Alex Chow
Experience
Graduate Researcher
January 2020
— Present
Stanford University
Research roles in sociology and poverty/inequality labs.
- Voices Lab: "American Voices Project." Research Assistant for Dr. David Grusky, Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. (Jun 2025 – Present)
- Social Networks Lab: "Social Networks and Cellphone Mobility Data." Lab Coordinator and Research Assistant for Dr. David Grusky, Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. (Mar 2023 – Present)
- "COVID and Infant Health." Research Assistant for Dr. Florencia Torche, Stanford Department of Sociology. (Sep 2022 – May 2023)
Undergraduate Research Assistant
January 2016
— January 2020
University of British Columbia
Research experience in sociology and data science labs.
- "Intergenerational Educational Mobility Over the Past Century in Canada." Co-Investigator with Dr. Neil Guppy, UBC Department of Sociology. (May 2018 – May 2021)
- "Developing Natural Language Processing Tools for Sharing of Indigenous and Community Knowledge." Data Science for Social Good Research Fellow, National Energy Board & UBC Data Science Institute. (May 2019 – Dec 2019)
- "Romantic Relationships in Canada." Research Assistant for Dr. Yue Qian, UBC Department of Sociology. (May 2019 – Dec 2019)
Graduate Teaching, Mentorship, and Supervision
January 2020
— January 2025
Stanford University
- Graduate Research Assistant Internship Supervisor, Stanford Institute for Research in the Social Sciences Research Experience Program. (Nov 2024 – Aug 2025)
- Graduate Research Mentor, Stanford Summer Research Early Identification Program. (Jun 2021 – Aug 2021)
- Graduate Teaching Assistant, SOC 382: Sociological Methodology II (Statistics for an Open Science: Principles of Regression II). (Jan 2023 – Mar 2023)
- Graduate Teaching Assistant, SOC 381: Sociological Methodology I (Introduction). (Sep 2022 – Dec 2022)
- Graduate Teaching Assistant, SOC 114/214: Economic Sociology. (Sep 2021 – Dec 2021)
Undergraduate Teaching and Mentorship
January 2016
— January 2020
University of British Columbia
- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, ANTH/SOCI 480: Urban Ethnographic Field School. (May 2020 – Jun 2020)
- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, SOCI 372: Contemporary Directions in Theory. (Jan 2020 – Apr 2020)
- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, DSCI 100: Introduction to Data Science. (Sep 2019 – Apr 2020)
- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, SOCI 301: Development and Underdevelopment. (Sep 2019 – Dec 2019)
- Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, SOCI 100: Introduction to Sociology. (Sep 2018 – May 2019)
- Student Directed Seminar Leader and Coordinator, SOCI 433: Scaling the Ivory Tower: Sociology of Higher Education. (Sep 2019 – Apr 2020)
- Workshop Leader and Coordinator, Undergraduate Social Statistics Study Group. (Oct 2019)
- Mentorship Program Coordinator and Peer Mentor, Coordinated Arts Program. (Sep 2017 – Apr 2019)
Undergraduate Academic Service
January 2016
— January 2020
University of British Columbia
- Advisory Committee Member, Advanced Research Cohort (ARC) Program, UBC Department of Sociology. (Jan 2019 – May 2020)
- Tenure-Track Instructor Hiring Committee Member, Coordinated Arts Program, UBC Faculty of Arts. (Jan 2019 – May 2019)
- Lead Typesetter and Associate Editor, Sojourners: Undergraduate Journal of Sociology. (Sep 2017 – May 2019)
- Selection Panel Member, Arts Undergraduate Society Humanities and Social Sciences Conference. (Feb 2018)
Journal Reviewer
January 2023
— Present
- American Journal of Sociology
- Canadian Review of Sociology
- International Journal of Lifelong Education
- Health Literacy Research and Practice
Projects
Conference Presentations
Present
— Present
Professional Affiliations
Present
— Present
- American Sociological Association
- Canadian Sociological Association
- Canadian Population Society
- International Sociological Association
Education
Stanford University
January 2020
— Present
Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology
- Dissertation: "The Social Significance of Education"
- Dissertation Committee: Dr. Michelle Jackson (Advisor), Dr. Florencia Torche, Dr. David Grusky
- Qualifying Exams: Social Stratification, Economic Sociology
Stanford University
January 2020
— January 2022
Master of Arts in Sociology
- Master’s Thesis: "Expansion and Returns: A Causal Inference Approach to the Positional Value of Education"
- Advisors: Dr. Michelle Jackson, Dr. Florencia Torche
University of British Columbia
January 2016
— January 2020
Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Sociology
- Honors Thesis: "Complicating the International Student Classification in Canada: A Computational Grounded Theory Approach"
- Supervisor: Dr. Qiang Fu
Certificates
Present
— Present
Publications
Chow, Alex, and Neil Guppy. 2021. "Intergenerational Educational Mobility Over the Past Century in Canada." Canadian Review of Sociology 58(3):372-398.
Present
— Present
Chow, Alex. "The Subjective Social Ladder: Actual, Perceived, and Projected Mobility in 22 Countries."
Present
— Present
Chow, Alex. "How Much Does Education Matter for Social Status? Findings from a Conjoint Experiment."
Present
— Present
Qiao, Si, Junxi Qu, Rosina Pradhananga, Alex Chow, Sarah-Eve Dill, David Grusky, and Anthony Gar-On Yeh. "Residential Relocation Reshapes Daily Exposure Segregation."
Present
— Present
van der Velden, Max, David Grusky, and Alex Chow. "A Supervised LLM System for Large-Scale, Data-Secure Qualitative Coding."
Present
— Present
Taylor, Alison, Stephanie Glick, Nasim Peikazadi, Alex Chow, and Beverly Allan. 2018. "Creating Reciprocal and Ethical Learning Partnerships in the Downtown Eastside: Messages from participants on the development of partnership planning tools."
Present
— Present
Awards
Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program
January 2020
Stanford University
Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) Fellowship
January 2019
Data Science Institute, UBC
Graduate Research Opportunity
January 2025
Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences
Sociology PhD Dissertation Research Opportunity
January 2025
Stanford Department of Sociology
Governor General's Silver Medal in Arts
January 2020
University of British Columbia
Outstanding Graduating Student, Canadian Sociological Association
January 2020
Canadian Sociological Association
Kaspar Naegele Memorial Prize in Sociology
January 2020
University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia Scholarship
January 2019
University of British Columbia
Faculty of Arts International Student Scholarship
January 2019
University of British Columbia
Katherine Brearley Arts Scholarship
January 2019
University of British Columbia
Faculty of Arts International Student Scholarship
January 2018
University of British Columbia
Katherine Brearley Arts Scholarship
January 2018
University of British Columbia
Mo Lin Yu Memorial Prize in the Faculty of Arts
January 2018
University of British Columbia
Languages
English:
Mandarin:
Skills
Technical:
Python, R, Stata
Languages:
English, Mandarin
Interests
Research Interests:
Social stratification, Educational inequality, Social mobility, Status, Higher education, Quantitative and statistical analysis, Survey design, Computational methods: Network analysis, Natural language processing, Large language models
References
Dr. Michelle Jackson
Dr. David Grusky
Dr. Jeremy Freese
Dr. Florencia Torche