Fifty-six current faculty members of the American University of Beirut (AUB) have been recognized among the world’s top two percent most-cited scientists in the updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators (Elsevier, 2025 update), further marking AUB research excellence and global visibility.
Sustained Global Impact
Identifying the most cited researchers worldwide and underscoring the breadth and reach of their scholarly contributions, the publicly available database provides standardized information from Elsevier’s Scopus database on citations, h-index, co-authorship adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions, and a composite indicator (c-score). The list is published annually by Elsevier, using a methodology developed by researchers at Stanford University.
The ranking identifies the top scientists worldwide based on their research impact and citation influence across 22 fields and 174 subfields. Separate data are shown for career-long and for single-year impact based on the past year. In 2025, 46 AUB active scholars were recognized for their career-long impact, while 37 were featured in the single-year impact list, reflecting both enduring and emerging innovation.
“These outstanding results reflect how the AUB community—including our staff and students, in addition to the recognized faculty—is producing high quality, interdisciplinary, and collaborative research that is both locally impactful and globally relevant,” said Dr. Elie Akl, vice provost for research at AUB.
Broad Disciplinary Representation
The 56 recognized AUB faculty span 25 departments across six faculties, covering a wide spectrum of fields including biology, business, chemistry, engineering, health sciences, medicine, and nutrition and food sciences. This diversity underscores the university’s strength across disciplines and its commitment to advancing research across the sciences, social sciences, and professional schools.
This ranking is particularly relevant for hard sciences, as the impact of humanities scholarship as well as some social sciences is not captured due to their focus on publishing books rather than journal articles. As Dr. Fadlo Khuri, AUB president, said, “We have many other exceptional scholars in the humanities who are unquestionably in the top one to two percent of their fields, but whose work cannot be measured by citations.”
A Tradition of Excellence
“Many of AUB’s recognized scholars have appeared in these rankings repeatedly, a testament to their sustained influence on global scholarship,” noted Dr. Lokman Meho, AUB university librarian. “Their achievements demonstrate the university’s long-standing investment in research that has lasting academic and societal impact.”
The university also acknowledges the scholarly contributions of visiting professors Lina Kurdahi Badr and Hassan Noura, as well as the late professors Anis Baraka and Ibrahim Salti who are also listed among the world’s top two percent most-cited scientists and whose legacies continue to inspire generations of researchers.
AUB remains committed to its mission of research and teaching excellence as a unique global institution of higher education pursuing cutting-edge research across diverse disciplines. Its community of highly-cited scholars continues to expand. In 2025, eight faculty members were included in the career-long citation list for the first time, joining the university’s rich research culture and paving the way for future generations of outstanding AUB academics.
“The American University of Beirut applauds its 56 highly cited scholars,” said Khuri. “The fact that we have more such individuals today than we did in 2019 is frankly astonishing.”
He added, “Ten years ago, I urged our faculty to stop counting their publications, but rather make their publications count. This is compelling evidence that the faculty of AUB have responded wholeheartedly to our appeal.”
About AUB
Founded in 1866, the American University of Beirut bases its educational philosophy, standards, and practices on the American liberal arts model of higher education. A teaching-centered research university, AUB has more than 790 full-time faculty members and a student body of over 9000 students. AUB currently offers more than 140 programs leading to bachelor’s, master’s, MD, and PhD degrees. It provides medical education and training to students from throughout the region at its Medical Center that includes a full-service 365-bed hospital.
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