Kathleen M. Carley

Timeline

1. 1956–1984

   MIT and Harvard degrees

   She is born in Pueblo, Colorado in 1956 and earns SB degrees in economics and political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. At Harvard University, she completes a sociology PhD in 1984 with Harrison White as her advisor; her thesis is titled Consensus Construction.

2. 1984–2002

   Joining Carnegie Mellon

   She joins Carnegie Mellon University in 1984 as an assistant professor of sociology and information systems. Promotions follow to associate professor of sociology and organizations in 1990, professor of sociology, organizations and information technology in 1998, and professor of computation, organization and society in 2002.

3. 1998

   Editing Simulating Organizations

   With Michael Prietula and Les Gasser, she co-edits Simulating Organizations: Computational Models of Institutions and Groups, published in 1998. The book brings together research on using computer models and simulation to study organizations.

4. 2002

   CONSTRUCT-O and ORGAHEAD

   In 2002, she publishes Computational organization science: A new frontier in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper uses CONSTRUCT-O and ORGAHEAD to explore how organizations learn, change and perform tasks, combining networks with models of interacting artificial agents.

5. 2019

   An honorary doctorate in Zurich

   In 2019, the University of Zurich's Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics awards her an honorary doctorate for her contributions to understanding social systems through computer science and social network analysis.

6. July 2019

   Directing the IDeaS center

   In July 2019, Carnegie Mellon announces the Center for Informed Democracy and Social Cybersecurity (IDeaS), directed by Carley and supported by a $5 million Knight Foundation investment. The center studies online disinformation and develops responses that draw on network analysis, machine learning, natural language processing and social science.

7. 2021

   Richards Award for network tools

   In 2021, she receives the International Network for Social Network Analysis's Richards Award for contributions to network science tools. Her work as a computational social scientist includes ORA, which analyzes and visualizes networks that change over time and space.

8. 2025

   A Coleman Distinguished Career Award

   In 2025, she receives the James S. Coleman Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Mathematical Sociology. Her award lecture, Digital Dreams: From Science Fiction to Computational Sociology, examines advances in social network analysis, artificial intelligence and data science.

9. May 2026

   Social theory for AI agents

   In May 2026, she coauthors the position paper Social Theory Should Be a Structural Prior for Agentic AI with Lynnette Hui Xian Ng, Iain J. Cruickshank and Adrian Xuan Wei Lim. It introduces the Multi-Agent Social Systems (MASS) framework for studying how interactions among AI agents produce system-level behavior.

10. As of October 2026

    Professor and OMEN chief scientist

    As of October 2026, she is a professor in Carnegie Mellon University's Software and Societal Systems Department and directs the CASOS and IDeaS centers. She serves as chief scientist for Project OMEN, which develops technology, training environments and synthetic data for studying online influence and information operations. Its tools include SynTel, which uses language models to generate synthetic Telegram data, and MOMUS, which evaluates synthetic social media data.