About

Noshir Contractor is the Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences in the McCormick School of Engineering & Applied Science, the School of Communication, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is also the Director of the Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research Group. His research has been at the forefront of three emerging interdisciplines: network science, computational social science, and web science. He investigates how social and knowledge networks form and perform across various contexts including business, scientific communities, healthcare, and space travel. Professor Contractor has been continuously funded for 25 years by the U.S. National Science Foundation, with additional funding from agencies such as the U.S. National Institutes of Health, NASA, DARPA, the Army Research Laboratory, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author of the book 'Theories of Communication Networks,' which received the 2003 Book of the Year award from the Organizational Communication Division of the National Communication Association and the 2021 Fellows Book Award from the International Communication Association. He is a Fellow of multiple professional organizations, including the Academy of Management, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Network Science Society, and the International Communication Association. His academic background includes a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communication, a Master's from the same institution, and a Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. His career includes positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University, where he holds his current professorship.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Data science
• Computer Security
• Management science
• Psychology
• Machine Learning
• Internet privacy
• Information Retrieval
• Engineering
• Sociology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Data Mining
• Economics
• Business
• Knowledge management
• Telecommunications
• Statistics
• Art
• Engineering ethics
• Commerce
• Social psychology
• Applied psychology
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Networked Behaviors Associated With a Large-Scale Secure Messaging Network: Cross-Sectional Secondary Data Analysis

  JMIR Medical Informatics · 2025-04-14 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Background: Communication among health care professionals is essential for effective clinical care. Asynchronous text-based clinician communication-secure messaging-is rapidly becoming the preferred mode of communication. The use of secure messaging platforms across health care institutions creates large-scale communication networks that can be used to characterize how interaction structures affect the behaviors and outcomes of network members. However, the understanding of the structure and interactions within these networks is relatively limited. Objective: This study investigates the characteristics of a large-scale secure messaging network and its association with health care professional messaging behaviors. Methods: Data on electronic health record-integrated secure messaging use from 14 inpatient and 282 outpatient practice locations within a large Midwestern health system over a 6-month period (June 1, 2023, through November 30, 2023) were collected. Social network analysis techniques were used to quantify the global (network)- and node (health care professional)-level properties of the network. Hierarchical clustering techniques were used to identify clusters of health care professionals based on network characteristics; associations between the clusters and the following messaging behaviors were assessed: message read time, message response time, total volume of messages, character length of messages sent, and character length of messages received. Results: The dataset included 31,800 health care professionals and 7,672,832 messages; the resultant messaging network consisted of 31,800 nodes and 1,228,041 edges. Network characteristics differed based on practice location and professional roles (P<.001). Specifically, pharmacists and advanced practice providers, as well as those working in inpatient settings, had the highest values for all network metrics considered. Four clusters were identified, representing differences in connectivity within the network. Statistically significant differences across clusters were identified between all considered secure messaging behaviors (P<.001). One of the clusters with 1109 nodes, consisting mostly of physicians and other inpatient health care professionals, had the highest values for all node-level metrics compared to the other clusters found. This cluster also had the quickest message read and response times and handled the largest volume of messages per day. Conclusions: Secure messaging use within a large health care system manifested as an expansive communication network where connectivity varied based on a health care professional's role and their practice setting. Furthermore, our findings highlighted a relationship between health care professionals' connectivity in the network and their daily secure messaging behaviors. These findings provide insights into the complexities of communication and coordination structures among health care providers and downstream secure messaging use. Understanding how secure messaging is used among health care professionals can offer insights into interventions aimed at streamlining communication, which may, in turn, potentially enhance clinician work behaviors and patient outcomes.

