Winner of the Cooley-Mead award for career contributions to social psychology, Peter J. Burke is a professor in the Department of Sociology and a Fellow of the AAAS. One of the originators of Identity Theory, his research draws on Complexity Theory, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Simulation to understand (1) how individuals, acting as agents with particular identities, come together in interaction to create larger aggregates, groups, organizations and societies, and (2) how these social structures constrain and limit the kinds of actions that individuals can take.