Jacob Richard Thomas

Address: Department of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Email: j.thomas@cuhk.edu.hk

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/jacob-thomas/home

EMPLOYMENT

Chinese University of Hong Kong, September 2021-Now

Department of Sociology

Research Assistant Professor

Princeton University, September 2020-August 2021

Center on Contemporary China

Post-doctoral Research Associate (Advisor: Yu Xie)

EDUCATION

University of California, Los Angeles 2020

Ph.D, Sociology

Dissertation Title: “The Denied, the Deterred, and the Disenchanted: Why a Variety of Potential Migrants Never Immigrate” (Advisor Chair: Min Zhou, Committee Members: Victor Agadjanian, Jennie Brand (Sociology), Margaret Peters (Political Science))

University of Chicago

M.A., Social Sciences

University of California, Berkeley

B.A., Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major in Globalization (coursework in Anthropology, Economics, Political Science), Highest Honors in Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major, Distinction in General Scholarship

RESEARCH INTERESTS

International Mobility, Migration and Travel

Social Stratification, Mobility, and Inequality

Law and Society

Cultural Sociology

Comparative Migration Law and Policy

Survey Methodology

China and U.S.-China Relations

Multi-method Research Methods

RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP

Publications

Journal Articles

Thomas, Jacob Richard. “Disenchanted With the Immigrant Dream: The Sociological Formation of Ex-Immigrant Subjectivity”, European Journal of Sociology (conditional acceptance, forthcoming)

Thomas, Jacob Richard. "Bureaucratic and Organizational Amenability to Racial Diversification: How Points Systems Replaced White-Only Immigration Policies." International Journal of Sociology 53, no. 2 (2023): 103-131.)

Thomas, Jacob. "From local control to remote control: an excavation of international mobility constraints." Theory and Society 50, no. 1 (2021): 33-64.

Thomas, Jacob. "When Political Freedom Does Not Offer Travel Freedom: The Varying Determinants of Visa‐Free Travel Opportunities." International Migration 58, no. 2 (2020): 80-97.

Thomas, Jacob. "Reflecting upon the Impact of the United States' 2016 Election and Travel Ban: Why Might Fewer Foreign Businesspeople, Tourists, Students, and Relatives Be Visiting the United States?." S. Cal. Interdisc. LJ 29 (2019): 619.

Book Chapters and Op-Eds

Thomas, Jacob and Min Zhou, “Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Its Transnational Linkages,” in Brenda Yeo and Francis Collins, Handbook On Transnationalism. Routledge, 2022

Jacob Thomas, Lemeng Liang, Shigeto Sonoda, and Yu Xie, 2022, "Shingata Korona wuirusu wa sekaino taichu/taibei ninsiki wo ikani kaetaka? (How did COVID-19 change Global Views of China and US?)" in Shigeto Sonoda and Yu Xie eds., Sekai no Taichu Ninshiki: Deta de saguru sono tokucho to henka (Global Views of China: Empirical analysis of their trends), University of Tokyo

Press (2022)

Thomas, Jacob. “Is There Anything Positive Coming Out of the COVID-19 Pandemic”, Op-Ed in Special issue of Contexts on covid-19 and the future of society, 2020

Thomas, Jacob and Kjerstin Gruys, 2014, Entry on “Class.” Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumer Studies.

Revised and Resubmitted Journal Articles

“What Ties Individuals To A Society In Eyes of a U.S. Consular Officer?: How Immobility-Mobility Capital Stratifies Legal Movement from China to the United States”, under review at American Journal of Sociology

“Visual Art as a Channel and Embodiment of Symbolic Interaction Between Migrants and the Native-born”, under review at Symbolic Interaction

Revised and Resubmitted Book Manuscript

Denial, Deterrence, and Disenchantment: Why Many Never Immigrate (six-chapter book manuscript), under review at Cambridge University Press (with invitations to review the manuscript at Oxford University Press and Stanford University Press based on book proposal)

Other Submitted Manuscripts Under Review

“Why a Targeted Travel Ban Mostly Reduced Visitors from Non-Targeted Countries: Heterogeneity in Unintended Consequences Across Visitor Origin and Stage of Policy Formation”, under review at Policy Sciences

