An Analysis of Four Academic Department Collaboration Networks with Respect to Gender

摘要

Understanding how research is conducted is important for understanding how we get the information that influences the decisions we make. One method used for analyzing the patterns behind research is building collaboration networks. In a collaboration network, vertices represent researchers and an edge exists between two vertices if the corresponding researchers have collaborated. We construct a collaboration network for the faculty in the Biology, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, and Mathematics departments at a large undergraduate university in California. For each of these departments, we analyze collaboration patterns with respect to gender within this network. We find interesting collaborative behavior in the Mathematics department that differs from previously established claims about gender with respect to collaboration.