Dr. Elizabeth Bruch

Biography

Elizabeth Bruch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan and serves as the Associate Director of Michigan’s Institute for Data, AI, and Society. She is an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. Her research integrates choice modeling with network science and agent-based simulation to study how individual decisions shape and are shaped by structured social environments. Bruch has made influential contributions to the study of residential segregation, marriage, dating markets, and higher education. Her work has been published in high-impact journals including Science, PNAS, Science Advances, Demography, and the American Journal of Sociology. Bruch has received several accolades recognizing her contributions to the field, including the Innovation Prize from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Methodology and the Merton Prize from the International Network of Analytical Sociologists. She is currently working on a forthcoming book, 'Date Like Local,' expected to be published by Princeton University Press in 2026, which will provide a data-rich exploration of how cities shape romantic opportunities and courtship behavior.

Research Interests