Yuan Hsiao

Yuan Hsiao’s major research explores the intersection of digital media, social networks, and collective action. His research brings a network perspective to understanding questions pertinent to a variety of online and offline social processes. Examples include how networks on social media contribute to political mobilization, how gang members engage in online and offline conflict relationships, how personal relationships affect the spread of religion, or how community networks affect health behavior. Central to all these examples is societal change, such as the rise of social media, reshapes how people form network relationships, and in turn how such network relationships affect collective phenomena such as political mobilization or the spread of a religion.

Yuan is enthusiastic about multi-data and mixed-methods research. As a believer that complex social problems often require multiple sources of data, he combines “big” digital data, administrative records, survey experiments, and historical archives to glean insight into general theoretical processes. Analytically, he is a big fan of mixed-methods research that combines qualitative and quantitative data.

Yuan finds it interesting when conducting cross-national research. His research has engaged geographical and cultural contexts including the United States, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Jordan, Georgia, and other countries. Recognizing that he may not have deep cultural expertise in every context, Yuan often collaborates with scholars from different countries.

Yuan’s work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Networks, Sociological Methods & Research, Political Communication, Journal of Computational Social Science, International Migration Review, among other outlets. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology and M.S. in Statistics from the University of Washington in 2021.

Selected publications

Hsiao, Yuan, John Leverso and Andrew Papachristos. 2023. “The Corner, the Crew, and the Digital Street: Multiplex networks of gang online-offline conflict dynamics in the digital age.” American Sociological Review 88(4): 709-741    

Hsiao, Yuan, Lee Fiorio, Jon Wakefield and Emilio Zagheni. 2023. “Modeling the Bias of Digital Data: An Approach to Combining Digital With Official Statistics to Estimate and Predict Migration Trends” Sociological Methods and Research 00491241221140144                                                                                     

Hsiao, Yuan, Fang-Yu Lin, Greg Chih-Hsin Sheen and Ching-Hsing Wang. 2023. “Politics matters for individual attitudes toward vaccine donation: cross-national evidence from the United States and Taiwan” Globalization and Health 19(40)          

Hsiao, Yuan and Steven Pfaff. 2022. “The Diffusion of Radical Ideas.” Sociology Compass 16(10): e1302

Hsiao, Yuan. 2022. “Network Diffusion of competing behavior.” Journal of Computational Social Science 1-14.                                                               

Hsiao, Yuan. 2021. “Evaluating the Mobilization Effect of Online Political Network Structures: A Comparison between the Black Lives Matter Network and Ideal Type Network Configurations.” Social Forces 99(4): 1547-1574.

Hsiao, Yuan and Scott Radnitz. 2021. “Allies or Agitators? How Partisan Identity Shapes Public Opinion about Violent or Nonviolent Protests.” Political Communication 38 (4), 479-497.

Leverso, John and Yuan Hsiao. 2021. “Gangbangin On The [Face]Book: Understanding Online Interactions of Chicago Latina/o Gangs.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 58 (3), 239-268.

Becker, Sascha, Yuan Hsiao, Steven Pfaff* and Jared Rubin*. 2020. “Multiplex Network Ties and the Spatial Diffusion of Radical Innovations: Martin Luther’s Leadership in the Early Reformation.” American Sociological Review 85(5): 857-894.

Hsiao, Yuan, Ching-Ling Cheng and Ya-Wen Chiu. 2019. “Gender Network Dynamics in Prosocial and Aggressive Behavior of Early Adolescents.” Social Networks 58: 12-23.