Peter Bearman, Ph.D., is the director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy and the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences at Columbia University. He has been on the faculty of Columbia University since 1998 when he joined as a professor of sociology. He is now the Cole Professor of Social Science, Co-Director of the Health & Society Scholars Program, and Chair of the Statistics department at Columbia University. A recipient of the prestigious NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2007, Bearman is currently investigating the social determinants of the autism epidemic. Current projects also include an ethnographic study of the funeral industry and, with support from the American Legacy Foundation, an investigation of the social and economic consequences of tobacco control policy.

His research cuts across a number of sub-disciplines within sociology: from historical sociology, collective action, social networks, and social theory to problems in population. Among his recent publications are Relations into Rhetorics: Local Elite Social Structure in Norfolk, England: 1540–1640 (Rutgers 1993); "Adolescent Suicidality" with James Moody in American Journal of Public Health (2002); "Opposite-Sex Twins and Same-Sex Attraction" with Hannah Bruckner in American Journal of Sociology (2002); "Class Formation and Localism in an Emerging Bureaucracy: British Bank Workers, 1880–1960" with Michael Savage and Katherine Stovel in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2001); "Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and the Transition to First Intercourse" with Hannah Bruckner in American Journal of Sociology (2001); "Becoming a Nazi: Models for Narrative Networks" with Katherine Stovel in Poetics (2000); Doormen (University of Chicago Press, 2005); and many others.

A specialist in network analysis, Peter Bearman co-designed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (National Institute for Child Health and Development,1994) and has used the data extensively for research on topics including adolescent sexual networks, networks of disease transmission, and genetic influences on same-sex preference. He has also been a coinvestigator or investigator of "Narrative Networks: Oral Histories of the WTC Disaster," National Science Foundation (2001); the Health and Society Scholars Program, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (2000); "Adolescent Social Networks and HIV/STI Transmission," National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1994); and many others. He has received grants and contracts from various institutions among which are the Office of Population Affairs, the National Science Foundation, the National Campaign for the Prevention of Teen Pregnancy, and the Ford Foundation among others.

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