Director

Jackelyn Hwang

I am an Associate Professor in Sociology at Stanford University and the Director of the Changing Cities Research Lab. My main research interests are in the fields of urban sociology, race and ethnicity, immigration, and inequality. In particular, my research uses innovative data, measures, and methods to answer: how do neighborhood-level dynamics that are typically racialized drive changes in US residential segregation? My projects focus on how residential sorting mechanisms shape how gentrification unfolds over time and space, the consequences of gentrification on residential displacement, and developing data and measurement infrastructures for improving measures of gentrification, including developing automated methods using computer vision to measure visible neighborhood conditions and their changes over time from Google Street View imagery. I currently hold affiliations with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, the Urban Studies Program, and the Center for Poverty and Inequality at Stanford, and I am a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. My work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, City & Community, Demography, Social Forces, Sociological Methods and Research, Sociological Methodology, and Urban Affairs Review, and other academic journals and has been supported by the American Sociological Association, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Joint Center for Housing Studies, and the National Science Foundation, among others. I received my B.A.S. in Sociology and Mathematics from Stanford University and my Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy from Harvard University. After completing my Ph.D., I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Office of Population Research at Princeton University.

Community Members

Michelle Casas

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD student in sociology interested in race and ethnicity, inequality, and neighborhoods. I graduated in 2021 from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor degree in Economics and double minors in data science and sociology. After graduating, I worked as a research analyst at the Urban Institute's Center on Family and Financial Well-Being, where I did research on the early childhood education workforce, child policy, family well-being, youth federal safety-net programs, and racial minority group's economic well-being in the US. I grew up in Hailey, Idaho, and in my free time, I like spending time with my dog, running, listening to music, and being outside.

Sarah-Eve Dill

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD student in Sociology studying inequality, social networks, and economic and community development. My current research aims to understand the network patterns in Americans' everyday social exposures and the role of neighborhood investments in shaping such networks. I hold a B.A. in Development Studies and East Asian studies from Brown University, and prior to starting my PhD, I worked as a research project manager with the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institution's studying the effects of community health interventions on early human capital formation in rural China.

Monica Gao

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD candidate in Sociology whose research focuses on immigration, work, and political sociology. I am a mixed-methods researcher who uses survey data and in-depth interviews to study questions of immigrant integration and political participation. I received my BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley in 2023.

Angela He

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD candidate in sociology. My research examines how people evaluate morally ambiguous and subjective phenomena in the domain of housing and the cultural dimensions of financialization in the housing market using a bevy of methods (recently, computational and experimental methods). I received my B.A. in sociology and Asian studies from Cornell University. In my free time, I enjoy gardening, reading fiction, hiking with my dog, and visiting design museums.

Olivia Jin

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD student in Sociology with research interests in housing policy, spatial inequality, as well as biases in data and algorithms. I'm South Korean raised in Hong Kong, and I spent some time on the East Coast before coming to Stanford. I graduated from Middlebury College with a BA in economics, and I worked as a research specialist at the Eviction Lab at Princeton before starting my PhD. In my free time, I love playing with my cat Rikki, playing tennis and pickleball, and doing pottery!

Eva Knowles

Master's Student, Sociology

I am a Master’s student in Sociology at Stanford interested in urban sociology. I finished my undergraduate career at Stanford in 2026 with a Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Urban Studies. My previous research has focused on spatial inequality, neighborhood reputation and place-based stigma, alternatives to policing, and reentry from incarceration, all using qualitative methods.

Elizabeth Kuhlman

PhD Student, Sociology

I am a PhD student in sociology researching inequality and residential segregation. Prior to Stanford, I worked as a predoctoral fellow at The Shift Project studying worker well-being in the service sector. I received my B.A. in sociology and statistics from Rice University.

Qiwei Lin

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD student in Sociology with research interests in social inequality, race and ethnicity, and computational methods. I am from Hainan, China. I hold a B.S. in Statistics and Political Science from University of Michigan and a M.S. in Computational Analysis and Public Policy from the University of Chicago. Prior to starting my PhD, I worked as a research fellow at Stanford Law School where I developed new data and methods to study racial disparities and conducted policy evaluation. In my free time, I play board games, video games, and chess.

Renee Louis

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD student in Sociology researching social inequality, housing insecurity, neighborhood change, and race. I am also a masters student in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford, concentrating in computational social science. I graduated with my bachelors in Sociology from Princeton University where I also minored in Statistics and Machine Learning. I love reading, knitting, and eating spicy foods.

Janhavi Purkar

Master's Student, CS

I'm a Master's student in Computer Science at Stanford interested in how technology intersects with media and human behavior. I graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2025 with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Highest Honors. Before Stanford, I worked as a software engineering intern at Amazon, Salesforce, Ansys, and Cenozai, and conducted undergraduate research on virtual reality accessibility and human trust in autonomous systems, as well as wireless communication networks, at Georgia Tech. Teaching has also been a constant throughout my life: I TA'd Python and computer graphics at Georgia Tech and have facilitated for Girls Who Code for several years. Across all of this, I'm motivated by the same throughline: building technology that creates real, lasting impact for the people it's meant to serve.

Tommy Ren

PhD Candidate, Sociology

Ángel Mendiola Ross

Postdoctoral Fellow, Sociology

Ángel is a Provostial Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. Their research examines how state institutions like policing and prisons both respond to and produce socio-spatial inequality and neighborhood change in U.S. cities and suburbs. He received a Master of City Planning and a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mavis Stone

PhD Candidate, ESS

Mavis (they/them) is a PhD student in the Earth System Science program with a focus on mitigating (in)direct gentrification and infectious disease outcomes from climate resilience initiatives. Mavis is currently collaborating with Climate Resilient Communities and the San Mateo County Mosquito Vector Control District to co-produce meaningful research for more equitable environmental and public health outcomes. Outside of research, Mavis enjoys dancing, playing sports, creating paper/fiber art, and befriending other passionate humans.

Iris Zhang

PhD Candidate, Sociology

I am a PhD student in sociology from Hong Kong via Philadelphia, my first American home, and New York City. Prior to Stanford, I studied sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a research associate at the Brennan Center for Justice. I am interested in housing markets, racial geography, and inequality.