I obtained my degrees from Duke University (Sociology, 2015), Peking University (Demography, 2008), and Jinan University (Computer Science, 2005), respectively. I also co-direct the Centre for Chinese Research at UBC (with Prof. Timothy Cheek).

PS, my name Qiang is pronounced as ts-i-ang or ちゃん (チャンフー).

Research Topics

City & Community, Social Interactions, Chinese Societies, Demography, Social Capital, Computational Sociology

Research Interests

My current research involves:

1. everyday experience and daily encounters in the city;
2. institutional logic and power relations from a comparative perspective;
3. temporal and spatial analysis in social science research;
4. a multidisciplinary approach to health, social capital, and urban space;
5. developing new models, algorithms, and tools in survey methodology, demography, and text & data mining;
6. Chinese history, culture, Chinese societies, and Chinese-ness.

Peer-reviewed Articles

*Corresponding author

2023

Gu, Jiaxin, Xin Guo, Xiaoxi Liu, Yue Yuan, Yushu Zhu, Minheng Chen, Tian-Yi Zhou, and Qiang Fu*. In press. “Gone with the Weed: Incidence of Adolescent Marijuana Use in the United States, 1976–2021.” Annals of Epidemiology. DOI: 10.1016/j.annepidem.2023.10.002

Guo, Xin and Qiang Fu*. In press. “The Design and Optimality of Survey Counts: A Unified Framework via the Fisher Information Maximizer.” Sociological Methods & Research. DOI: 10.1177/00491241221113877

Fu, Qiang*. In press. “Small-Themed Sociology.” Tsinghua Social Sciences (Tsinghua Shehui Kexue). (in Chinese)

Zhu, Yushu*, Yue Yuan, Jiaxin Gu, and Qiang Fu. In press. “Neoliberalization and Inequality: Disparities in Access to Affordable Housing in Urban Canada 1981–2016.” Housing Studies.  DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2021.2004093

2022

Fu, Qiang*, Yufan Zhuang, Yushu Zhu, and Xin Guo. 2022. “Sleeping Lion or Sick Man? Machine Learning Approaches to Deciphering Heterogeneous Images of Chinese in North America.” Annals of the American Association of Geographers 112(7): 2045-2063. DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2022.2042180

Zhu, Yushu*, Qiang Fu, and Changdong Ye. 2022. “State-embedded Gentrification in China.” Cities 131(103926): 1-13. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2022.103926

Fu, Qiang*, Jiaxin Gu, Ziqing (Amy) Zeng, David Tindall*. 2022. “A Manifesto for Computational Sociology: The Canadian Perspective.” The Canadian Review of Sociology / Revue canadienne de sociologie 59(2): 200-206. DOI: 10.1111/cars.12379

Yuan, Yue, Jiaxin Gu, Xin Guo, Yushu Zhu, and Qiang Fu*. 2022. “Detecting Temporal Anomalies with Pseudo Age Groups: Homeownership in Canada, 1981 to 2016.” Population, Space and Place 28(1): 1-18. DOI: 10.1002/psp.2532

Fu, Qiang*. 2022. “Too Big to Succeed: Mega Neighborhoods, Depression, and Actually Existing Urban Governance.” Cities 126(103711): 1-13. DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2022.103711

2021

Fu, Qiang, Tian-yi Zhou, Xin Guo*. 2021. “Modified Poisson Regression Analysis of Grouped and Right-censored Counts.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A 184(4): 1347-1367. DOI: 10.1111/rssa.12678

Gu, Jiaxin, Xin Guo, Gerry Veenstra, Yushu Zhu, and Qiang Fu*. 2021. “Adolescent Marijuana Use in the United States and Structural Breaks: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis, 1991 to 2018.” American Journal of Epidemiology 190(6): 1056-1063. DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwaa269

Fu, Qiang*, Yufan Zhuang, Jiaxin Gu, Yushu Zhu, and Xin Guo. 2021. “Agreeing to Disagree: Choosing among Eight Topic-Modeling Methods.” Big Data Research 23(100173): 1-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.bdr.2020.100173

Fu, Qiang*, Xin Guo, Sun Young Jeon, Eric Reither, Emma Zang, and Kenneth C. Land. 2021. “The Uses and Abuses of an Age-Period-Cohort Method: On the Linear Algebra and Statistical Properties of Intrinsic and Related Estimators.” Mathematical Foundation of Computing 4(1): 45-59. DOI: 10.3934/mfc.2021001

