Harald Ade, Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy, has been named to Clarivate’s 2025 Highly Cited Researchers list. Ade, who has been named to the list each year since 2017, was recognized in the engineering and materials science categories.

Clarivate compiles an annual list of researchers who demonstrate influence in their fields. The analytics firm considers researchers with multiple research papers ranking in the top 1% of citations for their field and publication year in its citation database, Web of Science Core Collection, over the past 11 years. It then employs quantitative metrics, qualitative analysis and expert judgment to refine the list.

This year, Clarivate issued 7,131 Highly Cited Researcher awards to 6,868 individual researchers around the world. The analytics firm issued 3,569 awards in the cross-field category and 3,562 awards in 21 Essential Science Indicators (ESI) fields. Only 258 individual researchers, including Ade, were recognized in two or more ESI fields.

Ade’s research focus is on advancing organic semiconductors and photovoltaics, with the goal of developing off-grid energy sources and electronics for military and civilian use. To accomplish this, his group uses various X-ray techniques to analyze the structure of the materials and correlate them to different device parameters. The group focuses on maximizing the performance and stability of organic solar cells and related electronics. 

Ade has developed several novel instruments and characterization methods which primarily focus on determining the composition, morphology and structure of polymeric and organic electronic materials at the sub-micron spatial scale. Among these is resonant soft x-ray scattering, which has become a standard method for the characterization of organic photovoltaic devices. Along with Brendan O’Connor, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Ade is a co-founder of PolyPV, which seeks to bring organic solar cells to the market. 

He is also the director of the Organic and Carbon Electronics Laboratories (ORaCEL), one of the faculty clusters under the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program. ORaCEL uses carbon-based organic and hybrid materials to develop sustainable energy materials and spintronic devices. 

Other NC State faculty named in this year’s list were Aram Amassian, University Faculty Scholar and professor in the College of Engineering; Rodolphe Barrangou, Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; Benjamin J. Callahan, associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine; Michael D. Dickey, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Professor and associate head of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the College of Engineering; and Fanxing Li, Thomas M. Clausi Distinguished Professor in the College of Engineering.