Tong Chen, PhD'26

Tong Chen's research is centered on systematically analyzing and quantifying large-scale unstructured text data, and covers integrity and accountability, nonprofit social media communication, and AI governance. Dr. Chen specializes in transforming qualitative materials, such as government disclosures, legislative texts, and social media content, into analytically tractable datasets using natural language processing, machine learning, and generative AI, enabling rigorous empirical analysis of complex public management and governance phenomena that are difficult to capture through traditional structured data alone. His dissertation leveraged artificial intelligence to construct a comprehensive dataset of over 1,800 U.S. public corruption cases from FBI disclosures, moving beyond the field’s traditional reliance on aggregated indices. Dr. Chen's nonprofit work focuses on the nonprofit’s communication strategy on social media by utilizing access to Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram) and TikTok. His policy work constructed a comprehensive dataset of state-level AI policies across all 50 U.S. states to examine how policymakers are addressing the rapid adoption of AI. He’s also interested in exploring and applying emerging technologies in both teaching and academic research, such as robotic process automation, multimedia presentation, and analysis with AI.

Education

• PhD: Rutgers University–Newark, School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) (2026)
• MSc: Hult International Business School, Finance (2014)
• BS: Iowa State University, Finance (2013)
• BS: Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, China, Statistics (2012)