The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. (non-admin closure) (talk→ Bwilkins / BMW ←track) 10:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Paola Sebastiani (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Nothing here to suggest notability. She has obviously had a bunch of students generating a number of publications of which she is co-author. —G716 <^T·_C> 22:18, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment this is normally what senior professors do: they direct research. The usual principal credit is for the person whose idea it is, which is generally the supervisor. The art of teaching and research at this level is in knowing what topics to pursue and in what way to pursue them. DGG (talk) 02:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I could not agree more, I did not mean my comment to seem as harsh as it does. I retract my comment and apologise to Professor Sebastiani. —G716 <^T·_C> 03:15, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- —G716 <^T·_C> 22:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- —G716 <^T·_C> 22:22, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- —G716 <^T·_C> 22:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per WP:PROF. Salih (talk) 05:59, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Question, perhaps Salih could explain just how this person meets WP:PROF? At the same time: I just had a look at this person's website and I see a large number of publications in good journals. Of course, number of publications does not say anything about notability, but almost always people with many publications turn out to fulfill at least some of the criteria of WP:PROF. So I don't agree when the nom says "nothing here to suggest notability". Perhaps the nom would care to explain just why there is no notability here. --Crusio (talk) 09:44, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think DGG below has answered your question! Salih (talk) 10:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep She has published already 48 peer reviewed papers. Of these, the most cited have counts of 107, 70, 64, and 35 in Scopus (as usual, about 50% higher in Google Scholar, which does not limit itself to citations in peer-reviewed journals). Many of them are in journals of the highest quality. associate professors are not necessarily notable, but with a record like this at this early point she is clearly to beconsidered as an authority in her field. I added the citation data to the article. DGG (talk) 09:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Her important and highly regarded accomplishments in her fields of expertise mean that her papers should be cited in Wikipedia articles on genetics and genomics. Her papers cannot, however, help in the construction of a neutral Wikipedia article about her. What DGG and other editors have constructed so far resembles a resume or a second university homepage for her. Without substantial, independent sources about her, it will not be possible to write a good article here. 160.39.213.152 (talk) 14:53, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Arguably meets WP:PROF criterion #1 (significant impact in scholarly discipline, broadly construed). Google Scholar citations, although not exceptional, seem to indicate notability.--Eric Yurken (talk) 02:57, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I found this article in the condition that Wikipedia biographical articles are often in when their creator makes the usual clumsy mistake:

John Xmith was born in 1942. He attended XYZ Secondary School where he did very well and went on to attend the University of Somewhere. Then he went to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Whatever, where he earned a master's degree.

So far we don't know if he's a politician, a scientist, and artist, a journalist, a theologian, a professional athlete, a stage actor,..... We don't even know whether he's still alive or not (maybe after we scroll down several screens it says at the end "He died in 2006.") It should have begun by saying:

John Xmith (1942–2006) is one of the major founders of modern omphalology.

This article wasn't that bad, but it discussed what degrees she'd earned before getting to what she's notable for, and that in a later paragraph!

So I reorganized it. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:04, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Meets WP:PROF criterion #1 (significant impact in scholarly discipline, broadly construed). I am also an Associate Professor at an American University and happen to come across this page while looking up Dr. Sebastiani on Wikipedia. I see above that someone is concerned that the article about her does not add much, but actually, I find it very informative. For someone who wnats to find an expert on Bayesian Statistics and its applications in the biomedical field, this article is very helpful. Also, I know fo Dr. Sebastiani's work and the high regard her colleagues hold for her... I can tell you that she is incredibly respected and is highly sought after by academic meeting organizers and editors seeking reviewers. The fact that she has a number of articles first authored by her students speaks to her fairness and desire to give proper credit and to promote their careers. I couldn't agree more with the person above who indicated that this is what senior academicians do! I also know that she has first authored vanguard/cutting edge articles such as the one in Nature Genetics and from meetings I have been to, she is currently leading other very cutting edge efforts that will no doubt be published soon. Well I have written alot, but as an academician myself, and given the few completely uninformed objections that I saw concerning the entry about Dr. Sebastiani, I just had to say something!Viking249 (talk) 21:50, 2 February 2009 (UTC) — Viking249 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

• Comment I am surprised that an Associate Professor thinks that it is unusual or even exceptional that Sebastiani has students figure as first authors on her papers. This is completely normal and no researcher would want to be first author with her/his students as last authors: it is the last author position which is the most prestigious one. --Crusio (talk) 15:12, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on what field you're in. Michael Hardy (talk) 00:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We are talking Biostatistics here and Life Sciences in general, that's what I am referring to. --Crusio (talk) 09:24, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment. Please remove citation tallies from the bibliography list – this does not follow convention, nor is there any guarantee that these tallies will be kept up-to-date. If the cited articles are indeed notable, they will be recognized as such without these numbers being attached. It also leaves the impression that perhaps the text is trying a little too hard to convince the reader of the subject's notability. Please also keep in mind that sentiments such as "desire to give proper credit and to promote [her students'] careers" are irrelevant to whether the subject is notable. Respectfully, Agricola44 (talk) 15:02, 3 February 2009 (UTC).[reply]
• Weak keep despite the overblown SPA vote and overhyped article. Web of Science actually lists more articles than Scopus (67, excluding a number of abstracts), although the citation counts are lower: 86, 65, 56, 44, 33 (with Sebastiani being first author on #1, 2, and 4). Total number of citations to date 660, h-index of 14. This is a little below what I usually would judge notable, but the trend for all these articles and citations is clearly towards a rapid increase (currently 160 citations/year). Without using a crystal ball it seems clear that even should she miss the notability bar at this moment, she'll be over it very soon (even if she stopped working right this moment). --Crusio (talk) 15:30, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.