Date and Time: Friday, September 1, 9:00 AM-11:50 AM

Venue: CCT E3011 (Refreshments will be provided!)

Schedule

9:00   Welcome

9:05   Doing Social Science with Fieldwork, Dr. Hyun Jeong Ha (via Zoom)

9:45   Doing Social Science with Experiment, Dr. Claudia Nisa (in-Person)

10:25  Doing Social Science with Big Data, Dr. Charles Chang (in-Person)

11:05   Doing Social Science with Survey, Dr. Jiahua Yue (via Zoom)

11:50   Wrap-up

Organized by the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and the Division of Social Sciences at Duke Kunshan University

The orientation will be in the form of half-day teaching sessions by professors from DKU. You will be given introductions to get down to fundamental concerns and selected important topics in empirical research in the social sciences. All DKU students who have interests in the social sciences are welcome to attend. Light refreshments will be provided!

RSVP: https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3D8JpPohVRjQ9a6

FACULTY

Dr. Hyun Jeong Ha is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Duke Kunshan University. Her research interests include power, religion, sectarianism, and gender in the Middle East. She has written about Muslim-Christian relations in contemporary Egypt, and her current research examines how the 2011 Egyptian Arab Uprisings have affected the sectarian relations from an intersectional approach, or the consideration of class, gender, and geography. Trained as an ethnographer, she has conducted field research in Cairo, Egypt, from 2006. Her work has appeared in Ethnic and Racial Studies, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Changes, and Education and the Arab Spring: Resistance, reform, and democracy (edited volume), among others. Her teaching interests at Duke Kunshan include social theories, social problems, identity and emotions, and religion and politics in the Middle East.

Dr. Claudia Nisa is an Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at Duke Kunshan University. Claudia’s scientific agenda is centered around identifying what works to helps us lead healthier and more sustainable lives. Her research program focuses on the effectiveness of behavioral interventions to promote healthy and sustainable living – eg. how to best promote energy savings, reduce food waste, increase cancer screening or blood donation. She translates behavioral science into practice to tackle these critical challenges, and to respond to calls for better informed policies. In order to do so, she uses a variety of methodological tools including (1) lab studies testing small-scale psychologically-driven interventions; (2) large field experiments testing how to scale-up behavioral interventions in natural settings; and (3) evidence-based policy evaluation, based on meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials and quasi-experiments.

Dr. Charles Chang is an Assistant Professor of Environment and Urban Studies at Duke Kunshan University. He earned his B.A. from Beijing Normal University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (2016). He was elected as the 2016–2017 Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Studies at Stanford and as the 2018–2019 Postdoctoral Associate in Chinese Studies at Yale. His research focuses on the design of the built environment and on how the study of such environment is affected by the quality of information and the rise of communication technologies in contemporary China. Broadly speaking, his research addresses issues in the use of big data and computational methods in social science and in certain aspects of the humanities. His articles have appeared in journals including Landscape and Urban Planning, International Journal of Remote Sensing, Political Analysis, and Journal of Chinese History. 

Dr. Jiahua Yue is an Assistant Professor of political science at Duke Kunshan University. His research focus is international political economy, comparative international development, and Chinese politics. He is also interested in applied computation methods in social science, such as text analysis and image processing tools. His work has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, World Development, among others. He teaches a wide range of topics on international conflict, trade and foreign investment, public opinion, and authoritarian politics.