Dashun Wang is a Professor of Management and Organizations at the

Kellogg School of Management The Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management (branded as Northwestern Kellogg) is the graduate business school of Northwestern University, a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois. History Early ...

. He serves as the founding director of the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) and a founding co-director of the Ryan Institute on Complexity. Wang is a recipient of the

AFOSR The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research and development detachment of the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of direct-energy based aerospace warf ...

Young Investigator award (2016) and was named one of Poets & Quants Best 40 Under 40 Professors (2019).

Career

In 2007, Wang earned an undergraduate degree in Physics from

Fudan University Fudan University (FDU) is a public university, national public university in Yangpu, Shanghai, Yangpu, Shanghai, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education (China), Ministry of Education and is co-funded with the Shanghai Municipal ...

, Shanghai, China. He then earned both a M.Sc and a PhD in physics from

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

. From January 2015 to July 2016, he was an assistant professor of College of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University, University Park. He is currently a Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering, at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Research

Wang studies the science of science, an interdisciplinary field that examines scientific careers and the scientific process. His work on the career paths of individual innovators identifies patterns in scientific careers, including the random impact rule and the hot streak phenomenon. His study of the organization of innovative activity shows that bigger teams generally advance and improve established concepts, and smaller teams are more often responsible for breakthroughs in science and technology. Wang’s research on failure has led to empirical evidence of the importance of responses to failure at the beginning of careers and a quantitative framework for learning from failure. He has also studied collective dynamics in social networks, human mobility, and long-term scientific impact. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wang analyzed global policy responses to the pandemic.

Awards and honors

In 2014, Wang received the Invention Achievement Award from

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York ...

. In 2016, Wang was a recipient of the

Young Investigator award. In 2018, he received an award from the Minerva Research Initiative, a research program sponsored by the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, t ...

. In 2019, his paper about the impact of the size of scientific teams was one of

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’s Top 100 most discussed papers across all sciences, and he was named one of Poets & Quants Best 40 Under 40 Professors. In 2021, he was awarded the

Erdős–Rényi Prize The Erdős–Rényi Prize of the Network Science Society is named after Paul Erdős and Alfréd Rényi. This international prize is awarded annually in a special ceremony at the Netsci Conference, International Conference on Network Science to a ''s ...

Selected publications

Books

* Dashun Wang and Albert-László Barabási, ''The Science of Science''. (

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 2021).

Articles

* Yian Yin, Jian Gao, Benjamin F. Jones, and Dashun Wang (2021)
Coevolution of policy and science during the pandemic
Science, 2021. * Yian Yin, Yang Wang, James A. Evans, and Dashun Wang (2019)
Quantifying the dynamics of failure across science, startups, and security
Nature. * Yang Wang, Benjamin F. Jones, and Dashun Wang (2019)
Early-Career Setback and Future Career ImpactNature Communications
* Lingfei Wu, Dashun Wang, James A. Evans (2019)
Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology
Nature, 2019. over Article* Ching Jin, Chaoming Song, Johannes Bjelland, Geoffrey Canright, Dashun Wang (2019)
Emergence of Scaling in Complex Substitutive Systems
Nature Human Behaviour. over Article* Lu Liu, Yang Wang,

Roberta Sinatra Roberta Sinatra is an Italian scientist and associate professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. She is known for her work in network science and conducts research on quantifying success in science. Early life and education Sinatra receive ...

, C. Lee Giles, Chaoming Song, and Dashun Wang (2018)
Hot Streaks in Artistic, Cultural, and Scientific Careers
Nature. * Tao Jia‡, Dashun Wang, and Boleslaw K. Szymanski
Quantifying patterns of research-interest evolution
Nature Human Behaviour 1 (2017): 0078. *

, Dashun Wang, Pierre Deville, Chaoming Song, and Albert-László Barabási (2016)
Quantifying the evolution of individual scientific impact
Science, 354, 6312. * Pierre Deville, Chaoming Song, Nathan Eagle, Vincent Blondel, Albert-László Barabási, and Dashun Wang (2016)
Scaling identity connects human mobility and social interactions
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. * Dashun Wang, Chaoming Song†, and Albert-László Barabási (2013)
Quantifying Longterm Scientific Impact. Science
342, 6154 (2013): 127-132. over Article

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Northwestern University faculty Kellogg School of Management faculty {{Improve categories, date=May 2021