Extracting Insights from Differences: Analyzing Node-aligned Social Graphs by Srayan Datta A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Computer Science and Engineering) in The University of Michigan 2019 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Eytan Adar, Chair Associate Professor Mike Cafarella Assistant Professor Danai Koutra Associate Professor Clifford Lampe Srayan Datta
[email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5800-830X c Srayan Datta 2019 To my family and friends ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are several people who made this dissertation possible, first among this long list is my adviser, Eytan Adar. Pursuing a doctoral program after just finishing un- dergraduate studies can be a daunting task but Eytan made it easy with his patience, kindness, and guidance. I learned a lot from our collaborations and idle conversations and I am very grateful for that. I would like to extend my thanks to the rest of my thesis committee, Mike Ca- farella, Danai Koutra and Cliff Lampe for their suggestions and constructive feed- back. I would also like to thank the following faculty members, Daniel Romero, Ceren Budak, Eric Gilbert and David Jurgens for their long insightful conversations and suggestions about some of my projects. I would like to thank all of friends and colleagues who helped (as a co-author or through critique) or supported me through this process. This is an enormous list but I am especially thankful to Chanda Phelan, Eshwar Chandrasekharan, Sam Carton, Cristina Garbacea, Shiyan Yan, Hari Subramonyam, Bikash Kanungo, and Ram Srivatasa. I would like to thank my parents for their unwavering support and faith in me.