Drones Editorial Board Members Featured in the World’s Top 2% Scientists in 2025

Scientists at Stanford University have recently published an update of the top 2% most widely cited scientists list—the World’s Top 2% Scientists.

The statistical data of this list is collected from 1960 to 2025, and it is divided into two further metrics: “Lifetime Scientific Influence Ranking” and “2025 Annual Scientific Influence Ranking”. The former evaluates the comprehensive influence of scientists throughout their careers, and the latter highlights the academic influence of scientists in the previous year. This ranking, regarded as the most prestigious worldwide, is based on bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database. It includes more than 200,000 researchers from a total of more than 10 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 174 subfields taken into account.

We are delighted to announce that 61 Editorial Board Members (EBMs) of MDPI’s Drones (ISSN: 2504-446X) have been included in the 2025 World’s Top 2% Scientists list.

Name	Affiliation
Prof. Dr. Abdessattar Abdelkefi	New Mexico State University, USA
Prof. Dr. Carlos Tavares Calafate	Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Spain
Prof. Dr. Yangquan Chen	University of California, USA
Prof. Dr. Xiwang Dong	Beihang University, China
Dr. Petros S. Bithas	National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Dr. George P. Petropoulos	Harokopio University of Athens, Greece
Prof. Dr. Andrey V. Savkin	University of New South Wales, Australia
Prof. Dr. Oleg Yakimenko	Naval Postgraduate School, USA
Dr. Fabrizio Banfi	Built Environment and Construction Engineering, Italy
Prof. Dr. Georg Bareth	University of Cologne, Germany
Dr. Kim Calders	Ghent University, Belgium
Prof. Dr. Javaan Chahl	University of South Australia, Australia
Prof. Dr. Bing Chen	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Prof. Dr. Haibin Duan	Beihang University, China
Dr. Eija Honkavaara	National Land Survey of Finland, Finland
Prof. Dr. Maggi Kelly	University of California, USA
Prof. Dr. Lammert Kooistra	Wageningen University, the Netherlands
Dr. Hung La	University of Nevada, USA
Prof. Dr. Arko Lucieer	University of Tasmania, Australia
Prof. Dr. Antonino Maltese	University of Palermo, Italy
Prof. Dr. Salvatore Manfreda	University of Naples "Federico II", Italy
Prof. Dr. Massimo Menenti	¹ Chinese Academy of Sciences, China ² Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Miguel A. Moreno	University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Prof. Dr. Francesco Nex	University of Twente, the Netherlands
Prof. Dr. George Nikolakopoulos	Electrical and Space Engineering at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Prof. Dr. Fabio Remondino	Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK), Italy
Prof. Dr. Xingling Shao	North University of China, China
Prof. Dr. Kimon P. Valavanis	University of Denver, USA
Dr. Geert Verhoeven	University of Vienna, Austria
Prof. Dr. Ke Xiong	Beijing Jiaotong University, China
Prof. Dr. Ziyang Zhen	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Prof. Dr. Mou Chen	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Dr. Zhi Feng	Beihang University, China
Dr. Fei Gao	Zhejiang University, China
Prof. Dr. Zygmunt Haas	Cornell University, USA
Dr. Mostafa Hassanalian	New Mexico Tech, USA
Dr. Yongzhao Hua	Beihang University, China
Prof. Dr. Rakesh Kapania	Virginia Tech, USA
Dr. Mumtaz Karatas	Wright State University, USA
Prof. Dr. Vaios Lappas	National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
Dr. Maolong Lv	Air Force Engineering University, China
Dr. Yuezu Lv	Beijing Institute of Technology, China
Prof. Dr. Ou Ma	University of Cincinnati, USA
Prof. Dr. Kamesh Namuduri	University of North Texas, USA
Prof. Dr. Paulo Jorge Oliveira	Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
Dr. Omar Sami Oubbati	Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, France
Dr. Shiva Raj Pokhrel	Deakin University, Australia
Prof. Dr. Arturo Sanchez-Azofeifa	University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Dr. Houbing Song	Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, USA
Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Torija Martinez	University of Salford, Manchester, UK
Prof. Dr. Bohui Wang	Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Dr. Dawei Wang	Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
Dr. Shihao Yan	Edith Cowan University, Australia
Prof. Dr. Yuan Yuan	Northwestern Polytechnical University, China
Prof. Dr. Youmin Zhang	Concordia University, Canada
Prof. Dr. Kun Zhu	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Prof. Dr. Qiuming Zhu	Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Dr. Xiangwei Bu	Air Force Engineering University, China
Dr. Peiying Zhang	China University of Petroleum (East China), China
Prof. Dr. Rosdiadee Nordin	Sunway University, Malaysia
Dr. Felipe Gonzalez Toro	Queensland University of Technology, Australia

The latest rankings underscore the remarkable academic influence and research commitment of these scientists, who are dedicated to advancing knowledge for the betterment of global society.

We would like to congratulate these EBMs on their outstanding achievements and thank them for their contributions to the advancement of Drones. Their expertise and efforts have been instrumental in shaping the journal’s academic standing and driving progress in this field.