SRINAGAR: At least three researchers from Jammu and Kashmir have made it to the list of World’s top two per cent scientists, a compilation of the University of Stanford, USA. The list includes Kashmir’s top medicos Dr M S Khuroo, gastroenterologist and ex-director SKIMS, Srinagar, and Dr Parvaiz A Koul, the current head of Internal and Pulmonary Medicine SKIMS. Dr Shakeel Ahmed, the third researcher from the Jammu and Kashmir, is the youngest researcher from India.
The researchers have figured in the “Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators”. It lists the top 2 per cent scientists from all over the world from a list of over 1,59,000. Around 1500 Indian researchers have made it to this list but so far only these three names from Jammu and Kashmir could be known.
This database, a work of John Ioannidis, Kevin Boyack and Jeroen Bass from the departments of Medicine, Epidemiology and Public Health and Biomedical Data Science, University of Stanford, California, USA has been published in the October 16 issue of PLOS Biology. It evaluated the global impact of the works of top scientists in the World, which included all scientists who are between top 100,000 across all fields and top 2 per cent of their discipline, based on the number of citations. The data was collected from the Scopus database for 6.8 million prolific authors out of whom the top 100,000 were analysed.
Thanks all for your compliments and words of encouragement. Gratitude.
Wish it motivates young researchers to outdo us in academic research and truly make me proud.— Parvaiz Koul (@Parvaizkoul) November 5, 2020
Meanwhile, Dr Koul after being listed among the top scientists reached to his Twitter handle, where he wrote that “it was a moment of gratification to be in the list” and hoped that it motivated more and more researchers to publish in high impact journals. “Thanks all for your compliments and words of encouragement. Gratitude. Wish it motivates young researchers to outdo us in academic research and truly make me proud. “The day one of my students outpaces me in every single sphere, I will be a satisfied man,” he wrote.
Dr Khuroo, however, has expressed concern over the fact that only two scientists from Jammu and Kashmir were featured in the list. “We have more than six research institutions here in Jammu and Kashmir. We need to be doing more research and more relevant research,” he said to a local daily newspaper.
Dr Shakeel Ahmed, a young assistant professor from district Rajouri, who is presently working in the Government Degree College Mendhar, has managed to be in the list in the field of polymer chemistry.
Author of several research publications in the area of green nanomaterials and biopolymers for various applications including biomedical, packaging, and water treatment, Dr Shakeel has said that he has published more than 15 books in the area of polymers, nano-materials and green materials with publishers of international repute such as Elsevier, CRC Press, Wiley, Scrivener publishing, etc. He is a member of the American Chemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry.
Hailing from Dhangri village, Dr Shakeel has completed his BSc from Government PG College, Rajouri. He completed MSc in 2012 from Dr Saiqa Ikram Department of Chemistry, Jamia Milia Islamia. In 2016, he completed his PhD from Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi.
“It is a moment of gratification to be on the list. It will inspire the young generation of Jammu and Kashmir to work for furthering science especially from Pir Panjal region,” Dr Shakeel told a local newspaper.
