Joel Leja

10.6k total citations · 5 hit papers
90 papers, 2.9k citations indexed

About

Joel Leja is a scholar working on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation and Global and Planetary Change. According to data from OpenAlex, Joel Leja has authored 90 papers receiving a total of 2.9k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 84 papers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 56 papers in Instrumentation and 6 papers in Global and Planetary Change. Recurrent topics in Joel Leja's work include Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena (71 papers), Astronomy and Astrophysical Research (56 papers) and Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies (42 papers). Joel Leja is often cited by papers focused on Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena (71 papers), Astronomy and Astrophysical Research (56 papers) and Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies (42 papers). Joel Leja collaborates with scholars based in United States, United Kingdom and Netherlands. Joel Leja's co-authors include Pieter van Dokkum, Katherine E. Whitaker, Erica J. Nelson, Gabriel Brammer, Charlie Conroy, Benjamin D. Johnson, Marijn Franx, Rachel Bezanson, Joshua S. Speagle and Ivelina Momcheva and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, The Astrophysical Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In The Last Decade

Joel Leja

85 papers receiving 2.5k citations

Hit Papers

CONSTRAINING THE LOW-MASS SLOPE OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQ... 2014 2026 2018 2022 2014 2023 2019 2024 2024 100 200 300 400
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. CONSTRAINING THE LOW-MASS SLOPE OF THE STAR FORMATION SEQUENCE AT 0.5 <z< 2.5
    2014 459 citations Katherine E. Whitaker, Marijn Franx et al. The Astrophysical Journal profile →
  2. A population of red candidate massive galaxies ~600 Myr after the Big Bang
    2023 281 citations Ivo Labbé, Pieter van Dokkum et al. Nature profile →
  3. How to Measure Galaxy Star Formation Histories. II. Nonparametric Models
    2019 253 citations Joel Leja, Benjamin D. Johnson et al. The Astrophysical Journal profile →
  4. RUBIES: Evolved Stellar Populations with Extended Formation Histories at z ∼ 7–8 in Candidate Massive Galaxies Identified with JWST/NIRSpec
    2024 56 citations Bingjie Wang, Joel Leja et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters profile →
  5. The Small Sizes and High Implied Densities of “Little Red Dots” with Balmer Breaks Could Explain Their Broad Emission Lines without an Active Galactic Nucleus
    2024 50 citations Josephine F. W. Baggen, Pieter van Dokkum et al. The Astrophysical Journal Letters profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
Joel Leja United States 28 2.8k 1.5k 314 89 88 90 2.9k
Erica J. Nelson United States 26 2.5k 0.9× 1.5k 1.0× 239 0.8× 103 1.2× 99 1.1× 74 2.7k
Sandro Tacchella United States 34 3.3k 1.2× 1.9k 1.2× 293 0.9× 103 1.2× 122 1.4× 117 3.5k
Benjamin P. Moster Germany 19 2.3k 0.8× 1.3k 0.9× 308 1.0× 66 0.7× 82 0.9× 33 2.3k
Michaela Hirschmann Italy 28 2.4k 0.9× 1.3k 0.9× 276 0.9× 66 0.7× 71 0.8× 83 2.5k
Dmitry Bizyaev United States 30 3.7k 1.3× 1.7k 1.1× 453 1.4× 97 1.1× 114 1.3× 129 3.8k
Claudia Scarlata United States 27 2.1k 0.8× 1.0k 0.7× 309 1.0× 83 0.9× 55 0.6× 93 2.2k
Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe United States 28 2.8k 1.0× 1.4k 0.9× 414 1.3× 88 1.0× 76 0.9× 78 2.9k
T. Contini France 39 3.8k 1.4× 1.5k 1.0× 465 1.5× 122 1.4× 148 1.7× 108 3.9k
Stephen M. Wilkins United Kingdom 34 3.1k 1.1× 1.7k 1.1× 420 1.3× 154 1.7× 66 0.8× 87 3.2k
Mauro Stefanon United States 29 2.9k 1.0× 1.8k 1.1× 385 1.2× 124 1.4× 49 0.6× 69 3.0k

Countries citing papers authored by Joel Leja

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Joel Leja's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by Joel Leja with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Joel Leja more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Joel Leja

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Joel Leja. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by Joel Leja. The network helps show where Joel Leja may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Joel Leja

