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Noshir Contractor

Department of Communication Studies

Professor Noshir Contractor is investigating factors that lead to the formation, maintenance, and dissolution of dynamically linked social and knowledge networks in communities. Specifically, his research team is developing and testing theories and methods of network science to map, understand and enable more effective networks in a wide variety of contexts including communities of practice in business, science and engineering communities, disaster response teams, public health networks, digital media and learning networks, and in virtual worlds, such as Second Life.

Lab Affiliation

Director, Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Laboratory

Recent Publications

Vogenbeck Varda, D., R., Forgette, R., Banks, D., & Contractor, N. (in press). Social network methodology in the study of disasters: Issues and insights prompted by post-Katrina research. Population Research & Policy Review.

Steinfield, C., Pentland, B. T., Ackerman, M., & Contractor, N. (Eds.) (2007). Communities and Technologies 2007: Proceedings of the Third Communities and Technologies Conference. London: Springer London.

Contractor, N., Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (2006). Testing multi-theoretical multilevel hypotheses about organizational networks: An analytic framework and empirical example. Academy of Management Review, 31, 681-703.

Palazzolo, E. T., Serb, D., She, Y., Su, C., & Contractor, N. S. (2006). Co-evolution of communication and knowledge networks as Transactive Memory systems: Using computational models for theoretical integration and extensions. Communication Theory, 16, 223-250

Patel, J., Gupta, I., & Contractor, N. (2006). JetStream: Achieving predictable gossip dissemination by leveraging social networks principles. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (IEEE NCA06).

Pathak, N., Mane, S., Srivastava, J., & Contractor, N. S. (2006). Knowledge Perception Analysis in a Social Network. Proceedings of the 6th SIAM – International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 06)

Awards and Honors

Invited Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, forthcoming.

Fellow, The Field Museum, Chicago, Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo).

Fellow, Resident Associate & Co-Director, Age of Networks: Social, Cultural and Technological Connections, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2005-2006.

Honorary Professor, University of Science and Technology of China. Hefei, China, 2004.

Beckman Associate, Center for Advanced Study, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2003-2004.

Outstanding Research Award, Organizational Communication Division, National Communication Association, 2003.

Outstanding Member Award, Organizational Communication Division, International Communication Association, 2000

Award for Excellence in Distance Education, Purdue University, 2000.

Incomplete List of Teachers Rated as Excellent by Their Students, University of Illinois, 1987-1998, 2000, 2001-2003

Institute Gold Medal for outstanding achievement. Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, 1983.

National Merit Scholarship, Indian School Certificate, Ministry of Education & Social Welfare, Government of India, 1978.

Recent Grants and Funding

MacArthur Foundation: Mapping, Understanding and Enabling the Digital Media Learning Knowledge Networks: An Exploratory Investigation (2007-2008, $140,000). Principal Investigator.

National Science Foundation: CI-KNOW Cyberinfrastructure Tools to Enable Knowledge Network Discovery, Diagnosis and Design (2007-2008, $199,619). Principal Investigator

National Institute of Health (via sub contract from University of Texas San Antonio): Mapping, Understanding and Enabling the Redes en Accion Latino Cancer Network. (2007-2008, $56,000). Principle Investigator.

National Science Foundation: Virtual Worlds: An Exploratorium for Theorizing and Modeling the Dynamics of Group Behavior (2007-2010, $750,000). Principal Investigator on Collaborative Proposal with Scott Poole (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Jaideep Srivastava (University of Minnesota) and Dmitri Williams (University of Southern California).

National Cancer Institute, Tobacco Informatics Grid (TobIG): Development of prototype to demonstrate distributed collaboration and data analysis within the tobacco research community (2006-2007, $400,000 administered via a supplement from NCI to NSF Grant IIS-0535214). Principal Investigator.
National Science Foundation, Social Networking Tools to Enable Collaboration in the Tobacco Surveillance, Epidemiology, and Evaluation Network (TSEEN) (2005-2008, IIS- 0535214, $808,089). Principal Investigator on Collaborative Proposal with Katy Börner (Indiana University), Tom Finholt (University of Michigan), and Gary Giovino (Roswell Park Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY)

Courses

Social Network Theories & Methods (graduate seminar)

Social Network Analysis (undergraduate)