Brian Uzzi is an American sociologist and the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Leadership at the

Kellogg School of Management The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University (also known as Kellogg) is the business school of Northwestern University, a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1908, Kellogg is one of the oldest and most p ...

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

. He is known for his work on problems in the fields of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

network science Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct elements or actors repre ...

, the science of science, and

complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...

. He is the co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), is a professor of sociology, and a professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at the McCormick School of Engineering. Since 2019, Uzzi has written a column for ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'' on Leadership and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

Awards

Uzzi has received over 30 scientific research and teaching prizes in the fields of sociology, management, ecology, network science, and computer science.Brian Uzzi Faculty Page

He was inducted as a Fellow of the Network Science Society in 2020 and in 2022, received the Euler Award from the Network Science Society for his foundational theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of embeddedness in networks. He has received 16 teaching prizes for MBA and executive teaching, including the MBA Alumni Teacher of the Year Award.

Career

Uzzi received his BA from

Hofstra University Hofstra University is a private university in Hempstead, New York. It is Long Island's largest private university. Hofstra originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University (NYU) under the name Nassau College – Hofstra Memorial of Ne ...

, a MS from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, and a PhD in sociology from

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

in 1994.

Mark Granovetter Mark Sanford Granovetter (; born October 20, 1943) is an American sociologist and professor at Stanford University. He is best known for his work in social network theory and in economic sociology, particularly his theory on the spread of inform ...

, Michael Schwartz, and Frank Romo were his PhD advisors. Uzzi joined the Kellogg School of Management in 1993. In 2008, he became the co-director of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), an interdisciplinary research institute whose mission is to serve as a hub for research on complexity and data science that transcends the boundaries of established disciplines. Over his career, he has also been on or visited the faculties of INSEAD, University of Chicago, Harvard University, and the University of California Berkeley. Before entering academia, Uzzi worked as a musician in the New York City area where he grew up and his grandparents settled after immigrating from Italy to the US.

Research

Uzzi is known for his work on social

embeddedness In economics and economic sociology, embeddedness refers to the degree to which economic activity is constrained by non-economic institutions. The term was created by economic historian Karl Polanyi as part of his substantivist approach. Polanyi ...

, the science of science, and inequality. In the 1990s, he published two empirical papers focusing on the concept of embeddedness. His 1996 paper in the ''

American Sociological Review The ''American Sociological Review'' is a bi-monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology. It is published by SAGE Publications on behalf of the American Sociological Association. It was established in 1936. The editors- ...

'' examines how socially embedded networks of economic relationships impact the economic performance of organizations. His 1997 article in ''

Administrative Science Quarterly ''Administrative Science Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of organizational studies. The journal was established in 1956 and is published by SAGE Publications for the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Manage ...

'' pinpoints the paradox of embeddedness in interfirm networks. These two articles have been cited over 21,000 times. His research in this area also addresses diverse problems including competition and cooperation in ecological networks (Nature 2009, 2011), human creativity (''AJS'' 2005), network collapse (''PNAS'' 2008), network dysfunctions under stress (WWW 2016), communication and influence networks (''PNAS'' 2011; ''Nature Communications'' 2019), and the causes of women's success in achieving positions of executive leadership (''PNAS'' 2019). Uzzi has contributed to the Science of Science field with a focus on understanding how scientific structures and practices shape innovation, science, and scientists' careers. In a series of papers, he and colleagues investigated how the mechanisms by which teams self-assemble determine their performance and the topography of the larger network within which these teams are embedded (''Science'' 2005), team science and innovation (''Science'' 2007), multi-university collaborations and stratification in science (''Science'' 2008), and how past scientific knowledge is effectively recombined to create innovative ideas (''Science'' 2013). This work is summarized in part in his TedX talk (2012), "Teaming Up to Drive Scientific Discovery", a 2015 National Research Council book ''Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science'', and a 2018 review article (''Science'' 2018). Uzzi and his collaborators have also examined gender inequality in the workplace. His book, ''Athena Unbound'' (Cambridge 2000) and a 1994 ''Science'' article studied the link between women scientists' careers, the leaky pipeline, and critical mass dynamics. A 2019 ''Nature'' paper looked at gender disparities in scientific prizes, examining biomedical awards over five decades. This was followed by a paper examining the differences in NIH grants awarded to first-time male and female principal investigators (''JAMA'', 2019), and a 2022 ''PNAS'' paper found that gender-diverse teams produce more novel and higher-impact scientific ideas than all-men or all-women teams. Related publications have examined mentorship, retractions, replication failure, knowledge hotspots, and AI-human partnerships.

Selected publications

Books

* National Research Council, Committee on the Science of Team Science, Nancy J. Cooke and Margaret L. Hilton (Eds). 2015.
Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science
'. As a member of the National Research Council Committee on the Science of Team Science, co-authored a report along with Nancy J. Cooke (chair), Roger D. Blandford, Jonathon N. Cummings, Stephen M. Fiore, Kara L. Hall, James S. Jackson, John L. King, Steven W. J. Kozlowski, Judith S. Olson, Jeremy A. Sabloff, Daniel S. Stokols, and Hannah Valantine. * Etzkowitz, Henry, Carol Kemelgor, and Brian Uzzi.
Athena Unbound: The Advancement of Women in Science and Technology
'. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Articles

* Yang Yang, Tanya Y. Tian,

Teresa Woodruff Teresa K. Woodruff is an American medical researcher in human reproduction and oncology, with a focus on ovarian biology, endocrinology, and women's health. She joined Michigan State University as the Provost and Executive Vice President for Aca ...

