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Scientia Professor Louisa Degenhardt, Acting Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at UNSW Sydney, has been named in the Research.com Best Female Scientists in the World 2022 Ranking and the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers 2022.

Professor Degenhardt is the only Australian to feature in first edition of the Research.com ranking of the top 100 female scientists in the world.

More than 166,880 scientist profiles across 24 research disciplines on Google Scholar and Microsoft Academic Graph were examined for the ranking, with several indicators and metrics reviewed in order to consider each scientist’s inclusion.

The criteria was based on the h-index, proportion of contributions made within the given discipline, and the awards and achievements of the scientist.

Professor Degenhardt was also named a Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Psychiatry and Psychology and a Highly Cited Researcher in the field of Clinical Medicine by Clarivate.

Since 2001 the Highly Cited Researchers list has identified global research scientists who demonstrate exceptional influence reflected through their publication of multiple highly cited papers in the last decade.

“I look at the evidence for what we know about the extent of drug use and drug-related harms around the world, and the interventions used to reduce those harms. Our work is internationally valid…it’s intended to be relevant to policymakers and a range of audiences, and that means the work is highly cited,” Professor Degenhardt said.

For more than 15 years, Professor Degenhardt has played a leading role in developing research on illicit drug dependence in the Global Burden of Disease study that assesses mortality and disability from major diseases, injuries and risk factors involving 3,600 researchers across 145 countries.

Professor Degenhardt holds honorary professorial appointments at University of Melbourne’s School of Population and Global Health, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and the University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Professor Degenhardt conducts diverse epidemiological studies including analysis of large-scale community and clinical population surveys, data linkage studies focusing upon people with a history of drug dependence or chronic pain, and cohort studies of young people.

She has published more than 560 peer reviewed papers, 120 technical reports and monographs, three books and 45 book chapters. Her H-index in Scopus is 80, and 104 in Google Scholar.