Research Overview

I am an ethnographer who seeks to understand how the development and use of emerging technologies influences work, occupations, and organizations. I study innovation processes in unique contexts, such as AI development at an elite teaching hospital in China, or a distributed financial organization engaging in cryptocurrency market manipulation online, to identify empirical puzzles that cannot be explained by existing theory. Theoretically, my work contributes to topics in the Carnegie School (e.g., routine dynamics and organizational learning) and the sociology of work and occupations.

During the first two years of my PhD, I conducted a 13-month digital ethnographic study of a distributed financial organization that operated online and engaged in widespread market manipulation of cryptocurrencies. A paper (with Claus Rerup) based on this study examines how an investment community learned to detect these manipulation attempts over time and stop them, and has been provisionally accepted at Administrative Science Quarterly. 

Following my study on cryptocurrencies, I conducted a 13-month ethnographic study of “Southern Eye Hospital,” an elite teaching hospital in China, in order to examine the influence of artificial intelligence development on work and organizational change. This research analyzes how the development of artificial intelligence led to changing work practices, role relations, and learning processes among medical trainees and doctors. I was a finalist in the 2021 INFORMS/Organization Science Dissertation Proposal Competition and winner of the EGOS That’s Interesting! Paper Award 2022.

Recently, I was awarded an Early Career Scheme Grant (~$95,000 USD) from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council to continue studying how AI is reshaping work and professions.

Additional information can be found on my CV.