At the North American Regional Social Networks (NASN) Conference of the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) in Washington, D.C., Contractor spoke as a panel member to discuss common and complementary themes, approaches, and open problems across the major field of network sciences — primarily focussing on the bridges between social network analysis (SNA) and network science (NS), but also addressing other fields such as complex systems (CS), computational social science (CSS) and areas of computer and information sciences (CS, IS). 

Moody, J., Contractor, N., Phillips, N., Young, L. (2018, November). Complementarity of the Network Sciences: distinctions, tensions and synergies across SNA, NS and the other system sciences. Panel member at the North American Regional Social Networks (NASN) Conference of the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA), Washington, D.C.

Nov 28, 2018 – SONIC summer intern, Cameron DeChurch, presented at the North American Regional Social Networks (NASN) Conference of the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) today. This summer he used historical records to construct digital networks of the collaboration among Florentine Renaissance painters. His paper with Noshir Contractor, “Using Network Science to Discover the Grand Masters of the Florentine Renaissance” finds that rather than the household names of Michelangelo and DaVinci, it was the grand masters like Verrochio and Perugino who ultimately had more impact through their lineage, by training painters who would go on to produce great works.

Professor Krackhardt of Carnegie Mellon guest lectured the Master of Science in Analytic’s class. Krackhard pioneered the concept of “cognitive social structures.” In the lecture, he shared some of his case studies and discussed how an individual’s power can be measured according to his/her position in the whole network structure. He provided network visualizations and demonstrated how they can provide better insights into analyzing an individual’s power.

Alina presented the paper, “Deep Space Collaboration: Impact of Communication Latency on Collaborative Work” at the NCA 104th Annual Convention in Salt Lake City, UT.

Citation:
Lungeanu, A., Park, P., DeChurch, L. A., & Contractor, N. S. (2018, November). Deep Space Collaboration: Impact of Latency and Social Networks on Collaborative Work. Paper presented at the NCA 104th Annual Convention, Salt Lake City, UT.

Research Assistant Professor Alina Lungeanu joins Network Science Institute at Northeastern University, Boston MA as visiting faculty starting Fall 2018. Congratulations Alina!

Link: https://www.networkscienceinstitute.org/people/alina-lungeanu

This past weekend over 35 scholars at leading-edge brain science and social network gathered for the 9th annual ANN-SONIC-NICO Network Theory Workshop under the theme of “Brain Science and Social Networks.” The workshop was held at Northwestern’s Kellogg Global Hub and sponsored by the Annenberg Networks Network (ANN), Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC), Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), and the Army Research Office (ARO).

Details about the workshop can be found at:

Website: https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news-events/conference/international-workshop-on-network-theory/​

Conference presentation videos and slides will be available on the website shortly.

The conference organizers would like to thank all the speakers and participants for their attendance.

Noshir Contractor along with SONIC Affiliated Faculty, Paul Leonardi, publish, “Better People Analytics – Measure who they know, not just who they are ” in Harvard Business Review.

Citation: Leonardi, P., & Contractor, N. S. (2018, Nov-Dec). Better People Analytics: Measure who they know, not just who they are. Harvard Business Review, 70–81.

Diego presents the paper, “How can we assemble better interdisciplinary teams? The ‘My Dream Team’ experience at the Universidad of Buenos Aires” at the MESO Conference titled, “Contemporary Developments on Media, Culture and Society: Argentian and America Latina,” in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Citation:
Gómez-Zará, D., Andreoli, S., DeChurch, L., and Contractor, N. (2018). “How can we assemble better interdisciplinary teams? The “My Dream Team” experience at the Universidad of Buenos Aires.” MESO Conference  “Contemporary Developments on Media, Culture and Society: Argentina and America Latina”, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

On Thursday, October 18th, Noshir Contractor will present, “Inhaling digital exhaust data from Enterprise Social Media to understand and enable teaming,” a paper with Paul Leonardi (UC Santa Barbara), Leslie DeChurch, and SONIC alum Jackie Ng (Harvard Business School) at The Inaugural Case Workshop on Digital Innovation at Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. The workshop will gather an interdisciplinary community to spark ideas that will draw out the implications of digital innovation for customers and markets, organizations, industries as well as the broader economy and society.

Link: https://weatherhead.case.edu/events/digital-innovation/