Patrick Doreian
American mathematician
Patrick Doreian is an American mathematician and social scientist, whose specialty is network analysis. His specific research interests include blockmodeling, social structure and network processes.
Doreian, professor emeritus from the University of Pittsburgh in sociology and statistics, was during his research career focused on social network research, especially regarding temporal networks, scientific collaboration, partitioning networks, signed networks, network autocorrelation and the US Supreme Court. He was also an (co)editor of The Journal of Mathematical Sociology (1982–2005) and Social Networks (2006–2015).
He was also a Centennial professor at the London School of Economics (2002) and a visiting professor at the University of California-Irvine and the University of Ljubljana.
Work
With Thomas J. Fararo in 1984, he introduced tripartite structural analysis.
With Norman P. Hummon in 1989, he proposed a main path analysis, a mathematical tool, to identify the major paths in a citation network, which is one form of a directed acyclic graph (DAG).
In 1994, with Vladimir Batagelj and Anuška Ferligoj, he introduced the generalized blockmodeling.
Awards
His co-authored book Generalized blockmodeling (with Vladimir Batagelj and Anuška Ferligoj), was in 2007 awarded the Harrison White Outstanding Book Award by the Mathematical Sociology Section of American Sociological Association.
Selected bibliography
P. Doreian, V. Batagelj, A. Ferligoj, Mark Granovetter (Series Editor), Generalized Blockmodeling (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences), Cambridge University Press 2004 (ISBN 0-521-84085-6)
P. Doreian and A. Mrvar, “A Partitioning Approach to Structural Balance”, Social Networks, Vol.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Patrick Doreian” as american mathematician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american mathematician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q108123893. VIAF identifies the subject as 161308808. The Library of Congress control number is no97066212. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1982, 2005, 2006 and 2015.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Patrick Doreian”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Patrick Doreian primary sources, Patrick Doreian archive and Patrick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Patrick Doreian”?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Patrick Doreian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.