Welcome to Professor Philip Leifeld

Philip Leifeld

I am a Professor of Social Statistics in the Department of Social Statistics at The University of Manchester, which is part of the School of Social Sciences. I am also a member of the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis and the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research. 

Before joining Manchester in April 2024, I was a Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. 

I am also a DFG Mercator Fellow in the Research Training Group on Digital Platform Ecosystems at the University of Passau (2022-2027) and serve as chair of the Political Networks Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in 2024-2025. 

My main research interests are politics and public policy, network analysis and complex systems, statistical modelling, and computational social sciences. I am best known for my work on discourse network analysis (and the software Discourse Network Analyzer), the texreg R package, and my work on statistical models for longitudinal network data (e.g., implemented in the btergm R package). 

My research has appeared in leading political science journals (e.g., AJPS, JOP, BJPS), public policy and administration journals (e.g., PSJ, JPART), technical journals (e.g., Physica A: Statistical Mechanics, Network Science, JStatSoft), and outlets in other fields (e.g., Nature Climate Change, Addiction, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin). 

More information on Professor Philip Leifeld can be found on his website.