H. Russell Bernard

H. Russell Bernard, born in New York City on June 12, 1940,{{cite web |title=Curriculum Vita |url=https://hrussellbernard.com/cv/ |publisher=H. Russell Bernard |access-date=February 21, 2025}} majored in anthropology and sociology at New York's Queens College, earning a BA in 1961.{{cite web |title=Curriculum Vita |url=https://search.asu.edu/profile/2612330/cv |publisher=ASU |access-date=February 21, 2025}}

He earned an MA in linguistic anthropology from University of Illinois in 1963, doing work that he later said shaped much of his career.

He then continued at the University of Illinois, doing graduate work in the area of quantitative data analysis with his thesis adviser Edward Bruner, getting his Ph.D. in 1968.

Bernard's anthropology career after leaving the University of Illinois included work at Washington State University and at West Virginia University. The University of Florida anthropology department recruited him as a full professor and department chair in 1979.{{cite web |title=Bernard steps aside as chair |url=https://anthro.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/55/newsletter-1989.pdf |website=Anthropology at Florida Newsletter |publisher=University of Florida |access-date=February 21, 2025 |date=1989 |quote=Bernard was recruited as Professor and Chair from West Virginia University in 1979.}} In 2015, ASU hired Bernard to direct its Institute for Social Science Research.{{cite web |title=Anthropology expert tapped to accelerate social science research at ASU |url=https://news.asu.edu/content/anthropology-expert-tapped-accelerate-social-science-research-asu |publisher=ASU News |access-date=February 21, 2025 |date=January 6, 2015 }}

File:Six degrees of separation.svg

Bernard (together with oceanographer Peter Killworth whom he met in 1972 while both were working at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography){{cite news |title=Are you average and know 290 people? |url=http://old.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20020324peopleknow0324p1.asp |access-date=February 23, 2025 |work=Post Gazette|quote=Bernard and Killworth believe that the mathematical model they've developed may one day provide government agencies and other organizations with an easy, inexpensive way to estimate hard-to-count populations, such as the homeless, abused children, rape victims, heroin users and people with HIV. |date=March 24, 2002|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807094503/http://old.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20020324peopleknow0324p1.asp |archive-date=August 7, 2020 }} designed the "reverse small world" experiment (1978). This took an approach different from Stanley Milgram's "small-world" research, which had been done in the 1960's. Where Milgram had studied the network-distance between two random people (Six degrees of separation), Bernard and Killworth instead asked people to name a person whom they would first approach if they were starting to reach out to contact an unknown person.{{cite book |author1=Jon Kleinberg |chapter=The small-world phenomenon: An algorithmic perspective |author1-link=Jon Kleinberg |title=Proceedings of the thirty-second annual ACM symposium on Theory of computing |date=May 1, 2002 |pages=163–170 |doi=10.1145/335305.335325 |isbn=1-58113-184-4 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1145/335305.335325}}

Bernard and Killworth also developed the "network scale-up method" (NSUM), a new and inexpensive way to estimate the size of hard-to-count populations. Its original use was to estimate the number of people who had been killed by a recent earthquake. By asking each respondent a number of questions in the form "How many X's do you know?", they were able to use data from populations whose size they knew (doctors, people over 80, etc.) to scale-up from the number of earthquake victims known to each respondent to the probable number of earthquake victims in a population.{{cite journal |title=Generalizing the Network Scale-Up Method: A New Estimator for the Size of Hidden Populations |journal=Sociological Methodology |date=2016 |volume=46 |issue=1 |pages=153–186 |doi=10.1177/0081175016665425 |pmc=5783650 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/0081175016665425 |access-date=February 27, 2025 |quote=The core insight behind the network scale-up method is that ordinary people have embedded within their personal networks information that can be used to estimate the size of hidden populations, if that information can be properly collected, aggregated, and adjusted (Bernard et al., 1989, 2010). |last1=Feehan |first1=D. M. |last2=Salganik |first2=M. J. |pmid=29375167 }}

