Hi there! I am Honglin (he/him). I am a doctoral student at the University of Chicago working with James A. Evans. My overall research vision is to harness big data and AI to make sense of innovation and accelerate it in science and technology for the betterment of society.

• I study the social processes of innovation -- how new ideas are born and spread; how social, scientific, and technological institutions accelerate innovation and influence collective cognition, collaboration, and evaluation; and how innovation and broader societal issues like inequality and policy interact.

• I use and develop computational/quantitative methods: network analysis, NLP, machine learning, causal inference/econometrics, and agent-based modeling. I am especially interested in new technologies like AI for knowledge representation and the detection of early signals of big discoveries.

• Broadly, I am interested in the generative novelty in human understanding and LLMs, and how social methodological paradigms learn from Generative AI.

My work appears in top peer-reviewed journals and proceedings across computer science, network science, and social sciences including Nature Communications.

I have training in mathematics, computer science, social science, and evolutionary biology. Before Chicago I graduated from Michigan State and did research in Harvard Business School. I am from Northeastern China where I volunteered for LGBTQ health for years. I support Boston Bruins.

I widely and closely collaborate with innovation scholars outside Chicago. Drop me an email if you are interested in working together.