Harrison White

It was, it was a shock and a surprise and a revelation.

And I, I remember reading Harrison White's joint authored paper on structural equivalence, and I think that was one of the papers that completely floored me with this insight that you might have, uh, others in the network who would have similar outcomes to yourself irrespective of other things that you might not have in common or you might have in common.

So the, the whole field was a revelation to me.

And at that time at Cornell, there was David, of course, who was my major influence, but also Bob Stern, Miller McPherson, Rohan Brier, and Steve Valy as well, who was doing network research at that time.

And there were maps in the book, and he had drawn lines between the different villages that had post offices, and it, in retrospect, was a network that he had drawn.

And so I was kind of primed to think about that in the, in that way 'cause I was very impressed by that, and I understood that it was the connections on the ground that really made a difference.

And then when I got to graduate school at Harvard, uh, I encountered the great Harrison White, who was quite a character as, as some of you certainly know, and who was a great evangelist for social networks.

And it was there that I discovered that this field, this idea, this way of thinking about the world had a name.