  PublisherDOI

• The evolving influence of social networks on collaboration technology use during telework transitions

  Information Technology and People · 2025-08-12

  articleSenior author

  Purpose While existing research shows that employees’ use of collaboration technologies can be influenced by their social relationships, whether and how these effects change under organizational disruptions remains unclear. This study aims to narrow this gap by examining how telework transitions affect the impacts of social networks on collaboration technology use. Design/methodology/approach To examine our research model, we utilize the massive shift to telework prompted by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in China. We collect multisource data, including digital trace data on collaboration technology use, roster-based survey data on social networks and demographic profile data, from 183 employees in an international technology company’s human resource (HR) department. Findings Our findings reveal that centrality in instrumental networks (represented by influence networks) and expressive networks (represented by friendship networks) positively affects collaboration technology use across the phases of before, during and after telework. Notably, influence centrality had a stronger effect on collaboration technology use during telework than it had before telework, and this enhanced effect persisted after employees returned to the office. In contrast, the impact of friendship centrality on collaboration technology use was weaker during telework than it was before telework, and this reduced effect gradually recovered after employees returned to the office. Moreover, we identified a consistently negative interaction effect between influence centrality and friendship centrality on collaboration technology use before, during and after telework. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by adopting a dynamic perspective to investigate how the effect of social networks on collaboration technology use evolves amid organizational disruptions, particularly the shift to telework. Practically, our findings offer actionable insights for organizations to promote technology-based collaboration and optimize technology application through informal relationships among employees during times of organizational disruption.

  PublisherDOI

• Corrigendum to “Leading the crew to Mars: Evidence from NASA HERA analog crews” [Acta Astronaut. 237 (2025) 141-150]

  Acta Astronautica · 2025-10-29

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Social perception in Human-AI teams: Warmth and competence predict receptivity to AI teammates

  UNC Libraries · 2025-02-05

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The differential impacts of team diversity as variability versus atypicality on team effectiveness

  Scientific Reports · 2025-02-06 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Interest in team diversity initiatives has grown significantly over the past decade. Some initiatives focus on creating "highly variable" teams where members bring a wide range of attributes. Others prioritize "highly atypical" teams, where members contribute attributes underrepresented within the broader organization or field, regardless of variety. These two approaches entail markedly different assumptions about maximizing team diversity's benefits. Comparing short- and long-term outcomes provides important insights into cultivating and leveraging diverse teams. To do so, we examined the proposal submissions of all variable and atypical teams within a competitive seed grant program over six years. We assessed short-term performance based on funding outcomes following a three-stage review process and long-term viability based on team members' tendency to collaborate more in the future. Our findings demonstrate that diversity operates differently when conceptualized as variability versus atypicality. Specifically, while team variability often resulted in neutral or even negative short-term performance, it had a mixed effect on long-term viability. Conversely, while team atypicality had a mixed impact on short-term performance, it consistently enhanced long-term viability. These results underscore the distinctive value of nurturing highly atypical teams to promote lasting collaboration success and highlight the importance of aligning diversity cultivation strategies with organizations' short- and long-term goals.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Vero: An accessible method for studying human–AI teamwork

  UNC Libraries · 2025-03-18

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Embedded Interactions and Selective Disclosure: Network Effects on Conversations aboard Skylab

  Symbolic Interaction · 2025-07-09

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  How do absent others influence our interactions? We argue in this paper that interactions are embedded within networks formed by chains of specific relationships between known third parties. The anticipation of future interactions with external others conditions our interpretation of the current situation and affects our behavior in the interaction. We employ embedded interactions to analyze the case of conflicts between the astronauts and ground control during NASA's Skylab 4 missions. Our analysis reveals how anticipation of eventual interactions between uninvolved actors led the crew to withhold important information from ground control, information that would have been shared with ground control if the astronauts had been able to prevent its future transmission. Skylab astronauts were heavily concerned with how their actions would be framed through these chains of interactions and eventually interpreted by Congress and the general public. The astronauts' attempts to save face by controlling information about themselves at these distant sites led them to deviate from protocol and produced the conflicts for which Skylab 4 is best known.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What Remotely Matters? Understanding Individual, Team, and Organizational Factors in Remote Work at Scale

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2025-10-16 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Although knowledge workers are increasingly able to adopt remote and hybrid working arrangements and work productively, many organizations continue to question the effectiveness of remote work and focus on its concerns and challenges. Previous CSCW research shows that remote workers have limited awareness of other workers, require more explicit coordination, and feel excluded from in-person colleagues. Research also shows that adopting work practices and technologies that are remote work-friendly can offset many of these challenges. Identifying which effective practices and challenges are most helpful or hurtful to remote workers-and how workplace attributes (e.g., team structure; communication frequency; tool use) affect them-could strengthen organizations' strategies and policies for remote work. Through a theoretically-informed survey of 1,526 U.S. knowledge workers, we find many factors prior research has argued as essential to remote work, such as knowing your teammates personally, to be the least important for remote workers, and show how workplace attributes influence those perceptions. We provide theoretical and practical implications for future research for organizations that wish to support remote and hybrid work modalities.

