Sara Imari Walker

2.8k total citations · 1 hit paper
70 papers, 1.5k citations indexed

About

Sara Imari Walker is a scholar working on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Molecular Biology and Genetics. According to data from OpenAlex, Sara Imari Walker has authored 70 papers receiving a total of 1.5k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 33 papers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 27 papers in Molecular Biology and 10 papers in Genetics. Recurrent topics in Sara Imari Walker's work include Origins and Evolution of Life (28 papers), Protein Structure and Dynamics (12 papers) and Gene Regulatory Network Analysis (12 papers). Sara Imari Walker is often cited by papers focused on Origins and Evolution of Life (28 papers), Protein Structure and Dynamics (12 papers) and Gene Regulatory Network Analysis (12 papers). Sara Imari Walker collaborates with scholars based in United States, United Kingdom and France. Sara Imari Walker's co-authors include Leroy Cronin, Paul Davies, Douglas Moore, Cole Mathis, Hyunju Kim, Marcelo Gleiser, Michael Levin, Harrison B. Smith, Niles Lehman and Stuart Kauffman and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

Sara Imari Walker

67 papers receiving 1.4k citations

Hit Papers

align trajectories

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.

Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution

2023 65 citations A. S. Sharma, Michael Lachmann et al. Nature profile →

Peers

Sara Imari Walker

AA

MB

CMN

GENET

SPS

Eric Smith United States

Kepa Ruiz‐Mirazo Spain

Koichiro Matsuno Japan

Álvaro Moreno Spain

Paul Davies United States

Matteo Mossio France

Marcello Barbieri Italy

Carol E. Cleland United States

T. Gánti Hungary

Chrisantha Fernando United Kingdom

Eric Smith United States

Sara Imari Walker

709 ×0.9

AA

998 ×1.7

MB

183 ×0.9

CMN

170 ×1.1

GENET

156 ×1.1

SPS

Citations per year, relative to Sara Imari Walker Sara Imari Walker (= 1×) peers Eric Smith

Countries citing papers authored by Sara Imari Walker

Since Specialization

Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of Sara Imari Walker'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 Sara Imari Walker with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites Sara Imari Walker more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by Sara Imari Walker

Since Specialization

Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by Sara Imari Walker. 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 Sara Imari Walker. The network helps show where Sara Imari Walker may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of Sara Imari Walker

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of Sara Imari Walker. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of Sara Imari Walker 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 Sara Imari Walker. Sara Imari Walker is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

Sort: Min cites: Since: Top N: Style:

20 of 20 papers shown

1.

Kempes, Christopher P., et al.. (2025). Assembly theory and its relationship with computational complexity. PubMed. 2(1). 27–27. 1 indexed citations

2.

Walker, Sara Imari, Cole Mathis, Stuart Marshall, & Leroy Cronin. (2024). Experimentally measured assembly indices are required to determine the threshold for life. Journal of The Royal Society Interface. 21(220). 20240367–20240367. 4 indexed citations

3.

Sharma, A. S., et al.. (2023). Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution. Nature. 622(7982). 321–328. 65 indexed citations breakdown →

4.

Walker, Sara Imari, et al.. (2023). On the non-uniqueness problem in integrated information theory. Neuroscience of Consciousness. 2023(1). niad014–niad014. 2 indexed citations

5.

Mathis, Cole, et al.. (2023). False Positives and the Challenge of Testing the Alien Hypothesis. Astrobiology. 23(11). 1189–1201. 5 indexed citations

6.

Kempes, Christopher P., et al.. (2022). Scaling laws in enzyme function reveal a new kind of biochemical universality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 119(9). 20 indexed citations

7.

Frank, Adam, David Grinspoon, & Sara Imari Walker. (2022). Intelligence as a planetary scale process. International Journal of Astrobiology. 21(2). 47–61. 36 indexed citations

8.

Line, Michael R., et al.. (2022). Inferring Exoplanet Disequilibria with Multivariate Information in Atmospheric Reaction Networks. The Astronomical Journal. 164(2). 53–53. 5 indexed citations

9.

Smith, Harrison B., Hyunju Kim, & Sara Imari Walker. (2021). Scarcity of scale-free topology is universal across biochemical networks. Scientific Reports. 11(1). 6542–6542. 10 indexed citations

10.

Valentini, Gabriele, Naoki Masuda, Takao Sasaki, et al.. (2020). Division of labour promotes the spread of information in colony emigrations by the ant Temnothorax rugatulus. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. 287(1924). 20192950–20192950. 11 indexed citations

11.

Hartnett, Hilairy E., Steven J. Desch, Cayman T. Unterborn, et al.. (2020). Detectability of Life Using Oxygen on Pelagic Planets and Water Worlds. The Astrophysical Journal. 893(2). 163–163. 22 indexed citations

12.

Walker, Sara Imari, et al.. (2020). Formalizing Falsification of Causal Structure Theories for Consciousness Across Computational Hierarchies. arXiv (Cornell University). 1 indexed citations

13.

Surman, Andrew J., Marc Rodriguez‐Garcia, Yousef M. Abul‐Haija, et al.. (2019). Environmental control programs the emergence of distinct functional ensembles from unconstrained chemical reactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(12). 5387–5392. 43 indexed citations

14.

Smith, Harrison B., et al.. (2019). Universal scaling across biochemical networks on Earth. Science Advances. 5(1). eaau0149–eaau0149. 32 indexed citations

15.

Walker, Sara Imari, et al.. (2018). Real-world open-ended evolution: A league of legends adventure. International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics. 12(4). 458–469. 1 indexed citations

16.

Walker, Sara Imari, et al.. (2017). From Matter to Life. Cambridge University Press eBooks. 23 indexed citations

17.

Zenil, Héctor, et al.. (2017). Formal Definitions of Unbounded Evolution and Innovation Reveal Universal Mechanisms for Open-Ended Evolution in Dynamical Systems. Arizona State University Library Digital Repository (Arizona State University). 37 indexed citations

18.

Nghe, Philippe, Wim Hordijk, Stuart Kauffman, et al.. (2015). Prebiotic network evolution: six key parameters. Molecular BioSystems. 11(12). 3206–3217. 80 indexed citations

19.

Pavlic, Theodore P., et al.. (2014). Self-Referencing Cellular Automata: A Model of the Evolution of Information Control in Biological Systems. 522–529. 1 indexed citations

20.

Wu, Meng, Sara Imari Walker, & Paul G. Higgs. (2012). Autocatalytic Replication and Homochirality in Biopolymers: Is Homochirality a Requirement of Life or a Result of It?. Astrobiology. 12(9). 818–829. 37 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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