.0%922004–2025
9
Ryan, Richard M.
Australian Catholic University
🇦🇺 AUS
Social Psychology
#3 · top 0.01%
5.05325,0495833.61.3%3571980–2026
10
Altman, Douglas G.
University of Oxford Medical Sciences Division
🇬🇧 GBR
General & Internal Medicine
#1 · top <0.01%
5.03971,0898938.61.3%1,1161972–2025
11
Gross, James J.
Stanford University
🇺🇸 USA
Experimental Psychology
#1 · top <0.01%
5.02012,8745432.04.2%6441989–2026
12
Hinton, Geoffrey E.
University of TorontoNobel laureate
🇨🇦 CAN
Artificial Intelligence & Image Processing
#4 · top <0.01%
5.01152,7804524.60.1%2931979–2026
13
Perdew, John
Tulane University School of Science and Engineering
🇺🇸 USA
Applied Physics
#2 · top <0.01%
5.01030,3163718.60.6%3651970–2026
14
McClements, David Julian
University of Massachusetts Amherst
🇺🇸 USA
Food Science
#1 · top <0.01%
5.00423,1705236.95.9%1,8551987–2027
15
Lal, Rattan A.
The Ohio State University
🇺🇸 USA
Agronomy & Agriculture
#1 · top <0.01%
5.00311,2274433.94.0%1,4151922–2026
16
Breiman, Leo
University of California, Berkeley
🇺🇸 USA
Statistics & Probability
#1 · top <0.01%
5.00122,0151513.10.0%581960–2018
17
Li, Heng
Harvard Medical School
🇺🇸 USA
Bioinformatics
#1 · top <0.01%
4.98821,2394015.02.5%1342004–2026
18
Moher, David
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
🇨🇦 CAN
General & Internal Medicine
#2 · top <0.01%
4.98688,3297519.91.0%9371984–2026
19
Higgins, Julian P.t.
Bristol Medical School
🇬🇧 GBR
General & Internal Medicine
#3 · top <0.01%
4.95654,5555823.30.8%4151996–2026
20
Neese, Frank
Max Planck Institute for Coal Research
🇩🇪 DEU
Chemical Physics
#2 · top <0.01%
4.95511,7203922.96.6%6731995–2026
21
Tibshirani, Robert John
Stanford University
🇺🇸 USA
Statistics & Probability
#2 · top <0.01%
4.95014,2904220.91.7%4321982–2026
22
Teece, David J.
University of California, Berkeley
🇺🇸 USA
Business & Management
#1 · top <0.01%
4.9389,3893125.90.5%3001971–2026
23
Friston, K. J.
UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
🇬🇧 GBR
Neurology & Neurosurgery
#1 · top <0.01%
4.93412,7944629.49.0%1,3731989–2026
24
Ioannidis, John P.A.
Stanford University School of Medicine
🇺🇸 USA
General & Internal Medicine
#4 · top <0.01%
4.92626,0125627.93.1%1,4881994–2026
25
Gogotsi, Yury G.
Drexel University
🇺🇸 USA
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
#2 · top <0.01%
4.89731,8608535.33.7%1,1701984–2026

# rank by c-score; Subfield rank rank and top % in main subfield; c-score composite citation score (0–6); Cites 2025 citations in 2025; h h-index; hm co-authorship-adjusted h-index; Self-cit. self-citation share; Active years of first and last paper.

top-cited scientiststopcitedscientists.com
2026 list · citations received in 2025

Happer, William

Princeton University · 🇺🇸 United States
·

William Happer from Princeton University (United States), h-index 46, is one of the top-cited scientists in General Physics in the 2026 Stanford–Elsevier top 2% list and started publishing before 1992.

Ranking

Compare scientists →
Global rank
#59,141
Within the top 100,000 · with self-cites: #67,700
Subfield rank
#367
top 0.42% of 87,024 authors in General Physics
Rank in country
#21,507
of 73,724 listed in United States
Rank in institution
#193
of 366 listed at Princeton University
Rank in career stage
#23,600
of 73,304 listed authors who first published before 1992 (first paper 1964)
Global and subfield ranks come from the dataset and are computed across all Scopus authors, not just this list. Country, institution and career-stage ranks are positions among authors in this list.

Across years

Each year's single-year list, excluding self-citations; each counts the citations of the year before it
YearRankc-scoreCitationsh-index
2026 this page#59,1412.9134409
2025#56,9752.9043929
2024#42,3772.99545111
The data has no author ID, so years are matched by name and year of first publication. Each year is a new Scopus snapshot, so a big jump can come from Scopus splitting or merging author profiles. “Not found” means the author was below that year's threshold or is listed under a different name.

Composite score (c)

2.913out of a theoretical 6 · excluding self-citations
Total citationsNC = 440
0.535
h-indexH = 9
0.493
hm-index (co-authorship adjusted)Hm = 5.6
0.505
Cites to single-authored papersNCS = 46
0.388
Cites to single + first-authoredNCSF = 143
0.456
Cites to single + first + last-authoredNCSFL = 374
0.537
Each indicator is scaled as log(1+x) ÷ log(1+max x) across all authors, so 1.0 equals the highest value in Scopus. c is the sum of the six.

2025 impact vs career impact

2025 impact 2025 onlyCareer impact 1996–2025
Global rank#59,141#29,497
c-score2.9133.872
Citations44010,632
h-index946
hm-index5.620.9
Self-citations1.6%9.1%
Subfield rank#367 (top 0.42%)#170 (top 0.20%)

Benchmarks in General Physics

P25P50P75P90P95P99This author
Citations21041132260799447
c-score0.400.771.231.702.002.652.90
Percentiles across all 87,024 Scopus authors in this subfield (all citations). Citations: above 95th percentile; c-score: top 1%. Among listed authors here, 99% have self-citation below 51.5% (this author: 1.6%).

All indicators

IndicatorAll citationsExcl. self-citations
Papers (1960–2025)219
Self-citation share1.57%
Rank (c-score)67,70059,141
c-score2.9022.913
Citations447440
h-index99
hm-index5.625.62
Single-authored papers16—
   ↳ cites to them4646
Single + first-authored papers32—
   ↳ cites to them145143
Single + first + last-authored papers168—
   ↳ cites to them379374
Distinct citing papers248246
Citations per citing paper1.801.79
Papers cited at least once7272
Subfield rank422367

Subject profile

Main fieldPhysics & Astronomy88.5% of papers
Main subfieldGeneral Physics52.8%
Second subfieldApplied Physics12.8%

Countries of publication

Most frequent country🇺🇸 United States · 100.0% of papers
Countries with ≥10% of papers🇺🇸 United States
Multi-country careerNo (country data covers 99% of papers)

Look up elsewhere

Open in the full listGoogle Scholar ↗ORCID ↗

Searches by name, so results can include namesakes. Scopus profile data (the source) can be corrected only via the Scopus Author Feedback Wizard.

This page online: https://topcitedscientists.com/scientist/william-happer/

Data: Ioannidis, John P.A. (2026), ‘August 2026 data-update for “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”’, Mendeley Data, v9, doi:10.17632/btchxktzyw.9. 2026 list, ranked by composite citation score (c) excluding self-citations.

Printed from topcitedscientists.com, an independent site not affiliated with or endorsed by the dataset authors, Stanford University, Elsevier or Scopus. This is not an official document.

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