Chris Girard

Bio

Since 2018, my research has focused on developing coevolving informatics as a new transdisciplinary paradigm. The paradigm links three coevolving dimensions found in all adaptive systems: information flow, spatiotemporal dynamics, and energy conversion. The paradigm’s key premise is that system longevity depends on stacking code-based information flows that overcome spatiotemporal and energetic constraints. Presently, this informatics paradigm has been applied to global racialization and deracialization processes (Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-019-00152-2) and to major transitions in biological evolution (BioSystems, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2024.105133). Most recently, I utilize a coevolving-informatics perspective to understand growth in women’s political and military participation in Norway.

I began in the 1980s by developing an alternative to Durkheim’s explanation of suicide. My Ph.D. dissertation explores ethnic differences in global age and gender patterns of suicide. A portion of this cross-national analysis was published in 1993 in the American Sociological Review (https://doi.org/10.2307/2096076). Later, with coauthor Guillermo Grenier, I analyzed the effect of the South Florida enclave on the distinctive ideology of Cuban Americans. We also published on Cuban American attitudes toward maintaining the U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In addition, I investigated Cuban immigrants and native blacks leaving welfare, and I have analyzed modes of immigrant entry into the U.S.

I teach Introduction to Sociology as a hybrid course, which is half online and half on campus. I also teach Anthropology of Race and Ethnicity as a fully online course. Both courses feature a distinctive historical and global framework, shaped by the coevolving-informatics perspective. Building on my background in quantitative measurement, I chair the Faculty Evaluation and Merit Distribution Committee.

Areas of Expertise

Coevolving informatics, macroevolution, code stacking, racialization and ethnicity, women’s political and military participation, quantitative methods, survey research