Jung Won (Leo) Choi

I study organizations and institutions governing the infrastructure that makes everyday life possible. These are systems we all depend on, from the more visible, like transportation and public safety, to the less noticeable, like innovation systems and mental health infrastructure. These systems may look unrelated as research areas, but they span the range of authority the state holds, from domains it can lead to those it can only support.

Across my research, I study how public organizations adapt to growing demands under authority and resource constraints, often by mobilizing external actors, and how those adaptations reshape organizations from within and their capacity to govern. I draw from organization theory, public administration, and policy process to answer this question. In my work, I use network analysis, qualitative comparative analysis, expert interviews, archival analysis, and statistical methods, and I am currently building a multi-agent AI system that complements traditional qualitative research workflows.

My broader goal is to build theoretically grounded, empirically rich, and methodologically plural scholarship on how governments govern work they no longer do entirely themselves, across the full range of institutional fabric that enables human flourishing.