“What Types of Famous Political Dissidents Succeed in Emigrating From Autocratic States?: An Individual-Level Analysis of Emigration Control in the People’s Republic of China”, under review at European Political Science Review

“From “Illegal” to “Undocumented”—Anti-Immigrant Reactance Toward a Ban of a Term Among Media Producers and Consumers”, under review at Political Psychology

“Mathematically Modeling How Bureaucrat-Civilian Interactions In Decision-making of Visa Application and Approval”, under review at Journal of Mathematical Sociology

“The Soft Power Cost of COVID-19: A Lose-Lose Outcome for China and the United States”, (coauthored with Lemeng Liang, Shigeto Sonoda, and Yu Xie), under review at Chinese Journal of International Politics

“Familial Ties As A Deterrent To International Mobility: Gendered Opposition by Parents Against Children Going Abroad”, at International Migration Review

“Incorporating the Concerns of Both Migrant-Sending and Migrant-Receiving Countries In International Migration Policy-making”, at European Journal of International Relations

Manuscripts In Preparation For Submission

“Affinity and Inequality in the Global Structure of the Visa-Free Mobility Network” (with Peng Huang), for American Sociological Review

“The Strengths and Challenges of Cross-cultural Collaborative Field Research” (with Peng Huang) for Qualitative Inquiry

“Does the Race of Rapists and Rape Victims Matter for Abortion Opinions? Pro-Conception Universalism Vs. Latent Racial Eugenicist Bias in Attitudes Toward Abortion”, for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

“Does What We Can See Matter for American Opinion About Gun Regulation? Experimental Impact of Images of a Bleeding Dead Child and a “Good Guy With a Gun”, For Psychological Science

“How Wholesale Assimilation(ism) Perpetuates the Endemic Problems of Migrant-Receiving Societies”, for Theory and Society

EXTERNAL PEER REVIEW COMPETITIVE GRANTS

2023-2024 General Research Fund Grant ($613,000 HKD) for study “Who Realizes Their Online Intentions To Emigrate? What Distinguishes Emigrants from Potential Emigrants in the Context of Rapid and Sudden Social Change”, Hong Kong University Grant Committee (GRF-funded survey project website: www.hkemigrationproject.space )

INSTITUTIONAL GRANTS

2022-2023 Direct Grant ($50000 HKD), Hong Kong Research Grant Council for study “Does What We Can See Matter for American Opinion About Gun Regulation? Experimental Impact of Images of a Bleeding Dead Child and a “Good Guy With a Gun”

2021-2022 Direct Grant ($50000 HKD), Hong Kong Research Grant Council for study “Who Realizes Their Online Intentions To Emigrate? What Distinguishes Emigrants from Potential Emigrants in the Context of Rapid and Sudden Social Change”

2015 Ethnic Studies Grant for Asian American Studies ($500), UCLA Institute for American Cultures

AWARDS, AND HONORS (all awards in $USD unless otherwise noted)

United College Student Campus Training and Award Service Scheme for 2022-2023 ($8000 HKD), United College

University Academic Exchange Fund ($8000 HKD), For Data Collection in Beijing, China 2023, China Engagement Office

Aristide Zolberg Distinguished Student Scholar Award, Honorable Mention, 2020, American Sociological Association, International Migration Section, for “Whom Does a US Visa Officer Perceive as an Immigrant? How Mobility-Stability Capital Stratifies International Legal Mobility from Mainland China to the United States”

Graduate Student Fellowship ($6000), 2020, UCLA Department of Fellowship

Institute for American Cultures Research Grant ($1000), 2020, UCLA Institute for American Cultures Executive Committee

Hiroshi Wagatsuma Memorial Fellowship ($5000), 2020, UCLA Asia Pacific Center

UCLA 5th Year Fellowship ($24000), 2018-2019, UCLA Graduate Division

Population Association of America Annual Meeting 2018, Migration, Immigration, Geographic Mobility Poster Session, Prize Awarded for Poster “Who Does a Government Perceive as Immigrants Before They Even Migrate?”

