I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Riverside. My research broadly lies in American politics and political behavior, with specific foci in class and income inequality, poverty, redistribution, policing, and incarceration.

My dissertation, For Them, Not Me: Empathy for Poor Friends and Family Members, Dimensions of Financial Distress, and Support for Redistribution, explores the extent to which contact with close friends and family members experiencing poverty or financial distress motivates support for redistribution and engenders more favorable attitudes toward those in poverty. I also assess whether the source of a loved one’s financial precarity (e.g., unemployment) only predicts support for policies that ameliorate the specific source of strain, or if it garners redistributive support writ large. In addition, I identify empathy for poor friends and family members — born from the emotional bonds formed through these relationships — as a novel mechanism driving greater support of anti-poverty and liberal economic policies. Through observational studies and a survey experiment, I find that close contact with financially struggling loved ones increases support for broad redistributive efforts, but the extent of contact’s influence is conditioned upon the reason(s) for a friend or family member’s distress.

I earned my Master of Arts in 2022 and my Bachelor of Arts in 2018, both from the University of California, Riverside. Outside of academia, I enjoy gothic horror, golden hour, and tending to my small jungle of house plants.

If you would like to get in touch, please don’t hesitate to email me at beasim.ooi@email.ucr.edu or submit a contact form. Thank you for visiting!