Haohao is a DPhil student in Sociology, specialising in demography and population science. He is passionate about exploring human behaviour through empirical data, particularly examining individual actions and interactions. His DPhil thesis investigates individual mortality risk and the risks of demographic collapse, under the supervision of Professor Jennifer Beam Dowd and Professor Ridhi Kashyap.
His research interests span social demography, social epidemiology, sequence analysis, event history analysis, applied machine learning, and extreme value theory.
Haohao is a doctoral student at the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health, and Data Science, affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. In 2025, he visited the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities at Sciences Po and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) as the OxPo doctoral fellow. He is also working as the Ronald Coase Fellow in political economy at Mercatus Center for the 2025–2026 academic year.
At Oxford, he works as a research assistant at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science and the Demographic Science Unit at Oxford Population Health. He co-organises the LCDS Population Health Reading Group and tutors Human Sciences and Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE) students.
Before his doctoral studies, Haohao earned an MPhil in Sociology and Demography with Distinction from University of Oxford and a BSc in Social Sciences with Quantitative Methods (Data Science) with First-Class Honours from University of London.
Haohao’s research is generously supported by the Clarendon Fund, Nuffield College, Mercatus Center, and the Max Planck Society.
In addition to his academic interests, Haohao has a strong interest in finance and investment and is keen to develop a deep understanding of markets and investing. He has gained industry experience as a Crude Oil Trading Intern at Sinochem International Oil (London) and as a Private Equity Intern at Loyal Valley Capital. His research on China Resources Land (华润置地) was selected as one of three finalists in Fidelity International’s 2025 Stock Pitch Competition.
In summer 2026, Haohao will work as a summer investment intern at Alta Advisers, the Rausing family’s family office. Alta Advisers is one of the UK’s largest single family offices by assets; it runs a lean investment team and looks after the wealth of one of Europe’s richest families. The family office invests across public equities, leveraged buyouts, venture capital, real estate, hedge fund, and natural resources, with the objective of enhancing long term value and supporting sustainable growth for the Rausing family. Notable alumni of Alta Advisers include Robert Wallace, now Chief Executive and Chief Investment Officer of the Stanford University Endowment Fund; Tilly Franklin, Chief Investment Officer of the University of Cambridge Endowment Fund; and Richard Oldfield, founding Chair of Oxford University’s Investment Committee and Oxford University Endowment Management, now Chair of Oldfield Partners.
Haohao is also a student member of The Royal Institute of International Affairs and a student fellow at the Royal Statistical Society.
Haohao Lei 