My dissertation was selected as a co-winner of the best dissertation award from the Section on Urban and Local Politics of the American Political Science Association. So happy and so grateful. I will email my advisors after teaching today.
My first pedagogy paper is soon to be out in PS: Political Science and Politics. The inspiration for this paper came from the lightning talk I gave at SICSS-Princeton'19 as a participant. Grateful for my wonderful coauthor Margaret Ng (UIUC) and the journey.
I'm on the market this year and applying for all over social science, academic and non-academic, in the US and outside the US jobs. If your org needs a computational social scientist with a healthy obsession with diversity, inclusion, data quality, and workflow, let me know!
I made small adjustments to my intro R textbook that covers command-line tools, Git/GitHub, base R, tidyverse (tidyr, dplyr, ggplot2), functional programming (purrr), digital data collection, machine learning (tidymodels based), and SQL:
🚨New preprint titled “A Three-Step Guide to Training Computational Social Science Ph.D. Students for Academic and Non-Academic Careers” (joint work with
@Akesari12
,
@imsonoshah
, Taylor Brown,
@_Tiagoventura
, and
@tinaL___
). A labor of love. It has taken around 3 years.
I developed an R package (`tidyethnicnews`), which turns search results from one of the largest databases on ethnic newspapers and magazines (in US) into a tidyverse-ready dataframe. e.g., It takes 28 seconds to turn 5,684 articles into a dataframe. 1/n
I will be a research fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School this upcoming academic year. I'm excited to formalize and expand my collaborative work with Liz plus getting one more excuse to travel to the East Coast.
Finally, my co-authored work is accepted at Perspectives on Politics. By analyzing more than 1 million tweets and a national survey, we showed how Trump's othering speech (the Chinese virus) made Asian Americans lean toward the DEM during the pandemic:
I created a slide deck () for my coauthored paper on training computational social science PhDs for academic and non-academic career paths: (FYI, the target is social science Ph.D. students).
I am humbled to have been selected as this year's recipient of the 2024 Emerging Scholar Award in Civic Engagement from APSA. I am looking forward to meeting other civic scholars in Philly soon!
Finished reading Doing Economics while flying from SF to Montreal the day before yesterday. Packed with honest and useful advice that you wish you could have known earlier.
My paper titled "Racism Is Not Enough: Minority Coalition Building in San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver" is published in
@StudiesAPD
, the flagship journal of American Political Development. The link for the paper is here (ungated read access): 1/n
Slowly putting together the chapters of my dissertation. My late father was a factory worker of 32 years at a paper mill, but he loved and valued learning. If he were alive today (passed away before I came to grad school), he would have been very proud.
Speaking of Speaking English. How and why I switched from comparative to American politics for my main subfield. What it feels like studying American politics as an unwelcomed outsider.
I feel seen. My father was a factory worker (died one year before I came to grad school). My father-in-law was sick so my mother-in-law took care of my wife's family by working in retail. 7am-11pm work hour was normal. No weekends, holidays. It was brutal for him and all of us.
People in academia who’ve never had a job outside of this bubble, trust me, you have no idea what you’re talking about. The food industry/customer service field will bring you to your knees in a week.
I’d do a PhD all over again rather than go back to work at the family business
Teaching Intro to Computational Tools and Techniques the course I inherited from
@RochelleTerman
for the third time this semester (TA-> Lead instructor -> Co-instructor). This time, I also created an open-access textbook (still work-in-progress): 1/n
I'm happy to announce that I will co-organize the Summer Institute in Computational Social Science in South Korea with
@lanukim
and Wonjae Lee (KAIST) next year. Very excited to get involved in expanding the SICSS community four years in a row. Stay tuned for updates!!!
Just submitted this invited co-authored article titled “A Three-Step Guide to Training Computational Social Science Ph.D. Students for Academic and Non-Academic Careers.” It’s a labor of love since I’ve been working on this project for the past 2-3 years with other 5 coauthors.