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Joel Leja. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Joel Leja based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with Joel Leja. Joel Leja is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Belli, Sirio, Minjung Park, R. L. Davies, et al.. (2025). Active Galactic Nucleus Feedback in Quiescent Galaxies at Cosmic Noon Traced by Ionized Gas Emission. The Astrophysical Journal. 981(1). 25–25. 5 indexed citations
2.
Hviding, Raphael E., Anna de Graaff, Tim B. Miller, et al.. (2025). RUBIES: A spectroscopic census of little red dots. Astronomy and Astrophysics. 702. A57–A57. 7 indexed citations
3.
Alsing, Justin, Stephen Thorp, Sinan Deger, et al.. (2024). pop-cosmos: A Comprehensive Picture of the Galaxy Population from COSMOS Data. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 274(1). 12–12. 8 indexed citations
4.
Wang, Bingjie, Joel Leja, Anna de Graaff, et al.. (2024). RUBIES: Evolved Stellar Populations with Extended Formation Histories at z ∼ 7–8 in Candidate Massive Galaxies Identified with JWST/NIRSpec. The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 969(1). L13–L13. 56 indexed citations breakdown →
5.
Davies, R. L., Sirio Belli, Minjung Park, et al.. (2024). JWST reveals widespread AGN-driven neutral gas outflows in massive z ~ 2 galaxies. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 528(3). 4976–4992. 25 indexed citations
6.
Thorp, Stephen, Justin Alsing, Hiranya V. Peiris, et al.. (2024). pop-cosmos: Scaleable Inference of Galaxy Properties and Redshifts with a Data-driven Population Model. The Astrophysical Journal. 975(1). 145–145. 5 indexed citations
7.
Zou, Fan, W. N. Brandt, Chien‐Ting Chen, et al.. (2024). Investigating the Star Formation Rates of Active Galactic Nucleus Hosts Relative to the Star-forming Main Sequence. The Astrophysical Journal. 962(2). 156–156. 9 indexed citations
8.
Chemerynska, Iryna, Hakim Atek, Pratika Dayal, et al.. (2024). The Extreme Low-mass End of the Mass–Metallicity Relation at z ∼ 7. The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 976(1). L15–L15. 11 indexed citations
9.
Mathews, Elijah P., Joel Leja, Joshua S. Speagle, et al.. (2023). As Simple as Possible but No Simpler: Optimizing the Performance of Neural Net Emulators for Galaxy SED Fitting. The Astrophysical Journal. 954(2). 132–132. 8 indexed citations
10.
Li, Yijia, Joel Leja, Katherine E. Whitaker, et al.. (2023). A Simple Spectroscopic Technique to Identify Rejuvenating Galaxies. The Astrophysical Journal. 952(1). 6–6. 9 indexed citations
11.
Nersesian, Angelos, Arjen van der Wel, Anna Gallazzi, et al.. (2023). Less is less: Photometry alone cannot predict the observed spectral indices of z ~ 1 galaxies from the LEGA-C spectroscopic survey. Astronomy and Astrophysics. 681. A94–A94. 8 indexed citations
12.
Eftekhari, Tarraneh, Wen‐fai Fong, Alexa C. Gordon, et al.. (2023). An X-Ray Census of Fast Radio Burst Host Galaxies: Constraints on Active Galactic Nuclei and X-Ray Counterparts. The Astrophysical Journal. 958(1). 66–66. 6 indexed citations
13.
Alsing, Justin, Hiranya V. Peiris, D. Mortlock, Joel Leja, & Boris Leistedt. (2023). Forward Modeling of Galaxy Populations for Cosmological Redshift Distribution Inference. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 264(2). 29–29. 17 indexed citations
14.
Labbé, Ivo, Pieter van Dokkum, Erica J. Nelson, et al.. (2023). A population of red candidate massive galaxies ~600 Myr after the Big Bang. Nature. 616(7956). 266–269. 281 indexed citations breakdown →
15.
Leistedt, Boris, Justin Alsing, Hiranya V. Peiris, D. Mortlock, & Joel Leja. (2023). Hierarchical Bayesian Inference of Photometric Redshifts with Stellar Population Synthesis Models. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 264(1). 23–23. 13 indexed citations
16.
Park, Minjung, Sirio Belli, Charlie Conroy, et al.. (2023). Rapid Quenching of Galaxies at Cosmic Noon. The Astrophysical Journal. 953(1). 119–119. 21 indexed citations
17.
Cutler, Sam E., Katherine E. Whitaker, Lamiya Mowla, et al.. (2022). Diagnosing DASH: A Catalog of Structural Properties for the COSMOS-DASH Survey. The Astrophysical Journal. 925(1). 34–34. 18 indexed citations
18.
Zou, Fan, W. N. Brandt, Chien‐Ting Chen, et al.. (2022). Spectral Energy Distributions in Three Deep-drilling Fields of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time: Source Classification and Galaxy Properties. The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series. 262(1). 15–15. 26 indexed citations
19.
Nugent, Anya E., Wen‐fai Fong, Yuxin 雨欣 Dong 董, et al.. (2022). Short GRB Host Galaxies. II. A Legacy Sample of Redshifts, Stellar Population Properties, and Implications for Their Neutron Star Merger Origins. The Astrophysical Journal. 940(1). 57–57. 46 indexed citations
20.
Tal, Tomer, Pieter van Dokkum, Marijn Franx, et al.. (2013). Galaxy Environments over Cosmic Time: The Non-evolving Radial Galaxy Distributions around Massive Galaxies since <i>z</i> = 1.6. Open Research Online (The Open University). 16 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

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