Kathleen Carley

Kathleen Carley is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, holding dual appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (College of Engineering) and the Institute for Software Research (ISR). She directs the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS), an interdisciplinary center specializing in network analysis, computational social science, and organizational theory. Her research focuses on dynamic network analysis, text mining, and modeling complex social systems, particularly in crisis response and cybersecurity contexts.

Carley’s work integrates cognitive science, computer science, and organizational behavior to develop tools like ORA (statistical network analysis toolkit) and AutoMap (text-mining system). She leads the development of agent-based models such as BioWar (disease spread simulation) and DyNet (covert network dynamics). These tools address challenges in disaster communication, misinformation diffusion, and conflict escalation analysis.

Her contributions include pioneering computational methods for analyzing social media bots, cross-platform information diffusion, and cyber defense strategies. Carley serves as founding co-editor of Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory and has co-edited influential works in computational social science. Her research spans global case studies, including analysis of Russian propaganda during the Ukraine invasion and Chinese influence campaigns on social media.