Stefan Wagner's causal inference lecture notes are really good learning materials if you want to catch up on what's new and important in the literature:
I have a forthcoming paper (PS) on how to teach computational methods for social science students. I have a working paper on how to advise computational social science students for their ac and non-ac careers. There are two more papers I'd love to write on this subject ...
My paper on why lots of Asian American and Latino community service organizations started to appear in the 1960s and 1970s published in PRQ. The paper shows how the expansion of the American welfare state transformed Asian American and Latino politics. 1/n
Brutal job market all around. But I'm so happy for the friends and colleagues who got the job offers that they deserve. Since my grad school years, I've rarely missed my friends' practice job talks. I've always been happy to make a referral or make a recommendation.
@DGKim84348267
That happened to me so many times, almost everywhere. But I've never shown the empathy that you graciously shared with him. I respect you, DG.
My co-authored paper in Nature Scientific Data. The paper helps how we can better use names in experimental studies on race and ethnicity. I'm very excited about this paper. The datasets are useful if you care about what people "perceive" from the names used in an experiment.
Running a study where you use names to signal race?
Be careful! Names signal more than just race alone.
But (!), fret not; we have pre-tested 600+ names for perceptions of race/class/citizenship.
Paper:
Data:
From time to time, I ran into someone who made racist remarks. This time, a person made such comments in front of my five-year-old. That was first. On the way home, we held hands and walked silently for about 15 minutes.
📢"The Unequal Landscape of Civic Opportunity in America" - My new Nature Human Behaviour paper (with
@hahriehan
and
@milandv
) explores the state of civic infrastructure in the US. We used big data and machine learning to map US civil society at scale: 1/n
My parents aspired to be middle-class so long & hard, but a couple of bad decisions ruined the precarious dream. I carry on their memory. I work hard bc I love my job, but also bc I know that every decision counts. Everybody can make a mistake, but its consequence is not equal.
Yesterday was my first day of work at Code for America. I'm thrilled to work on impactful projects alongside amazing people. I'm learning a ton every day, and it feels like I'm back to grad school (in a positive way).
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science is coming to S. Korea for the first time. We're a unique location bc we try to incubate teams of researchers interested in this field and make exposure to the CSS in various academic fields and uses in gov and industry. 1/n
Although I'm a political scientist, I was far from political when I first got into the grad program. I was merely curious about politics and wanted to learn about data analysis. That was it. I became political for two reasons. 1/n
This is a great paper. Super clear and practical. It came out while I was in my third year in my Ph.D. program but didn't pay enough attention to it. My current day job involves field experiments, and this paper helped me to think through many issues.
I'm very proud of this paper I wrote with Reuel Rogers. The paper talks about what's missing in the current scholarship (macro- and meso-elements) on linked fate and how we can change it. Here's a short thread on the paper. 1/n
I met my wife in college and we've been through so many good and bad times together. But the thing I've learned after all of this is how great a human being she is. I respect her more than anyone. This year is my ten-year anniversary. I'm so grateful, happy, and honored.
🚨 New preprint with
@Taeku_Lee
: we experimentally investigated why South Koreans hold a bias against North Korean refugees, their co-ethnics, and co-nationals (S. Korean law grants automatic citizenship to N. Korean refugees when they cross the border):
The whole visa problem around this year’s APSA annual meeting is only one instance that shows the inequality of constraints faced by international scholars to gain career and other opportunities in the US.
My dissertation chapter "How Other Minorities Gained Access: The War on Poverty and Asian American and Latino Community Organizing" was accepted at the PRQ. With this, all of my three chapters of the dissertation are out.
KDI School of Public Policy and Management (a premier policy school in Korea) has 6 (!) TT lines including data science for public policy. We support moving, housing, and child care. I am not on the search committee but happy to answer questions. DM me!
I sat at the kitchen table before sunrise this morning and rewrote some parts of this working paper. I will be giving a presentation on this next week and do more talks in the near future. Please feel free to email or DM me if you would like to read the draft when it is ready.
