I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of South Florida.

My work examines the intersection of mis/disinformation, contentious politics, and social inequality. I specialize in computational methods, quantitative methods, and mixed-methods.

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My research asks: How do people make informed decisions in today’s digital media environment with growing concerns over mis/disinformation, contentious politics, and structural inequalities? My current work focuses on: (1) identifying discourses around and dissemination of mis/disinformation on digital platforms; (2) evaluating strategies to mitigate mis/disinformation, including fact-checking, content flagging, and digital literacy intervention; and (3) studying how the broader communication ecology interacts with identity and social inequality in shaping misperceptions, policy preferences, and support for racial justice movements.

Methodologically, I use experiments (quasi-experiment, web-based dynamic experiment), computational methods (natural language processing, machine learning, network mapping), large-scale panel surveys, mixed-methods approaches, and work on the integration of textual, behavioral, and/or social geographical data.

My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, Political Communication, Mass Communication and Society, and Social Media + Society. My work also appeared in edited collections including The Routledge Companion to Media Disinformation and Populism (2021), Cambridge Elements in Politics and Communication (2022), and “An Epidemic on My People”: Religion in the Age of COVID-19 (forthcoming), as well as in public-facing outlets including The Washington Post, Brookings TechStream, and MediaWell.

My research has been funded by the Social Science Research Council, the International Fact-Checking Network, and the Knight Foundation, and has received top awards from the International Communication Association and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. I received B.A. in Journalism and Sociology from Peking University, M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.