Their NSUM mathematical model has also been used to improve calculation of the size of a person's social network.{{cite news |title=The Average American Knows How Many People? |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/the-average-american-knows-how-many-people.html |access-date=February 21, 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=February 18, 2013}} The 1990's Dunbar's number theorem had estimated people's average social network size was about 150. The Bernard-Killworth number was about 290.{{cite journal |last1=McCarty |first1=C. |last2=Killworth |first2=P. D. |last3=Bernard |first3=H. R. |last4=Johnsen |first4=E. |last5=Shelley |first5=G. |title=Comparing Two Methods for Estimating Network Size |journal=Human Organization |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=28–39 |year=2000 |doi= 10.17730/humo.60.1.efx5t9gjtgmga73y|url=https://www.bebr.ufl.edu/sites/default/files/Comparing%20Two%20Methods%20for%20Estimating%20Network%20Size_0.pdf}} A survey paper "Thirty Years of The Network Scale-up Method" published in 2021 in the Journal of the American Statistical Association reported that network scale-up methods still needed more improvement but, having "been used in a large number of real-world studies..have offered promising results in the field of size estimation."{{cite journal |title=Thirty Years of The Network Scale-up Method |journal=Journal of the American Statistical Association |date=July 21, 2021 |volume=116 |issue=535 |pages=1548–1559 |doi=10.1080/01621459.2021.1935267 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2021.1935267 |quote=The NSUM uses questions from “How many X’s do you know?” surveys to estimate both average network size and subpopulation sizes.|access-date=February 23, 2025 |last1=Laga |first1=Ian |last2=Bao |first2=Le |last3=Niu |first3=Xiaoyue |pmid=37994314 |pmc=10665021 }}

While studying tone-patterns of the Otomi language in 1962, Bernard started collaborating with Otomi-speaker Jesús Salinas Pedraza. In 1971, they began working on an ethnography that would be written by Pedraza in his native language and translated by Bernard.{{cite book |author1=H. Russell Bernard |author2=Jesus Salinas Pedraza |author1-link=H. Russell Bernard |title=As Linguas amazônicas hoje (The Amazonian languages today) |date=2000 |isbn=85-85994-06-1 |url=https://horizon.documentation.ird.fr/exl-doc/pleins_textes/divers14-11/010022973.pdf |access-date=February 23, 2025 |chapter=La formación de autores autóctonos |quote=In 1971, Bernard was about to write an ethnography on the Nahfiu, when Salinas suggested that he wanted to write an ethnography on his own culture.}} Using an Apple II computer with Gutenberg word-processing software, Bernard was able to create custom fonts with special characters matching the orthography of Otomi language.{{cite web |author1=H. Russell Bernard |title=Preserving Language Diversity: Computers can be a tool for making the survival of languages possible |url=https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/preserving-language-diversity-computers-can-be-tool-making |access-date=February 23, 2025 |date=March 11, 2010}} This collaboration produced four volumes written in Otomi with translations into English and Spanish.

Since the 1980s, Bernard has worked to preserve vanishing languages by helping native speakers use computers to create books in those languages.{{cite news |author1=John Noble Wilford |author1-link=John Noble Wilford |title=In a Publishing Coup, Books in 'Unwritten' Languages |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/31/science/in-a-publishing-coup-books-in-unwritten-languages.html |access-date=February 21, 2025 |work=The New York Times |date=December 31, 1991 |quote=In an effort to preserve language diversity in Mexico, Dr. Bernard and Mr. Salinas decided in 1987 on a plan to teach the Indian people to read and write their own languages using microcomputers.}} By using computers to create WYSIWYG text in scripts used for vanishing languages, Bernard's goal was to create camera-ready text and reduce the cost of creating books in those languages.{{cite journal |last1=Diskin |first1=Martin |title=Anthropological Fieldwork in Mesoamerica: Focus on the Field |journal=Latin American Research Review |date=1995 |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=163–175 |doi=10.1017/S0023879100017222 |jstor=2504092 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/2504092}} According to Bernard, desktop publishing can play a vital role in helping indigenous-language authors share their work.{{cite journal |last1=Galla |first1=Candace K. |title=Indigenous language revitalization, promotion, and education: function of digital technology |journal=Computer Assisted Language Learning |date=2016 |volume=29 |issue=7 |pages=1137–1151 |doi=10.1080/09588221.2016.1166137 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09588221.2016.1166137 |access-date=February 24, 2025}}{{cite journal |author1=H. Russell Bernard |author1-link=H. Russell Bernard |title=Preserving Language Diversity |journal=Human Organization |date=1992 |volume=51 |issue=1 |pages=82–89 |doi=10.17730/humo.51.1.bp4765g377q32761 |jstor=44126201 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44126201 |quote=Teaching people to read primers and Bibles does not produce authors; it produces readers. Printing presses and publishing houses produce authors.}}

