Thesis Title: Norms in Transition: Online Dating, Institutionalized Care, and Life Trajectories in Modern Europe (Working title)
Supervisors: Professor Man-Yee Kan
Zerui is a DPhil student with a focus on life course research and family demography using quantitative methods. Prior to Oxford, he earned a BA in Economics-Mathematics from Columbia University and an MA in Education Policy from Stanford University.
He is originally from Suzhou, an ancient Chinese city that blends classical gardens and waterways with vibrant modern industry. Beyond his doctoral work, Zerui has a strong interest in international development and has worked part-time as a consultant for the World Bank. He also teaches undergraduate tutorials for students in Human Sciences and PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics).
Zerui's thesis examines transformations in modern life experiences in Europe, focusing on informal care, family formation, and life course complexity. He investigates whether evolving norms—such as institutionalised care, online dating, and increasingly non-standardised life trajectories—can be empirically identified through large-scale national surveys, and he explores their broader societal implications. Methodologically, the thesis employs a wide range of approaches from causal inference and machine learning.
Research Interests: Computational methods; family sociology; life course research; machine learning; causal inference
Previous Education: Bachelor of Arts, Columbia University; Master of Arts, Stanford University
