August - Scott Feld
Please join me in congratulating Scott Feld, professor of sociology, on the publication of his co-authored study through PNAS entitled “On the friendship paradox and inversity: A network property with applications to privacy-sensitive network interventions.”
In this article, Scott and his colleagues explain the social phenomenon called the friendship paradox and how it can be used to analyze social groups. The friendship paradox, first observed by Scott in 1991, essentially says that, on average, an individual’s friends have more friends than they do. The authors provide the mathematical and empirical foundations of the friendship paradox, and that this phenomenon can be used to help predict the spread of ideas, misinformation or even diseases across social groups.
Scott was also featured as a sociology expert in the AP Newsroom video “Do your friends have more friends than you?”
Congratulations, Professor Feld!
David A. Reingold
Senior Vice President for Policy Planning
Justin S. Morrill Dean of Liberal Arts
Professor of Sociology