<p>A systematic review was carried out to investigate the current status of e-waste research. Four main questions regarding the structure of the research field, its main core themes, its evolution and contributions were addressed through this study. Waste electrical and electronic equipment related research articles were consulted (Web of Science) to prepare a corpus of 7610 documents. Articles were allocated into sets, systematically generated from keyword clusters obtained using VOSviewer. In addition, the citation-based indicator “observed fitness” was proposed to rank these articles by relevance. The top 105 articles were included in this thematic analysis. Results are presented as a narrative chronologic synthesis of the development of the core themes in e-waste research. Core themes encompass human health and the environment (Theme I), management optimization (Theme II), innovations (Theme III), and recovery of metals (Theme IV). A summatory model, proposed to understand knowledge growth in the field, indicated that e-waste research is at an early stage of development. Accumulated and yearly timelines, disaggregated by themes, showed research focus changes from environmental to managerial aspects. Bibliometrics&#xa0;(e.g., h-index) by authors, journals, research institutions, and countries, suggest that thematic preference exists across participants and that leadership is correlated with both productivity and engagement.</p>