David Chao

B.A. in Mechanical Engineering - Product Design from Stanford University, 2018

M.A in Political Science from Waseda University, 2023

Research Interests:

I am interested in understanding Asian American familial experiences and the ways it shapes educational outcomes and aspirations. More specifically, I hope to understand how inequality is shaped within families. I hope to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how factors like gender, birth, race and ethnicity, and cultural expectations shape inequality within families rather than among families.

For the Summer of 2025, I am conducting research on Chinese American Second Generation sibling sets to investigate the ways that cultural values, familial expectation and relationships, and gender influences an individual's educational aspirations. This focus will look to uncover how differences in treatment between family members can reveal patterns of inequality among Chinese American families.

My previous research has investigated transnational ties and the formal role of dual citizenships in the ways that American Japanese Dual Nationals shape their identities.

Advisor:

Dr. Mary Blair-Loy