Susanne Choi is Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Gender Research Centre at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Drawing on mixed methods, qualitative, and comparative research, her work investigates how large-scale social transformations, including modernization, globalization, migration, and digitalization, reshape gender and family relations, sexuality, intimacy, work, and social inequalities. Grounded in empirical research in China and across East Asia, her findings show how global transformations interact with local historical legacies, cultural norms, and structures of inequality to produce diverse and often non-linear trajectories of social change. She is currently leading two comparative projects on technology, gender, cyber dating abuse, and online sexual harassment in East Asia, focusing on Hong Kong, Beijing, Taipei, and Osaka. Both projects are funded by Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council.

Her lead-authored book, Masculine Compromise: Migration, Family and Gender in China (University of California Press, 2016), examines how migration and socioeconomic transformations reshape masculinity, gender relations, and familial power. The book received the Best Book Award from the Research Committee on Sociology of Migration (RC31) of the International Sociological Association. Her second monograph, Queer Resistance: Contesting State, Family and Inequality in Post-Socialist China (University of California Press, 2026), develops resistance as an analytical lens for understanding the changing configurations of state, societal, and familial power, as well as the possibilities, unevenness, and limits of pursuing greater autonomy in intimate and private lives under politically repressive conditions. Her research has also been published in leading international journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, The Sociological Review, International Migration Review, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Global Networks, The China Quarterly, Human Relations, Gender, Work & Organization, and Social Science & Medicine.

Susanne was included in the 2025 and 2026 editions of the Stanford/Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists database. She has also received competitive international fellowships and research awards, including the Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professorship at the University of Oxford, the Fulbright Senior Scholarship at Harvard University, a Senior Visiting Research Fellowship at the National University of Singapore, and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council’s Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship (2023). At The Chinese University of Hong Kong, she has received the Young Researcher Award (2012), Exemplary Teaching Award (2016), Vice-Chancellor’s Exemplary Teaching Award (2016), Research Excellence Award (2017), and Research Mentorship Award (2018).

Susanne contributes to the academic community through editorial work and disciplinary leadership. She currently serves as an Associate Editor of Gender, Work & Organization and sits on the editorial boards of Gender & Society and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. She is also a member of the International Editorial Advisory Boards of Asian Population Studies, Families, Relationships and Societies, and Sexuality & Culture: An Interdisciplinary Journal. She served as President of the Hong Kong Sociological Association from 2023 to 2024.

Beyond academia, Susanne has been actively engaged in public service. From 2015 to 2021, she served as a board member of Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC). During her tenure, she convened the Commission’s Policy, Research and Training Committee and its Working Group on Anti-Sexual Harassment Campaign. She also spearheaded the establishment of the EOC’s Employer Recognition Scheme, which recognizes organizations that take proactive steps to comply with Hong Kong’s four anti-discrimination ordinances.