, Benjamin Jones and Brian Uzzi. 2022.
Gender-diverse teams produce more novel and higher-impact scientific ideas
, ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' (''PNAS''), August 2022 * Diego F.M. Oliveira, Yifang Ma,

, and Brian Uzzi. 2019
National Institutes of Health Grant Amounts to First-time Male and Female Principal Investigators
. ''Journal of the American Medical Association'' (''JAMA''), 5 March 2019 * Yifang Ma, Diego F.M. Oliveira,

, and Brian Uzzi. 2019.
Women who win prizes get less money and prestige
. ''Nature'', 16 January 2019 * Yang Yang, Nitesh Chawla, and Brian Uzzi. 2019.
A network’s gender composition and communication pattern predict women’s leadership success
, ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' (''PNAS''), 22 January 2019 * Omid Askarisichani, Jacqueline Ng Lane, Francesco Bullo, Noah E. Friedkin, Ambuj K. Singh and Brian Uzzi. 2019.
Structural balance emerges and explains performance in risky decision-making
, ''Nature Communications'', 14 June 2019 * Pierre Azoulay, Joshua Graff-Zivin, Brian Uzzi,

Dashun Wang Dashun Wang is a Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering, at Northwestern University since 2016. At Kellogg from 2019, he is the Founding Director of the Center for Sci ...

, Heidi Williams, James A. Evans, Ginger Zhe Jin, Susan Feng Lu, Benjamin Jones, Katy Börner, Karim R. Lakhani, Kevin J. Boudreau, Eva C. Guinan. 2018.
Toward a more scientific science
, ''Science'' 361, September 2018 * Daniel M. Romero, Brian Uzzi and

Jon Kleinberg Jon Michael Kleinberg (born 1971) is an American computer scientist and the Tisch University Professor of Computer Science and Information Science at Cornell University known for his work in algorithms and networks. He is a recipient of the Nevanl ...

. 2016.
Social Networks Under Stress
, WWW '16: ''Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on World Wide Web'', April 2016, Pages 9–20 * Brian Uzzi, Satyam Mukerjee, Michael Stringer, and Benjamin Jones. 2013.
Atypical Combinations and Scientific Impact
. ''Science'', 342, 268–472. * Serguei Saavedra, Kathleen Hagerty, and Brian Uzzi. 2011.
Synchronicity, instant messaging, and performance among financial traders
, ''Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences'' (''PNAS''), 1018462108v1-201018462 * Serguei Saavedra, Daniel Stouffer, Brian Uzzi, and

Jordi Bascompte Jordi Bascompte (born in Olot on 20 May 1967) is a professor of ecology at the University of Zurich and the director of its specialized master's program on quantitative environmental sciences. He is best known for having brought the interactions o ...

. 2011.
Strong Contributors to network persistence are most vulnerable to extinction
. ''Nature'', 478, 233–235 * Serguei Saavedra, Felix Reed-Tsochas, and Brian Uzzi. 2009.
A simple model of bipartite cooperation for ecological and organizational networks
, ''Nature'', 457:463–466 * Serguei Saavedra, Felix Reed-Tsochas, and Brian Uzzi. 2008.
Asymmetric disassembly and robustness in declining networks
, ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' (''PNAS''), 105:16466–16471 * Benjamin Jones, Stefan Wuchty, and Brian Uzzi. 2008.
Multi-university Research Teams: Shifting Impact, Geography, and Stratification in Science
, ''Science'', 322, 1259–1263. * Stefan Wuchty, Benjamin Jones, and Brian Uzzi. 2007.
The Increasing Dominance of Teams in the Production of Knowledge
, ''Science'', May 2007, 316:1036–1039 * Roger Guimera, Brian Uzzi, Jarrett Spiro, and

Luis Amaral Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish form of the originally Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese and Galician, in Aragonese and Catalan, while is archai ...

. 2005.
Team Assembly Mechanisms Determine Collaboration Network Structure and Team Performance
, ''Science'', 308:697–702 * Brian Uzzi and Jarrett Spiro. 2005.
Collaboration and Creativity: The Small World Problem
, ''American Journal of Sociology'' (''AJS''), 111:447–504 * Brian Uzzi. 1997.
Social Structure and Competition in Interfirm Networks: The Paradox of Embeddedness
, ''Administrative Science Quarterly'' (''ASQ''), March, 42:35–67 * Brian Uzzi. 1996.
The Sources and Consequences of Embeddedness for the Economic Performance of Organizations: The Network Effect
. ''American Sociological Review'' (''ASR''), v61(4): 674–698 * Henry Etzkowitz, Carol Kemelgor, Brian Uzzi and Mike Neuschatz. 1994.
The Paradox of Critical Mass for Women in Science
, ''Science'', 226:51–55

References

External links

Brian Uzzi faculty page
at kellogg.northwestern.edu
Brian Uzzi personal web site

The Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)

Brian Uzzi column at Forbes

Brian Uzzi TedX Talk "Teaming Up to Drive Scientific Discovery"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uzzi, Brian Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American sociologists Kellogg School of Management faculty Hofstra University alumni Carnegie Mellon University alumni Stony Brook University alumni