LSU’s Dr. Frick and Dr. Matson Named World Class Scholars

In two separate reports, Louisiana State University Psychology Professors, Dr. Paul Frick and Dr. Johnny Matson, have been designated as top scholars in comparison to all others worldwide.

In an October report from LSU News, Dr. Paul Frick was noted to be one of only four researchers from LSU who achieved an h-index over 100, based on the Google Scholar Citations database. Only 3,160 scholars worldwide reach this level of significance.

Dr. Johnny Matson, professor of psychology and Distinguished Research Master, was noted for his interdisciplinary achievements, as one of only three LSU researchers who were among the top cited scholars by Clarivate Analytics this year, based on a review of journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection 2006-2016. According to LSU News, this measure takes into account the top 1% within each of 21 broad fields, over a specific period of time.

Dr. Paul Frick holds the Roy Crumpler Memorial Chair and is professor of psychology at LSU. His research investigates the many interacting factors that can lead children and adolescents to have serious emotional and behavioral problems, such as aggressive and antisocial behavior.

The h-index measures both productivity and impact of published papers. The score measures the researcher’s total number of papers as well as how many times each paper is cited by other scholars. An h-index over 100 amounts to 100 research papers each cited over 100 times.

“It’s quite an honor to be on this list,” Frick told LSU. “In my research, we have looked at kids with behavioral problems and developed ways of identifying them and treating them. Once your scale or system of how a disease or problem is classified and diagnosed is picked up by entities such as the World Health Organization and the American Psychiatric Association, you tend to get a lot of citations because everyone who uses your measure and has to cite you to justify theirs.”

Dr. Matson was included in the Clarivate Analytics 2018 list of only 6,078 scholars worldwide and one of only 2,020 in the new, interdisciplinary category.

This is the first year that Clarivate Analytics has looked specifically at cross-field citations, “…as frontier areas of research are frequently interdisciplinary, it is even more important to identify scientists and social scientists working and contributing substantially at the CrossField leading edge.”

Dr. Paul Frick is the inaugural recipient of the Roy Crumpler Memorial Chair in Psychology at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge campus. Frick most recently served as the Department Chair in Psychology at the University of New Orleans.

In 2017, he was named the Editor-in-Chief for the prestigious Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, the official journal of the International Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (ISRCAP), a multidisciplinary scientific society.

Frick is a leading international authority in child and adolescent diagnosis and behavior and his work focuses on the pathways by which youth develop severe antisocial behavior and aggressiveness. He has published over 180 manuscripts in either edited books or peer-reviewed publications and he is the author of 6 additional books and test manuals. He has been Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of New Orleans, and was named the recipient of the Robert D. Hare Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy.

Dr. Frick’s research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation. In 2008, he received the MacArthur Foundation’s Champion for Change in Juvenile Justice Award for the state of Louisiana. He has been the editor of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, is past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy. He has an Honorary Doctorate from Orebro University in Orebro, Sweden in recognition of his research contributions in psychology. He is also Professor in the Learning Sciences Institute of Australia at Australian Catholic University.

Dr. Matson is expert in autism, mental disabilities, and severe emotional disorders in children and adolescents, and has produced more than 700 publications and 38 books. Just a few of his titles are the International Handbook of Autism and Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Practitioner’s Guide to Applied Behavior Analysis for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, Practitioner’s Guide to Social Behavior and Social Skills in Children, and Assessing Childhood Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities, and Treating Childhood Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities.

Matson has served as Editor-in-Chief for Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders (Oxford England), Editor-in- Chief for Research in Developmental Disabilities (Oxford, England), and Associate Editor for Journal of Mental Health Research in Intellectual Disabilities (London).

Through the years he has served on 80 editorial boards, both US and International, including as Editor-in-Chief for Applied Research in Mental Retardation and the Official Journal of the American Association for University Affiliated Programs. He has also served as guest reviewer for over 50 journals, both US and International. And, he has visited as a professor around the world, including Canada, Sweden, and India.

Among his many professional activities, Matson has been a guest expert on ABC’s 20/20, consulted with the Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Virginia, and the US Departments of Mental Health. He has been a guess expert on CBS Eye-to-Eye and consulted for the DSM III-R Educational Testing Service. He has served on the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation, and consulted to the US States Department of Justice, and the US Department of Education.

“This is really about having a few decent ideas but mostly about having a goal and working and working to reach it,” Dr. Matson said to the Times.

“Maintaining that level of focus over that period of time is not easy,” he said, “at least it wasn’t for me. In my case, largely it has been about getting researchers and clinicians to be made aware of and to have the tools to identify co-morbid challenging behaviors and psychopathology in persons with autism and/or intellectual disabilities,” he said.

“If I have been able to do that, in some small way, then it will mean better care for many persons with developmental disabilities.”

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