publications - Is a researcher with the same name in a different field likely to cause confusion?

I would like to get some advice on what may or may not be a problem, namely the lack of unique identifiers for scientific authors.

So there is a researcher with the same first and last name as myself, who works in a different field (physics vs computer science), but is in a similar stage of academic career (PhD candidate).

Are there potential problems? Is there a danger that publications are associated wrongly, with negative consequences for either one of the authors? Will this cause confusion in databases like arXiv?

What would you suggest?

• don't care?


• disambiguate by adding middle initials to future publications?


• ...

When I add initials for future publications, is there a change that I might somehow "lose" 3 earlier publications?

Answer

First, you don't lose anything by adding initials. They will make it easier to search for your name in databases, until the day comes when academia has a unique/canonical researcher ID scheme in place.

If you have a middle name (or middle names), you can use those. If you don't, just choose a "pen name" by adding initials, chosen to make the combination of your name + initials unique (for now, of course… you cannot do anything about someone having the same name and starting to publish in a few years). I recommend doing that.

What can happen is that other people searching for your publications in the future might miss your first three papers. But if you have a publication list on your webpage (you have a webpage, right?), it's no big deal. Also, three seems like a large number now, but it will not always be that way.