recent updates & upcoming talks
- May 14: I gave a talk at Duke’s Networks & Health Workshop on modalities of gathering social network data.
- Apr 18: A recorded video tutorial on ethical considerations in network-based research is now live in Sage’s Research Methods series.
- Mar 9: My review of Religion Virtues & Health is now available in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.
- Jan 2024: As of this spring, I am now a Professor in the department of Sociology at the University of South Carolina.
- Dec 23: My review of Text as Data is now available in Contemporary Sociology.
- Oct 21: A paper led by former student Kate Fitch, also w/ Molly Copeland, is now published at Social Networks. This paper echoes my own first publication in estimating romantic partner reporting agreement, also examining its predictors.
- Oct 20: Miranda Lubbers & I have a chapter on social network data collection in the 2nd edition of the Sage Handbook of SNA; here’s a preprint version.
- Sep 18: Our paper (w/ Michał Bojanowski) on NBA trades is now published in Network Science.
- Aug 14-16: I attended (& nominally helped co-organize) a workshop at Vermont addressing “Contagion: on Complex Social Systems.”
- 2021: We launched a new Book Reviews section at the Journal of Social Structure! I am serving as the inaugural Book Review Editor, so please send suggestions my way.
about me
In January 2024, I started a new position as Professor of sociology at the University of South Carolina. This move comes after nearly a decade in the Department of Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado Denver, where I spent stints as the director of Graduate Studies, and our undergraduate programs in Public Health.
Broadly, my research revolves around addressing how networks constrain or promote the diffusion of information and/or diseases through populations. Much of this work has focused on infectious diseases (e.g., HIV/AIDS and covid-19). Recently, I have spent more time examining the integrative patterns and processes in problem-focused areas of science that draw from many academic disciplines (e.g., population health, demography, religion). In addition, I have a primary interest in using social network theory to improve strategies used in the design and implementation of primary data collection projects (e.g., my book).
Before USC, I was an Associate, then Full Professor of Health & Behavioral Sciences at University of Colorado Denver, where I was also an affiliate of the Institute of Behavioral Science at CU-Boulder, an Assistant Professor in the Sociology Department and affiliate of the Center on Health, Risk and Society at American University, and an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Arizona State University, where I was affiliated with the Center for Population Dynamics (sadly, now defunct) and the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity. Before that, I spent two years funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a Health and Society Scholar (also since disbanded) at Columbia University, completed my PhD in the Department of Sociology at Ohio State University, and received my BA (Interdisciplinary Studies) from Virginia Tech. When I’m away from work, you can probably find me training for my next triathlon, or hanging with my dogs (Zoë & Harley).