Writing in The Washington Post in 2008, Joel Garreau called Bernard "a grand old man of endangered-language research."{{cite news |title=Babble On, Say Researchers In 'Linguists' Documentary |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/style/2008/10/02/babble-on-say-researchers-in-linguists-documentary/263e3d8f-a240-4ac1-b6b2-0f710a8d7268/ |access-date=February 21, 2025 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=October 1, 2008 |quote=H. Russell Bernard is a grand old man of endangered-language research, having devoted four decades to it.}}

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|quote = Research is a craft. I’m not talking analogy here. Research isn’t like a craft. It is a craft. If you know what people have to go through to become skilled carpenters or makers of clothes, you have some idea of what it takes to learn the skills for doing research. It takes practice, practice, and more practice.

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|source = Research Methods in Anthropology, page 1 (4th edition, 2006)

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Bernard's work on practical aspects of anthropology has been influential, not least his widely-quoted mantra that "research is a craft."{{cite web |author1=Miranda Sheild Johansson |author2=Laura Montesi |title=Dog Bites and Gastrointestinal Disorders |url=https://doi.org/10.22582/ta.v10i3.615 |publisher=Teaching Anthropology |doi=10.22582/ta.v10i3.615 |quote=...it has been said that “research is a craft” (Bernard 2006: 1)}}{{cite web |author1=Weidan Li |title=Some random tips on UX research |url=https://medium.com/@weidanlee/some-random-tips-on-ux-research-e9af089a04e8|quote=Research isn’t like a craft. It is a craft. |publisher=Medium |access-date=February 26, 2025 |date=December 13, 2022}} {{cite web |author1=Stephen Melamed |author1-link=Stephen Melamed |title=Cultural Mining: Turning Small Insights into Actionable Design Cues |url=https://www.idsa.org/wp-content/uploads/Melamed-Cultural_Mining.pdf |website=International Design Society of America|quote=If you know what people have to go through to become skilled carpenters… you have some idea of what it takes to learn the skills for doing research. |access-date=February 26, 2025}}

In the 1980s, Bernard, together with Pertti J. Pelto and Stephen Borgatti, started the three-times-yearly Cultural Anthropology Methods Newsletter (sometimes called the CAM Newsletter), which in 1989 became the Cultural Anthropology Methods Journal.{{cite journal |last1=Pelto |first1=P.J. |title=What Is So New About Mixed Methods? |journal=Qualitative Health Research |date=2005 |volume=25 |issue=6 |pages=734–735 |doi=10.1177/1049732315573209 |pmid=25721718 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315573209 |quote=We started with a newsletter, Cultural Anthropology Methods, sometimes referred to as the CAM Newsletter. Most of the editorial work and logistics for the CAM was managed by Russ Bernard and his team of colleagues and graduate students at the University of Florida. Quite soon, the CAM newsletter transformed into a full-scale journal, beginning in 1989.}} Bernard was its first editor, continuing in that role when in 1995 the journal changed its name to Field Methods.{{cite book |last1=Woolcott |first1=Harry F. |title=Ethnography: A Way of Seeing |date=1999 |publisher=AltaMira Press |isbn=9780761990918 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nqAuhKBw8x0C&q=%22CAM%20Journal%22 |quote=Russ Bernard...is the founding editor of CAM and continues in that role for Field Methods.}}{{cite web |title=Field Methods (Formerly Cultural Anthropology Methods) |date=October 28, 2015 |url=https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/field-methods |publisher=Sage Publishing |access-date=February 25, 2025 |quote=Field Methods (formerly Cultural Anthropology Methods) publishes articles about methods used by field investigators from the social and behavioral sciences in the collection, management, analysis and presentation of data about human thought and/or human behavior in the natural world.}}

