Rate My Professor Kinga Makovi

Kinga Makovi is an Assistant Professor in the Social Science Division at New York University Abu Dhabi, a position she has held since 2017. She serves as co-Principal Investigator of the Center for Interacting Urban Networks (CITIES) at NYU Abu Dhabi since 2019 and as an Affiliate at the Institute for Analytical Sociology, Linköping University, since 2023. Makovi obtained her PhD in Sociology from Columbia University in 2017, an MA in Sociology from Columbia University in 2012, and an MSc in Mathematical Economics from Corvinus University of Budapest in 2010. During her graduate studies, she was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University's Department of Sociology from 2013 to 2015 and at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, in 2016. Her research addresses key questions at the intersection of network science, computational social science, analytical sociology, and social determinants of health and environmental behavior. Employing computational and experimental methods, her work explores social networks, diffusion processes, neighborhood segregation, trust in human-machine interactions, inequality, historical social structures, urban mobility, and COVID-19 dynamics.

Makovi's scholarship has appeared in prestigious outlets including Nature Communications, Scientific Reports, Sociological Science, Social Science History, and PLoS ONE. Select publications include 'Trust within human-machine collectives depends on the perceived consensus about cooperative norms' (Nature Communications, 2023), 'The effects of ideological value framing and symbolic racism on pro-environmental behavior' (Scientific Reports, 2021), 'The signatures of social structure: Petitioning for the abolition of the slave trade in Manchester' (Social Science History, 2019; recipient of the Founders Prize for the best article in Volume 43), 'The course of law: State intervention in Southern lynch mob violence 1882–1930' (Sociological Science, 2016), and 'Web of lies: a tool for determining the limits of verification in preventing the spread of false information on networks' (Scientific Reports, 2021). Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, NYU Abu Dhabi, and the McCourt Foundation. Makovi has received the Award for Teaching Excellence from NYU Abu Dhabi (2022), De Karman Fellowship (2015), Paul F. Lazarsfeld Fellowship (2010–2015), and Alex Inkeles Award for Outstanding Graduate Students (2013). She leads the Research Group in Network Science, has convened multiple CITIES symposia (2019–2024), organized workshops on network science and computational social science, and serves as editor for special issues in Frontiers in Big Data while reviewing for top journals such as American Journal of Sociology and American Sociological Review.