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Physics Department a leading UMassD contributor to new index of research productivity

The Nature Index tracks research publications among a selection of 68 high-impact journals.

An artist's rendition of the final moments of a pair of black holes. The generation of waves in the curvature of space and time surrounding the merging black holes is one primary focus of research of Prof. Khanna's group in the Physics Department at UMass Dartmouth. Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL

Artist's rendition of the final moments of a pair of black holes. The generation of waves in the curvature of space and time surrounding the merging black holes is one primary focus of research of Prof. Khanna's group in the Physics Department. Credit: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL

UMassD's Physics Department is a leading campus contributor to a new index of research productivity. Research conducted in the department on black holes and supernovae are among the papers published at UMass Dartmouth included in the Nature Index 2016.

The Nature Index, developed by the Nature Publishing Group, tracks research publications among a selection of 68 high-impact journals. According to the publishing group, "the Nature Index provides a close to real-time proxy for high-quality research output at the institutional, national and regional level."

Nearly one-fifth of all high-impact publications

Physics Department research accounts for roughly one-fifth of all high-impact publications at UMass Dartmouth, as determined by the 2016 index (based on the 2016 Nature Index's Weighted Fractional Count).

Dr. Grant O’Rielly, chair of the Physics Department, said, "Knowing that Professors Fisher and Khanna regularly publish their research results in those high-impact journals recognized by the Nature Index speaks to the quality and productivity of the research being conducted in the Physics Department. As one of the smallest departments at UMass Dartmouth, the fact that the department produces one-fifth of the university's highest quality research tells me that we are doing something right."