💡 Who am I, and what drives my work?#
I am a computational social scientist with expertise in computer science and applied statistics. Currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Oxford, I combine computational and statistical approaches with a background in computer science and industry experience. Beyond academic research, I am also an active developer and open-source contributor, creating and maintaining tools and packages that support transparent, reproducible, and scalable social science. I also regularly record tutorials and write educational materials to make advanced methods more accessible, an effort that reflects my belief in open knowledge and inclusive learning.
Despite strong methodological training, my commitment to social science is deeply personal. I was shaped by my grandparents, who endured poverty and hardship yet remained resilient—like wild grass that survives against all odds. Their lived experience instilled in me the belief that data and technology should serve people like them. I want to use computational and statistical tools not just to analyze inequality, but to help make lives more visible, valued, and empowered through better access to knowledge.
🌲 What is my research about?#
My substantive research interests include labour market dynamics, social mobility and inequality, gender, poverty and life course.
Methodologically, my work focuses on developing computational and advanced statistical methods for analyzing socio-economic data. This research follows two main strands. First, I aim to computationally integrate social science more effectively into the big data ecosystem, enabling scalable and reproducible approaches to studying complex phenomena such as socio-economic and gender inequality. Second, I develop advanced statistical methods that offer new perspectives on social processes, going beyond the capabilities of conventional techniques.
🛠️ What have I built?#
I am the author of Sequenzo, an open-source Python toolkit for fast, scalable, and intuitive sequence and cluster analysis, which is designed for both academic researchers and applied industry use cases.
Apart from Sequenzo, I have been working on various open-source projects that are work in progress, including:
- A new method for life course research
- A regression model that overcomes the limitations of conventional OLS and quantile regression models in social science
- Learning web applications in a more intuitive way
🌍 Why do I care about sharing knowledge?#
Apart from the life experiences of my family, drawing from my educational and professional experiences in both academia and tech, I strongly believe that doing research does not have to mean staying in an ivory tower, and working in industry doesn’t have to be repetitive or uninspired, as it’s often stereotyped to be. That is why I regularly publish blogs and produce video tutorials to help democratize access to critical research mindsets and technical skills that matter in both domains.
To many in the Chinese-speaking online community, I am simply known as “Qiqi (祺祺)”, which is a name I use when sharing ideas, tools, and tutorials.
You can find me on: GitHub Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
中文社区: 哔哩哔哩 小红书 微信公众号: 祺祺的呆呆兽是马杨杨