I am an assistant professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Three keywords, Generative AI, Computational Social Science, and Strategic Communication, characterize my research. My earlier work examined the intersection of the latter two, and my current work focuses on generative AI and its differential effects across levels of communicative entities.

My work treats generative AI as a technology that enters an existing ecology of messages, organizations, and publics and rearranges the advantages already distributed there, privileging certain messages, benefiting certain organizations, and reshaping what individuals encounter. I study these dynamics with computational methods and causal inference, extending an earlier agenda on information, communication, and organizations, and I also use AI itself as a method alongside these tools. Much of this rearrangement plays out in strategic communication, where campaigns, brands, advocacy groups, and government communicators now distribute their messages through the same systems that decide which messages circulate, and I ask where those advantages come from and what they mean for prosocial outcomes. This same sociological perspective on communication runs through my earlier work on stakeholder engagement and public relationships as pathways through which organizations change their network ecologies. I enjoy working with students and collaborators who bring solid project management and programming skills, test big ideas with social-theoretical or applied stakes, and appreciate intuitive and clever research designs.

My understanding of the term "strategic communication" is rather broad. AdPR is certainly a big part of it, but I also treat many topics that usually fall under organizational communication (e.g., internal communication, crowdsourcing, small groups), health communication (e.g., message appeals, persuasion, PSAs), marketing communication (e.g., customer reviews, crisis management, brand identity), and political communication (e.g., audience analytics, government communication, information manipulation) as parts of strategic communication.

My work has appeared in general communication journals (e.g., New Media & Society, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and Mass Communication and Society), field-top journals (e.g., Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal of Advertising, Political Communication, and Management Communication Quarterly), and computer science conference proceedings (e.g., CSCW). I serve on the editorial boards of the Journal of Communication and six top strategic communication journals, and have edited two special issues, one on Generative AI for Computational Communication Research and one on computational strategic communication for Public Relations Review. I received my Ph.D. in Communication from UPenn Annenberg. Prior to that, I obtained an M.A. in Statistics and Data Science from the Wharton School and an M.A. in Strategic Public Relations from USC Annenberg. I graduated from Tsinghua University with dual bachelor's degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Journalism.