Senior researcher and bibliometric consultant. Vincent's research focuses on complex networks and social dynamics. He holds a Master in sociology and a PhD in applied mathematics, and tries to combine the two in his work.
Vincent Traag is a senior researcher at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) of Leiden University in the Netherlands. He obtained his Master in sociology (cum laude) from the University of Amsterdam (2008). Coming from a computer science background, and taking up mathematics during his studies in sociology, he went on to obtain a PhD in applied mathematics in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (2013). After working as a postdoctoral research fellow on an e-Humanities project on elite networks at the KITLV, he joined the CWTS in 2015.
During his PhD Traag studied methods for detecting communities in complex networks. In addition, he applied this methodology in several fields across the (social) sciences, ranging from citation networks to international relations. One particular interest is the presence of negative links in networks, representing animosity or conflict. Such networks have the tendency to become organised in mutually antagonistic groups, and Traag analysed this from several perspectives.
