Olivia Y. Hu

Hi! My name is Olivia, but you can call me Liv. I’m a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology. My work focuses on race, assortative mating, and family-making. More specifically, my research agenda is motivated by two primary questions:

• How do individuals come to select long-term committed partners, especially across race and class lines?
• What happens to individuals' understandings of social difference after they enter these cross-boundary unions?

I am currently recruiting participants for my dissertation project (IRB Protocol Number: 852920). If you're currently in a romantic relationship with someone of a different ethnic or racial background and you identify as East Asian, I would like to hear about your thoughts and experiences. To check if you're eligible for the study, please take a couple of minutes to fill out this questionnaire.

Moreover, I’m spearheading two collaborative projects. With Dr. Alexander Adames, I explore the causal effect of educational attainment and educational prestige on mating outcomes in the online dating market. In collaboration with Dr. Wendy D. Roth and Dr. Xiang Lu, I examine how genetic ancestry test (GAT) takers conceptualize race. You can read our paper in Ethnic and Racial Studies here.

Prior to beginning my graduate studies, I executed marketing campaigns at UBS Investment Bank and consulted on new CPG and OTC product launches at Nielsen. I received my Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Business Administration from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business.