To reduce medical errors, which kill between 40, 000 and 98, 000 Americans a year, according to a seminal study by Harvard doctor Lucian Leape, published in 1999.

FORBES

His seminal study of consumption behavior and preferences, conducted earlier this year in greater Beijing, showed that children's preferences determined 69% of the family's overall spending.

CNN: LITTLE EMPERORS

In one seminal study in 2005, the University of California at Irvine informatics professor Gloria Mark found that information workers on average switch tasks every three minutes.

FORBES: Are Smartphones Making Us Dumber?

Mike was a pioneer in the study of groundwater as an archive of past climate change and his research provided seminal scientific advances on controls on water quality in regional aquifers, recharge over time and space.

UNESCO: In Memoriam: Professor W. Mike Edmunds