My research is at the intersection of Science of Science + Sociology of Organizations + Computational Social Science. I study how social and organizational factors affect scientific discovery. I am especially interested in evaluation practices in science, and whether they promote or stifle innovation. My approach relies primarily on field experiments — interventions in scientific competitions and other settings — and applying computational tools to large-scale observational data.
Current research projects include:
1. Cumulative advantage in science: Do metrics like citation counts and impact factors proxy quality and influence, or help create them?
2. Biases in expert evaluation: Do groups of experts make decisions differently from individuals?
3. Science and the media: What research is picked up by the media, and how is it covered?
Showing how often a paper has been cited causes scientists to perceive it as of lower quality, unless that paper is among the 10% most highly cited.