Honglin Bao

Hi there! My name is Honglin Bao (he/him). I go by Honglin. I am a computational social scientist.

My research falls into the broader categories of innovation, contagion, networks, and the drivers of organization change. I have the privilege to work with a bunch of good computational social scientists in computer science, sociology, psychology -- like Dr. Misha Teplitskiy (Michigan), Drs. Amit Goldenberg and Anjali M. Bhatt (HBS), among other smart brains -- on cool projects. Across all projects I am devoted to understanding how innovation spreads, what impacts its contagion and what (organizational stuff) is impacted by its contagion. I use and develop a wide spectrum of quantitative techniques (networks, machine learning/NLP/big data, causal inference, and theoretical modeling), complemented by some experimentation. I am especially interested in harnessing computational tools to innovate measurements beyond admin data etc., and combining social/statistical methods with predictive machine learning methods to rigorously address social questions.

I got multidisciplinary training in mathematics, computer science, social science, and evolutionary biology. Before coming to HBS, I graduated from Michigan State, worked in the tech industry and dedicated many years to volunteering with LGBTQ public health in China.