Elizabeth Bruch

Professor of Sociology & Complex Systems
University of Michigan

External Faculty & Science Steering Committee
Santa Fe Institute

I am a sociologist and complexity scientist who studies how people navigate consequential life decisions—choosing a partner, a city, a course of study, a career—and the social systems within which these choices unfold. My research has three threads. The first uses network science to map the structure of social life: hierarchies, submarkets, institutional pathways. The second studies how people search and adapt within these systems, often without being able to see them clearly. The third asks what we can do about it: how markets, networks, and choice architecture can be designed designed in ways that make life choices more legible and navigable to the people moving through them.

Social Structure

One branch of my work uses network science to make the shape of social systems visible—how deep our hierarchies run, how communities are organized, and how early choices reshape what comes next.

Choice & Search

Another strand adapts models from quantitative marketing and decision science to study how people make consequential social decisions: where to live, whom to partner with, what career to pursue. The aim is to study decision processes, not just outcomes.

Social Design

A third strand shifts from observation to design. I am developing a program of research-owned platforms and information tools that test how different types of feedback shape what people learn about themselves and the markets they’re in. The first is Revel, a live dating platform built with University of Michigan undergraduates.

Date Like a Local

My forthcoming book (PUP 2027) shows how local market conditions shape partner search and selection. Drawing on online activity data and comparisons across 133 U.S. cities, I show that men and women adapt to local conditions in ways that are consistent with gendered expectations around heterosexual courtship.

Teaching

I teach social dynamics, computational social science, and research methods at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Within my college, I have led efforts to strengthen quantitative training across my college.

Service & Institution Building

Much of my service has focused on building bridges between data science and the social sciences, and on strengthening quantitative training. I am currently Associate Director of the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS), Training Director of the Population Studies Center, and a member of the Santa Fe Institute’s Science Steering Committee.