2020

Fu, Qiang*, Xin Guo, and Kenneth C. Land. 2020. “Optimizing Count Responses in Surveys: A Machine-Learning Approach.” Sociological Methods & Research 49(3): 637-671. DOI: 10.1177/0049124117747302

Fu, Qiang*, Yanlong Zhang, Yushu Zhu, and Ting Li. 2020. “Network Centralities, Demographic Disparities, and Voluntary Participation.” Mathematical Foundation of Computing 3(4): 249-262. DOI: 10.3934/mfc.2020011

Shi, Zhilei, Jiaxin Gu, and Qiang Fu*. 2020. “Social Change and Health Inequalities: Evidence from the Fifth Phase of the Epidemiologic Transition in Urban China.” Sociological Studies (Shehuixue Yanjiu 社会学研究) 35(6): 160-185. (in Chinese)          

Guo, Xin, Qiang Fu*, Yue Wang, and Kenneth C. Land. 2020. “A Numerical Method to Compute Fisher Information for a Special Case of Heterogeneous Negative Binomial Regression.” Communications on Pure and Applied Analysis 19(8): 4179-4189. DOI: 10.3934/cpaa.2020187

2019

Fu, Qiang*, Yufan Zhuang, Jiaxin Gu, Yushu Zhu, Huihui Qin, and Xin Guo. 2019. “Search for K: Assessing Five Topic-Modeling Approaches to 120,000 Canadian Articles.” Proceedings of the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Big Data: 3640-3647. DOI: 10.1109/BigData47090.2019.9006160

Fu, Qiang*. 2019. “How Does the Neighborhood Inform Activism? Civic Engagement in Urban Transformation.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 63: 1-8. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.03.002

2018

Fu, Qiang*. 2018. “Communal Space and Depression: A Structural-Equation Analysis of Relational and Psycho-Spatial Pathways.” Health & Place 53: 1-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2018.06.007

Ye, Changdong, Yushu Zhu*, Jiangxue Yang, and Qiang Fu. 2018. “Spatial Equity in Accessing Secondary Education: Evidence from a Gravity-based Model.” The Canadian Geographer 62(4): 452-469. DOI: 10.1111/cag.12482

Fu, Qiang*. 2018. “Bringing Urban Governance Back In: Neighborhood Conflicts and Depression.” Social Science & Medicine 196: 1-9. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.10.035

Fu, Qiang*, Cary Wu, Heqing Liu, Zhilei Shi and Jiaxin Gu, 2018. “Live Like Mosquitoes: Hukou, Rural-urban Disparity, and Depression.” Chinese Journal of Sociology 4(1): 56-78. DOI: 10.1177/2057150X17748313

Wu, Cary, Qiang Fu*, Jiaxin Gu, and Zhilei Shi. 2018. “Does Migration Pay Off? Returnees, Family Background, and Self-Employment in Rural China.” The China Review – An Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China 18(1): 59-77. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26435634

Fu, Qiang*, Xin Guo, and Kenneth C. Land. 2018. “A Poisson-Multinomial Mixture Approach to Grouped and Right-Censored Counts.” Communications in Statistics – Theory and Methods 47(2): 427-447. DOI: 10.1080/03610926.2017.1303736

2017

Liu, Yanwu* and Qiang Fu. 2017. “Changing demographic characteristics and motives for suicide in rural China, 1980-2009.” Chinese Sociological Dialogue 2(3-4):136-148. DOI: 10.1177/2397200917729529

Zhu, Yushu* and Qiang Fu. 2017. “Deciphering the Civic Virtue of Communal Space: Neighborhood Attachment, Social Capital and Neighborhood Participation in Urban China.” Environment and Behavior 49(2): 161-191. DOI: 10.1177/0013916515627308

Fu, Qiang*, and Kenneth C. Land. 2017. “Does Urbanization Matter? A Temporal Analysis of the Socio-demographic Gradient in the Rising Adulthood Overweight Epidemic in China, 1989-2009.” Population, Space and Place 23(1): 1-17. DOI: 10.1002/psp.1970

