Research
My research examines how contributions are evaluated when their value cannot be determined by clear or settled standards. I study how judgments of novelty, authority, and credibility are formed, why gender and status become especially consequential under evaluative ambiguity, and how initial differences in recognition accumulate into durable inequalities. Across scientific and cultural fields, I follow this process from claims of novelty through reception, stabilization, and long-term recognition. I also examine how audience structures and AI systems increasingly organize these judgments.
Evaluating Novel Contributions
New contributions must be classified before they can be claimed and recognized. My earlier work distinguishes forms of scientific novelty. My subsequent research examines whether those forms are equally available for researchers to claim and whether claims receive equal recognition across gender and disciplinary contexts.
Key questions
- How are different forms of novelty classified and valued?
- How do gender and disciplinary context shape who can claim novelty and whose claims receive recognition?
Related work
Leahey, Erin, Jina Lee, and Russell Funk. 2023. What Types of Novelty are Most Disruptive? American Sociological Review, 88(3): 562-597 DOI ↗
Lee, Jina. 2026. Claiming Novelty, Claiming Authority: Gender Gaps in Scientific Impact Across Disciplines. Gender & Society, 40(4): 479-507 DOI ↗
Lee, Jina. The Theory Penalty: Gender and the Selective Recognition of Novelty in Science. R&R
Lee, Jina, Sohee Shin, Ziying Yang. Gendered Returns to Claiming Novelty. Working Paper
From Evaluation to Durable Recognition
This line of work examines how repeated acts of selection, classification, and recognition determine which claims become accepted facts, which creators enter cultural canons, which actors remain publicly visible, and which groups are treated as worthy of support or protection.
Key questions
- How do repeated acts of selection transform initial evaluations into durable recognition?
- At what stages do gender and status inequalities emerge and accumulate?
Related work
Lee, Jina. 2025. Gendered Pathways to Perpetual Fame: The Selection of Elite Korean Novelists into the Literary Canon. Poetics, 112: 102024 DOI ↗
Zhao, Yi, Jina Lee, and Cheryl Ellenwood. 2021 (online). The Persistent Influence of Gender Stereotypes in Social Entrepreneurial Financing. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 15(3): 811-832 DOI ↗
Lee, Jina, Minjae Seo, and Erin Leahey. 2022. Who Deserves Protection? How Naming Potential Beneficiaries Influences COVID-19 Vaccine Intentions. Socius, 8 DOI ↗
Lee, Jina. Claiming Novelty and the Epistemic Afterlife of Scientific Work. Working Paper
Ryu, Dahyun, Jina Lee. Survivorship in Public: Differential Durability and the Conflictual Face of Korean Digital Feminism. Working Paper
The Organization and Infrastructure of Evaluation
Evaluation does not occur in isolation. It is organized through disciplinary audiences, publication systems, data practices, and increasingly AI tools that select relevant literatures and formulate judgments about novelty and fit.
Key questions
- How do audience structures and publication practices shape judgments of novelty, fit, and epistemic value?
- How do AI tools and research infrastructures determine which literatures become visible, relevant, and available for scholarly judgment?
Related work
Lassiter, Charles, Sarah Bratt, Erin Leahey, Charlie Gomez, Jina Lee, and Yeaeun Kwon. Humble Reflections on the Intellectual Process of Developing a Text-based Measure of Humility in Inquiry. In Humble Inquiry: New Perspectives on Intellectual Humility, edited by Nathan Ballantyne, Jared Celniker, and Norbert Schwarz. Cambridge University PressForthcoming
Lee, Jina, Zhuofan Li. Conceptual Divergence Analysis: Mapping a Researcher’s Conceptual Vocabulary Against the Literatures They Address. R&R
Paik, Eugene T., Jina Lee, Russell Funk, Erin Leahey. Divide and Conquer? How Partitioned Audiences Shape the Impact of Domain-Spanning Innovation. Working Paper
Gomez*, Charles, Minjae Seo*, Yiwen Zeng, Jina Lee. International Hierarchies and the Recognition of Scientific Expertise. Working Paper
* These authors contributed equally as co-first authors.