Benjamin Thomas Cornwell (born April 30, 1978) is an American sociologist. He is Professor and Chair of Sociology at Cornell University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 2007, where he studied under Edward Laumann,

Linda Waite Linda J. Waite is a sociologist and social demographer. She is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago. In 2018, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Education ...

, and Jason Beckfield. He works on methods to study issues involving social inequality, the epidemic spread of disease, and collective behavior.

Biography

Benjamin Cornwell was born to Thomas and Susan (Smith) Cornwell in 1978 in

Huntington, West Virginia Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and the largest city in the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A h ...

. Through his maternal great-grandmother, Edna Alice (Hatfield) Smith, he is a cousin of Devil Anse Hatfield and

Henry D. Hatfield Henry Drury Hatfield (September 15, 1875 – October 23, 1962) was an American Republican politician from Logan County, West Virginia. He served a term as the 14th Governor of the state, in addition to one term in the United States Senate. Hatf ...

. His paternal 4th great-grandfather is Thomas Hannan, a revolutionary war soldier and the first Anglo settler of the Kanawha River region of Virginia (now West Virginia)

Scholarly career

He earned his B.A. in sociology in 2000 at the University of Cincinnati, his M.A. at Ohio State University (with James Moody) in 2001, and his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Chicago in 2007. His dissertation was titled , which argues that health is an important factor in determining individuals' positions within larger social networks. During his time as a student at Chicago, he was a research assistant for th
National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project
on which he eventually became a co-investigator. He also served for several years as a teaching intern and research assistant for

Donald N. Levine Donald Nathan Levine (June 16, 1931 – April 4, 2015) was an American sociologist, educator, social theorist and writer. He was a central figure in Ethiopian Studies. Within sociology, he is perhaps best known for his work in sociological the ...

while at Chicago. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on the Demography and Economics of Aging. He was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Cornell in 2008, and was appointed as chair of that department in 2020, during the height of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. His research has advanced sociological methods, particularly in the areas of social network analysis and sequence analysis. One of his most important papers, co-authored with Kim Weeden, used data on the networks of students on college campuses to demonstrate that the risk of the epidemic spread of SARS-CoV-2 could be curbed by shutting down particularly large classes and moving them online. He used national survey data to show that while older adults tend to have smaller social networks than do younger adults (e.g., due to repeated personal losses), they are generally more involved in community activities than are younger people. As a result, they are usually able to replace lost network ties with new ones, leading to homeostasis in their social networks. His work on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire has shown how people's risk of dying in an emergency evacuation is associated with how they are tied to the other people who are present when the disaster occurs. Those who are present with a larger group, and/or with closer contacts whom they are less willing to abandon, are more likely to die. This work emphasizes that the popular concept of "panic" rarely shapes behavior in emergencies, and that people instead tend to work rationally to maintain preexisting social roles and connections during these situations.Kobes, Margrethe, Ira Helsloot, Bauke De Vries, and Jos G. Post. 2010. "Building Safety and Human Behaviour in Fire: A Literature Review." 45(1):1-11. In 2017, the

American Sociological Association The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...

's section on methodology awarded Cornwell the Leo Goodmanbr>award
for distinctive contributions to sociological methodology, in recognition of his work in social network analysis and sequence analysis. He is an inaugural member of the internationa
Sequence Analysis Association's advisory board

Selected scholarly works

* Carr, Deborah, Shelley Correll, Robert Crosnoe,

Jeremy Freese Jeremy Jay Freese (born March 15, 1971) is an American sociologist and author. Work life Freese is a professor of sociology at Stanford University, where he is also the co-leader of the Health Disparities Working Group in the Stanford Center ...

Mary C. Waters Mary C. Waters (born 1957) is an American sociologist and author. She is a professor at Harvard University. Personal Waters grew up in Brooklyn, New York and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is married and has three children. ...

, Benjamin Cornwell, and Elizabeth Boyle. 2017. . New York: W.W. Norton & Company. * Cornwell, Benjamin. 2015. . New York: Cambridge. * Cornwell, Benjamin, Jonathan Gershuny, and Oriel Sullivan. 2019. “The Social Structure of Time: Emerging Trends and New Directions.” 45:301-320 * Cornwell, Benjamin, and Jing-Mao Ho. 2022. "Network Structure in Small Groups and Survival in Disasters." 100:1357-1384. * Cornwell, Benjamin, Edward Laumann, and L. Philip Schumm. 2008. “The Social Connectedness of Older Adults: A National Profile.” 73:185-203. * Weeden, Kim, and Benjamin Cornwell. 2020. “The Small World Network of College Classes: Implications for Epidemic Spread on a University Campus.” .

References

External links

Official faculty page for Benjamin Cornwell at Cornell University.

Benjamin Cornwell's Google Scholar page.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornwell, Benjamin 1978 births Living people Cornell University faculty People from Huntington, West Virginia American sociologists University of Cincinnati alumni Ohio State University alumni University of Chicago alumni