People
S. Shyam Sundar
James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects / Co-Director, Media Effects Research Laboratory / Director, Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, Advertising/Public Relations, Media Studies
Founding Director, Media Effects Research Lab
S. Shyam Sundar is the founding director of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on mass-communication theory, psychology of communication theory and research methodology. His research investigates social and psychological effects of technological elements unique to web-based mass-communication. In particular, his studies investigate the effects of interactivity, navigability, multi-modality and agency in web interfaces upon online users' thoughts, emotions and actions.
Mary Beth Oliver
Donald P. Bellisario Professor of Media Studies / Co-Director of Media Effects Research Laboratory, Media Studies
Mary Beth Oliver is the co-director of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on media effects, communication research, quantitative research methods and interpersonal communication. She specializes in media and psychology, focusing on both the psychological effects of media, and on viewers' attraction to or enjoyment of media content. Her research includes studies pertaining to media violence, reality-based television programs, gender differences in enjoyment of media entertainment, viewers' responses to melodramas and sad films and media portrayals of racial groups and the effect of such portrayals on viewers' racial attitudes.
Lee Ahern
Associate Professor, Advertising/Public Relations
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Lee Ahern is a faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab. He teaches introduction to advertising, research methods and media planning. His current research focuses on the description, analysis and ethics of strategic messages, primarily in the context of environmental and health communications. In particular, he has explored psychological effects and cognitive processing implications of different environmental message factors. In an international context, Ahern also studies the roles of culture and media system development on environmental attitudes and behaviors. Ahern's work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly and Health Communication. In 2007, Ahern received the Betsy Plank Graduate Student Research Award, which is presented annually at the Public Relations Society of America International Conference. He has presented multiple papers at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) annual conference. He is the current Research Chair for the Communicating Science, Health, Environment and Risk Division of AEJMC.
Frank Dardis
Associate Professor , Advertising/Public Relations
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Frank Dardis is a faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on strategic communication, advertising and marketing, and advertising / public relations research methods. His research focuses on the psychological and persuasive effects that informational messages have on people. Specifically, he has examined message framing, media framing, advocacy appeals, sponsorship messages, and repeated message exposures within both sociopolitical and marketing / consumer-related contexts. He has investigated message effects regarding sociopolitical topics such as social movement organizations, war protest, environmentalism, capital punishment and political apathy. His consumer-oriented research focuses on the impact of advertising messages on individuals' information processing and brand / corporate attitudes. In addition to regularly presenting his research at major academic conferences, he has published articles in journals such as Mass Communication and Society, International Communication Gazette, Communication Quarterly, Journal of Political Marketing and Journal of Consumer Behavior.
Homero Gil de Zúñiga
Professor, Journalism, Media Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Prof. Gil de Zúñiga serves as Professor at Pennsylvania State University, as Distinguished Research Professor at University of Salamanca where he directs the Democracy Research Unit (DRU), and as Senior Research Fellow at Universidad Diego Portales, Chile. His research addresses the influence of new technologies and digital media over people's daily lives, as well as the effect of such use on the overall democratic process. He has published nearly a dozen books/volumes and over 100 JCR peer reviewed journal articles (i.e. Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Political Communication, Human Communication Research, New Media & Society, Communication Research, etc).
Jessica Myrick
Professor, Media Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Jessica Myrick's research examines the role of different emotions in shaping audience responses to health, science and environmental messages. She argues that mediated messages need to resonate emotionally with individuals in order to change attitudes and behaviors related to those topics. For example, she has investigated how content from the Discovery Channel's popular "Shark Week" series impacts the effectiveness of conservation-focused public service announcements.
Michael Schmierbach
Associate Professor , Media Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Michael Schmierbach is a faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on media effects, political communication, quantitative research methods, and video game effects. His research focuses on individuals' perceptions of media and the role of media exposure in shaping those perceptions. Specifically, he has conducted research exploring how enjoyment of video games is influenced by interface and control schemes, multi-player game modes, perceptions of game difficulty, and other game characteristics. In addition, he has studied 3rd-person perceptions as they relate to video games, and information-seeking in regards to news and political coverage. He has presented his research at various academic conferences, and has published articles in several journals, including Mass Communication and Society, Communication Research, Journal of Communication, and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.
Fuyuan Shen
Professor, Head of the Department of Advertising/Public Relations, Advertising/Public Relations
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Fuyuan Shen is a faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab and teaches courses on media planning, advertising campaigns, strategic communications, and research methods. He conducts research on advertising, health communication, and political communication. His research integrates theories in social psychology, cultural psychology, and communications to explore the effects of media messages. He has previously studied how advertising and health message frames interacted with individual differences in changing attitudes towards brands, issues, and other behavioral, cognitive, and affective responses. He has also conducted research exploring the impact of political advertising, and news framing of social and political issues. He has published numerous articles in journals such as International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Communication, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Mass Communication and Society.
