Abstract: A method for responding to a query on a database of publications includes receiving a user query including one or more keywords. A plurality of publications of the database are analyzed to determine a subset of publications that relate to the received keywords. A set of authors is established. The set including all authors credited as having contributed to each publication of the subset of publications. A score is calculated for each author of the set of authors based on information obtained from each publication that credits the author being scored as an author thereof. Query results including a set of top-scoring authors of the established set of authors are provided to the user.