Eun Kyong Shin

Eun Kyong Shin is a visiting scholar in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University [2025-2026]. Shin is currently an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Korea University.

Shin is developing a book manuscript with a tentative title, Link Deletion. In this book, She explores the neurocognitive foundations of social ties, interrogating how the rapid attenuation of relational half-lives restructures social cohesion and individual identity formation. Drawing on insights from cognitive neuroscience and network theory, the book investigates link decay not merely as a structural phenomenon but as a deeply embodied process with profound consequences for the affective architecture of sociality.

Her work lies at the intersection of medical sociology, cognitive sociology, and social network analysis, with particular emphasis on the use of brain data to explore the cognitive dimensions of social connectivity. Her research has appeared in Nature Digital Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network, Scientific Reports, and Frontiers in Oncology. She is also a contributing author to The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning (Oxford University Press). 

Prior to joining KU, she was a research faculty at Columbia Law School, and a postdoc fellow at the University of Tennessee Medical School, her investigations weave through multiple disciplines.  She holds a MPhil and PhD in Sociology (2015, Columbia University) and BA, MA in sociology (Korea University).