September 25, 2019

World research leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology

Today, The Australian published their annual list of Research Field Leaders across 258 areas. I have been named Australia's field leader in Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology and Charles Sturt University has been named the lead institution in the field.
We also won this accolade in 2018; however, this year, The Australian has run a feature story, because they also found that I was the most published and cited in the world in my field. I was named "top of the world" (p. 26) in a list with 13 other people in different fields across Australia!
Top of the world. "These Australian-based researchers are best in the world in their field based on the quality, volume and impact of their work” (The Australian Research Magazine, 25 September 2019, p. 9) https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/1540291/top-of-the-world/
The Australian news story is here
"Some world No 1 researchers are located in places where many would not expect to them to be. Charles Sturt University’s Sharynne McLeod is based in Bathurst, west of the Dividing Range in NSW, where she is professor of speech and language ­acquisition. Her work, and academic leadership, is of such quality that not only does she personally top Australia, and the world, in audiology, speech and language pathology research, but her university is also the lead ­research institution in Australia in this field." (The Australian, 25 September 2019, p. 26)
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/australias-researchers-are-top-of-the-world/news-story/da49e9723818fde2d28ce7a9d08f538c
The Australian Research magazine is available here: https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/
They indicated that "people who have taken career breaks would find it harder to perform well on the measures we’ve used" (p. 58). Being awarded "top in the world" is even more special, since last year I was unable to work for most of the year due to health issues.
“Our methodology took into account both the volume of research produced and its quality. In each field we considered all papers in the top 20 refereed journals in that particular field (which Google Scholar determines using an H-index based measure of journal impact) by researchers in Australian institutions over the past five years. Then we counted the number of citations each paper has received. The top researcher (and the top institution) in each field is the one whose papers have been cited most often.” https://specialreports.theaustralian.com.au/1540291/35/

I am very grateful to work with amazing colleagues, including the CSU team (from the Schools of Teacher Education and Community Health) who have published research in audiology and speech-language pathology over the past few years: Dr Kate Crowe, Dr Sarah Verdon, A/Prof Jane McCormack, Dr Sarah Masso, Dr Suzanne Hopf, Professor Linda Harrison, Dr Audrey Wang, Dr Graham Daniel, Dr Tamara Cumming, Dr Van Tran, Dr Ben Pham, Mrs Nicole McGill, Ms Helen Blake, Ms Anna Cronin, Dr Michelle Brown, Dr Catherine Easton, Dr Michelle Smith-Tamaray, Dr Linda Wilson, Dr Lisa Brown, and Dr Laura Hoffman.
I have also been interviewed for:
  • Radio station 2BS (28 September 2019)