I am a Ph.D. candidate and Graduate Teaching Associate at the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University. I am also a Graduate Fellow 2024-2025 at the Global Human Rights Hub, ASU. 

​​

My research investigates the cultural, ethical, and socio-technical dimensions of emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) and digital media. Grounded in several years of industry experience as a senior product operator and content moderation editor at leading tech firms such as ByteDance and Douyu Live Streaming (NASDAQ: DOYU), I bring a practitioner’s lens to study emerging communication technologies.

​

Drawing on both scholarly and practitioner perspectives, my research examines how communication technologies reshape authority, governance, and identity across digital societies. My work spans three interconnected themes: (1) exploring how AI, as an emerging communicator, transforms authority and communicative practices in nonprofit settings, particularly in religious, spiritual and journalistic contexts; (2) investigating how digital platforms construct and exercise power through privacy and data governance; and (3) analyzing how global platforms shape identity, belonging, and imaginaries across diverse sociocultural and geopolitical contexts.​

​

Methodologically, I am a qualitative researcher working across interpretive and critical traditions. I primarily use interviews, focus groups, ethnography, and critical discourse analysis to examine how individuals, communities, and institutions engage with emerging technologies in everyday life. In collaborative projects, I have also incorporated computational approaches, such as topic modeling, to investigate broader communication and sociotechnical dynamics. My research is informed by interdisciplinary insights from communication studies, science and technology studies (STS), and the sociology of religion.

​

I obtained my master's degree (Master's of Social Science, specialising in Digital Media and Society) from the Department of Informatics and Media at Uppsala University in Sweden and a B.A. degree (Journalism) at Linyi University in China. Before embarking on my PhD studies, I served as an Instructor in the Public Relations and Advertising Program within the Department of Communication at Hong Kong Baptist University Mainland campus (BNBU), where I supported undergraduate teaching and mentoring across public relations, advertising, and communication studies.