Welcome! I'm an Assistant Professor of Political Science & Public Administration at Montana State University. I received my PhD from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Pittsburgh, with concentrations in political economy and public administration. I have been selected as an American Political Science Association (APSA) Asia Fellow, Public Administration Theory Fellow (PA Theory Network), Adam Smith Fellow (Mercatus Center), SEED Fellow for Social Innovation (Harvard), and Yenching Scholar (Peking University).  My research and teaching interests include Interdisciplinary Studies, Political Economy of Development, Public Administration & Policy, Digital Politics, and Comparative Politics, with a primary focus on community governance, development, resilience, and the overall well-being of underserved communities. I am particularly interested in interdisciplinary development studies (sustainable & inclusive development), domestic and international development (esp. poverty, justice, public health, and welfare), collaborative governance, local governance, community development (rural, urban, and online communities), and crisis management in a variety of contexts. The real-world issues I care about revolve around the evolving human-human, human-AI, human-nature interactions, state-market-society relations, mobilization, social and political engagement, digital self-governance, community engagement, and collective action.Please visit my Google Scholar and Faculty Profile at MSU.My current research focuses on how institutions (particularly the interplay between formal and informal institutions, Cosmos vs./+ Taxis), technologies (esp. digital platforms, online community-building, human-AI interaction), and inter-group interactions (human-human interaction, cross-culture, cross-national, bureaucrat-citizen, urban-rural diversity and engagement, and zero-contact or lockdown) influence objective and subjective economic, political, and social outcomes for development, governance, policy processes, public goods, and service delivery in the short and long term. In my research, I've used qualitative (interviews, participant observation, archives, digital ethnography), quantitative (OLS, DiD, survey experiments), and mixed-methods (interview-survey-online observation) strategies.    My dissertation investigates why and how the same state campaign produces different development outcomes in local communities, despite their similar starting conditions. My ongoing book project, Interacting for Development: State Mobilization and Social Embeddedness, explores how top-down state intervention and bottom-up public participation evolve and interact in shaping development outcomes across different settings, particularly during state-led development campaigns. These campaigns include but are not limited to various waves of movements in historical and contemporary China, such as the Great Leap Forward and People's Communization Movement (1958-1960), Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), New Socialist Countryside Program (2005-2013), Targeted Poverty Alleviation Program (2014-2020), Rural Revitalization Strategy (2018-2022), and “Digital Villages” Program (2019-present).I was born, raised, and grew up in rural China. Prior to graduate school, I worked as a poverty reduction specialist in impoverished villages, a research associate at D&C Think, a journalist at SDTV, and a lecturer at EdTech companies such as New Oriental and TAL, China. For more information about me and my research, please feel free to contact me at xih76@pitt.edu.