Biography
I am interested in the ways social structures and culture shape feelings of compassion, animus and indifference to others, based on their “social distance” from ourselves. Under what conditions do those feelings translate into beneficial or detrimental action? How do institutions and markets amplify or inhibit the effects of those actions? I have published quantitative analyses examining inequality in medical crowdfunding and am currently doing qualitative research on volunteers who aid immigrants.
I began my Sociology PhD after a career in the software industry where I was a creator of EndNote 1.0, was a Program Manager at Microsoft, and co-founded companies including Labkey, which makes software for the life sciences. I founded sciences.social, an online community for social scientists.