Philipp Brandt

I am an assistant professor of sociology at Sciences Po, Paris, and a chercheur at the Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CSO). Previously, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mannheim, Germany. I hold a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University in New York City.

In my research, I develop computational approaches to study work trajectories and activities in emergent, precarious, and otherwise unstable settings. My substantive projects address a series of complementary questions, such as how experts define their role and identity in the digital era, how street-level bureaucrats operate in a hostile political setting, and how immigrant workers array jobs and gigs into careers outside of established paths. I use different established methods and techniques to address these issues but focus in particular on integrating ideas from qualitative research into analyses of large-scale behavioral records for making new sociological observations.

This approach is geared toward capturing the micro-level unfolding of recent technological and economic changes, which I analyze in important and analytically productive cases: data science’s early formation, a US federal economic development agency, New York City taxi drivers, and work trajectories of immigrant workers in German firms. My findings inform a larger argument about non-standard work by revealing how workers leverage gaps between their work’s underlying social arrangements and overt appearances for distinct gains.

Companies

• Assistant Professor Sciences Po (2019)
• Chercheur Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (2019)
• Postdoc University of Mannheim (2016 — 2019)
• PhD Student Columbia University (2010 — 2016)