Chris Skurka
Assistant Professor, Media Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Chris Skurka is a faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab. His research centers on the effects of public communication efforts to promote engagement with health, science, and environmental issues. Topics of interest include climate change communication, anti-tobacco messaging, and communication about the social determinants of health. He is particularly interested in the role of emotion in how audiences respond to such media messages. Often, he studies how media messages can promote political outcomes, such as support for social policies and willingness to engage in political activism. His work can be found in outlets like the Journal of Communication, Science Communication, Social Science & Medicine, and Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
Bu Zhong
Associate Professor, Journalism
Faculty Affiliate, Media Effects Research Lab
Bu Zhong, an assistant professor, senior research fellow of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism, and faculty affiliate of the Media Effects Research Lab, teaches TV news reporting, news media ethics, international mass communications and world media systems. His research concentrates on decision making, social networking, media ethics and judgment in consuming and producing news and sports information. His work has been published in Journal of Communication, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, Newspaper Research Journal, American Behavioral Scientist and International Journal of Sports Communication. Before he joined the Penn State faculy, he had more than 10 years of work experience at CNN Washington Bureau in D.C., CNN Center in Atlanta, and China Daily in Beijing.
Student Researchers
Jiaqi Bao
Her current research interests include understanding the influence of communication technologies and digital media on health communication and journalism practice. She is also interested in exploring how strategic communication can help people lead better lives.
Spencer Bennett
He is interested in studying psychological and physiological effects of virtual reality and human-computer interaction.
Jin Chen
Her primary research interest lies at the intersection of health communication, media effects, and communication technologies.
Zicheng (Claire) Cheng
She is interested in studying social impacts of media technology.
Sara Erlichman
Her research interests focus on how and why individuals develop parasocial relationships, and how it can be used for prosocial causes.
Keerthana Govindarazan
Her research interests include user experience and the psychological impacts of immersive technology, with a particular focus on Human-AI interaction involving embodied AI agents in immersive environments.
Yilan Guo
She is interested in how these media influence people’s decision-making, enjoyment and appreciation, as well as how people process information and perceive others through these media. She's also interested in people's different patterns of digital or social media use and computational methods.
Eunchae Jang
Jang is interested in exploring psychological and technological factors in the context of human-computer interaction and generated media (i.e., synthetic media).
Yongnam Jung
She is interested in examining what makes customers interact with the message/website, what’s the impact of the interaction and what drives customers to talk online.
Hui Min Lee
She is interested in the psychological effects of new media technologies, particularly how affordances of immersive and interactive media influence the ways individuals emotionally and cognitively process information.
Sangwook Lee
He studies human-computer interaction and computer-mediated communication.
Mengqi (Maggie) Liao
She investigates the process and psychological effects of human interactions with communication technology, including mobile devices, social media and the emerging artificial intelligence (AI).
Yansheng Liu
Her primary research interests are psychological effects of entertainment media messages and technologies, especially how these media can be used to generate positive outcomes in terms of emotion, cognition, attitude, behavior, and mental well-being.
Alex Paloma
Acknowledging the power narratives have, his research aims to explore the ways media representation and emotions interact, in order to provide information that can be used to create more socially progressive content. In particular, he explores what leads to negative outcomes, such as stigma and prejudice, and how they can be countered by positive outcomes that help foster understanding among various social groups for the betterment of society at large.
Yuan Sun
She is interested in the effects of artificial intelligence-enabled technology on advertising, digital health, and news consumption.
Ryan Tan
He is interested in research related to gaming and interactive media effects.
Wanying (Lola) Xie
She is interested in health communication and science communication, understanding how we can effectively communicate science-related benefits and risks to average audiences. She is also interested in data analysis in science/health communication especially in big trends data collected from digital media.
Davis Yadav
Her research interests lie at the intersection of communication technology and psychology, and she is particularly interested in using her research on social media platforms and AI-enabled technology to improve people's mental health and well-being.
Hyun (Alicia) Yang
She is interested in the effect of new media on changes in people's attitudes, behavior, beliefs and intentions.
Bingbing Zhang
Her research interest involves media effects regarding how new technologies influence people’s processing of information and response to media messages especially how people express their certain opinions online and offline.