2016

Fu, Qiang*, Kenneth C. Land, and Vicki L. Lamb. 2016. “Violent Physical Bullying Victimization at School:  Has There Been a Recent Increase in Exposure or Intensity?  An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis in the United States, 1991 to 2012.” Child Indicators Research 9(2): 485-513. DOI: 10.1007/s12187-015-9317-3

Land, Kenneth C.*, Qiang Fu, Xin Guo, Sun Y. Jeon, Eric N. Reither, and Emma Zang. 2016. “Playing With the Rules and Making Misleading Statements: A Response to Luo, Hodges, Winship, and Powers.” American Journal of Sociology 122(3): 962-973. DOI: 10.1086/689853

Fu, Qiang*. 2016. “The Persistence of Power despite the Changing Meaning of Homeownership: An Age-period-cohort Analysis of Urban Housing Tenure in China, 1989-2011.” Urban Studies 53(6): 1225-1243. DOI: 10.1177/0042098015571240

2015

Fu, Qiang*. 2015. “Neighborhood Conflicts in Urban China: From Consciousness of Property Rights to Contentious Actions.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 56(3):285-307. DOI: 10.1080/15387216.2015.1095107

Fu, Qiang, Shenjing He, Yushu Zhu, Si-ming Li, Yanling He, Huoning Zhou, and Nan Lin*. 2015. “Towards a Relational Account of Neighborhood Governance: Neighborhood-based Network and Residential Outcomes in Urban China.” American Behavioral Scientist 59(8): 992-1006. DOI: 10.1177/0002764215580610

Fu, Qiang*. 2015. “When Fiscal Recentralization Meets Housing Reforms: Land Finance and Its Influence on China’s Urban Housing Market.” Urban Studies 52(10): 1791-1809. DOI: 10.1177/0042098014552760

Fu, Qiang*, Yushu Zhu, and Qiang Ren. 2015. “The Downside of Market Transformation: Housing Tenure and Types in Reform-era Urban China.” Social Science Research 49: 126-140. DOI: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2014.07.001

Fu, Qiang*, and Kenneth C. Land. 2015.  “The Increasing Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity of Children and Youth in China, 1989-2009: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis.” Population Research and Policy Review 34 (6): 901-921. DOI: 10.1007/s11113-015-9372-y

Fu, Qiang*, and Linda K. George. 2015. “Socioeconomic Determinants of Childhood Overweight in China: The Long Arm of Institutional Power.” Sociology of Health & Illness 37(6): 805-822. DOI: 10.1111/1467-9566.12234

Fu, Qiang*, and Linda K. George. 2015. “Sex, Socioeconomic and Regional Disparities in Age Trajectories of BMI across Childhood and Their Implications on Underweight and Overweight in China.” Asian Population Studies 11(2): 134-148. DOI: 10.1080/17441730.2015.1038873

Reither, Eric N.*, Kenneth C. Land, Sun Y. Jeon, Daniel A. Powers, Ryan K. Masters, Hui Zheng, Melissa A. Hardy, Katherine M. Keyes, Qiang Fu, Heidi A. Hanson, Ken R. Smith, Rebecca L. Utz, and Y. Claire Yang. 2015. “Clarifying hierarchical age–period–cohort models: A rejoinder to Bell and Jones.” Social Science & Medicine 128: 331-333. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.07.013

2014

Fu, Qiang*, and Nan Lin. 2014. “The Weaknesses of Civic Territorial Organizations: Civic Engagement and Homeowners Associations in Urban China.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38(6): 2309-2327. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12080 (Note: This paper is selected for IJURR’s virtual issue on Chinese cities.)

Zhu, Yushu*, Qiang Fu, and Qiang Ren. 2014. “Cross-City Variations in Housing Outcomes in Post-Reform China: An Analysis of 2005 Micro Census Data.” Chinese Sociological Review 46(3): 26-54. DOI: 10.2753/CSA2162-0555460302

2013

Fu, Qiang*, and Nan Lin. 2013. “Local State Marketism: An Institutional Analysis of China’s Urban Housing and Land Market.” Chinese Sociological Review 46(1): 3-24. DOI: 10.2753/CSA2162-0555460101

O’Hare, William P.*, Mark Mather, Genevieve Dupuis, Kenneth C. Land, Vicki L. Lamb, and Qiang Fu. 2013. “Analyzing Differences in Child Well-Being among U.S. States.” Child Indicators Research 6(2):401-431. DOI: 10.1007/s12187-012-9173-3

