Welcome!

I am Ben Gibson, a sociologist and professor with RAND. Feel free to visit my CV or Google Scholar page.

I am a Social/Behavioral Scientist at the RAND Corporation and Professor of Public Policy at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. My research focuses on building theory-driven, foundational models of social systems across a wide range of domains, such as conversation and messaging, spatial interaction, sexual contacts, international relations, physician services, teams and competition, and promotion boards. The unifying thread is a focus on endogeneity and middle-range theories: how concepts like imitation, repetition, reciprocity, cumulative advantage, and triadic closure generate social structure from within, and how those internal dynamics interact with higher-order social forces.

For much of this work, I’ve employed statistical methods for dynamic social networks, including relational event models and exponential random graph models. Along the way I have pushed forward on methods in their own right — temporal adjustments in separable temporal exponential random graphs (STERGM), spatial methods, separability in relational event modeling, informant accuracy, robustness assessments, and imputation techniques. My work has appeared in PNAS, Social Networks, Sociological Methods & Research, Circulation, and Social Science and Medicine, among others.

Current projects include a conflict escalation simulation that pairs statistical models trained on a century of interstate disputes with large language model agents, and a program of work on how physician referral networks drive racial disparities in access to high-quality cardiac care. Looking ahead, I hope to explore where endogenous social dynamics break down under external pressure — including climate change and natural disaster — and to develop potential policy remedies for the resulting social entropy.