Ya-Wen Lei

Ya-Wen Lei is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University. She is also affiliated with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard. She grew up in Taipei, Taiwan. Trained in both law and sociology, she holds a J.S.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. After graduating from Michigan in 2013, she was a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University between 2013 and 2016. Her research interests include political sociology, law & society, economic sociology, cultural sociology, urban sociology, political communication, Chinese studies, and science & technology studies. In her research, she draws on historical-comparative, qualitative, and quantitative methods.