Speakers - Day 1

Consultant
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Katrina Yu possesses years of professional experience in the broadcast news industry, having collaborated with prominent media organizations such as TVB, NowTV, and Hoy TV.
Hosting a range of live and recorded finance programs is one of her expertise, including “Inside the Stock Exchange,” “Wealth 360,” and “Finance Street Talk.” Throughout her career, Katrina has been dedicated to delivering insightful coverage on global equities, foreign exchange, and commodities, ensuring the public remains informed about the latest market trends and investment opportunities.
Specializing in financial news reporting, she has a strong background in producing and hosting live shows featuring interviews with government officials, executives from listed companies, and industry experts.
She also hosted social issues program, focusing on broadcasting local news and current hot topics, engaging diverse audiences through interviews with various stakeholders.
She earned her BA in Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Sussex in the UK and holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Provost and Deputy President
City University of Hong Kong

Prof. Chun-Sing Lee obtained his BSc and PhD degrees from the University of Hong Kong in 1987 and 1991, respectively. He embarked on his research career at the University of Birmingham in the UK, with the support of the Croucher Foundation Fellowship. Prof. Lee joined the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 and is currently a Chair Professor of Materials Chemistry and the Provost and Deputy President of the University. He also co-founded the Center of Super-Diamond and Advanced Films (COSDAF) in 1998 and served as the Center’s Director/ Deputy Director till 2022.
Prof. Lee’s current research interests focus on organic electronic devices and nanomaterials for energy, environmental and biomedical applications. He is listed among the Clarivate Analytics' Highly Cited Researchers 2024 and 2023. Prof. Lee received First Class Prizes in the Jiangsu Province Science and Technology Award in 2023 and 2018 (awarded by the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Government) and in the Shenzhen Science and Technology Prize in 2021 (awarded by the Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Commission). He established the journal Materials Today Energy with Elsevier in 2016 and served as its Editor-in-Chief until 2021.

Dean
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
City University of Hong Kong

Professor Alfred Tat-Kei HO is the Chair Professor of Public Policy and Governance of the Department of Public and International Affairs, the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, and the Director of the Institute of Global Governance and Innovation for a Shared Future, all at City University of Hong Kong. He is also an elected fellow (overseas) of the National Academy of Public Administration in the U.S., the Vice President (Asia) of the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM), an advisory group member of the Chief Executive’s Policy Unit of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and an advisor to the Hong Kong International Academy Against Corruption. Professor Ho’s research focuses on government performance management, e-government, citizen engagement, and recently, on cross-sectoral collaboration in industrial development. He has collaborated with many local governments in the U.S. and China, as well as with think tanks, national and international organizations, and professional associations, including the United Nations Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the China Development Research Foundation, the Asian Development Bank, the IBM Center for the Business of Government, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Federation of Hong Kong Industries. Professor Ho received his bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his Master of Public Administration and Ph.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. He taught in three different universities in the U.S. for more than 20 years before returning to Hong Kong in December, 2020.

Head
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Yi-Hui Christine Huang (Ph.D., University of Maryland) is Head and Chair Professor of Communication and Media at City University of Hong Kong and International Communication Association (ICA) Fellow. She was awarded the title of Senior Research Fellow by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) in 2024. She has been committed to research on strategic communication, risk communication in health and technology, crisis communication, relationship management and conflict resolution, and cross-cultural communication. She serves as Editor of Communication and Society (TSSCI) and serves on the editorial boards of over 10 major SSCI journals, including Journal of Communication, Journal of Public Relations Research, and Public Relations Review.

Associate Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Prof. Xinzhi Zhang holds a Ph.D. from the City University of Hong Kong. His expertise covers digital journalism, political communication, AI ethics and policy, and computational social science. He studies how AI and media innovation—such as Generative AI and digital platforms—are reshaping news production, public engagement, and policymaking. His research centers on how human-AI collaboration can enhance creativity and productivity while safeguarding information integrity. He also addresses the ethical and policy challenges of AI-driven human communication, advancing responsible innovation and promoting an informed, equitable society.

Associate Professor
School of Communications
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Ingrid Bachmann is an Associate Professor in the School of Communications at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, where she served as chair of the Journalism Department between 2016 and 2020. Currently she is the director of the Millennium Nucleus on Digital Inequalities and Opportunities, a research unit based in Chile, and president-elect of the International Communication Association (ICA). A former reporter, her teaching and scholarship addresses the role of news media in the definition of identities and meanings within the public sphere, with a focus on the intersections of news narratives, gender, and political participation. Her research appears in journals such as Digital Journalism, Feminist Media Studies, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, and New Media & Society, among others, and she currently serves as Associate Editor of Annals of the International Communication Association.

