The Highest-Ranked Women Scientists in the United States

Research.com recently released the inaugural edition of its ranking of top woman scientists in the world.

More than 166,880 scientist profiles across 24 research disciplines on Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Graph were examined with several indicators and metrics reviewed in order to consider each scientist’s inclusion in the ranking. The H-Index is an indicative measure that reflects the number of influential documents authored by scientists and how many times these papers were cited. The average number of publications for the top woman scientists is 547.

Scientists from the United States dominated the list of top female scientists in the world with 623 scholars among the top 1,000 women scientists ranked in 2022 worldwide. Eight of the highest-ranked women scientists worldwide are from the United States. Forty of the 1,000 highest-ranked women scientists are affiliated with Harvard University, the most at any institution.

The top 10 women scientists in the United States according to the Research.com rankings are:

1. JoAnn E. Manson, Harvard Medical School
2. Virginia Man-Yee Lee, University of Pennsylvania
3. Aviv Regev, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University
4. Tamara B. Harris, National Institutes of Health
5. Terrie E. Moffitt, Duke University
6. Gail Hanson, University of California, Riverside
7. Julie E. Buring, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston (Affiliated with Harvard Medical School)
8. Nora D. Volkow, National Institute on Drug Abuse
9. Julia Velkovska, Vanderbilt University
10. Pushpalatha C. Bhat, Fermilab (U.S. Department of Energy and the University of Chicago)

Top row (L to R): JoAnn Manson, Virginia Man-Yee Lee, Aviv Regev, Tamara Harris, and Terrie Moffitt.
Bottom row: Gail Hanson, Julie Buring, Nora Volkow, Julia Velkovska, and Pushpalatha Bhat.

The aim of this ranking according to Research.com is to inspire female scholars, women considering an academic career, as well as decision-makers worldwide with the example of successful women in the scientific community.

“We hope that it will contribute to providing more opportunities, visibility, and equal chances for women in science,” the authors of the study state. “We are painfully aware that academic research is still a predominantly male profession, and we believe that female scientists deserve an equal chance to be represented and praised for their achievements. This ranking for top female scientists in the world finally acknowledges the hard work of all the female scientists that chose to find opportunities amidst the barriers. Their passion to persevere is an inspiration to all the girls and women in science.”