I am a Professor of Social Statistics in the Department of Social Statistics at the University of Manchester, which is part of the School of Social Sciences. I am also a member of the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis and the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research. Before joining Manchester in April 2024, I was a Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Government at the University of Essex. I am also a DFG Mercator Fellow in the Research Training Group on Digital Platform Ecosystems at the University of Passau (2022-2027) and serve as chair of the Political Networks Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in 2024-2025.

My main research interests are politics and public policy, network analysis and complex systems, statistical modelling, and computational social sciences. I am best known for my work on discourse network analysis (and the software Discourse Network Analyzer), the texreg R package, and my work on statistical models for longitudinal network data (e.g., implemented in the btergm R package).

My research has appeared in leading political science journals (e.g., AJPS, JOP, BJPS), public policy and administration journals (e.g., PSJ, JPART), technical journals (e.g., Physica A: Statistical Mechanics, Network Science, JStatSoft), and outlets in other fields (e.g., Nature Climate Change, Addiction, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin).

Personal homepage: https://www.philipleifeld.com