I just signed a contract on a book about civic data science (in Korean); it's about why the public sector can't and should not do data science like the private sector and how we can use data to empower people, improve policy, and strengthen democracy.
I organized the first unofficial data science happy hour at APSA. We had around 20 people show interest, and 10 folks actually attended. Hopefully, someday in the future, there will be an official data science section/working group. 1/n
The subway map of Seoul (South Korea's capital). It has 23 lines, 768 stations, and serves 2 billion riders annually. Usually, the places closer to stations are safe, crowded with pedestrians, and close to major parks.
Greatly honored by this recognition.
@SNFAgoraJHU
is my academic home and
@hahriehan
's mentorship has been crucial for me to grow as a civic scholar in the past few years. I wrote about our collaborative project here:
We are happy to announce
@JaeJaeykim2
as our Emerging Scholar Award recipient! Since earning a PhD in 2021 (UC Berkeley), Jae Yeon has published research on civic opportunity &served as a Research Fellow at
@HarvardCPL
Keep up the great work & see you at Philadelphia.
Congrats!!
I finished a full draft on civic data science titled "Civic Data Science: Using Data to Mature Democracy." The book is written in Korean and will be published by Sejong Books in 2023. The book draws on US and Korean cases. 1/n
For those interested in studying COVID-19 and anti-Asian hate speech, I highly recommend checking out this awesome dataset and the associated paper by Ziems et al:
When it comes to Asian American politics, I think that there are at least three themes: alienation (white gaze: where are you from?), heterogeneity (what's Asian anyway), and uncertainty (next in line to be invisible no matter how hard how one tries).
Traveling to APSA (Montreal) and then to Korea. My wife and kid live in the Bay Area, and I had to find a job in Korea last year due to my mom's illness (she's fine now, thank God). While dropping off her at daycare, My 4 yo asked me when I could come back here this morning.
My dissertation, which won one of the APSA's best dissertation awards this year, relies heavily on Berkeley's Ethnic Studies Library archival materials. Is there any good venue (doesn't need to be a journal) where I can publish the value of such materials for scholarly work?
A new article by me and coauthors. Based on our experience as computational social scientists in academia, private, and public sectors, we explained how to train social science PhD as computational social scientists in three steps.
Finally, I am so excited to rejoin my wife and kid in the Bay Area. My mom's health condition forced me back to Korea. Traveling back and forth between Korea and the US was not easy. Mom's now fine and it is time to go home. I miss my 4 yo so much and so does she.
I coauthored this article a few months ago, and it has been viewed 3k+ times. We will host a tutorial based on this paper at the upcoming IC2S2 conference (UPenn). Let me/us know if you are interested in joining us for panel discussions.
I got a book contract (I haven't signed it yet) for my Korean book on civic data science with a major publishing house here in S. Korea. I didn't plan to write a popular press book for civic data science before I moved back here. Another plot twist in life.
Today is my last day at Code for America. I am sad about leaving CfA because it was more than a job. Helping people access government benefits was a great opportunity for me. I grew up in a working-class family, and being able to assist others in similar situations was rewarding.
My work with Reuel Rogers (Northwestern) is conditionally accepted at Perspectives on Politics. We revisited "linked fate", a canonical concept in racial and ethnic politics, and pointed out what's theoretically missing in the current discussion:
My co-authored paper "Preparing Computational Social Science PhD Students for Academic and Non-Academic Careers" is now in the second round R&R. Very grateful to work with such an awesome team. To me, the best part of academic life is collaboration.
I gave a talk yesterday at Minnesota's Political Methodology Seminar on how to train social science PhDs for academic and non-academic data science careers. The slides are here: .
Three acceptance in a row over the past couple of weeks. Mixed feelings. So happy but oh no I'm too busy now. Yes, but I'm still super super super grateful and proud of the teams!
After a few years, I am getting back to my book project based on my dissertation. There is still a lot to do, but it is exciting to think about it. Finally, I will soon have time to work on this long-delayed project.
