Peter V. Marsden

PETER V. MARSDEN is the Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of Sociology at Harvard University.  His research interests center on social organization, social networks, and survey research.  He teaches about these subjects as well as on quantitative methods for data analysis.  He received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award recognizing a career of distinguished contributions to methodology in sociology from the Section on Methodology of the American Sociological Association in 2016.

Marsden was a co-principal investigator of the General Social Survey between 1997 and 2015, and a lead investigator of three National Organizations Studies conducted between 1991 and 2003.  He edited Social Trends in American Life:  Findings from the General Social Survey since 1972 (Princeton University Press, 2012), which won the Book Award given by the American Association for Public Opinion Research in 2015.   With James D. Wright, he edited the second edition of the Handbook of Survey Research (Emerald Group Publishing, 2010).  His articles and chapters concentrate on studies of social networks—especially egocentric networks and their measurement—as well as work orientations, social trends, and issues in organizational analysis.