Speaker: Ronald Breiger

Professor  of Sociology
University of Arizona

“Community Detection: Beyond Community Structure”

Abstract: A large stream of research spurred by generative work of Mark Newman has developed methods for the detection of community structure, defined as the appearance of densely connected groups of vertices (relative to a null model), with only sparser connections between groups. In this talk I use fundamental ideas from the community detection literature to move beyond a sole reliance on the pattern of community structure. This work expands the toolbox of mesoscale patterns available to analysts of networks of directed ties (those in which not all connections are reciprocated) and overlapping types of tie (including multiple networks of positive, negative, and other forms of connection).

Bio: Ronald Breiger is Professor of Sociology in the School of Sociology, Professor (by courtesy) in the School of Government and Public Policy, and an Affiliate Member of the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Statistics at the University of Arizona.

Breiger (PhD Harvard, 1975) taught at Harvard University (Assistant to Associate Professor) and Cornell University (Professor to Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology) before coming to the University of Arizona as a Professor of Sociology in 2000.

Named a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and a Fulbright Senior Scholar, Breiger is a recipient of the Simmel Award of the International Network for Social Network Analysis, and he was elected Chair of the Section on Mathematical Sociology of the American Sociological Association. With Linton Freeman, he has served as Editor (1998-2006) of the journal Social Networks, and in 2016 he will begin as Editor for Social and Political Science of the journal Network Science. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, the journal Poetics, and the new ASA journal, Socius. Breiger chaired a 2002 National Academy of Sciences workshop on dynamic social network modeling and analysis, which focused on contributions of that area to national needs. Links to selected publications,  recent grants, and current affiliations are provided at the right and at the top-right of each page.

Breiger’s interests include social networks, adversarial networks, stratification, mathematical models, theory, and measurement issues in cultural and institutional analysis.

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