THOOTHUKUDI: An assistant professor of Thoothukudi has emerged into the list of top 2 per cent scientists released by a leading publisher Elsevier BV, Stanford University. The Netherland-based publisher updated 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 in Elsevier BV ranking, 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) and h-index of 9 (excluding self-citation) in 2020. Even though professor Dr S Selvam of the Geology department 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 search articles in 2013.
Selvam told TNIE that the number of citations and the h-index 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 1486 citations in a short period of seven years, he said. "I am really proud V.O.Chidambaram College name comes under top most world 2% institutions in the world", he said.
As far as leading universities of Tamil Nadu are concerned, six researchers from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, 13 from Anna University, 11 from Annamalai university, three from Bharatidasan University and 15 from Bharathiar University, five from Periyar University and three from the University of Madras had featured in the Elsevier BV rankings. Over 11 from Pondicherry University had also made it into the top scientists' list.
The six researchers of MS University featured in the top 2 % scientist list include 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 100,000 by c-score (with and without self-citations) or a percentile rank of 2% or above. Scientists are classified into 22 scientific fields and 176 sub-fields. The publisher had provided field- and subfield-specific percentiles for all scientists who have published at least 5 papers. The Elsevier BV has a database of over 100,000 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.