Yixi Chen

I am a 5th-year Ph.D. candidate in Management (Organization Theory) at Columbia Business School. I received my M.A. in Social Sciences (Sociology) from the University of Chicago and my B.A. in History and Economics from Mount Holyoke College.

My research sits at the intersection of stigma, narrative, and social evaluation. Specifically, I propose the concept of stigma as distinction to explain how stigmatized identities become competitive advantages in evaluative settings that reward differentiation. I investigate the forms and consequences of revealing versus concealing devalued identities, such as lower social class, incarceration records, and neurodivergence, across contexts ranging from elite education to entrepreneurship. I examine conditions under which revealing stigma in venture narratives, counterintuitively, increases venture distinctiveness and worth, rather than undermining them. I use a mixed-method approach, combining experiments with interviews, computational text analysis, and surveys.

Before coming to Columbia, I worked as a Senior Analyst at Mastercard International (New York and Shanghai) and as a pre-doctoral researcher at the Berkeley Cultural Lab. Outside of work, I enjoy playing fetch with my dog in Central Park, traveling, and reading science fiction.

Contact

Feel free to contact me at: YiChen26 at gsb dot columbia dot edu