BACKGROUND: Knee arthroplasty research continues to shape the field by improving both clinical practice and patient outcomes. The H-index is one metric that combines publication quantity and citation output in an attempt to quantify the impact of an author's research work. We aimed to assess the relative research impact of members of the Knee Society by comparing their H-indices and other research metrics to authors of the most cited knee arthroplasty publications. METHODS: The Clarivate Web of Science Database was utilized to perform a literature search for the most cited publications relating to knee arthroplasty. A list of the authors from these most cited publications was then collected. Author information and research metrics were extracted for both members of the Knee Society and authors of the most cited knee arthroplasty publications using the Scopus abstract and citation database. Descriptive and statistical analyses with Mann-Whitney U tests were used to compare various research metrics. RESULTS: The authors of the most cited knee arthroplasty studies have a higher mean H-index (57.3 versus 44.7, P = 0.017) and number of citations (22,343 versus 8,331, P <
0.001) than members of the Knee Society. Members of the Knee Society have a higher mean percentage of publications as senior authors (35 versus 23%, P <
0.001) and a higher mean number of publications specific to the last 10 years (118.3 versus 112.0, P <
0.001) than the most cited group. There was no significant difference between groups for the overall number of publications (223.6 for the Knee Society versus 255.8 for the most cited authors, P = 0.812). CONCLUSIONS: Based on research productivity and impact, membership selection in the Knee Society appears consistent with the goal of identifying high-impact individuals who are able to contribute to The Knee Society's mission.