ZIXUAN ZHOU

Chicago, Illinois - zixuanzhou@uchicago.edu - (773) 633-9590 - GitHub

EDUCATION

MA, Computational Social Science — University of Chicago - Expected Jun 2026

  • Select Coursework: Causal Inference (PhD), Machine Learning, Large-scale Computing, Economics of Companies

BA, Economics & BA, English — Peking University - Sep 2019 - Jul 2024

Exchange Student (Fully Funded) — University of California, Los Angeles - Sep 2022 - Dec 2022

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Research Assistant, UCLA — Political Activism in Adolescents: A Social Network Perspective

  • Analyzed qualitative data on the goals and strategies for achieving social impact of over 1,000 participants of the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) summer institute
  • Devised and revised preliminary coding schemes to categorize student responses into three major criteria: goals and intentions, strategy, and motivation, and coded the response data accordingly
  • Conducted a literature review to discover the link between social networks and mental health and reveal how organizational structures influence psychological well-being

PROJECTS

Detecting Inflow Migration Patterns in Chicago Using Census Tract Data - Jan 2025 - March 2025
Machine Learning | Geospatial Analysis | Data Visualization | Python

  • Cleaned, transformed, and merged ACS, Zillow, and CTA data
  • Performed feature engineering (e.g., inflation adjustments, log transformations) for robust analysis
  • Trained ML models and predicted urban displacement typology for 2023
  • Generated heatmaps and applied spatial clustering to detect neighborhood socio-economic shifts in Chicago

Impact of UHC Shooting on Health Insurance-related Sentiment: Evidence from Reddit Textual Data - Jan 2025 - Feb 2025
Web Scraping | NLP | Machine Learning | Data Visualization | Python

  • Scrapped, cleaned, and preprocessed 14k+ Reddit data using NLP (regex, stopword removal, lemmatization, TF-IDF)
  • Trained ML models for sentiment classification, increasing accuracy by 7% through fine-tuning hyperparameters
  • Analyzed sentiment trends over time and presented insights with visualizations using Seaborn

More Flexibility, Less Pressure? Impact of College Entrance Exam Reform: A Cohort DID Analysis - Apr 2024 - May 2024
Causal Inference | Data Cleaning | Data Visualization | STATA

  • Cleaned, pre-processed, and visualized over 150k data entries from China Family Panel Studies with STATA
  • Employed static and dynamic DiD models to estimate the policy impact of 2014 Chinese College Entrance Exam reform on cram school enrollment and study pressure

Woman, City, Public Space - May 2023 - Jun 2023

  • Explored how urban spatial layouts affect labor participation, focusing on women’s access to employment
  • Authored a report linking urban planning to labor disparities, advocating for inclusive design and policy reform

SKILLS

Technical Skills: Python (NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn), R, STATA, LaTeX, SQL
Data Analysis: Causal Inference (DID, RDD, IV, Fixed Effects), NLP (regex, lemmatization, TF-IDF), Machine Learning
Languages: Chinese (Native), English, Japanese (N1, Fluent)

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

Tutor — Peking University Academic Writing Workshop - Mar 2023 - Jun 2023

  • Guided students to strategically utilize academic databases and library resources to develop research ideas
  • Proof-read students’ research proposals and provided research suggestions accordingly

HONORS & AWARDS

M.A. Director’s Scholarship | Gargoyle Research Scholarship — University of Chicago - May 2024
SPRIX Scholarship of Academic Excellence — Peking University - Sep 2020 - Sep 2023
Research Excellence — Peking University - Sep 2023