Contractor Named Fellow of the Network Science Society
Noshir Contractor was recognized for his contributions to network science that address societal challenges
The Network Science Society (NetSci) has named Northwestern Engineering’s Noshir Contractor as one of its 2022 NetSci fellows.
The Fellowship Program of the Network Science Society recognizes investigators who have made outstanding and significant contributions to network science research and to the community of network scientists. The fellowship is annually awarded to a select number of members from the community based on their exceptional life-long individual contributions to any area of network science research and to the community of network scientists locally and globally.
Contractor, Jane S. and William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering, the School of Communication, and the Kellogg School of Management, was recognized for “foundational theoretical and empirical contributions to network science that address grand societal challenges from global health to space travel.
Contractor is a leading researcher in network science, computational social science, and web science. He investigates how social and knowledge networks form — and perform — in contexts including business, scientific communities, healthcare, and space travel. He directs Northwestern’s Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) research group, which advances social network theories, methods, and tools to better understand and meet the needs of diverse communities.
The president of the International Communication Association (ICA), Contractor’s other honors include being named fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and receiving the Lifetime Service Award from the Academy of Management’s Organizational Communication and Information Systems Division. He’s also received the Fellows Book Award from ICA, and the Simmel Award — a lifetime achievement for major contributions to the study of social networks — from the International Network for Social Network Analysis.
NetSci is an interdisciplinary community that aims to bring together researchers and stakeholders with direct interest in network science, from physics to computer science, biology, social sciences, and economics. Through yearly symposia, workshops and annual conferences, and publishing initiatives, the organization seeks to promote the discovery and investigation of network phenomena and serve as the leading societal representative in network science to industry, academia, and government.