Institute for Humane Studies Ph.D Fellowships ($4000 each, four), 2016-2019, Institute for Humane Studies

China Confucius Studies Ph.D Research Fellowship ($8000), Fall 2018, China Scholarship Council

California Immigration Research Initiative ($8000), 2017, UCSD Center for Comparative Immigration Studies

Four Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowships to Study Mandarin Chinese in China and U.S. ($8,000-15,000 each), 2017-2018 and 2014-2015 Academic Years and Summer 2015 and 2017, UCLA Asia Pacific Center and U.S. Department of Education

Boren National Security Fellowship ($23900) for Mandarin study at Peking University & Beijing Cultural and Language University, 2015-2016, Institute for International Education

UCLA Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Fellowship ($6000 each, two), 2014 and 2015, Graduate Division

University Un-endowed Scholarship for M.A. Program in Social Sciences ($15000), 2011-2012 Masters of Arts Program in Social Sciences, University of Chicago

Highest Honors in Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major and Distinction in General Scholarship, 2002 Interdisciplinary Studies Field Major Program, UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Sciences

COURSES TAUGHT

Instructor at CUHK

Qualitative Research methods (Hybrid and in-Person), CUHK Department of Sociology, Spring 2022 and 2023

Instructor at UCLA

Law and Society (online), UCLA Department of Sociology, Summer 2020

Teaching Assistant for Undergraduate Students at UCLA, 2014-2020

Contemporary Sociological Theory (online), Jeff Guhin, UCLA Department of Sociology, Spring 2020 Comparative Acculturation and Assimilation for Cecilia Menjivar, UCLA Department of Sociology, Fall 2019 Contemporary American Politics, Society and Stratification for Cesar Ayala (Sociology), Robert Chao Romero (History/Chicano Studies), and Nina Ponce (Public Health), Asia Pacific Institute and Zhejiang University, Summer 2019

Self and Society for Jack Katz, UCLA Department of Sociology, Spring 2017

Social Norms for Patrick Riley, UCLA Department of Sociology, Winter 2017

Introduction to Sociology for Terri Anderson, Department of UCLA Sociology, Fall 2016

Sociology of Mass Communications for Gabriel Rossman, Department of UCLA Sociology, Fall 2014

Lecturer for Graduate Students at Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2012-2013

Academic and Professional Writing

The Immigrant Cultures of the United States

European Cultures and Societies

Courses Interested in Teaching

Computational Methods/Quantitative Sociology

Cultural Sociology

Contemporary and Classical Sociological Theory

Economic Sociology

International Migration

Law and Society

Media and Society

Social Stratification, Mobility, and Inequality

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP
International Sociological Association

Population Association of America

American Sociological Association

International Chinese Sociological Association

Hong Kong Sociological Association

American Political Science Association

SERVICE

7/2023-12/2023: Committee Member for the Hong Kong Sociological Association’s 2023 Annual Meeting hosted by CUHK

5/2023: Interviewer for JUPAS applicants at CUHK

9/2021: Organized and Presided over American Sociological Association's Special Session on Covid-19 and International Mobility at American Sociological Association's 2021 annual meeting

TRAINING AND MENTORSHIP

2023 Ph.D dissertation Committee Member: Anita Venanzi, “Contemporary Transnational Experiences of a Century-old International Voluntary Service Network (IVSN)”

2023: Trained Peking University and Tsinghua University Sociology and Anthropology 5 Undergraduate and Graduate Students on how to interview US non-immigrant visa applicants outside US Embassy in Beijing

2023: Led Workshops To Train 8 Students in how to scrape social media text data from Twitter, LIHKG, Facebook, and Telegram with Wangjiang Zhang

2022-2023: Supervision of Hong Kong Emigration Project Team

PRESENTATIONS

Invited

“Whom Do U.S. Consular Officers Perceive As ‘Non-Immigrants’? How Cultural Habitus Stratifies Legal Mobility From China,” at International Symposium on “International Migration: Theory, Policy and Empirical Research,” 9/2019, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

“Immigration and Ethnic Los Angeles,” Guest Speaker for UCLA Asia Pacific Center-Zhejiang University’s Social Science Summer Institute course on “Contemporary American Society, Politics and Social Stratification,” 8/2019, UCLA

“The Relationship Between Internal Migration Within China and International Migration Beyond China,” Chunni Zhang’s Sociology of Migration in China Graduate Seminar, 4/2016, Peking University Sociology Department, Beijing, China