Karl E Weick Collegiate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan

Nicole B. Ellison is the Karl E. Weick Collegiate Professor of Information in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She is currently the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Nicole's research has explored social and interpersonal aspects of online technologies and computer-mediated communication, including research on self-presentational strategies used by online dating participants; the role of social media in reshaping college access patterns for low-income and first-generation college students; and the ways in which users employ the communication affordances of Facebook to receive and give social and informational support to members of their network. This research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Academies of Science. Her current projects explore the psychological implications of the TikTok algorithm and focus on how AI companions and AI-mediated communication practices are reshaping communication processes.

Professor
Department of Communication and Media Research
University of Zurich

Michael Latzer is a Full Professor of Communication at the Department of Communication and Media Research (IKMZ), University of Zurich, Switzerland, where he chairs the Media Change & Innovation Division. He holds an MSc in Business Informatics and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Vienna, Austria, and habilitated in Communication Science with a focus on the economics and politics of communication. His research covers media change, the internet and society, media convergence, internet economics, media policy, artificial intelligence, innovation research, technology assessment, and critical algorithm studies. He has held visiting positions and conducted research at leading institutions in the USA, Japan, France, and Austria. His work applies interdisciplinary approaches to examine the drivers of change, developmental trajectories, societal consequences, and the governance of media transformation. For details on his research program, ongoing projects, and publications, see www.mediachange.ch.

Head and Chair Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Yi-Hui Christine Huang (Ph.D., University of Maryland) is Head and Chair Professor of Communication and Media at City University of Hong Kong and International Communication Association (ICA) Fellow. She was awarded the title of Senior Research Fellow by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) in 2024. She has been committed to research on strategic communication, risk communication in health and technology, crisis communication, relationship management and conflict resolution, and cross-cultural communication. She serves as Editor of Communication and Society (TSSCI) and serves on the editorial boards of over 10 major SSCI journals, including Journal of Communication, Journal of Public Relations Research, and Public Relations Review.

Assistant Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Dr Xiaohui Vincent WANG holds a Ph.D. in information studies from Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. His research converges at the intersection of information, communication, and new technologies, with special focuses on social media, computational social science, consumer health informatics, and informetrics. Dr. Wang is a member of the Web Mining Lab and an Associate Editor of Internet Research.

Professor
Department of Communication
University of Vienna

Jörg Matthes is Professor of Communication Science at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria. His research explores digital media effects, artificial intelligence, advertising and consumer behavior, political communication, sustainability communication, and empirical methods. He has published extensively on these topics, with over 300 journal articles to date. In 2014, he received the Young Scholar Award from the International Communication Association (ICA), followed by AEJMC’s Hillier Krieghbaum Under 40 Award in 2016. In 2021, he was elected Fellow of the ICA, and in 2022, he was awarded an Advanced Grant (€2.5 million) from the European Research Council. He has served the field in various editorial roles, including as Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Communication Methods & Measures, and as Associate Editor for Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, and the Journal of Advertising. He currently serves as Editor of Communication Theory.

Associate Professor
Department of Communication
University of California, Davis

Richard Huskey (PhD, University of California Santa Barbara) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and the Cognitive Science Program at the University of California Davis. He is the Founder and Director of the Cognitive Communication Science Lab and an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Mind and Brain, Center for Center for Neuroengineering & Medicine, and Designated Emphasis in Computational Social Science. He is the former Chair of the International Communication Association Communication Science and Biology interest group and serves as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Communication. His lab combines neuroimaging (fMRI, EEG), computational modeling—including reinforcement learning and AI-driven predictive models—and behavioral experimentation to examine how reward-driven learning shapes media selection, attitude updating, behavior change, and complex choices.

Distinguished Professor
College of Communication
Chengchi University

Tammy JihHsuan Lin is a distinguished professor in the College of Communication at Chengchi University in Taiwan. She is the Associate Editor of Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) and President of the Taiwan Academy for Information Association.

Tammy Lin received the first HTC VIVE in 2016 globally. She has led her research team to devote to VR research ever since. Her research focus on the immersive and interactive media including AI, virtual reality, digital games, and social media. She is interested in applying and employing communication technology to increase human psychological well-being and physical exercise.

She is the top 2% scientist in 2024. Her research has received top awards including the Meta VR/AR Policy Award, Excellence Research Award and Da-Yu Wu Young Scholar Research Award from Science and Technology Council in Taiwan. She was invited to be a speaker at the Meta Connect in 2024 and was invited to OECD to present a unique case of Taiwan regarding immersive education in 2024.

