2026 Nicholas A. Christakis: Social Sciences and Humanities Researcher – H-Index, Publications & Awards

Discipline name	D-Index	World Ranking	Current World Ranking	National Ranking	Current National Ranking	Publications	Citations
Social Sciences and Humanities	108	57	47	30	27	318	74158
Medicine	105	6642	6245	3518	3264	327	72334

Research.com Recognitions

2026 - Research.com Social Sciences and Humanities in United States Leader Award
2025 - Research.com Social Sciences and Humanities in United States Leader Award
2017 - Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2010 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
2006 - Member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM)

Overview

Nicholas A. Christakis is affiliated with Yale University in the United States. Their research spans multiple disciplines, primarily focusing on social sciences and medicine, with a notable contribution to subfields such as sociology and political science, statistical and nonlinear physics, general health professions, epidemiology, and modeling and simulation.

The scientist's work covers a range of complex topics including COVID-19 epidemiological studies, complex network analysis techniques, gut microbiota and health, opinion dynamics and social influence, social capital and networks, food security and health in diverse populations, and evolutionary game theory and cooperation.

Among recent publications, some significant papers include:

Population flow drives spatio-temporal distribution of COVID-19 in China (2020, Nature)
AI and the transformation of social science research (2023, Science)
Vulnerable robots positively shape human conversational dynamics in a human-robot team (2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
The Case for Universal Cloth Mask Adoption and Policies to Increase Supply of Medical Masks for Health Workers (2020, SSRN Electronic Journal)
Mindfulness Meditation Activates Altruism (2020, Scientific Reports)

Frequent co-authors collaborating with Nicholas A. Christakis include:

Marcus Alexander
Laura Forastiere
Shivkumar Vishnempet Shridhar
Ilana Brito
Francesco Beghini

Their research has been published regularly in venues such as:

arXiv (Cornell University)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Scientific Reports
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
Nature Communications

Nicholas A. Christakis has received several awards and recognitions throughout their career, including:

Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017)
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (2010)
Member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) (2006)

Best Publications

The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years

Nicholas A. Christakis;James H. Fowler

7008
Citations
Computational Social Science

David M. Lazer;Alex Pentland;Lada Adamic;Sinan Aral;Sinan Aral

4586
Citations
Factors Considered Important at the End of Life by Patients, Family, Physicians, and Other Care Providers

Karen E. Steinhauser;Nicholas A. Christakis;Elizabeth C. Clipp;Maya McNeilly

3172
Citations
The collective dynamics of smoking in a large social network.

Nicholas A. Christakis;James H. Fowler

2972
Citations
Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study

James H Fowler;Nicholas A Christakis

2940
Citations
Response rates to mail surveys published in medical journals.

David A. Asch;David A. Asch;M.Kathryn Jedrziewski;Nicholas A. Christakis

2566
Citations
Social Networks and Health

Kirsten P. Smith;Nicholas A. Christakis

2008
Citations
Extent and determinants of error in doctors' prognoses in terminally ill patients: prospective cohort study.

Nicholas A Christakis;Elizabeth B Lamont

1941
Citations
Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine

Geoffrey W. C. Hanks;Nathan I. Cherny;Nicholas A. Christakis;Marie T. Fallon

1799
Citations
Social contagion theory: examining dynamic social networks and human behavior

Nicholas A. Christakis;James H. Fowler

1566
Citations
In search of a good death: observations of patients, families, and providers.

Karen E. Steinhauser;Elizabeth C. Clipp;Maya McNeilly;Nicholas A. Christakis

1498
Citations
Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network : longitudinal analysis of the Framingham Heart Study social network. Commentary

James H. Fowler;Nicholas A. Christakis;Peter Sainsbury

1405
Citations
Tastes, ties, and time: A new social network dataset using Facebook.com

Kevin Lewis;Jason Kaufman;Marco Gonzalez;Andreas Wimmer

1373
Citations
Machine behaviour

Unknown

1302
Citations
A systematic review of physicians' survival predictions in terminally ill cancer patients

Paul Glare;Kiran Virik;Mark Jones;Malcolm Hudson

1226
Citations
Alone in the Crowd: The Structure and Spread of Loneliness in a Large Social Network

John T. Cacioppo;James H. Fowler;Nicholas Alexander Christakis

1153
Citations
Cooperative behavior cascades in human social networks

James H. Fowler;Nicholas A. Christakis

1020
Citations
Population flow drives spatio-temporal distribution of COVID-19 in China.

Jayson S. Jia;Xin Lu;Xin Lu;Yun Yuan;Ge Xu

935
Citations
The Taste for Privacy: An Analysis of College Student Privacy Settings in an Online Social Network

Kevin Lewis;Jason Kaufman;Nicholas Christakis

933
Citations
Social networks and cooperation in hunter-gatherers

Coren L. Apicella;Frank W. Marlowe;James H. Fowler;Nicholas A. Christakis

857
Citations
Life in the network: The coming age of computational social science: Science

D. Lazer;A. Pentland;A. Adamic;S. Aral

7
Citations

Frequent Co-Authors

James H. Fowler University of California, San Diego

Stein Kaasa Oslo University Hospital

Russell K. Portenoy Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Theodore J. Iwashyna University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

Albert-László Barabási Northeastern University

Bruce E. Landon Harvard University

David G. Rand Cornell University

Nancy L. Keating Harvard University

Jukka-Pekka Onnela Harvard University

James A. Tulsky Harvard University

External Links

Wikipedia of Nicholas A. Christakis Personal website of Nicholas A. Christakis

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