Welcome!
Hi, I am Nanum, an incoming Postdoctoral Research Associate in Sociology and at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research, starting in Fall 2026. I study life-course inequality, with a focus on how institutions organize unequal pathways over time.
My research develops computational and causal methods, including large language models and representation learning, to measure life-course trajectories and estimate their consequences for social inequality. My dissertation develops the framework of trajectory stratification, along with the concepts of trajectory atypicality and the trajectory wage gap, to show how the timing, sequencing, and configuration of work and family experiences become mechanisms of stratification.
My work has appeared in Social Science Research, the Journal of Marriage and Family, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, with additional manuscripts under review at the American Sociological Review and a minor revision at Demography. My research has been recognized with the 2026 Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award from the ASA Mathematical Sociology Section, selection for the Rising Stars in Data Science workshop, and the Kwanjeong Overseas Scholarship, among other honors.
📢 Recent updates
- May 23, 2026 – Honored to receive the 2026 Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award from the ASA Mathematical Sociology Section for my paper on trajectory atypicality, which introduces a text-based measure of the relational dimension of employment instability.
- February 19, 2026 – Published a new paper titled Causal Machine Learning: A Deductive–Inductive Framework for Sociological Research in the Cologne Journal of Sociology and Social Psychology.
- November 11–12, 2025 – Participated in the Rising Stars in Data Science Workshop, Stanford University.
🗂️ Archive
(click to view)
- September 18, 2025 – Invited to give a talk titled “Trajectory-Based Causal Inference: Integrating Sequence Analysis, Clustering, and G-Computation” at the Webinar Series of the Sequence Analysis Association.
- August 8–12, 2025 – Organized two sessions on work and family and gave an oral presentation on trajectory stratification at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Chicago.
- August 4–7, 2025 – Helped organize the RC28 Conference at UCLA.
- July 3–4, 2025 – Gave an invited lecture, Machine Learning for Causal Inference: A Two-Part Introduction to G-Computation, for Yonsei University’s Department of Sociology.
- June–August 2025 – Visited the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research to work on machine-learning approaches to life-course analysis.
- May 17, 2025 – Presented ongoing work on deep learning and g-computation at the ASA Mid-Year Methodology Conference at the University of Pennsylvania.
- May 6, 2025 – Received an Honorable Mention for the 2025 ASA Religion Section Student Paper Award.