Dean Eckles

Dean Eckles is the William F. Pounds Professor of Management and a Professor of Marketing at MIT Sloan. He is Associate Director of the Institute for Data, Systems & Society in the Schwarzman College of Computing. His research examines people's interactions with and through communication technologies, particularly how these technologies mediate and direct social influence. His work also involves applied statistics, design of field experiments, and causal inference. Prior to joining MIT, he was a scientist at Facebook and Nokia. Eckles received his BA in philosophy, a BS and MS in cognitive science, an MS in statistics, and a PhD in communication, all from Stanford University.

Dean Eckles is a researcher at MIT with expertise in networks, social influence, causal inference, applied statistics, and marketing. His work explores how social dynamics and information spread shape behavior, particularly in online environments. Eckles has conducted field experiments to study the impact of social influence on political mobilization, misinformation, and vaccination intentions. His research also addresses the design and analysis of experiments in networks, focusing on reducing bias from interference and estimating peer effects. He has examined the role of social media in political contexts, including the spread of misinformation and election integrity. His studies highlight the interplay between individual behavior and collective outcomes in interconnected systems.