Gianluca Manzo

Gianluca Manzo earned a Ph.D. in Methodology and Epistemology of Social Sciences from Trento University (Italy, 2006), as well as a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and Philosophy of Science (2006) and a HDR (habilitation à diriger des recherches) in Social Sciences and Knowledge Sciences (2019) from Sorbonne University. He currently is Professor of Sociology at Sorbonne University. Prior to that, he was a researcher in sociology at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a member of GEMASS, a research unit for which he served as deputy director between 2018 and 2019. Manzo has held visiting positions and teaching appointments in US and Europe, including, Columbia University, the University of Oxford (Nuffield College), the University of Mannheim, Cologne and Trento, and the European University Institute. He served as vice-president of the International Network of Analytical Sociology (2012-2018), as chair (2022) of the “Decision-making, Networks & Society” section of the American Sociological Association, and as president (2023-2027) of the Rational Choice research committee of the International Sociological Association; he seated twice (2012-2016 and 2021-2025) on the national scientific committee (for sociology and law) of the CNRS. He is the editor of L’Année Sociologique (since 2023). Manzo developed empirically-oriented generative models of educational inequalities in France and Italy; of the diffusion of technological innovations in small communities of potters in India and Kenya; and of virus propagation in France. He also studied theoretical generative models of relative deprivation feelings as well as of reputational hierarchies. Methodologically, these works relied on various combinations of statistical analysis of survey data, social network analysis and agent-based computational models. Manzo finally devoted part of his research to sociological theory and the epistemology of social sciences, in particular by writing on analytical sociology’s history and principles as well as on agent-based computational modeling and its links with causal inference techniques. Some of these works were awarded best article prizes by the American Sociological Association and the International Sociological Association.