The five academics listed are:

• Nello Cristianini, Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Engineering Mathematics;
• George Davey Smith, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the School of Social and Community Medicine;
• Stephen Mann, Professor of Chemistry in the School of Chemistry;
• Dr Wendy McArdle, Head of DNA Collections in the School of Social and Community Medicine;
• Jeremy O’Brien, Professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering.

Thomson Reuters identified the best and brightest scientists by analysing citation data over the last 11 years [2002 to 2012]. The resulting report, The world’s most influential scientific minds: 2014, lists 3,200 individuals across 21 fields who have published the highest-impact work that is most frequently acknowledged by their peers. These papers rank in the top one per cent by citation for their field and year of publication. It is precisely this type of recognition by peers, in the form of citations that makes this recognition meaningful.

Thomson Reuters, in their report, said: “The identification of these individuals is rooted in the collective, objective opinions of the scientific community. Fellow scientists, through their citations, give credit to these people and their work.”

Professor Nello Cristianini is a current holder of a European Research Council Advanced Grant.  He has wide research interests in the area of computational pattern analysis and its application to problems ranging from genomics, to computational linguistics and artificial intelligence (AI) systems. He has contributed extensively to the field of kernel methods.  His current research covers the large scale analysis of media content (news and social media), using various AI methods, and the implications of Big Data.

Epidemiologist, Professor George Davey Smith, is the Scientific Director of the Children of the 90s study, also known as ALSPAC, a long-term health research project that enrolled 14,000 pregnant mothers in 1991 and 1992, and has followed the health and development of their children ever since.  He is also Director of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) that conducts some of the UK’s most advanced population health science research. He is internationally recognised as the prime developer of “Mendelian randomization”, a now widely used approach that utilises genetic variation to uncover modifiable causes and treatment of disease.

Professor Stephen Mann FRS is Director of the Centre for Organized Matter Chemistry, Director of the Centre for Protolife Research and Principal of the Bristol Centre for Functional Nanomaterials.  He is a founder of biomimetic materials chemistry, and is distinguished for contributions to biomineralization and for pioneering the bioinspired synthesis and self-assembly of functional nanostructures and hybrid nanoscale objects.  His research interests are focused on the chemical synthesis, characterization and emergence of complex forms of organized matter, including models of protocell assembly.

Dr Wendy McArdle’s research projects include the Accessible Resource for Integrated Epigenomics Studies (ARIES) and managing the DNA banks for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) and the 1958 Birth Cohort (BC) study.  ARIES is a BBSRC-funded resource to generate epigenomic information on a range of human tissues at multiple time points across the life course.  ALSPAC is a Wellcome Trust/Medical Research Council (MRC) funded long-term health research project for which the ALSPAC families have provided a vast amount of genetic and environmental information over the years.  The Wellcome Trust/MRC funded 1958 BC study follows the lives of 17,000 people born in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1958.  As Head of DNA collections, Dr McArdle’s inclusion in this list underlines the importance of the DNA bank for each of these major genetic epidemiology studies.

Professor Jeremy O’Brien holds the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies and is Director of the Centre for Quantum Photonics.  In April he was awarded the 2014 EPSRC RISE Leadership award and last year he was awarded the Institute of Physics Bates Prize for achievements in the field of quantum effects in optical systems.  In October 2013 he was identified by The Financial Times as one of the next big names in physics.  His research includes developing quantum computers that eventually could outperform the most powerful electronic supercomputers.

To learn more about the methodology behind the listing of Highly Cited Researchers, visit http://highlycited.com/.

Visit ScienceWatch.com to download The world’s most influential scientific minds: 2014.