Publication timeline visualization on professor profiles

[sacredvoid]

Problem

Professor profiles show publications as a flat paginated list. There's no way to visualize a researcher's productivity or impact trajectory over time — key information for prospective students evaluating potential advisors.

Proposed Solution

Timeline Chart

• Add a collapsible "Research Timeline" section to the professor detail page
• Bar/area chart showing publications per year with citations per year as a secondary axis
• Highlight active years vs. gaps
• Clicking a year bar filters the publication list to that year

Data Source

• getAuthorWorks() already returns year data — aggregate client-side
• Group works by publication_year, sum cited_by_count per year
• Fetch enough works to build a meaningful timeline (may need to page through more results)

Implementation

• Use a lightweight chart library (e.g., recharts — React-native, ~45kb gzipped, tree-shakeable)
• Or build a simple SVG bar chart component to avoid new dependencies
• Responsive design: horizontal scroll on mobile for wide timelines
• Color-code bars: use accent color for publications, gold for citations

Stretch Goals

• Overlay h-index progression over time
• Show co-author count per year (collaboration intensity)
• "Most productive year" and "most cited paper" callouts

Priority

Medium — strong differentiator, helps users evaluate researchers at a glance.