CIISR Graduate Research Fellows
 |
Maranda JoyceMaranda Joyce is a PhD candidate in Political Science with a focus on American Politics. Her research interests include education policy, gender, race, and political violence. Her dissertation broadly examines the escalating extremism in American politics, particularly in the local context. A primary focus is developing a comprehensive theory to explain forms of non-democratic expression, such as threats of violence against politicians and withdrawal from public environments. As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Maranda plans to use machine learning to analyze hostile rhetoric surrounding critical race theory in school board meetings. Maranda returned to school after working in the Texas policy and nonprofit space, specifically in PK-12 education research, refugee resettlement, and community engagement/advocacy. Maranda holds an MA in Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Economics and Business, with a minor in Environmental Studies, from Southwestern University. In her free time, she loves to hike, try new restaurants, and relax with her two cats, Kona and Yogi |
 |
Conner Joyce
Conner Joyce is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Rice University with a focus on International Relations. His research interests include digital technology and international security. In particular, he studies how technology can facilitate the emergence of security threats from non-state actors and how state actors can cooperate to mitigate these threats. His work on these topics has been published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Conner examines how cybercriminals become politically motivated hackers. He shows that social connections among cybercriminals allow for the transmission of political and radical activities. To conduct this research, he leverages large-scale web scraping, large language models, machine learning (with deep transfer learning), and experimental designs. Conner holds an MA in Public Affairs from the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs and a BA in Political Science from Southwestern University. Personal Website
|
 |
Yunjie “Grace” XieYunjie “Grace” Xie is a third-year PhD student in Economics at Rice University. Her research interests span computational social science, development economics, labor economics, and public policy, with a focus on how social and institutional structures shape economic outcomes. As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Yunjie is developing a dynamic model of household labor supply and intergenerational childcare to study gender pension gaps in China. This project seeks to capture how childcare responsibilities and pension systems jointly influence women’s labor market participation, savings decisions, and long-term retirement security. Her research contributes to a deeper understanding of gender inequality in economic opportunities and outcomes. It also informs policies that promote more equitable labor and pension systems. Yunjie holds an MA in Economics from Columbia University and a BA in Economics from Renmin University of China. |
 |
Sierra A. MalvitzSierra A. Malvitz is a third-year PhD student in Political Science at Rice University, where she is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her research focuses on American politics, political behavior, and gender and politics. As a Coordinating Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Sierra is pursuing projects that explore how parenthood and gender norms shape elite behavior and decision-making. This work includes original data collection, the use of web scraping, and meta-analyses. Her published work includes articles in Policing: An International Journal examining gendered perceptions of police conduct and the accessibility of law enforcement information online. Beyond her research, Sierra has served as President of the Political Science Graduate Student Association at Rice. She works as a media specialist for the Center for Sexuality, Women, and Gender Studies and as a writing coach for the First Year Writing Intensive Seminar. Sierra holds an MA in Political Science from Rice University and a BA in Political Science and History, magna cum laude, from the University of Wisconsin–Parkside. |
 |
Pengda WangPengda Wang is a third-year Psychology PhD student at Rice University and an ML/AI PhD Resident at Midjourney, Inc. His research focuses on psychometrics (e.g., SEM, computational measurement, AI/ML approaches), individual differences (e.g., bright/dark personalities, social behaviors), and personnel selection (e.g., faking, bias, AI/ML applications, interpretable/responsible AI use). As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Pengda is conducting research on high-dimensional representation of personality and how they can be used for prediction (e.g., individual differences constructs, life outcomes) and selection. He also studies measurement bias in new tech assessments, such as measurement non-invariance in AI model/multi-model assessments. Pengda holds dual bachelor's degrees in Psychology and Computer Science from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. |
 |
