Hello, I'm Adam Visokay
I am a Bellwether Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, supervised by Joshua Blumenstock. I recently completed
my Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Washington, co-advised by Sasha Johfre and Tyler McCormick, and am an affiliated student with
the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS). My research explores how to leverage computational
methods and statistics to study social phenomena, typically motivated by questions in public health, economics, and sociology.
I am particularly interested in how to perform valid inference using predictions from black box algorithms and how to effectively use AI/ML
methods in a way that is both transparent and socially grounded. My work has appeared at venues including EMNLP, COLM, and the ACL Workshop
on NLP+CSS.
Contact me at avisokay@uw.edu or find me on strava 🏃!
Positions
Bellwether Postdoctoral Scholar, University of California, Berkeley 2026-present
Graduate Research Assistant, University of Washington, Seattle 2026
Pre-doc Research Assistant, University of Washington, Seattle 2023
Pre-doc Research Assistant, Sciences Po, Paris (Remote) 2021
Education
PhD in Sociology, University of Washington 2023-present
Affiliated PhD Student, Max Planck Institute (MPIDR) 2024-present
MA in Sociology, University of Washington 2024
MA in Economics, Syracuse University 2017
BA in Economics & History, University of Virginia 2016
News
07 Aug 2026 - 🗽 Headed to NYC for the American Sociolocal Association's annual meeting to present my work on [Data Regimes] and [Recruitment Driven Sampling]!
23 Jun 2026 - ⚔️ I passed my PhD Thesis Defense!
10 Jun 2026 - 🎓 Hooded by my amazing advisors at Graduation!
11 May 2026 - 🇩🇪 Visiting the MPIDR in Rostock to finish writing my dissertation.
09 May 2026 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on randomized recruitment driven sampling in the "Special Populations" session at PAA 2026 in St. Louis, MO. [Slides].
07 May 2026 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on the social construction of neighborhood boundaries in the "AI-Driven Data Innovation" session at PAA 2026 in St. Louis, MO. [Slides].
06 Mar 2026 - 🧑🏫 Poster presentation at the CSDE Winter 2026 Lightning Talk & Poster Session.[Link].
17 Dec 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research to the Computational Demography Working Group at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.
03 Dec 2025 - 🇩🇪 I joined my colleages in Rostock and presented my research at the 7th Annual PHDS Academy. [Group Photo].
20 Nov 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on benchmarking LLMs at labeling latent topics for computational social science at the CSSS Student Seminar. Link.
15 Nov 2025 - 🏃♂️ Raced my first half-marathon! In Richmond, VA, with several of my friends! [Strava].
04 Nov 2025 - 🧑🏫 Our poster on sociodemographic bias in Google Street View is presented at the ACM SIGSPATIAL Conference in Minneapolis, MN. (Wang was presenting author) [Paper]
22 Oct 2025 - 🏆 Ph.D. Milestone 3/n - I successfully defended my Dissertation Prospectus. Title: 'Bodies of Knowledge'. Committee: Sasha Johfre (co-chair), Tyler McCormick (co-chair), Sarah Quinn, Brandon M. Stewart, Aylin Caliskan (GSR).
21 Oct 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research at the UW + Amazon Science Hub Research & Networking Mixer in Seattle, WA. [Poster]
24 Sep 2025 - 🎒 First day of school - Year 3 of my PhD!
09 Aug 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on Inference with Predicted Data at the American Sociological Association in Chicago, IL. [Slides]
09 Aug 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on obesity conceptualization and measurement at the American Sociological Association in Chicago, IL.
05 Aug 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on using LLMs to study Federal Reserve meeting text on a panel hosted by Wolfe Research. Remote. [Slides]
01 Aug 2025 - 🌲 I am visiting Stanford University for the Summer Institute for Computational Social Science (SICSS).
12 Jul 2025 - 🏆 Ph.D. Milestone 2/n - I passed my Department's Comprehensive Exam with Distinction. Areas: Economic Sociology, Processes of Social Construction, Sociology of Algorithms.
10 Jul 2025 - 🧑🏫 Demo'ing a new project at the Allen School - Microsoft Research Summer Bash in Seattle.
14 Jun 2025 - 🇩🇪 I am back in Rostock for two workshops, one GIS and another on Data Visualization.
06 Jun 2025 - 🎒 I was recognized for earning my Graduate Certificate for Demographic Methods by CSDE at UW. [More info]
28 May 2025 - 🎒 I was recognized for completing my concentration in Social Statistics through CSSS at UW. [Group Photo]
21 Apr 2025 - 🧑🏫 Gave a guest lecture on "Artificial Intelligence" for SOC 270 Social Problems at the University of Washington, Seattle. [Slides].
18 Apr 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on Inference with Predicted Data at a Tech Talk for Elder Research in Arlington, VA. [Slides].
12 Apr 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on mortality estimation with LLMs in the "Machine Learning Approaches in Mortality Research" session at PAA 2025 in Washington, D.C. [Slides].
12 Apr 2025 - 🧑🏫 Presented my research on obesity measurement in the "Obesity, Behavior, and Novel Weight-Loss Medications" session at PAA 2025 in Washington, D.C. [Slides].
17 Mar 2025 - 🇩🇪 Traveled to Rostock for the second workshop on open science at [MPIDR].
03 Dec 2024 - 🧑⚖️ Report on Legal Financial Obligations in Washington's Courts is published. [link]
04 Dec 2024 - 🇩🇪 Presenting my research at the 2024 Annual Academy at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. [Slides]
06 Nov 2024 - 🎙 Invited talk at the UW Computational Demography Working Group in Seattle, WA [Slides]
05 Nov 2024 - 🎙 Invited talk at the Fred Hutchinson Deep Learning Affinity Group in Seattle, WA [Slides]
07 Oct 2024 - 🧑🏫 Poster presentation at the first-ever Conference on Language Models (COLM🦙) in Philadelphia, PA [Poster]
25 Sep 2024 - 🎒 Started Year 2 of my Ph.D. at UW!
09 Sep 2024 - 📊 Co-instructed this year's Summer Math Camp for incoming social science Ph.D. students for the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences at UW [Course Materials]
15 Aug 2024 - 🎒 Admitted as an affiliated student at the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS).
31 Jul 2024 - 🗳️ Elected to a one year term as President of my department's Graduate Student Association for the 2024-2025 academic year.
10 Jul 2024 - 📜 My paper about post-prediction inference for cause of death estimation is accepted to COLM 2024! [Paper]
08 Jun 2024 - 🎓 I received my M.A. in Sociology [Slide]
20 May 2024 - 🏆 Ph.D. Milestone 1/n - I successfully defended my M.A. Thesis!
01 May 2024 - 🧑🏫 Our poster on sociodemographic bias in Google Street View is presented at the UC Berkeley Data Science Discovery Symposium. [Poster]
01 Mar 2024 - 🧑⚖️ Started my new position doing applied NLP work for Washington State Courts Washington Courts (WSCCR).
07 Oct 2023 - 📜 My paper about using GPT-4 to annotate Federal Reserve documents is officially accepted to EMNLP Findings 2023! [Paper]
27 Sep 2023 - 🎒 Started Year 1 of my Ph.D. at UW!