Expert on social networks, human cooperation
and political participation.

Highlights

James H. Fowler is a leading authority on how social networks help to shape human behavior and welfare. He also studies the evolution and dynamics of cooperation and political participation.

For this groundbreaking work, he was named "most original thinker" of the year on The McLaughlin Group and one of the Nifty Fifty "most inspiring" scientists by the San Diego Science Festival.

His research on social networks was featured in Time's Year in Medicine in both 2007 and 2008. His research on genopolitics—the genetic basis of political behavior—was featured in New York Times Magazine's 2008 Year in Ideas.

James Fowler has received the 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship award for Humanities in the field of Sociology.

He has studied the social spread of behaviors like smoking, happiness and the network of cosponsorships in the U.S. Congress and of U.S. Supreme Court precedents. He has identified three genes associated with political involvement, specifically voter turnout and partisan attachment and shown evidence for a genetic basis for social networks.

Professor Fowler is the coauthor of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Connected explains how social networks form and operate and describes the profound influence they have on our tastes, health, wealth, happiness, beliefs and even weight.

James Fowler is an Associate Professor in the Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California–San Diego.

His work has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, Today, and The Colbert Report, and on the front pages of The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, and USA Today.

Professor Fowler is also an expert on Stephen Colbert. His funny and engaging article "The Colbert Bump: More Truthful than Truthy" shows that political candidates who appeared on The Colbert Report receive a significant bump in campaign donations in the 30 days following their appearance on the show.

Connected

Watch a clip on Connected Click here.

How social networks shape who we are and what we do.

The key to understanding people is to understand the ties between them.

For a long time, social scientists have thought of individuals as though they were islands. But we are not islands.

How we feel, what we know, who we marry, whether we fall ill, how much money we make, and whether we vote all depend on our social networks—our friends, our friends' friends, and beyond—as much as on our individual backgrounds and choices. James Fowler has become internationally renowned for discovering how our social networks drive and shape aspects of our lives that we would never suspect.

In his book Connected, Fowler presents a new understanding of this powerful sway we have over one another. He outlines the fundamental rules governing the formation and operation of social networks and describes the myriad ways that they help to shape who we are and what we do.

Credentials

• Associate Professor, Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, CALIT2
• Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California–San Diego
• BA, Harvard; MA in International Relations, Yale; Ph.D. in Government, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
• Peace Corps volunteer, Ecuador

Honors

• Guggenheim Fellowship Award (2010)
• Harvard Business Review Breakthrough Ideas of the Year (2009)
• San Diego Science Festival’s Nifty Fifty "most inspiring scientists" (2009)
• New York Times Magazine Year in Ideas (2008)
• Time Magazine Year in Medicine (2008)
• The McLaughlin Group’s "most original thinker" (2008)
• University of California Office of the President Market Recognition Award (2008)
• Time Magazine Year in Medicine (2007)

Research

Research areas: social networks, behavioral economics, evolutionary game theory, political participation, the evolution of cooperation, altruism and egalitarianism, genopolitcs (the study of the genetic basis of political behavior)

His work has received front-page coverage in The New York Times.

Some specific research projects:

social spread of obesity;

social spread of smoking;

social spread of happiness;

the network of legislative cosponsorships in the U.S. Congress;

the network of U.S. Supreme Court precedents;

how genes influence voting and other forms of political participation, including the identification of three genes associated with voter turnout and partisan attachment (those regulating the serotonin and dopamine systems in the brain via the production of monoamine oxidase, 5HTT and DRD2);

the genetic basis of social networks; and

campaign donation effects from appearing on The Colbert Report.