Professor David Stark – University of Warwick

David Stark is a leading economic sociologist. He is Professor of Social Science at the University of Warwick and Arthur Lehman Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. His book, The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life (Princeton University Press 2009) is an ethnographic account of how organizations and their members search for what is valuable. Ongoing projects include experimental research to examine how ethnic diversity disrupts conformity and deflates price bubbles; network analytic studies on team formation in creative fields; and research on how the social structure of attention shapes valuation.  His CV, publications, papers, course materials,“silent lectures,” and other presentations are available at thesenseofdissonance.com.

Professor Celia Lury – University of Warwick

Celia Lury is a leading figure in the Sociology of Culture. At the University of Warwick she directs the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies. From her early work on the materiality of culture, she developed an interest in the study of brands. More recently she has been working on problems of valuation and on new methods in the social sciences. She has been conducting research on new forms of personalization, especially referring to digital culture on the web and the proliferation of scores to measure social influence.

Professor Kristian Kreiner – Copenhagen Business School 

Kristian Kreiner is a leading figure in the study of organizational decision-making, having participated in the development of the very influential Scandanavian school of organizational studies. He has recently been conducting research on competitions, focusing in particular on architectural competitions. Kreiner studies the systematic ways in which the forms of competition masquerade a betrayal and reversal of the ideas they were supposed to embody.

Professor Elena Esposito -Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Elena Esposito is one of the leading figures in the sociological school of systems Theory. In 2015-16 she will hold the Niklas Luhmann Visiting Chair at the University of Bielefeld. She has published on probability calculus and on memory. She has carried out research on fashion and on finance. Esposito has been working at the intersection of media, culture, and formalization, most recently on the problem of digital “forgetting.” She is currently developing observation theory for the problem of ratings and rankings.

Professor Christine Musselin – Sciences Po and CNRS

Christine Musselin is currently the Dean of Research (Provost) at Sciences Po where, from 2007 to 2013 she directed the Center for the Sociology of Organizations (CSO). For many years she has been a leader in the study of systems of higher education. Since 2007 she has chaired the international Consortium on Higher Education Research (CHER). Musselin has studied university governance as part of a larger debate about organization and decision theories; public authorities’ steering of higher education systems within a broader analysis of public policies; and the academic labor market through the lens of labor economics and sociology. She has recently been working on the problem of university rankings.

Professor Fabian Muniesa – Mines ParisTech

Fabian Muniesa has been a leading figure in the Social Studies of Finance. Indeed, he was one of the key people whose contributions (in his case, already while a PhD student) helped establish it as a field of study. His early research focused on trading technologies and the automation of financial markets and was primarily aimed at analysing the role of technical devices in the shaping of markets. One of his major contributions has been to develop a pragmatist approach to the study of calculation. His more recent research projects include the sociology of testing and the study of performativity in business education, management consulting, and entrepreneurial finance.