Bio

Kai R. D. Cooper is a PhD student in the Operations, Information and Decisions Department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and an affiliate of the Centre for Causal Inference at Penn Biostatistics. He is advised by Dean Knox.

Kai's research studies complex social scientific questions with observational data, with a primary interest in social equity. His thesis centers on the empirical study of discrimination and its statistical foundations in graphical causal models. Discrimination is notoriously difficult to identify empirically, owing to the ephemeral nature of human decision-making and the constraints of the data environments typically available to researchers. to address this problem, a recurring theme of Kai's methodological work is the use of causal proxies to target latent features of the decision environment—such as internal beliefs or unobserved behaviour—that are central to understanding discrimination but rarely observed directly. Usually, the corresponding datasets are messy and unstructured, where standard empirical research designs often prove inadequate. Consequently, to reduce the reliance on strong assumptions, Kai develops novel partial identification strategies for causal parameters of interest. Substantive applications areas include policing, high-stakes AI-based decision-making, and survey experiments.

Kai grew up in Birmingham, United Kingdom, but is a supporter of Arsenal FC. Before joining Penn, Kai earned a master's degree in mathematics from Imperial College London, including a year studying abroad at EPFL in Switzerland. Outside of research he enjoys the cinema, reading dystopian science fiction, playing badminton and struggling through a CrossFit workout.