Conference Presentations

“Affinity and Inequality in the Global Structure of the Visa-Free Mobility Network” (presented with coauthor Peng Huang), Presentation in Paper Session Globalization at upcoming 2023 Annual Meeting of American Political Science Association of America, Los Angeles, USA

“From “Illegal” to “Undocumented”—Anti-Immigrant Reactance Toward a Ban of a Term Among Media Producers and Consumers”, upcoming Presentation in Paper Session, Race, Ethnicity, and Politics, at 2023 Annual Meeting of American Political Science Association, Los Angeles, USA

“The Soft Power Cost of COVID-19: A Lose-Lose Outcome for China and the United States”, Presentation in Paper Session at upcoming 2023 Annual Meeting of International Chinese Sociological Association, Philadelphia, USA

“Does the Race of Rapists and Rape Victims Matter for Abortion Opinions? Anti-Abortion Universalism Vs. Latent Racial Eugenicist Bias in Attitudes Toward Abortion”, Presentation in Paper Session Timely Topics at upcoming 2023 Annual Meeting of American Sociological Association of America, Philadelphia, USA

“Affinity and Inequality in the Global Structure of the Visa-Free Mobility Network” (presented with coauthor Peng Huang), upcoming Presentation in Paper Session Globalization at 2023 American Sociological Association of America, Philadelphia, USA

“Bureaucratic and Organizational Amenability to Racial Diversification: How Points Systems Replaced White-Only Immigration Policies”, Comparative Sociology, 2023 International Sociological Association Global Congress, Melbourne, Australia

“Why Do Some Emigrate and Most Merely “Want” To Emigrate? The Specific Events and General Reasons Prompt Thoughts of Emigrating and Emigration”, Presentation in Paper Session 21st Century Migration Theory, 2023 Annual Meeting of Population Association of America, New Orleans

“Affinity and Inequality in the Global Structure of the Visa-Free Mobility Network” (presented by coauthor Peng Huang), Poster Presentation at 2023 Annual Meeting of Population Association of America, New Orleans

“Disenchanted With the Immigration Dream: The Sociological Formation of Ex-Immigrant Subjectivity”, 2022 Chinese Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Guangzhou (online)

“Disenchanted With the Immigration Dream: The Sociological Formation of Ex-Immigrant Subjectivity”, 2022 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Los Angeles

“How Affinity and Hierarchy Structure the Global Network of Visa Free Mobility, 1969- 2010”, 2022 Sunbelt Annual Meeting, Cairns, Australia

“Why Does the Chinese Government Allow Some Of Its Citizens To Leave or Return But Not Others?: The Extra-legal Logic of Exceptions to Chinese Laws of Exit and Entry”, 2021 Hong Kong Sociological Association’s Annual Meeting

“What Ties Individuals to a Society? How Mobility-Stability Capital Stratifies International Legal Mobility from Mainland China to the United States, ” 9/2021, American Political Science Association 2021 Annual Meeting, Seattle (Online)

“How Assimilation(ism) May Harm ‘Us’ As Well As ‘Them’:
Conceptualizing Nationalist Chauvin(ism) as Variants of A Societal-Level Auto-Immune Disorder,” 8/2021, 2021 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago (Online)

“The Relationship Between International Visa-Free Mobility and Nation-State Homophily and Hierarchy, 1969- 2010,” 7/2021, Polnet Conference, Pennsylvania State University

“Ethnic Entrepreneurship and Its Transnational Linkages,” Global Chinese Entrepreneurship Conference, 11/2020, UCLA Asia Pacific Institute

“Why Does China Sometimes Allows Some of Its Citizens to Leave Its Territory But Not Others,” International Chinese Sociological Association, 11/2020, New York University-Shanghai (Online).

