Nicholas A. Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University in New Haven, US, with appointments in the Departments of Sociology, Data Science, Evolutionary Biology, Biomedical Engineering, and Medicine. He led the projects Using Social AI to Modify Collective Behavior in Realistic Networks (2019–2023) and Microbiome Biology and Social Networks in the Developing World (2019–2025). He is currently leading the project Chemosignaling and Related Biology of Human Social Interactions.
Born in the US, Christakis obtained a BS in biology from Yale University in 1984. He received an MD from Harvard Medical School (Boston, US) and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1989. In 1991, Christakis completed a residency and fellowship in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, US, where in 1995 he obtained a PhD in sociology. He then joined the faculty of the University of Chicago. From 2001 to 2013 he was a professor at Harvard University. In 2013, Christakis moved to Yale University, where he is the director of the Human Nature Lab.
He is the author of over 240 peer-reviewed scientific papers and several books, including the 2019 New York Times bestseller, Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.
Research Focus
Christakis’ laboratory investigates the social, mathematical and biological rules governing how social networks form and the social and biological implications of how they operate to affect human lives. His laboratory exploits techniques from biosocial science, sociology, economics, computer science, demography, statistics, behavior genetics, evolutionary biology, epidemiology and other fields.
His lab website is www.HumanNatureLab.net. A science outreach vlog that he launched in 2026, For the Love of Science, is on YouTube at @NAChristakis.
Awards and Recognition
Christakis was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2006; the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2010; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2017; and the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.
Feature image: Nicholas A. Christakis portrait by Big Think. Right: Children playing soccer in Copán, Honduras, where the Christakis lab’s research revealed that our friends — and also their friends — shape our gut microbiome. Photo by Andrew Jordan.