Emma Zang is a PhD candidate in Public Policy at Duke University. She is also a Graduate Fellow at the Kenan Institute of Ethics, and a student affiliate at the Duke University Population Research Institute (DUPRI), Duke Network Analysis Center (DNAC), and the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. She received her Master of Arts in Economics at Duke University in 2017, Master of Philosophy in Social Sciences with a Demography concentration at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2014, and Bachelor of Law in Sociology at Tongji University in 2012.
Zang's research interests lie at the intersection of mortality and aging, marriage and family, and inequality. Her work aims to improve the understanding of 1) how household contexts and marriage market conditions affect individual mortality in the long run; 2) the racial and gender disparities in adult mortality patterns; 3) the pattern of inequality of opportunities among families; 4) and the gendered consequences of contemporary Chinese welfare policies.
Zang's methodological work focuses on applied Bayesian statistics, modeling group-based trajectories, and techniques of making multi-state life tables. Her ongoing work explores 1) Bayesian approaches to modeling group-based trajectories, incorporating Bayesian Model Averaging techniques; 2) Bayesian approaches to making multi-state life tables using high-dimensional survey data; 3) evaluations of Age-Period-Cohort (APC) models. Zang's work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Demography, Social Science & Medicine, and Sociological Science.