  PublisherDOI

• Leading the crew to Mars: Evidence from NASA HERA analog crews

  Acta Astronautica · 2025-08-18

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Modeling the “who” and “how” of social influence in the adoption of health practices

  Social Networks · 2025-04-05

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Family planning is heralded as one of the ten most significant contemporary public health achievements, yet it remains underutilized in countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, that might most benefit from it. While substantial strides have been made to address supply-side barriers to modern contraceptive (MC) adoption in these regions, demand-side obstacles like personal or partner opposition are less understood. This study investigates the role of social influence in shaping MC demand in communities with low modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rates (mCPR). Using the Structured Influence Process (SIP) framework, we examine how an individual's social relations and exposure to persuasive messages, either in support of or opposition to MC use, jointly influence their decision to adopt or reject contraceptives. Using survey data from two different Kenyan communities, both exhibiting low mCPR but one relatively higher than the other, we observe that mere exposure to MC users or non-users during free-time interactions is insufficient to sway usage decisions. However, the combination of direct contact with contraceptive users and persuasive messages emerges as a potent force of influence. In the lower mCPR community, only a few types of persuasive messages are circulated, and they are all consistently influential in either encouraging or discouraging MC use. These messages primarily appeal to individuals’ desire to do what is “right” by emphasizing social validation and deference to trusted authorities, or their desire to do what is “liked” by reinforcing interpersonal bonds and reciprocal obligations. In the higher mCPR community, a broader range of persuasive messages effectively promote MC use; however, only those invoking social shame effectively discourage it. These findings highlight a crucial distinction between “prevalent vs. persuasive” messaging: While many persuasive messages may be prevalent (i.e., used often), only a subset are also persuasive. Recognizing which messages are merely pervasive versus those that are genuinely effective is vital for efficiently allocating resources to promote or counter MC use narratives. Leveraging research across network science and persuasion, this study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of how social influence shapes contraceptive decision-making. • Empirically shows that network ties influence modern contraceptive (MC) use through explicit persuasive messages about MCs. • Exposure to MC users does not lead to MC adoption unless close friends and family actively discuss their MC use decisions. • In higher-prevalence communities, many persuasive message types circulate but only shame-based ones effectively deter MC use. • In lower-prevalence communities, fewer persuasive message types circulate but all effectively influence MC use and non-use.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Coupled Models of Diffusion and Individual Behavior Over Extremely Large Social Networks

  NSF · $267k · 2009–2013

• NetSE: Large: Collaborative Research: Contagion in large socio-communication networks

  NSF · $475k · 2010–2015

• RAPID: Teaming in the Time of Covid-19: Understanding how technology affordances can enable collaboration during sudden workplace disruption

  NSF · $120k · 2020–2022

• Collaborative Research: DHB Virtual Worlds: An Exploratorium for Theorizing and Modeling the Dynamics of Group Behavior

  NSF · $621k · 2007–2012

• Doctoral Dissertation Research in DRMS: Assembling Teams Supported by Augmented Intelligence

  NSF · $32k · 2020–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Leslie A. DeChurch

  60 shared

• Alina Lungeanu

  Northeastern University

  31 shared

• Yun Huang

  30 shared

• Peter R. Monge

  University of Southern California

  28 shared

• Zhenghui Sha

  The University of Texas at Austin

  19 shared

• Dmitri Williams

  University of Exeter

  17 shared

• Aaron Schecter

  17 shared

• Brian Keegan

  University of Colorado Boulder

  16 shared

Labs

• Science of Networks in Communities (SONIC) Research GroupPI

Education

• Ph.D., Social Psychology

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1993

• M.S., Social Psychology

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1989

• B.A., Psychology

  University of Bombay

  1986

Awards & honors

• 2003 Book of the Year award from the Organizational Communic…
• 2021 Fellows Book Award from the International Communication…
• Fellow of the Academy of Management
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sc…
• Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)