The Department of Criminal Justice is proud to have both current and former faculty members acknowledged for their career-long impact to the field of criminology by being named in the top 2% of all cited scholars in the field. Drs. Liz Groff and Jerry Ratcliffe are current faculty in the department with this international recognition. Dr. Ratcliffe is a former British police officer and host of the popular Reducing Crime podcast. He works with police agencies around the world on crime reduction and criminal intelligence strategy. Dr. Groff has spent twenty plus years applying geographic theory and methodology to the study of crime-related issues at both the local and national levels. She is currently on extended leave, working as a senior statistician for the Office of Research, Evaluation, Forensics, and Technology at the National Institute of Justice.

The Department also acknowledges emeritus faculty member Dr. Ralph B. Taylor and the late Dr. Joan McCord for their immense contributions to the field. Dr. Taylor significantly advanced understanding and research in community criminology and other areas, and Dr. McCord made notable contributions to developmental criminology and was the first female president of the American Society of Criminology. A publicly-available and downloadable science-wide database of standardized citation indicators that was contributed by John Ioannidis and updated August 2024 is available.