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Hire Dr. Zhijing C.

United States

USD 100 /hr

Quantitative researcher with 5+ years of experience designing research studies to understand consumer behavior

Profile Summary

I am a quantitative researcher with a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, a bachelor's degree in software engineering, and 5+ years of experience designing surveys and experiments that measure customer attitudes and behavior, and turning messy data into recommendations stakeholders can act on. I offer a rare combination: 5+ years of rigorous scientific research training, statistical modeling, and front-office experience — all applied specifically to the questions businesses care about. My training at the University of Michigan centered on designing studies and collecting consumer data that answer practical business questions rigorously. My research focuses on consumer behavior in commercially critical areas and uncovering the “why” behind consumer behavior. It is guided by a simple conviction: research and analytics prove its value when they inform real-world decisions. I have designed and fielded surveys to study public attitudes toward athlete activism on social media and online sports betting behavior. I have run controlled experiments to isolate what actually causes change in online betting behavior and social media user attitudes and perceptions, and I have used sentiment and thematic analysis to understand public attitudes at scale from social media data. My customer-facing operations experience with the Texas Rangers also showed me, on the ground, how customer data drives improved service and retention. My analytical toolkit was built on rigor. During my Ph.D. at the University of Michigan and as a faculty researcher at Southern Illinois University, I built and validated survey instruments, designed experiments and A/B-style tests, and analyzed data using visualization, regression, logistic models, chi-square testing, and structural equation modeling. To analyze qualitative data, I have conducted sentiment and thematic analysis on large social media datasets. What I offer beyond technical skills is judgment about study design, statistical modeling, and data. Rigorous scientific training taught me to build studies that produce reliable and valid results — to ask whether a metric actually measures what it claims to, whether the data is trustworthy enough to answer the analytical question, and whether the analysis justifies a causal conclusion.

Subject Matter Expertise

• ☆ Data Analysis
• ☆ Data Visualization
• ☆ Data Collection
• ☆ Data Management
• ☆ Data Manipulation
• ☆ Text Mining & Analytics
• ☆ Data Cleaning
• ☆ Natural Language Processing
• ☆ Business Analytics
• ☆ Statistics
• ☆ Regression Analysis
• ☆ Correlation Analysis
• ☆ Survey Design
• ☆ Study Design
• ☆ Sports Business
• ☆ Social Movements
• ☆ Customer Service
• ☆ Branding
• ☆ Marketing Strategy
• ☆ Marketing Analytics
• ☆ Digital Marketing
• ☆ Business Intelligence
• ☆ Advertising

Services

• Writing
• Research
• Consulting
• Data & AI

Writing Copywriting, Creative Writing, General Proofreading & Editing, Translation

Research Market Research, User Research, Gray Literature Search, Scientific and Technical Research, Systematic Literature Review, Secondary Data Collection

Consulting Business Strategy Consulting, Digital Strategy Consulting

Data & AI Statistical Analysis, Data Visualization, Data Cleaning, Data Processing, Data Insights

Work Experience

Assistant Professor

Southern Illinois University Carbondale

August 2024 - Present

Affiliated Assistant Professor

Southern Illinois University

August 2024 - May 2026

Graduate Student Instructor

University of Michigan

August 2020 - May 2024

Teaching Assistant

Harbour Education

July 2021 - August 2021

Ticket Operations Assistant

Texas Rangers Baseball Club

January 2019 - November 2019

Education

Ph.D

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

September 2020 - June 2024

Ph.D in Sport Management (School of Kinesiology)

University of Michigan

August 2020 - June 2024

M.S. in Sports Business (School of Professional Studies)

New York University

August 2016 - December 2018

Bachelor of Engineering in Software Engineering (School of Data and Computer Science)

Sun Yat-Sen University

September 2012 - June 2016

Certifications

• NA

  NA

  January 2026 - Present

Publications

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Chen, Z., & Kwak, D. H. (2025). Athletes as advocates: the role of parasocial interaction and fictional involvement in social media advocacy. European Sport Management Quarterly, 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2025.2559965 .

Zhijing Chen, Dae Hee Kwak (2023). It’s Okay to be Not Okay: An Analysis of Twitter Responses to Naomi Osaka’s Withdrawal due to Mental Health Concerns . Communication & Sport.

Dae Hee Kwak, Sean Pradhan, Zhjing Chen (2023). “Speak Up!” Investigating U.S. professional sports teams' #BlackLivesMatter statements . Frontiers in Sports and Active Living.

DISSERTATION THESIS

Zhijing Chen(2024). An Experimental Investigation of Decision Making in Sport Betting . University of Michigan