Biography

Dr. Jian Gao is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI), Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, USA. He is also a Researcher-in-Residence at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He was a Postdoc at Kellogg CSSI (2019-2021), a Researcher at The MIT Media Lab (2016-2017), and a Visiting Scholar at Boston University (2016).

Starting from Fall 2024, he will be an Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Social Work and Social Administration.

His primary research interests lie in the interdisciplinary fields of Computational Social Science and Science of Science. He uses large-scale data and develops computational approaches to study complex social and economic systems. His research explores how science interacts with a range of social institutions, from public policy to new technology to pharmaceutics. Meanwhile, he studies the equity and sustainability of the workforce that drives scientific research, technological innovation, and economic prosperity.

His works have yielded a range of generalizable insights, which hold direct implications for understanding the role and impact of science beyond science and for promoting an equitable and sustainable workforce. He has published 20+ articles in leading journals such as Science, Nature, Physics Reports, Nature Communications, and Regional Studies. His works have received 1290+ citations with an H-index of 18 and have been covered by popular media outlets such as Scientific American and Forbes.

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Interests
  • Computational Social Science
  • The Science of Science
  • Social and Economic Systems
  • Network & Complexity Science
  • Applied Data Science
  • AI for Science & Innovation
  • Societal Impact of Science
  • Biomedical Informatics
  • Social Mobility & Education
  • Demographic Inequality & Workforce Sustainability
Education
  • Ph.D. in Computer Science, 2019

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (advisor Prof. Tao Zhou)

  • Visiting Student in Media Arts & Sciences, 2017

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab (advisor Prof. César A. Hidalgo)

  • Master Student in Computer Science, 2014

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (advisor Prof. Tao Zhou)

  • B.Sc. in Information & Computing Science, 2012

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (top 10 undergraduates with the highest honors)

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Research Assistant Professor
Sep 2021 – Present Evanston, USA | working at Kellogg CSSI
 
 
 
 
 
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Sep 2019 – Aug 2021 Evanston, USA | working with Prof. Dashun Wang
 
 
 
 
 
Graduate Research Assistant
Sep 2016 – Sep 2017 Cambridge, USA | working with Prof. César A. Hidalgo
 
 
 
 
 
Visiting Scholar
Feb 2016 – Apr 2016 Boston, USA | working with Prof. H. Eugene Stanley
 
 
 
 
 
Graduate Research Assistant
Sep 2014 – Jul 2019 Chengdu, China | working with Prof. Tao Zhou

Full Publications

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(2024). Quantifying the benefit of artificial intelligence for scientific research. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.10578.

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(2023). Gender differences in resume language and gender gaps in salary expectations. arXiv preprint arXiv.

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(2023). Undergraduate-to-graduate student mobility reveals academic hierarchy and educational disparities. arXiv preprint arXiv.

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(2021). Potentially long-lasting effects of the pandemic on scientists. Nature Communications.

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(2021). The moderated curvilinear relationship between work experience diversity and salary. Academy of Management (AOM) Annual Meeting Proceedings.

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(2021). Reducing the bystander effect via decreasing group size to solve the collective-risk social dilemma. Applied Mathematics and Computation.

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(2021). Spillovers across industries and regions in China’s regional economic diversification. Regional Studies.

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(2020). Impact of high-speed railway on economic development. Journal of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

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(2020). Quantifying policy responses to a global emergency: Insights from the COVID-19 pandemic. arXiv:2006.13853.

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(2020). Bilateral relatedness: knowledge diffusion and the evolution of bilateral trade. Journal of Evolutionary Economics.

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(2020). Computational Socioeconomics: A data-driven framework for quantifying progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Future Cities, New Economy, and Shared City Prosperity Driven by Technological Innovations.

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(2019). Research on the spatial structure and dynamics of socio-economic systems. PhD Thesis of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, 2019.

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(2019). Computational socioeconomics. Physics Reports.

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(2019). Online data reveal key factors on salary expectation. Journal of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

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(2019). Regional economic status inference from information flow and talent mobility. EPL (Europhysics Letters).

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(2018). Application of carrier data on precise poverty alleviation and emergency management. Journal of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (Social Sciences Edition).

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(2018). Orderliness predicts academic performance: behavioural analysis on campus lifestyle. Journal of The Royal Society Interface.

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(2018). A trust-based recommendation method using network diffusion processes. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications.

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(2018). Height conditions salary expectations: Evidence from large-scale data in China. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications.

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(2018). Quantifying China’s regional economic complexity. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications.

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(2017). Link prediction in weighted networks via structural perturbations. 2017 14th International Computer Conference on Wavelet Active Media Technology and Information Processing (ICCWAMTIP).

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(2017). Maximizing the collective learning effects in regional economic development. 2017 14th International Computer Conference on Wavelet Active Media Technology and Information Processing (ICCWAMTIP).

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(2017). Stamp out fake peer review. Nature [Note: correspondence article; replied by Springer Nature: T. Welschot, Nature 546 (2017) 210].

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(2017). Collective learning in China's regional economic development. arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.01369.

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(2017). A vertex similarity index for better personalized recommendation. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications.

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(2016). Critical size of ego communication networks. EPL (Europhysics Letters).

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(2016). Promotion and resignation in employee networks. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications.

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(2016). Big data reveal the status of economic development. Journal of University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

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(2015). Bootstrap percolation on spatial networks. Scientific Reports.

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(2015). Group-based ranking method for online rating systems with spamming attacks. EPL (Europhysics Letters).

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(2013). Long-term effects of recommendation on the evolution of online systems. Chinese Physics Letters.

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(2012). Finding conspirators in the network via machine learning. The UMAPJournal.

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