After the Itaewon tragedy, some people blame celebrating Halloween since it's a foreign culture. Well if we apply the same logic strictly celebrating the birth of Buddha or Jesus should be banished. We don't play or watch soccer as well since it doesn't originate from Korea.
So far, my hands down two best (general) quant intro books are Thinking Clearly with Data: A Guide to Quantitative Reasoning and Analysis and Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World.
Returning to the US for the first time using a green card. It felt great that the immigration officer now doesn't ask me why I come to the US any more. This is home now.
Summer Institute in Computational Social Science in S. Korea kicked off today. Very exciting to meet every participant in person! Kudos to the team (Lanu Kim, Wonjae Lee, our three wonderful TAs) and generous support from KAIST and KDI School.
#sciss
Writing this paper during the weekend. This is not work but is better described as the labor of love. I've been thinking about this question since 2015 (the second year in my grad school). I'm so excited to finally have the data that I've wanted. It's all thanks to the team.
de Vries et al. map civic opportunity across America, demonstrating that it is correlated with pro-social community behaviors, but is unequally distributed and underrepresented in public dialogue.
@hahriehan
@milandv
@JaeJaeyKim2
@snfagorajhu
Another good news today is finally, my work permit in the US (green card related) gets approved. Meaning, the green card is coming soon as well. It has been 3 years...
Halfway through Erika Lee's "America for Americans: America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States" One thing that the book really clarifies well is that xenophobia is not actually about foreigners, but making certain groups foreign objects.
My paper with Reuel Rogers titled "Rewiring Linked Fate: Bringing Back History, Agency, Power" got officially accepted at Perspectives on Politics. Submitted on Feb 4. So the review process was quick. If you want to read the latest draft, please ping me.
I'm on the job market and interested in applying jobs outside the US (Canada, HK, etc). Let me know if you know a position for a computational social scientist doing research on diversity and inclusion!
For starting PhD students, I have only one advice that I learned from reading Haruki Murakami’s book on running: only use your 80% (it’s a heuristics) energy to do the daily work and find and keep the sustainable rhythm and pace. Build, refine, and believe in your system.
After almost 3 years of planning, piloting, and refining, I finally got the survey experiment results. We tested whether Asian American solidarity weakened if they were exposed to both hate crime and China threat conditions. The answer is yes and there's so much more.
@PeterJNaMDMPH
육아 비용도 무시무시하게 비싸죠. 부모가 손이 가는 부분도 정말 많으니 이게 꼭 돈만 드는 것도 아니고요. 하지만 가족 중심인 것은 맞아요. 가끔 그런 생각을 합니다. 우린 정말 유교 문화인 걸까. 가부장제가 있는 건 맞는데, 가족이 중심인 걸까.
As I learned about politics, I also realized that there's no neutral position. I have little interest in running for politics. But almost everything I do (research&teaching&admin) is political as it shapes values, interests, relations, and forces in small and big ways.2/n
I seriously wonder how much US scholars know about the inequality of constraints faced by international scholars. Do you know the types of visas and the processes of taking and maintaining them? Do you know how long it takes to get H1B, permanent residency, etc?
Yesterday was my birthday, and I have thought about my life journey. Sometimes, we are disappointed with how little we have achieved in the short term. But if you look back at how far you've come, you are doing fine. Also, I'm grateful to have a life that's more than work.
When I came back to Korea, I wondered whether becoming part of the racial mainstream would make me happier. It didn't occur to me. The opposite of being a (marginalized) minority is not being mainstream but being fully human. 1/n
My paper "Integrating Human and Machine Coding to Measure Political Issues in Ethnic Newspaper Articles" is accepted at the Journal of Computational Social Science.
My coauthored paper with
@Taeku_Lee
on why S. Koreans are biased against North Korean refugees (i.e., invisible minorities, tldr: policy + class) got accepted at PRQ: This is a paper that I wrote for Gabe Lenz's political behavior class in my 2nd year.