Michael Batty CBE FRS FBA is Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London where he is Chair of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). He has worked on computer models of cities and their visualisation since the 1970s and has published several books, such as Cities and Complexity (MIT Press, 2005) which won the Alonso Prize of the Regional Science Association in 2011, and most recently The New Science of Cities (MIT Press, 2013). His blogs www.complexcity.info cover the science underpinning the technology of cities and his posts and lectures on big data and smart cities are at www.spatialcomplexity.info. He is the editor of the journal Environment and Planning B. His research group is working on simulating long term structural change and dynamics in cities as well as their visualisation, as well as urban analytics for smart cities. He has various awards for his work; most recently he was the 2013 recipient of the Lauréat Prix International de Géographie Vautrin Lud, and in 2015, he received the Founders Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society.

Abstract of the keynote talk.

Peter Bearman is the Director of INCITE, the Cole Professor of Social Science, and Co-Director of the Health & Society Scholars Program. He was the founding director of ISERP, serving from the Institute's launch in 2000 until 2008. A specialist in network analysis, he co-designed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. A recipient of the NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2007, Bearman investigated the social determinants of the autism epidemic. He has also conducted research in historical sociology, including "Relations into Rhetorics: Local Elite Social Structure in Norfolk, England, 1540-1640" (Rutgers, 1993). He is the author of "Doormen" (University of Chicago Press, 2005). He is currently working on models for event sequences, social action, and strategies for qualitative research design; the neural signatures of social relations; and leading the REALM project on fair labor recruitment. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.

Abstract of the keynote talk.

Ronald Breiger (Ph.D. Harvard University, 1975) is Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona. He has been named a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a Fulbright Senior Scholar, and a recipient of the Simmel Award of the International Network for Social Network Analysis, and he was elected Chair of the Section on Mathematical Sociology of the American Sociological Association. With Linton Freeman, he has served as Editor (1998-2006) of the journal Social Networks, and (from 2016) he will serve as Editor for Social and Political Science of the journal Network Science. Breiger’s interests include social network theory and methods, culture and networks, adversarial networks, and multivariate analysis as a network problem.

Abstract of the keynote talk.

Dr. van Atteveldt is Assistant Professor in Political Communication at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Communication Science (www.atteveldt.com). His research focuses on political communication, especially the antecedents and consequences of mass media coverage of political discourse, and has a strong methodological focus on developing AI / Computational NLP techniques to improve automatic text (content) analysis. He has developed the Amsterdam Content Analysis Toolkit, AmCAT, that is an open source infrastructure that makes it easy to do large-scale automatic and manual content analysis (text analysis) for the social sciences and humanities. Dr. van Atteveldt has given numerous workshops in R. His research has been widely published in communication sciences journals.

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Words and Networks".

Julia Brennecke is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Transformative Innovation at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses primarily on organizational networks in the areas of innovation management as well as corporate governance. Specific research interests include the antecedents and consequences of multilevel networks and questions pertaining to knowledge transfer within and between organizations. Her research has appeared in Social Networks, Schmalenbach Business Review, and in different books. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Goettingen, Germany and has spent seven month as a visiting fellow at Sciences Po Paris, France.

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Networks in Science, Technology, and Innovation".

Dr Peng Wang is a network methodologist who specializes in the development of statistical models for social network analysis. With a combination of skills in computer science, mathematics and statistics, and social network theory and analysis, Dr Wang has detailed understanding of the advantages of exponential random graph models (ERGMs) for social networks, as well as the challenges that need to be overcome. Collaborating with world renowned leaders in the field of social network analysis, Dr Wang personally contributed to the advance of ERGMs in model specifications, methods for simulations and estimations techniques, computational efficiency and model robustness, and model interpretations and empirical implications. Dr Wang developed the PNet software package for the simulation and estimation of ERGMs. The PNet software serves as an essential part of the SNA research team in Melbourne – MelNet, as well as the general SNA community. Dr Peng Wang’s work contribute to the development of ERGMs and PNet into cases of bipartite, multivariate, longitudinal, nodal attribute based and multilevel network models, with methodological developments on model specifications, conditional estimations on snowball sampled network data, models with missing network data, and models for large networks. He has publications in the fields of Management, Social Ecological Systems, Networks among Adolescents, Disease Transmission and Public Health Issues, Research Collaboration Networks, Political Networks and Interlocking Directorates networks.

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Statistical modeling of multimodal networks".

Adina Nerghes is a communication scientist with a background in political science (BA), communication, technology and policy (MSc Wageningen University, the Netherlands), and a PhD in Social Sciences from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

In her master’s studies, Adina conducted an experiment on the effects of code-switching (e.g., the use of English words in Dutch texts) on attitude change, behavioral intentions, and information processing. Her interest in language and communication also guided her PhD project, in which she investigated text documents issued by central banks, media, and political actors. Adina’s recently completed PhD project focused on expanding methods of relational meaning analysis, by providing an approach suited for the detection of subtle discursive dynamic shifts in large collections of (temporal) textual data. Topically, her dissertation research focused on the recent financial crisis, specifically the various ways in which the events of the crisis were reflected in social discourses and the ways in which the crisis drove discursive changes and adaptations.

