David Su
I am a political sociologist in training. Prior to coming to Berkeley, I held a Soc-demography Mphil from the University of Oxford (with distinction) and graduated (luckily survived) with a sociology degree from mainland China.
My main research interest is twofold. First, I applied survey and computational methods to study how individuals use networks for resource mobilization in non-routine contexts. Second, my research focuses on the dynamics of social movements and the underlying state-society relationship. Accordingly, I am currently pursuing the following research projects: (1) a UCNets-based study endeavors to explain why social networks generate undesirable health outcomes for immigrants but not for their US-born counterparts; (2) a mixed-method project drawing on archival sources and newspaper-based event history data to study why repressions quell protests in some cases but backfire in others, a much-debated topic in political sociology and political science.