Cindy Cheng
Political Scientist and Data Scientist
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Home
Hello and welcome! My name is Cindy Cheng. I am a political scientist interested in collecting, assessing and analzying data to answer questions of relevance to politics, economics and public health.
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Research
Published Work
The PERISCOPE Data Atlas | A Demonstration of Release v1. 2
Windows of repression | Using COVID-19 policies against political dissidents?
COVID-19 Government Response Event Dataset (CoronaNet v. 1.0)
Keeping Friends Close, But Enemies Closer: Foreign Aid Responses to Natural Disasters
Works in Progress and Under Review
Book Reviews
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About
About
As a data scientist, I love using data to check assumptions, enhance objectivity and identify hidden connections to improve our understanding of the world.
I have been leading a large scale international effort to systematically document government policies (e.g. lockdowns, travel bans) made in response to the COVID-19 pandemic with the CoronaNet Research Project. With colleagues at the Technical University of Munich and from NYU Abu Dhabi, Nazarbayev University, the University of Brasilia, the Hertie School of Governance, the University of Southern California and the Fors Mars Group, we have organized to date more than 1700 volunteer and paid research assistants to collect the largest and most detailed event dataset of its kind. More information about CoronaNet can be found here: https://www.coronanet-project.org
Methodologically, I have expertise in a variety of statistical methods, from machine learning to missing data imputation and Bayesian statistics among others. As a researcher, I have investigated a variety of issues relevant to political economy and political institutions, including the politicization of food safety problems, the legitimacy and efficiency of global governance institutions, the politics of innovation and drivers of foreign aid.
I received a PhD in Political Science from Duke University in 2017. I also completed the coursework necessary to fulfill the requirements for a masters in statistics at Duke. I majored in Economics and Political Economy as an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. I was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Technical University of Munich from 2016 to 2023. My work and training has recieved funding support from the EU Horizon 2020 Program, Fulbright-Hayes Program, and the U.S. Department of Education.
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