Department of Sociology

Derick S. Baum is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Sociology Department at Brown University. His primary research interests involve the methodological development and substantive applications of network analysis.

Substantively, Baum uses network data to study inequality in social capital originating from differential access to occupations and the mechanisms behind disparities in network size between groups. Methodologically, he develops statistical models that leverage network data to shed light on various social phenomena. Baum also studies issues of data quality and proposes potentially productive directions for researchers planning to collect new data. Apart from his research on social networks, Baum pursues work that advances statistical methods and software for making causal inferences in contexts involving complicated relationships between variables.  

Before coming to Brown, Baum earned a B.A. in Sociology and Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an A.M. and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.

Educational Background