Peter Bearman

Principal Investigator Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Sociology Director, Incite
Photo by Julie Thompson

Principal Investigator of the Obama Presidency Oral History, founding Director of Incite, co-founding Director of the Oral History Master of Arts program, and Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Social Science at Columbia University.

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Peter Bearman leads several Incite initiatives, including the Obama Presidency Oral History, REALM, Liberal Arts Education, and Understanding Autism projects. In addition to these projects, he is currently working on the analysis of large textual corpora and linking cognitive social neuroscience to fundamental elements of human social structure, specifically, pair-bonding and balance in small groups. As PI for the Obama Presidency Oral History, he shaped the theory and vision of the project and led the large interdisciplinary team whose work made that vision a reality.

A specialist in network analysis and historical sociology, Bearman has authored over 60 peer-reviewed research publications, in addition to three books: Relations into Rhetorics: Local Elite Social Structure in Norfolk, England, 1540-1640 (ASA Rose Monograph Series, Rutgers University Press, 1993), Doormen (University of Chicago Press, 2005), and Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart, with Adam Reich (Columbia University Press, 2018). He has edited several others, including the Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Bearman is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine. He was awarded the NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2007 to investigate the increased prevalence of autism. With J. Richard Udry, he co-designed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which was awarded the 2016 Golden Goose Prize. The recipient of numerous teaching awards, Bearman has chaired over 50 doctoral dissertations in sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1986–1998) and Columbia (1998–present).