2012

Fu, Qiang*, Kenneth C. Land, and Vicki L. Lamb. 2012. “Bullying Victimization, Socioeconomic Status and Behavioral Characteristics of 12th Graders in the United States, 1989 to 2009: Repetitive Trends and Persistent Risk Differentials.” Child Indicators Research 6(1): 1-21. DOI: 10.1007/s12187-012-9152-8

2010

Fu, Qiang*, and Qiang Ren. 2010. “Educational Inequality under China’s Rural–Urban Divide: The Hukou System and Return to Education.” Environment and Planning A 42(3): 592-610. DOI: 10.1068/a42101

2008

Ren, Qiang*, Qiang Fu, and Yushu Zhu. 2008. “Returns to Education Based on the Household Registration System: An Examination of Wage Disparity.” Population and Development (Renkou yu Fazhan 人口与发展) 14(3): 37-46. (in Chinese)

Fu, Qiang*, Xin Yu, Ye Tian, Lan Li, Xiaoxue Tang, and Guozhen Chang. 2008. “College English Test Scores and Majors: A Multilevel Analysis of Undergraduates from Seven Universities in Beijing.” Market and Demographical Analysis (Shichang yu Renkou Fenxi 市场与人口分析) 13(06): 72-81. (in Chinese)

2007

Ren, Qiang*, and Qiang Fu. 2007. “Marginal Birth Decisions under Economic Development: A Test of Leibenstein’s Theory.” Chinese Journal of Population Science (Zhongguo Renkou Kexue 中国人口科学) (1): 60-70. (in Chinese)

2004

Xue, Fei, Qiang Fu, Jian Xie, and Daiqiang Hu*. 2004. “A Profit-Oriented Microeconomic Integer Programming Model for Olympics’ Mini Supermarket Allocation.” Chinese Journal of Engineering Mathematics (Gongcheng Shuxue Xuebao 工程数学学报)(21): 57-63. (in Chinese)

Software Package

Guo, Xin* and Qiang Fu. 2017. “GRCdata: Parameter Inference and Optimal Designs for Grouped and/or Right-Censored Count Data.” The Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN), version 1.0, https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/GRCdata/index.html.

Book Chapters

Gu, Jiaxin, Yue Yuan, Kenneth C Land, and Qiang Fu. 2022. “Obesity with Chinese Characteristics? Prevalence and Determinants of Overweight and Obesity in China.” Pp. 79-104 in International Handbook of the Demography of Obesity, edited by Ginny Garcia-Alexander and Dudley L. Poston. Basel, Switzerland: Springer Nature.

Zhu, Yushu, Jiaxin Gu, and Qiang Fu. 2022. “All Boats Rise with a Rising Tide? Marketization, Rural Migrants, and Housing Inequality in Urban China.” Pp. 481-513 in Social Inequality in China, edited by Yaojun Li and Yanjie Bian. London, UK: World Scientific Pub Europe.

Land, Kenneth. C., Lamb, V. Lamb, and Qiang Fu. 2016. “Measuring Trends in Child Well-being and Child Suffering In the United States, 1975-2013.” In A Life Devoted to Quality of Life: Festschrift in Honor of Alex C. Michalos, edited by Maggino, Filomena. New York: Springer.

Kenneth C. Land, Vicki L Lamb, and Qiang Fu. 2015. “Child Well-Being and Child Suffering.” Pp. 173-186 In World Suffering and Quality of Life, edited by  R. E. Anderson. New York: Springer.

Fu, Qiang. 2014. “The Contentious Democracy: Homeowners Associations in China through the Lens of Civil Society.” Pp. 201-216 in Housing Inequalities in Chinese Cities, edited by Y. Huang and S.-m. Li. New York: Routledge.

Fu, Qiang, Vicki L Lamb, and Kenneth C. Land. 2012. “Scalability of the CWI: Substate Regional Indicators and Composite Indices.” Pp. 189-224 in The Well-Being of America’s Children: Developing and Improving the Child and Youth Well-Being Index, edited by K. C. Land. New York: Springer.

