I am an interdisciplinary scientist dedicated to understanding how societies adapt to major structural changes. My research addresses a core question: In a world defined by profound demographic, environmental, and social transformations, how do human systems (such as social security and family networks) maintain resilience and how are individual life chances impacted by the resulting changes?
I hold a B.A. and M.A. from the Department of Sociology at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. I went on to earn a Ph.D. from the Tuljapurkar Lab at Stanford University, specializing in demography and ecology. This rigorous path across sociology, demography, and ecology shaped my interdisciplinary approach to studying aging, family, and inequality. Currently, I am a Research Scientist in the Research Group of Kinship Inequalities and in the Department of Digital and Computational Demography at the Max Planck Instiute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). Before that, I was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Demography at the University of California, Berkeley, working on the CenSoc database in the group of Joshua Goldstein.
My research program is centered on quantifying structural resilience and documenting social inequality amidst global transformation.
Adaptation infrastructure: Kinship networks and collective support: I investigate how changes in fertility and mortality reshape family and kinship networks (Demographic Research, 2023; Demography, 2025), focusing on their capacity to serve as the primary infrastructure for collective adaptation and resource sharing (e.g., care, financial pooling). Based on formal demographic models, I develop novel measurements, such as the Kin Dependency Ratio (MPIDR working paper, 2025), and include education and health data from surveys (MPIDR working paper, 2025) to measure the structural burden placed on families and institutions as they provide care for the aging and vulnerable.
Systemic vulnerability: Longevity and lifespan inequality: Beyond just tracking the rise in average human lifespan, I also investigate whether human longevity is approaching a fixed biological limit. My research shows that despite prior claims, longevity continues to increase, highlighting humanity's enduring survival gains (PNAS, 2018). However, I focus on the resulting inequalities and uncertainties in these gains. This work analyzes how the variability in longevity affects retirement security and the fairness of social systems, and how unexpected family events (like bereavement) impose structural risk on different social groups (Genus, 2025).
Cross-system comparison: An ecological perspective: I apply mathematical and statistical methods to cross-species ecological research, analyzing how various plant and animal species use reproductive strategies to adapt to environmental disturbances (Ecology Letters, 2022). This cross-system approach provides a vital comparative framework rooted in universal demographic principles, informing our understanding of the mechanisms behind "social resilience" when human societies face environmental challenges.
