I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Yale University, with secondary appointments in Biostatistics and Global Affairs. I completed my Ph.D. in Public Policy in 2019 and my MA in Economics in 2017, both from Duke University. During the academic year 2021-22, I was a Visiting Research Scholar at the Center for Health and Wellbeing within the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. In the Spring of 2024, I am a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Work and Employment Research within the MIT Sloan School of Management.
My research interests lie at the intersection of social epidemiology, demography, and inequality, using advanced data science and statistical tools. My work advances new ways of understanding how the social world shapes and is shaped by the interactions and structures of families and society, with a particular focus on relational mechanisms in social stratification and the production of inequality within the health domain in the United States and China. This focus has led me to study several key areas: Intra-household Dynamics and Inter-household Inequality: Exploring how interactions and resource allocations within households contribute to broader patterns of inequality between different households. Family Policies and Inequality: Investigating how policies, including marriage laws and flexible work arrangements, can either mitigate or exacerbate social and economic inequalities. Life-course Experience and Later-life Health: Examining how individual and contextual experiences across the life course influence health outcomes in later life. Population Approach to Human Cognition: Understanding how cognitive development and functioning are shaped within a population framework, considering both individual and societal factors.
I also develop and evaluate statistical methods to model trajectories and life transitions, aiming to understand health disparities from a life course perspective. My research primarily focuses on employing Bayesian approaches to: modeling trajectories; integrating multiple data sources; and constructing multi-state life tables using high-dimensional survey data. Additionally, my work evaluates classic demographic and sociological methods, including the Age-Period-Cohort Intrinsic Estimator and the Diagonal Mobility Model. My work has appeared in top general science journals (PNAS, Nature Human Behaviour), sociology journals (American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Journal of Marriage and Family), demography journals (Demography, Population and Development Review), quantitative methodology journals (Psychological Methods, Sociological Methodology), population health journals (Social Science & Medicine, International Journal of Epidemiology), and medical journals (JAMA Internal Medicine, Obesity, Age and Ageing). My projects have been funded by the National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association and the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
My research has received media coverage from over 500 outlets in the United States, China, South Korea, India, and Singapore, including CNN, NBC, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, ThePaper.cn (China), and the Straits Times (Singapore). I have been interviewed for my expertise on flexible work arrangements and population policies in the US and China by BBC, NBC, China Global Television Network, and MoneyToday (South Korea).
I am a Butler-Williams Scholar and an IMPACT Faculty Scholar of the US National Institute on Aging, and a Next Generation Leader of the Committee of 100 (the leading organization of prominent Chinese Americans). I have been the recipient of the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship from the European Commission, the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad from the China Scholarship Council, and the Early Career Faculty Scholarship from the OAIC National Coordinating Center of the US National Institute on Aging. My work has received multiple academic awards from the American Sociological Association, the International Sociological Association Research Committee on Social Stratification and Mobility, IPUMS USA, the Southern Demographic Association, and the Social Science History Association. If you're interested in learning more about me and my academic journey, you can read an insightful interview article written by Aimee Bronfeld at Princeton University.
