Faculty member recognized as Highly Cited Researcher

A faculty member in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State has been recognized as one of the world’s most influential researchers.

Professor Homero Gil de Zuñiga was identified by Clarivate as a 2020 Highly Cited Researcher for the production of multiple highly cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year. Clarivite, a global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation, owns and operates a collection of subscription-based services focused largely on analytics, including scientific and academic research, patent intelligence and compliance standards, pharmaceutical and biotech intelligence trademark, domain and brand protection.

As explained in the Web of Science executive summary, each year the conglomerate in charge of the JCR ranking identifies the most influential researchers, a select group of researchers who have been the most frequently cited by their peers throughout the previous decade. In 2020, fewer than 6,200 researchers worldwide, or 0.1% of researchers across 21 different fields in an interdisciplinary manner, earned the Highly Cited Researcher distinction.

Gil de Zuñiga joined the Penn State faculty in 2020. Along with his duties as a professor at Penn State, he is a distinguished research professor in political science at University of Salamanca, where he directs the Democracy Research Unit, and a senior research fellow at Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. Prior to these appointments he was the Medienwandel Professor at University of Vienna, an associate professor at the University of Texas and a research fellow at several institutions.

His research addresses the influence of new technologies and digital media over people's daily lives, as well as the effect of such use on the overall democratic process.

He has published several books and book chapters with prestigious academic publishers such as Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge, Sage, and others. Likewise, his work (over 100 articles) has been published in numerous ISI/JCR indexed peer-reviewed academic journals.

He has presented nearly 150 articles at scientific meetings in the field of journalism, communication, and political science at different professional organizations and universities around the globe. He also serves as head of the Communication Technology Division for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. He also serves as an ad hoc reviewer for over 50 scientific journals, and sits on over 20 editorial boards for communications journals.

Gil de Zúñiga is a fellow of the International Communication Association, and recipient of the Krieghbaum Under-40 and the Baskett Mosse Awards from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. In total he has received more than 50 grants, research awards, and recognitions as principal investigator, co-principal investigator or as executive member, totaling over $4 million.