May 17, 2024
Kirkham and Prasad named top 1% of highly cited researchers
Submitted by Division of Communications and Marketing
Kansas State University distinguished professors Mary Beth Kirkham and P.V Vara Prasad are among the top 1% of highly cited researchers for 2023 by Clarivate. This prestigious list includes 7,125 of the world's most influential researchers.
"I congratulate Drs. Kirkham and Prasad on being recognized among the top 1% of cited researchers," said David Rosowsky, vice president for research. "Their commitment to research and discovery, and the creation of new knowledge in service to our world, is the very embodiment of our land-grant mission. We are honored to count them among our distinguished faculty at K-State."
Kirkham, professor of agronomy, is an international authority on the plant-water relations of winter wheat and the uptake of heavy metals by crops grown on polluted soil. She was the first researcher to document the effects of elevated levels of carbon dioxide on crops grown under semiarid conditions. She also conducts research on the effects of gravity on plants.
As an influential researcher, she has received numerous recognitions and distinctions including five fellowships with leading scientific societies and honored with the 2023 Soil Science Society of America Presidential Award. Kirkham's research is supported by federal and private groups including the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Pinchot Institute Consortium for Environmental Forestry Research. She currently serves on 18 editorial boards for prominent scientific journals and recently published the third edition of her textbook, "Principles of Soil and Plant Water Relations."
Prasad, who also serves as the director of the Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab and R.O. Kruse endowed professor of agriculture, studies the crop response to changing environments and develops management strategies to improve and protect crop yields. Outcomes from his research include quantifying the influence of high temperature stress on various physiological and yield processes of several grain crops, improving the understanding of physiological and biochemical mechanisms associated with high temperature tolerance, and screening germplasm collection and identifying genotypes tolerant to high temperature stress in various food grain crops.
He holds five fellowships with scientific societies, is the current chair of the Plant Working Group and a board member of the Council of Agriculture Science and Technology. Prasad's research is supported by local, national and international agencies. Recent awards include the 2023 Distinguished Service Award and the International Crop Science Award from the Crop Science Society of America and the 2022 L.R. Ahuja Agricultural Systems Award from the Soil Science Society of America, and the 2020 International Agronomy Award from the American Society of Agronomy. He was also recognized as a top 1% highly cited researcher in 2022.
According to Clarivate, of the world's population of scientists and social scientists, highly cited researchers are 1 in 1,000.