Bio: Yao Lu is a Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate at the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC), the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI), the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), the Data Science Institute (DSI), and the China Center for Social Policy at Columbia University.

Her research centers at the intersection of inequality, demography, and political sociology, and primarily focuses on 1) the influence of structural demographic forces on political processes, 2) the sources of inequality by gender, race/ethnicity, and nativity in the high-skilled labor markets, and 3) the phenomenon of unemployment and underemployment among college graduates and its broader social and political implications. Her research spans various settings, including but not limited to the United States and China. Her work draws on a range of quantitative methods for causal inference and has most recently incorporated computational and experimental methods.

She has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (including a K01 Career Development Award), the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Additionally, she has also conducted two national surveys as part of a team. The first survey focuses on migration and families in China (2012-2013). The second survey (with embedded experiments) investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped racial attitudes in the United States (2020-2022).