Luke J. Matthews

Luke Matthews is a behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation and a professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School. Much of his work focuses on using formal models for cultural diffusion on social networks to better understand how people influence each other. He has applied social network analysis, simulation models, and machine learning to mixed qualitative-quantitative data.

Matthews first studied cultural diffusion in the social networks of capuchin monkeys in the Ecuadorian Amazon. He subsequently studied diffusion dynamics in systems ranging from ancient human migrations to contemporaneous Christian groups before bringing his experience to the applied sector. His applied work has used both quantitative and qualitative data to examine how cultural transmission influences a variety of decisions including religious violence and online misinformation.

Matthews' research has been featured in New Scientist, Science News, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. Prior to joining RAND, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, and worked in private industry for a startup social network analytics company. Matthews holds a doctorate in anthropology from New York University.