I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan School of Information. My research is at the intersection of science of science and sociology of organizations - I study how institutions affect innovation. Focusing on the setting of academic science, I examine 1) how organizations evaluate and select projects to invest into and 2) how knowledge flows between scientists. Methodologically, I focus on field experiments and statistical analysis of administrative data.

The evaluation/selection stream of work aims to identify how the evaluation processes organizations use predispose them to select particular ideas or innovators. Projects include

• Status bias in scientific peer review, and how to mitigate it

• Incentives for novelty

• Benefits and costs of interdisciplinarity

• The role of social capital in scientific success

The knowledge flows stream of work explores how exposure to others’ ideas depends on reading practices, co-location, conferencing and other channels of communication, and identifies how status and gender help make some scientists’ ideas more visible than others’. Projects include

• Gender and self-promotion in science

• Conferences as a mechanism to spread ideas

• Science and the media: What research is picked up by the media, and how is it covered?

Last but not least, I am interested in political polarization. I am studying how the physical places where individuals spend time provides (or doesn't) exposure to cross-partisan ideas.

Previously, I was a Postdoc at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH). I received my PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago, where I was a member of KnowledgeLab.

See my CV for papers and links.

Lab: DiscoveryLab, www.discolab.org

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DzSXZd9yYy8C

Advising: currently not accepting PhD students

Office: North Quad #3369, 105 S State St

Email: tepl @ umich . edu