Cassie McMillan

Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Criminal Justice

Cassie McMillan’s research applies a social networks perspective to disentangle how our connections both reproduce and challenge systems of social inequality. She is interested in developing statistical and computational methodologies that can better address these questions and applying these techniques to study adolescent delinquency, health, and immigration. Her current research projects examine how social network ties that persist from adolescence to adulthood shape trajectories of tobacco, alcohol, and substance use across the life course. Results from this work will uncover the ways that our social network structures inform disparities in substance use and recovery. Other recent projects consider how adolescent friendship and dating patterns collectively shape the diffusion of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), as well as the role that youth networks play in shaping adolescents’ experiences with bullying and aggression.

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Awards & Honors

Roger V. Gould Prize, American Journal of Sociology, 2022.
Award for Best Interdisciplinary Collaboration and Advanced Science, Distributed Analytics and Information Sciences (DAIS), 2021
Outstanding Dissertation in Progress Award, American Sociology Association’s Mathematical Sociology Section, 2019.
Outstanding Graduate Paper Award, Honorable Mention, American Sociology Association’s Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section, 2019.

Selected Publications

McMillan, Cassie. 2022. “Worth the Weight: Conceptualizing and Measuring Strong versus Weak Tie Homophily.” Social Networks 68:139-147. Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378873321000496

McMillan, Cassie, Diane Felmlee, and James R. Ashford. 2022. “Reciprocity, Transitivity, and Skew: Comparing Local Structure in 40 Positive and Negative Social Networks.” PLOS ONE 17(5):e0267886. Link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267886

McMillan, Cassie and David R. Schaefer. 2021. “Comparing Targeting Strategies for Network-Based Adolescent Drinking Interventions: A Simulation Approach.” Social Science & Medicine 282:114-136. Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953621004688

Faris, Robert, Diane Felmlee, and Cassie McMillan. 2020. “With Friends Like These: Aggression from Amity and Equivalence.” American Journal of Sociology 126(3):673-713. Link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/712972

McMillan, Cassie. 2019. “Tied Together: Adolescent Friendship Networks, Immigrant Status, and Health Outcomes.” Demography 56(3):1075-1103. Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13524-019-00770-w