Siwei Cheng

Siwei Cheng is an Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Public Policy in 2015 and an M.A. in Statistics in 2012 from the University of Michigan. She earned her B.A. in Economics and Mathematical Statistics from Peking University in 2009. Before joining the NYU faculty, she was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UCLA.

Cheng’s research covers various areas of inequality, mobility, the labor market, and quantitative and computational methodology. Her work employs a broad array of methodological approaches, including causal inference, panel data methods, discrete choice models, network analysis, machine learning, large language models, and survey experiments. Cheng’s work has been published in leading social science and general science journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Cheng was selected for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2028. Her current research focuses on three areas: (1) the determinants and consequences of connectedness between individuals and their communities, (2) the shifting structure of jobs in the labor market, and (3) studying inequality under a predictive framework.