Prof. Iain McCulloch has been named in Thomson Reuters’ list of 2015 Highly Cited Researchers. The list recognizes leading researchers around the world whose scientific and scholarly papers wield outsized influence. Highly Cited Papers are defined as those that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science.

“I am delighted to continue in 2015 to be selected as a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher.  I’ve been very fortunate to work with many talented researchers in my group through many years, and the listing is a great recognition of all the hard work and progress made by all of them.”

- Prof. Iain McCulloch

Research in the field of new materials for solar energy, is a main aspect of Prof. McCulloch's work, and in particular focuses on improving the efficiency and affordability of plastic solar cells.  Producing low-cost, sustainable energy is one of the most important global challenges in the coming decades. This relentless increase in global demand for energy and the continued use of fossil fuels as the primary energy source, is creating increasing carbon emissions problems. His research group is synthesizing and testing new photoactive organic polymers and new small molecules, which have the potential to improve power conversion efficiencies, and allow less expensive manufacturing processes to print solar cells.  To make commercially viable products, his group is now working to specifically replace fullerenes with more efficient and less expensive materials, which can capture more of the sun’s light, can more efficiently generate energy on sun exposure, and will be stable to harsh environmental conditions.