David Krackhardt is Professor of Organizations at the Heinz College and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University. Prior appointments include faculty positions at Cornell's Graduate School of Management, the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, INSEAD (France) and the Harvard Business School, and Stanford’s School of Engineering. He received a BS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a PhD. from the University of California, Irvine. Over the past 35 years, his research has focused on how the theoretical insights and methodological innovations of network analysis can enhance our understanding of how organizations function. He pioneered the concept of "cognitive social structures", wherein individuals provide their perceptions of the entire network in which they are embedded. He empirically has related these perceived structures to turnover, performance, reputations, culture and power in organizations. He developed a set of indicators that evaluate the shape and character of the organization as a whole, including the E-I Index, the Transitivity Correlation, and the four Graph Theoretic Dimensions used in many software tools to break down hierarchies in network structures. Moreover, he has developed statistical and methodological tools, including KrackPlot, one of the first network visualization packages. He adapted the Quadratic Assignment Procedure to test hypotheses in multiple regression models of network data. His current research agenda includes developing models of diffusion of controversial innovations, identifying effective leverage points for organizational change and exploring the roles of Simmelian ties in organizations. His published works have appeared in a variety of journals in the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, statistics and management. He has served on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Network Science, and is the founding editor of INSNA’s online journal, the Journal of Social Structure.

Abstract of the keynote talk.

John F. Padgett is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Currently he conducts research in the related areas of organizational invention and of state and market co-evolution, mostly in the context of Renaissance Florence but also through agent-based modeling. In the past, Padgett has published in the topics of organization theory, social network analysis, federal budgeting, plea bargaining, and stochastic processes.

Nick Crossley is a professor of sociology and co-founder/co-director of the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis at the University of Manchester (UK). Much of his work on networks has centred upon their role and formation in collective action, with particular reference to social movements and what he calls 'music worlds'. In relation to social movements this has included published work on student movements, the UK suffragettes, the Provisional IRA and a special issue of the journal, Social Movement Studies, focused upon social movements and social networks, which was also published as a book (Routledge 2015). In relation to music he has a number of publications on UK punk, including a book: Networks of Sound, Style and Subversion: the Punk and Post-Punk Worlds of Manchester, London, Liverpool and Sheffield, 1975-1980 (Manchester University Press 2015). This book focused in particular upon the social networks of the early UK punks and post-punks, and the network focus was also developed in an edited collection, produced collaboratively with Siobhan McAndrew and Paul Widdop: Social Networks and Music Worlds (Routledge 2015). His latest book, Connecting Sounds: the Social Life of Music (2020, Manchester University Press), seeks to develop these ideas, looking at a variety of relational dynamics in music, including but not restricted to social networks. At a more theoretical level he has been pioneering a relational approach to sociology. This project, which reflects upon the sociological significance of networks, has generated a number of papers and also a book: Towards Relational Sociology (Routledge 2011).

Abstract of the keynote talk.

Dr Peng Wang is a network methodologist who specializes in the development of statistical models for social network analysis. With a combination of skills in computer science, mathematics and statistics, and social network theory and analysis, Dr Wang has detailed understanding of the advantages of exponential random graph models (ERGMs) for social networks, as well as the challenges that need to be overcome. Collaborating with world renowned leaders in the field of social network analysis, Dr Wang personally contributed to the advance of ERGMs in model specifications, methods for simulations and estimations techniques, computational efficiency and model robustness, and model interpretations and empirical implications. Dr Wang developed the PNet software package for the simulation and estimation of ERGMs. The PNet software serves as an essential part of the SNA research team in Melbourne – MelNet, as well as the general SNA community. Dr Peng Wang’s work contribute to the development of ERGMs and PNet into cases of bipartite, multivariate, longitudinal, nodal attribute based and multilevel network models, with methodological developments on model specifications, conditional estimations on snowball sampled network data, models with missing network data, and models for large networks. He has publications in the fields of Management, Social Ecological Systems, Networks among Adolescents, Disease Transmission and Public Health Issues, Research Collaboration Networks, Political Networks and Interlocking Directorates networks. Dr Wang is currently working at the Centre for Transformative Innovation (CTI), Swinburne University of Technology, focuses on the development of a new statistical framework for the co- evolution of network structure and nodal attributes, and the application of such methods.

Jan A. Fuhse is currently a Heisenberg Fellow at the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He completed his PhD in sociology from Universität Stuttgart in 2007 with a dissertation on the role of social networks for the acculturation and ethnic identification of Italian migrants in Germany. During a post­doc (funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation) at Columbia University 2007­ - 2008, he worked with Harrison White and Charles Tilly in the theory of social networks. From 2009 to 2013 he was an assistant professor of political sociology at the University of Bielefeld, completing his Habilitation in 2011. Since 2014, he chairs the section for Sociological Network Research in the German Sociological Association.

