Diana Da In Lee

Diana Da In Lee

Research Interest

Diana Da In Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of  Political Science at Columbia University specializing in American politics and political methodology. Her substantive research focuses on identity politics and minority representation in local U.S. politics. Her methodological interests include the application of machine learning methods to solve measurement problems as well as improving external validity in empirical analyses. Ms. Lee's work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Journal of Politics and Nature: Scientific Data

Her dissertation focuses on the candidate emergence process among ethnoracial minorities in the U.S., examining the full pipeline to power from the initial spark of interest to officially becoming a candidate. In collaboration with a non-profit organization, Ms. Lee has conducted field and survey experiments to explore factors that impact minority candidates' decisions to run for office in a real-world candidate recruitment effort, where existing theories are put to the test, yielding both confirmatory results and novel insights into the emergence of minority candidates.

Ms. Lee received a Master of International Affairs degree at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and previously worked as a principal consultant at an economic consulting firm, conducting econometric analysis for legal cases such as antitrust litigation and class certification.