Population and Social Data Science Summer Incubator Program 2025

Risto Conte Keivabu

Risto Conte Keivabu is a Research Scientist in the Department of Digital and Computational Demography at MPIDR. Risto holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute. His research interests are in climate change, socio-demographic inequalities and demography. More precisely, in his work he tries to understand the population consequences of climate change and environmental exposures.

Ebru Sanlitürk

Coming from Bocconi University in Milan, Asli Ebru Sanlitürk is a Researcher in the Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography. She is researching how digital trace data can be used to better analyze mobility and migration.

Daniela Perrotta

Daniela Perrotta is a Research Scientist and the Deputy Head of the Laboratory of Migration and Mobility at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Daniela completed her PhD in Complex Systems for Life Sciences at the University of Turin, with a fellowship at the ISI Foundation in Italy. Her research mainly focuses on harnessing digital trace data and primary data-collection schemes to study human mobility patterns, population migration, infectious disease spread, and human behaviors during health crises.

Matt Mason

The Summer Incubator Program was an enriching and rewarding experience. I had the invaluable opportunity to work collaboratively on a project with other researchers from across the world and with knowledge and expertise in a range of disciplines. Forming new connections in a supportive and engaging research environment was hugely beneficial and I would recommend the Program to all early-career researchers interested in population and social data science.

Sophia Noël

Sophia is a PhD candidate in sociology at the Center for Research on Social Inequalities at Sciences Po, Paris. Her research concerns how environmental hazards, particularly heat and air pollution, may affect demographic outcomes.

Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson

Lovisa Rosenquist Ohlsson is a PhD student at Lund University, working with geographical information systems and satellite data. Her research explores climate risk and adaptation in the Middle East, with a particular focus on displaced populations.

Zarmeen Salim

Zarmeen Salim is a dual-title Sociology & Demography PhD student at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. Her research broadly studies demographic responses to climate change and how differential vulnerability contexts may shape these relationships.

Linda Vecgaile

Linda Vecgaile is a PhD candidate at the European University Institute in Florence. She is exploring machine learning tools and ways to combine them with individual life course information to answer sociological questions. Rostock reminds her a lot of her home country, Latvia, and especially its capital, Riga.

Bruno Arpino (University of Padova)

Bruno Arpino is a Full Professor of Social Statistics in the Department of Statistical Sciences at the University of Padua, Italy. His methodological research focuses on causal inference and the application of machine learning techniques in the social sciences. Substantively, he works in the areas of social gerontology and social demography, with particular attention to family relationships, the health and wellbeing of older adults, and the use of digital technologies in later life. He is the Principal Investigator of the project 'Social relations, digital technologies and wellbeing of older people' (SOCIAL), funded by the Italian Ministry of Research through an Italian Fund for Science (FIS) Advanced Grant (budget: 2 million euros, duration: 3 years).

Emilio Zagheni

Emilio Zagheni is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. He is best known for his research on combining digital trace data, traditional sources, and new forms of data collection, within solid statistical and formal demographic frameworks, in order to advance population science. In his various professional capacities, he has played a key role in favoring collaboration and exchange between demographers, statisticians and computer scientists.

Yanji Du

Yanji Du is a second-year PhD student in Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on uncovering hidden inequities experienced by marginalized groups in career development, with particular emphasis on how discrimination mechanisms operate in labor markets. She employs innovative methodological approaches in causal effect estimation, machine learning, and survey experiments to reveal bias patterns. Yanji holds an MA in Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences from Columbia University and has collaborated with the American Immigration Council on immigration policy research.

Aitor Garcia

Aitor García Aguirre is a PhD candidate in the Social Sciences Department of Carlos III at Madrid and a research assistant in the Spanish National Research Council. His main research interests are the social determinants of health from a life course perspective. His thesis explores how early childhood processes of human capital formation may shape health life trajectories and affect health outcomes during late life.

Wesley Wang

Wesley Wang is a doctoral student pursuing a dual-title PhD in Sociology and Gerontology at Purdue University. He earned his MPhil in Sociology and Demography from the University of Oxford. His research explores how genetic and environmental factors jointly shape outcomes across the life course, with an emphasis on social inequality and biological ageing. Wesley is particularly interested in identifying biosocial pathways through which early-life adversity contributes to detrimental health outcomes in later adulthood.

Nanum Jeon

Nanum Jeon is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology and an M.S. Student in Statistics and Data Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She is affiliated with the Inequality Data Science Lab (IDS-Lab) and the California Center for Population Research. Before coming to UCLA, she worked in public policy think tanks, including the Asian Development Bank Institute in Tokyo, Japan. She holds an M.P.P. from the University of Tokyo in Japan and a B.A. in Sociology from Ewha Womans University in South Korea. Her research examines how disruptive life events shape social stratification and inequality by applying and developing tools from machine learning and causal inference.

Yvette Young

Yvette Young came from the University of Utah and obtained her PhD in Sociology. The title of her dissertation is: “‘Making Do’ in the Land of Opportunity: An Exploration of the Economic Integration of Refugees in Utah”. After completing her dissertation, Yvette was a postdoctoral research fellow for the Vietnam Health and Aging Study, focusing on the long-term effects of conflict and migration.

Diego Alburez-Gutierrez

Diego Alburez-Gutierrez leads the Kinship Inequalities Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). Diego is best known for his work combining mathematical demography with simulations and innovative data sources to study demographic and family dynamics. He received his PhD in Demography and Population Studies (2018) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Diego is a recipient of multiple awards, most recently the British Society for Population Studies’ Early Career Award in 2022.

Enrique Acosta (Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics-CED)

Enrique Acosta is a Research Scientist at the Centre d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED) in Barcelona, Spain, and a guest researcher at the Max Planck for Demographic Research (MPIDR). His research focuses on mortality analysis, with a particular emphasis on the demographic impacts of crises, including violence and pandemics. He received a PhD in Demography from the University of Montreal. Enrique has worked on research projects with organizations such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization. His work has appeared in journals such as Demography, International Journal of Epidemiology, Nature, and Science Advances.

Irena Chen

Irena Chen is a Research Scientist in the Department of Digital and Computational Demography at MPIDR. Her research interests include Bayesian hierarchical models, correlated time series, and latent variable methods with applications in demography, epidemiology, and precision medicine. She received a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Michigan.

Sara Alcay Mendez

Sara Alcay is a Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Her research focuses on health disparities and migration, with particular emphasis on infant health and refugee populations. She holds an M.A. in Sociology from UC Davis and an M.A. in Social and Political Studies from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Timothy Low

Timothy Low is a PhD student at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, National University of Singapore. His research interests include health disparities, family/social relationships, and aging. He is currently interested in exploring health inequalities amongst older adults in Southeast Asia.

Ting-Syuan Lin

Ting-Syuan Lin is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research lies at the intersection of political demography, family sociology, and social stratification. She examines how macro-political conditions shape private family decisions across East Asia, the United States, and global contexts, drawing on survey data and a life course perspective.

Rahul Mondal

Rahul Mondal is a PhD candidate at the International Institute for Population Sciences, India. His research focuses on population models to explain stochastic processes in demography. Specifically, he studies demographic response to escalating global changes and their effect on longevity and population dynamics.