Xi Song
Professor of Sociology and a faculty member of the Asian American Initiative at Columbia University.
Xi Song BioAbout the Lab
Who we are, what we study, and why it matters.
About us
The Occupation Lab is an interdisciplinary research group co-directed by Xi Song (Columbia University) and Jennie E. Brand (UCLA). Our team brings together faculty, postdoctoral and independent scholars, PhD students, and undergraduate and graduate research assistants across sociology, economics, statistics, and public policy.
We study how occupations shape economic opportunity and how the U.S. labor market is being reshaped by job displacement, industrial change, the emergence of new occupations, and the rise of artificial intelligence. Our current projects examine occupational downward mobility after job loss, the role of industry in intergenerational mobility, mobility into newly emerging occupations, and how AI exposure interacts with workers' full career histories. Methodologically, we combine long-run survey and administrative data with causal inference and machine-learning approaches, including large-scale representations of career sequences.
Occupations are a central axis of inequality as they organize earnings, working conditions, and mobility across generations. By producing rigorous, openly shared evidence on how occupational structures are changing, we aim to inform policies and public understanding around work, opportunity, and the future of the labor market.
Our team
The people behind the research.
Leadership
Jennie E. Brand
Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Professor of Statistics and Data Science (by courtesy).
Jennie E. Brand BioIndependent Scholars
Jiahui Xu
Jiahui Xu obtained her PhD in Sociology and Demography from the Pennsylvania State University. She currently works as an Economist at Amazon.
Jiahui Xu BioPostdoctoral Scholars
Ziyao Tian
Ziyao Tian is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Asian American Initiative in the Department of Sociology and the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) at Columbia University. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University and previously worked at Pew Research Center. Her research interests include race and ethnicity, migration, stratification and mobility, economic sociology, education, and AI and society. Her ongoing work examines mobility and stratification processes among Asian Americans in the labor market. Her previous research has received multiple academic and professional awards and has been published in Research in Social Stratification and Mobility and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
Ziyao Tian BioPhD Students
Anzhi Chen
Anzhi Chen is a second-year PhD student in Sociology at Columbia University. His research sits at the intersection of computational social science and the sociology of work and occupations, with a central focus on how artificial intelligence is reshaping labor markets as well as the boundaries between work and personal life. Before coming to Columbia, he received a BA in Mathematics from New York University and an MA in Computational Social Science from the University of Chicago.
Zhenyuan Han
Zhenyuan Han is a PhD student at New York University. She participates in research projects on occupational mobility in the United States and China. Her research interests focus on the relationship between political and social values and population structure. Before beginning her PhD at NYU, she earned a master's degree in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in sociology from Renmin University of China.
Kristin Liao
Kristin Liao is a PhD candidate in Sociology at UCLA and a NICHD T32 Predoctoral Trainee at the California Center for Population Research. Her research focuses on how recent trends in occupational restructuring, technological change, and immigrant integration reshape labor market inequalities in the U.S. She will complete her PhD in Sociology and Master's in Statistics and Data Science at UCLA in 2027. Kristin is currently on the academic job market.
Kristin Liao BioKathryn Kay O'Neill
Kathryn Kay O'Neill is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and demography at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests focus on poverty, intergenerational mobility, and quantitative methodology and measurement, particularly on topics which can be applied to inform public policy. She has worked as a policy analyst at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, and holds a Masters of Public Policy from UC Riverside and a Bachelor's degree in Community and Regional Development with a minor in Linguistics from UC Davis.
Yanji Du
Yanji Du is a Ph.D. student in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on how artificial intelligence and technological change reshape labor markets, occupational mobility, and inequality. Her methodological interests include causal inference, machine learning, sequence analysis, and experimental design. She previously worked as an analyst at a boutique investment bank specializing in mergers and acquisitions of technology companies.
Tianyu Du
Tianyu Du is a PhD candidate in the Institute of Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) at Stanford University, whose research integrates machine learning, data science, economics, and sociological perspectives to explore the labor market. His work examines the social dynamics — such as skills, networks, and gender norms — that influence individuals’ career trajectories. Tianyu’s primary research agenda focuses on utilizing advanced artificial intelligence techniques, such as deep learning and LLMs, to model labor market dynamics. Additionally, Tianyu's broader research interests include analyzing large-scale networks, such as citation and collaboration networks among scholars, to better understand the processes underlying knowledge production and dissemination within scientific communities.
Research Assistants
Allyson Najera
Allyson Najera is a graduate student in Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University and an incoming intern at Education Trust in Washington, D.C. A UCLA Sociology graduate raised in Santa Ana, California, her work focuses on expanding equitable access to resources that drive social mobility for low-income students of color.
Chuqing Xie
Chuqing Xie is a first-year master's student in the Computational Social Science–Economics program at the University of Chicago. She earned her bachelor's degree in Economics from UCLA with a minor in Statistics and Data Science. At the Occupation Lab, she works as a research assistant on Project 2, examining job displacement and occupational mobility. Her research interests include labor economics, worker responses to economic and policy shocks, and inequalities in labor market outcomes across demographic and skill groups.
Malia Layag
Malia Layag is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Sociology. Her research interests include inequalities in the education system and incarceration system.
Subai Zheng
Subai Zheng is an undergraduate student at UCLA majoring in Mathematics/Economics and Statistics and Data Science. Her research interests include labor policy, platform labor, and job displacement, with the goal of informing more equitable and sustainable labor solutions.
Subai Zheng BioTingyu Dai
Tingyu Dai is a research assistant at the Occupation Lab and holds an MA in Sociology from Columbia University. Her research examines how digital technologies reproduce inequality and reshape its forms, with a focus on occupations and labor markets. Using computational methods, she studies how AI changes the ways workers’ skills and contributions are evaluated, and how these changes shape access to opportunities.