People

Michael Macy is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Arts and Sciences in Sociology and Director of the Social Dynamics Laboratory at Cornell, where he has worked since 1997. With support from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and Google, his research team has used computational models, online laboratory experiments, and digital traces of device-mediated interaction to explore familiar but enigmatic social patterns such as circadian rhythms, lifestyle politics, the willingness to “pay it forward,” the spread of social contagions, the polarization of opinion, and the emergence and collapse of fads.