Caroline WolskiCaroline Wolski is a third-year PhD student in Sociology. Her research interests center on applying quantitative and computational methods to examine racial/ethnic disparities in health outcomes and access to health care. As a research fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Caroline is developing her dissertation, which investigates how racial and spatial inequalities jointly structure access to health care in the United States. Her work emphasizes how the distribution, quality, and centralization of health care facilities shape persistent disparities for marginalized communities. The project combines national survey data, metropolitan-level functional clustering of health care infrastructure, and a spatial case study of Houston to reveal how racial residential segregation and centralized medical hubs restrict meaningful access to care. In addition, Caroline is coauthoring projects on neighborhood analysis of prenatal health care access and on computational methods for sociology. Her previous work includes analyses of COVID-19 mortality and vaccinations, racial/ethnic residential segregation, neighborhood health care provision, pediatric provider choice, and the distribution of health-related urban amenities. Caroline holds an MA in Sociology from the University of Houston and a BA in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. |
 |
Shahill ParsonsShahill Parsons is a fourth-year PhD student in Sociology at Rice University. His research interests include race, racism, racial inequality, social stratification, mixed methods, and computational social science. His scholarship examines the lived experiences of African Americans at the nexus of race, racism, racial inequality, and social stratification, and the pathways and obstacles to racial equality across social and institutional domains via mixed-methods (e.g., quantitative, qualitative, computational social science). His research spans from examining law enforcement’s behavioral changes following high-profile encounters with Black individuals to theorizing how marginalized communities displaced by gentrification temporarily repurpose space. His work illustrates how these institutional dynamics that intersect with African American lived experiences both facilitate and hinder routes to racial equality. As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Shahill extends prior research on “racial cooling periods”—temporary decreases in police killings of Black individuals following high-profile incidents—by establishing causal relationships through quasi-experimental methods (e.g., synthetic controls). Shahill holds a BS in Sociology from Florida State University and an MA in Sociology from Rice University. |
 |
Sho IzumisawaSho Izumisawa is a fourth-year PhD student in Political Science at Rice University with a focus on Comparative Politics and Political Methodology. His research interests include ideology and coalitions. As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice University, Sho examines how different types of elite data affect estimates of Japanese legislators’ ideological positions. He employs a range of data sources and estimation techniques, including large language models, to measure ideology. This research addresses an important question: to what extent do different data sources yield different estimates of the same legislators’ ideological positions? Sho holds a BA in International Relations from IE University in Spain. |
 |
Marianne HopidaMarianne Hopida is a Master’s student in Global Affairs at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. Her research interests include immigration policy, globalization and nationalism, sustainability developments, and the intersection of public-private responsibilities in international security. Her research examines the “brain waste” phenomenon in the United States, where immigrants with professional credentials and experience are often pushed into lower-paying or unrelated jobs. As a Research Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Marianne uses computational social sciences to examine how corporate and public sector practices reinforce these barriers and propose recommendations to advance more equitable employment rights for immigrant workers. Marianne’s professional background includes nonprofit work with Feed the Soul Foundation and Latin Restaurant Weeks, where she supported marginalized culinary entrepreneurs through market research, grant assistance, and supporting their post-pandemic recovery. Marianne holds a BBA in International Business, magna cum laude, from the University of Houston–Downtown, where she was a recipient of the prestigious Ted Bauer Scholarship, awarded for academic excellence and leadership. |
 |
Victor DelgadoVictor Delgado is a PhD candidate in Economics at Rice University. His research interests include public economics, labor, development, and computational social science. His work combines econometric, computational, and structural economic modeling approaches to study tax incidence, the effects of tax policies on firms’ investment behavior, and the effects of other government-related policies. In addition, his work explores the impact of enforcement measures on tax collection and compliance. As a Coordinating Fellow at the Center for Computational Insights on Inequality and Society at Rice, Victor examines the incidence of the corporate income tax in developing-country settings, incorporating reinforcement learning approaches. Victor previously worked as a research fellow at El Colegio de México and the Centro de Estudios Espinosa Yglesias, and later served as an Economic Advisor at Mexico’s Ministry of Finance. He has also been a fellow at the Texas Policy Lab at Rice University and a graduate intern at the Inter-American Development Bank. Victor holds an MA in Economics from El Colegio de México and a BA in Economics from Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Monterrey. |