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Northwestern School of Communication

Aaron Shaw

(he/him/they/them)
Associate Professor
Aaron Shaw studies collaboration, governance, and inclusion in participatory organizations. Most of his work focuses on online communities that create public information resources like Wikipedia.

Area(s) of Expertise

Data Science, Digital Media, Human-Machine Interaction, Organizational Behavior
Aaron Shaw

Aaron Shaw is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Sociology (by courtesy) at Northwestern University, where he is affiliated with the Center for Human-Computer Interaction + Design, the Institute for Policy Research, and the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. Shaw is also a Faculty Associate of the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; co-founder of the Community Data Science Collective. He has held a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University; and will serve as "Scholar in Residence" in King County, Washington during the 2022-2023 academic year. Shaw holds degrees from Stanford and UC Berkeley and his research has received awards from scholarly associations including the American Sociological Association, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the American Political Science Association.

For links to recent research, please see Shaw's semantic scholar page, the Community Data Science Collective "publications" page, or his personal web site.

Education

  • PhD Sociology, University of California, Berkeley
  • MA Sociology, University of California, Berkeley & Humanities, Stanford University
  • BA Humanities, Stanford University

Recent Awards and Honors

  • Scholar in Residence, King County, Washington, 2022-2023.
  • Visiting Professor, Communication, University of Washington, Seattle, 2022-2023.
  • Faculty and Administrator Honor Roll, Northwestern University Associated Student Government, 2014, 2020.
  • Co-PI, National Science Foundation, IIS:CHS: Modeling the Ecological Dynamics of Online Organizations, 2019-2022 (Award Number: 1910202).
  • Lenore Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellow in Communication at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University, 2017-2018.
  • Co-PI, National Science Foundation, IIS:CHS: Pathways to Community Success: Advancing a Comparative Science of Online Collaborative Organization, 2016.
  • Faculty Associate, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, 2013-Present.
  • Faculty and Administrator Honor Roll, Northwestern University Associated Student Government, 2014.

Courses

Recent course offerings (including most syllabus and many open access course materials) are available through the Community Data Science Collective "teaching" page.
Prospective graduate students should contact Professor Shaw via email.