Bernard has also served as editor of other scholarly journals. From 1976–1981, he edited Human Organization, the journal of the Society for Applied Anthropology. From 1981–1989, he was editor-in-chief of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Bernard is the author of Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology (6th edition){{cite book |last1=Bernard |first1=H. Russell |title=Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology |date=2017 |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4422-6888-3 |url=https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442268883/Research-Methods-in-Anthropology-Qualitative-and-Quantitative-Approaches-Sixth-Edition |access-date=February 23, 2025}} which has been described as "the most revered book of cultural anthropological research methods" (E. N. Anderson){{cite journal |author1=Eugene N. Anderson |author1-link=E. N. Anderson |title=A Method in Our Madness: Experiences With Seeking Local Knowledge |journal=Journal of Ethnobiology |date=April 18, 2023 |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=6–11 |doi=10.1177/02780771231162183 |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/02780771231162183 |access-date=February 23, 2025 |quote=The most revered book of cultural anthropological research methods is Russell Bernard's Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology (2006), which must be in the library of every ethnographer and serious ethnobiologist}} and "without doubt the best book in this field" (Daniel Bates).{{cite web |last1=Bates |first1=D.G. |title=Research methods in cultural anthropology |url=https://catalogtest.lib.uchicago.edu/vufind/Record/877964/Reviews |publisher=University of Chicago Library |access-date=February 23, 2025 |quote=This is without doubt the best book in this field and its publication fills a real need.}} His other books on methodology include Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches{{cite book |last1=Bernard |first1=H. Russell |title=Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches |date=2013 |publisher=Sage Publications |isbn=9781412978545 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7sZHuhyzBNQC}} and Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches (2nd edition, coauthored with Gery W. Ryan and Amber Wutich).{{cite book |last1=Bernard |first1=H. Russell |title=Analyzing Qualitative Data: Systematic Approaches |date=2016 |publisher=Sage Publications |isbn=9781483344386 |url=https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/analyzing-qualitative-data/book240717 |access-date=February 23, 2025}}

The "methods camp" summer training program in cultural anthropology was started, with NSF support, by Bernard and Pertti Pelto in 1987.{{cite journal |title=Commentary: The History and Purpose of Methods Camp |url=https://meridian.allenpress.com/practicing-anthropology/article-abstract/30/1/4/106152/Commentary-The-History-and-Purpose-of-Methods-Camp?redirectedFrom=fulltext|journal=Practicing Anthropology | date=2008 | doi=10.17730/praa.30.1.n3t7352744705g31 |quote=NSF's Short Courses in Research Methods (SCRM) program ... is part of a larger, long-term project (popularly known in the discipline as "methods camp") to help cultural anthropologists develop skills in research design, data collection, and data analysis. | last1=Bernard | first1=H. Russell | volume=30 | pages=4–5 }}{{cite journal |author1=H. Russell Bernard |author1-link=H. Russell Bernard |title=The History and Purpose of Methods Camp |journal=Practicing Anthropology |date=2008 |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=4–5 |doi=10.17730/praa.30.1.n3t7352744705g31 |url=https://doi.org/10.17730/praa.30.1.n3t7352744705g31 |access-date=February 23, 2025 }} The NSF-funded Cultural Anthropology Methods Program (CAMP) at ASU, which Bernard co-leads with his former student Amber Wutich,{{cite web |title=This expert on water scarcity would never call herself a 'genius.' But MacArthur would |work=NPR |date=October 4, 2023 |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/04/1203501722/this-expert-on-water-scarcity-would-never-call-herself-a-genius-but-macarthur-wo |publisher=ASU News |access-date=February 22, 2025 |last1=Barnhart |first1=Max }} is a continuation of this program. In 2024, the Cultural Anthropology Methods Program started "CAMP-International," inviting anthropologists around the world to a virtual online version of the program, including a listserv and YouTube curriculum, where lectures in English are available with subtitles "in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Swahili, Bangla, and Guarani."{{cite journal |title="Methods Going Global: A New International Cultural Anthropology Methods Program (CAMP) and Community of Practice. |journal=Practicing Anthropology 46 |date=2024 |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=82–83 |doi=10.1080/08884552.2024.2345789 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/08884552.2024.2345789 |access-date=February 26, 2025 |quote=CAMP-International creates a Community of Practice for anthropologists worldwide to exchange teaching materials, seek advice, and foster collaborations. |last1=Wutich |first1=Amber |last2=Bernard |first2=H. Russell }}

