Kat Tian CV

About Me

Kat Tian is completing her doctoral studies in Marketing and Data Science at The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she is recipient of the highly competitive 'Distinguished Student' fellowship. She received her Master's degree from the London School of Economics in London, United Kingdom and her Bachelor's from the Beijing Foreign Studies University in Beijing, China. Kat holds professional experience as a researcher at the Social Research and Technology Innovation Laboratory (STRI), a lab employing full-time data scientists to consult with campus researchers across the social sciences (e.g. advertising, business, psychology, sociology) and the computational sciences (e.g. computer science, statistics, information sciences). Additionally, Kat has experience working as a researcher for the United Kingdom Government's Trade and Investment division, a marketing assistant at PopSugar, and as a media researcher at The Wall Street Journal. Kat is passionate about research, data, and technology. Currently, her research focuses on how cultural variables influence consumers' intentions in e-commerce environments.

Education

PhD in Marketing and Information Science
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2016 - Present)
Relevant Courses: Research in Consumer Behavior, Advanced Data Science (Machine Learning), Statistics, Statistical Inference, Information Consulting, Information Processing (Python), Communications Analytics (R), Databases (SQL), Research Methodology (Experimental Design, SPSS), Attitudes in Consumer Behavior, Theory & Practical Data Cleaning (OpenRefine, Regex), Business Analytics (R, Tableau)

M.Sc. in Communications focused on Marketing (Research)
The London School of Economics (2014 - 2015)
Relevant Courses: International Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Regression Analysis (STATA), Advanced Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methodology, Theories and Concepts in Media and Communications, Statistics (SPSS)

B.A. in International Communication
Beijing Foreign Studies University (2011-2014)

Professional Experience

Researcher | Social Research and Technology and Innovation (SRTI)
Research in Information and Technology Services, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Oct 2018 - Present)
SRTI is a research lab dedicated to marketing research using computational advertising where machine and deep learning algorithms are applied to investigate new technologies for application in community use.

Researcher | Technology and Social Behavior Lab (TSB)
Research in technology-mediated social behavior, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (Sept 2017 - Present)
TSB is a research lab designed to bring together students and researchers interested in technology-mediated social behavior—how features and affordances of technology enable or constrain people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.