The Network Dynamics of Social Change
Damon Centola discussed breakthroughs in the science of network diffusion, and the way they have improved understanding of how changes in societal behavior—in voting, health, technology, finance, vaccination, and disease prevention—occur, and how social networks can influence how they propagate. Many accepted ideas about viral spreading have in fact been responsible for causing past diffusion efforts to fail. In this talk, Centola presented new findings that may enable social change efforts to succeed much more effectively.
About the Academic
Damon Centola is a Professor in the Annenberg School for Communication, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is Director of the Network Dynamics Group and a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. His research centers on social networks and behavior change. His work has been published across several disciplines in journals such as Science, Nature Communications, PNAS, American Journal of Sociology, Circulation and Journal of Statistical Physics. Damon received the American Sociological Association’s Award for Outstanding Research in Mathematical Sociology in 2006, 2009, and 2011; the Goodman Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Sociological Methodology in 2011; the James Coleman Award for Outstanding Research in Rationality and Society in 2017; and the Harrison White Award for Outstanding Scholarly Book in 2019.