Penn State Alumni Associated with Media Effects Research Lab
Jose Aviles
Assistant Professor / Albright College -- Reading, Pennsylvania
Erin Ash
Assistant Professor / Clemson University -- Clemson, South Carolina
Erica Bailey
Assistant Professor / Angelo State University -- San Angelo, Texas
Saraswathi Bellur
Associate Professor / University of Connecticut -- Storrs, Connecticut
Bimal Balakrishnan
Associate Dean of Research, College of Architecture, Art and Design / Mississippi State University -- Starkville, Mississippi
Tayo Banjo
Associate Professor / University of Cincinnati -- Cincinnati, Ohio
Cheng (Chris) Chen
Assistant Professor / Elon University -- Elon, North Carolina
Eugene Cho
Assistant Professor / The College of New Jersey -- Ewing, New Jersey
Jeff Conlin
Assistant Professor / University of Kansas -- Lawrence, Kansas
Olivia Cohen
Assistant Professor of Instruction / Temple University -- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Corina Constantin
Head of Marketing Intelligence / The&Partnership -- New York City
Yuki Dou
Associate Professor / Ritsumeikan University -- Kyoto, Japan
Edward Downs
Associate Professor / University of Minnesota-Duluth -- Duluth, Minnesota
Arienne Ferchaud
Assistant Professor / Florida State University -- Tallahassee, Florida
Eun Go
Assistant Professor / Western Illinois University -- Macomb, Illinois
Nokon Heo
Assistant Professor / University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff -- Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Jennifer Hoewe
Assistant Professor / Purdue University -- West Lafayette, Indiana
Yifeng Hu
Associate Professor / The College of New Jersey -- Ewing, New Jersey
Yan Huang
Assistant Professor / University of Houston -- Houston, Texas
Haiyan Jia
Assistant Professor / Lehigh University -- Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Eun Hwa Jung
Assistant Professor / Kookmin University -- Seoul, South Korea
Sriram Kalyanaraman
Professor / University of Florida -- Gainesville, Florida
Hyunjin Kang
Assistant Professor / Nanyang Technological University -- Singapore
Guan-Soon Khoo
Assistant Professor / Roanoke College -- Salem, Virginia.
Hyang-Sook Kim
Assistant Professor / Towson University -- Towson, Maryland
Jinhee Kim
Assistant Professor / Pohang University -- Pohang, South Korea
Jinyoung (Jenny) Kim
User Experience Researcher / Amazon -- Seattle
Youjeong Kim
Associate Professor / Texas State University -- San Marcos, Texas
Keunyeong (Karina) Kim
Assistant Professor / Californa State University -- Dominguez Hills, California
Yoon-Jeon Koh
Vice President / KT -- Seoul, Republic of Korea
Maja Krakowiak
Associate Professor / University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Sushma Kumble
Associate Professor / Towson University -- Towson, Maryland
Sang Yeal Lee
Associate Professor / West Virginia University -- Morgantown, West Virginia
Sangki Lee
Associate Professor / Arkansas Tech University -- Russellville, Arkansas
Ruobing Li
Assistant Professor / Stony Brook University -- Stony Brook, New York
Anthony M. Limperos
Associate Professor / University of Kentucky -- Lexington, Kentucky
Sampada Marathe
User Research Lead / Wayfair -- Boston, Massachusetts
John McGrath
Associate Professor / University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown -- Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Maria D. Molina
Assistant Professor / Michigan State University -- East Lansing, Michigan
Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch
Assistant Professor / University of Connecticut -- Storrs, Connecticut
Jeeyun Oh
Assistant Professor / University of Texas -- Austin, Texas
Srividya Ramasubramanian
Newhouse Professor / Syracuse University -- Syracuse, New York
Meghan Sanders
Associate Professor / Louisiana State University -- Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Marc Seamon
Assistant Professor / Youngstown State University -- Youngstown, Ohio
Drew Shade
Assistant Professor / University of Cincinnati Blue Ash -- Blue Ash, Ohio
Ruosi (Rose) Shao
Brett Sherrick
Assistant Professor / Purdue University -- West Lafayette, Indiana
Carmen Stavrositu
Associate Professor / University of Colorado -- Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mina Tsay-Vogel
Associate Professor / Boston University -- Boston
Michail Vafeiadis
Assistant Professor / Auburn University -- Auburn, Alabama
Thomas Franklin Waddell
Assistant Professor / University of Florida -- Gainesville, Florida
Jinping Wang
Assistant Professor / Chinese University of Hong Kong -- Hong Kong
Ruoxu Wang
Assistant Professor / University of Memphis -- Memphis, Tennessee
Mu Wu
Assistant Professor / California State University -- Los Angeles
Julia Woolley
Employer Transportation Project Specialist / Point2point at Lane Transit District -- Eugene, Oregon
Anli Xiao
Assistant Professor / Texas A&M University -- Corpus Christi, Texas
Qian Xu
Associate Professor / Elon University -- Elon, North Carolina
Chun Yang
Assistant Professor / Louisiana State University -- Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Guolan Yang
Assistant Professor / Oakland University -- Rochester, Michigan
Bo Zhang
User Experience Researcher / Facebook Inc. -- Menlo Park, California
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