I am a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology and an M.S. student in Statistics and Data Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). I am affiliated with the Inequality Data Science Lab (IDS-Lab) and the California Center for Population Research (CCPR). Prior to UCLA, I worked in public policy think tanks, including the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo, Japan. I hold an M.P.P. from the University of Tokyo in Japan and a B.A. in Sociology from Ewha Womans University in Korea.

Research Interests

My research focuses on the following interconnected areas:

1. The intersection of social stratification and life course studies, using life disruptions as critical lenses to examine inequality;

2. Intra-group inequality, analyzing how intersecting socioeconomic resources create divergent outcomes within seemingly homogeneous groups, and

3. The advancement of machine learning and statistical methods for sociological research and causal inference.

My work has been published in several journals, including the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Social Science Research. My research has been recognized with funding and awards, including the Donald J. Treiman Research Fellowship from the UCLA CCPR, the Kawahara Fellowship from the UCLA Terasaki Center for Japan Studies, a UCLA Dissertation Award, and an Honorable Mention for the 2025 American Sociological Association Religion Section Student Paper Award. I have also received a nationally competitive scholarship from the Kwanjeong Education Foundation in Korea and was named a finalist for the Josephine de Karman Fellowship.

I will be on the academic job market for the 2025–2026 academic year, seeking tenure-track faculty positions in sociology or related fields, as well as postdoctoral opportunities. For further details about my research and teaching, please visit my research and teaching pages, or view my CV.