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Meet the Scopus celebrities

on Thu, 11/27/2014 - 12:10

With a total of 55 million records, Scopus delivers a comprehensive overview of research in the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and the arts and humanities. Inevitably, some of the authors indexed in Scopus are bound to be more popular or have more impact than others.

Certain authors, however, are true celebrities of worldwide fame (achieved, incidentally, not merely on scientific merits). We'd like to introduce you to some of them.

Brian May: Rocking the astrophysics

Apart from being the lead guitarist of celebrated rock group Queen, English musician Brian May also studied physics and mathematics at Imperial College in London. He started his PhD on the motion of interplanetary dust particles in 1970 which, mainly due to musical commitments, he was finally able to complete in September 2007. Asteroid 52665 Brianmay is named in his honour.

See his author profile on Scopus

Natalie Portman: A Star Wars Queen in Harvard

Along with her ballet and modern dance studies, American-Israeli actress Natalie Portman (born Natalie Hershlag) also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Harvard University. During her studies in Harvard she contributed to a study on memory titled "Frontal lobe activation during object permanence: data from near-infrared spectroscopy". Thanks to her academic and acting careers, Portman has an Erdős-Bacon number of 7.

See her author profile on Scopus

Colin Firth: Ambassador for political neuroscience

Next to the wide recognition for his acting career, the Oscar-winning English actor is also credited as co-author of the neuroscience paper "Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults". The study, hailed as a "useful contribution" by New York University's Professor John Jost, was made possible after Firth's suggestion when he guest-edited Today programme on BBC Radio 4.

See his author profile on Scopus

Sure enough, Scopus features many more authors who can claim celebrity status (American actresses Mayim Bialik and Danica McKellar are a case in point). So stay alert: regardless of your research area, you never know whose name you could bump into when browsing through the results page!