Head and Associate Professor
Department of Communications and New Media
National University of Singapore

Associate Professor Natalie Pang is Head at the Communications and New Media Department (CNM), and thematic co-lead at the Centre for Computational Social Science and Humanities at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her research and teaching lies at the intersection of technology and society, and she has authored and co-authored journal articles, book chapters, encyclopaedia entries, and commentaries in the areas of digital citizenship, digital well-being , and digital humanities. Her current research examines digital wellbeing of migrants, and environmental practices on digital platforms. She serves on the editorial board of Communication Theory, International Journal of Press/Politics, and Asian Journal of Communication. Other than academic service, she is also a member of the UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab, and in Singapore, a member of the Media Literacy Council and Heritage Advisory Panel at the National Heritage Board.

Chair Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Professor Jonathan Zhu is Chair Professor of Computational Social Science in Department of Media and Communication and Department of Data Science, and Director of Centre for Communication Research, CityUHK. He teaches computational research to social science students and social science research to data science students. Professor Zhu’s current research focuses on the diffusion, use and impact of digital data and computational algorithms among social scientists. He is a Fellow of International Communication Association (ICA).

Associate Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Dr. Edmund W. J. Lee is an Associate Professor (tenured) at the Department of Media and Communication at City University of Hong Kong. As a public health communication scientist, Dr Lee’s research focuses on developing health technologies to tackle health inequalities, and how to take advantage of digital traces—data from social media, smartphones, wearables, and electronic health records—intelligently and ethically to understand and improve public health outcomes. To date, he has secured more than HKD 8 million dollars in research funding as the Principal Investigator from various external agencies and organizations to develop inclusive digital health technologies and ecosystems.

Professor
Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
Nanyang Technological University

Prof. Peng Hwa Ang is a Professor at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore researching and teaching media law, ethics, and Internet governance. He was a member of the Working Group on Internet Governance and co-founded and served as inaugural chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) and Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF). He was President of the ICA 2016/17 and a Fellow in 2020.

Associate Professor
Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Nuri Kim (Ph.D., Stanford University, Communication) is an Associate Professor at the Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). Her research examines how emerging technologies influence public participation, democratic processes, and social cohesion. Her work has appeared in journals including Journal of Communication, Communication Research, and New Media & Society. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for Human Communication Research. Before joining KAIST, she taught at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore for ten years. Kim’s current projects explore public perceptions of AI in diverse contexts, including education, governance, and cultural production.

Professor
Department of Communication
State University of New York at Buffalo

Dr. Junhao Hong is a professor in the Department of Communication at State University of New York at Buffalo, U.S.A. In addition, he is a distinguished guest professor or invited researcher of various leading universities in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao and Singapore. He is also an advisor, consultant, or affiliate of a number of major media organizations, government agencies, and think-tanks.
Dr. Hong received a Ph.D. in communication in 1995 from University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A. His main research areas include international communication and international politics, media and society, and impact of new media and new information/communication technologies. He has published a dozen scholarly books and 200 plus research articles in reputable academic journals. He was elected and served as president of Chinese Communication Association (CCA) and president of United Society of Chinese Studies in the United States (USCS), respectively.

Head of Legal, Google Shanghai
Vice Chair, Board of Governors, AmCham Shanghai

Di Yao is the current Head of Legal at Google's Shanghai office and has been elected as the Vice Chairman of Board of Governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. His prior experience includes serving as Head of Legal and Business Development - APAC for GoPro and as a Managing Associate at King & Wood Mallesons. He holds law degrees from Shanghai International Studies University (LL.B.), Stanford Law School (LL.M.), and a joint Master's in Humanitarian Law from Peking University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute. He also serves as chairman of Stanford Law School's China Alumni Association.

Professor and Associate Vice President (Global Strategy)
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Fen Lin is a Professor at the Department of Media and Communication. Her research interest includes media and social change, state-media relation, journalism, political sociology, technology and innovation. Her articles have been published in interdisciplinary journals and edited books in the field of sociology, media, journalism, law, information system, and China studies. She has received honors including the Visiting Scholarship of Columbia University, the Top Faculty Paper Award of the International Communication Association, the William Rainey Harper and Social Science Visiting Committee Fellow, and the Robert E. Park Lectureship Award. She is also a documentary filmmaker who aims to unite social science research with effective visual storytelling to provide a voice for underrepresented communities. Her recent documentary, Ani Bond, has won several global awards and has been released theatrically in Hong Kong. She obtained her BA in Economics from Peking University; MS in Statistics and PhD in Sociology from the University of Chicago.

