About

Ya-Wen Lei is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and a Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She is affiliated with several centers at Harvard, including the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies — where she is one of the co-leaders of the Taiwan Studies initiative — the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Asia Center. Born and raised in Taiwan, she was trained in both law and sociology, holding an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. After graduating from Michigan in 2013, she served as a Junior Fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University from 2013 to 2016. In academic year 2018–2019, she was a visiting professor at Sciences Po in France. Her research interests include political economy, political sociology, economic sociology, sociology of work and labor, science and technology studies, law and society, sociology of media and information technologies, development, and Chinese studies. She is the author of two books: 'The Contentious Public Sphere: Law, Media, and Authoritarian Rule in China' (Princeton University Press, 2018) and 'The Gilded Cage: Technology, Development, and State Capitalism in China' (Princeton University Press, 2023). Currently, she is working on a book that traces the reconfiguration of the global economic order since around 2018, focusing on semiconductor manufacturing and the relocation of advanced chip production from Taiwan to the United States, with comparisons to developments in Germany and Japan, and examining how these shifts reconfigure state–firm–labor relations across national contexts. Her articles have appeared in various sociological, social science, and area studies journals, and her research has received numerous awards and honors from multiple organizations, including the American Sociological Association, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, the Law and Society Association, the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, the American Academy in Berlin, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, and Harvard University.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Law
• Business
• Political economy
• Economics
• Marketing
• Geography
• Development economics
• Economic system
• Economy
• Engineering
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Research progress in two-dimensional materials

  Journal of Materials Science · 2025-09-23 · 5 citations

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• Automation and Augmentation: Artificial Intelligence, Robots, and Work

  Annual Review of Sociology · 2024-04-22 · 38 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article reviews the literature that examines the potential, limitations, and consequences of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) in automation and augmentation across various disciplines. It presents key observations and suggestions from the literature review. Firstly, displacement effects from task automation continue to persist. However, one should not assume an unequivocally increasing efficacy of technology in automation or augmentation, especially given the declining productivity growth in high-income countries and some large emerging economies in recent decades. Jobs less likely to be negatively impacted are those that require diverse tasks, physical dexterity, tacit knowledge, or flexibility, or are protected by professional or trade associations. Despite countervailing effects, without policy intervention, automation and augmentation could widen inequality between social groups, labor and capital, and firms. Secondly, AI's promise in task automation and labor augmentation is mixed. AI tools can cause harm, and dissatisfaction and disengagement often arise from their opaqueness, errors, disregard for critical contexts, lack of tacit knowledge, and lack of domain expertise, as well as their demand for extra labor time and resources. The inadequate autonomy to override AI-based assessments further frustrates users who have to use these AI tools at work. Finally, the article calls for sociological research to specify conditions and mechanisms that ameliorate adverse consequences and enhance labor augmentation by embedding the study of automation and augmentation in concrete social and political contexts at multiple levels.

  PublisherDOI

• The Gilded Cage

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2023-11-21 · 1 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
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• The Gilded Cage

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2023-01-01 · 1 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
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• The Gilded Cage

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2023-11-17 · 50 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• WITHDRAWN: Evaluation of global climate models for the simulation of precipitation based on temporal and spatial assessment metrics in China

  Research Square · 2022-06-16

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evaluation of Global Climate Models for The Simulation of Annual and Seasonal Precipitation Based on Temporal and Spatial Assessment Metrics in China

  2022-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Retrospect and Prospect of Educational Disciplinary Research in My Country

  2021 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Image Processing, Electronics and Computers · 2021-04-14

  article1st authorCorresponding

  To a certain extent, the issue of disciplinary action in education reflects the change of educational practice and concepts, and has received widespread attention from the academic circles in recent years. This paper uses the visualization software CiteSpace to analyze my country's disciplinary action in education research from three aspects: time and space distribution, focus, and research frontier. The study found that: in terms of time distribution, the number of publications on disciplinary action in education research continues to increase, showing a rapid growth trend. In terms of spatial distribution, research institutions are mainly based on university law schools and education schools; from the focus of attention, researchers have discussed the "rights of teacher disciplinary action", "rights of disciplinary action in education", and "disciplinary action" and "disciplinary authority" from both theoretical and practical levels. The differences between corporal punishment and disguised forms of corporal punishment have been explored; future research on disciplinary action in education in my country should focus on the following aspects: attach significance to practical research on teaching subjects, promote empirical research on disciplinary action in education, and explore localized research on foreign experience , Strengthen the operational research of disciplinary action in education , etc.

  PublisherDOI

• Upgrading China Through Automation: Manufacturers, Workers and the Techno-Developmental State

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Teacher Learning in the New Era

  2021 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Image Processing, Electronics and Computers · 2021-04-14 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  research-article Teacher Learning in the New Era Share on Authors: Yuantao Jiang Yunnan Normal University Yunnan Normal UniversityView Profile , Xianrui Liu Yunnan Normal University Yunnan Normal UniversityView Profile , Yawen Lei Yunnan Normal University Yunnan Normal UniversityView Profile Authors Info & Claims IPEC2021: 2021 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Image Processing, Electronics and ComputersApril 2021 Pages 730–734https://doi.org/10.1145/3452446.3452622Online:25 April 2021Publication History 0citation12DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads12Last 12 Months12Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

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Frequent coauthors

• Yuantao Jiang

  Yunnan Normal University

  2 shared

• Daniel Xiaodan Zhou

  2 shared

• Mary E. Gallagher

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  1 shared

• Rachel Kim

  Harvard University Press

  1 shared

• Kimberly Kay Hoang

  University of Chicago

  1 shared

• Ziwei Yang

  Hainan University

  1 shared

• Jessica Cobb

  University of South Florida

  1 shared

• Xianrui Liu

  Yunnan Normal University

  1 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Sociology

  Harvard University

  2013

• M.A., Sociology

  Harvard University

  2009

• B.A., Sociology

  National Taiwan University

  2006

Awards & honors

• Awards and honors from the American Sociological Association
• Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics
• Law and Society Association
• Paris Institute for Advanced Study
• American Academy in Berlin