Research productivity at Hogwarts

The Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry is known primarily as a teaching institution. However, it is important to realize that like all cutting edge academic institutions, research is an important part of the school’s mission, and teachers there are expected to produce novel and important research commensurate to their position. Here we examine the publication record of a few key teachers at the school.

Let’s start with Professor Minerva McGonagall. As head of a house, there is no doubt that Professor McGonagall has a steadfast service reputation. And she seems to be an adequate teacher. But when it comes to publication, she is sorely underperforming:


We would expect more from the quiet, bookish Professor Sprout. Unlike McGonagall, she doesn’t waste her precious research time chasing Death Eaters, working with admin, or counseling students. And sure enough, she has several dozen publications, and is one of the more productive members of the faculty:

Professor Snape combines McGonagall’s exemplary service record with Professor Sprouts’s love of subject matter and attention to detail. And as Google Scholar shows, this has had a fantastic result on his productivity. He has more papers than the rest of the staff combined:


No wonder that he perennially feels overlooked, put-upon, and underappreciated; his grants are probably keeping half the school afloat.

One possible interpretation of these data anecdotes are that evil is conducive to research. A quick check of Lord Voldemort suggests that this is not the case, but one has to be careful. As previous articles here in the lounge have noted, Google Scholar is particularly insensitive to women who change their name. Although Voldemort is not a woman, the same name changing issues may effect him, so it is likely that he may adopt the habits of many female professors by publishing under his ‘maiden’ name, Tom Riddle:



I wonder how the citation index rates them all?