“How Have Xenophobic Politics and Policies Made the United States Less Attractive? How Unintended Chilling Impacts of Targeted Anti-Mobility Policies Extend Far Beyond Their Targets,” American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Citizenship and Migration Section: Election Cycles and Immigration, 9/2020, San Francisco

“Strengths and Challenges of Cross-Cultural Field Research”, American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Methodology Section: Investigating Qualitative Methods, 8/2020, San Francisco

‘From “Illegal” to “Undocumented”—The Impact of a Lexical Shift In a Social Movement Against Dehumanization,’ Population Association of America 2020, Oral Section on Immigration and Public Opinion, Online (Asynchronous)

“Reflecting Upon Changes In Different Foreign Nationalities To the United States After the 2016 Election and the Travel Ban” University of California’s Symposium on the Travel Ban, 5/2020

“From ‘Illegal’ to ‘Undocumented’—The Impact of a Lexical Shift In a Social Movement Against Dehumanization,’ American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Paper Session on “What is Journalism For? Inequality, Social Justice, and the Role of Media”, 8/2019, New York City

‘Whom Do U.S. Consular Officers Perceive As “Non-Immigrants”? How Cultural Habitus Stratifies Legal Mobility From China,’ American Sociological Association Annual Meeting’s Paper Session on “Theorizing Migration Flows”, 8/2019, New York City

“Familial Ties As a Gendered Deterrent Force of International Migration and Travel From China,”

International Chinese Sociological Association (ICSA) Annual Meeting, 8/2019, New York City, USA

“Which Nationalities Have Been Coming to the United States Less Since the 2016 Election and the 2017 Travel Ban?” Law and Society Annual Meeting, Measuring the Trump Effect on Immigration Policy and Law, 5/2019, Washington D.C. , USA

“Relationship Between Stratified Non-Immigrant Visa Admission and Legal Immigration Opportunities: How the ‘Dual Intent Doctrine’ Undermines the Immigrant Versus Non-Immigrant Binary,” Russell Sage Foundation, 4/2019, New York City, USA

“Which Nationalities Have Been Coming to the United States Less Since the 2016 Election and 2017 Travel Ban?” Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Session on Immigration Policy, 4/2019, Austin, USA

"Why Does the Chinese Government Allow Some Of Its Citizens To Leave or Return But Not Others?: The Extra-legal Logic of Exceptions to Chinese Laws of Exit and Entry," American Sociology Association Paper Session on “Crime, Law, and Deviance”, 8/2018, Philadelphia, USA

"How Economic and Political Factors Interact in Stratifying International Visa-Free Travel and Migratory Opportunities ," XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology, International Mobility and Social Stratification Research Committee (R28), 7/20187, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

‘Whom Do U.S. Consular Officers Perceive As “Non-Immigrants”? How Cultural Habitus Stratifies Legal Mobility From China” (Winner of Award in Migration and Urbanization Poster Section) and “How Economic and Political Factors Interact in Stratifying International Visa-Free Travel and Migratory Opportunities”, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Social Stratification and Migration and Urbanization Poster Sections, 4/2018, Denver, Colorado

“Mathematically Modeling How Bureaucrat-Civilian Interactions Affect International Travel and Migration Flows,” American Sociological Association, Section on Mathematical Sociology, 8/2017, Montreal, Canada

“The Denied, the Deterred, and the Disenchanted: The Variety of Prospective Immigrants Excluded by U.S. Immigration Law,” Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, 6/2017, Mexico City

“The Institutional Foundation of Diverse Immigration to Canada and Australia”, Social Science History Association’s Paper Session on “Policing Borders: Bodies and Nations,” 11/2016, Chicago, Illinois

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

Statistical Programming in Stata, R, MPlus, Python, NVivo, Data Scraping with Python from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LIHKG, and Telegram

METHODS TRAINING:

Online/Phone/Face-To-Face Survey Data Collection, Multilevel Regression Modeling, Moderation, Mediation, Social Network Analysis, Bayesian Statistics, Web-scraping and Computational Analysis of Texts, Structural Equation Modeling, Formal Demographic Modeling of Population Dynamics, Survey Design Methodology, Experimental Designs, Longitudinal Analysis, Participant-Observation Ethnographic Methods, Ethnographic Methods, Comparative-Historical Methods, Photo-ethnography, Conversation Analysi

LANGUAGES

Mandarin: Proficient in speaking and reading, basic at writing

Spanish: Proficient in speaking, reading and writing

Portuguese: Proficient in speaking and reading, basic at writing

French: Basic in speaking and writing, proficient in reading

Russian: Basic at speaking, reading and writing

REFERENCES (for letters of recommendation):

Min Zhou (UCLA), Victor Agadjanian (UCLA), Jennie Brand (UCLA), Margaret Peters (UCLA), Tony Tam (CUHK), Guillermina Jasso (New York University)