Methodologically, Adina’s research employs computer-aided text analysis , methods of extraction of connections between texts and social network structures (e.g., semantic and socio-semantic networks), and dynamic network analysis. Making use of the most recent developments in the field of network data extraction from text, her research integrates text mining and network analysis.

With a vested interest in relational analysis methods (social and semantic network analysis), Adina is currently developing research agendas related to societal problems and crises (e.g., the financial crisis, climate change, and the refugee crisis). Her main aim is to develop frameworks capable of investigating the complex, interaction-based, processes of defining societal crises and creating problem-oriented solutions. These frameworks will incorporate two traditions and theoretical views, namely social network analysis and semantic network analysis.

Personal website: www.adinanerghes.com

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Words and Networks".

Dr. Iina Hellsten is Associate Professor at the VU University Amsterdam, Department of Organization Sciences and affiliated to the Network Institute. Her research has focused on the politics of metaphors, the dynamics of social avalanches in communication networks, and the development of new methods for the analysis of Web based texts, including social and semantic network analysis. Her research has been published in communication sciences (e.g. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society) and in information sciences (e.g. JASIST, Internet Research). Her current research interests focus on the dynamics of social avalanches, see http://www.fsw.vu.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoeksprogrammas/organisatiewetenschappen/tracking-networks-of-communications/index.asp

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Social media networks".

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Making Sense of Big Network Data: Testing Hypotheses on New Data".

Johan Koskinen is Lecturer in Social Statistics at the University of Manchester. He was awarded his PhD in Statistics from Stockholm University and then has worked at the universities of Stockholm, Melbourne and Oxford. He joined the University of Manchester in 2011. Johan has contributed to the development of a number of statistical models and inference procedures for social networks, in particular exponential random graph models (ERGM) and stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOM). He frequently gives training workshops on statistical methods for social networks to both novices and advanced users of social network analysis and he co-edited a recently published introductory book on ERGM with Dean Lusher and Gary Robins at the Universities of Melbourne and Swinburne.

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Statistical modeling of multimodal networks".

Jan A. Fuhse is currently a Heisenberg Fellow at the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. He completed his PhD in sociology from Universität Stuttgart in 2007 with a dissertation on the role of social networks for the acculturation and ethnic identification of Italian migrants in Germany. During a post­doc (funded by the Alexander von Humboldt foundation) at Columbia University 2007­ - 2008, he worked with Harrison White and Charles Tilly in the theory of social networks. From 2009 to 2013 he was an assistant professor of political sociology at the University of Bielefeld, completing his Habilitation in 2011. Since 2014, he chairs the section for Sociological Network Research in the German Sociological Association.

Fuhse’s research focuses on communication and meaning in social networks, on social networks in inequality, on interethnic relations, and on political constellations. Recent publications include: “Embedding the Stranger: Ethnic Categories and Cultural Differences in Social Networks” (Journal of Intercultural Studies, 2012), “Theorizing Social Networks: Relational Sociology of and around Harrison White” (International Review of Sociology, 2015), and “Networks from Communication"(European Journal of Social Theory, 2015).

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Network analysis of cultural and social duality".

Frédéric Godart is an Assistant Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD in France. Frédéric received his PhD in Sociology from Columbia University in the City of New York. He also holds an MPhil in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge (Trinity College) in the United Kingdom, an MSc in Management from Sciences Po Paris, and is a former fellow of the École Normale Supérieure de Cachan in France. He has recently been accredited to supervise research in management at Dauphine University in Paris. He has received several prestigious awards such as the Academy of Management OB Division’s 2012 Best Paper Award.

His research focuses on the dynamics of creative industries. More specifically, he explores the impact of formal and informal social networks on creativity, as well as the role played by stylistic choices and brand dynamics in the formation of firms and customers’ identities. In terms of sectors, he covers fashion and luxury (e.g., design, modeling, watchmaking, footwear).

He has published his research in a wide range of leading academic peer-reviewed journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, the Annual Review of Sociology, and Social Forces, in practitioner-oriented journals (notably Harvard Business Review), and in several edited books. Frédéric wrote a book on the fashion industry, Sociologie de la mode (A Sociology of Fashion), which has been translated into Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish (Argentina). An extended English translation is available under the title Unveiling Fashion (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2012). He also wrote a book on the intellectual history of fashion, Penser la Mode (Thinking about Fashion). His work and expertise have been extensively featured in several international media such as The Financial Times or The New York Times, and in French national media such as Le Monde, Les Échos, or Le Figaro.

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Socio-Material Network Analysis: Relating Individuals and Physical Contexts".

Abstract of the invited talk at the session "Qualitative analysis of multimodal networks".