CHEN Yunsong is a Changjiang Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Nanjing University. He earned his DPhil in sociology from University of Oxford, Nuffield College. From 2017 to 2020 he served as the Chinese Co-director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center.
His research interest broadly lies in digital humanities, computational social science, analytical sociology, social networks, social attitudes, and quantitative methods in sociology. His three books, Understanding China Through Big Data: Applications of Theory-oriented Quantitative Approaches (2021), Causal Effects of Social Capital: Labor Markets and Beyond (2022), and Machine Learning in Social Sciences (2026) have been published by Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan. His articles appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals including Social Sciences in China (中国社会科学), Sociological Studies (社会学研究), Social Networks, British Journal of Sociology, Poetics, Social Science Research, the China Quarterly, and The Journal of Contemporary China. He is the Chief editor of the Chinese edition of Oxford Dictionary of Sociology.
Professor Chen also serves as the Chair of Academic Committee for Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanjing University. He is the Director and Chief Scientist of the Innovative Research Team of Social Science at the Ministry of Education of People’s Republic of China. From 2025 he serves as the Co-Chair of Academic Committee for the World Civilisation Laboratory Consortium. He also serves as editor board member and international advisory board member for several journals including Sociology, Social Science Research, Journal of Social Computing, Chinese Sociological Review, BMC Public Health, ACM Transactions on Social Computing, and The Journal of Chinese Sociology. He was the chair of Chinese Computational Sociology Association, and the deputy secretary-general of the Chinese Sociological Association. From 2018 to 2022 he served as the board member of International Chinese Sociological Association.