Chair Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Dr. Shuhua Zhou is a chair professor at the City University of Hong Kong. He was formerly the Leonard H. Goldenson Professor in Radio and Television Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism. He is also a former professor and associate dean for graduate studies at the University of Alabama. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, associate editor of Communication & Society and Computer in Human Behavior, as well as a member of the editorial board of several SSCI journals. He currently serves as Vice President of the Asian-Pacific Communication Alliance (2018-2025), and he is a former President of the Chinese Communication Association (2017-2019). He was recognized as one of the 100 Best TV Hosts for his professional work as anchor and director of the English News program at GDTV. His primary research areas are television news and human cognition of mediated messages.

Associate Head and Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Dr Chris Shen is Associate Head of the Department of Media and Communication, CityUHK. He received his PhD from the Ohio State University. His research covers a wide range of topics including public opinion, political communication, new media, audience and consumer behavior analysis, computational social sciences, and health/science communication. He has published articles in such journals as Communication Theory, Journal of Communication, Communication Research, the International Journal of Press/Politics, New Media & Society, Computers in Human Behavior, Behavior & Information Technology, and International Journal of Public Opinion Research, etc.
Dr. Shen won the Google Faculty Research Award in 2014 and the Facebook Foundational Integrity Research Award in 2020 and was a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University during 2015-2016. He was the associate editor of 'Communication Methods and Measures' and is currently the associate editor of Asian Journal of Communication.

Karl E Weick Collegiate Professor
School of Information
University of Michigan

Nicole B. Ellison is the Karl E. Weick Collegiate Professor of Information in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. She is currently the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Nicole's research has explored social and interpersonal aspects of online technologies and computer-mediated communication, including research on self-presentational strategies used by online dating participants; the role of social media in reshaping college access patterns for low-income and first-generation college students; and the ways in which users employ the communication affordances of Facebook to receive and give social and informational support to members of their network. This research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Academies of Science. Her current projects explore the psychological implications of the TikTok algorithm and focus on how AI companions and AI-mediated communication practices are reshaping communication processes.

Professor
Department of Communication
University of Vienna

Jörg Matthes is Professor of Communication Science at the Department of Communication, University of Vienna, Austria. His research explores digital media effects, artificial intelligence, advertising and consumer behavior, political communication, sustainability communication, and empirical methods. He has published extensively on these topics, with over 300 journal articles to date. In 2014, he received the Young Scholar Award from the International Communication Association (ICA), followed by AEJMC’s Hillier Krieghbaum Under 40 Award in 2016. In 2021, he was elected Fellow of the ICA, and in 2022, he was awarded an Advanced Grant (€2.5 million) from the European Research Council. He has served the field in various editorial roles, including as Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief of Communication Methods & Measures, and as Associate Editor for Journal of Communication, Human Communication Research, and the Journal of Advertising. He currently serves as Editor of Communication Theory.

Associate Professor
Department of Communication
University of California, Davis

Richard Huskey (PhD, University of California Santa Barbara) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and the Cognitive Science Program at the University of California Davis. He is the Founder and Director of the Cognitive Communication Science Lab and an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Mind and Brain, Center for Center for Neuroengineering & Medicine, and Designated Emphasis in Computational Social Science. He is the former Chair of the International Communication Association Communication Science and Biology interest group and serves as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Communication. His lab combines neuroimaging (fMRI, EEG), computational modeling—including reinforcement learning and AI-driven predictive models—and behavioral experimentation to examine how reward-driven learning shapes media selection, attitude updating, behavior change, and complex choices.

Associate Professor
Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Nuri Kim (Ph.D., Stanford University, Communication) is an Associate Professor at the Moon Soul Graduate School of Future Strategy at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). Her research examines how emerging technologies influence public participation, democratic processes, and social cohesion. Her work has appeared in journals including Journal of Communication, Communication Research, and New Media & Society. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for Human Communication Research. Before joining KAIST, she taught at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore for ten years. Kim’s current projects explore public perceptions of AI in diverse contexts, including education, governance, and cultural production.

Associate Professor
Department of Media and Communication
City University of Hong Kong

Ye Sun (PhD, the University of Wisconsin – Madison) is an associate professor in the Department of Media and Communication at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research investigates social-psychological processes of media effects on individuals in the contexts of health, environment, and science communication using a variety of quantitative methods. Her recent work explores meta-scientific issues in communication science research. Her work has consistently appeared at top-tier disciplinary journals. Since 2021, she has been serving as an associate editor at Communication Methods and Measures, the discipline’s flagship methodology journal. Additionally, she is a member of the editorial boards for Journal of Communication and Communication Research.