Dr. Anna Kaiser

Anna Kaiser is a sociologist. Her academic work is motivated by an interest in how ideas, norms, and behavior travel through networks and how we can use networks for promoting health behavior change. Kaiser’s research has contributed to diverse substantive areas including network-based cohorting strategies to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in classrooms, narrative relationships in political discourse and relational identity formation in networks. In her dissertation, she studied the temporal and spatial unfolding of witch-hunts in early modern Scotland. Her current projects are in the area of network-based recruitment and network interventions in the field of Public Health. 

Kaiser completed her undergraduate education at Humboldt University in Berlin. She then received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in the City of New York, where she began her studies as a Fulbright Scholar. Before joining the department, she taught introductory and specialty classes on social networks at the University of Mannheim.

Research Interests

• Social Health
• Networks and eating behavior
• Social networks and hard-to-reach groups
• Narratives

Selected Publications

Kaiser, Anna Karoline, David Kretschmer, and Lars Leszczensky. 2021. Social Network-Based Cohorting to Reduce the Spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Secondary Schools: A Simulation Study in Classrooms of Four European Countries. The Lancet Regional Health – Europe 8. doi: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100166.

Mitschele, Anna, 2014. Identity and Opportunity in Early Modern Politics: How Job Vacancies Induced Witch Persecutions in Scotland, 1563–1736 151. In G. Manzo, ed. Analytical Sociology: Actions and Networks. John Wiley & Sons, pp. 151 – 178.