Bernard was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2010.{{cite web |title=H. Russell Bernard |url=https://www.nasonline.org/directory-entry/h-russell-bernard-fdxl5g/ |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=February 21, 2025 |quote=I have worked with indigenous people in Mexico to develop ways to publish works in previously nonwritten languages. I also do research in social network analysis, particularly on the problem of estimating the size of uncountable populations.}} He has received from The American Anthropological Association both their Franz Boas Award (2003){{cite web |title=H. Russell Bernard |url=https://americananthro.org/people/h-russell-bernard/ |publisher=American Antropological Association |access-date=February 21, 2025}}{{cite web |title=Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology |url=https://americananthro.org/prizes-and-awards/franz-boas-award/ |publisher=American Antropological Association |access-date=February 23, 2025 |quote=The Franz Boas Award recognizes Association members who have made exceptional contributions to anthropology with respect to the increase and dissemination of humanistic and scientific knowledge and/or service to the profession.}} and their Conrad M. Arensberg Award (2024).{{cite web |title=The American Anthropological Association's 2024 Award Recipients |date=November 6, 2024 |url=https://americananthro.org/news/aaa-announces-2024-award-recipients/ |access-date=February 21, 2025}}{{cite web |title=Conrad M. Arensberg Award |url=https://americananthro.org/prizes-and-awards/conrad-arensberg-award/ |publisher=American Antropological Association |quote=the Conrad Arensberg Award .. honors individuals who have furthered anthropology as a natural science.}} The Society for Anthropological Sciences, which "promotes empirical research and social science in anthropology," has since 2016 awarded the "H. Russell Bernard Graduate Student Paper Prize" for a student paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.{{cite web |title=Society for Anthropological Sciences |url=https://www.societyforanthropologicalsciences.org/p/awards-prizes.html |publisher=Society for Anthropological Sciences |access-date=February 22, 2025 |quote=H. Russell Bernard Graduate Student Paper Prize $500.00}}{{cite journal |title=First H. Russell Bernard Graduate Student Paper Prize |journal=Anthropology News |date=February 28, 2018 |volume=58 |issue=4 |doi=10.1111/AN.538 |url=https://doi.org/10.1111/AN.538 |access-date=February 21, 2025 |last1=Henderson |first1=Nicole L. |last2=Copeland |first2=Toni }}

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{{sister links|d=Q56000059|c=no|n=no|b=no|v=no|voy=no|s=no|wikt=no|m=no|mw=no|species=no|q=yes}}

• [https://hrussellbernard.com/ Personal website]
• [https://books4everyone.net/about/ Free publishing site for books in indigenous languages]
• [https://methods4all.org/ Website for Cultural Anthropology Methods Program (CAMP)]

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Category:1940 births

Category:Arizona State University faculty

Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences

Category:American cultural anthropologists

Category:Living people

Category:Scientists from New York City