Duncan J. Watts

Duncan Watts is a computational social scientist interested in social and organizational networks, collective dynamics of human systems, web-based experiments, and analysis of large-scale digital data, including the production, consumption, and absorption of news. 

Watts is the Stevens University Professor and Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds primary faculty appointments in the Annenberg School for Communications, Penn Engineering, and the Wharton School. He also holds a secondary appointment in the Sociology Department at the School of Arts & Sciences, and is the founder and director of the Penn Computational Social Science Lab.

His books include Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age and Everything is Obvious: Once You Know The Answer. His research on social networks and collective dynamics has appeared in a wide range of journals reaching a broad audience.

Previously, Watts was a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, a research scientist at Yahoo! Research, and a faculty member at Columbia University. 

He holds a B. Sc. in Physics from the Australian Defence Force Academy, from which he also received his officer’s commission in the Royal Australian Navy, and a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Cornell University.