Professional Bio

Yang Yang is a dual-title Ph.D. candidate in Political Science and Social Data Analytics at The Pennsylvania State University.

His substantive research focuses on international relations, particularly international security, foreign policy, signaling, and diplomacy. Drawing on insights from comparative politics and international political economy, his research examines why political actors choose particular foreign policy actions, what those actions communicate, and how they are interpreted by domestic and international audiences. He studies these questions in the contexts of diplomacy, coercion, and crisis bargaining.

Methodologically, his research employs design-based causal inference, experimental methods, machine learning, natural language processing, geospatial data analysis, and qualitative case studies. He also conducts methodological research that develops and refines computational and causal inference tools for political science applications.

He was the recipient of the Milton B. Dolinger Graduate Fellowship from Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts (2025–2026) and previously held the Program in Empirical International Relations (PEIR) Fellowship (2024–2025). Prior to Penn State, he earned an M.A. in Politics from New York University, an M.Sc. in International Political Economy in Singapore, and dual B.A. degrees in English and Economics in China. Before pursuing his academic career, he worked as a policy analyst in Shanghai and as a regional journalist based in Bangkok, experiences that continue to inform his research on international politics and foreign policy.