Medium Bio (197 words)

Noshir Contractor is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science, the School of Communication and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is the Director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) research group. He investigates how social and knowledge networks form – and perform – in a wide variety of contexts including business enterprises, scientific communities, global health and space travel. He is the former President of the International Communication Association, a Distinguished Scholar of the National Communication Association, and a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Network Science Society and the International Communication Association (ICA).  He received the Lifetime Service Award from the Communication, Digital Technology, & Organization Division of the Academy of Management. Additionally, he received the Simmel Award from the International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA). He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He has a Ph.D. in Communication from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California.