Seungwon Lee

Postdoctoral Researcher

Profile

Seungwon Lee joined the department as a Research Fellow after defending his dissertation in Sociology at Columbia University. He studies social networks using computational and quantitative methods. His research extends network theory through two lines of inquiry: space and criticism.

First, he studies how social networks shape space. He asks: How do networks spread ideas, resources, or diseases across space? How do social interactions within networks affect how people understand the places where they occur? By answering these questions, he seeks to explain spatial patterns of culture, entrepreneurship, and public health outcomes.

Second, he studies networks of criticism. He asks: Who criticizes whom, and for what? How do critical interactions unfold? And what are their consequences? To pursue this line of research, he examines criticism networks among scholars. He shows that criticism is a central engine of academia—fueled by status competition while driving scholarly innovation and recognition.

His work has appeared in leading journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, and has received multiple awards, including the Charles Tilly Best Article Award from the Comparative Historical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association and an Honorable Mention for the Clifford Geertz Prize for Best Article from the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association.