Gil Eyal

Gil Eyal is a professor of sociology at Columbia University in New York City. He is also the chair of the Department of Sociology at Columbia, a position he has held since 2014.

Eyal works in a broad field which encompasses sociological research on science, medicine, professions, intellectuals and knowledge, especially as these intersect with political and legal institutions. Eyal calls this field the "sociology of expertise," and he is interested in what scientists and professionals do, but also in how ordinary people as “lay experts” put together novel forms of expertise. Currently, Eyal is focused on understanding the causes and dimensions of the contemporary mistrust of experts, including the attempts to cast doubt on the findings of climate science, the refusal of parents to vaccinate their children, or the dismissal of sober assessments by economic experts (e.g. at the time of the Brexit debate). Those topics form the basis of his 2019 book "The Crisis of Expertise."

Eyal, who earned his Ph.D. in 1997 from UCLA, is the author of books on a variety of subjects, including autism, the Israeli state, and post-communist elites in eastern Europe.

Prior to becoming an associate professor and then a tenured professor at Columbia, Eyal was an associate professor at UC-Berkeley from 1997 to 2002.