I am looking for new PhD students through 2 different programs:

I am also recruiting new postdoc candidates

Hong Chen is a Visiting Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management and a Ph.D. student in the School of Information at University of Michigan. He studies science of science and innovation and has a broad interest in computational social science. His research investigates global disparities in science and knowledge transfer within the science community. Previously, he received his Master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University and his Bachelor’s degree from Zhejiang University.

Sirag Erkol is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the science of science using methodologies from data science, network science, and machine learning. Broadly, his research interests concern the dynamics and success in academic and creative careers, as well as the analysis of innovation dynamics within academic institutions. He earned his Ph.D. in Informatics with a focus on complex networks at Indiana University, Bloomington. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering at Boğaziçi University.
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Alexander (Zander) C. Furnas is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. He researches the political economy of information, with a focus on the production, dissemination, and uptake of science and expertise in the policymaking process. His dissertation examines how congressional staffers evaluate and use privately provisioned information produced by outside organizations. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Legislative Studies Quarterly, among others. More generally, he studies the use of information, science, and expertise in policymaking, interest groups, and elite political behavior using survey, text analysis, and network methods.

Youwei He is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He holds a Ph.D. in Technology Management, Economics, and Policy from Seoul National University and a Master’s degree in Economics from Nankai University. His research interests lie in the science of science, technological evolution, and product science. His work focuses on understanding innovation dynamics and the evolution of technologies and products through data-driven and computational approaches.

Noriyuki (Noly) Higashide is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Entrepreneur in Residence at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He completed a Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo’s School of Engineering in Technology Management for Innovation. He also holds an M.S. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Tokyo. In his academic work, he has developed a novel framework for quantifying the transition from basic to applied research, publishing three peer-reviewed papers, including one in Technovation. Noly also has experience as a data scientist at IBM and startups, where he provided AI consulting for major enterprises. He founded fukan Inc. and, as CEO, has been conducting pilot projects with corporate clients. At CSSI, he leverages his doctoral research in the science of science and his AI expertise to develop specialized AI solutions that transform large-scale scientific and innovation data into actionable R&D intelligence.

Zihang Lin is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, with affiliations at Kellogg Center for Science of Science & Innovation (CSSI) and Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). His research interests encompass computational social science, science of science, and innovation. Recently, his endeavors have been concentrated on extensive data analyses with advanced machine learning techniques, in a quest to achieve a deeper understanding of science and innovation, specifically focusing on accelerating innovation ecosystems. He attained a B.Sc. degree in computer science from Fudan University in 2023.
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Liyuan Liu is a Research Fellow at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He earned a Ph.D. in Finance from Tsinghua University, as well as a B.S. in Finance and a B.S. with Honors in Mathematics from the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. His research broadly explores the intersection of organizational theory and strategy. He is particularly interested in human capital strategy within the contexts of innovation, entrepreneurship, and creative domains. Methodologically, he leverages large-scale archival datasets using large language models and causal inference.

Zhengnan Ma is an Empirical Research Fellow at CSSI studying scientific innovation using large-scale bibliometric data and computational methods. Her work focuses on how new ideas emerge, spread, and are evaluated in science, with a particular interest in the role of artificial intelligence and large language models in shaping scientific progress.

Yingrong Mao is a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) at the Kellogg School of Management. She is currently an M.A. candidate in Computational Social Science at the University of Chicago, with affiliations at the Knowledge Lab. She is interested in collective intelligence and complex systems, focusing on science of science currently. Using simulations and other computational techniques—such as natural language processing and statistical modeling—she aims to understand the process of knowledge production across social and institutional contexts. She is planning to pursue graduate studies starting in Fall 2026

Rui Pan is a Ph.D. student in Management & Organizations (MORS) at the Kellogg School of Management. She previously studied in the MA program in Computational Social Science (MACSS) at the University of Chicago, where she was affiliated with the Knowledge Lab. She earned dual bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Economics from Peking University in 2020. Her research examines creativity and innovation through collective processes such as team collaboration and network dynamics. Her current project explores the network structures of notable scientists and artists across space and history. Methodologically, she employs computational approaches, including content analysis and social network analysis.

