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Dr. Jung's primary field of study lies at the intersection of global poverty, socioeconomic development, and data science. The overarching goal of Dr. Jung's research is to impact the approaches to characterize global poverty and shape global/social transfers in resource-constrained settings. Trained as a social welfare scholar, policy analyst, and development engineer, her research is motivated by the desire to inform effective anti-poverty interventions. Dr. Jung's scholarship centers on three main areas for generating questions: 

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• Poverty measurement on a global scale

• The relevance of community development in response to regional poverty

• Informing the design of social welfare policies

 

As a publicly engaging scholar, she assists key development institutions in designing social protection policies and programs. The global economic and health risks highlight the need for efficient and systematic targeting to reach the most vulnerable populations. To address this issue, her recent work in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa aims to generate robust wealth metrics at a granular level. Her studies leverage features from new data sources, such as satellite imagery and social media, which is extracted and analyzed by artificial intelligence (AI)/ machine learning (ML) techniques at a policy-relevant spatial unit.

 

Dr. Jung's current projects are funded by Microsoft's AI for Humanitarian Action and received data support from Google, Twitter, and Planet Scope. She serves as PI for studies in the Republic of the Congo and Zambia. Dr. Jung works via a tripartition collaboration between governments, including the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services in Zambia, and the Institut Géographique National in Congo; international organizations, such as the World Food Programme; and non-government organizations, such as Innovations for Poverty Action.  Learn more about Dr. Jung's work in the Republic of Congo and her project in Zambia.

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