On September 24, 2023, Stanford University announced the seventh edition of its 2024 global list recognizing the top 2% of scientists worldwide. This comprehensive list highlights the achievements of the elite among nearly 7 million researchers spanning 22 fields and 176 subfields.
The rankings are divided into two main categories: the “Lifetime Scientific Impact” list and the “Annual Impact” list. The Lifetime Scientific Impact focuses on scholars’ overall influence throughout their careers, while the Annual Impact spotlights recent scholarly accomplishments over the past year.
Among the 271 sociologists featured on the “Lifetime Scientific Impact” list globally, 10 are from the Chinese community. Min Zhou, a Chinese-American sociologist and Professor of Sociology and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), secured the 23rd position, marking her as the highest-ranked Chinese sociologist on the list.
Zhou is a distinguished member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In March 2024, she will take on the role of “Lingnan Scholar” at the newly established Lingnan Institute for Advanced Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.
Currently, Zhou is a tenured professor at UCLA, where she also serves as the director of the Asia Pacific Center and was the founding chair of the Department of Asian American Studies. Her research focuses on various aspects of international migration sociology, including race and ethnic relations, the experiences of the second generation of new immigrants, overseas Chinese studies, and urban sociology.
Her groundbreaking first English-language academic book, “Chinatown,” published in 1992, opened new avenues in the study of American immigrant communities and has since become a foundational text in understanding Chinatowns and overseas Chinese societies. Alongside Professor Portes, she co-developed the theory of segmentation assimilation in 1993, which has significantly advanced theoretical perspectives on the social integration of contemporary international migrants and their descendants.
To date, Zhou has authored 21 academic books and published over 230 articles in leading academic journals and publications. Her work has earned her numerous accolades, including the “Distinguished Career Award” from the American Sociological Association’s International Migration Section in 2017 and the “Outstanding Contribution Award” from the Association for Asian American Studies in 2020.
