Top Scientists in United States of America (2026)
Explore researchers affiliated with institutions in United States of America who appear in the 2026 single-year World's Top 2% Scientists dataset.
Historical listings in United States of America
Annual numbers of listed scientists.
Countries with similar listing totals
Closest by the number of scientists listed in 2026 single-year dataset.
Top 10 Researchers in United States of America
Ordered by original worldwide rank in the 2026 single-year dataset.
| United States of America | Worldwide | Researcher | Discipline | c-score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 |
Bandura, Albert
Stanford University |
Psychology & Cognitive Sciences | 5.22 |
| 2 | 7 |
Ajzen, Icek
University of Massachusetts Amherst |
Psychology & Cognitive Sciences | 5.07 |
| 3 | 11 |
Gross, James J.
Stanford University |
Psychology & Cognitive Sciences | 5.02 |
| 4 | 13 |
Perdew, John
Tulane University School of Science and Engineering |
Physics & Astronomy | 5.01 |
| 5 | 14 |
McClements, David Julian
University of Massachusetts Amherst |
Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry | 5.00 |
| 6 | 15 |
Lal, Rattan A.
The Ohio State University |
Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry | 5.00 |
| 7 | 16 |
Breiman, Leo
University of California, Berkeley |
Mathematics & Statistics | 5.00 |
| 8 | 17 |
Li, Heng
Harvard Medical School |
Enabling & Strategic Technologies | 4.99 |
| 9 | 21 |
Tibshirani, Robert John
Stanford University |
Mathematics & Statistics | 4.95 |
| 10 | 22 |
Teece, David J.
University of California, Berkeley |
Economics & Business | 4.94 |
Top 10 Institutions in United States of America
Number of listed scientists by recorded affiliation.
Top 10 Disciplines in United States of America
Number of listed scientists by Science-Metrix broad field.
How to interpret these rankings
These pages present scientists associated with United States of America in the 2026 single-year dataset. Country refers to the affiliation country recorded in the source data, not necessarily citizenship or nationality. Worldwide rank is taken from the dataset; country positions and institution totals are calculations made by this website.
Country position is based on the number of listed scientists, not an official assessment of national research quality. Institution counts use distinct nonblank affiliation names as recorded, so variants of the same institutional name may be counted separately. Historical changes describe representation in successive datasets and should not be interpreted as direct changes in research quality.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers about United States of America based on the 2026 single-year ranking data.
73,638 researcher records are associated with United States of America in the 2026 single-year dataset. This is a count of listed researchers, not of all scientists working in the country.
Countries are ordered by their number of listed researcher records in the selected 2026 single-year dataset. The resulting position does not measure overall research quality, productivity, or national scientific capacity.
The Top 10 Institutions and Top 10 Disciplines charts show the most frequently represented institution names and disciplinary classifications among the listed researchers associated with United States of America. These are counts of researchers, not institutional or disciplinary quality scores.
The selected dataset contains 7,236 distinct nonblank institution names for United States of America. Differences in institutional naming may cause the same organization to appear under more than one name.
You can examine both views, but they reflect different citation-impact periods. A difference in counts or positions should not be interpreted as a direct change in research performance without considering the ranking methodology and data coverage.
Use the Browse all scientists link on this page to view researcher records filtered by United States of America, 2026, and the selected single-year ranking.