Meicen Sun
· Political ScienceMassachusetts Institute of Technology · Political Science
Active 2014–2026
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About
Meicen Sun earned a doctorate in Political Science from MIT in 2022 and is currently an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign School of Information Sciences. She is also a faculty affiliate at MIT FutureTech. Her research focuses on approaching the social sciences from the perspective of information science, blending political economy, information science, and computer science. Sun models social systems as information systems to reveal patterns that challenge conventional wisdom, with current work highlighting how large language models (LLMs) may pose significant challenges to democracy. She conducts experiments to understand the inner workings of LLMs, such as their tendency to please users, and aims to translate scientific findings into policy. Her work has been showcased at events like the Anthropic Economic Futures Symposium and the Jimmy Carter Forum on U.S.-China Relations. Sun emphasizes the importance of cultivating an AI-savvy workforce and challenges the notion of a winner-take-all global AI race. Her academic journey was supported by the MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, which provided resources and flexibility for her interdisciplinary research, and she credits courses in technology policy, varieties of capitalism, and political economy, as well as mentorship from faculty like Kenneth Oye, with shaping her scholarly development.
Research topics
- Computer Science
- Business
- Computer Security
- Artificial Intelligence
- Political Science
- Microeconomics
- World Wide Web
- Economics
- Law
- Biology
Selected publications
Foreign Policy Analysis · 2016-12-20 · 29 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingWhile China used to condemn UN peacekeeping as a Western tool in the 1970s, it now supplies the largest number of UN peacekeeping troops among the UN Security Council Permanent Five. To explain this puzzling change in China’s attitude toward UN peacekeeping, this paper constructs an original framework that unpacks China’s evolution in self-identity as a “responsible major power” by first disaggregating the economic, military, and political costs and benefits for its participation in UN peacekeep…
A system capable of verifiably and privately screening global DNA synthesis
arXiv (Cornell University) · 2024 · 7 citations
Printing custom DNA sequences is essential to scientific and biomedical research, but the technology can be used to manufacture plagues as well as cures. Just as ink printers recognize and reject attempts to counterfeit money, DNA synthesizers and assemblers should deny unauthorized requests to make viral DNA that could be misused. There are three complications. First, we don't need to quickly update printers to deal with newly discovered currencies, whereas we regularly learn of new potential p…
A system capable of verifiably and privately screening global DNA synthesis
National Science Review · 2026-02-14 · 3 citations
articleOpen accessABSTRACT Printing custom DNA sequences is essential to scientific and biomedical research, but the technology can be used to manufacture plagues as well as cures. Just as ink printers recognize and reject attempts to counterfeit money, DNA synthesizers and assemblers should deny unauthorized requests to make viral DNA that could be misused. There are three complications. First, we do not need to quickly update printers to deal with newly discovered currencies, whereas we regularly learn of new p…
SSRN Electronic Journal · 2017-01-01
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingAfrica Institute of South Africa eBooks · 2014-12-29
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 1 shared
Leonard Foner
- 1 shared
Jens Berlips
- 1 shared
Stephen Wooster
- 1 shared
Jiangbin Dong
Tsinghua University
- 1 shared
Martin Kysel
- 1 shared
Yu Yu
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
- 1 shared
Adi Shamir
- 1 shared
Kevin M. Esvelt
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
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