Superstar researchers - those who author research papers which are far more widely cited than average - are generally well-respected within their fields and are frequently sought by new researchers for advice on career development and for collaborations. Though the effect of collaboration with superstar researchers on associated researchers is not well-researched yet, it is believed that collaboration with superstar researchers increases the research output of associated researchers, but may decrease their originality and innovation. This project explores a method of visualizing the career development of researchers associated with superstars. Using a dataset of authors, papers, and paper citations, a graph has been created with papers as edges and nodes as authors to visualize the career development of associate authors after collaboration with a superstar. The utility of this visualization is evaluated using heuristics.

In the scientific community, a few prominent researchers, known as "superstars," receive most of the attention, citations, and resources. However, it is unclear whether they promote true innovation. This study replicates and extends previous work analyzing how superstars influence their collaborators, focusing on the field of computer science. Using the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph dataset, we confirm that while connected researchers in computer science tend to publish more and receive more citations, their ideas are often less innovative. Unlike in the work we replicate, however, we observe this effect even before dissociating the connected researchers from superstars. We also develop a new metric to further clarify the impact of superstars on research diversity. The findings provide insights into the role of superstars in scientific innovation.