George Chacko

For more information

• The ERNIE Project

Research Statement

My scientific interests oscillate around novelty in science, impact, peer review, and knowledge diffusion. A related interest is the social interactions that drive scientific recognition and achievement. Analyzing, at scale, citations to the scientific literature is central to my work and emphasis is placed on any results being of value to at least one of four stakeholders: (i) research funders, who want to know what their support has achieved and what it might in future, (ii) research institutions who ask the same questions as funders but are recipients of funds and must strategize to sustain their existing support and/or augment it, (iii) providers of research analytical services who think beyond the confines of commonplace global metrics such as the h-index and its well documented limitations, and (iv) finally, the evaluation community itself.

More recently, my interests have drifted towards the identification and characterization of research communities that form around scientific questions. I am establishing new collaborations within and outside the department to support this work. The techniques used in my studies draw build upon repertoires from historiography, scientometrics and computer science.

Selected Articles in Journals

• Zhao, W., Korobskiy, D., & Chacko, G. Delayed Recognition; A Co-citation Perspective (2020) Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics doi:10.3389/frma.2020.577131
• Chandrasekharan, S., Zaka, M., Gallo, S., Zhao, W., Korobskiy, D., Warnow, T., & Chacko, G. Finding Scientific Communities in Citation Graphs : Articles and Authors. (2020) Quantitative Science Studies. doi:10.1162/qss_a_00095
• Zhao, W., Korobskiy, D., Chandrasekharan, S., Merz, K., & Chacko, G. (2020). Converging interests- chemoinformatics, history, and bibliometrics. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. doi:10.1021/acs.jcim.0c01098
• Devarakonda, S., Korobskiy, D., Warnow, T., & Chacko, G. (2020). Viewing Computer Science through Citation Analysis Salton and Bergmark Redux. Scientometrics. doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03624-0.
• Devarakonda, S., Bradley, J., Korobskiy, D., Warnow, T., & Chacko, G. (2020). Frequently co-cited publications: Features and kinetics. Quantitative Science Studies. doi: 10.1162/qss a 00075.
• Bornmann, L., Devarakonda, S., Tekles, A., & Chacko, G. (2020). Are disruption index indicators convergently valid? The comparison of several indicator variants with assessments by peers. Quantitative Science Studies. doi:10.1162/qss a 00068.
• Bornmann, L., Devarakonda, S., Tekles, A., & Chacko, G. (2020). Disruptive papers published in Scientometrics: meaningful results by using an improved variant of the disruption index originally proposed by Wu, Wang, and Evans (2019). Scientometrics. doi:10.1007/s11192-020-03406-8.
• Bradley, J., Devarakonda, S., Davey, A., Korobskiy, D., Liu, S., Lakhdar-Hamina, D., Warnow, T., & Chacko, G. (2020). Co-citations in context: Disciplinary heterogeneity is relevant. Quantitative Science Studies, 1, 1-13. doi:10.1162/qss a 00007
• Keserci, S., Livingston, E., Wan, L., Pico, A.R., and Chacko, G. (2017) Heliyon doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2017.e00442
• Boyack, K.W., Chen, M-C, & Chacko, G. (2014) Characterization of the Peer Review Network at the Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health. PLOS One doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104244