Team directory
Team directory
Itamar Yakir, Postdoctoral Associate
Itamar Yakir is a postdoctoral sssociate with the Democratic Innovations program at Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies and with Yale’s Identity and Conflict Lab. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2023.
Milly Yang, ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow 2025
Milly Yang is a PhD Candidate in the department of Sociology. Her research interests are in immigration, family, and social inequality. As an ISPS fellow, Milly will be examining high-skilled immigration in the U.S., particularly how immigration policies shape labor market experiences, legal membership, and the retention of high-skilled immigrants (e.g., H-1B visa holders) in the United States.
Jiwon Yun, ISPS Graduate Policy Fellow 2025
Jiwon Yun is a PhD candidate in Sociology. His research interests are in race, ethnicity, migration, and organizational diversity. His dissertation explores the question of how we can bring marginalized populations to sectors that have historically been inaccessible to them, using the field of classical music as an example. To answer this question, he is currently conducting an ethnography of a nonprofit that provides a free music program to students from low-income, racial minority families in New England.
Emma Zang, Associate Professor of Sociology and Biostatistics
Emma Zang is an associate professor of sociology (with tenure) at Yale University, with secondary appointments in biostatistics and global affairs. She directs the Computational Aging, Family, and Evidence Lab (Z-CAFE) and serves as the founding faculty organizer of the Yale Population Studies Speaker Series, which brings together scholars working on population and health research. Zang completed her Ph.D. in public policy in 2019 and her M.A. in economics in 2017, both from Duke University.
Tina Zeng, Dahl Scholar, 2025-2026
Tina Zeng is a sophomore studying Global Affairs + Computing, Culture & Society. With her passions in public interest technology, democratic innovation and social entrepreneurship, she hopes to leverage technologies like AI for social impact. She aspires to pursue a career in public service that contributes to policy and legal frameworks that safeguard our civil liberties in the digital age.
Harrison Zhou, Henry Ford II Professor of Statistics & Data Science
Harrison Zhou, newly named as the Henry Ford II Professor of Statistics and Data Science, conducts his research on asymptotic decision theory, high dimensional statistics, large covariance matrices estimation, Bayesian nonparametrics, and network analysis.