  Scientists are embedded in social and information networks that influence and
are influenced by the quality of their scientific work, its impact, and the
recognition they receive. Here we quantify the systematic relationship between
a scientist's position in the network of scientific collaborations and the
citations they receive. As expected, we find that authors closer to others in
this network are, on average, more highly cited than those further away from
others. We construct a novel indicator, the s-index, that explicitly captures
performance linked to network position along two complimentary dimensions:
performance expected due to network position and performance relative to this
position. The basis of our approach is to represent an author's network
position through their distribution of distances to other authors. The s-index
then ranks (1) the citation potential of an individual's network position
relative to all other authors, and (2) the citations they accrue relative to
authors that have a comparable network position. Characterizing scientists
through these two complimentary dimensions can be used to make more informed
evaluations in a networked environment. For example, it can identify
individuals that play an important role in diffusing scientific ideas. It also
sheds a new light on central debates in the Science of Science, namely the
impact of author teams and comparisons of impact across scientific fields.
