Home>Philipp Brandt
Philipp Brandt
Assistant Professor, HDR
Centre for the Sociology of Organisations (CSO)
Research Interest(s): Governance and economic organizations program : Knowledge, science, and expertise program : Work, employment, and professions program
Discipline(s): Sociology
Research Group(s): Work, Employment and Professions; Governance and Economic Organisations; Knowledge, Science and Expertise Program
Biography
Philipp Brandt studies emerging professions, expert work and their effects in historical, economic and technological settings. His main project analyzes the construction of a professional “data scientist” identity in New York City’s tech community.
In a new project, he shifts focus to the dying profession of yellow cab drivers. Philipp combines computational methods with qualitative field observations to address these issues.
In 2023, Philipp Brandt was awarded a starting grant from the European Research Council on the Returns to work in occupational, relational, and corporate settings (2023-2028) project. Find out more
He is the author of Inside Data Science: Hackers and the Making of a New Profession (Columbia University Press). [link]
EDUCATION
2026
Habilitation à diriger des recherches sur Social Footholds at Work
2016
Ph.D., Sociology, Columbia University, New York (USA)
Dissertation: “Mechanisms of Emergence in the Data Science Profession”
Committee: Peter Bearman (advisor), Josh Whitford, David Stark, Catherine Turco (MIT), Gil Eyal (chair)
2014
M.Phil., Sociology
2012
M.A., Sociology
2010
B.A., Jacobs University Bremen (Allemagne).
Integrated Social Sciences; Honors: President’s List
Advisor: Christofer Edling
Current Research
Returns to Work in Occupational, Relational, and Corporate Settings (ReWORCS) link: https://www.philippbrandt.xyz/reworcs
Teaching
- The Sociology of Organizations and Collective Action (BA)
- Social Netowrk Analysis Methods and Research Designs (MA-PSIA)
Sciences Po, Campus Nancy
Semester 2020
- Data Science for the social good
- Expert work in the digital age
University of Mannheim, Germany : BA Seminars
- Introduction to the Sociology of Professions and Science (Spring 2019; Spring 2018; Spring 2017)
- Introduction to Economic Sociology (Fall 2018; Spring 2018; Fall 2017; Fall 2016)*
- Empirical Research Practicum (Fall 2018)
- Organizational Innovation (Spring 2016)
- Hacking the Meso-Level (Computational Social Science Introduction; March 2014)
University of Mannheim, Germany : MA Seminars
- Python Programming for Social Sciences (February 2018)
- Sociology of Professions and Science (Fall 2018; Fall 2016)
- Topics in Economic Sociology (Spring 2017)
Columbia University, New York, USA
- Organizing Innovation - Teaching assistant; instructor: David Stark (Fall 2015)
- Senior Thesis Seminar - Teaching assistant; instructor: Tom DiPrete (2013 - 2014)
AWARDS
2019
- Distinguished Article Award from the American Sociological Association's Religion Section
- Sociology and political sciences student teaching award, University of Mannheim
2010-2015
Paul F. Lazersfeld Fellow, Sociology, Columbia University, New York, USA
2009-2010
President’s List, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany
GRANTS
2023
“Returns to Work in Occupational, Relational, and Corporate Settings” (ReWORCS) ERC Starting Grant (EUR 1.5mil)
2021
“Immigrants’ career changes in German organizations” (EUR 205k from the German Research Foundation (DFG) as lead author with Henning Hillmann and Jeremy Kuhnle)- “Veracity assessment framework for discovering social activities in urban big datasets” (Masters Internship Project--Data Intelligence Institute of Paris; with Soror Sahri)
2020
“Social media discourse responses of two professional communities to COVID-19” APICSO (EUR 2k CSO seed grant with Sophie Dubuisson-Quellier)
2018
“Immigrants’ career changes in German organizations” Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (seed grant; Principal investigator)
2017
“Chains of opportunity in politics: An organizational analysis of politicians’ careers in the German Bundestag since 1949” Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung (seed grant; Co-Pi with Henning Hillmann)
publications
- Brandt, P. 2026. Inside Data Science: Hackers and the Making of a New Profession. Columbia University Press.
- Brandt, P. 2025 Machine Learning, Abduction and Computational Ethnography. In J. P. Pardo-Guerra & C. Borch (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning. Oxford University Press.
- Brandt, P. 2024. Data Science’s Cultural Construction: Qualitative Ideas for Quantitative Work. Frontiers in Big Data: Applied Computational Social Science. 7, 1287442.
- Brandt, P. 2022. Sociology’s Stake in Data Science. Sociologica. 16(2), pp. 149-166.
- Brandt, P. and Timmermans, S. 2021. Abductive Logic of Inquiry for Quantitative Research in the Digital Age. Sociological Science. 8, pp. 191-210.