There are still important questions to be asked about assistant professor of physics and astronomy Guillermo Gonzalez’s tenure qualifications according to an article by Richard Monastersky in The Chronicle of Higher Education on Monday.

While it was widely reported that Gonzalez’s publications list includes a greater number of peer-reviewed journal articles than Iowa State’s physics and astronomy department tenure guidelines suggest, the articles of interest to the tenure committees were those 25 that were written during Gonzalez’s time at Iowa State.

The Chronicle uses University of California-San Diego physics professor Jorge Hirsch’s h-index to evaluate Gonzalez’s scholarship.

The h-index takes into consideration the number of articles written by Gonzalez and the number of times those articles have been cited by other scientists as a measure of scholarship.

Gonzalez, according to the Chronicle, has a normalized h-index of 13, which Monastersky notes is the second-highest of the 10 astronomers in his department. The highest belongs to physics and astronomy professor Curtis J. Struck. The calculation was made from the publications listed on the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System.

The Chronicle’s article also quotes Hirsch, creator of the h-index, saying Gonzalez’s progress, in terms of scholarly work, seems to have slowed down noticeably during his time at Iowa State.

Monastersky also explores other possible negative influences on Gonzalez’s tenure case, including the number of research grants the professor brought in and the fact that none of his graduate students at Iowa State has yet finished his or her doctoral studies.

Gonzalez will not comment until the decision is made.

President Gregory Geoffroy is set to make the final decision on Gonzalez’s tenure appeal by June 6.