Two New Appointments From The School of Management

Department News
March 10, 2017

The Department is excited to announce  two new appointments. Julia DiBenigno is an Assistant Professor in Sociology, as a new courtesy appointment. She also holds an appointment as Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Yale School of Management, and received her PhD from MIT Sloan. Her current work centers on improving mental healthcare for active-duty soldiers in the U.S. Army by investigating mechanisms of cooperation, change, and influence. She says of her appointment in the Sociology Department:  

“I’m looking forward to joining the Yale Sociology community and couldn’t be happier about this appointment. It’s an honor and pleasure to have the opportunity to engage with the many distinguished and talented faculty, post-docs and students in the department around shared interests in ethnographic methods and research. I’m especially grateful for the warm welcome and look forward to the many stimulating conversations and generative relationships to come.”

Balázs Kovács (Yale School of Management) joins the Sociology Department with a courtesy appointment as an Assistant Professor. Professor Kovács studies various topics in organizational sociology and social networks, including organizational identity, authenticity, learning, diffusion, and status. He has investigated these issues in a variety of settings, including restaurants, movies, book publishing, innovation and patenting, and banks. His current work investigates the effects of category spanning and innovation in technological domains. Professor Kovács typically uses large-scale, “big data” approaches to study these questions, analyzing online reviews and social networks. His research appears in journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, American Sociological Review, Organization Science, Management Science, Social Networks, and Sociological Science. Profess Kovács’s work has been featured in multiple national and international outlets, such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Telegraph, Tennessee Daily, Business Standard, and IMDB.com.

Professor Kovács received his PhD from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. Prior to joining Yale, he was an assistant professor at the University of Lugano, Switzerland.

The Sociology Department is thrilled to strengthen its interdisciplinary ties with these scholars. Welcome!