Kevin Lewis is a professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. He received his B.A. in sociology and philosophy (mathematics minor) from UC San Diego and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.

Like all social network analysts, his work examines the complex web of relationships—platonic, familial, professional, romantic—in which individual behavior is embedded. He is particularly interested in the factors that lead people to form and maintain social ties, the circumstances under which network ties do (and do not) give rise to peer influence, and the (sometimes counterintuitive) relationship between these types of “micro-level” dynamics and “macro-level” outcomes like racial segregation and cultural diffusion. While his research has relied heavily on online data sources, he is less interested in the internet per se than in understanding what these “digital footprints” tell us about society and human interaction more broadly.

His work has been published in a variety of sociological and interdisciplinary journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Sociological Science, Social Forces, and Social Networks.