Top experts by indication / Respiratory
Most active experts in COPD
2026 edition, data as of October 26, 2026
394 key opinion leaders in the directory are tagged to COPD. The tables below rank them by one public measure each: registered trials, citations, NIH awards and congress contributions. Each is a count from a named source, not a judgment about the person, and every row links a profile where the count can be checked.
Most registered trials
Registered clinical trials in this indication on which the person is a listed investigator, counted from ClinicalTrials.gov. 88 of the 394 people tagged to this indication have this count on record; the 25 highest are listed. Source: ClinicalTrials.gov.
| # | Expert | trials |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gerard CrinerTemple University, PA | 17 trials |
| 2 | Roberto BenzoMayo Clinic, AZ | 16 trials |
| 3 | Ronald CrystalWeill Cornell Medicine, NY | 15 trials |
| 4 | Meilan HanUniversity of Michigan, MI | 10 trials |
| 5 | Jerry KrishnanUniversity of Illinois Chicago, IL | 8 trials |
| 6 | Nadia HanselJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD | 8 trials |
| 7 | Fernando MartinezUniversity of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA | 8 trials |
| 8 | Paul DorinskyAstraZeneca, PA | 7 trials |
| 9 | Donald MahlerValley Regional Hospital, NH | 6 trials |
| 10 | Igor BarjaktarevicUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 6 trials |
| 11 | Nathaniel MarchettiLewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, PA | 6 trials |
| 12 | Adnan MajidBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, MA | 5 trials |
| 13 | Nicholas HillTufts Medical Center, MA | 5 trials |
| 14 | Surya BhattUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham, PA | 5 trials |
| 15 | David HuiThe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX | 5 trials |
| 16 | Robert WiseJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD | 4 trials |
| 17 | Mark GotfriedHonorHealth, AZ | 4 trials |
| 18 | Gary FergusonPulmonary Research Institute of Southeast Michigan, MI | 4 trials |
| 19 | Robert KanerWeill Cornell Medicine, NY | 4 trials |
| 20 | Marilyn MoyHarvard University, MA | 3 trials |
| 21 | Thomas GildeaCleveland Clinic, OH | 3 trials |
| 22 | Nicola HananiaBaylor College of Medicine, TX | 3 trials |
| 23 | Richard CasaburiUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 3 trials |
| 24 | Donald TashkinUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 3 trials |
| 25 | Barry MakeNational Jewish Health, CO | 3 trials |
Most cited
Citations to the person's whole published record in OpenAlex, not only their work in this indication, among the people with at least two registered trials in it. 41 of the 394 people tagged to this indication have at least 2 registered trials in it and this count on record; the 25 highest are listed. Source: OpenAlex.
| # | Expert | citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fernando MartinezUniversity of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA | 141,679 citations |
| 2 | Ronald CrystalWeill Cornell Medicine, NY | 86,411 citations |
| 3 | Bartolome CelliBrigham and Women's Hospital, MA | 84,921 citations |
| 4 | Richard CasaburiUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 76,939 citations |
| 5 | Edwin SilvermanBrigham and Women's Hospital, MA | 70,160 citations |
| 6 | Marin KollefWashington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO | 62,084 citations |
| 7 | Robert WiseJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD | 62,052 citations |
| 8 | Gerard CrinerTemple University, PA | 54,926 citations |
| 9 | James CrapoNational Jewish Health, CO | 51,390 citations |
| 10 | Barry MakeNational Jewish Health, CO | 44,471 citations |
| 11 | Donald TashkinUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 42,971 citations |
| 12 | Mario CastroUniversity of Kansas Medical Center, KS | 42,268 citations |
| 13 | Meilan HanUniversity of Michigan, MI | 42,199 citations |
| 14 | Jeffrey CurtisUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), AL | 34,534 citations |
| 15 | Nicholas HillTufts Medical Center, MA | 28,650 citations |
| 16 | Nicola HananiaBaylor College of Medicine, TX | 26,233 citations |
| 17 | Jerry KrishnanUniversity of Illinois Chicago, IL | 23,439 citations |
| 18 | Nadia HanselJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD | 23,179 citations |
| 19 | Donald MahlerValley Regional Hospital, NH | 23,035 citations |
| 20 | Richard ZuwallackSaint Francis Hospital & Medical Center, CT | 22,286 citations |
| 21 | David HuiThe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX | 20,252 citations |
| 22 | Gary FergusonPulmonary Research Institute of Southeast Michigan, MI | 16,961 citations |
| 23 | Mark BrantlyUniversity of Florida, FL | 13,211 citations |
| 24 | Surya BhattUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham, PA | 12,437 citations |
| 25 | Igor BarjaktarevicUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 10,184 citations |
Most NIH awards
NIH awards on the person's record in NIH RePORTER, across all of their funded work, among the people with at least two registered trials in this indication. 32 of the 394 people tagged to this indication have at least 2 registered trials in it and this count on record; the 25 highest are listed. Source: NIH RePORTER.