Fuhse’s research focuses on communication and meaning in social networks, on social networks in inequality, on interethnic relations, and on political constellations. Recent publications include: “Embedding the Stranger: Ethnic Categories and Cultural Differences in Social Networks” (Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2012), “Theorizing Social Networks: Relational Sociology of and around Harrison White” (International Review of Sociology, 2015), and “Networks from Communication"(European Journal of Social Theory, 2015).

Iina Hellsten is an associate professor at the Corporate Communication program group of the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, ASCoR. Her research focuses on the dynamics of communication networks, in particular in social media settings. Previously, she has hold positions as a post-doctoral researcher at ASCoR, researcher at the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and an assistant and associate professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work has been published in communication sciences (e.g. in Science Communication, New Media & Society, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication) and in information sciences (e.g. in JASIST and Internet Research).

Camille Roth is Associate Professor at Sciences-Po where he is a member of médialab and affiliated with the department of sociology. He has also been Tenured Researcher at CNRS in computer science since 2008, after being “maître de conférences” at the University of Toulouse-I. He holds a PhD in social science (Ecole Polytechnique, 2005), with a joint background in maths and physics (“ingénieur des Ponts”, 2002) and cognitive science (MSc EHESS, 2002). In the recent years, he founded and directed a team in computational social sciences within Centre Marc Bloch Berlin (an international CNRS/Humboldt Universität research unit), which gathers an interdisciplinary mix of young scholars with varied backgrounds spanning sociology and political science, computer science, cognitive science and linguistics. His broader research program revolves around socio-semantic networks, dealing with knowledge dynamics and diffusion phenomena, including empirical applications on online and scientific communities. He has been global or local PI for several multi-institution research projects, both at the French and European level, on blog networks, scientific communities, and peer-to-peer platforms, including Webfluence, Algopol and Algodiv (both on informational dynamics of the digital public space) and QLectives (EU IP on quality collectives in socio-technical communities). Author of about 50 peer-reviewed publications, he currently supervises a team of several post-doctoral and doctoral researchers, either in computer science or in sociology.

Frédéric Godart is an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Management & Human Resources at HEC Paris, and the Academic Director of the HEC Luxury Certificate (sponsored by Kering). Prior to this role he was an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD. He received his PhD in Sociology from Columbia University in the City of New York. He also holds an MPhil in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in the United Kingdom, an MSc in Management from Sciences Po Paris, and was a student ("normalien") at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay. In 2011, he received his Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR), the French national accreditation to supervise PhD-level research, from Paris-Dauphine University.

His research focuses on the dynamics of creative industries, and he mostly covers fashion and luxury (e.g., design, modeling, watchmaking, footwear). He explores the impact of formal and informal social networks on creativity, as well as the role played by stylistic choices and brand dynamics in the formation of firms and customers’ identities. As a recognition of his research, he has received several prestigious awards such as the Academy of Management Organizational Behavior Division’s 2012 Best Paper Award and the Academy of Management Conflict Management Division’s 2017 Best Paper Award – New Directions.

Frédéric teaches Leading Organizations in the HEC Master in Management (MiM), and Leadership and Strategic Talent Management in the HEC EMBA. Prior to this, he taught Power & Politics (P&P), Organisational Behaviour II: Leading Organisations (OB2), and Value Creation in Luxury & Fashion (VCL&F) in the INSEAD MBA program. He also taught Organizational Sociology and Advanced Topics in OB/OT in the INSEAD PhD program.

He has published his research in a wide range of leading academic peer reviewed journals such as Organization Science, the Academy of Management Journal, the Strategic Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, the Annual Review of Sociology, and Social Forces, and in several edited books. Frédéric wrote a book on the structure and culture of the fashion industry, Sociologie de la mode (A Sociology of Fashion), which has been translated into Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish (Argentina). An extended English translation (at Palgrave-MacMillan) is available with the title Unveiling Fashion. He also wrote a book on the intellectual history of fashion, Penser la Mode (Thinking about Fashion). His work and expertise has been extensively featured in several international media such as El Pais, The Financial Times or Women’s Wear Daily, and in French national media such as Le Monde, Les Echos, or Le Figaro.

Elisa Bellotti is a senior lecturer of the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester, member of the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis, and associate editor of Social Networks journal. Before arriving in Manchester in 2008, Elisa worked as research fellow at University of Turin and University of Bozen, Italy. She completed her Ph.D in Sociology and Methodology of Social Research in 2006 at Catholic University of Milan. Elisa Bellotti studies social networks and how they shape and are shaped by our social environment. Topics she commonly investigates are gender, science, criminal networks, personal relationships, mixed methods. Previously she also studied consumption, and she is developing an interest in health networks.

Christoph Stadtfeld is Assistant Professor of Social Networks at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. He holds a PhD from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and has been postdoctoral researcher and Marie-Curie fellow at the University of Groningen, the Social Network Analysis Research Center in Lugano, and the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on the development and application of theories and methods for social network dynamics.