Hello there!

I am an Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science in the Division of Social Science at New York University Abu Dhabi, where I am also affiliated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Data Science & AI. Before joining NYUAD, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research.

In my research, I develop and apply quantitative and computational methods to examine how social contexts and emerging technologies shape individual life chances and broader patterns of inequality. I study these dynamics across diverse domains, including the networks people form, the families they belong to, the political arenas in which they participate, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence that increasingly mediate social interaction and economic activity. Throughout this work, I ask how the ways people encounter, connect with, and influence one another structure access to information, support, opportunity, and power. I seek to understand how these individual-level processes scale up to produce patterns of social stratification—and whether and how those patterns can be changed. Methodologically, my work spans causal inference, network analysis, multilevel modeling, and the study of distributional change and inequality within and between groups. Learn more about me and my research in this interview.

My research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in outlets such as the Annual Review of Sociology and Political Analysis, and is currently under revise-and-resubmit at the American Sociological Review.

I hold a PhD in Sociology with a minor in Computer Science from Cornell University, where I was advised by Michael Macy (Cornell Sociology and Information Science), Filiz Garip (Princeton Sociology), Felix Elwert (UW-Madison Sociology and Statistics), Eleonora Patacchini (Cornell Economics), and Lillian Lee (Cornell Computer Science). I also earned dual MSc degrees in Methods & Statistics and Sociology & Social Research from Utrecht University, and a BA in Sociology with a minor in Economics from the University of Mannheim.

Research focus

Computational Social Science – Quantitative Methods – Stratification/Inequality – Social Networks – Family Demography – Educational Sociology – Political Sociology

News

• In November 2026, I will participate in the Updating Urban Segregation Computation with R workshop at Delft University of Technology.
• In October 2026, I will present my research at Raj Chetty’s Opportunity Insights Lab and in the Sociology Department at Harvard University.
• In March 2026, my paper, “A Multilevel Model for Coalition Governments. Uncovering Party-Level Dependencies Within and Between Governments. Forthcoming”, was published in Political Analysis.
• In October 2025, I presented my paper, “Social Closure in U.S. High Schools? Patterns and Determinants of Socioeconomic Segregation in Adolescent Friendship Networks,” at Meta Research.
• In September 2025, I joined the Social Research and Public Policy program at New York University Abu Dhabi as an Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science.
• I was a visiting researcher at the Hertie School of Public Policy in Berlin, Germany. (June-July 2024).
• I was a speaker at the 2024 Lecture Series on Network Inequality at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, Austria.
• Together with Alison Schultz, I lead the project “The precious networks of the rich: How the wealthiest prevent progressive tax reforms.” at the 2024 Wealth Data Science Summer School in Bremen, Germany.
• My paper “Social Closure in U.S. High Schools? Patterns and Determinants of Socioeconomic Segregation in Adolescent Friendship Networks.” won the 2024 Best Paper Award from the Mathematical Sociology section and the section on Decision-making, Social Networks, and Society Section of the American Sociological Association as well as the 2023 Robin M. Williams Jr. Best Paper Award from the Department of Sociology at Cornell University.

Contact

benrosche at nyu dot edu