Land, Kenneth C., Vicki L. Lamb, Sarah Meadows, Hui Zheng, and Qiang Fu. 2012. “The CWI and Its Components: Empirical Studies and Findings.” Pp. 29-76 in The Well-Being of America’s Children: Developing and Improving the Child and Youth Well-Being Index, edited by K. C. Land. New York: Springer.

Xie, Yu, and Qiang Fu. 2010. “Chapter 12 Dummy Variables.” In Chinese. Pp. 217-233 in Regression Analysis (Huigui Fenxi), Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.

Xie, Yu, and Qiang Fu. 2010. “Chapter 13 Interactions.” In Chinese. Pp. 234-249 in Regression Analysis (Huigui Fenxi),  Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.

Xie, Yu, and Qiang Fu. 2010. “Chapter 14 Heteroskedasticity and Generalized Least-squares Estimation.” In Chinese. Pp. 250-263 in Regression Analysis (Huigui Fenxi), Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.

Ren, Qiang, Zhihao Lv, and Qiang Fu. 2008. “China’s population, family and household.” In Chinese. Pp. 216-264 in 2005 China Micro-census Research Paper Series (2005 Quanguo Renkou 1% Chouyang Diaocha Keti Lunwenji), edited by State Statistical Bureau. Beijing: China Statistics Press.

Newspaper Articles and Research Reports

Land, Kenneth C., Vicki L. Lamb, and Qiang Fu. 2012. “Violent Bullying Victimization in Middle and High School Contexts in the United States: A Social Report.” SINET: A Quarterly Review of Social Reports and Research on Social Indicators, Social Trends, and the Quality-of-Life (110 & 111): pp. 1-11.

Lin, Nan, and Qiang Fu. 2010. “Market Transformation and the Disadvantaged: Housing Stratification in Urban China.” Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Working Paper Series, Cambridge, MA.

Fu, Qiang, and Huoning Zhou. 2010. “Homeowners Association: Voluntary Organizations Based on Partitioned Ownership.” In Chinese. In Chinese Social Sciences Today (Zhongguo Shehui Kexuebao), Beijing: Social Sciences in China Press.

Fu, Qiang, Vicki Lamb, and Kenneth C. Land. 2009. California Child and Youth Well-Being Index, 1995-2007: Trends, Changes and Projections to 2012. Palo Alto, CA: Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health.

Honours, Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

2022 Scholar Grant, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (role: PI)

2021 Insight Grant, The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) (role: PI)

2019 China Program Fellowship, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (role: PI)

2019 The Grants for Catalyzing Research Clusters, The University of British Columbia (role: co-PI)

2016 Junior Scholar Grant, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (role: PI)

2016 Hampton New Faculty Award, The University of British Columbia

2015 Award for Outstanding Students Abroad, China Scholarship Council

2013 PARISS Fellowship, Duke University

2007 Samchang Scholarship, Peking University

2006 Nannong Rural Research Award, Southern Rural Daily & Central China Normal University

2005 Excellent Undergraduate Thesis, Jinan University

2004 Outstanding Winners of China Undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling (with an invited publication at Chinese Journal of Mathematical Engineering, among top 20 out of 6,800+ participants)

Patrick John Burnett (Ph.D. committee)

Minheng Chen (M.A. supervisor)

Alex Chow (Honours thesis advisor)

Mark Ding (Honours thesis advisor)

Jiaxin Gu (Honours thesis advisor)

Jiaxin Gu (M.A. supervisor)

Jiaxin Gu (Ph.D. supervisor)

Xingshu Liu (Ph.D. committee)

Joyce Shen (Honours thesis advisor)

Zhonghao Wang (M.A. supervisor)

Cary Wu (Ph.D. committee)

Adam Vanzella Yang (Ph.D. committee)

Amy Zeng  (Honours thesis advisor)

Guoliang Zhang (Honours thesis advisor)

Xueqing Zhang (M.A. committee)

Heqing Liu (Sociology, Huazhong Univ. of Sci. & Technology)

Xiaoxi Liu (Political Science, Tsinghua University)

Qianning Li (Political Science, Nanjing University)

Yanwu Liu (Sociology, Wuhan University)

Zhilei Shi (Demography, Zhongnan Univ. of Econ. & Law)

Yimin Yu (Sociology, East China Univ. of Poli. Sci. & Law)

Yuan Yue (Demography, Xi’an Jiaotong University)

*(current affiliation)