معرفی
Ji Ma is an Assistant Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, with affiliate appointments at the Center for East Asian Studies, School of Information, and Asia Policy Program. He also serves as a Visiting Researcher at the Gradel Institute of Charity, University of Oxford.
Dr. Ma received his PhD from Indiana University, establishing a foundation for his interdisciplinary work at the intersection of computational methods and social science.
Dr. Ma's research centers on three interconnected streams: computational approaches to social science, knowledge production for evidence-based policymaking, and state-society relations in China. His work bridges advanced technologies with public affairs, developing innovative methods to analyze nonprofit sectors and civil society dynamics. He has pioneered the application of computational social science in nonprofit studies, creating valuable research infrastructure for the field.
His recent publications show a clear trend toward integrating AI and computational methods with traditional social science questions. He has made significant contributions to understanding citation patterns in policy communities, consensus formation in academic fields, and the dynamics of state-society relations in China. His work often combines large-scale data analysis with theoretical insights from multiple disciplines.
Dr. Ma actively contributes to teaching through courses like "Computational Social Science Methods" and "Data Management and the Research Life Cycle," helping students develop skills in data analysis and research methodology. His teaching emphasizes practical applications of computational methods in public affairs research.
Among his notable projects are pracademia.one (an information aggregation platform), npoclass (a nonprofit classifier), and the Research Infrastructure of Chinese Foundations (RICF). These projects reflect his commitment to developing methodological tools that advance research in public administration and nonprofit studies, creating valuable resources for scholars worldwide.
