Jina Lee is a sociologist who studies how seemingly objective evaluation systems reproduce social hierarchies. Using computational text analysis, bibliometric analysis, and experimental methods, her research asks: whose contributions are recognized as valuable, and whose are discounted? In science, she examines how knowledge claims and their reception are gendered. In cultural markets, she investigates how canonization processes embed gender biases. Expanding to global knowledge systems, she examines how national and linguistic hierarchies shape whose scholarship circulates internationally. Across these contexts, her work reveals a consistent pattern: evaluation practices that appear meritocratic embed biases that disadvantage women and lower-status actors. Her research has been published in the American Sociological Review, Poetics, Socius, and the Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.

Lee, Jina. (2025). Gendered Pathways to Perpetual Fame: The Selection of Elite Novelists into the Korean Literary Canon. Poetics, 112.

Leahey, Erin, Jina Lee, Russell. J. Funk. (2023). What Types of Novelty Are Most Disruptive? American Sociological Review, 88(3): 562-597. 

Lee, Jina, Minjae Seo, Erin Leahey. (2022). Who Deserves Protection? How Naming Potential Beneficiaries Influences COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions. Socius, 8.

Zhao, Yi, Jina Lee, Cheryl Ellenwood. (2021). The Persistent Influence of Gender Stereotypes in Social Entrepreneurial Financing. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 15(3): 811-832.