Desmond Upton Patton

Desmond Upton Patton is the Brian and Randi Schwartz University professor and the 31st Penn Integrates Knowledge University professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He has joint appointments in the School of Social Policy & Practice and the Annenberg School for Communication and a secondary appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine. Desmond’s groundbreaking research into the relationship between social media and gang violence—specifically how communities constructed online can often influence harmful behavior offline—led him to become the most cited and recognized scholar in this increasingly important area of social science.