Siddharth Patwardhan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He has a Ph.D. in Informatics from Indiana University Bloomington. Prior to that, he completed a B.S.-M.S. in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Kolkata. His research interests lie in the science of science and network science. His current work focuses on understanding the dynamics of technological frontiers using a combination of analytical and computational approaches.
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Yifan Qian is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His current research focus is the science of science and combines theories and methods from network science, machine learning, data science, and sociology. By leveraging large-scale datasets encompassing scientific funding, publications, societal impacts, and confidential university data on technology transfer and grant applications, his current work aims to broaden our definition and measurement of innovations while identifying new gaps and opportunities for innovations at research institutions.
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Reese Richardson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. His research focuses on the structure of knowledge networks surrounding breakthroughs and innovation in biomedicine. Broadly, his research interests concern the formation of collective knowledge, maintaining the integrity of the scientific literature and systematic studies of industrialized academic and scientific fraud. He earned his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences at Northwestern University in 2024 under Luís A. Nunes Amaral. His dissertation was titled “Metascientific studies in reproducibility, bias and fraud.” He earned a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and B.A. in Physics at North Central College in 2019.
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Andrew Saab is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management, affiliated with the Center for Science of Science and Innovation. His research focuses on how institutional and organizational arrangements shape the individual and collective behaviors of scientific and policy experts, and how the composition and interactions of expert groups influence decision-making. More broadly, he is interested in political economy, behavior, and public policy, with an emphasis on applying computational and causal inference methods. Andrew holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from Northwestern University and an M.S. in Statistics from Northwestern University. Prior to that, he earned an M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Warwick and a B.A. in Economics from the American University of Beirut.

Erzhuo Shao is a Ph.D. Candidate at the McCormick School of Engineering, majoring in Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences. His research interests lie in computational social science, complex networks, and machine learning. He received a B.Eng. degree and an M.Sc. in Electronic Engineering from Tsinghua University. He also received an M.S.E from Johns Hopkins University.
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Chaoming Song is a Visiting Research Professor at Kellogg CSSI and Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Miami. His research spans statistical physics, network theory, and computational social science, focusing on human dynamics and social interaction. He also studies disordered systems and critical phenomena in statistical mechanics. His work has appeared in Nature, Science, Nature Physics, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Computational Science, Nature Cities, and Physical Review Letters. He serves on the editorial boards of Entropy and Scientific Reports.
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Junxiu Tang is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, with Prof. Dashun Wang. Before that, he obtained a Ph.D. degree in the College of Computer Science and Technology from Zhejiang University. His research interests lie broadly in information visualization, visual analytics, and data art, especially in the fields of data-driven communication and event sequence. His work explores the transformation of data into valuable insights, compelling narratives, and aesthetic expressions.
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Giorgio Tripodi is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. He received a Ph.D. in Data Science from Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa, Italy) and an M.Sc. in Economics from Bocconi University (Milano, Italy). His main research interests lie at the intersection between science of science, network science, and economics of innovation, focusing on trajectories and collaboration in the knowledge space and climate technologies.
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Binglu Wang is a Ph.D. student in Management & Organizations (MORS) at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, with affiliations at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). Her research involves computational social science, technology & innovation, and social networks, with a focus on understanding how community collapses from large-scale datasets. She received her bachelor's degree in information management and information system from Peking University in 2019.

Sijia Wei is a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Integrated Health Services and Outcomes Research Fellowship Program at the Center for Education in Health Sciences, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. She earned her Ph.D. in Nursing Science from Duke University and is a registered nurse and public health nurse with clinical experience in community-based health care services (i.e., long-term care, home health care, rehabilitation, and hospice). Her research focuses on care coordination processes in care transitions across settings and over time by evaluating relational processes and social mechanisms essential to care coordination using social network analysis and large datasets such as electronic health records. She seeks to understand the complex systemic drivers of health disparities for adults with chronic illnesses and disabilities in the community and aims to improve care efficiency, health equity, and patient outcomes by enhancing care coordination processes.
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Zhe Wen is a Graduate Research Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management. She received her M.S. in Statistics from Northwestern University in 2025 and her B.S. in Statistics from Nankai University in 2023. Her research interests lie in computational social science, technology and innovation, and social networks, with a particular focus on individual trajectories within social and organizational settings—such as career development, academic mobility, and behavioral change.
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Renli Wu received his Ph.D. from the School of Information Management at Wuhan University in June 2025. He previously conducted research at the Knowledge Lab at the University of Chicago (October 2021–October 2023). His research lies at the intersection of the Science of Science and Information Science, with a focus on the evolution of disciplines and cross-disciplinary knowledge flows. He examines the heterogeneity and differentiation of knowledge diffusion across fields, the hierarchies and biases embedded within disciplinary networks, and the processes of domain emergence and aging. His work seeks to advance understanding of how innovations occur and how knowledge propagates across scientific domains. In addition, his research explores the dynamics of scientific teams and career trajectories, with particular attention to leadership, team size, and gender.

Alumni

Maximilian Mason

Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management ’25-26
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Yifang Wang

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, ’23-25
Current: Assistant Professor, Florida State University
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Bernard Koch

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, ’22-24
Current: Assistant Professor, University of Chicago
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Jian Gao

Research Assistant Professor, Kellogg School of Management
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Seokkyun Joshua Woo

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, ’22-23
Current: Assistant Professor, University of Hong Kong
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Yian Yin

Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, ’20-22
Current: Assistant Professor, Cornell University
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Wenyuan Liu

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, ’22-23
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Taegyoon Kim

Post-Doctoral Fellow, Kellogg School of Management, ’22-23
Current: Assistant Professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
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