Jackson G. Lu PhD '18, a recipient of CJEB's Doctoral Fellowship, authored a paper published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Jackson G. Lu PhD '18, the Mitsui Career Development Professor and an Associate Professor of Work and Organization Studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a recipient of CJEB's Doctoral Fellowship, authored the paper "The surprising underperformance of East Asians in US law and business schools" published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Across six large studies, Professor Lu found that East Asians—but not South Asians—tend to underperform academically not because East Asians are less academically motivated or less proficient in English but because their low verbal assertiveness is culturally incongruent with the assertive class participation prized by U.S. law and business schools. By revealing such a "Bamboo Ceiling" in U.S. law and business schools, the paper fundamentally challenges the assumption that Asians are always successful academically.