I am Professor of Sociology and Director of Social Science Matrix at UC Berkeley. I am also an associate fellow of the Max Planck-Sciences Po Center on Coping with Instability in Market Societies (Maxpo). A comparative sociologist by training and taste, I am interested in national variations in knowledge and practice.
My first book, Economists and Societies (Princeton University Press 2009), explored the distinctive character of the discipline and profession of economics in three countries. A second book, The Ordinal Society (with Kieran Healy), is under contract. This book investigates new forms of social stratification and morality in the digital economy. Other recent research focuses on the valuation of nature in comparative perspective; algorithmic societies (with Jenna Burrell; with Fleur Johns); the digitization of states (with Jeff Gordon) and their moral regulation by financial markets (with Caleb Scoville); primitive accumulation in digital capitalism (with Daniel Kluttz); the comparative study of political organization (with Evan Schofer and Brian Lande); the microsociology of courtroom exchanges (with Roi Livne); the sociology of economics, with Etienne Ollion and Yann Algan, and with Rakesh Khurana; the politics of wine classifications in France and the United States (with Rebecca Elliott and Olivier Jacquet).
UC Berkeley sociology department faculty page