Ronald Breiger is an American sociologist and a Regents Professor, a professor of

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

and (by courtesy) government and public policy, an affiliate of the interdisciplinary graduate program in statistics and data science, and an affiliate of the interdisciplinary graduate program in applied mathematics at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. Prior to coming to Arizona he served on the faculties of

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

(assistant to associate professor) and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

(professor to Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology). He is well cited in the fields of

social network A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for ...

s, social stratification,

mathematical sociology Mathematical sociology or the sociology of mathematics is an interdisciplinary field of research concerned both with the use of mathematics within sociological research as well as research into the relationships that exist between maths and socie ...

organizational sociology Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself".Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995) ...

and

cultural sociology The sociology of culture, and the related cultural sociology, concerns the systematic analysis of culture, usually understood as the ensemble of symbolic codes used by a member of a society, as it is manifested in the society. For Georg Simmel ...

and, with Linton Freeman, edited the influential academic journal ''

Social Networks A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for a ...

'' from 1998 to 2006. In 2005 he was the recipient of the Georg Simmel Distinguished Career Award of the International Network for Social Network Analysis,. In 2018 he received the James S. Coleman Distinguished Career Achievement Award of the American Sociological Association (ASA) Section on Mathematical Sociology. In 2020 he was the recipient of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award of the ASA Section on Methodology, recognizing a scholar who has made a career of outstanding contributions to methodology in sociology.

Early life and career

Ronald Breiger grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. He received his AB ''Summa cum Laude'' at

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , ...

in 1970 with a thesis entitled: ''Value Conceptions in Early American Sociology.'' In 1975 he received a PhD from Harvard University. His dissertation was on ''"Dual and Multiple Networks of Social Structure"''. His committee consisted of

Harrison White Harrison Colyar White (born March 21, 1930) is the emeritus Giddings Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. White played an influential role in the “Harvard Revolution” in social networks and the New York School of relational sociol ...

(chair),

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 info ...

and Thomas F. Pettigrew. In 1985-86, Breiger was a fellow of the Stanford

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social and ...

and he was named a Fulbright Senior Scholar for 1987-88. He is also a national affiliate of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Major contributions

Breiger's primary contributions have been to the field of social network analysis. The most widely cited are, with co-authors

and Scott A. Boorman, "''Social Structure from Multiple Networks. I. Blockmodels of Roles and Positions''" published in 1976. and "''The Duality of Persons and Groups''" published in 1974. Beginning in 2000, Breiger devoted considerable attention to elucidating the mutual implications of social network analysis and the sociology of culture.Poetics 27.2 (2000): 91-115. Annual Review of Sociology 36 (2010): 205-224. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd. ed. (2015), ed. James D. Wright, in press. In recent years, he and colleagues have turned regression analysis and many of its generalizations "inside out" by showing how regression modeling rests on a dual network of profile similarity among the cases. Sociological methods & research 42.1 (2013): 41-59. Research in the sociology of organizations 40 (2014): 261-74. Breiger has played an important role in applying network analytic techniques to the study of terrorism. For instance, in November 2002, Breiger chaired a workshop on dynamic social network modeling and analysis for the Committee on Human Factors of the National Academy of Sciences convened at the request of the Office of Naval Research. Washington, DC, National Academies Press (2003). Social Networks 36.1 (2014): 23-39. He is also a Research Affiliate with the

National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) is an emeritus Homeland Security Centers of Excellence at the University of Maryland, College Park that researches the causes and consequences of terrorism in th ...

, one of the Department of Homeland Security Centers of Excellence. In 2005 Breiger received the Georg Simmel Distinguished Career Award from the

International Network for Social Network Analysis The International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) is a professional academic association of researchers and practitioners of social network analysis. Members have interests in social networks as a new theoretical paradigm, in methodologi ...

(INSNA). In 2018 he was the recipient of the James S. Coleman Distinguished Career Achievement Award given by the American Sociological Association Section on Mathematical Sociology. In 2020 he was the recipient of the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award of the ASA Section on Methodology, recognizing a scholar who has made a career of outstanding contributions to methodology in sociology.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breiger, Ronald American sociologists University of Arizona faculty Brandeis University alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people