Muzhi Liu

I am a Ph.D. student in Political Science at Columbia University, where I study political behavior, public opinion, political communication, and political methodology. My research examines how political identities are formed, activated, and translated into behavior across different information environments.

My current projects fall into three broad areas. The first studies how political information travels across borders — how online audiences engage with U.S. political events and fold foreign partisan conflict into their own political conversations. The second examines identity, group attachments, and voting behavior in the United States, with projects on Latino voters, the costs of voting, and primary-election factions. The third explores how campaigns and partisan cues shape behavior beyond traditional electoral participation, reaching into everyday consumer choice.

Methodologically, I draw on survey and conjoint experiments, causal inference, text-as-data, LLM-assisted measurement, and large-scale observational data.

I hold a B.A. in Political Science from Emory University and am concurrently pursuing an M.A. in Statistics at Columbia. Beyond my discipline, I am passionate about pure mathematics — especially algebra and analysis — and take courses in Columbia's mathematics department.

My research has been supported by the Institute for Humane Studies and APSA's Centennial Center.