We’ll be sharing the full program soon. In the meantime, please register as early as possible—space is limited to 150 participants, and spots will go quickly.
Looking forward to a great set of conversations at Yale.
Our AI in Social Science conference notifications are out—congrats to everyone who was accepted! 🎉
We have an incredible lineup of presenters across disciplines:
yalefds.swoogo.com/socialscienc...
In China, divorce can mean this: He keeps the house.
Her unpaid work barely counts.
And yet, more women are still choosing to leave.
I spoke with The Economist:
www.economist.com/china/2026/0...
We are still hiring!! Multiple positions open. Interviews will be on a rolling basis.
Excited that Z-CAFE will present two panels at the Yale AI Symposium: one on building a next-generation neighborhood disadvantage index using multimodal data (images + surveys), and another on using LLMs to experimentally test how data presentation shapes human and machine judgment.
To apply, please send a CV and writing sample to emma.zang@yale.edu
Appointments are for one year, with the possibility of extension.
Projects include using AI and computer vision to work with multimodal data, build new indices, and design experiments. We’re especially interested in candidates who care about substantive social science questions and have experience with predictive modeling or LLMs.
We’re hiring postdocs and predocs at Yale (ZCAFE) working on AI and social science methods.
Thank you all for the enthusiasm and strong submissions. We’re looking forward to putting together a great program.
Notifications will be sent by April 16, and we hope to see many of you in New Haven!
We’ve received work from across the globe (Europe, Asia, and beyond) and from a truly interdisciplinary community, including computer science, sociology, political science, economics, communication, statistics, and business.
We’re blown away by the response to our call for submissions for the Yale AI Social Science Conference — around 170 submissions in just one month!
What happens when a country automates before building a stable middle class? China’s AI push is often framed as inevitable. But it may also be a risky social experiment, with consequences for inequality, fertility, and the social contract.
My latest op-ed:
www.scmp.com/opinion/chin...
AI broadly defined!
If done well, this could raise standards while reducing burden on the system.
More broadly, we need to rethink how we use reviewer time. Not every submission needs 3 full human reviews. A more efficient pipeline might look like: editorial triage, AI-assisted checks/review, targeted human evaluation where it matters most.
Even with restricted data, this is feasible. Authors can generate simulated datasets that preserve structure and run identical pipelines. The goal is just basic verification.
Not to replace reviewers, but to catch coding errors, logic inconsistencies, and reproducibility issues before a paper reaches them. At this point, many of these checks are fast, cheap, and automatable. There’s little reason to rely solely on human detection.
Hot take for the future of peer review: Journals should start asking for a lightweight AI-based replication check (e.g., via Claude) at submission.
Comments are welcome!
In a new working paper using CPS panels (2019–2022), we show that pandemic-era remote work: Raised first birth probabilities for women 30–39; Reduced first births among teens; Had no effect on higher-order births; Benefits were concentrated among advantaged households and dual-telework couples
Did remote work increase fertility? The answer is yes, but only for some women.
Paper: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Two weeks left to submit! Confirmed participants include Kosuke Imai, @5harad.com, Jeremy Freese, Siwei Cheng, Jessica Hullman, Adam Berinsky, Yiqing Xu, @jugander.bsky.social, and many others.
We are also open to suggestions for editors from other social science disciplines, industry researchers, and ideas for exciting sessions on AI and social science methods!
The discussion will focus on how journals evaluate AI-enabled research and emerging standards for transparency, replication, and methodological innovation.
Another highlight: We will host a panel on publishing AI research, featuring editors from American Sociological Review, American Journal of Political Science, Management Science, and Sociological Methodology.
📩 Submit your work:
yalefds.swoogo.com/socialscienc...
Please share with colleagues working at the AI × social science frontier!
Call for Submissions: AI for Social Science Methodology (Yale)
• Keynote: @nachristakis.bsky.social
• Panel with editors of leading journals on publishing AI research
• Mentoring roundtables for early-career scholars
• Generous travel support
Discussion-driven, high-quality research.
Travel support will be provided for all speakers, along with dedicated mentoring opportunities for early-career scholars.
More details coming next week — stay tuned!
Save the date! I’m excited to be co-organizing this workshop with Daniel Karell (Yale Sociology), Harsh Parikh (Yale Biostatistics), and Tong Wang (Yale SOM Marketing). We’re especially eager to feature work using AI to advance social science methodology.