Family Matters: Measuring Impact Through One’s Academic Descendants

Abstract

Scientific contributions take many forms, not all of which result in fame or are captured in traditional metrics of success (e.g., h factor). My focus is on one of the most lasting and important contributions a scientist can make: training scientists who go on to train scientists, who in turn train more scientists, etc. Academic genealogies provide many examples of scientists whose names might not be recognizable today but who trained psychologists that went on to publish very influential work. Of course success results from a combination of many factors (including but not limited to the student’s abilities and motivation, luck, institutional resources, mentoring, etc.), but the field should find more ways to acknowledge the role that mentoring does play.