Field(s) of Expertise/Research Area(s)

Social and knowledge networks: Theories, statistical and computational methods; Organizational theory.

Courses

341  Social Networks
445  Social Networks Analysis

Biography

Professor Contractor is investigating factors that lead to the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of dynamically linked social and knowledge networks in communities.  Specifically, his research laboratory, the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC), is developing and testing theories and methods of network science to map, understand and enable more effective networks in a wide variety of contexts including communities of practice in business, science and engineering communities, disaster response teams, public health networks, digital media and learning networks, and in virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

He is the lead architect of IKNOW (Inquiring Knowledge Networks on the Web), and the Cyberinfrastructure for Inquiring Knowledge Networks on the Web (C-IKNOW), a web-based infrastructure to map, measure, model and enable digitally-enabled communities.  He is also the developer of Blanche, a software environment to computationally model the dynamics of social networks. 

 

Professor Contractor also has appointments in the Department of Communication Studies in the School of Communication and the Department of Management & Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. In addition, he is a Research Affiliate of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he was on the faculty for 20 years before joining Northwestern University.

Research

Vogenbeck Varda, D., R., Forgette, R., Banks, D., & Contractor, N. (in press). Social network methodology in the study of disasters: Issues and insights prompted by post-Katrina research. Population Research & Policy Review.

 Steinfield, C., Pentland, B. T., Ackerman, M., & Contractor, N. (Eds.) (2007). Communities and Technologies 2007: Proceedings of the Third Communities and Technologies Conference. London: Springer London.

Contractor, N., Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (2006). Testing multi-theoretical multilevel hypotheses about organizational networks: An analytic framework and empirical example. Academy of Management Review, 31, 681-703.

Palazzolo, E. T., Serb, D., She, Y., Su, C., & Contractor, N. S. (2006). Co-evolution of communication and knowledge networks as Transactive Memory systems: Using computational models for theoretical integration and extensions. Communication Theory, 16, 223-250

Patel, J., Gupta, I., & Contractor, N. (2006).  JetStream: Achieving predictable gossip dissemination by leveraging social networks principles. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (IEEE NCA06).

Honors and Awards

Invited Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, forthcoming.

Fellow, The Field Museum, Chicago, Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo) 2008-2013.

Fellow, Resident Associate & Co-Director, Age of Networks: Social, Cultural and Technological Connections, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005-2006.

Honorary Professor, University of Science and Technology of China. Hefei, China, 2004.

Beckman Associate, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003-2004.

Outstanding Research Award for book “Theories of Communication Networks” (co-authored with Peter Monge and published by Oxford University Press), Organizational Communication Division, National Communication Association, 2003.

Outstanding Member Award, Organizational Communication Division, International Communication Association, 2000

Award for Excellence in Distance Education, Purdue University, 2000.

Institute Gold Medal for outstanding achievement. Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, 1983.

National Merit Scholarship, Indian School Certificate, Ministry of Education & Social Welfare, Government of India, 1978.