Riddet researchers ranked for excellence

2 October 2025 - Riddet Institute affiliated scientists have again shown their class in the latest Stanford rankings.

Stanford University and academic publisher Elsevier have just released their annual list of the top 2 per cent most influential scientists in the world. Fourteen of the top New Zealand food scientists for 2025 have an association with the Riddet Institute.

Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2% Scientists list” is a prestigious ranking that highlights the most influential researchers across a broad range of scientific fields. 

The list includes data on journal articles and citation metrics to demonstrate the impact of a scientist’s work. The rankings are presented in two lists – one for 2024, and one that represents a scientist’s entire research over the course of his or her career. 

Of the 43 top 2 per cent of food scientists in New Zealand for 2025, 14 are either staff scientists or work in collaboration with the Riddet Institute. They are led by Riddet Institute Director Distinguished Professor Harjinder Singh, who is ranked second in New Zealand for food science and 33^rd in the world.

Globally, the 2025 list expands to 25 Riddet Institute academics and researchers past and present who are included in the top two per cent of scientists in a range of scientific fields. In order of ranking these are: Dist. Prof Harjinder Singh, Prof Robert R. Wolfe, Prof Sara Jaeger, Prof Aiqian Ye, Prof Skelte Anema, Dr Simon Loveday, Dist. Prof Paul Moughan, Prof Jim Mann, Prof Munish Puri, Prof Gerald Tannock,  Prof Jaspreet Singh, Prof Indrawati Oey, Dr Mike Boland, Prof Siew Young Quek, Prof Lovedeep Kaur, Dr Ali Rashidinejad, Prof Elaine Rush, Dr Barbara Burlingame, Prof Gail Bornhorst, Prof Brent Young, Prof Matt Golding, Dr Andrew Reynolds, Prof Keith Gordon, Prof Juliet Gerrard, and Prof Leo Cheng.

There are more than 233,000 global scientists in Stanford’s top 2 per cent, and the rankings are widely used as a measure of research excellence and impact.

Here’s a closer look at some of the most influential scientists:

Riddet Institute Director Distinguished Professor Harjinder Singh 

Made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to food science this year, Dist. Prof Singh is the Riddet Institute Director and a recipient of several recent awards, including last year’s prestigious Pickering Medal awarded by the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and a Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed by the international Institute of Food Technologists, also in 2024. His significant scientific breakthroughs and co-inventions have led to more than 20 patents. These include the acclaimed FerriPro iron encapsulation technology which brings affordable iron supplementation to the developed world, changing the lives of many of the most disadvantaged. His career spans 30 years and his globally recognised academic profile includes more than 580 academic publications.

Professor Sara Jaeger  

A Professor of Food Consumer Science in the Department of Food Science at Denmark’s Aarhus University, Prof Jaeger headed the Sensory and Consumer Insights team at Plant & Food Research, New Zealand, until 2023. Prof Jaeger in an expert in the development and implementation of novel methods for sensory and consumer research. Her collaborative work with the Riddet Institute is focused on the sustainable food transition and consumer expectations and experiences of novel foods and food technologies.

Distinguished Professor Paul Moughan

Riddet Institute Fellow Laureate Dist. Prof Paul Moughan is a global expert in dietary protein. Over the last 20 years he has led a systematic discovery-based research programme into the effects of diet on gut metabolism and digestion and, amongst other discoveries, is credited with establishing the role of food peptides in influencing gut protein metabolism. He has also made significant contributions to knowledge in the chemical analysis of foods and the development of bioassays of nutrient availability. He has published more than 400 academic papers and is widely regarded as a world authority in the field of protein quality and metabolism.

Professor Aiqian Ye

An expert in the physicochemical characteristics of milk and plant proteins, Prof Ye is a widely cited author of more than 211 publications. His research has investigated both the interactions between proteins, polysaccharides and emulsions in food, and the behaviour of food structure during digestion and absorption in the body. 

The Riddet Institute is a government Centre of Research Excellence, hosted by Massey University in Palmerston North, focusing on advanced food research. 

The database is available here.