Postdoctoral Fellow
Email sidney.wong@otago.ac.nz
Dr Sidney Wong is a researcher and community advocate based in Ōtautahi (Christchurch). He is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Sustainability Research, University of Otago as part of the Modelling for Impact Hub within Te Pūnaha Matatini Centre of Research Excellence for Complex Systems, where his research focuses on enabling digital inclusion and social resilience through data and modelling.
Sidney completed his PhD in Linguistics at the University of Canterbury, supported by funding from the Geospatial Research Institute. His doctoral work used Natural Language Processing to model complex social systems within social media. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Linguistics, a Master of Linguistics, and a Master of Applied Data Science from the University of Canterbury.
A recipient of a Fulbright Science and Innovation graduate award, Sidney spent an eventful year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign exploring automatic hate speech detection. Through this research, he advocated for AI-driven detection systems to account for socio-cultural factors and the specific impacts these systems have on communities. Prior to his doctoral training, he worked as a Senior Design Analyst (Te Ara Takatū) at Stats NZ, the official statistical organisation of New Zealand, where he empowered community-led indigenous groups and organisations with their data needs.
As the former chair of two non-profit organisations in New Zealand – Qtopia and the Ethnic Rainbow Alliance, Sidney is passionate about helping ethnic and LGBTQIA+ communities thrive. In his research, he integrates qualitative and quantitative approaches, holding the view that both data and storytelling are necessary to offer actionable insights and inspire meaningful change. His debut book, Queer Asian Identities in Contemporary Aotearoa New Zealand: One Foot Out of the Closet, was published in August 2023.