Walter W. Powell

Woody Powell is Jacks Family Professor of Education, and (by courtesy) professor of sociology, organizational behavior, management science and engineering, and communication at Stanford University. He has been faculty co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society since its founding in 2006. He is also an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He has received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, Copenhagen Business School, and Aalto University, and is an international member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and The British Academy. With Bob Gibbons (MIT), he has led the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) summer institute on Organizations and their Effectiveness since 2016. Currently a faculty fellow, he was a fellow at CASBS in 1986-87 and 2008-09, and interim director in 2022-23. He works on questions of emergence, e.g., where does novelty come from, and historical persistence, e.g. why are some things sticky.