Kenneth Frank, an MSU Research Foundation Distinguished Professor of Sociometrics, received the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Award from the American Sociological Association. The annual honor recognizes scholars who have made outstanding contributions to the field of sociological methodology.
He is the first scholar from Michigan State University to earn this national accolade.
Frank's research centers on the study of schools as organizations, social structures of students and teachers, and school decision-making and social capital. His current work centers on how first-generation college students draw on their networks and supports to persist in college, how shocks affect food distribution networks and how networks of fishermen interact with ecological networks to transform an ecosystem.
Frank has developed real-world tools for educators and scholars, including serving as the lead on KonFound-It. This software helps quantify the robustness of causal inferences. The tool helps a broad set of stakeholders understand when “evidence is strong enough to justify action” or “how much of the observed effect would need to be bias-driven to alter conclusions.” The complementary KonFound-It R Shiny App has been used by more than 30,000 users since 2018. He was also a senior researcher on the Carbon TIME project at MSU, a science education program aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards.
More recently, Frank assumed leadership roles in the College of Education: serving as the program director for the long-standing Measurement & Quantitative Methods doctoral program and the and fully online Educational Statistics & AI master's program that will launch with its first cohort this fall.
"From his innovative research that helps scholars solve dataset queries, to leading our academic programs, Dr. Ken Frank has showed time and again his commitment to advancing education and research. It is an honor to count him among our distinguished College of Education scholars," said Jerlando F. L. Jackson, dean and fellow MSU Research Foundation Distinguished Professor. "This award honors a career, and more importantly an individual, who has improved research projects, guided career trajectories and taught the next generation of scholars. Congratulations to Dr. Frank."
Frank, who holds courtesy appointments with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Fisheries and Wildlife) and the College of Social Science (Sociology), joined MSU in 1992. He became a full professor in 2007 and was one of the first to be recognized as a Research Foundation Professor (later changed to Research Foundation Distinguished Professor).
He has earned more than $38 million in internal and external grant funding to conduct research, including serving as co-principal investigator on a $10 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to “develop more resilient food systems.” His work, which has been cited nearly 20,000 times (Google Scholar), has appeared in journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, Sociology of Education, American Journal of Sociology, Social Networks, Nature, Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences and more. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.
“[Frank] has generated new techniques for causal inference, social network analysis and multilevel models as well as developed unique applications of agent-based models and BIG data,” wrote scholars in a nomination letter for Frank. “[A] hallmark of his work is that he develops leading-edge methods that can be deployed to deepen the understanding of not only other methodologists and scholars, but also of policymakers and the communities with which he engages. As one observer put it: ‘He works very hard so that other people can have an easy time of it!’”
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MSU will launch the fully online Educational Statistics & AI program in fall 2026, with Frank at the helm. If you’re curious about how data and artificial intelligence are reshaping education, this program is built for you. The program prepares professionals to lead at the intersection of analytics, policy and innovation, all in a flexible format designed for working adults. Learn more, or join an upcoming free virtual information session on our website.