Jiin (지인 in Korean; 智仁 in Chinese) has two syllables that are pronounced as /ʤi:/ and /ɪn/. The first character 智 means wisdom, and the second character 仁 means benevolence. Although it is typically a male name in China and Japan, it is generally a female name in Korea, where she grew up (she/her/hers). Jung (정 in Korean; 鄭 in Chinese) is pronounced as /ʤəŋ/. To hear how I pronounce my name: https://namedrop.io/jiinjung
Dr. Jiin Jung is a social psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lehigh University, specializing in minority influence on social change and minority-majority dynamics in group schism. Dr. Jung directs the Group Dynamics and Social Change Lab, which focuses on how minority voices, often dismissed as too radical to take seriously or too invisible to matter, can spread through society, change societal norms and cultural practices, and contribute to building a more innovative and resilient society. She also serves as Secretary of the Computational Social Science Society of the Americas. Her work sits at the intersection of social psychology and computational social science, aiming to tackle pressing social challenges and provide insights for policy interventions. Dr. Jung engages in policy initiatives geared toward democracy and gender equity.
Her research, spanning social psychology, computational social science, and social policy, have been recognized through awards such as the Best Paper Award from the Computational Social Science Society of the Americas and the Research Scientist of the Year Award from Claremont Graduate University. Her innovative, interdisciplinary works have been recognized in multiple publications at American Psychologist (Jung et al., 2019, 2021, 2023, 2025). Notably, her insights into minority influence on social change were featured in a BBC Future article, How the views of a few can determine a country’s fate. She involves in facilitating scientific conversations across computational social science and policy researchers.
Before coming to Lehigh University, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Psychology at Princeton University, a postdoctoral research in the Department of Psychology at New York University, and a visiting assistant professor in the Brain, Behavior, and Quantitative Science Program of the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas. She completed her Ph.D. in Social Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, M.A. in Social Psychology at Sungkyunkwan University, and B.S. in Biology at Seoul National University.
Before beginning her academic career, she worked as an editor at Toto Book publishing. In this role, she developed an environmental education program for youth called While Grass School, and collaborated with peace activist Dae-Kwon Hwang in running the program. This work was published in the children's magazine, A Whale Told Me So. This program was part of Hwang's broader Life-Peace Movement, which used non-violence methods for achieving social change. She later edited Hwang's related book, Wild Grass School. This experience planted the seed for her research on tolerance, indirect minority influence, and social change.
