INCITE Director Peter Bearman Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Peter Bearman, PhD., Director of INCITE and Jonathan R. Cole Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Election to the NAS is one of the highest honors in science. Each year the Academy elects no more than 84 new members, who must be U.S. citizens, and 21 foreign associates. NAS has about 2,200 members and 400 foreign associates; approximately 200 have received Nobel prizes.

A recipient of the NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2007, Bearman is currently investigating the social determinants of the autism epidemic.

A specialist in network analysis, he co-designed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health 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 conducted research in historical sociology, including Relations into Rhetorics: Local Elite Social Structure in Norfolk, England, 1540-1640 (Rutgers, 1993). He is the author of Doormen (University of Chicago Press, 2005).