Apratim Mishra's Dissertation Defense
PhD candidate Apratim Mishra will present his dissertation defense, "Hype and Diversity in Science: A Bibliometric Study of Biomedical Literature." Mishra's dissertation committee includes Associate Professor Vetle I. Torvik (chair), Affiliate Associate Professor Jana Diesner (co-chair), Professor Stephen Downie, and Research Assistant Professor Jinseok Kim, University of Michigan.
Abstract
The scientific impact of publications is increasingly shaped by both the language used in research communication and the composition of collaborative teams. This dissertation investigates the intertwined roles of promotional language (termed “hype”) and collaborative diversity in shaping the influence of biomedical research. While prior studies have examined these factors independently, this work offers an integrated, large-scale analysis of how they collectively relate to downstream citation impact. To investigate the role of hype, the dissertation introduces a context-sensitive model that moves beyond simple frequency counts. Drawing on 14.5 million PubMed abstracts, it leverages the standardized IMRaD structure and incorporates word sense disambiguation to distinguish genuinely promotional usage from neutral or technical contexts. This refined approach allows for a more precise assessment of hype prevalence and its strategic use within scientific abstracts. Temporal trends indicate a small to moderate rise in hype, potentially reflecting growing pressures within the academic publishing environment.
In parallel, the dissertation evaluates how team diversity across four dimensions: ethnicity, gender, academic age, and topical expertise, relates to scientific impact. Using a dataset of over 900,000 author-disambiguated biomedical articles, the study shows that gender and expertise diversity are positively associated with citation outcomes. Expertise diversity is further decomposed into variety (breadth of topics), balance (distribution of expertise), and disparity (cognitive distance between topics). The results suggest that while greater topical breadth enhances impact, excessive imbalance or conceptual divergence within teams can reduce citation success. In contrast, ethnicity and academic age diversity exhibit more complex and occasionally negative associations with impact. Importantly, this dissertation goes beyond examining individual effects to explore how hype and diversity interact. Through generalized linear models and mediation analysis, it demonstrates that promotional language can both mediate and moderate the influence of diversity on impact. The inclusion of hype and its interaction terms alters the direction and strength of diversity effects, particularly for expertise diversity. These findings suggest that rhetorical strategies may amplify or diminish the benefits of diversity depending on team composition.
Overall, this dissertation offers a multidimensional understanding of what drives scientific influence by integrating computational modeling, statistical analysis, bibliometric data, and theoretical insights from social science and communication studies. The results highlight the critical role of both team composition and rhetorical choices in shaping research visibility, with implications for funders, journals, and institutions aiming to foster impactful and equitable scientific communication.
Questions? Contact Apratim Mishra.