Qiyang Zhang

Baltimore, MD · qzhang74@jhu.edu

Qiyang Zhang is a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University, School of Education. Her primary research interests include students’ well-being, school-based mental health interventions, and automated meta-analysis workflows. Apart from her work at SPIEE with her advisor Hunter Gehlbach, she also works as a research assistant at Center for Research and Reform in Education. Before coming to Johns Hopkins, she graduated with a master’s degree in Education Policy from the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Qiyang also holds dual Bachelor’s degrees in Economics and Industrial Systems Engineering (with Honors and Distinction) from the National University of Singapore.

Skills

Statistical Programming and Simulation

R
Stata
Ithink
Automod
Tableau

Programming

Python
C
C++

Other Tools

Nvivo
LATEX
Adobe Illustrator
Basic SQL

Website Development

Hugo
Wordpress

Publications

My collection of peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations and book reviews.

Book Review Publication - Book review of International Mobility and Educational Desire: Chinese Foreign Talent Students in Singapore by Peidong Yang, Perspectives on Urban Education Journal.

Since the 1990s, Singapore has been recruiting students from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to study in Singapore’s education system as a part of its foreign-talent recruitment strategy. Through ethnographic fieldwork in two urban cities in the PRC and Singapore, International Mobility and Educational Desire records and analyzes PRC students’ experiences of marginalization, identity transformations, and struggles in a different education system. The cultural dissonance in a diverse classroom leads to feelings of social exclusion. This highlights the lack of institutional resources in urban classrooms and calls for more attention to marginalized students’ psychological well-being.

April 2021

Peer-reviewed Publication - The cost of illiteracy: A causal inference study on how illiteracy affects physical and mental health. Health Education Journal, 0017896920949894.

The analysis used data from Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. Matching methodologies controlled for confounding variables including age, sex, living sites, access to tap water and financial support. Illiteracy was found to have a significant impact on physical health, exercise habits, anxiety, loneliness and happiness. On average, illiteracy decreased physical health by 19.9%, decreased exercise habits by 7%, increased anxiety by 11.56%, increased loneliness by 17.6% and decreased happiness by 11.3%. Findings confirm the past literature in which illiteracy has been found to be adversely associated with physical and mental health. The analysis uniquely found that illiteracy had a higher cost on mental health as compared to physical health for elderly people in China.

August 2020

Experience

Research Assistant in Social Cultural Survey Project

School of Education, Johns Hopkins University

Cleaned messy data in R

June 2021 - July 2021

Research Assistant in Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on Effective Elementary Science Interventions

School of Education, Johns Hopkins University

Automated the handsearch process for meta-analysis using keyword searching Python code. Conducted title, abstract, and full-text screening for more than 14,000 articles

August 2020 - Present

Research Assistant in ‘Kampong Spirit’ in Singapore HDB Neighborhood

Department of Economics, Yale-NUS College

Collected primary data using multi-language surveys in Singapore HDB

February 2019 - March 2019

Systems Designer for Building Data Intelligence in Healthcare

National University of Singapore and Tan Tock Seng Hospital

Built Dashboard using Tableau to display key performance indicators of the hospital discharge data

August 2018 - May 2019

Dissertation Research in Public Versus Private Higher Educational Institutions in ASEAN Countries

Industrial Systems Engineering and Management, National University of Singapore

Compared Public and Private Higher Educational Institutions in Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Phillipines

August 2018 - May 2019

Education

Johns Hopkins University School of Education

Doctor of Philosophy

Education

2020 - present

University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education

Master of Science in Education

Education Policy

2019 - 2020

National University of Singapore

Bachelor of Engineering & Bachelor of Arts

Industrial Systems Engineering & Economics

Honors and Distinction

2015 - 2019