| # | Expert | awards |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ronald CrystalWeill Cornell Medicine, NY | 51 awards |
| 2 | Edwin SilvermanBrigham and Women's Hospital, MA | 21 awards |
| 3 | Robert WiseJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD | 18 awards |
| 4 | Nadia HanselJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, MD | 14 awards |
| 5 | Donald TashkinUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 13 awards |
| 6 | James CrapoNational Jewish Health, CO | 12 awards |
| 7 | Robert KanerWeill Cornell Medicine, NY | 10 awards |
| 8 | Anne DixonUniversity of Vermont Larner College of Medicine, VT | 9 awards |
| 9 | Marilyn MoyHarvard University, MA | 8 awards |
| 10 | Meilan HanUniversity of Michigan, MI | 8 awards |
| 11 | Jeffrey CurtisUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), AL | 7 awards |
| 12 | David HuiThe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX | 7 awards |
| 13 | Neeta ThakurUniversity of California, San Francisco, CA | 6 awards |
| 14 | Jerry KrishnanUniversity of Illinois Chicago, IL | 6 awards |
| 15 | Gerard CrinerTemple University, PA | 5 awards |
| 16 | Richard CasaburiUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA | 4 awards |
| 17 | Fernando MartinezUniversity of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, MA | 3 awards |
| 18 | Ravi KalhanNorthwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, IL | 3 awards |
| 19 | Michael DrummondMD | 2 awards |
| 20 | Bartolome CelliBrigham and Women's Hospital, MA | 2 awards |
| 21 | Nicola HananiaBaylor College of Medicine, TX | 2 awards |
| 22 | Mario CastroUniversity of Kansas Medical Center, KS | 2 awards |
| 23 | Nathaniel MarchettiLewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, PA | 2 awards |
| 24 | Mark BrantlyUniversity of Florida, FL | 2 awards |
| 25 | Roberto BenzoMayo Clinic, AZ | 2 awards |
Most congress contributions
Congress abstracts and presentations attributed to the person and verified by DOI, across every meeting the directory tracks, among the people with at least two registered trials in this indication. 9 of the 394 people tagged to this indication have at least 2 registered trials in it and this count on record; the 9 highest are listed. Source: Congress abstracts, DOI-verified.
| # | Expert | contributions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | David HuiThe University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX | 72 contributions |
| 2 | James CrapoNational Jewish Health, CO | 7 contributions |
| 3 | Ronald CrystalWeill Cornell Medicine, NY | 3 contributions |
| 4 | Adnan MajidBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, MA | 2 contributions |
| 5 | Gerard CrinerTemple University, PA | 2 contributions |
| 6 | Donald MahlerValley Regional Hospital, NH | 2 contributions |
| 7 | Roberto BenzoMayo Clinic, AZ | 2 contributions |
| 8 | Nicholas HillTufts Medical Center, MA | 1 contribution |
| 9 | Jerry KrishnanUniversity of Illinois Chicago, IL | 1 contribution |
Emerging
17 of the 394 carry the Emerging flag: publication and trial activity rising over the recent three years, in the top ten percent for growth among specialty peers at a similar career stage. Listed A to Z, not ranked; the flag is a yes or nothing, never a score. How the flag is computed.
| Rene BermeaHarvard University, MA |
| Rubin CohenSUNY Upstate Medical University, TX |
| Alexandra CornellMerck & Co., OR |
| Wigdan FarahMayo Clinic, MN |
| Jane FazioUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA |
| Lindsay ForbesUniversity of Colorado Anschutz, CO |
| Grace FreireJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine, FL |
| Stanley GalantChildren's Hospital of Orange County, CA |
| Bhavika KaulMichael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, TX |
| David MidthunMayo Clinic, MN |
| Stella SavarimuthuUniversity of Rochester Medicine, NY |
| Lynn SchnappUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, WI |
| Amir SharafkhanehMichael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, TX |
| Gwen SklootChiesi, NY |
| Angela SuenUniversity of California, San Francisco, CA |
| Laszlo VaszarAZ |
| Janine VintchUniversity of California, Los Angeles, CA |
How these tables are computed
The cohort is every profile in the directory tagged to COPD, from the person's registered trials and published research. Only indications with at least 200 tagged people get a page; a smaller cohort would say more about the tag than about the people in it. Each table sorts the cohort by one count, highest first, with no weighting, no blending and no editorial pass. Ties are broken by the profile's stable internal id so the same counts always give the same order. A person with no count on record is left out of that table, not ranked last.
Citations, NIH awards and congress contributions are counts over a person's whole record, not their work in this indication alone, so those three tables are limited to the indication's investigators: people with at least 2 registered trials in it. Without that rule the most cited people in a cohort are the ones whose careers span many diseases, which is a fact about their careers, not about this field. The registered-trials table is the indication-scoped count itself and has no such limit.
The counts are recomputed on every publish and the page carries the date of the publish it was built from. Previous editions are superseded, not archived.
What is deliberately absent
Reported industry payments are on every profile but are not a table here: a count of payers is a fact, and ranking people by it reads as a judgment. Prescribing volume is part of the paid workspace. The directory's influence tier is a judgment and never orders a public page. Sources and methodology.