Jun is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology with a certificate in the Science, Technology & Society Program. Her research interests intersect gender, work/labor, science and technology studies, and political economy. She is the 2024 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Sociology for the 2024-2025 academic year.
Jun's dissertation examines feminized livestreaming labor—the largest form of platform-based employment for women in China—situating it within the broader history of women’s labor in the post-socialist era. The study examines how digitalization transforms human-machine relations in the workplace and investigates its socioeconomic and political implications for gender and family dynamics. Jun's previous project explored the hidden costs of flexibility in navigating blurred work-family environments.
Jun’s research has been funded by the American Council of Learned Societies, Institute for Research on Women & Gender, International Institute, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, and Rackham Graduate School. Her papers have received awards from the Sex and Gender Section and the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, Sociologists for Women in Society, Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, and the Division of Ethnological and Historical Sciences at the University of Chicago. She also received photography awards from the Chicago Ethnography Conference and UM International Institute.
Before pursuing her doctorate, Jun gained extensive experience in gender and sexuality education and activism. In Beijing, she taught migrant children and contributed to the nation’s first comprehensive sexuality education textbooks while supporting feminist and LGBTQ+ initiatives. Later, while studying Gender and Development in London, she engaged in street outreach for two U.K. non-profits, where she helped develop educational programs for refugee children impacted by gender-based violence.
