I am a PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Policy at Princeton University. I am a mixed-methods scholar whose research interests broadly include urban sociology, housing, immigration, poverty and inequality, and social policy. You can find my work in Social Forces, PNAS, and Social Service Review. My dissertation is supported by the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy.
I draw on large administrative datasets, surveys, and in-depth interviews to understand how the housing market produces and perpetuates economic inequality. One strand of research looks at how market actors (e.g. landlords, property managers, developers) interact with laws and public policies to reify disparities in housing outcomes.
Another line of inquiry documents nativity differences in rental outcomes. I am also interested in how local housing dynamics in immigrant neighborhoods shape experiences of immigrant integration and broader processes of neighborhood change.
I hold a B.S. in Business from NYU’s Stern School of Business and a M.A. from Princeton University. Prior to graduate school, I helped build the first ever dataset of evictions in America with the Eviction Lab. I am currently a GRADFutures Fellow at New America’s Future of Land and Housing Team. I also serve as the East Asian Languages team co-lead at Respond Crisis Translation.
Email me at: lleung@princeton.edu
Peer-reviewed Publications
Robinson III, John and Lillian Leung. 2026. “From Persuasion to Evasion: Anti-Collective Action and the Making of Affordable Housing in Suburban Chicago.” Social Forces, soag022.
Recipient of the 2023 ASA Publication Award for Significant Contributions to Applied and Public Sociology
Featured by the Post and Courier
Provided written and oral testimony to the Maryland State Senate
Blog post on the Eviction Lab website
Under Review
Leung, Lillian, Renee Louis, Jasmine Rangel, and Matthew Desmond. “Profit or Protection? Evictions and housing dynamics in immigrant neighborhoods.” Revise and Resubmit.
Leung, Lillian. “Dynamics of Rental Housing Affordability in the Immigrant and US-born Population, 2000-2020.” Revise and Resubmit.