Bio

Jun Zhao received her doctoral degree in Sociology in 2017 from the University of Georgia. Before joining the University of South Carolina in 2023, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the Program of Quantitative Social Science at Dartmouth College (2017-2019) and worked as an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University (2019-2023).

Her work has appeared in Social Problems, Society & Mental Health, Social Psychology Quarterly, the American Behavioral Scientist, and JPART, among others. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, Georgia State University, and the University of Georgia.

Research

Substantive research interests: social networks; social psychology, gender and race; health

Department cluster: Networks; Social Psychology; Inequalities and Institutions.

Research Overview: Zhao's research examines social inequality and exclusion, with a focus on social networks, health, gender, and race. One strand of her work investigates how social relationships shape health behaviors and how psychosocial factors influence the stress process. A second strand examines how macro-level inequalities are reproduced through everyday social interactions. Using survey experiments, she studies how gender and race shape emotional expression, evaluations of authority, and social inclusion.

Methodologically, Zhao combines the analysis of longitudinal and large-scale survey data with original data collection through survey experiments.

Current projects:  

“Vicarious Discrimination and the Proliferation of Stressors through Social Networks”: Drawing on theories of “linked lives” and stress proliferation, this project tests the idea that exposure to discrimination not only affect the chronic stress levels of those directly experiencing such events but also reverberates through social networks, generating additional stressors among its members. By examining data from 983 dyads encompassing various network ties such as spouses, kin, and friends, this study hopes to go beyond the conventional focus on the individual effects of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination on health but instead, takes a sociometric approach to study health inequality within social contexts.

 “The Spillover Effect of External Threat on Intergroup Relations.” Amidst the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and in response to calls for moving beyond a dyadic paradigm in studying intergroup relations, Zhao designed a series of online experiments to examine the impact of exposure to information about a global pandemic from Asia on Americans’ prosocial behaviors towards both in-group and out-group members. This investigation seeks to establish a causal link between the COVID-19 pandemic and racial discrimination and provide valuable insights into the spillover effect of external threats on intergroup relations.

Teaching

• SOCY 218 Introduction to Social Networks
• SOCY 301 Sex and Gender
• SOCY 392 Elementary Statistics for Sociologists
• SOCY 703 Statistical Analysis in Sociology
• SOCY 739 Multilevel Modeling Applications for Social Sciences